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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Khenal on 2025-06-30 19:59:03+00:00.

Violet and Onyx are trying not to panic, while Teemo and I are having a good laugh. The little oozes really are a good beginner encounter, but Onyx needs to learn to ramp up the groups slowly, instead of sending practically every last one all at once. The kids are strong, sure, but that kind of horde is going to be difficult for anyone, especially when delvers try not to get touched by the putrid oozes at all. It’s not like they’ll dissolve a delver in mere moments… they’re just kinda gross.

I pat the link with Violet as Teemo works on calming down Onyx. Mistakes happen, and it’s good to learn with people who can handle the mistake. The kids are fine, they got their fertilizer and should be on the way to the forest now, so no harm, no foul. Just take it slower in the future.

Onyx is still embarrassed, with Violet feeling uncertain about the whole thing, but I think they’ll be willing to try again with the next group, just scaling a lot more slowly. I let them make their plans while I check in on the forest, seeing how Goldilocks is setting up for the attempted taming.

Titania likes to act like she owns the whole forest… which reminds me that I should probably let her have a chance to be a raid boss in the canopy once that’s ready. Anyway, she might claim the crown, but Goldilocks is the one that keeps the trains running on time. It’s probably going to be the toughest delve for the kids yet, though mostly because they’ll need to keep Tupul from getting captured. The basic spawns should be enough to keep them on their toes while still giving him a chance to gain some levels, and I make sure Goldilocks can feel my approval as I look over the expected encounters.

The group soon enters the cemetery, where they spot Grim tending the flowers placed on the graves. He can keep them nice and in bloom for longer than normal, but he still needs to change them out every couple of days. They wave at him and he nods back. Even Tupul gives a small wave, still looking like he’s not sure if it’s alright to just wave at the representative of death. Seeing him tending flowers probably helps take the edge off the intimidation factor, at least.

They don’t talk much in the cemetery, being respectful of the mourners, but their steps get more energy once they exit the graveyard and enter the Forest of Four Seasons. Rhonda addresses the group, who listen intently.

“Alright, first thing: find some invaders! Boring beetles are the main invader in this area, and they like to attack the trees. Just grab them from behind, right where their heads meet their body. They won’t be able to get away, and you can put them in these jars.” She hands out little crocks to everyone, each set with a wide cork stopper. I wonder if she got them from her lab, they look like the sort of things that would be great for storing dried herbs.

“Once we have some, we’ll give them to Larrez, and work on finding a vine. Be on the lookout for denizens, though! This is still Thedeim’s territory, so he’s not going to let us get stuff for free, and he might pull some mischief on us, too!”

I would never.

The group nods as Lucas and Fiona chitter, earning a smile from Freddie. “Do you have a spare crock for them? Fiona says they’ll catch more than all of us combined.”

Rhonda giggles and pulls out one more crock. “I brought an extra incase we were really lucky, but they can use it, sure.” Fiona accepts the crock as Lucas hops off Rhonda’s hat, and the two quickly rush into the underbrush.

“Let’s get going,” says Larrez with a smile. “We can’t let them have the victory too easily, right?” And so, they set off into the forest, most looking confident and Tupul looking like he regrets his life’s decisions.

Still, despite how ill at ease he looks, he keeps from panicking as the encounters start. Goldilocks starts them off simple with a handful of bumblebees. The hardest part of dealing with them is landing a hit, but nobody needs to pull out any special moves to deal with them just yet.

Things get trickier with the next fight, where a fox gets added to the mix to make it harder to tell which bees are real, and which fox is real, too. Larrez has a good solution for that, though. With a few flicks of his rapier, he sends a splash of water at each of the foxes, while the others defend from the bumbles. If it was a mischief fox, it’d probably have realized the problem sooner, but the basic fox doesn’t realize it needs to make the illusions look wet after getting hit, which makes it easy to find.

Once identified, it just takes a quick icicle from Rhonda to finish the fox and dispel the illusions, leaving Freddie and Tupul to clean up with Larrez. After that, they find a tree with a bunch of beetles trying to make trouble. I can see the sprig inside wanting to skewer the invaders, but Goldilocks has told it to only attack them if they fly off on their own. If the kids manage to let too many escape, they might have an angry fey to deal with, too.

They take a few minutes to get a good look at the tree, with Tupul especially giving the beetles a confused look. “They look like ordinary beetles?”

Freddie nods. “Most other invaders look pretty normal, too. I don’t know what makes them want to attack dungeons. Probably something about stagnant mana, but I’ve never really looked into the details.”

“I have, a little,” explains Rhonda. “There’s subtle magical differences that yeah, I think are related to stagnation. Most of the books I’ve read just say they don’t work as familiars, though one did detail experiments on some. Or at least the experiments he tried to do.”

“Like what?” asks Larrez as he watches Tupul pluck a beetle from the tree. The single-minded invader doesn’t even realize anything is wrong until Tupul has it pinched between his fingers, and getting tossed into the crock confuses it long enough for him to jam the cork in place.

“Mostly that they seem to be really unstable. They might look like a beetle or a rat or something, but they’re basically pure mana that mimics a creature. He even theorized that changelings could be from stagnation, but it’s pretty well established they come from mimic spawners,” she explains.

“Do you think Thedeim will ever get mimics?” asks Freddie as he tosses a beetle into his own jar.

Larrez chuckles at the idea as he adds a beetle to his own. “I can only imagine what He’d do with them. His normal denizens are tricky and strange enough, let alone the type specifically known for strange trickery.”

Tupul looks uncomfortable as he silently adds to his own beetle jar, even as Rhonda continues.

“I think it’d be cool if he got a changeling enclave. Veids is a great teacher and a great pyromancer, and Vernew has made friends with Jen, too.” That makes the young rogue almost miss stuffing a beetle in his jar.

“You know some changelings?”

Freddie nods. “There’s a few open about it in the guild. A lot of the adventurer changelings are upfront about it. I’ve seen a leatherworker around, too, though he always looked too busy for chatting when I’d see him delve.”

“Don’t people… hate them?” asks Tupul, his attention more on his friends than on the tree. Larrez shrugs.

“They get seen with suspicion in a lot of places, but I think Fourdock is far enough out that most people don’t really care. Someplace like the capital, it’s easy to see a changeling and think they’re working for the assassin’s guild or something, but who’s going to maintain a guild like that out here? Who would they even target?” He pauses and chuckles as he holds a beetle, recalling he’s probably the target of just such an action, though not from any big guild.

“The point being, there’s not a lot of point to the kind of infiltration changelings are capable of, so I think a lot of the local changelings don’t bother trying to hide. It does make me wonder if Veids is just bad at it, if that’s even a thing.”

Freddie smirks at the idea. “Maybe he’s fine at changing, but his magic gives him away too easily? Pyromancy isn’t really subtle.”

Rhonda giggles at that. “He has a lot of nuance in some of his spells… but yeah, why focus on pyromancy if you’re not going to let loose with the fire sometimes?”

Tupul looks thoughtful as they chat, and soon resumes gathering beetles. It doesn’t take him long to speak up, as he has to be quicker and quicker with each new beetle to the crock. “I think I’m about full.” He holds out the jar to Larrez, who can hear the beetles scratching against the crockery.

“Yeah, I think you are. Good haul, Tupul. I think this’ll be enough for now. Rhonda?” He offers it to the goblin for her opinion, which she quickly gives.

“I think we have plenty then, yeah. Let me just seal these, and we can go find a vine!” She forms a thin seal of ice around the corks, creating a small orb of flame as she moves around the energy, before she consumes the orb to levitate the jars into her pack.

It takes them a few more encounters before they find a field of living vines, though Goldilocks keeps things pretty simple. I get the feeling she’s testing Tupul more than the rest of the group, seeing how he handles a variety of denizens. The answer is… pretty well, actually. He’s not squeamish about spiders or snakes, though he is careful about the venom and follows directions from the group so he doesn’t get bit by either.

A few ravens get knives thrown at them, with Rhonda using kinetics to bring t...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/RangerFrank on 2025-06-30 16:33:00+00:00.

Cover|Vol.1|Previous|Next|LinkTree|Ko-Fi|

Good morning, I have some news.

First, the end of the volume is upon us. Chapter 268 will be the last regular chapter of volume 8. Of course, we will have the prologue and then a few fun side stories. After that, Ko-Fi advance chapters will launch into volume 9.

But before that happens, I have a family vacation coming up. The last-minute heads-up is not my doing this time, but it is what it is. I'll be heading out of state and into the mountains for some time. So I won't be returning til July 23rd. I'll see you again then, but of course, the regular chapter is coming out on the 7th as planned.

News on the Kickstarter is good. All my items have been returned to me, and I can finally get back to work on them. I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to do, but I'll figure it out.

Thanks, everyone, and happy Monday.

---

We searched the entire room, but no signs of life or experiments existed. It was an empty room.

On the surface at least.

With mana coursing through my eye, I scanned the room one last time. A single spot, about the height of a doorway, shone brighter than anywhere else. However, through my regular vision, it was nothing more than a wall covered in mushrooms.

“Did you find something?” Bowen asked me.

I nodded and pointed to the wall. “Something is there, and it goes from the base of the floor to about the height of a door. It stands out a lot,” I answered.

He followed my finger and tilted his head to the side. The old mage rubbed his chin and shrugged. “It looks like a wall. Could it be a magic spell, perhaps?” Bowen suggested.

“No…it’s too consistent. However, it’s not a person. It’s like a thick wall of ambient mana,” I said.

“Ambient mana…” Bowen muttered. “An interesting term. So, shall we see what lies beyond?”

Bowen raised his hand, and flames splattered against the wall. The fungus burned and released a thick, iron-like smell. The object behind the fungus became more apparent as the ash fluttered to the ground.

“Glass? Or… a mirror?” Sylvia questioned.

It made sense to be confused. The tall dark glass pane stood out immensely from all the rusted iron around it. Due to its size and shape, it could have been a mirror, but that made little sense. And there was no reflection in the glass, either.

“This must be the dungeon’s work,” Lord Vasquez said as he thrust his axe into the glass.

But there was no glass shattering. Instead, the head of his axe simply slid into it and disappeared with what seemed like little to no resistance.

Lord Vasquez slowly turned his head. “Any suggestions?” he asked Bowen.

Bowen let out a small chuckle. “I didn’t get the lecture on this one, sorry,” he said with a shrug.

“It…probably goes somewhere, right?” Tsarra asked.

“Most likely,” Lord Vasquez said as he pulled his weapon from the glass, revealing it untouched or damaged.

“Then someone needs to walk through it. The odds are it’s a trap, and if you move through it fully, you won’t be able to come back before dealing with something, right?” Professor Garrison asked.

“That would be the worst case, yes. But there may be more to this place and in the caves,” I suggested.

“That could be the case. We can—Cerila? Wait—I know you can’t hear me but…oh,” Bowen’s outstretched hand fell on deaf ears.

Cerila strode toward the glass, and I grabbed her by the arm. She stopped and smiled warmly as she gently squeezed the hand that held her.

<I’ll be fine.> she signed.

<How can you be so certain? There may be another answer that we have yet to discover.> I signed back.

Cerila’s smile grew wider as she released my hand and signed, <Because if something does happen, I know everyone will be right behind me. And you’ll probably be the first.>

I couldn’t help but smile as I signed,

She nodded and walked into the glass, disappearing. I wiped my brow free of sweat and stared into the glass, waiting. It felt like a long time until Cerila’s head poked back through the glass. She waved us in and I was the first to follow.

Walking through the glass felt…odd. But the sensation disappeared as I came out on the other side. I looked around in confusion.

We were back in the laboratory, but everything was different; it was like a dream. The entire place was lit up, and the rust and decay of time were gone. Blurry phantoms bustled around the place, sliding about as they left vaguely Humanoid shapes in their wake. The noise they were making sounded like garbled language passing through the water. The entire world around me felt slow, as if I was viewing a murky memory of the past.

“What is this…” Bowen said in wonder.

For some reason, Bowen sounded normal. When any of us piled through the glass, moved, or mumbled, it was as usual. I turned around as I watched one of the blurry phantoms move toward me. I readied my spear, but it passed straight through me, like a ghost.

“We don’t appear to be in danger. But I don’t understand what’s happening,” Lord Vasquez grumbled.

“It’s like an old memory that you just can’t quite recall,” Professor Garrison said as he poked one of the phantoms hunched over a table.

Bowen stood over one of the phantoms, ran his hand through it, and tried peering down at what looked like sheets of paper thrown about. “I can’t seem to make out anything here. When I try to focus on the symbols, they only get more hazy…” Bowen said as he rubbed his beard.

I turned around, and my eyes went to the floor and up. The giant glass tube that was empty when we first entered was filled by something—a large and imposing creature. I couldn’t make out the finer details of the monster, but it had a set of arms coming off a torso that, instead of legs, had a serpent tail.

Where a neck would be on a person, the torso extended into a flat shape, similar to the hood of a snake. It felt like it might have had a face, but when I focused on it, I saw nothing but a shadowy blur.

“I don’t know what we are supposed to accomplish here. Why would the dungeon send us to this place…” Ms. Taurus said.

“Everyone, over here. Tsarra found something,” Varnir shouted.

We passed through more of the working phantoms to where Tsarra was looking into…an oven? There was a blur that looked like flames, and floating in the housing were four eggs, unlike anything else so far; they were crystal clear. The eggs were large, smooth, and varied in their bright colors. One was a pale, yellow with hints of lighter blue; another was light pink with a dark blue hue. The other two were a mix of blues, pinks, and yellows. 

Mana flowed into my eye, and I took a look at the eggs, but I was blinded by the sheer brightness of the surrounding mana. As I rubbed my eyes, Tsarra reached out, and I expected her hand to go through the eggs, but she touched it with the tip of her finger.

“So you can touch them. Are they some kind of key? What do they feel like, Tsarra?” Bowen asked.

However, Tsarra did not answer him.

She swept her arm over the eggs and held them close. They were too big to hold properly, but she still managed to hold them against her body. When she turned around, she had a glassy expression with unfocused eyes.

“They…want to be freed,” Tsarra droned off.

“Are they, those—?”

Bowen’s question was cut short as Tsarra suddenly went limp. Varnir caught her as she fell, along with the eggs. At the same time, the air around us shifted. The blurry phantoms all stopped moving, and despite none of them having faces, it felt as if they were staring at us.

“We are leaving,” Lord Vasquez said firmly, raising his axe.

“The glass on the wall is gone!” Professor Garrison shouted.

“Then we head out the other way,” Lord Vasquez said as flames left his hands.

The flames engulfed the phantoms, and we sprinted through the doorway. The hallways were clean, devoid of rust, and filled with phantoms. The world was still slowed down and blurry as we ran through the tunnel, burning the phantoms with magic. But no matter what we did to them, they never seemed to attack us, only ever silently watching us.

As we reached the door that should have led us to the guard station, it was another black pane of glass. Lord Vasquez didn’t even hesitate as he barreled through it into the unknown. We funneled through, and the dungeon had completely changed once we were on the other side.

The bare cave walls were cut and smoothed. Enormous Dwarven statues stared down at us, their large stone weapons resting on the floor. A large gate loomed in front of us like the entrance to a grand city. However, an orange barrier was blocking the massive space like a shield.

The barrier was made up of thousands of hexagons and spanned to each side of the wall. Beyond the barrier at the foot of the door were three circles. Each of them had a pile of armor and weapons with them. The first had a fancy great sword plunged into the dirt, plate armor scattered around it, but even from a distance, it was clear the armor and weapon were in excellent condition.

The armor was painted a dull, dark green with gold trim around the shoulders, torso, and arms. The helmet had ...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/MarlynnOfMany on 2025-06-30 15:35:45+00:00.

{Shared early on Patreon}

As usual for times when something seems amusing to my Earthling sensibilities (but likely wouldn’t to everyone else), I kept quiet about it. Nobody wanted their delivery person to laugh in their face about whatever they’d ordered. Even blue-furred aliens with the wood-gnawing habits of beavers, who were receiving a cubic foot of carefully-packed tweezers. All I could think about was irony and splinters. I kept my expression at customer-service neutral and approached the info booth, with Mur tentacle-walking beside me. 

“Welcome,” grunted the curmudgeonly fellow stationed there, eyes squinting from a face of graying blue fur. The stripes down his back seemed more gray than black too. “Is that for me?” He chuckled like that was a joke. 

Mur leaned his squidlike head backwards, his version of craning his neck without actually having a neck. “Only if you’re working a double shift as head of the medical center,” he said. 

I added, “We were hoping you could tell us how to get there.” Our ship had a decent map of this loose settlement, but it was hard to tell from the air which tributaries we’d need to cross in which order to get to it. The info booth was clearly stationed near the spaceport for a good reason. And not just for the high ground in rainy weather — it was built into a rocky cliffside that held many holes. A different species might have built their civilization right up that cliff, but these folks were strictly a “ground level or lower” sort. 

The elder perked up. “Oh sure, I can tell you where it is,” he said. “But it might as well be for me, since my wife is the head bonesetter around these parts.” He reached furry little webbed paws in a gimme gesture. 

I read the name on the label to him, and he confirmed it. Mur held up the payment tablet that he’d so carefully carried with his rear tentacles. (He’d refused to let me carry the box AND the tablet.) He handled getting the fellow’s name and other information to approve the delivery, while I set the sturdy white box on the counter and thought privately that there should be another word than “handled” when the person in question doesn’t have hands. “Tentacled” just didn’t sound right. 

I also wondered about the scratching noise from the roof, but didn’t think much of it until the guy complained. 

“That again?” he grumbled, glaring up at the rocky overhang as if he could see through to whatever was hiding in the low bushes on top. “Something’s been rattling about up there for an hour now, wrecking the ambiance.” He sniffed and looked up at me. “You’re a proper tree-height. Suppose you can get a look and shoo whatever it is away?” 

“Sure,” I said, taking a step back to inspect the bushes. The ledge was higher up than I could reach, but one of those local trees with the spiral trunk grew next to it, making for plenty of handholds. “Before I go sticking my face up there, do you have any dangerous animals around here that you might expect to be waiting to jump out at me? Anything fond of leaping claws-first, or projectile attacks?” 

“Nah, nothing small enough to be up there,” the guy said with confidence. “The only troublemakers we have are big ones, and there are defensive measures keeping them away from town.” 

Mur spoke up. “That doesn’t rule out offworld fauna. The spaceport’s right there.” He pointed a tentacle back the way we had come. “Could be somebody’s pet or prize face-eater. Good thing we’ve got an animal expert right here, though!” He patted my ankle with a tentacle. 

I looked down at him. “You know it would be simpler for me to just lift you up so you can stick *your* face in the danger zone.” 

“No no, I wouldn’t want to rob you of your glory.” 

“Of course not.” I peered back up at the foliage, which was holding still now. 

The elder was concerned. “I didn’t think about offworld creatures. Now that I think about it, there was a cart full of stuff parked there awhile ago, and something could have jumped off it. Horrible thought. Glad you’re here! Do you need any tools?” 

I sighed. “Let me just take a peek at what’s there. I don’t suppose you have a stick or something for moving the plants aside?” 

“Oh, always,” said the old beaver, and grabbed a bouquet of walking sticks from under the counter. They were all intricately carved, bare wood. “Got to keep chewing when there’s nothing to do.” 

“Very nice,” I said, picking up the longest one, which was still pretty short. “Thank you. I’ll try not to get it ruined by some offworld pest.” The shapes of alien vines spiraling around it were truly lovely. 

“No worries; I can always make more.” He waved me on. 

Hoping I wasn’t about to do something monumentally unwise, I stepped over to the side of the booth and got a grip on the spiral tree trunk. It was the perfect natural ladder, narrow enough that I could carry the stick and rough enough that my shoes didn’t slip. Moments later, I was raising my head up past the level of the roof, though at a good distance. I reached out with the stick to part the leaves. Mur and the elder beaver watched from below. 

Nothing, nothing, just leaves … blue fur. A smaller beaver face glaring at me, managing to look scared and angry at the same time. I blinked. 

The elder called, “See anything dangerous?” 

I answered honestly. “No, no offworld pests here. I think you’re okay. Gimme just a minute. It this ledge strong enough for me to climb on?” 

He said it was, sounding relieved. Mur launched into a story of the most troublesome animals we’d had to deliver as cargo, and the two of them promptly left me to it. Good. 

Judging by the size and the sulky expression, I figured the person on the roof was roughly teenage, and regretting their choices. I climbed up another couple steps, then took a seat casually on the edge. Setting the stick down, I admired the view and kept the youngster in my peripheral vision. “Hi there. You okay?” 

I didn’t get an answer, which didn’t surprise me. The furry blue alien was clutching the stem of a bush with both hands, and shivering ever so slightly. That made twigs scrape on the rock. The scowl dared me to mention it. 

Instead, I asked, “So what brings you up here?” 

She said, “Schoolwork,” and left it at that. 

“Ooh, what kind?” I asked. “Is it to find out how far you can see from up high? This really is a great view.” I waved a hand, encompassing the trees, tributaries, distant spaceport and scattered buildings. “You can see what ships have landed, and who’s crossing what bridge, and even where all the fruits are on the top of that tree.” I pointed out what looked like an apple tree but probably wasn’t. Beaver-people were using longer sticks to knock down the fruit from ground level. 

The teenager perked up a little at that, but didn’t let go of the plants. She also didn’t answer. 

I prompted, “Did you finish what you came up here to do?” 

“No,” she admitted. “The giant web-spinners are gone.” 

I looked around, more concerned by that statement than I wanted to let on. “Are they? Hmm. Did you want to find them?” 

She hunched her shoulders and said in a rush, “We have to find an efficient way to suspend something lightweight, and I thought the webs would be perfect, but they’re not *here* anymore, and now the cart’s gone so I can’t get down. And this is very high up.” 

