Karma swore she could taste the magic in the air. She knew there was no empirical reason to believe that such a thing was possible, but all the same arcane power of this concentration had always given her that impression. The way a sufficiently bright light may elicit pain, so too did sensing a certain amount of mystical energy turn into a flavour.

She encountered such volumes of magical might with considerable regularity. Gather any thousand mystics into a crowd, and anyone could sense the potential destruction bubbling away beneath their otherwise human appearances. Despite this, it was a rarity for even Karma to be confronted with such a vast ocean of power while knowing that the rivers responsible for supplying it came from only a handful of people.

Gather any two Immortals together and most crowds of a hundred would pale by comparison. Gather the Immortals with which Karma now shared a table and even the ludicrously populated stands of Bermuda’s stadium didn’t seem quite so magical.

This power, perhaps expectedly, came with no small amount of arrogance. Karma was a Paragon, and a powerful one at that. She could survive being shot in the face with a cannon at point-blank range, then pick up whoever fired it with one hand and throw him all the way over a small mountain. Despite this, she had spent the last hour being completely overlooked, and fighting to be heard for each individual word she spoke.

“The fact of the matter remains that there is a potentially life-threatening creature present in the Sieve’s contestants, which we were not warned of.”

Funke Balogun of Bârëi’s sharp, booming tone cut through the pristine room and reverberated from its smoothed walls with the tone of one speaking to a group of particularly stubborn children. The woman’s ebony skin was lined slightly, in the carefully calculated way many Immortals chose to simultaneously appear mature whilst remaining beautiful. Though with the fire in Balogun’s voice Karma would never have imagined her youth was only a mask.

This same fire was met with an equally intense wall of ice in the form of Professor Zilch. The fae looked rather sickly, the flesh of his bald head appearing pallid and almost exsanguinated. This was confounded by the sunkenness of his eyes, the almost skeletal thinness of his face. Had he been smiling it would surely have resembled a skull, but instead his expression was unreadable and emotionless, as was his voice.

“Lady Balogun, I understand you, more than most, have cause to be concerned.”

Zilch’s placidity was infuriating. Not on its own, but by merit of being sustained despite his knowingly and deliberately going out of his way to undermine Karma’s efforts. She felt the familiar, simmering anger build up in her core, quickly stifling it. This was neither the time nor the place. Instead of climbing across the table and smashing his face into it, she sat back and listened to what more he had to say.

“However the Sieve simply must continue, to interfere would be-

He was cut off by a scoff from Balogun, which was closely followed by yet another outburst.

“I did not travel to this shit hole of an island so I could sit around and do nothing while an Eclipse-forsaken BUTCHER is allowed to wreak havoc.”

Karma chose this moment to cut in and remind lady Balogun that she actually travelled to the shit hole of an island so she could verify first-hand whether her husband’s latest offspring of note was worth keeping alive. Unfortunately, she was interrupted by a raucous, booming voice from the far side of the table.

Dalikai Lesifarz leaned back in his stone seat while he spoke, a hearty grin plastered across his face and a mug of an unidentified but undoubtedly alcoholic beverage clasped firmly in one hand. His drink sloshed around slightly as he waved his arms around in exclamation, combining with his wild beard and unkempt, hazel hair to give him a very strong resemblance to a particularly jovial vagrant. Of course the clearly expensiveness of his clothing, and terrifying intensity of his power, made it quite impossible to truly mistake him for anything other than a relaxed Immortal.

“Miss Balogun, come now.” He spoke as if perpetually on the brink of a chuckle. “It is not our task to interrupt the action, in fact it is the opposite! You say this creature is dangerous? I say all the better show it will make!”

Karma began to explain that, as officially decreed by the Unixian Alliance, Butchers were considered a higher species and decidedly not categorised as creatures. Before she had managed to get halfway through her sentence, however, she was once again interrupted. This time it was the ever-heated Lady Balogun, who replied to Lesifarz as though he were the only one who had spoken.

“Oh yes, why didn’t I think of that? Watching Lord Dumare’s offspring be slaughtered like a pig, what fun!”

There wasn’t even a chance for Karma to try saying anything this time, as the crystalline voice of Lenona Sins rang out like a wind chime. All heads turned to the woman. Pale, blonde and blue-eyed, she was as much a Pangaean beauty as Karma herself was an Olympic one. Well, at least close. As such, Karma knew first hand that the beautiful were often unfairly assumed to be arrogant, self-absorbed and otherwise “prickly”. Sins would have been a perfect example of this, were it not for the fact that in her case it was anything but unfair.