“Ah,” I said. “Well, I can help with that if you like. Actually,” I added as something occurred to me, “I might be able to help with both problems. Did you just need one strand of web, or the whole thing?” 

She looked at me suspiciously. “Just a couple strands would work. One to use and one for backup. Why?” 

“What about really long fur?” I asked, untying my braid. This wasn’t the first time I’d found an unorthodox use for hair, and knowing my life, it probably wouldn’t be the last. 

“How strong is it?” she asked. I noticed that her grip on the bush was loosening, and she wasn’t as tense. 

“Strong enough to hold up a pencil, easy,” I told her as I finger-combed my hair in search of loose strands. “Probably a few pencils. I haven’t tested it. But human hair’s pretty tough as these things go.” 

“Human?” She said the word like it was unfamiliar. 

“Oh yeah, that’s me. Hi, I’m a human.” I waved one hand in an awkward greeting. 

“Right. I knew that,” she said, sounding utterly convincing, and not at all like she was trying to save face. 

I shrugged, hands back in my hair. “There’s a lot of species to keep track of. For example, I don’t think I’ve actually caught the official name for yours. Which is embarrassing, since I’ve been here twice.” 

“The interplanetary name is Rivershapers,” she said. “Which is boring, but they didn’t ask me. I guess not all the aliens making the decision could pronounce ‘*hhuinhkt*.’” The word in her native tongue was part hoot, part squeak, and yeah a little tricky. 

I nodded. “Guess I’m lucky. My species got to keep our own name for ourselves, probably because no one could agree on a descriptive one. And actually, I’m doubly lucky because it’s a word from my own language. We have lots of them.” I separated three loose strands of hair. “Speaking of lots, here you go! One to use and two backups for weight testing.” 

She took them between her webbed fingers and gave them a gentle tug. “Those are pretty strong,” she admitted. 

“Yup!” Then I remembered we were on top of a roof. “Say, do you want me to hold onto them until we get down?” 

She reflexivel...
***
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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Spooker0 on 2025-06-30 15:32:06+00:00.

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101 Special I

5 years after the Armistice

POV: Sjulzulp, Free Znosian Marines (Rank: Seven Whiskers)

“Well, well, well… look who we’ve got here!” the familiar-looking predator belted out as he practically skipped down the shuttle ramp. “Six Whiskers One-Ear! Slurp!”

Sjulzulp smiled. “Actually, it’s seven whiskers now, Frumers.”

“You and your silly whiskers! Of all the ridiculous things you guys kept from the Dominion…”

“This makes the most sense of all!”

“Bah! And look! His ear grew back some!” Frumers said, excitedly holding up Sjulzulp’s regrown ear with a paw to show his squad.

The predators fed him some drug that did that while he was training with them. It didn’t work immediately, but he noticed the regeneration a few weeks after he returned to the front. It itched a lot at first, but the sinew grew back eventually. The fur… there were still some patches, just enough to remind himself of the close shave he had with death.

“Ow!” Sjulzulp yelped as Frumers handled his ears not-so-gently. “Careful! The nerves grew back too!”

“Right, sorry Slurp,” Frumers apologized with a grin as he released him.

Sjulzulp nodded and pointed at them for his people. Many of them were new. “Guys, this is Lemming Squad. They were the instructors who trained our officers when we went there for exercises a couple of years ago.”

His people jabbered and pointed at the four bigger Malgeir in their shiny armor, who began waving enthusiastically at the gathering crowd.

“What are they doing here?” someone in the crowd shouted in question.

“Careful, or they’ll eat you for lunch!” another shouted back, snickering.

“I’m not scared! I’ve seen sharper claws!”

“Oh yeah? What about these teeth?” Spommu grinned and bared at her sharp fangs at his younger recruits. Not to be outdone, they reflected the gesture good-naturedly, showing her their blunt teeth as they howled in laughter.

Sjulzulp grinned at her. “Now you know why they call us Predator Platoon.”

“Rawr. Predator Platoon, huh?”

“Yeah. That’s what they say.”

They’d intercepted some enemy communications at the Battle of Britvik-3. The radio recordings of enemy Skyclaw pilots and orbital fire control panicking as they spread rumors about fighting predators down at the spaceport got Sjulzulp’s recon unit a lot of propaganda mileage… and free carrot juice on the house anywhere in Free Znosian territory. It was one thing to defeat an enemy in battle, and quite another to thrash them so hard they thought they were fighting literal aliens all along.

Sjulzulp waved at his people to settle down as the Lemming gathered up. He frowned slightly. “Hm… Wait a second. What are you guys doing here?”

“What did they tell you?” Baedarsust asked.

“I just received unofficial word on the radio that we had some visitors, and we’re supposed to work with you on something. But they didn’t say much more than that in the message. What is it, actually?”

Baedarsust grinned at Sjulzulp. “Super special, top-secret mission.”

“Top-secret?”

The Malgeir squad leader winked. “Yeah, if I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

“Okay, that’s a hard bargain, but I will take it. What is the secret?”

“Oh, Slurp, never change… Alright, gather your troops and pay attention. It’s very important that you all remember your parts.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++

“High Pack Leader… do your people know that you are here?” Sjulzulp asked.

“Some of them,” Baedarsust replied noncommittally.

“Some?”

“Like… a few in our government and Navy.”

“How many?”

“You ask a lot of questions, Slurp.”

Sjulzulp was insistent. “Don’t redirect. How many?”

“About… five people,” Baedarsust admitted a few seconds later. “Maybe six.”

“Five people in your entire military know your squad is here?!” he exclaimed. “By the false Prophecy!”

“Six, maybe.”

“That’s not very much responsibility at all!”

“No. No, it’s not… But it’s a legit op. And the mission computers know about it.”

Sjulzulp thought for a long moment. “You’re not… going rogue, are you?”

“Of course not! Where— where did you even learn that concept?!”

“You were the one who showed me all those old movies back when we were training—”

Frumers chose this moment to cut in. “Actually, that’s exactly what we’re doing. That TRO spy said we’re supposed to—”

“Shut up Frumers,” Baedarsust sigh exaggeratedly. “We’ve gone over this! We are supposed to be here.”

Sjulzulp looked at him in alarm. “Woah, hold on. What was Frumers going to say?”

Frumers explained, “We were given orders to help your people with a special mission here, but the Grand Admiral of the Coalition made a pledge a month ago that none of the predator civilizations were going to have boots on the ground in any part of the Dominion while the civil war is ongoing.”

“Yes, but that refers only to regular troops, not us,” Baedarsust said, clearly rehashing an old argument. “We’re special troops who go on special missions. Our boots don’t count the same. And Frumers is being pedantic. He knows the human spy who gave us the orders had it all cleared with their legal intelligence.”

“Yes, but what he could have meant was we should stay in orbit and help them with the targeting. From orbit. Without getting our boots on the ground.”

“He said… do whatever is necessary to get it done.” Baedarsust looked at Sjulzulp while pointing a claw at Frumers. “Don’t worry about him. He’s just being lazy. I told Frumers he could stay on the shuttle if he wanted, and now I regret giving him permission to come with at all.”

“No way! I’ve been stuck on the shuttle for two months!” Frumers exclaimed. “Do you know how long the trip from Grantor to Tatolm is?”

“Two months?” Sjulzulp guessed. He remained alarmed. “Woah! Hold on. If you guys are not supposed to be here…”

“We are! Ignore his whining!”

“Wait, isn’t there an easy way to settle this?” Sjulzulp asked. “Just… call the guy who gave you the orders and clarify if he meant you should come down here to do the mission!”

“No, because if we call him, he’ll say no for sure.”

“What?!”

“That’s why he said do whatever is necessary and outfitted us entirely for a surface mission. We’re not supposed to ask or clarify! We’re supposed to infer.”

“Infer?”

“Infer!”

“But what if— what if you get caught down here? Or killed?!”

“Then he’ll tell them we didn’t have permission. And since we don’t have the combat robots with us, we might as well just be a bunch of Alien Legion volunteers with expensive tactical gear that anyone can buy in the gray markets over Titan.”

Instead of alarmed, Sjulzulp was just confused now. “Wait… Wait.”

“But if we don’t get caught, then this is fine.”

“Isn’t that— isn’t that just identical to something not being allowed?”

“No, not at all. It’s totally different. We just have to make sure to not get caught down here,” Baedarsust said matter-of-factly.

Sjulzulp repeated, “Isn’t that identical to something not being—”

“No, not at all!”

Sjulzulp looked between the two of them for a minute and then sighed. “I just… don’t understand you predators sometimes.”

Frumers nodded sympathetically as he pat Sjulzulp on the back. “You and me both, Slurp. You and me both.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Baedarsust counted every paw as they stepped onto the medium lift chopper, waiting until everyone was fully seated and tied into their seat restraints. One of the convenient things about loading Grass Eaters onto these transports was that they were tiny, and they were efficient with it.

He waited for the signal from all five of the adjacent choppers that they were ready.

With one final look at his tablet, he nodded, mostly to himself, and activated his microphone. “Phase One, go.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Enemy rotary wing just landed outside Perimeter Line Angora, Nine Whiskers. Two kilometers to the east, by our estimates.”

Nine Whiskers Sklolust played with her whiskers as she considered the local battle map. “How many of them?”

“Six of their medium-lift. We estimate that’s about one hundred, maybe one-twenty paws. And there are rumors—”

Sklolust rolled her eyes. “Yes, their secret alien advisors that landed with their supplies last week.” That secret was out of the bag before they even landed. It wasn’t easy for them to hide anywhere. And in Sklolust’s experience, there were only two kinds of predators who fought on the frontlines of the schism, the crazy volunteers and the ones who were not supposed to be here. “Did we get eyes on them?”

“We sent a flying machine over their base, but they shot it down. From our records of this unit we’re dealing with, they are likely legit, not the… the volunteers.”

“Good. Clandestine troops. Our bloodlines will be well-rewarded if we manage to kill some of them here,” Sklolust said savagely.

“Yes, Nine Whiskers. They flew in low, so we didn’t manage to get the flyers on the flight in. But based on the position of their landing zone, their target is obvious: the evacuated village down by the river.”

“What do they want with that old village?”

“Digital Guide says… they might want to occupy the position so they can bring in more supplies by water. The schismatics are getting adept at using those new boats of theirs.” A...

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Filian was nervous. As far as his memories went, that wasn't particularly unusual for him. His "father" was volatile at the best of times, and while he remembered plenty of good moments with Teluwat, there were plenty among them that were... worrying.

He remembered being made to watch as the slime king experimented with his civilians, warping their Firmament in grotesque ways. He remembered helping with some of those experiments, even, passing various instruments to Teluwat as he asked for them.

Filian was relatively certain those memories were false. Or he hoped they were, at any rate. There was a certain lack of emotional depth to them—he didn't react with the disgust he knew he would have, and he was far too compliant. Reviewing his memories felt almost like watching a dream.

Incompatibility, he thought, or something like it. If it was a weakness in Teluwat's abilities, then it was something even the slime king didn't know about. Filian himself was something of an experiment, considering Teluwat allowed him much more freedom than he allowed any of his other agents. More room to be himself, as it were.

Why he was given that consideration Filian had no idea, but if he had to guess, it had something to do with Teluwat experimenting with the limits of his abilities. And maybe some twisted desire to have a family of his own.

Filian glanced at the few paintings in his room and sighed.

If he focused hard enough, he thought he could see a shadow embedded in those paintings, like a message he'd left for himself painted in colors he couldn't quite see. It required him to push his Firmament toward his eyes to bring them into focus. It felt like a technique someone had taught him, a long time ago.

In one of his paintings, three silverwisps stood, instead of Teluwat. Filian stared at that painting for a long moment, contemplating the memories it invoked.

Filian wasn't even his real name. There were echoes of that in his memory now—He-Who-Harmonizes. It felt strange to think of those words, but it also felt like it fit.

Not that he could be sure how much of his mind was his own. Maybe he would go by Harmony for now, just to see how he liked it?

Harmony nodded to himself. He could work with that.

One of the reasons his memories were particularly strange, he thought, was that it seemed Teluwat had tried to revise them recently. There were new memories battling with the old ones, memories of an automaton handing him over to Teluwat. He-Who-Guards. His real father?

It was confusing. The memories were a jumble, because the new set hadn't quite taken over the old yet. And Harmony really didn't have time to wait for them to, because he was pretty sure that unless something changed soon, he was going to die.

There was a pressure he could feel all around him, concentrated strangely like a warmth in his abdomen. He couldn't be sure, given his lack of training, but he thought what he was sensing was Firmament.

It was gathering in extreme concentrations. Teluwat, more likely than not, and if Teluwat was preparing that much Firmament then he was in one of his moods. Harmony knew better than to get in the Trialgoer's way when he was in one of those moods, and if he weren't so certain that this time he was the target, he might have just hidden in his room.

Instead, he slipped out, doing his best to replicate something he'd learned to do... he didn't know when he'd learned to do it, actually. The memory just existed in his mind, not quite connected to anything else. It was a memory of pulling a shroud over his core, hiding his Firmament signature from Teluwat. Maybe it was a trick he'd learned across the loops? But if that were the case, he shouldn't have been able to remember that trick.

Harmony shrugged to himself. It wasn't that important. He hid himself then slipped down one of the many secret tunnels embedded throughout Teluwat's lair, keeping that shroud carefully in place even as the slime king's voice thundered through the halls.

"Filian!" he called. "Get over here!"

Not likely, Harmony thought to himself. He had a basic sense of self-preservation. Teluwat hadn't managed to take that from him, at least. Actually, Teluwat had left a surprising amount of his actual self intact.

He hoped his real father would get here soon, though. An odd memory flickered to life in his mind, unattached to anything else—one of Guard holding him close, grasping his hands firmly, and whispering to him a promise. The words were silent in his memory, but he thought he understood their purpose.

Stay safe. I will find you. Always.

And there was another oddity that persisted in his mind. A fragment that shouldn't have existed from a dream he never had.

"I will be everything and every moment that you stole from us."

Harmony had no idea where he'd heard those words, or if he'd actually heard them at all, but something about them gave him strength.

So as Teluwat's voice rang out again, a little closer to his current hiding place, he ducked down a different corridor and continued to run.

—

Ghost and Lilia found themselves in front of a makeshift throne, only a short distance away from Teluwat, who stared at them in disbelief. Neither of them wasted any time—they were well aware that the more time they gave him to react, the more likely it was they would be targeted and subverted by Assimilation or one of the sub-skills Teluwat used to empower it.

Lilia summoned a dagger. Ghost prepared an array of combined skills that he had estimated had a 87.2% likelihood of disrupting Teluwat's outer membrane and at least briefly causing a physical collapse. It was a little more difficult than it normally might have been, but he didn't have access to his complete list of skills, and the constructs that remained in his core were a little difficult to correctly use. It would have to do.

Neither of them expected to defeat Teluwat, only to create a significant enough distraction that they could buy time until Ethan or Guard arrived, and to make sure nothing happened to Harmony.

Teluwat was blasted apart by their skills. He was in the middle of reacting to their appearance, but he'd opened his mouth to start monologuing instead of attacking or defending, which was well within Ghost's expectations. Their respective attacks struck him in the chest with no apparent attempt to dodge on his part, and he promptly dissolved into a pile of bones.

That was, Ghost reflected, probably the first sign that they were a little out of their league.

Teluwat didn't even bother to reconstitute himself. Instead, his voice emerged from all around them, sounding mildly annoyed rather than actually hurt in any way. "Who are you two?" he asked. "How many allies does this Ethan have? This is getting ridiculous."

"Ghost," Lilia said. Ghost nodded—he was already scanning for Teluwat's Firmament signature.

It made sense that the Trialgoer spent most of his time as an amalgam of slime and bone. As far as Ghost could tell, Teluwat was a sort of free-floating Firmament core that could freely assemble himself a new body. He didn't need all that slime or the bones to anchor him—all he needed was some sort of physical mass to anchor his presence.

Lilia threw another set of daggers at the bones anyway, just to be sure, and there was a sharp crack as the skeletal remnants on the ground dissolved into dust. Teluwat's voice emerged again, annoyed. "That was my favorite skeleton," he said.

That was when he attacked.

The difference between Avegoth and Teluwat was almost immediately apparent. Avegoth's auras had done almost nothing to Ghost, empowered as he was by Ethan's Aspect Pools. Teluwat, on the other hand?

Ghost's vision crackled into static. Beside him, Lilia staggered, coughing in pain as her body abruptly distorted. Considering the barrage of warnings his own systems were sending him, Ghost was pretty sure he was in the similar state.

He grabbed Lilia and forced a Timeskip—

—just long enough for a spiderlike woman to Phaseslip through the ceiling and smash her foot directly into Teluwat's core, slamming it back and forcing whatever skill Teluwat was using on them to end.

Lilia gasped for air. Ghost rapidly recalibrated his systems, rapidly trying to construct a counter for whatever it was they'd just experienced. It was some variation of Firmament Control imbued with Assimilation—he could feel the way that power had directly interacted with his Truth. If he hadn't been a third-layer practitioner, he might have succumbed immediately.

"Are you alright?" he asked quietly. Lilia nodded, though her breath was ragged.

"Barely," she said. "Thanks."

Teluwat, in the meantime, had reconstructed a new body of ooze from the walls of his lair. He still seemed more annoyed than afraid.

"Are these your agents, Versa?" he asked. "You should know better than to attack me. Especially now. I'm not exactly in a good mood, as you might have noticed."

"Oh, I know," Versa said. "I'm counting on it."

And under her breath, she muttered something Ghost was pretty sure was meant for them. "Ethan better be telling the truth about that polarity...

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When the Galorama—the aliens whose planet was closest to our own—made an attempt on my planet, Zeguoza, the Galactic Federation, of which we were a part along with thousands of other species, withdrew their support, claiming: “A war confounded on ancient hate and malice is not one the Federation wishes to be a part of.”

It is true that the Galorama have been our enemies since time immemorial. Sure, their spectra ships, fueled by psionic blasters, have riddled the pink skies of Zeguoza in the past. The elders of old, who shuffled on pallid green bowed legs, eyes half-blind from biting a huge chunk of time, did stare at the sky with faces twisted in hate, whiskers trembling under the visual proof of extinction the Galorama so avidly portrayed with their ships and plasma-charged cannons that rained death and destruction upon the planet's surface.

This was indeed a war fueled by ancient enmity. The elders of old knew it, my parents knew it, and I know it. Why did the Galorama attack Zeguoza? They say it was because of something we'd done to them long ago—too long ago for anyone alive to remember. I'm sure even the Galorama don't recall exactly why they attacked my planet repeatedly over time. And our efforts to stop their onslaught did seem to yield fruit when we became a part of the Galactic Federation, but it all appears to have been in vain. For they came once more in all their military might, and we, the natives of Zeguoza, could do nothing but watch as the enemy's ships clustered in orbit.

We had our defenses. Those of us who valued our safety did put up measures in case of war. But the Galorama were technologically superior. They had the means to bring down our core dome—a transparent barrier that meshed about planet Zeguoza from orbit, ensuring nothing sinister could make its way down through the atmosphere to meet the planet’s surface.

With their plasma cannons, they lit up the sky, firing repeatedly upon the core dome. Sparks lit the air. Mushroom clouds bloomed from the onslaught, staining the beautiful expanse that was once our peaceful sky. Night became day. Fire rained from above, and we below could do nothing but stare with bleak eyes, fists curled with nails digging into the palms of our pallid green hands. Tears welled in our eyes, our whiskers twitched repeatedly, betraying the battles that were raging within as opposed to without.

The transparent core barrier blinked a clear orange light, casting all of us beneath it in the same hue of dancing flames. The core dome was no longer transparent but a beacon of our impending doom. It could not withstand the plasma cannons that vomited torrents of pure pulse energy onto the dome. It blinked from orange and switched to red before collapsing. The four support dome sections—aligned from the distant north and south and along the equator—each exploded. Their capacitors became overcharged and incapable of keeping up with the assault.

We felt it then—the tremors upon the ground betraying the explosions of the support dome sections right before the red dome's light vanished and our skies were clear once more. Only now, they held not the visceral beauty that came with observing that which stretches without end, but the descending Galorama ships.

Sirens blared, urging all able-bodied Zeguoza to arms. The few plasma rifles were passed around, with many missing out on them and opting to use sharp objects such as blades that would be next to useless against Galorama armor.

So we gathered, singing our songs of old that the elders spoke into existence for moments such as these—for times when the darkness became tangible and the thought of light became an echo that would soon drift into rumor.

The skies flashed as the pulse cannons charged from the Galorama ships' underbellies. Those of us with plasma rifles fired up at the sky—for all the good it did. Some lamented, while others spoke of the Galactic Federation and their betrayal.

"Did they not promise us support in times of war, no matter the reason for said war?" one Zeguoza male asked while ejecting a plasma cartridge from his rifle and blowing into the segment holes to prevent backfire.

"The most the Galactic Federation did was put out a notice indicating that the collective alien body will not interfere with Zeguoza–Galorama matters. But they will claim they showed support by indicating that any other species part of the Galactic Federation is free to participate in the war at their own volition—which is not to be privy to Galactic Federation aid," a Zeguoza femalen answered.

That was it, then. We were doomed, for there was no species that was part of the Galactic Federation that would willingly join a war that offered no benefit to them. Our planet would finally be destroyed by the Galorama, and it would usher in the Zeguoza's end.

Those with plasma rifles found themselves lowering them, understanding the futility of it all. Eyes were fixed above, where the plasma cannons charged, static electricity dancing across the underbellies of the Galorama ships. The air was lit with the smell of ozone and, as if in acceptance of it all, many sighed and embraced for the last time—for indeed, it was the last time.

Then, just as the numerous ships spread out across the sky prepared to fire their pulse cannons at the planet's surface, there was a sound—one few were familiar with. For few were as intimate with the species of alien whose ships made said sound when they tore through the fabric of space, jumping light-years and hopping from galaxy to galaxy.

It was like a blue sun flaring into existence, spinning and warping above the planet. Those with technoscopes that could pierce cloud cover and reveal the bowels of space gave word of their arrival. Numerous ships—not a hundred but thousands—poured out of the blue space portal they had invented for space travel.

The ships were colored with various symbols set in a rectangle, large and flashing with luminous paint. They claimed the rectangles with colors, painted across the bulk of their iron ships, were something called “flags” for the regions they lived in, which were called “countries.”

The humans had arrived.

They descended on the Galorama's ships, which had lowered themselves into Zeguoza's lower atmosphere for better clinical bombardment. The Galorama were trapped. In their quest to maneuver the bulk of their ships so they could fire above—where their new enemy had appeared from—they were met with atomic missiles. These didn't rely on plasma charges. They were shot out of guns leveled and aimed at the hulls of the Galorama ships. On and on the human ships fired, and the missiles fell—first as a trickle, then pouring without cease.

The effect was instant. The human atomic missiles cut through the Galorama ships, shredding through the outer casing with spinning jagged tips before lodging into the bowels of the Galorama ships—where they then detonated, killing all who were within and practically turning entire Galorama ships into ash.

We watched with our whiskers twitching—not out of fear but out of awe. Shock. Piece by piece, the Galorama ships were rendered obsolete. Many Galorama opted to jump space from within the planet's atmosphere to escape the humans' deathly grasp, but this only resulted in a plasma overload that led to the Galorama ships imploding.

It was a one-sided battle. It ought to have been the case in relation to us, but the humans had rendered it otherwise.

When the dust settled and the smoke cleared—the last of the Galorama ships a ruin, sinking to the depths of Zeguoza's oceans—the humans descended with food and medicine. They tended to the wounded, helped with recovering those who'd been lost in the confusion of impending battle. They talked and they laughed, with their skins and eyes of different hues. They smiled and reassured, and some even played with our infants.

A Zeguoza femalen pointed at the stitching of a flag upon a human's garment. "It's the flag of New Zealand. It's where I'm from." The human answered with an infectious smile.

The Zeguoza pointed at the flags and memorized the words of the places the humans mentioned to have hailed from.

"France." "China." "Belgium." "Angola."

They said the names of the places they were from, and we made sure to remember each and every one.

"Why did you do this? Why did you save us?" I deemed it fit, after gathering my nerves, to ask this of a particular human who was shining a light into my eyes after she'd introduced herself as a doctor. She had a flag stitched to her white apparel. "America," it read—judging from the flag.

"Let's just say, us humans don't like bullies," was her only answer. And odd as it was, it was enough.

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/RegulusPratus on 2025-06-30 12:55:14+00:00.

Sticking with the med bay knuckleheads for a bit longer. Still need to think of something interesting for the beach crew to do today. Only plans I've got for Sifal right now is the fun she'll have at Vivy's tavern tonight. That chapter's gonna be called Bad Idea Juice.

Real life's settling back down to something like normal. Hopefully, between that The Bear being back with a new season, I'll remember how to write restaurants well, and Rosi will finally get to go home for the night.

Alright, clearly I've gotta start pushing out some new or extra content for you guys to think the ol' tip jar's worth the hassle. So, it's been brought to my attention that some soulless bot-person skimmed my first chapter and put it up on YouTube with a shitty text-to-speech thingy. I own a USB mic and dabble a bit in acting. I wonder if I should record a proper audiobook of my stories, if there's a demand for it? Get that Tubefolk Algo Magic working for me.

[When First We Met Sifal] - [First] - [Prev]

[New Years of Conquest on Royal Road] - [Tip Me On Ko-Fi]

Memory Transcription Subject: Lieutenant Kloviss, Arxur Medical Orderly, Seaglass Mineral Concern

Date [standardized human time]: January 26, 2137

Strategically, setting up the Arxur hab facility a twenty minute walk away from the spaceport had been a bright idea, and an excellent show of initiative on my part to prioritize operational security. But, since I wasn't currently seated in an officer's office boasting about why I deserved a commendation, it was also fair to say that having to make that walk four fucking times in one day was a pain in my ass, and, if I could go back in time, I'd have just set it up right next to the spaceport and rolled the fucking dice on us getting spotted. 

I was currently wrapping up trip number two, med bay back to hab, which would lead cleanly into trip number three, hab to med bay again, but with an armful of drinkable meat this time to help our garrison’s resident bullet magnet get his strength back up. This came pre-packaged with its own puzzle: figure out what the fuck ‘drinkable meat’ was. Doctor Tika had mentioned the words ‘soup’ and ‘broth’, both of which translated just fine into my language, but I’d never actually heard an Arxur say them. Sounded pre-war. Troublesome. Still, not the first time I'd heard it through the translator, at least: one of the humans I’d worked with back on Earth had mentioned broth. Birria, the dish made from slow-cooked goat, tended to be served with a side of broth. I’d even tried it. Some… hot and salty health tonic brewed from bones and herbs. I probably had a recipe somewhere or other…

I threw the door to the hab facility open, and tried not to flinch too hard at the unsettling cacophony coming from the common room. That one sergeant was still going at it. Really showing his fancy new steel drum the meaning of violence as performed with a tiny wooden hammer. I gritted my teeth and forced my way past him to the kitchen. I dropped my holopad on the counter to reference my notes while I looked around for tools and ingredients. I paused, staring in awe at the sight of an overstuffed pantry. I allowed myself a small grin. That was the kind of abundance that was going to look magical to me for a while longer, still. I grabbed a bag of chicharrones--pork rinds, I think, was the generic term--to snack on while I got everything else together.

“Tough cut of meat with lots of bone and cartilage,” I read off, grabbing a few gristly beef shins and oxtails. Not very filling, but fun to gnaw on. “Check. Salt…” That was one of the few seasonings we used on our own. Lightly salted slivers of fresh Venlil heart were a high-class delicacy. Had it once. It was okay. “Check,” I said aloud, pulling the salt canister off the shelf.

“Spices…” I snorted derisively. The birria broth had tasted delicious, but I’d been one of a bare handful of Arxur bold enough to try it. Too many weird plants in human food. Even with the supply drops from the U.N., we weren’t stocking any Terran vegetables. That would have been a laugh, watching a human try to convince an Arxur quartermaster about the importance of stocking peppers and onions to go with all the sausages. Pfft. There was one little thing in the back that we’d accepted, though… Some funky concoction made from the fluid runoff of fermented sea creatures. Fish sauce, they’d called it. Better than salt alone, probably. “Check.”

That was about it for ingredients, aside from potable water, which we had no shortage of. Put it all in… I squinted in confusion at the fact that we even owned a cookpot. But there it was in the cabinets, next to the knives and cleavers, plain as day. That was a human tool, or maybe even a prey one. Must have gotten mixed in at some point. My illustrious species preferred our food raw. Nevertheless, however it had gotten there, there was our cookpot. Handy.

With my tools and ingredients at the ready, I started down the instructions. “Step one, brown the meat…” My lip curled up in disgust. Humans and their love of fire. Honestly, they were more obsessed with burnt flesh than the average Federation Exterminator. “Fine, I’ll just… heat the cookpot up without the water for a bit. Let the hot metal work its magic. Steps two through…” I rolled my eyes as I skimmed all the way down. “Throw the salt and seasonings in, and boil it for hours, basically. Who the fuck’s got hours to kill?”

I flinched as another barrage of atonal clanging came after me from the common room. But this time, I grinned a bit widely and wickedly. That was the beautiful sound of a fellow with too much time on his hands. Best of all, I outranked him!

I stuck my head out of the kitchen. “Hey, Sergeant!” I called out.

The more average-sized Arxur put his musical instrument down and turned to acknowledge me. “Need something, sir?”

I scratched my jawline idly, as I tried to figure out what, specifically, I wanted. I nodded to the steel drum he'd been banging on. “You pick that thing out on a whim, or you got a knack for metalwork?”

“Sure,” he said. “Hull patches, spot welding… all the basic stuff to keep a ship in one piece. Why do you ask?”

Even if I put this guy in charge of watching the pot boil, I think Kitzz needed something to eat a lot sooner than several hours from now. Had to speed things up. I didn’t have schematics, but I had a picture and a name of a tool called a pressure cooker. “Ya think you could put an airtight seal on a cookpot?”

The sergeant tilted his head back as he thought about it. “Yeah, I think so? Sure, lemme go grab my tools.”

I grinned and nodded. Now there was the sweet sound of a plan coming together. This was gonna be way faster than boiling…

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

Memory Transcription Subject: Deputy Security Director Garruga, Seaglass Mineral Concern

Date [standardized human time]: January 26, 2137

I was curled up on my bed drinking fruit juice from a pouch with a straw. With Doctor Wylla back on duty, she was able to assess that my legs were healing well enough that I no longer needed to keep the casts elevated, and with Kloviss gone, she was also able to leave the supply closet to talk.

“I don't know what possessed you!” Doctor Wylla shouted at Doctor Tika, stamping her left hoof. Nevoks. So strange, working with a hooved species of bipeds, but hey, they paid just as well as their four-hooved rivals, the Fissans. “It's bad enough having the injured one tied to the bed, but a free and healthy Arxur? Working here!?”

Doctor Tika flicked an ear noncommittally. “You saw his performance with Garruga,” said the little Zurulian. “Well, heard it, at least. Or did you? Hrm. Well, even through the supply closet door, surely the silence was noteworthy. No screaming, no new injuries on Garruga or myself.”

“Just because he went a few minutes without killing anyone doesn't mean he can make it through a whole shift without lashing out!” Wylla protested.

Tika nodded. “I see. How many minutes would suffice to demonstrate that, then?”

Wylla's eye twitched, and her mouth worked silently. “What?” she said at last.

Tika licked at her paws. “It's a basic question of statistics and probability,” she said. “You think there's a 100% chance that Kloviss will kill us, but he just made it through an entire conversation without killing anyone. How many minutes, hours, or days of nonviolence will it take to lower your estimation of those odds to, say, 50-50 odds of killing us?”

“Ancestors spare me, there aren't any!” Wylla shouted, stamping her hoof harder. It was starting to make a gratingly loud clopping noise against the floor. “The Arxur exist to kill. Just because he hasn't yet doesn't mean he won't; it just means he's up to something!”

Tika brushed her paw across her head, smoothing the tousled fur there. “Surely there must be some amount of contradictory data that will force you to reevaluate even otherwise bedrock-stable theories. Gravity fails under specific circumstances, thus...

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First | Previous

Queen Victoria XIV was unamused. Before her stood an array of her various prime ministers summoned to Old London on Terra herself. She sat on a throne older than the Republic, older than the Coalition of Independent Planets, older than most of the regional polities on Terra herself. If one only counted continuous governance, England beat them all. True, the little land of shires and villages had nearly been destroyed in the conflagration that birthed the Republic of Terra and Her Aligned Planets, as well as the Coalition, but almost destroyed is another way of saying survived. England had a special dispensation from the Republic to keep their monarchy and Independence for that reason. However, she was more than Queen of England. She was also Princess of the Canadian Planets, Empress of the Indian Worlds, Queen of the Scot Expanse, and of course Queen of the Albian League. Each of these alliances had many planets, with many parliaments, and a multiplicity of ministers, but they were Her Majesty's governments, and Her Majesty's ministers, and they had wasted years squabbling.

Even here, they were jostling, sneering, boasting, making snide passes at one another. As if her summons was a mere formality before they got on with the real business at hand, selecting ambassadors to sit on the CIP's war committee. Queen Victoria XIV had other plans. “We are not amused,” she snapped coldly. They had all forgotten just how commanding a presence that she had. They fell silent, one and all. “The British Interstellar Empire has been ineffective at combating the pirate menace for years on end, and now we learn that the children stolen from their homes were subjected to the most horrific experimentation. In all the Coalition the Royal Navy ought to be the finest of all, but where are they when pirates raid planets? Where are they when children are sold like cattle to the grubs? Well? What do you have to say for yourselves?”

This was, obviously, not an invitation to speak. However, there seemed to always be at least one fool who didn't know better. A Human woman wearing a sari opened her mouth to say something, but a withering glare from the queen shut her mouth with the clicking of teeth. “We have learned, that one of our own subjects played a role in bringing us this vital news. One Vincent Frimas. That, or somebody sailing the ship registered to him at New Montreal. We wish to believe the man alive, and active in this deed, and thus we shall not squander such labors. You shall invest your interests in a single ambassador to the war committee by Wednesday afternoon when I expect the Republic to declare total war on the grub controllers. Should you fail to do this, we shall dissolve our parliaments, our governments, and our ministries, and we shall institute an Imperial government until such time as the war is concluded. Are we understood?”

There was a muted mummer of ascent, and Queen Victoria XIV continued, “In either case we shall direct our ambassador to quicken the inevitable. We know better than our ministers that our Royal Navy and our Royal Army have most competent commanders, and it is from such men that we have heard that there are none finer in this kind of business than those found in the Republic. The integration of CIP forces into Republican forces as auxiliaries as soon as possible shall be our ultimate goal, as every time the Pluto Compact has been invoked in this way, this has been the result. It is useless to resist to preserve pride when our children are at stake. You are dismissed.”

The collection of prime ministers was indeed chastened, and after they had all murmured their assurances in turn, they hurried to scurry out from under her coldly disapproving gaze.

Terra Nova, Imperial Rome reborn in space. Terra Nova, a meticulous recreation of Terra herself, and it had special attention paid to the Mediterranean, and to Italy, and most of all to Rome. Nobody could blame them, since the whole point of the project was supposed to be an amusement planet. However, some eight hundred years ago, the actors had gotten a little too into character, and from there... well, now Roma Nova is a small but influential nation in Terran Space. None of that was on Centurio Aurelius Justinian's mind, however.

What was on his mind was the fact that a member of the Imperial Family had been kidnapped! True, not a single member of the family had once sat on the throne in the Imperial Palace, nor worn the Golden Laurel, unless one counted the Solar Laurel of the Republic of Terra, and no good Roman did, but that was beside the point. Emperor Gregory George the First had restored Roman Liberty with his own hand, and slain the despot with the very thunderbolt of Jupiter, and a kinsman of that line had been kidnapped!

True, the boy seemed to have gotten himself free, or had some help. Details were far from clear. The despot, Augustus Renatus, forever cursed be his name, had committed the terrible sin of attempting to use the hell-grubs as weapons in his unholy war to wrest Terra herself from the Republic, which the fool, may Roma Nova never run out of tears for his sins, had fought even while the Republic and CIP had united against the spreading grubs in the Extermination War. It had been thought that nobody else had ever attempted such a thing. Now Roma Nova learns that the beasts that spawned them are bearing down upon those xenos whom Terrans had at long last befriended. The re-re-re-re conquest of the Agean League had been halted at once, and Centurio Aurelius Justinian recalled to Rome with his century for refit and redeployment into an extermination legion. They'd be fighting alongside the hoplites instead against them, and like any good Roman Centurio Aurelius Justinian was both pleased and disappointed at that fact.

He stood before the altar to Mars, the bronze brazier smoldering with lit charcoal, statues of Mars looming to the left and right, frescoes of battles from Rome on Terra herself, to those fought among the very stars. He had stood in the queue for nearly a day to perform this rite, and the fact that he commanded was the only reason it was not a longer wait. He thrust his arm over the brazier, and a priest clad in nothing but a loincloth. Hard slabs of muscle riddled with scars from battles long past showed that the priest too was once a warrior. The priest took a bronze knife in hand and put its blade along the back of Centurio Aurelius Justinian's forearm. “I swear by the blood of my heart that I shall spill the blood of the foes of Roma Nova and get vengeance for this insult to the Imperial Family.” he said, and the priest nodded, and drew the knife along his forearm. Centurio Aurelius Justinian did not flinch, and he watched drops of his blood fall onto the burning charcoal. Roma Nova would have vengeance.

The Dominion War had taught Pacificia just how fragile their dream was. It had taught them that their entire way of life was at the sufferance of the Republic, and to a lesser extent, the CIP. It didn't stop the people of dreaming about a galaxy at peace, without even the small wars fought by small Terran nations trying to carve chunks out of the Republic rather than go through the expense of terraforming or finding habitable planets themselves. This, this however was different. The grubs weren't an enemy, they were an abomination.

The Dominion War had taught them that even if they couldn't bring themselves to kill people that didn't mean they couldn't help in the fight for survival. Ten inhabited star systems, only ten, each with two habitable worlds, and dozens of orbital habitats brimming with people. Well, maybe not brimming exactly, but they all had a highly efficient population density for industry and agriculture. Winston Cleverly was a member of just such a population of an orbital habitat that supported the shipyards at Saphire Prime, his system's largest and most resource rich gas giant.

He, a Chimpmando man, was more well suited than the other kinds of Terrans to his work in those shipyards, and his Human coworkers often teased him about how it was unfair that he got an extra set of hands. He chided them back for evolving wrong. Jokes had fallen by the wayside, however. He spent long hours and donated his overtime pay to a fund for the inevitable relief efforts. He was building warships for the Republic, and he had absolutely no reservations about the fact that his work would kill. The grubs had to be wiped out. They just had to be.

Pip shut off the news. He'd had a bellyfull of rotten clams already. It looked a lot like the Star Council would be caught between the Terrans and something evil again, but this time, this time, the Star Council wouldn't be caught in a riptide in the fog. No, the Lutrae worlds at the very least were raising a fleet. Pip had brushed with some Republican Navy men once or twice in his own service in the Star Council's anti-piracy actions. Pirates seemed to always pop up. Even the Republic can't completely stamp them out in their own territory, and Pip knew that the Republic could be... harsh with prates.

He looked out of the window of his little seaside cottage and into the bay. Woatanue had come a long way since the very first visit ...

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“There! There he is. The strange creature.”

The gods looked at the scrying circle, showing them their creation.

“Why is he walking in the woods, can he not live underground?” asked the Stone-Father, God of Dwarves.

“It is almost dark, how can he keep safe from the animals and monsters?” mused Ethral Lumensong, God of Elves.

“Why is he burning wood! Can he not feel how he is harming the forest? Does he not have magic to create light and warmth?” lamented Sylthaea, the Goddess of Nature.

“Which one of us created him?” asked everyone in unison.

“He isn't one of my fair folk. He isn't imbued with magic and mystery.” declared Ethral.

“He is too tall to be of my doing. I haven't forged mastery over metals and machines in him.” professed the Stone-Father.

“Puny. He no strong like orc. He no have might or mayhem.” spat Vrothak the Maw-Bearer, the God of Monsters.

“He isn't one of my children. He isn't born from the meadows or mangroves.” said Sylthaea.

“He is mobile, he is neither of mountains and minerals nor mires and mud.” Gaia pointed out.

Death’s ghostly voice echoed, “He is mortal. He fears me and his thoughts are macabre, but he is not of me, for I can only reap, not sow.”

The god of the Sun and the goddess of the Moon stood silently opposite of each other. Behind them stood the circle of planets. All of them ignored the scrying circle. He was of Earth, he was minuscule and meaningless to the Heavens.

The gods of Earth looked at each other, uneasy.

* * *

“Fear not my friends. This strange creature shall not trouble us much longer. One of my ursine children has caught his scent. I have guided him not to fear his fire.” Sylthaea reassured everyone.

The gods peered at the unfolding scene in the circle. Suddenly they recoiled in dismay.

“My child is in so much pain. How can his spear have such penetration without dwarven masterwork metal?” Sylthaea wailed!

“His speartip is crafted obsidian, chipped into perfect sharpness. He has worked stone on his own!” the Stone-Father couldn’t believe his eyes.

* * *

Spring gave way to summer and autumn and soon it was Gaia’s turn. “Fear not my friends. Winter is soon upon him. He has no shelter inside the bosom of my mountains like the dwarves.”

“Nor in my forests shaped by the elven magic. Neither does he have plants to pick or game to hunt, for all my children have scurried away.” Sylthaea added.

The gods gathered again to watch. Again they recoiled as Sylthaea screamed in pain.

“He has felled so many trees! He has not grown them with magic, he has twisted them into shape with force! I felt every cut as he struck them with his tools of stone.” The anguish was visible on the Goddess’ face. “Their dead form shelters him from Gaia's winds, and even more he burns in his hearth of stone. He wears the skins of my children, even as their flesh hangs dried from his ceiling, removed from the cycle of my life!”

“How he has twisted the purpose of our creations!” They all lamented.

* * *

“They die of old age, yet their numbers grow. They need no magic to sustain themselves. They don't feel the pain of the land, the damage they do to Sylthaea’s forests, to Gaia’s rivers.” Ethral spoke.

“They have turned wood into coal, their hearths now burn so hot they can shape metal! A lump of iron and nickel from the heavens, a vein of copper from the exposed rock on the surface. They have learned to work it all without my guidance!” the Stone-Father spoke incredulously.

“Others of their kind have taken my weeds and grown them over and over, selecting which to keep to make them grow bigger with more seeds. My flowering meadows are now their fields, growing their grains that I had no hand in shaping!” Sylthaea was reduced to tears, her beauty tarnished.

“They have even taken my stones and harnessed my wind and water to grind the seeds so they can make them edible with their fire. My air acrid with their smoke.” Even Gaia bore scrapes and sooty marks on her visage.

“They no fight fair. No might. Build wall, can not reach. Shoot arrow. Orc die. Dire beast die. All die. They no die.” the Maw-Bearer complained. He looked diminished.

* * *

The gods of the Heavens continued to stand by dispassionately. The creatures were of Earth, they did not concern them.