“Oh please, don’t insult our intelligence by pretending you don’t hate the girl for crawling out of your “lover’s” latest whore.”

It may have been the candidness as a whole, or perhaps the specific intonation placed on the word whore. Whatever was responsible for setting Balogun off, Karma doubted very much that it was accidental. Such things rarely were when Immortals were concerned.

Though they were surrounded on all sides by walls thick and sturdy enough to withstand an artillery barrage, the room was suddenly assailed by a great wind. Karma felt her hair whip to one side, and a moment later was forced to physically grip her seat to remain in place against the supernatural gale.

She heard nothing, both for the roar of the moving air and the fact that no words were spoken. Balogun simply stood, and Sins simply joined her. The two Fables stared eye to eye from opposite sides of the five-metre table, and though neither made the conscious effort of attacking the other, there was a great magical pressure building between them. Cracks began to appear across the granite surface, the stone was rare and expensive, hewed from deep under the earth and tempered by millennia of pressure. It had not been tempered enough to avoid trembling under the weight of the conflict by which it was surrounded.

Amazingly, the remaining Immortals barely seemed bothered by the display. Lesifarz was unique in appearing somewhat amused, Zilch stood out just as much for appearing somewhat unnerved- though he was the only one among them who lacked any battle-oriented magic. Lintona Riris, the sallow-faced healer, and Elijah Sorafin, emissary of the Jaxif Faction, both appeared outright bored.

Seconds passed, though tension rendered them akin to minutes, and the two women appeared to reach some sort of silent understanding. Karma wondered if they had simply finished sizing one another up and decided a fight was not worth it, or if each had known from the beginning that they would not come to blows and had only engaged in the intimidating stare-off as a social ritual. She didn’t suppose it mattered, all that did was that they had decided not to reduce all two hundred metres of Bermuda Tower into rubble around them.

The cyclonic atmosphere vanished as quickly as it had arrived and, as the sudden depressurisation manifested itself as a popping of her ears, it became apparent to Karma that her fingers ached from hooking around the edge of her chair so firmly. Even still, they took a moment before obeying her and relaxing. As she massaged her tender digits, she found herself glancing from one Immortal to another. None were speaking, it appeared they were content to give the tension in the room a few seconds to dissipate along with the winds.

Their reactions to the confrontation alone had given Karma plenty of information to go off, however. Or at least enough for a start.

The silence was broken by Sorafin. According to Karma’s sources, the Fable’s parentage was both Pangaean and Jyptian. She made a mental note to reprimand whichever idiot had bothered telling her that. His grey eyes, olive skin, thin features and Olympus-black hair would have let her know with one glance. Though the quiet, reserved manner in which he made his thoughts known may have thrown her off.

“If everyone has finished terrifying any magically-sensitive individuals within a mile radius, may I interject?”

Karma cleared her throat and began to voice her own, rather strong, objection. Sorafin continued, speaking over her.

“Thank you. Now, we are all debating rather passionately as to the rationality of permitting a Butcher’s presence, however I believe what is being overlooked is the inherent danger of their species.”

Karma felt the slightest appreciation for him correctly classifying the Butcher, then found it immediately quashed as he resumed.

“We all remember Balisphore, in fact I imagine most of us knew individuals stationed there. I myself have seen it, or what was left over. A crater, kilometres across was melted in the centre, did you know that? Practically every building had been levelled by the shockwave, thousands of people were killed instantly by that blast, and they were the lucky ones.”

Sorafin raised his voice, his tanned face reddening slightly as though he were physically struggling to make himself speak.

“Thousands lived just far enough to escape the overpressure, just close enough to occupy the area where the air was heated to hundreds- but not thousands- of degrees. They burnt, they burnt slowly. And they felt every moment of it.”

Droplets of spit escaped Sorafin’s mouth as his words rebounded from the walls, striking just as hard by the weight of what they described as by the volume with which they were spoken. No one had a snarky reply to this, not even Karma. Balsiphore was not something a person joked about. Sorafin continued, lowering his voice back down from the near-shout it had risen to.

“My apologies for... losing my composure.”

He cleared his throat.

“Needless to say, a Butcher is not to be compared with the creatures we intend to throw our contestants at otherwise. Nor, in fact, should a Butcher be compared to anything save for a being born in the inhospitable zones of Gol itself.”

Apparently finished, Sorafin leaned back in his chair- shoulders stooping slightly as the tension that had been animating his body evaporated. Within mere moments he had returned to his usual, stony state. As expressive as a statue. It was hard to believe such an impassioned speech had escaped from him.