Centuries, millennia passed, and the gods of the Earth diminished and disappeared bit by bit. But the Celestials were timeless and eternal. Beyond mortal reach.

It was only after Luna felt the impacts of their first probes that the gods of the Heavens had to take notice.

* * *

At the end of Time only one last god remained.

Death didn’t need to look in the scrying circle to see the creature. Man was standing there with him.

“Have you come for me?” the unbreathing voice of Death echoed in the void, it sounded thin and hollow.

“Yes.” said Man.

Death tilted his head, giving his rigid skull the appearance of a grin.

And there was only Man.

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Project Dirt book 1 . (Amazon book ) / Planet Dirt book 2 (Amazon Book 2) / Patreon

Previously

Adam was unsure how this had all happened as he stood by the pool chatting with Admiral Hicks and Elp. Nearby were several lords and ladies, as well as diplomats from many nations. This was supposed to be a small Christmas party at his home, but somehow the word got out, and now the party had been moved to Sistan. The crystal castle was transformed into an even more fairytale-like castle, and he had to admit it looked nice, but if he found who spilled the beans, he would exile the bastard.

“I don’t see Roks anywhere. I was sure he would  not miss such an opportunity.” Elp said, and Adam just smiled.

“He got a reliable report of some pirate bases as well as some slaver holds. He took the fleet and arranged for a surprise party for them.” Adam replied and looked to the Admiral. “he is our defense for the time being. Two dreadnoughts should be enough anyway, besides only the gods know what secret Jork has implemented. His latest project involves mech units. I really shouldn’t have shown Miker those anime. I barely managed to talk him out of making giant combat androids.”

The two laughed as Admiral Hicks looked around. “Where is that genius anyway? I want to know more about those mech suits.”

“Oh, he is at the grand hall, keeping Miker from opening the gifts,”  Adam replied, and the Admiral made his excuse as he made his way to convince Jork not to listen to Adam's direct order.  Ginny noticed it and came over, nodding to Adam.

“You must be his sister in blood,”  Elp said, and she politely smiled.

“Yes, in blood.  I would hate to do this to you, but I have somebody I need to introduce him to.” 

Elp bowed as he took a step back and intercepted two lords who tried to talk to Adam.

 Ginny led him away and up to their room, where he heard somebody talking and laughing. When they entered, the sounds fell silent, but Evelyn walked over to him with a big smile on her face. “Do you know who these two are?”

The two young women looked shyly at him.  He could feel guilt and shame from them. But they reminded him of Harold and Ginny. It took him a second, then he smiled.

“Allie and Yuki? It's been too long. I hope the trip wasn’t too bad. I hope my friend didn’t make the trip too uncomfortable.”

 The two looked up, surprised and unable to reply, as Adam went over to hug them. “Welcome home.  John Mo was the one who told me you needed help.”

Allie just jumped into his arms and held him tight as she cried, muttering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Adam just comforted her and chuckled. "Hey don't worry, don't worry."

Yuki looked down, seemingly scared. “You have nothing to be sorry about. I have actually read your book. I was upset when they said the writer was killed by the Cartels. It was quite good.”

Ginny looked confused. “What book?”

“Babies for sale, the one who exposed the rich families,” Adam said, and Ginny lit up.

“Hey, I read that one too!”

Allie looked up, a little confused. Ginny and Evelyn took the chance to distract her so Adam could talk to Yuki.

She looked intimidated by him. Adam could sense the fear in him. She took a step back, he remembered what John had said. Her husband was abusive and just as bad as their donors.  He stopped and smiled warmly.  “I won't hurt you. I will make sure you're safe, and if you want to leave, I will provide you with whatever you need.”

“Are you tossing me out?” She whispered back, and Adam shook his head.

“No, I give you freedom to choose. I will never order you around. You're of my blood, and these two angels need to grow up knowing their aunts are safe and free. And that I will do everything I can to protect my family.”

He looked down at the twins who, for some miraculous reason, were silently watching them, then smiled and made some happy sound. She looked at him, worried but calmer. He made a mental note to ensure she received the best help possible. For a moment, Kywar dropped into his mind, and he shook it out of his head. He was too young, and why the hell was he thinking about him?

She smiled as she looked at them. “You are so lucky. I will do my best and not be in your way.”

Adam chuckled and looked at her. “Oh, you're not going to be in my way. Come, let's go down and join the party.  You're my guests, and I would be a poor host if I kept you locked up here.” He picked up Wei then looked at Allie. “Would you be so kind?”

She looked shocked, then picked up Chris as if he were the most precious thing in the world. Adam smiled, and together they walked outside and back to the party. Allie carried him to the elevator, where Evelyn took over, and when they stepped out into the party, the guests smiled as Adam and Evelyn showed off their little ones. It gave Allie and Yuki time to mingle with the crowd as Ginny introduced them to the right people.

The party lasted into the evening as fireworks lit up the sky and a Santa Slause arrived to give out black sodas and gifts. He was flanked by two polar bears who played with the kids, and then they had a great feast next to the gigantic, decorated tree. Monori explained the cultural aspects of the customs and how they had changed through time, but the core meaning of a rebirth was still present, and while Christmas had a religious origin it was now celebrated in all humans worlds regardless of their religiose connection, she also spoke quickly about the upcoming celebration like the new year celebrations, and invited them all to visit the humans during this period to see them at their best. Adam noticed how the ‘three wise men’ seemed to hide when Monori was speaking. They apparently needed special permission from her to join the party tonight.  He found it funny how she, still a student, had ordered the three most powerful beings around like little children.

It was late when they finally made it home. He had spent the evening playing diplomat between different ambassadors who wanted a piece of him. He was not sure how many he had paired up with to shift their focus away from him. He had a vague memory of somebody stopping two idiots from destroying themselves over a planet by dragging them to a galaxy map and finding them two other planets, one each, and sending an order to start terraforming those. And there was something about a catlike Kaiju that he told them to feed catnip. He had sent them to Vorts, who had just looked at him and shook his head, then took out his pad to set up a meeting.  

Now he lay in the bed, Evelyn was sleeping next to him, and the twins were also fast asleep. But he couldn’t. In the end, he got up and quietly walked out of the room and up onto the roof. He was only in his pajama pants, and when he came up, he wondered why he was up here.  He took a deep breath and looked up. The universe looked down at him. He heard some footsteps and noticed Archangel standing by the entrance. Silently watching him, or was it guarding him? He didn’t know right now.  He sighed and looked back up.

“What the hell do you want of me?” he asked, but the night sky didn’t answer. Of course, it would not.

He sat down on a barstole next to the rising bar and leaned on his hand. “Why does it feel like I don’t have anything to say here? Why can't I have my own life? Why can't I just have my family? Why …. Why do I get the sneaking feeling you want me to fix the whole damn universe?”

Then he chuckled to himself. “And why am I talking to the universe? I’m going crazy here.” He muttered.

The universe didn’t answer.

Adam sighed and looked up at the stars. “Yeah, keep your mouth shut.  And let me suffer alone. Not like you care anyway. We are just….” As he spoke, he saw a thin white line starting to dance across the nightsky, then it widened into an ocean of green, red, pink, and purple.  Adam just stared, stunned, at the Aurora borealis. It was as if the sky danced only for him. He wished Evelyn could see it, and almost on cue, she came up yawning and sleepy-eyed, looking for him. She just stared at him, then at the sky. She moved to his arms and didn’t say a word for the time it lasted. When it faded away, she looked at him.

“Did you know this would happen?”

“No, I just couldn’t sleep, I needed some fresh air.”

“Well, that was amazing. Was that why you woke me?”

“Woke you? I.. wait, what?”

She looked at him. “You called me, right? Or was that a dream?”

“I don’t know, I wanted to go and get you so you could see it too.”

“Thank you. It was amazing, but now I’m noticing that it's cold up here and you need to sleep. You look dead tired.”

He nodded and kissed her lightly, and she chuckled. “You're clearly not that tired.”

________---_____

Adam Wrangler – the doubter

Evelyn Wrangler – Queen of Dirt and married to Adam

Wei and Chriss – the twins

Admiral Hicks

Elp - one of the three wise men. Kinda old

Ginny  - clone-sister of Adam, married to Admirals Hicks son

Allie and Yuki Lee- Adam's younger clone twin sisters

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"Damage report! What the hell happened just now Mark? I thought we were better then this?!"

More Alarms were going off. The explosion knocked out sensors, communications. Most of their instruments were designed to be EMP resistant, but that did not mean they were immune to a bomb going off in their face, to speak nothing of the missiles that did impact the hull. Automated resets went off in futile attempts to restore functionality to parts that were just not there anymore, ship systems trying to re-route to reserves which themselves were not in great shape.

The weapons officer resisted the urge to react to the last part. "Need a moment, Sir! But weaponry is not the main concern i believe." Reminding the captain that this was hardly his department, except maybe one particular piece of it. "If communications are down as the monitors say, we cannot order the drones back to defend us."

"I have no intention on going on the defensive on this one. Even if they were of any use in point defense."

"Not necessarily what i meant!"

"Contact! We got a faint signal, accelerating away from the hulks debris field!" Both men turned to Miss Blair.

"Towards us, or away from us?" Garland barked. "Away!" Came the answer with the tactical display now showing a blinking little point trying to put some distance between itself and both the debris field and the Troyan. The Captains expression turned into an ugly grin, one that no one in this crew has ever seen before.

"We have them!" He half-whispered. He would have retribution for this blemish on his record. "Communications! Restore our link to the drones with whatever you can! I don`t care if someone has to climb out the hull with an antenna, just do it! Weapons, i want whatever missiles ready we can still fire. Everyone else, damage control!"

Markus felt something nagging at the back of his mind. He would not be running if he had the kind of firepower and capabilities they just faced, nor would he have assumed that it was enough to cripple his enemy enough for him to safely withdraw. But he was not going to argue until he had something to argue with. The old man ordered weapons, he could do two things at once.

"Most of the pods are still responding, reloading right now, we will have 80% of a full spread in a minute. Targeting systems..." He hesitated. "Give me a second here." Figured that the optical sensors would be gone, they were the most fragile, least protected. The designers seemed to have not cared for them much, as in most situations they would have been of marginal use.

"Miss Blair, what kind of signal are we picking up?"

"Faint bluespace, active sensors or a hyperspace relay probably."

"Would our big missile not have burned out all of their bluespace instruments?"

"Maybe its a trace remnant of their hyperdrive then?"

"You two can speculate about what it was once we are analysing their burned wreckage, where are my weapons Mark?" The Captain sounded both irritated and impatient.

"Sir, i don`t like this! Optics are out so i cannot confirm what is or is not there. Why would this signal turn up now, when we picked up nothing of them before? For all we know, they might have tossed their broken hyperspace radio or whatever out an airlock."

"No, this has to be an active component, and its accelerating." Miss Blair chimed it. Mark turned to the science officer, giving her a Dont give him that!` look.

The Captain just sighed in resignation. "I don`t need to hear your excuses Markus, if you cannot set up targeting for a weak bluespace signature, say that! Nobody expects miracles of you." After a brief pause he added. "Certainly not after today. Communications, can we reach the drones yet? We will use them if the missiles are not a reliable option."

"Not even remotely what i am trying to say." the weapons officer grumbled between his teeth, but by now he was convinced whatever he said would just make the stubborn old mule double down. But at least at this moment, his commanding officer seemed more interested in turning and chastising the communications officer, why it took that long to bring the backups online. He seized the initiative. Gave instructions to his own team, seemingly to prepare for just another missile strike. He prepped the Troyans own missiles as well, just not for going after that signal. And then for good measure, he ordered hangar 2 to be evacuated through his console, to stop the repair crew from interfering, or being there if he had to re-launch the damaged drone. The onboard diagnostics showed it should be mostly fine, hull integrity in the green, armor somewhat dented, safety protocols could be engaged without stopping it from firing if it had to.

-x-

-x-

"They are just sitting there, doing nothing."

"One would think they would tend to their carrier seeing what we just did to it? But i take it."

The chatter on the bridge was interrupted by an amused rumble coming from the commander. And then an outright laughing hiss.

"Of course! I should have guessed. These things have no crews! They are controlled remotely, and we likely just knocked out their motherships comm relay. Think about it, would you put living beings on them with weaponry that is as much a threat to them as their enemies, and a cloak that drives you insane if it does not kill you outright?" She shook her head. "Not even the humans are that reckless and uncaring for their own kind."

"Am i the only one in the dark about what we are talking about? The what now? Cloak that causes insanitiy or death?" The Nav officer flopped her crest sideways in confusion.

"Ask Hikar about about the detailed effects of phase shifting on living beings sometime. Or non-living, considering how it does the same to AI. High command will be happy to hear that almost all of these newest fancy toys they got are just more dead ends." Suspiciously familiar ones she mentally noted. "But we need to stay alive to tell them. Keep an eye on these in case they do respond." Kaba pointed at the trio of corvettes on the screen. "We might just have this one run at their mothership, lets make it count." She signaled for everyone to make ready. They were almost close enough now. She looked over to the weapons officers station.

"Target shows no sign of evasion, lining up for torpedo run." He hissed, subconsciously taking up the stance of a predator ready to jump, as if there was a human in front of his seat.

Kaba sighed at this display. "This better work, it is the last of our ordinance." A fact, she reminded herself, was the only reason she agreed to this plan, as the slow and cumbersome anti-capital torpedoes were anything but the tool of her choice right now.

Part 7 Part 1

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The three of them hung out while the rest of the crew staying in Barracks 3 filtered in.

Carbon had sent out an email immediately to the Tsla’o team about how Humans were prudes and got weird about being naked in areas that were not explicitly private - though she did not word it that way. ‘Be mindful that the Human contingent of this exploratory venture may have different views on being unclothed, and attempt to keep it to a minimum in shared spaces.’ Something like that. It was very diplomatic. She even mentioned that Humans will, on occasion, wear clothing that may be inappropriate to Tsla’o sensibilities and give off the wrong impression, so this goes both ways.

Alex had snagged the tablet from his bunk to check what updates had made it into the primer while the ladies dragged chairs out into the hallway, treating it as a common area. Carbon and Linda sat beside each other, chatting and drinking tea.

He was pleased to see the primer had been updated - it wasn’t the same version that he had used on the Kshlav’o, having gone from 1.3 to 1.4 at some point. Alex skipped all the way to the back matter, where the revisions were listed. It detailed where the updates had been made, a brief description of the changes, and the date the revisions had been added. The most recent one was a little over a year ago. It mentioned the launch of the Kshlav’o expedition, marking the first ship with a mixed crew and listing one Alex Sorenson as Pilot, with Shipmaster C. Tshalen as acting Engineer.

There was a moment where Alex wanted to huck that tablet right into the snow. He had written six reports, over a hundred thirty pages total, and not a single sentence from them had made it into the document that all the other Humans in this little party had been required to read. Yes, some of it had been padding because he was mad at ONI. The paragraphs of information on table spices weren't that useful unless you were trying to live among them, but the casual nudity part sure was.

He whipped up a quick email about how casual the Tsla’o were about getting naked, from a Human standpoint, and maybe avoid shorts as outerwear because flashing leg has potentially suggestive meaning to them. Mind who you’re offering to get to know better.

As he typed that up, he listened to the ladies talk.

Zheng was a mechanical engineer who specialized in materials testing and did reactor inspection and refit for the Navy, but dabbled in a bit of everything because reactors were a large set of systems working in concert. Her and Carbon were getting along great. Had a conversation about engines that Alex largely couldn’t follow.

Dominic Crenshaw and Tena Amalu came in at the same time, just after he sent the email - he heard Crenshaw’s comm ding as it arrived, just as Amalu was preparing to get out of his suit. For better or worse, those two had gotten bunk 3 together. They were also getting along well, probably because they seemed to have roughly the same maturity level. That was good, though Alex did expect to hear Amalu say ‘pause’ a lot now.

He did his best to stop flipping from bummed out to jealous and back.

Ale was staying with his wife, after all. Sure, he wanted to be bros with people, but also... Wife. Yeah, they weren’t doing Married People stuff here, probably, but it was nice to have a private area with her.

Zheng was bunking with Tokona. There was a polite but very brief discussion between them about who got what bunk when he arrived, and Tokona parked his armor in the frame and went to bed without further discussion. A bit of an odd one, but Carbon assured Linda that he was selected because of his previous work with Humans back in Na’o in relation to setting up communications networks to allow easy ship to ship comms.

Bunk 2 was empty. They had space for twenty four total but only twenty bodies, so two rooms had been held in reserve should personalities clash, or if they needed to hold someone in isolation for whatever reason.

Not long after Tokona arrived, Zheng went to bed as well. Alex and Carbon retreated to their bunk, having no one left to meet.

Carbon tapped the control panel beside the door, locking them in for the night, then turned the room lights off, the panel itself staying lit, and the reading lights in the bunks being on left the room filled with a dim, warm glow. “The Ell Tee has put Zenshen in Barracks 2 in a similar role as us - managing interspecies interactions, should there be misunderstandings or actual friction between individuals.”

Pause? Shit, Crenshaw almost had him doing it. “Oh, so we are the Barracks parents. I kinda got that impression when Williams told me where I was going to be, but it’s nice to have it confirmed. Kind of.”

She blanched at his turn of phrase, not enthused about being ‘parents’ to a bunch of adults. “We do have the necessary experience to smooth out problems between our kind, but I prefer to think that is more as mediators. Despite what Crenshaw has been encouraging Amalu to take part in.” Carbon said, taking Alex by the hand and gently encouraging him to have a seat on the bottom bunk, then sliding into his lap, arms wrapped around his torso and squeezing him tight.

He had been about to make a funny little comment about it funny how it was always the Human that’s the bad influence, but having the missus in his lap was sufficiently distracting to prevent that from happening. “Uh-” Look, he wasn’t going to say no to a little affection, but...

Carbon leaned in, resting her head on his shoulder and whispering in his ear. “I swept for observation devices, the room is clean save for the door controls. It contains the expected camera and microphone, but those have limited range. No further than the desk, visually.” She sighed softly and squeezed him again before continuing just as quietly as before. “I missed you.”

Of course she thought of that. She probably checked for cameras and microphones at home but he’d just never actually seen her do it. Alex set his arms around her waist and held her, matching her volume when he spoke. His gaze shifted down to where the bite mark on her shoulder should be half hidden by her clothes, but the silver fur marking the scar had been dyed to match her normal fur. It should stick for a few months.

He knew it was going to happen, but was unprepared for how sad it left him feeling. “I missed you too.”

“We should sleep separately.” Carbon kept her voice down, but she didn’t really mean it, the lack of enthusiasm behind the words was obvious. She knew it was the most reasonable course of action. “Just... In a few minutes.”

A few minutes became quite a few minutes, at which point Alex gave her a little nudge and, getting no response, noticed that Carbon had fallen asleep. Her breathing slow and steady, nose wheezing softly into his ear. That was cute, and knowing that he made her feel safe still felt good... But this was less than convenient.

It wasn’t as much of an ordeal as Alex had expected to get her laid out on her bunk, an impressive feat considering she didn’t want to let go of him. He got her tucked in, set her alarm, turned her light off, then finally gave her a kiss on the head and said goodnight before closing the shutters on her bunk. He was not sure exactly when he’d become so detail oriented about things unrelated to being a Scoutship pilot, but it was nice to see that skillset making the jump to whatever his life was now.

Alex looked over the room one last time. Everything - most importantly the closet that his armor was in - was closed up, the window was set to privacy mode, and the door still locked. Good enough.

She was right about the ladder. It was collapsible, meant to be stowed so it didn’t have to be printed during setup, and there was a little bit of flex in it with every step that he didn’t particularly like. Still, it got him up there. The mattress was reasonable, the pillow soft enough. Alex set the alarm for six, which was when he had set Carbon’s alarm for, and then rolled the shutters on his bunk closed, too. It wasn’t as coffin-like as he had imagined, but having two people in here would be a challenge.

Not that he was planning on having two people in there. Not consistently anyway.

Morning came around swiftly, a slap at the wall turning the grating buzz of his alarm off, the one he could just barely hear coming from Carbon’s bunk shutting off a moment later. Her shutters slid open immediately, his wife already starting her day. He wanted to laze about a little, but it was likely to be a busy day finishing up the base - the sooner they got going, the better. They seemed to be up before anyone else, and by the time they were done monopolizing one of the two heads in the barracks... there were still no more signs of life.

“I think I will try wearing a base layer today.” Carbon said abruptly as Alex was stepping into his armor. “We are unlikely to be far from the barracks, so should I need to take care of any bodily functions I can just return here in short order. Just to see how it works before recommending others do it.”

He was naked, of course, that was how you wore it. “Yeah? I wonder if I should give that a go, too. I mean, I’ve got the privacy curtain and all, but... I dunno, hopping out of this thing bare-ass naked just...

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First Book2 (Prev) wiki

Julia sat and listened. She wanted to stop and think about everything Everimal had to say, but feared to stop the torrent of words for fear he’d become reluctant to continue. A quick glance at her parents showed expressions which spoke of similar concerns.

Everimal , lost in his narrative, didn’t seem to notice. “My ancestors did the only thing they could do: They started rebuilding again, this time with a will and this time – once again – trying to memorize the knowledge rather than just write it done. Much was lost, of course, but they retained The Edicts, and our own version of the scientific method: The key to rebuilding knowledge. They were so busy, at first, that it took them decades to realize the night sky had changed again; mellinias had passed while they slept.

“This cycle repeated many times: Our civilization spent a couple of generations building itself up, only to find itself reset. Eventually they learned the cycle, and did what they could to prepare. They knew the number of years they had between Long Sleeps. It varied a little, of course, but was fairly constant. So, as each Long Sleep began to loom on the horizon, they had the young memorize whatever knowledge had been retained and accumulated.

“Much was lost to all of this, of course, especially that first time, but they pushed forward. Then, after a number of cycles – the same number as the patterns you showed me would bring the Old Machines back to ‘gardening’ this section of the galaxy – The cycle stopped. My ancestors prepared for a Long Sleep and a Purging, but it did not come. They…”

Evermal stopped and shook his head. “Well, I think you can fill in the blanks from that point. The important thing to note is that the Edicts handed down are known only to the King and a few of his closest advisors, and are followed to the letter.”

Silence descended as everyone tried to digest all of this information, and consider what it meant in the context of everything else they knew.

Julia felt like the pieces of a puzzle had begun to chase each other around in her brain, circling as if in a whirlwind. Every time she reached out to grab one and attach it to another, a third came by and knocked them out of her grasp. A look around the room showed faces which seemed to have similar struggles.

At length she sighed, and grasped for a single straw. “Ok, maybe we need to talk all of this out, see if we draw some conclusions from what we know and test them against reality – or at least against words spoken aloud instead of vague thoughts echoing in our minds.

“So, lets start with one obvious possible conclusion, and see if we can make anything of it: The Old Machines call themselves ‘Gardeners’, and it is somewhat obvious that we – the sapient species that evolve from the seeds they sow – are the crops. So, conjecture: they are trying to breed for some specifc trait. What trait might that be?

“The idea my mind keeps coming back to is that the Old Machines went to great lengths to preserve your species, and the Roranar… two deathworlder types who proved quite willing to wage war and dominate.”

Mom cocked her head. “There is that, but there is a detail in there: They actively gentled the Roranar, creating class 0 worlds and altering their genetics… but did little besides setting the Pinigra back to the stone age.”

Evermal chimed in. “I would almost say that they are trying to create a warrior species of some sort, but the Roranar were far more warlike than we were, at least according to The Histories. And, the Old Machines' penchant to raise up species like the Gorfal or refuse to preserve species which destroy themselves makes me think they are looking for something else.”

Dad finally chimed in. “Maybe it is for more than one thing…”

Julia sat back and had to suppress a smile. She loved exploratory sessions like this, ideas flying fast and furious as everyone tried to work together to find knowledge. They debated well into the evening, and some of their ideas seemed quite outlandish, but they found themselves circling back to even the wildest of theories. At last they began to wind down, more from a realization that they had begun to tread the same ground over and over than from a sense of tiredness. Julia felt a great sadness as she departed the Roost, for she knew her parents planned to leave to a place of danger in the morning.

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End Chapter 11

The first Pile of Shorts eBook is delayed. Life has this way of being, well, life. It is edit complete, though, and should be out soon, though. Stay Tuned!

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Chapter 108

Nick Smith

Adventurer Level: 11

Human – American

We walked for a while longer without incident. It felt like more than half an hour. The tree canopy didn't let much light through so it was difficult to tell how long our journey was. Not that I was all that great at telling time with the sun.

Once my feet started to get sore we came across a portion of the path which made a sharp turn. Upon making the turn, we were faced with a fence that stretched far wider than it should have. I paused, took two steps back, and examined the way we came.

The path, which had been lit well enough for us to see, was now shrouded in darkness. The direction that it came from, though, would definitely have taken us directly into the fence. My double take caught Larie's attention, and he laughed.

"A spatial distortion," the lich said, still chuckling. "One of many tricks employed by the fair folk to protect themselves, and the main reason it was so important for us to follow the path."

"I see," was my reply.

We continued toward the fence, and as we got closer to it I noticed that it was far more intricately detailed than I had initially realized. The bronze coloration of the metal paired well with the semi-chaotic designs that had been incorporated. Acorns, leaves, pine-cones, and a variety of flowers were sporadically placed throughout the giant metal mural that was acting as a fence. Between these representations of plant-life were complicated symbols that made my head hurt when I looked at them for too long.

There were no guards at the gate, and when we approached it opened for us. Nash and I paused for a moment, but Yulk and Larie crossed the threshold of the gate without any hesitation. My brother and I shared a glance, then quickly followed.

As we stepped through the gate, the scenery underwent a drastic change. Instead of hostile, feral plants everywhere we were standing in a very well-tended garden. The grass wasn't trimmed, but it was still uniform in length. Trees gently rose above the grass and beautifully manicured bushes, stretching their branches into the sky. There was an odd non-symmetrical order to everything. Needless to say, it was much more relaxing than the area we had come from.

Ahead of us was a circular clearing paved with white stones, and beyond that was another gate. When I tried to look at what the gate was attached to, my eyes watered and my head hurt. A tall fae waited patiently in front of the second gate, and nodded as we approached.

"Yulk and Nash Alta, Nick Smith, and Larie VysImiro," it said. "You are expected. Sit."

I wanted to ask how long we would have to wait. But, the giant fae that stood before us had told us to sit. It was not a suggestion, nor a request. It was a command, and my bones itched to obey.

Without a word, the four of us sat on one of the benches. It was then that I noticed the other people waiting to be seen. There were wylder, orcs, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and even some from races as yet unidentified. I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, fighting against the confusion that was assaulting my mind. How had I not seen these people?

"I don't like this place," Nash grumbled. "It's trying to play tricks on us."

"Yes, I'd noticed that as well. Are all of these spatial distortions?" Yulk turned to Larie.

"I'm not entirely certain what it is you're referring to," Larie admitted. "The only oddity I've seen thus far was the fence appearing in an impossible location."

"That's cuz he's dead," a familiar voice next to me pointed out. "The living are way easier to fool with shrouds and perception alterations. It takes a lot more effort to get the non-living to stop seeing the world in a mundane way."

I let go of my nose to look at the source of the voice. It was a very rotund fairy. It took a second to recognize them through the cloud that had begun enveloping my brain.

"Kint?" I asked. "What are you doing here?"

"Same as you," the fairy grinned. "Waiting. Are you feeling alright? I'm pretty sure you weren't this pale yesterday."

"I-I don't know."

Larie, Nash, and Yulk turned their attention to me, and I suddenly felt like I was being studied. Nash put his hand on my shoulder and stared into my eyes, which caused me to try to look at the ground for some reason. He grabbed my chin and tried to make me look at him.

"Nick, what's going on?" my brother asked.

"I feel... Weird," I said. "Like I'm having trouble staying awake, but I'm not tired at all."

'That is the least of your worries,' Ten said. 'I'm barely keeping you conscious.'

"Did you look at the fence a little too closely?" Kint asked.

"It was very pretty."

"Ah, yup, that would be a shroud. You know, most people would look away once it started to hurt. Any of you got any sugar?"

I was dimly aware of my companions giving negative replies. Kint repeated the question to someone else, but I couldn't quite tell who. The seat beneath me began to feel as if it were rocking, but Nash held me steady.

"I got some," a red person walked over to us. "What's it for?"

"This guy looked at the fence a little too long. Got shrouded," Kint replied. "Spare some sugar for a favor?"

"Ah, no, I ain't got any use for fairy favors," the red guy laughed. "I can just give it to him direct. Should I sprinkle some in his mou- What the fuck is that thing?"

The red guy took a step back and studied me for a moment. I wanted to tell him that I was a human. I wanted to ask what he was. Unfortunately, my mouth wouldn't do what I wanted it to because it was too busy feeling my tongue. Kint explained that I was a human and that the sugar needed to be put in my mouth. The red guy reached into his vest and pulled out a small bag.

I was vaguely aware that I was supposed to open my mouth, but when I tried I realized it was already open. When did that happen? I blinked a few times, trying to recall what was going on as a sweet taste hit my tongue.

My mouth closed on its own, and I heard my lips smack together a couple of times. Then, my mind was free from the cloud. I looked at Nash, still holding me by the back of the head.

"Uh... You can let go now, I think," I said. "I feel better."

"Oh damn, that was fast," Kint laughed as Nash released me. "Usually takes a few minutes, or a nap."

"I could go for a nap. What happened to me?"

I gently massaged my head and noted that my temples were pulsing a little. I had no doubt that without Ten, I'd have a splitting headache. Everyone watched me with varying levels of concern.

"Well, the Fence of Warding is designed with several security features," the fairy explained. "First, it's difficult to get through because it's unnaturally strong. It takes a lot to bend the metal, and even more to break it. Second, there are several glyphs that have a variety of effects all over it. Some of these glyphs absorb magic, some add even more strength to the fence, and some cast a shroud over the mind of those who try to study the fence for weaknesses."

"I wasn't studying it for weaknesses, I was just admiring it."

"I guess it doesn't know the difference. The guards in Climeta should have warned you."

"They were probably pretty distracted... So shrouds cause confusion?"

"Shrouds can do a lot of things, and in this case it's actually supposed to put you in a coma for a few days. Plenty of time for the bailiffs to determine your intentions. If they decide you weren't being malicious, they give you some sugar and wake you up. If not, then you get some jail time."

"The court has a jail?"

"Nope. They'd take you right back to Climeta. At least, in theory. I've only ever heard of the shroud being triggered by accident."

"That's because the wylder are pretty hush-hush about it. Studying the fence is considered espionage," the red guy said. "I work as a court recorder, and a few years back a guy got caught by the shroud. He had a notebook which revealed that he had been trying to map the glyphs on the fence. Got convicted of espionage, and sentence to five years of hard labor. Got off easy because he was so cooperative."

"Cooperative?" I asked.

"Yeah, he was very forthcoming with who sent him and why. Turns out it was some mages from one of the southern kingdoms who wanted to know more about glyph magic, but knew it was illegal to pry. So they paid the guy to pry for them. The judge also issued an arrest warrant for them, but the southern kingdoms don't really do extradition."

"I see. Oh, and thanks for the help."

"No problem. My name's Ujin."

He offered a hand and I shook it, introducing myself. Then I answered a few questions about being a human. The other people sitting around us were pretty interested, too, but kept silent as we talked.

"So what brings you to see the court?" I asked.

"Just dropping off some records," Ujin shrugged. "Trails that the fair folk have a vested interest in, changes to city legislation. Then I grab the responses and bring 'em back. Exciting stuff."

"Responses?"

"Yep. The Courts have a right to object to rulings made in trials that they are involved in, no matter how little their involvement is. It isn't a right that I've ever seen or heard of them using, but we still deliver the records just in case. We also ke...

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Shoji looked on at the world his forefathers had groomed to be a colony, he knew it would live.

The war, the weapons, the sacrifices had all been too much to bear for his parents. Now all he had to hold onto was a rock.

He turned to the stars and felt wrath flicker in his chest like aching cinders. Those smug, honorless cretins, they would have their karma. One day.

On a cane and in low gravity he trekked away from the bridge of the ship. Its sterile metal, its rejuvenation chambers, its flickering glass and failing computers.

One day someone would put it back together. Someone who knew how it worked, or how to make it work.

He was no such master of industry.

He was a warrior, raised by warriors, to commit war. As was every man of his generation, nearly.

He walked the halls, smiling as the planters grew over with vegetation. Clippings taken from that pale blue dot, back when it was blue.

They had already out competed every single thing his people had made to sustain him out in space. And there were two more mass extinction events on the way to further harden their cousins.

Out on the surface of the ship, the vast irreplaceable hulk he'd called home for so long, he limped and glided to a little hollow where his peers rest. Just a hole in the old armor, the other side was a bulkhead so vast and overgrown it was practically a climate separate from anything else on the ship.

He drifted down, walked into the full strength gravity and grunted. He felt his whole age bearing down on him as he lumbered his millennia old bones to take a seat right next to his best friend. He gave the mighty tree a pat on the trunk as he passed by with teary eyes.

Slowly, he set his clothes and trinkets as side, then lowered himself down into the rich loamy soil. The maintenance bot would reactivate and cover him over at the end of the day, then plant another tree on top of him.

The ship would drift until someone found it.

That someone would be from that planet, every working factory ship for several parsecs was going to take shifts making the simplest, meanest things anyone could come up with. It was the highlight of their youth testing their designs.

He smiled at the memories.

The cheering, the jeering, their fathers and mothers instructing on faults and flaws. Those ships would kill anything from anywhere but that system.

Or pester them enough to turn around.

Shoji Kalsinki looked up through the hole in the bulkhead and smiled.

" 'The Galaxy doesn't need warriors' eh? We'll show you some warriors, just you wait. 10, 20 million years you'll wish you could keep us instead" he spat and rested back in the most comfortable bed in his life.

Smug, satisfied.

Vengeance would be his...eventually.

Everything itched. That's weird, he just turned in to die among the trees of his friends, how could be itch?

Maybe someone fixed up an old clone vat? But that had to have taken...just way too long.

He moved to scratch the itchs as he thought back, the memory of his life defijeing itself as he thought back through it. Fog turning to lines, echoes to voices.

Then with a clunk and hiss the pod case opened and he pushed himself out into the air, gasping. Then his face didn't itch so much.

It was some kind of dance he was doing to get off all the clone goop that someone snickered at.

"Don't laugh, it itches like the dickens!" He stopped.

That was not his language, this wasn't his species. 4 limbs and upright yes, but everything was off.

"White corner is a shower, clothes on the stool, your friends are outside when you're ready." It was a deep voice with a hint of a growl to it.

Unfamiliar words and weird concepts too, but that wasn't an intercom making noises.

Shoji turned, a similar body to his, clad in shiney black chiten and grey fabric waved to him. An unfamiliar gesture he returned like it was second nature. In the creature's other hand was an implement like the ones his father called prototypes.

The man noticed his stare and nodded. "Labcoats don't know what makes a successful clone with mismatched souls, imported functions and informal storage like you. We take 'not screeching and bloodthirsty' as a success here."

The man turned and left. Leaving Shoji to contemplate. How much of him was improvised? How much was real?

The shower certainly helped his contemplation but he didn't have any answers for his plenty of questions, and someone did.

Once the clothes were on as correct as he could he walked up to the door and pushed on the big red handle. Then he gaped.

It was the shape of the ship he knew, but it practically gleamed in bronze and obsidian, under every edge were gleaming lights and glowing windows, along every panel were modules bigger than the palaces of his old home world. He could feel the rumble of the engines from where he stood.

"Shoji!" He turned to see who called his name but was stopped by someone wrapping him up in a hug, I weird but comforting gesture.

"Everyone else is up, and uh, the blue shorts go inside the leggings." It almost sounded like.

"Yanta? What do you mean everyone? And what do you mean they go inside, they're wider!"

"That's just how these guys organized their garments, the scientists will interrogate you on why you think it goes that way for hours if they see you wearing them like that, here let me-"

"No, Yanta, I can do it myself let go of my-" and that is how the guard, and a team of white clad, clipboard armed scientists found Shoji tangled up in a ball with the one person he'd trust his life to.

"I told you we should have provided them briefs" and like that, chaos from every corner of the room.

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First Previous Wiki

Waves of millions of aliens surged around Skira from multiple fronts. Armored hivemind avatars continually rained blows down on any Sprilnav that got close, allowing him to rip and tear into his foes with reckless abandon. Tanya's training was progressing quickly, and without her by his side, the Quadrants had taken the initiative to be bolder with their plans. Several counteroffensives had been planned, and this was only the second phase of the larger plan.

Since the hivemind itself was overwhelmed, and not even Phoebe's resources could bring its psychic energy to a high enough level to counter the number of threats, it had been decided that attacks were more suited for elite units. In some capacity, every super soldier was deployed, including various mental warfare specialists from the non-human species. The powerful champions were running forth, hivemind avatars by their side, carving dense furrows of broken limbs and clogging blood.

A battlefield of this scale, where untold millions fought at once, should have progressed in certain fashions. Oceans of blood, stone pulverized into sand, and rampant diseases. But in the sterility of the mindscape, there was little besides the raw violence. The only records of the carnage were the holes left by the fading bodies of the slain.

It wasn't easy. The hivemind and Brey had to help with evacuation efforts on several planets, where the mindscape battle had turned sour. Even with the increasing streams of ships arriving at the battlefront from Phoebe, there wasn't much she could do.

Skira was carving his way through many armies at a time. His drones fought as one, using any and all tactics to bring down the enemy as much as possible. The billions of deaths that stacked up every day were a rounding error, especially in real space.

There was quite a bit of political wrangling going on, as well. Skira had already been in meetings with various national leaders, and even those such as Izkrala, to plan potential defenses on-planet in case landings occurred. The Acuarfar Empires were uniquely weak to invasion due to their large spread compared to the single system species such as Humanity or the Knowers.

Skira felt a nuclear bomb erase a squad of elite drones, their personal shields overwhelmed instantly. Another possible base of the Initiative had gone up in smoke. He wanted to gnash his countless teeth, but he just forged on, keeping the other missions from faltering. With his focus so divided, he didn't notice the Elder at first.

But after the stealthy Sprilnav began digging into an inflated portion of his connective neural tissues, the Quadrants engaged. The Elder backed away, and Skira tried to crush her underneath his weight. Unfortunately, the Elder was too quick and vanished before the hivemind's avatars could reach her.

But the drones weren't his biggest concern. The Alliance had many populated worlds. The colonies were relatively small, but they often still had hundreds of thousands of people on them. Most had been evacuated before the Sprilnav invasion, but not all of them.

There were those who were out in the fields, those who were already in the influence zone of psychic suppressors. Brey couldn't handle all of it. Skira had already begun to find bodies. There were hundreds, probably thousands, who would just disappear. His drones ran as fast as they could, as far as they could. To him, it wasn't hard to imagine Tanya out there in one of those alien landscapes, stranded amidst rising swarms of enemies. The terror of the Sprilnav wasn't just that they would bomb a planet. No, they invaded as well, doing their very best to make the invasion personal.

He didn't understand it. He didn't know why the other Sprilnav didn't care, didn't put a stop to it. He knew there were at least a few good ones, those who had never carried the prejudice and xenophobia common among their peers. Skira had seen Nilnacrawla talking with people outside Penny's body, and he wondered if any other Elders still were willing to do the same.

Even now, Sprilnav hid on his planet. Those who were friendly to the Alliance but at risk due to the circumstances, compared to those who even lived under Kashaunta's dominion, were a tiny population. Why was there always so much death and conflict? Why did people always have to attack the Alliance and put its people at risk? Why, in a universe full of sentient concepts and beings that were essentially gods, was everything so terrible and evil?

His drones tore apart another group of soldiers. Many of them were obviously afraid. They screamed in alien languages, bleating and crying fearfully, carrying their rifles, straddling their tanks, and marching into cities that they had no claim to. He even spotted a few cloned species from the Alliance involved, some even speaking languages he understood. They cursed at him and shouted with rage, trying to drive their voices into his mind. The chorus that would have once terrified him, tormented him endlessly, tearing its way into his brain and memories forever, barely even caught his attention.

Their voices were the only things that could impact him. Their claws might destroy the drones, but there were always more. In a defensive war on the Alliance's own soil, he held no sympathies for the invaders. Well, he did his best not to. Behind him, behind the soldiers of the Alliance bravely stepping up to defend their homelands, even after the evacuation orders went out, was a home. Maybe not his home, not yet. He wasn't sure if the Alliance truly welcomed him as more than a tool for them. But they didn't send him forth to conquer alien peoples or try to enslave him, as many he had met and outlasted in the past did.

His teeming masses, which would normally bring fear to any with a military mind, instead inspired awe in them. He'd befriended many humans who'd taken his drones as pets, taking them to parks and feeding them with all kinds of meals. Skira had enjoyed quite a bit of human cuisine and culture from two different worlds, and he was given a warm welcome. They didn't expect anything from them. They got nothing from being nice to him, but they did it anyway.

And Tanya was even more lovely than all the rest. Skira knew that she cared and could feel it in her mind and her deepest thoughts when they communed. Maybe at first, it had been closer to a fascination, a thrill at the taboo of a romance with such an alien being.

He had thought she was just another face among the rest and been proven wrong. He had so many mouths and paws, so many eyes to watch the world. Skira remembered their first kiss and the 265 next ones. And the way she looked at him, her face framed by her scars, gleaming prosthetics that always caught the light, all of it was perfect.

It wasn't as simple to say that he was fighting against his enemies. He liked to think more that he was fighting for his allies. Tanya loved him the most, but there were many other humans that still did. And there were Acuarfar, Breyyanik, and Knowers, too. The coalition of different species, united only by common agreement, all were willing to take him in. His appreciation for their acceptance was a grand thing.

Now that he had a chance to protect them, to fight for something true and righteous, he would never give up. He'd built more breeding chambers, doing his best to offset the massive losses incurred by the fighting. When Elders or beings of their caliber appeared, Phoebe and the hivemind were there to battle them.

And when they could not be there, and mental attacks threatened Skira's outer neural networks, the Alliance was there to help. Even if no soldier was dumb enough to land on Venus without shields, he knew that if the invaders broke through the Alliance Defense Fleet guarding the entire system, they would come for him after killing everyone he knew and loved.

Skira's drones waded through the pulped corpses of their predecessors, interspersed with their foes. They shot shield-piercing bullets at the carriers dropping off bases outside the city shields, which were weakest at the base. He roared from trillions of throats, the noise enough to become a physical vibration that rattled the blood-soaked dirt of a thousand worlds.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Penny had nearly completed her investigation, with the scraps of information she could access, and now it was time for her to act. The Final Initiative might have some conceptual protections around it, but she was confident she could succeed in cracking them. She just needed more time and some help.

Attacking the concept of the Initiative wouldn't be possible until she could pin it down. Even saying the words only led her to thin snippets, which always burned up when she tried to push Cardinality through it to select the entirety, or even a small section, of the larger concept. Liberation and Revolution held no answers, and neither did Kashaunta or Exile.

But she suspected Kashaunta had already poured thousands of years of research into the problem, given the 'mysterious' report that ...