His fellow Immortals were nothing quite so reserved.

Karma couldn’t quite tell what any one of them was saying, such was the volume with which they were all saying it. Each of them had stood, with the exception of Zilch and Sorafin. Four voices all ringing out, turning the air hot with passion and blue with curses. It made her head throb.

And all the while, every moment they spent pushing their own biases and preconceptions as fact, they completely dismissed the one person pointing out that there was actually a way they could gauge exactly what they were dealing with. Karma was tempted to try and speak once more, but she knew she’d only be talked over and dismissed. She wasn’t one of the big players, she wasn’t an Immortal. She was just a puny little Paragon, not worthy of their almighty attentions. She felt her eye twitching and tightened her jaw, expressing her rage both voluntarily and incidentally.

They wouldn’t listen to her voice. Fine.

Karma felt her magic, that familiar lake of molten power broiling away just beneath the surface, and she pulled it up. Felt it charge her body, bring it to life in a way she could never experience otherwise. Her body hardened, hastened and strengthened all at once. And she dug her fingers into the table before her.

Where earlier they had been hurt simply by gripping the edge of a stone chair with her own strength, Karma’s fingers now pushed through the material like the claws of a wild beast moving through hot butter. Except it wasn’t butter, it was solid granite. And for all the ease with which she did it, Karma was applying an extraordinary amount of force in order to mark its surface.

The half-tearing-half-crushing produced a sound not unlike fingers against a chalkboard, though undoubtedly far louder. Louder than any voice could possibly be, loud enough that she had little doubt it caught the focus of people dozens of floors below them along with those with whom she was sharing the room.

The sight of six heads, each belonging to an individual with double or more her own magical prowess, turning to fix their gaze directly on Karma was among the most unsettling ones she had ever experienced. Nevertheless she fought through the sudden urge to hide behind the table and tremble, leaning back into her seat and clearing her throat before addressing all of them simultaneously with the strongest voice she could muster.

“I do hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she began. It was a struggle to keep herself from wavering. “It’s just, I suddenly remembered being the nation of Olympus’s official emissary to this occasion, as well as an organiser and, by extension, the peer of each and every one of you. I do hope you’ll bear with me while I make a brief suggestion, unless you’d prefer we wait until I’ve passed the arbitrary line of magical power by which you decide if people- regardless of expertise or knowledge- are worth listening to.”

As intimidating as being in the sights of six Immortals was, eliciting a stunned silence from them was equally as empowering. Karma had to fight a new urge- to grin from ear to ear- as she went to continue. She was interrupted again, however. This time by an entirely new voice, coming from one of the room’s corners.

All heads turned to the sight of Reginald Tamaias. There was one door to the room in which they were sat, and that door had been in Karma’s sights during the entire meeting due to her directly facing it. Additionally, walls around them had no windows- the only source of illumination were the lignum crystals running all around the room and slowly breaking down into light. In short there was no way Tamaias could possibly have made his way inside without the use of magic, but then he always did have a penchant for showing off.

Ordinarily Karma wouldn’t have begrudged the tall, muscular Pangaean Demigod his fun. After all she herself was rather fond of theatrics. In this case, however, he had executed them at the cost of interrupting the single point during the entire meeting that she had successfully captured the focus of all her fellow organisers. By the time she’d even realised how vital it was she recapture that focus, he had already taken it completely as all eyes were rested firmly on him.

“Reginald!” Lesifarz roared, his voice lacking all the bite of the previous shouting match by merit of its undisguised friendliness. “My brother, what took you so long?”

Tamaias flashed a grin which displayed no small number of pearl-white teeth, then began nothing short of strutting towards the nearest vacant seat. While he walked, he ran a large hand through his meticulously disheveled, brown hair, making a show of pausing with a hum before answering.

“Well you know how I am. I’ve never been particularly punctual.”

He chuckled, reaching the chair and deftly pulling it back from the table before seating himself.

It was Sins who spoke next, her wispy voice almost caressing Karma’s ears as she heard it.

“And yet all records that I, an organiser, could access claim you have been tardy only thrice out of all the Sieves you’ve ever overseen. Which, incidentally, is every Sieve in history.”

No voice rose to argue this, there was only a silence presented for Tamaias to do so himself. He wasted no time in making use of it.

“Ah, you’re right. I… Well, you see…” Tamaias took in a short, sharp breath and chuckled, this time nervously, then swallowed and continued. “I couldn’t help but overhear that we would be sharing this meeting with a certain… individual. I’m sure you all understand my reluctance to remain here longer than I had to”.