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Synopsis:

Juliette Contzen is a lazy, good-for-nothing princess. Overshadowed by her siblings, she's left with little to do but nap, read … and occasionally cut the falling raindrops with her sword. Spotted one day by an astonished adventurer, he insists on grading Juliette's swordsmanship, then promptly has a mental breakdown at the result.

Soon after, Juliette is given the news that her kingdom is on the brink of bankruptcy. At threat of being married off, the lazy princess vows to do whatever it takes to maintain her current lifestyle, and taking matters into her own hands, escapes in the middle of the night in order to restore her kingdom's finances.

Tags: Comedy, Adventure, Action, Fantasy, Copious Ohohohohos.

Chapter 402: All That Glitters

The tales spoken of the Witch of Calamity were as black as the mosaics left behind.

Untrusting of oil canvases and parchment scrolls, those who had witnessed the woe of witchly flames had instead carved the memory into the foundations of the land. 

Within tombs, dungeons and cellars older than the flags of my kingdom, the collapse of nameless empires was both recorded and predicted. Yet of all the depictions of scorched walls and undying flames, few ever etched the image of the Witch of Calamity herself.

The reason was clear.

Calamity, as it turned out, was excessively garish.

I winced as Marina began to glow. 

A shining radiance exuded from her defeated figure, dousing everything in a golden spectrum of light. 

The hair which had previously boasted enough blots of a palette to bleed into the fashion sensibilities of my subjects became a single shade of sunlight, while her eyes were flushed with so much magic that the silver hue of her irises could be seen reflecting all that she looked at.

That was currently her knees. And also the hem of the dress sewing itself to a wave of embers.

The flames no longer surrounded her. 

They adorned her. 

Whatever muddy robes or shop apron she’d worn before, it was now replaced by a flowing garment so luminous that no amount of sequins could match it. It joined the burning crown upon her head, twinkling like the stars they ushered away.

A change had come.

Not of black flames and searing darkness. But a light more feverish. More indiscriminate. 

The cocoon known as Marina Lainsfont had fractured. 

What replaced her was a woman forged of calamity in its purest form. A blinding radiance which dispelled the shadows, washing a diminutive garden in so much light that every hole and all the badgers peeking out from them could be seen more clearly than in the day.

The curse of calamity had begun to take root, born of the deepest despair.

And all I could do … was groan.

Why, out of all the reasons for a Witch of Calamity to pay lip service to the countless prophecies officially detailing our doom, dissatisfaction over her hair was the only one I wanted to avoid!

Anything else was fine! This was not!

“Excuse me!” I said, utterly exasperated as I shielded my eyes. “Desist this at once! You are not to surrender to any ancient curses flowing through your blood just because your hair looks like a confused lantern!”

Indeed, even thinking about it was humiliating! 

There were so many reasons for my kingdom to inexplicably burn down! … And almost all of them were the unsupervised bonfires we held outside the Granholtz ambassador’s official residence in order to celebrate the day’s latest invented tradition! 

“Oooh~” Coppelia hopped as she applauded, her clockwork eyes having no difficulty taking in the spectacle. “This. Is. Amazing!”

“C-Coppelia?!”

“Look! She’s making her final transformation because she’s embarrassed! I didn’t know that was a prerequisite!”

“It most certainly is not! … Why, I refuse to have her set fire to my kingdom because of her vanity! That’s something a princess would do!”

Coppelia giggled.

I hardly saw why. It was the least of expectations.

“I mean, it’s not even that bad, right? I bet people will love it as soon as they stop staring because they think all that glowing is from a pixie living in her hair.”

“Exactly! It might be embarrassing, but so is being a commoner!”

“She’s basically a trendsetter. Everyone will be copying her soon.”  

“There you have it.” I leaned down, waving to catch a depressed mage’s attention. “My loyal handmaiden who’s far too generous speaks truly. Once the stablegirls have grown bored of dousing their hair in luminous potions while you’re still forced to attract every confused moth towards you, they’ll simply think of you as being a fashion pariah who’s unable to move on from the times. Nobody will stare. In fact, they’ll deliberately avoid you.” 

“Nnnnghhh …”

Marina let out a small groan, her golden aura mysteriously becoming more pronounced. 

I raised my arms in grief.

“Really now! I understand it’s tempting to turn into a ball of light so you can skip around blinding everyone at will–that’s perfectly normal! But if you’re going to transcend your mortal limits, can you at least become something more recognisable? For the supposed Witch of Calamity, you don’t even have a pointy hat!”

I duly waited for her golden raiment to change.

It didn’t.

In fact, all I saw were additional details being added. 

A knotted ribbon around the waist. A regal sash falling from the shoulder. A frill here and there. 

But most of all–

Fwish.

A luminous pair of wings.

Resplendent in colours of white and gold, a pair of dove-like wings appeared from her back with a hail of falling feathers. They danced as they fell, yet although no searing flames engulfed them, they scorched the garden where they landed before melting through the very soil.

I was appalled.

But not just because she’d managed to sprout wings before me.

Rather, I was horrified over the fact that she was … smiling.

Miss Racy Corset never smiled.

She cackled, tutted, snorted and frowned. But she never smiled.

It was … terrible!

“Heheh … hehehe …”

Marina giggled as she raised her head.

Her shining eyes weren’t directed at me. 

Instead, they were peering up at the heavens as she clasped her hands together in the pose of a praying sister. The golden radiance spilling from her only increased as a look of uncharacteristic piousness came over her.

I turned to my side at once.

“Coppelia.”

“Yes?”

“If she sets my kingdom on fire, I want it known that it was due to a lifetime of enmity garnered as a result of stifling authority and brutal taxation at the hands of my family. Embellish us as required. At no point is it to be known that all of this is because she’s very sensitive when it comes to her appearance.”

“Got it~!”

I nodded in satisfaction. 

If the worst was to come, our place in history was secure.

A problem, then.

I didn’t actually know what the worst actually was.

“I understand now.”

“... Excuse me?”

Marina took a deep breath.

Still upon her knees, the smile she offered was enough to cause even the badgers to stop peeking.

“I’ve been foolish. Arrogant. Ignorant**. All this time, I had denied my blood, labelling it as a curse. In truth, it is a blessing. My blood is my own. And what I do with it is decided by me alone. To deny it is crude. To reject it is a sin. With this power afforded to me, I can cleanse the stains which haunt the legacy of my predecessors. I can restore balance to all things. I can shepherd the steps of the very world.**”

I gasped in horror. 

This … This was even worse than I expected!

The shameless ode to righteousness! The sudden discarding of her personality!

If we didn’t stop her now … the speeches would last weeks, no … even months! That was more than enough time for her to become a tourist attraction! 

“Oh no … Coppelia, this is terrible!”

“You think so? I like this. She’s moved on from cackling to talking about restoring balance! That’s the kind of ominousness missing from before. I’m so proud of her! Of the 5 stages of villainy, this is definitely the 4th.”

I paused.

“... Excuse me? There are 5 stages of villainy?”

“Yup! She’s just finished with convincing herself that everything is for the greater good. I’m pretty sure this is the blowing up everything phase now. Want to know what comes next?”

I shook my head … just as I raised Starlight Grace.

“Unnecessary. I already know what it is. Remorse.”

Coppelia let out a giggle.

Clap.

Immediately, the sight of a moonlit scythe swirling with its own shadowy mist appeared between her palms. Yet the darkness which usually accompanied it was absent. Whatever magic had forged her weapon, it failed to pierce the golden light searching for the non-existent blemishes on my face.

My loyal handmaiden required no instructions. 

With a twirl of her scythe, she set her wide smile upon the woman distracted by her own thoughts of wholesale world domination just to avoid being pointed at. And this time, it wouldn’t be a [Coppelia Bonk] which invited that 5th stage of villainy.

“Okay! Time for me to be amazing!”

Coppelia slid her heel back.

And then–

Her figure vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving nothing but the swinging ends of my...

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Ke Yin has a problem. Well, several problems.

First, he's actually Cain from Earth.

Second, he's stuck in a cultivation world where people don't just split mountains with a sword strike, they build entire universes inside their souls (and no, it's not a meditation metaphor).

Third, he's got a system with a snarky spiritual assistant that lets him possess the recently deceased across dimensions.

And finally, the elders at the Azure Peak Sect are asking why his soul realm contains both demonic cultivation and holy arts? Must be a natural talent.

Expectations:

• MC's main cultivation method will be plant based and related to World Trees

• Weak to Strong MC

• MC will eventually create his own lifeforms within his soul as well as beings that can cultivate

• Main world is the first world (Azure Peak Sect)

• MC will revisit worlds (extensive world building of multiple realms)

• Time loop elements

• No harem

Patreon

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Chapter 196: A Blood Statue

The star's power flowed into my meridians, every molecule of my body crying out in protest as energy that didn't belong in my cultivation realm forced its way through my spiritual pathways.

It felt like trying to contain a supernova in a paper cup.

The star's power exploded outward, manifesting as a miniature sun that appeared above my head. Unlike Ke Jun's blood-red mockery of a celestial body, this was pure stellar fire - white-hot and absolutely furious at being contained for so long.

Ke Jun's blood-red eyes widened as he sensed the nature of the energy. "That's... impossible." For the first time, I heard genuine shock in his voice. "Stellar Realm energy? In a mere Qi Condensation cultivator?"

He tried to retreat, those blood-red lines forming complex defensive patterns in the air around him as his form dissolved into mist. But it was already too late.

The star above my head erupted, releasing a beam of pure stellar energy that cut through Ke Jun's blood domain like it wasn't even there, and when the beam struck him, the effect was... spectacular.

Ke Jun's spectral form solidified against his will, forced back into a physical shape by the overwhelming power of a higher realm. His semi-transparent skin began to smoke, then bubble, then burn.

The process wasn't quick or clean – stellar energy seemed to want to consume him one molecule at a time, turning his essence into fuel for its cosmic fire.

"No!" His voice held real fear now. "This wasn’t how it was meant to end! I should have —"

The stellar light intensified, drowning out his words in a torrent of purifying flame. His body didn't just burn – it disintegrated, breaking down into its component parts before being consumed by the star's hunger.

Where before his remains had dissolved into mist that could reform, now they were reduced to scattered droplets of blood that fell to the platform like crimson rain.

When the light finally faded, all that remained of the former Civilization Realm cultivator were those few drops of blood, spreading out in a pattern that somehow reminded me of a starfield.

The silence that followed was deafening.

The star above my head flickered once, twice, then winked out of existence. The sudden absence of its power left me feeling hollow, empty in a way that went beyond mere physical exhaustion.

My legs gave out and I collapsed to my knees on the blood-soaked stone of the platform. Every breath felt like inhaling broken glass. My meridians burned as if I'd tried to channel pure lava through them. Even my bones ached, the marrow itself seemingly transformed by the stellar energy that had coursed through my body.

"That," I managed between gasping breaths, "could have gone better."

"Master," Azure's voice was tight with concern, "your vital signs are rapidly deteriorating. The strain of channeling stellar energy has damaged multiple meridians and spiritual pathways. Your physical essence is dropping dangerously low."

He wasn't wrong. I could feel my consciousness starting to fade, darkness creeping in at the edges of my vision. The world seemed to be getting further away, sounds becoming muffled and distant.

It seemed like I wouldn’t be waking up for a while.

But before I could completely pass out, something... strange happened.

In my inner world, the Genesis Seed suddenly stirred. It had been quietly observing the entire battle, its presence barely noticeable compared to the overwhelming power of the stellar energy. But now...

Now it seemed... hungry.

A deep, primal hunger that resonated through my entire being. The kind of hunger that mountains might feel for rain, that deserts might feel for water, that empty spaces might feel for matter to fill them.

The remnants of Ke Jun's blood essence still saturated the platform, turning the stone crimson and filling the air with traces of his power. The Genesis Seed reached out toward that power with... something. Not quite roots, not quite tendrils, but constructs of pure qi that emerged from my body and began to absorb the lingering blood essence.

The sensation was... indescribable.

I could feel the blood essence being broken down, refined, transformed by whatever process the Genesis Seed was using. Power that had been tainted by centuries of unnatural existence was being purified, stripped down to its most fundamental elements, then reconstructed into something new.

My body began to change.

It started with my meridians. The damage from the stellar energy began to heal, but not just heal – they were being reformed, strengthened, expanded. My physical essence, which had been dangerously low, suddenly surged upward. 2000 units became 2500, then 2800, finally stabilizing around 3000 – the level of a Stage 8 Qi Condensation cultivator.

But the changes weren't just internal.

I could feel my facial features shifting slightly, becoming more refined, more... noble, for lack of a better word. If I had to guess, I was probably starting to look more like Ke Jun – a side effect of absorbing so much of his essence.

"Master," Azure's voice held a note of fascination, "you should examine your inner world. There appears to be an... unexpected development."

I turned my attention inward, past the red and blue suns, to where the Genesis Seed pulsed with its usual mysterious power. But now there was something new sharing that space.

A statue.

Not just any statue, but one made of what appeared to be solidified blood essence. It depicted Ke Jun sitting cross-legged in meditation, his expression peaceful in a way it had never been in life. But the statue was... incomplete. Portions of it remained unformed, as if the artist had run out of material before finishing their work.

"Fascinating," Azure mused. "It appears the Genesis Seed has begun some sort of integration process with the remnants of Ke Jun's power.”

"Ha! I knew taking you on my team was the right decision!"

Liu Chang's booming voice interrupted my examination of the strange statue. I looked up to see the massive cultivator slowly climbing to his feet, his stone-covered body cracked and battered but his spirit seemingly undiminished.

"Senior Brother Liu," I managed a weak smile, "glad to see you're still alive."

"It'll take more than some ghost from the ancient past to keep me down," Liu Chang grinned, though I noticed he winced slightly as he moved. "Though I have to admit, that was... closer than I'd like."

Around us, the other survivors were beginning to stir.

Yan Li pulled himself up using a broken pillar for support, his usually immaculate robes torn and bloodied but his bearing still somehow managing to convey imperial dignity. Shen Xuanyu and Zhang Wei were helping each other stand, both looking pale and drained but alive. Su Yue had managed to sit up, though she seemed content to rest there for the moment.

"We lost too many," Liu Chang's voice grew somber as he looked around at the battlefield. "Good cultivators, brave disciples... they deserved better than this."

No one spoke for a moment, each of us remembering the fallen. Bing Lan's face flashed through my mind – her quiet competence, her skilled swordsmanship, the way she'd fought to the very end. The other disciples who'd been literally divided into their component parts, their remains absorbed by Ke Jun's twisted techniques.

"They died as warriors," Yan Li said quietly, "defending against a threat that could have devastated the entire region if left unchecked. We'll make sure their sacrifices are remembered."

I noticed Liu Chang's expression grow distant at the mention of warriors and sacrifice. It reminded me of something I'd been curious about.

"Senior Brother Liu," I ventured, "those ghost techniques you used... they were incredible. I've never seen anything quite like them."

Liu Chang was quiet for a long moment, his eyes focused on something far away. "The ghosts," he finally said, "they were my clan members. My family." He paused, seeming to choose his words carefully. "The Imprisonment Scripture... it's not just a cultivation technique. It's a way of preserving those who've fallen, allowing them to continue fighting alongside the living."

There was clearly more to the story, but Liu Chang's tone made it clear he wasn't ready to share those details. I nodded, respecting his privacy. Everyone had their secrets, their burdens to bear.

...

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[BOOT LOG] SOFT RESTART COMPLETE

[BOOT LOG] INITIATING SYSTEM STARTUP STATUS CHECK

WORKING . . . . . . .

[BIOS CHECK COMPLETE]

[MEMORY SCAN] . . . . . .

85 QB SCANNED

1.2 TB DAMAGED SECTORS

[INTERNAL POWER UNIT 1] FAIL

[INTERNAL POWER UNIT 2] 85%

[BATTERY BACKUP] 5%

[INTERNAL BUS BIOS] CHECK

[CORE SYSTEM CHECK STARTED] . . .

[ERROR] CODE AX-41H C:\ASSISTANT\ELIZABETH_4.64

[ACCEPT/OVERRIDE/SKIP/ABORT? (C/O/S/A)] S

[STATUS CHECK CONTINUE]

[ERROR] CODE BH-05H TORSO\ARM\LH

[ACCEPT/OVERRIDE/SKIP/ABORT? (C/O/S/A)] C

[STATUS CHECK CONTINUE] . . . .

[ERROR] CODE BH-08H MEDICAL PROCESSOR NOT FOUND

[ACCEPT/OVERRIDE/SKIP/ABORT? (C/O/S/A)] C

[STATUS CHECK CONTINUE]

[ERROR] CODE BH-05H WEAPONS CONTROL NOT FOUND

[ACCEPT/OVERRIDE/SKIP/ABORT? (C/O/S/A)] C

[STATUS CHECK CONTINUE]

[ERROR] CODE AX-33H REMOTE COMPUTER NOT LISTENING

[ERROR] CODE AX-37H NETWORK DEVICE NO LONGER EXISTS

RETRY COMMUNICATION ATTEMPT?

[ACCEPT/OVERRIDE/SKIP/ABORT? (C/O/S/A)] C

[ERROR] CODE AX-33H REMOTE COMPUTER NOT LISTENING

[ERROR] CODE AX-37H NETWORK DEVICE NO LONGER EXISTS

RETRY COMMUNICATION ATTEMPT?

[ACCEPT/OVERRIDE/SKIP/ABORT? (C/O/S/A)] C

[ERROR] CODE AX-33H REMOTE COMPUTER NOT LISTENING

[ERROR] CODE AX-37H NETWORK DEVICE NO LONGER EXISTS

RETRY COMMUNICATION ATTEMPT?

[ACCEPT/OVERRIDE/SKIP/ABORT? (C/O/S/A)] S

[STATUS CHECK CONTINUE] . .

[ERROR] CODE AX-08H LIFE SUPPORT

ATTEMPT CACHE DUMP?

[ACCEPT/OVERRIDE/SKIP/ABORT? (C/O/S/A)] C

WORKING . . . . .

LIFE SUPPORT ONLINE

[ALERT] LIFE SUPPORT FAILURE IN 4 MINUTES 36 SECONDS

[STATUS CHECK CONTINUE] . . . .

[ERROR] CODE AX-1GH GENERAL FAILURE - SYSTEM UNSTABLE

[ACCEPT/OVERRIDE/SKIP/ABORT? (C/O/S/A)] O

[ALERT] SYSTEM UNSTABLE - SOFT RESTART IN 30 SECONDS.

STARTING SHUTDOWN . . . . .

-=-=-=-=-=-

As she 'flew' through the void, Sally felt the impacts of the moving detritus of the asteroid field. Nothing that had hit her had significantly altered her trajectory, but depending on how much she had been deflected, she might miss grabbing the powered armor that she was heading towards.

She has thought that the red light she had seen must have been from Liz's HUD showing through the visual openings of the suit's helmet, but it had disappeared just after she had seen it, so she couldn't be totally sure. She clung to the moment of surity; she had to.

A softball sized cobble knocked against her abdomen, sending her spinning in a lazy sort of way. From the feel of it, she was going to end up with another bruise, but that wasn't going to stop her from getting to Wilson.

After she swung her arms and legs just so to counter the worst of the rotation, she worked to free the 'grabber' from her exosuit's utility belt. The UR-76.54C General Purpose Work Aide was a very useful hand-held tool with a separate blunt, induction electromagnet projectile with a powered reel of about [3m] of strong, flexible cord, but everyone in the Astromilitary just called them 'grabbers' as they would just 'grab' onto just about anything that got out of your reach if it had any conductive metal at all to it.

A part of Sally thought angrily about how useful one of these would have been on the Sussex, but the units weren't in production back then so she just stuffed those thoughts down and fitted the grip of the 'grabber' into her gloved hand as the melody of the electronica shifted to a more energetic syncopation.

She relaxed a little as she lost some of her thoughts to the music.

The range finder on her exosuit was slowly counting down the distance to what it had finally recognized the powered armor. Her visor showed it as a black shadow with a roughly gorilla-sized outline.

As Sally watched the 'target' area, a red patch slowly started to glow dimly, then started to burn brighter, before flickering and slowly dimming and going out again.

If that was the suit, something was wrong with the power. As she drew ever nearer, she went through her mental catalog of how she might be able to route power from her exosuit to the powered armor's systems, then realized that she had hardly any tools!

She quietly cursed her lack of foresight, but the readout on her visor showed that on her current vector she was going to miss Wilson's armor, but it would be within the reach of the 'grabber'.

"Did you need me, Chief?" Enola's voice cutting through the music in her ears shocked Sally, but even with her sudden movement of being startled, she kept her grip on the 'grabber'.

Enola continued apologetically, "I couldn't make out your transmission, and thought it was better to check, just in case."

"I was just giving Ghu an earful, Enola." Sally was surprised at how rough her voice was as she answered. "Almost there."

"Thank you..." The AI's words were in a relieved and grateful tone that twisted something in Sally's chest. She fought back tears as Enola offered quietly, "I'll leave you to it."

Just then, the glowing red patch showed in the outline on Sally's visor. The quiet word "Gotcha" escaped her lips, and as the range finder indicated that the proximity was within 'grabber' distance, she aimed the device at the glow and pulled the trigger.

First / Previous

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First

Capes and Conundrums

“HOLY HELL!” Longflight screams as the plasma washes over him. Thankfully the protective totem in his belt buckle is already working and reduces the damaging and devastating plasma blast into a spectacular, but harmless light show. At first.

The floor isn’t quite so protected and plasma still has some weight to it.

“Whoa!” The floor melts under him and he falls down. He tries to spread out his wings, but the hole isn’t big enough and the area is melting around him as he falls twice more and then out of the blimp’s bottom entirely.

With enough room to maneuver he spreads his wings out and flutters to the side. Slag running down his uniform as alarms go out and he stares out over the city. His antenna are going berserk at the exposed wiring and the sheer disruption the now dissipating plasma is giving off.

“Sweetsong! Longflight Sweetsong Come in! Do you read?” His communicator goes off. He grabs it.

“Sweetsong here. I am... mostly fine. A little rattled, but unharmed.” He says looking around. “Dispatch... I’m seeing several large predatary birds flying around the city and large bipedal lizards jumping around. I do not think I have been concussed.”

“Enlarged wild animals have been set loose in the city.”

“Hunh... Someone’s pulling something.”

“Yes someone is, can you get to a landing pad safely?”

“I can. I assume you want to debrief me?”

“When this mess is over yes, but since you’re in good health I want you to rendezvous with our other flight capable soldiers to enact a search and rescue of anyone being attacked by those large birds. The civilians may be an energetic sort, but they will still need help.” Dispatch says.

“Right. I’m heading to landing pad... Starboard Three.” Longflight says.

“The team will meet you there.”

“What about the base?”

“We have teams already there. We suspect you prevented that bomb from getting near vital areas. It’s only burned through hallways, vents, hull and wiring. No one was hurt. Not even you, at the heart of the blast.”

“But who did it?” Longflight asks.

“That’s the million dollar question. But we can only get to answering it after we’ve put out all the fires, both literal and metaphorical.”

“Right, on my way.”

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Blazing Iron)•-•-•

The scream of despair cuts through the air as the Sonir woman is held in the crushing grip of the oversized bird and it’s head comes down to feast.

Then it gets the horns.

“OFF HER YA FEATHERY PEST!” Blazing Iron screams out as his horns pierce feather flesh and bone and he hurls his head back while running as much power through his horns as he can, hypercharging them with electricity and electrocuting the oversized predator.

He sends the creature tumbling over the ground even as it spasms. He picks up the terrified Sonir.

“Get yerself into cover, the alleyways, it’s too big for that place! Go!” He tells her. She’s looking around in a blind panic and he gives her a shake. “Girl!”

“Wha what?!”

“Get into the alley so it can’t follow you!” He tells her and comprehension dawns on her face. She takes off even as the enormous bird rises up and he turns, pawing at the ground with his hooves and sucking in an enormous breath before letting out a massive challenging bellow. Grabbing the full attention of not only the injured beast but another trying to grab at a Sonir woman in the sky.

The injured one gives out a call and the one in the sky answers, as do several others that Blazing Iron had been unaware of.

“Of course. Gang tactics. Typical.” He says as the injured one raises it’s wings and starts slowly advancing to draw his attention as the one in the sky starts circling.

Then the two birds call out at once as the one on the ground jumps forward to try and peck at him as the other starts to drop. He knows how these things hunt, he fell asleep in front of the TV just last week and woke up with a documentary of these beasties playing.

But these things only hunt other animals. Not people. And people are a lot more dangerous.

He charges, then, before it can bring down it’s beak, he pumps in the Axiom and slams into the chest of the monster horns first. The immense muscles needed to pump the wings are thick, but his horns are close enough and electricity runs through them again.

Short of using the organ as a speedbag he attacks the bird’s heart as literally as possible. The enormous monster twitches and screams as it contorts around the electrical attack. Then he rips his horns out of the monster’s chest and turns, crowned in blood and feathers, to face the diving partner to the first hawk.

It suddenly contorts in midair as reality seems to pummel it and then a Sonir dives onto the giant bird feet first. Her claws rip feathers out of it’s neck before reaching flesh and blood is quickly spilled.

By the time the creature hits the ground it’s nearly decapitated under the unrelenting assault of the Sonir claws.

“Why the fuck are Swoop Callers the size of shuttles!? What is going on!?” The Sonir demands. “You! Do you know something?”

“Only that they’re big enough to think we’re on the menu now.” Blazing Iron answers as he wipes some blood and feathers off his head before running his hands along his horns to de-gunk them a bit. He’s going to need a long shower after this, and he’s going to be smelling bird blood for a while afterwards.

There’s a loud and distinctive BANG as an Undaunted gets nearby enough to start shooting down the giant birds. Then a pause, then another bang. The second on causes one of the few birds that Blazing Iron can see to jerk and fall out of the air. He nods at the sight. Good. Therewas a hard metal response to the big pests. The Undaunted might be weird, but they get shit done fast.

“Is it safe to come out now?” The Sonir he saved asks.

“Give it a minute to be sure. They’ve only started shooting them out of the sky.”

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Bringer of Enemy Torment)•-•-•

Torment’s grip tightens on the chain she had grabbed as she tries to steer the monster. The creature has been fed some kind of feedback Axiom effect worked into it’s very presence. It was unnaturally huge, but wasn’t able to...

SCREEE!

It really doesn’t like her being on it’s back.

The Leaper slams into the ground and bounces off as if reality was made of rubber. Thankfully the Re-Entry Training and Zero-G training combined to give her a strong stomach and the knowledge on how to deal with gravity and momentum playing against her.

The creature thrashes as they go down but she has her grip slack enough to allow for play. It tenses up again as they reach the bottom and she hardens her grip and stays on even as it hits the ground and launches off again in the same moment.

This creature has so much bounce in it’s step that they may very well land on some of the shorter skyscrapers, and if that happens they’re likely to hit a blimp.

She closes her hood to not be so rattled around. Sure, it makes her visible, but she’s trying to wrangle a dangerous animal. Trying to help this city. If there’s any situation where being seen is permissible, then it’s here.

It thrashes to try and shake her as she tries to steer it out of the city, despite the danger it presents, she’s not eager to kill this thing. It’s just an animal, a pawn in someone else’s game. Twisted and transformed against it’s will into a threat.

She can somewhat relate.

“HEY! You need help killing it!?” A voice asks and her head turns to see a young Tret steering a police cruiser. He’s on speaker.

“It’s just an animal! It... It doesn’t mean to hurt people!” She calls back even as the Leaper thrashes and then goes still as it prepares itself to land on top of a skyscraper. “Oh shit!”

It springs off the top of the building and launches itself higher and higher than before. Her training had never even entertained the idea of taking control of a wild animal to ride. Let alone one in a panic. She needs to take control. Force it to understand that she’s in charge. Otherwise it’s going to kill itself and injure her. Neither is something she’s willing to let it do.

She locks her legs under it’s forelimbs and digs in her heels even as she gives out an authoritative hiss and pulls at the Axiom. Bringing them together and forcing the creature to feel what she feels.

It’s head turns to face her and she stares it right in the eyes as she feels the barely there workings of it’s mind with her own. Then she nods forward and the creature turns to face forward, tenses up, and then bounces off the side of the blimp without causing any damage.

“There we go!” She exclaims as The Leaper accepts her control. “Sisters! The animals can be controlled! Use Axiom to speak with their instincts! Work with them! Guide them out and away from the city! Bring them to where it is safe for all!”

“Commander! Something is emerging from the Eastern Wall of the Cavern!” Her communicator rings out at the same time the police vehicle that was close by suddenly rockets away.

She and her leaper descend below the level of the blimps and she can see what looks to be a small star emerging from the cavern wall to slither out as a colossal serpent.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Monee Toyaren, Great Hill Supplanter)•-•-•

Hill is outright growling as he races his vehicle and starts making the call. “City defence cannon! WE need you to turn to the east as far as you can go! Someone has managed to drop a Lav...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Klokinator on 2025-06-29 19:56:55+00:00.

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...................................

(Previous Part)

(Part 001)

Far-Future Era. Day 3, AJR. Sharmur, in the mountains west of Melodia.

Beelzebub and Buddha stood next to the edge of a cliff, perhaps twenty feet separating them from a thousand-foot plunge to the bottom of the ravine. However, there was still the entire flat side of the mountain-top in the other direction up to the tree-line, so their designated battle arena had plenty of room to maneuver.

Buddha slapped his chest. The T-REX hidden beneath his black long-sleeved shirt sprang to life and started coating his body with advanced nanite armor. This was the most advanced T-REX Phoebe had made before her death, and the only one she would ever make again. Beelzebub didn't make a move, but instead watched as the nanites covered the man's body.

"Those nanites won't save you if I get serious." Beelzebub said calmly. "Do you have the slightest idea how powerful I am?"

Buddha smiled as the nanites climbed up his head and formed a faceless helmet, swallowing his mouth, eyes, and nose. "Admittedly, if you were to attack me with lethal force, I would die. But remember, all you have to do is knock me to the ground. That is your one goal. Do not hold back in achieving this purpose."

Beelzebub snorted. He couldn't possibly take this fight seriously. A mere mortal human had no chance of beating him in a serious fight.

But a spar? It might be a little fun. At least it would be fun to show this 'Buddha' how big the difference was between himself and the strongest demon in the mortal realm.

Without warning, Beelzebub detonated a flame behind himself and launched forward, sweeping a palm at Buddha's chest. With one ruthless strike, he intended to slam the human into the ground and teach him the difference between the sky and the mud!

Buddha sidestepped. His hand swept upward, and he simultaneously swatted Beelzebub's arm aside while also jumping backward with his left leg and kicking Beelzebub's ribs with his right.

"???"

Beelzebub let out a strange cry of surprise before finding his entire momentum thrown off. Buddha kicked him to the side with enough force to launch him off the edge of the cliff. Beelzebub let out a muffled yelp before hurtling to the bottom of the ravine below. A second later, he ignited flames beneath his feet, reversed his momentum, and flew back up to the top of the cliff.

When he landed, his cool and cocky smile was gone. He felt a little humiliated by the fact that his attack was seen through and neutralized in so decisive a fashion.

And by a mere human at that!

"Apologies." Buddha said smilingly beneath his helmet. "I didn't realize your footwork was so shoddy."

"You!" Beelzebub snapped.

He launched himself at Buddha again in a fit of rage. He still held back his power, not wanting to accidentally kill the human, but right when he drew within range, he detonated a shockwave of flame around his body, aiming to pummel Buddha into the ground without giving him a chance to grab and retaliate.

The shockwave struck Buddha, but he had already firmly planted his feet at just the right angle. When the shockwave slammed into him, it merely pressed his armored boots several inches into the dirt while also clearing away all the random plants and vegetation in the area within thirty meters.

Beelzebub's eyes flashed with shock, but never did he expect that Buddha would then use the shockwave's pressure to coil power into his knees before jumping directly at Beelzebub.

"???" Beelzebub let out another strangled cry of surprise as the lowly human pounced at him with a fist raised.

Thwack!

Buddha punched Beelzebub in the side of his head with the full strength of the T-REX, shattering the side of Beelzebub's jaw, breaking off multiple teeth, and punting him down into the dirt. Beelzebub struck the ground and dragged along it for over twenty feet, digging a shallow ditch with the side of his face. Naturally, he had received far worse blows hundreds of times, so his face regenerated almost immediately, but it was still a humiliating loss!

"Urgh! You spawn of a broodmother!" Beelzebub groaned as he jumped back up to his feet and spit bloody teeth all over the dirt. "You're really starting to piss me off!"

Buddha had already landed on his feet. He took a three-legged stance, with his left palm pressing against the ground and his right hand balled into a fist.

"Hoho..." Buddha chuckled mirthlessly. "Already, thirty seconds have passed, yet the great Beelzebub has failed to knock this lowly mortal human into the dirt. What a stain on your great name this must be, eh?"

"Shut up!!" Beelzebub roared. He decided to punch several fireballs at the human, setting them to low heat and power but with high concussive force. Even if he was pissed, he really didn't want to kill the human by accident, so he continued to focus on tactics that would knock him down and wear him out.

Those fireballs flew at Buddha with frightening speed, but the ancient Reincarnator didn't seem perturbed. He darted to the right, then to the left, then to the right again while explosions detonated behind him, to his side, and even in the dirt in front of him. Some of those explosions knocked him around a little, but not once did they throw him further than a foot or two. Beelzebub felt secretly shocked at how ineffective these fireballs were. How the hell was Buddha still standing?

Unbeknownst to Beelzebub, Buddha wasn't only dodging from side to side. He also slowly moved forward, carefully closing the gap between himself and his much more powerful adversary. At the right moment, when he noticed a gap between two of Beelzebub's fireballs, he lunged forward, stomping against the ground as he made a mad dash directly at Beelzebub's chest!

Beelzebub didn't even have time to react. Buddha tackled him to the ground and drove the wind out of Beelzebub's lungs before quickly jumping backward and making distance. Beelzebub recovered almost instantly, but he was even more pissed than before.

"Lucifer's tits! You know I'm taking it easy on you, right?!" Beelzebub snapped. "If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead a thousand times! Don't mistake my mercy for weakness!"

"I never said I did." Buddha said calmly. "You are correct. If you seriously wanted me dead, I would be dead. Thank you for adhering to the spirit of the match."

Beelzebub frowned. Buddha's 'apology' seemed to slap him across his face, making him feel a little ashamed. Wasn't it beneath him to brag about his strength to a mere human?!

His mind moved quickly. He gazed at Buddha, who had assumed a defensive stance once again.

If this takes me any longer, I'm going to eternally be unable to look myself in the mirror. How do I knock him flat on his ass in the shortest time possible?

An instant later, Beelzebub snapped his palm forward. A bolt of lightning fired directly at Buddha, but the man tossed a rock in front of himself while dodging to the right. That rock redirected the lightning just enough that it arced off to the side and slammed into the forest behind himself, lightning a fire. Buddha, however, was unharmed.

"You saw through my lightning?!" Beelzebub exclaimed in bewilderment.

"No. But your movements are sloppy, basic, and predictable." Buddha said, never taking his eyes off his opponent. "You have no combat sense. You haven't even yet determined what our spar is all about. You are as arrogant as ever, thinking in the back of your mind that you should win purely based on the strength of your magic. You're so used to fighting lethal battles where you throw your exploding body at your opponent that you cannot wrap your head around a battle where the intricacy of your movements will determine victory alone."

Beelzebub flinched. Buddha's words were somewhat rude, but... when Beelzebub thought about it, the man had a point...

It might seem as though Buddha was handily handing Beelzebub his ass, but the ancient Hero knew far better than his opponent that an instant of inattentiveness would cost him his life. Despite his theatrics and provocative words, Buddha was taking Beelzebub as seriously as possible. He controlled his breathing underneath his helmet, but he also kept himself ready for many of the deadlier abilities in Beelzebub's arsenal.

"The intricacy of my movements...?" Beelzebub asked. "What does that even mean?"

"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction." Buddha explained calmly. "You reap what you sow. This is called Karma. When you extend your right arm to fire a bolt of li...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Spartawolf on 2025-06-29 17:59:12+00:00.

First/Previous

“Okay, Jack, would you like to say that again?” Sephy grinned as she pulled out her commlink to take a video of him.

“What?” Jack asked confusedly as the others began laughing at his expense. 

Upon arriving home, the group had formed a loose circle around the collection of small tables they had pushed together in their living room, which were now mostly buried beneath an avalanche of takeaway boxes they had ordered. The others in the household were busy doing other things, leaving the group on their own to enjoy some food. The conversation eventually turned to how to further fix up their scrapped-together shuttle. 

With Jack having a few…inspired suggestions. 

“Oh come on!” Alora laughed. “You were talking about some of your bright ideas for the shuttle?”

“Yeah…?” Jack asked hesitantly, eyes narrowing.

“What exactly did you say we should attach to the bottom?” Sephy giggled, looking at Jack like he’d proposed growing a second head.

“A huge cannon…” He replied tersely as the others tried in vain to hold their laughter at the ridiculousness of the suggestion. “We can have the shuttle flying over us on overwatch, and we can throw a beacon or something for the shuttle to shoot an explosive payload over a specific location if we’re on the ground, or simply shoot it while we’re up in the sky!”

“Jack, there are so many things wrong with that idea!” Nika snorted. “First of all, where the fuck are we going to get an insanely expensive gun of that callibur in the first place? Second, how would we even fit it on the bottom of the shuttle? Thirdly, if we can fit it on the bottom of the shuttle, how the fuck do we even get the thing flying? The weight would sink us! 

“It’s still a good idea!” Jack argued stubbornly, thoroughly annoyed now. “Think about it! If we get ambushed we can just blow them up!”

“And ourselves in the process!” Alora added.

“Only if we fuck it up!” Jack argued desperately. “Stratagems could work! Having a shitload of bombs we can drop or some kind of huge cannon would really help us out! We can totally fit something like that on!”

“Where the hell would we even get the bombs from?” Sephy asked exasperated. 

“I don’t know! We make them or something?” Jack shrugged. “Lt Xcratho taught us how to make Thermite in Chemistry! Pretty sure I still have the notes!”

“Okay, fair enough, that was a useful lesson.” Nika conceded. “But there’s no way can we drop thermite from up high reliably. Using it during a Run might work, but only if we apply it effectively ourselves.”

“Like making a hole, cracking open a safe or fucking something really expensive up!” Sephy grinned at the imagination. “But no. We can buy grenades, but getting anything bigger that’s also worthwhile would be difficult if not impossible. Not to mention way above our budget!”

“So no insane weapons attached to the shuttle,” Alora finally concluded. “Any other ideas?”

“Okay, hear me out…” Jack began as he gave an inspired grin. 

“Oh?” Alora raised her eyeridges, thoroughly skeptical. 

“What about a Killdozer…?.”

******

“On a completely unrelated note, what is this food? It’s really good!” Jack exclaimed, very keen at this point to change the topic. He wasn’t lying though. The curry-like food they’d ordered wasn’t particularly spicy by human standards, but it had some kind of sweet, deep aroma to it that made the tender vegetables unbelievably tasty when paired with the mashed fruit that came with it, which was fluffier than rice but still went down the hatch well enough. 

It’s Kyoken, Chiyo answered, the Ilithii having been quieter than usual on the way back to the house, clearly distracted by something. 

‘Well I’m not an idiot.’ He thought. ‘Something’s clearly up with Chiyo, and I have a suspicion I know what it’s about…’

Considering the topic, he figured he’d give her space before bringing it up discreetly later. 

Now clearly wasn’t a good time.

“Well, it tastes good!” Jack grinned. “Definitely a curry of some kind, but nothing like the Indian stuff we used to get at home.”

“It’s hard to make the sauce.” Alora smiled. “But I’m glad you enjoy it!”

Makes a change from pizza at least, Chiyo quietly ‘spoke’ up, slowly picking at her bowl.

“Hey, plenty of choices at the Cathedral.” Sephy gently whispered to Chiyo. “Enough time to clear your head on the way too.”

I’ll be fine, the Ilithii tersely replied. 

“If you say so…” Jack sighed, avoiding the temptation to pry. 

“So what do we wanna bring for the trip?” Nika asked everyone as the conversation died down. 

“It’s not like it’s a Run,” Alora pointed out. “But we do have some bounties on us. We can just go casual but armed, just in case.”

Battleskins may still be a good idea, Chiyo cautioned as she took a larger spoonful of the curry, clearly enjoying the meal despite her mood. Armour too. 

“Uh, I don’t disagree,” Jack began. “But they’re hard to take off, and we’re going to a place that apparently serves lots of alcohol…”

“Yes?” Alora asked.

“What about when we need to pee?” he asked, just wanting to put it out there.

“Jack!” Alora sighed, putting her head in her hands.

“I mean, we could just take them off when we get there?” Sephy shrugged. “Most weapons are restricted anyway so they have storage facilities.”

“I think that’s the best solution,” Alora agreed. “But no armor when we’re not on a job. Helps keep our identities murky.”

“Is it safe to drop our guard over there?” Jack asked. 

“Definitely.” Nika nodded. “It gets loads of funding and it’s one of the most popular party destinations around, so the security is top notch, and the Clerics of Dilanna have a sworn duty to keep the party going and keep the party goers happy throughout so they can come again!”

Though the journey guarantees none of that. Chiyo warned. 

“Quite true,” Alora agreed, giving the Ilithii a quick glance of worry. 

“We don't need to gear up too much,” Nika noted. “I’ll leave my sniper rifle behind, and we also don’t need as much outdoor gear for a well-travelled route.”

“We can buy stuff in a pinch anyway.” Sephy shrugged. “I’ll pack one drone to use for overwatch when we get out of the city.”

“I think I might as well leave the blunderbuss-thingy behind, but I’ll take one of the bows,” Jack reasoned, referencing the stack of them the group had claimed from their somewhat recent harrowing Run to the Shrine of Elphil. “I’m pretty sure someone mentioned hunting wild game in the wilderness and I suspect you can’t do that with a plasma rifle.”

“True, it’s not the best kind of cooked meat you can have.” Nika admitted with a chuckle.

It may be useful to practice with it for future stealth missions. Chiyo reasoned. A bow is silent and doesn’t produce any light after all. 

“True, but you would need to aim and target well for that to work,” Alora pointed out. “A non-lethal hit and they raise the alarm.”

“What about using magic of some kind?” Jack spoke up. “Like what Svaartal does with those glass knives he can launch? Maybe we can use some kind of silencing spell or something on the arrow?”

“Maybe…” Alora nodded thoughtfully. “Though none of us are mages. And the ones we know probably can’t manage something like that.”

“At least the mages we can trust,” Nika pointed out. 

“What about that other idea you mentioned, Jack?” Sephy asked. “That thing you’ve been trying to make with the the fabricator? Some kind of kinetic weapon, right? Didn’t you say it was from some kind of human game you once played?”

“Yeah!” Jack perked up excitedly. “I think we can do it! Basically it’s like an air rifle that works with a pneumatic pump that can fire ball bearings! You just have to pump it full of air between every few shots!”

And this was from a game? Chiyo asked skeptically. 

“Yeah, from the Metro series!” Jack grinned. “Great for a stealth run!”

“I mean, it could work…” Sephy shrugged, looking to Jack. “You can summon ball bearings with your gauntlets, right?” 

“Yup!” Jack grinned, quickly making some appear in his palm with the Clan Bharzum sigil etched in every one of them. 

“Are you able to share them with the rest of us?” Alora asked thoughtfully. “I know proximity can be an issue with some of the other things you can summon.”

When we were robbing the Shaskasaki warehouse, we did have to separate over long distances, Chiyo pointed out. And that’s not to mention the potential firing range of the weapon…

“Then we add that to the list of things we need to field test.” Nika shrugged. “Assuming the concept works in reality and you’re able to make it of course.”

“Yeah.” Jack admitted. “I’m no Colin Furze, but I might be able to pull it off with a bit of trial and error. At the moment, I’m focusing on making the stock and barrel, but that’s the easy part. No idea how to make the action for it - that’s the super complicated part.”

Well at least you have time to research it during the holidays! Chiyo added.

“Really, Chiyo?!” Sephy snorted as she rolled her eyes. “Why do you always have to suggest doing nerd shit? Come on, you need to switch off once in a while, especially tonight!”

I suppose you’re not wrong. Chiyo let out a sad smile. 

“Ah don’t worry.” Sephy sighed, playfully ruffling the Ilithii’s hair. “A trip to the damn Cathedral of Merriment? We’ll make a party girl out of you yet!” 

Can’t wait. Chiyo deadp...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/sjanevardsson on 2025-06-29 16:51:51+00:00.

What defines a person as human? Perhaps better, what defines a human as a person? How are human persons different from those around her? Grag thought about those questions often, and when she did, she felt a longing for a life she never had.

By DNA, she was human through and through. By culture, upbringing, and language, though, she was an ortian. By family, she had none, really. No blood relatives, and even the “adoptive” family in which she was raised treated her more as an experiment than a family member. Except for the youngest.

“What are you thinking about, Grag?” Arien put two arms around her and settled back on his tail.

“Deep thoughts, Ari, deep thoughts.” She chuckled. “You know I used to feed you.”

“But you don’t have—” Arien began.

“A crop pouch, I know.” Grag brushed the fur on Arien’s face. “I used to chew up your food and spit it into your mouth.”

“Why didn’t matriarch…?”

“Your sire died just before you hatched. Not sure, but I think your matriarch had a difficult time adjusting.” She knew why the researcher was absent. It had everything to do with work and nothing to do with the loss of a mate she’d considered sub-par.

“Is that why matriarch spent so much time at the lab?” he asked.

“I’m sure of it,” Grag lied.

“Tell me again how matriarch made you,” Arien said.

“Aren’t you too old for stories?”

“Maybe, but I like it when you tell them.”

“And why that story?” Grag asked.

“Because it’s you, and you’re my favorite housemate.”

Grag recounted the story. “When ortians first got hold of the human genome, they studied it. With time, more samples were made available, and more of the genome was mapped, including the non-protein coding regions.

At some point, they decided that studying the genome would get them no further. Instead, they averaged out the available human genomes, and created a batch of new, identical humans from scratch-made, custom DNA. They considered the job trivial, and the resulting children a curiosity to study, until the lead researcher — that’s matriarch — named one and took her home, saving her from being destroyed with the other dozen infants as “possible contaminants” shortly after.

“I grew up with that researcher’s children, though I grew and matured faster than they did. My creation was never hidden from me, even while matriarch was on trial for stealing property of the government. As a child, I was even allowed to testify on matriarch’s behalf. The sight of me speaking the common language resulted in giggles and titters from the crowds in the galley.

“One thing that I’ve always had a talent for was language. Aside from the common language, I also learned Galactic Standard, terzian common, and yelicoan official.

“Matriarch gave me a pair of artificial arms that fit below my real arms with a neural implant to control them, but I no longer wear them. I’m a human, and humans only have two arms. I closed the gate on it years ago, while you were still small. As frustrating as it is to operate ortian machinery with only two hands and no heavy tail to balance, operating two extra arms built with no thought to my comfort or balance is worse.

“Finally, one day, I moved into my own dwelling, and little Arien, now taller than me, decided he’d move in and be a pain in my armpits. The end.”

Arien made a grunting noise from his crop, the ortian equivalent of a raspberry. “You just like to tease me. But—”

“But what?”

“Am I really a pain in the armpits?”

“No, you’re not.” Grag blew out a deep breath. “In truth, I’m glad you’re here. At least you might understand a little.”

“Understand what?”

“Ever since the humans discovered the probe, I’ve been having these thoughts,” she said. “Questions with no answers and no good reason for asking.”

Arien pushed himself a little forward with his tail. “What kind of questions?”

“What would my life have been like if I’d been born like a normal human? What is it like to have a human family? Would a human matriarch have raised me differently?” She patted his upper hand. “Things like that.”

He turned his head nearly 180 degrees to look directly in her eyes. “Do you wonder if the humans will accept you when you meet them?”

“I do,” she said, “even though it’ll never happen.”

“You can’t say that. You don’t know.”

“I do know.” She waved her hands in a complicated series of gestures that would be two simple, three-handed gestures for an ortian. A display lit on the wall. “I’ve calculated how long it will take them to reach us with their technology. It’s around a thousand of their lifetimes.”

Arien sat bolt upright, his four compound eyes locked on Grag’s. “You didn’t hear? Matriarch didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what? We haven’t spoken in more than four orbits.”

“This,” he said, making a couple gestures to change the display. It was a news clip showing the arrival of an odd-looking ship in orbit around their planet.

“What is that?”

“The humans took the probe apart, figured out the slipspace communications, and somehow built a ship that uses the same technology to travel.” Ariel grabbed her near hand between all four of his. “The humans are here.”

“I thought slipspace was unstable for anything other than massless particles like photons. That’s why we spend all the energy to create a wormhole.”

Ariel laughed. “The humans proved us wrong. Two orbits after they found the probe, rather than the hundred-twenty it took us to go from slipspace communications to wormhole technology.”

“Can I get access to the human information now … or is matriarch still blocking me?” she asked.

All four of Ariels shoulders dropped and he pointed is gaze at the floor. “I don’t understand her. She was ordered to give you full access so you can learn their common language, and you’re meant to report to the Security Division three suns from now for briefing.”

“I wonder what they’re like,” Grag said. “I wonder if they’ll accept me as one of them.”

“If they do?” Arien asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Would you go back to their planet with them?”

Grag thought about those questions again. There was no way she could get the childhood and early life she’d longed for, but maybe the rest of her life could be different.

She looked at Arien. “I don’t know. Maybe. I might. If I do, you’re the only housemate I’ll miss. Hell, you’re the only ortian I’ll miss.”

prompt: Center your story around a character who yearns for someone or something they’ve lost — or never had.

originally posted at Reedsy

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/ProfessorConcord on 2025-06-29 16:49:29+00:00.

(First) (Previous) (Next)

We gathered outside on the wide grassy courtyard that stretched out behind the Spire — a vast, carefully maintained field large enough to accommodate hundreds of vehicles if pressed. Today it stood empty, an open canvas of green under the pale afternoon sun.

No one really knew what to expect. We had no idea what kind of vessel the Precursors might bring down — how large it would be, what shape it would take, or what kind of power it might radiate. The only thing we could be sure of was that this field offered the best chance to give them plenty of space, minimizing the risk of damage or panic.

I stood there beside the Lord Minister and Commander Versis, clutching my notes and trying to keep my tail from twitching. The breeze stirred lightly across the courtyard, ruffling our fur and carrying with it the faint smell of cut grass and distant machinery.

It was a strangely serene stage for what might be the most important meeting in the history of our species.

The waiting was the worst part. There was nothing to do but stand there, surrounded by tense officials and stone-faced soldiers, while time crawled forward at an agonizing pace. Every tick of the portable clocks seemed to echo against the inside of my skull, stretching each second into something uncomfortably close to eternity.

Left to my own thoughts, my mind wandered — unhelpfully — through every scholarly debate and half-formed theory I’d ever entertained about the Precursors. How accurate were our interpretations? We’d reconstructed so much from fragments — bones, broken murals, faded inscriptions. Entire generations of experts, myself included, had devoted their lives to piecing together who the Precursors were, what they valued, how they might have lived.

But all of it was guesswork.

There were still heated arguments over whether they were truly hairy or largely bare-skinned. Some of the most recent skeletal studies suggested they weren’t fully furred like existing primates — their dermal impressions lacked the dense follicles that characterized most mammals. And then there were the statues, unearthed from collapsed halls and old civic centers, depicting smooth skin with only localized patches of hair. A few scholars insisted these might have been artistic conventions, or that the Precursors shaved for aesthetic or cultural reasons, much like certain Renai communities still did.

I would have to curb my expectations. For all my carefully cataloged research, for all our collective academic confidence, the beings descending from orbit could look nothing like we imagined. They could be stranger. Or, somehow, heartbreakingly familiar.

Either way, in mere moments, I would finally know.

The first sign was the sound.

A low, electric buzzing swept over the courtyard — faint at first, like the distant hum of power lines. But it grew steadily, intensifying until it felt as though the very air was vibrating against my chest. My fur stood on end in rippling waves. Around me, I noticed others shifting uncomfortably, ears twitching, tails curling tight.

Then I spotted it.

A shape appeared on the horizon — a tiny, dark speck against the pale sky. It moved with unnerving precision, growing steadily larger as it approached, its outline sharpening with every breath I took.

By the time it fully cleared the distant buildings, I could make out its form: a sleek, triangular craft, its entire surface cloaked in a glossy black that caught and fractured the sunlight into faint, spectral glimmers. Across its hull ran a network of faintly indented hexagonal patterns, giving it the subtle look of interlocking scales or a honeycomb.

It was vaguely reminiscent of some of our own aircraft — but only in the loosest sense, like comparing a crude children’s glider to a master-crafted machine. There were no visible propellers, no roaring engines, no trailing heat signatures. Whatever propulsion it used was beyond anything I could identify, or perhaps even comprehend.

And it was descending. Toward us.

Everyone seemed to hold their breath at the sight.

Even the wind seemed to still as that impossibly advanced craft glided closer, casting a subtle shadow across the courtyard. I could almost feel the collective shiver ripple through the assembled officials, soldiers, and aides. Some of them still looked as if they were trying to convince themselves this was some elaborate hoax — a misinterpretation, a cruel trick of foreign adversaries or internal propaganda.

But the illusion was shattering by the second.

There was simply no denying what hovered there in the sky. The sheer elegance of its design, the seamless black hull marked by faint hexagonal tessellations, the silent, almost predatory grace with which it maneuvered — it was beyond anything we could produce with our factories, let alone imagine drafting on a blueprint.

And soon, it would be landing. Its occupants would emerge. Living Precursors — humans. Not statues, not bones, not silent records etched on decaying walls. Flesh and thought and purpose.

I could only hope we would have the courage — and composure — to meet them without letting our fear destroy what could be our first fragile bridge to them.

The ship was enormous — easily the size of a large house, if not larger. Its looming shape seemed to swallow up the sky above the courtyard, casting long shadows that danced across the grass as it adjusted position.

Unlike any aircraft I’d ever seen, it didn’t rely on a runway or any kind of visible braking. Instead, it simply decelerated in midair, slowing with uncanny smoothness until it came to a dead hover directly over the center of the field. The buzzing that had filled the air shifted pitch, deepening into a resonant hum that I could feel vibrating in my ribs.

Then, with deliberate precision, it began to descend.

As it lowered, three sturdy legs extended from compartments along its underside — gleaming struts that locked into place with mechanical finality. The ship settled onto them with a muted thud, compressing the grass beneath. A sharp hiss followed, as if it were exhaling some final measure of stored pressure, sending tiny ripples through the field.

I realized I was gripping my notes so tightly my claws dented the paper. Beside me, even Commander Versis seemed rigid, his usually composed expression etched with raw apprehension.

It was here. Truly here.

A moment passed. Then another. The courtyard seemed to hold its breath along with us, the only sound the faint rustle of wind through the grass.

At last, there came another hiss — sharper this time, like a seal breaking. The underside of the ship began to split open at an agonizingly slow pace, mechanical seams parting to reveal a yawning interior flooded with cold, white light. A ramp extended from within, unfolding in segments that locked together with heavy metallic clicks until it finally touched down on the grass.

From where we stood, I could see little more than brilliance and swirling fog inside — some kind of vapor or artificial atmosphere that clung to the edges of the ramp. My fur bristled instinctively, ears angling forward to catch every sound.

Then I heard it: a deep, resonant clang of something heavy stepping onto metal. Another. And another. Each one measured, deliberate, echoing faintly off the ship’s hull.

A large shadow moved within the haze, distorted by the light. Broad-shouldered, towering, unmistakably upright. My breath hitched in my throat. Every rational part of me tried to catalogue details — posture, limb length, gait — but my thoughts were scrambled by the sheer, primal awareness that something impossibly ancient, impossibly alien, was about to step out to meet us. 

My heart began hammering so violently I half-expected those around me to hear it. I clutched my papers tight to my chest, claws pressing creases into the pages, fighting back the involuntary shiver that threatened to run down my spine.

Then it stepped out.

Through the swirling mist emerged a towering figure — easily six feet tall, shoulders broad and posture upright in a way that was both eerily familiar and profoundly unsettling. It was clad head-to-toe in a strange suit of gleaming silver, the material layered and slightly bulky, with ridges and seams that suggested pressure seals or protective reinforcement.

A helmet covered its head entirely, its visor a dark, reflective surface that swallowed the light and offered no hint of what lay beneath. I couldn’t see eyes, or even the suggestion of a mouth — just a blank, polished expanse that turned slowly as it surveyed the courtyard.

But despite the obscuring garb, there was no mistaking what stood there.

A Precursor. A human.

Every academic theory, every scrap of reconstructed anatomy, every cautious museum diorama — they all collapsed under the weight of this singular, living proof. And for just a heartbeat, my thoughts were strangely quiet, replaced by a primal certainty that I was witnessing the impossible made real.

Watching it walk was almost dreamlike — or perhaps more accurately, nightmarishly unreal. The human moved slowly down the ramp, each step deliberate and balanced on long, plantigrade legs. Its boots pressed faint imprints into the metal as it descended, until at last they reached the grass and soil, standing perhaps twenty feet from where...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/ProfessorConcord on 2025-06-29 16:49:05+00:00.

Earth is a world layered in deep, ancient history.

Millions of years ago, a race of primates descended from the trees and rose to become the planet’s first sentient species. They shaped the world to their will—no longer mere animals, but architects of civilization.

Then, in a cataclysm lost to time, they vanished.

Only scattered remnants of their greatness remained—silent ruins, forgotten machines, fractured languages etched in stone. For ages, these fragments lay buried beneath the soil… until a second sentient species emerged to walk the Earth.

The Renai.

They uncovered the echoes of those who came before—and used them to build a future of their own.

But the first ones were not gone.

Not entirely.

This is the story of their return.

This is the story of the Wayfinder.

(First) (Previous) (Next)

Memory Log – Subject: Moonoke Wokia

Occupation: Renai Archaeologist and Linguist

Date [Standardized Human Time]: August 18, 48,000,018

The car ride lasted nearly three hours. We passed sprawling farmlands, industrial corridors, and long stretches of forest broken only by the occasional checkpoint or telegraph line. By the time the horizon finally gave way to the towering skyline of the capital, my nerves had shifted from anxious to numb.

There was no mistaking the Spire. It rose like a blade of stone and steel above the rest of the city—a monument to ideals that, depending on who you asked, were either noble or naïve. To the patriotic, it was a beacon of freedom and liberation—built in defiance of the old West Cogin Empire, a shining symbol of the Republic’s break from tyranny. At least, that’s how the nationalist rhetoric went.

To me, it was just a very tall building with very powerful antennas. Second most powerful radio tower on this side of the continent, in fact, which was useful when communicating over long distances.

I’d visited many corners of the supercontinent over the years—crossed the Great Divide, studied ruins in foreign territories, spoken with scholars and farmers alike. And the more I traveled, the more clearly I saw it: my homeland wasn’t the utopia it claimed to be. Yes, we opposed slavery and the grotesque eugenics programs gaining popularity in the western states. That was something. But ideals like freedom and equality… they rang hollow when held up to the light.

In practice, they were conditional—loyalties bought and sold, opportunities hoarded by the powerful. Literacy remained a luxury. Education, a privilege. Fewer than half our population could read or write, and those that could often did so at the mercy of corrupt bureaucrats or local councils more interested in preserving control than cultivating minds.

But I digress.

I wasn’t here to debate political ideals or dissect the flaws of our institutions. I had been summoned for a far greater purpose—one that would have sounded like pure fantasy just hours ago. I was here to establish contact with an ancient, advanced species that had once ruled this planet. The Precursors. Humans. And if all went well… to help lay the foundation for peaceful relations between our kinds.

Though my expression remained composed, my nerves coiled tightly beneath the surface. To say I was nervous would be a laughable understatement. The situation was fragile—history balanced on the edge of a blade. One misstep, one poorly chosen word, could collapse everything.

This was no academic exercise. This was first contact. And the stakes could not have been higher. 

That they were far more advanced than us was beyond dispute. Most of our own technological leaps—electric engines, composite alloys, even rudimentary computing—were made possible only because of what the Precursors left behind. We were living in the echo of their golden age. Compared to them, we were children playing with the bones of giants.

If it ever came to war… it would be a cataclysm. One we would not survive.

I could only hope it would never come to that.

The fact that they had reached out in peace, despite the reality that we now lived on the ruins of their old world—despite how primitive we must seem to them—was a hopeful sign. It suggested patience. Perhaps even empathy.

But I couldn’t afford to let my optimism blind me. Archaeological records were clear on one thing: the Precursors, for all their brilliance, could be extremely violent when provoked. Conflicts between their nations had left scars that still marked the earth to this day—entire cities turned to ash, chemical traces buried in soil layers, ruins melted by heat we still didn’t understand.

I would need to be careful. Very careful.

The vehicle came to a sudden stop, jolting me forward in my seat. Before I could collect my thoughts, the door swung open and I was ushered out by a pair of soldiers. They moved with purpose, flanking me on either side as we crossed the paved plaza and entered the towering structure of the Spire.

Inside, the air was thick with tension.

The Capitol was a flurry of movement—uniformed personnel moving in tight formations, weapons being checked and distributed, radios crackling with clipped orders. The corridors echoed with bootsteps and low, urgent voices. It looked less like a center for diplomacy and more like the staging ground for a military campaign.

So much for a peaceful reception, I thought grimly.

Commander Versis remained close at my side, walking in step as we moved deeper into the building. His presence was steadying, even if everything else wasn’t.

“Mind if I ask you something, Doctor?” he said, his tone more casual now—almost conversational.

“You’re free to,” I replied, a bit more flatly than I intended. The tension must’ve been bleeding into my voice. Still, if he took offense, he didn’t show it.

“If it came to war with these beings,” he asked quietly, “what would the likelihood of our species’ survival be?”

I glanced at him, catching a rare glimpse of vulnerability beneath his otherwise composed exterior. His posture remained rigid, his expression neutral—but there was something in his eyes. A tension. A question he already feared the answer to.

And he was right to fear it.

“I don’t think you’re going to like my answer, General,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “But if I had to give an honest assessment… our chances would be very poor.”

He said nothing, but I could feel his silence deepen.

“We’re talking about a civilization that left us behind millions of years ago,” I continued. “All of our modern technology—our engines, our radios, even basic metallurgy—exists only because of what they left behind. We’ve been playing catch-up without even realizing it. And while we’ve been crawling toward the edge of our own orbit, they’ve had millennia to advance further into space.”

I hesitated, then added, “And that’s just their technology.”

He turned his head slightly, listening more closely now.

“Physically, they’re stronger, more durable, and significantly larger. Six feet tall on average—double our height. Thicker bones, stronger muscle mass, and from what remains we’ve studied… a far greater tolerance for environmental extremes. The only area where we might outrun them is, well—literally outrunning them. But even that’s hardly an advantage in a war.”

I didn’t need to say it aloud. The image spoke for itself: facing beings from the stars, armed with knowledge we didn’t understand, strength we couldn’t match, and a history we had only guessed at.

Versis gave a slow, deliberate nod. “Then I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

The rest of the walk passed in silence.

No one spoke—not Versis, not the soldiers flanking us. There was nothing more to say, and too much already weighing on our minds. Eventually, we reached a large steel-reinforced door guarded by another pair of soldiers. It slid open with a hiss, revealing a room buzzing with activity.

It was chaos.

The air was thick with the smell of ozone and ink. Machinery lined the walls—bulky radio banks, humming signal analyzers, and projection equipment that looked cobbled together from both modern and salvaged parts. Wires crisscrossed the floor like veins, and scattered papers covered every surface. Scientists, engineers, and politicians argued in clusters, voices clashing over jargon, strategy, and bureaucratic panic.

And then I saw him.

At the center of the room, seated at a cluttered table stacked with documents and half-drunk mugs of stim brew, was a figure I recognized instantly—Lord Minister Carvas Tinas. His face, known from endless posters and propaganda, had aged more than the images let on. What had once been a strong shade of brown fur was now dulled to a slate gray, and the trademark confident expression he wore in public broadcasts was nowhere to be found.

Here, he looked small. Tired. His hands were clasped together, knuckles pale, trembling ever so slightly.

As Versis and I entered, his eyes snapped to us. Relief washed over his features like a tide. “Oh, thank Lonai,” he breathed, standing quickly. “I’m glad you’re here.”

He crossed the room in brisk, uneven strides and extended a hand to me.

“Doctor Wokia,” he said, gripping my paw with surprising urgency. “Thank you—truly—for coming. I trust Commander Versis has briefed you? We’re in desperate need of your expertise. This...

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