It was truly amazing how, the moment Tamaias brought the man to attention, Karma suddenly became acutely aware of Bob Danielz’s presence. He hadn’t been hiding, though. That was what unnerved her. He was a Demigod, more powerful than all but perhaps five dozen people in the world. And the magic she could sense from him was the most twisted and vicious kind she had ever encountered. Not hungry and unfeeling like a Gondi, or even mechanically functional and cold like an undead’s. It was… monstrous. Sadistic, even. Wild and violent for no reason but irrational madness, like a cornered dog.

Her throat suddenly dry, she glanced at the Butcher three seats down from her. It almost brought her to laughter to see that he was asleep. It might have been comical, as a concept at least. Such terror at the mere mention of him, and he’d been snoozing away without a care in the world. Only one who hadn’t met Danielz could have derived any humour from it, though. To Karma, and she had no doubt everyone else present, the sight of him was about as funny as that of a sleeping dragon.

There was a reason she hadn’t noticed he wasn’t awake, and it was the same reason Butchers had been spoken of in disconnected, impersonal tones. The only way the people around him, even Immortal as they were, could function in Danielz’ presence was to do their best to pretend he wasn’t there. The way one might ignore a guillotine blade hanging over their neck.

Karma was dragged out of her fearful introspection when Tamaias’ voice picked up once more, this time clearly carrying the strain of one who was rather willfully ignoring something which might best be his first priority.

“Now then, Princess Alabaster?”

Such was her surprise at Tamaias addressing her directly after hours of being deliberately ignored by his peers, that Karma took a moment before answering.

“Yes, Overseer Tamaias?”

Tamaias grinned, the pure expression of amusement framing his square jaw most pleasingly and enhancing his handsome features where it might have diminished another’s.

“Now that I find them affixed to myself, I remember how little I care for those formalities. I ask if I might address you by your first name, and that you do unto me likewise.”

It was an active effort on Karma’s part that stopped the smile from playing at her lips. She liked him, a lot.

“Very well, Reginald.”

Tamaias’s grin became evermore incandescent at that, and was reduced only by a scoff from Sins’ scornful voice.

“If you’re quite finished flirting with this empty-headed whore, Tamaias, I’d have you give your input on the matter. What should be done with the Butcher?”

Karma had been insulted. She had already been offended, even scorned by the willful dismissal with which her speech had been met, but this was different. This was a deliberate insult. It demanded an entirely different response, and it happened to be one Karma was wholly pleased to give.

Tamaias attempted to answer the blonde’s sneered question, but Karma raised and sharpened her voice to cut over his. He fell silent as she addressed Sins.

“Organiser Sins, if I may be so bold, I would recommend that, if you intend on referring to someone’s head as empty, you avoid doing all you can to remain ignorant as to its contents.”

This seemed to surprise the Immortal woman, as well as everyone else in the room. That bought a moment of silence, which Karma wasted no time in capitalising on.

“Furthermore,” she pushed with relish, “I would advise someone of your particular tastes to avoid using the word “whore” for any purpose other than self identification. After all we happen to frequent some of the same prostitutes, and it took shockingly little additional pay for me to discover your rather unusual enjoyment of an-”

Sins, predictably, brought her hand crashing down into the table. She was far stronger than Karma, as well as using far more strength, and so the stone structure inevitably split jaggedly down the centre. It was solid stone from the top to where it met the floor, but to the fist of an Immortal it may as well have been thinner than a hair.

The physical outburst was followed by a verbal one. Sins rose to her feet, face beet red and eyes burning with rage and magic. It took all of Karma’s self control not to turn around and dive straight through the wall in order to escape by falling to the streets below. She was able to resist this urge. Just as Sins was able to resist her own urge to attack.

For all the airs of superiority she put up, Sins had made a mistake in revealing her hand too early. She had called Karma a whore, absent-mindedly insulting her the way she best knew how. She had been sure Karma was bothered by the public’s rather degenerate view of her, and she had been right. Karma’s lack of visible anger had robbed her of that surety, and her shamelessly revealing sensitive information about herself along with Sins had, in her mind, dragged her down to her level. Of course having it revealed to one’s peers that you liked having your back door smashed in would get to most people on its own, but Karma prided herself on using her information and assets to their fullest potential.

She spared a glance to the others sitting around the table, and was silently pleased to note that they all wore either surprise or outright awe at the situation.

Karma met Sins’ gaze once more, and pleasantly smiled at the woman. She had just been about to ask if her posturing was tiring Sins as much as it was her when Tamaias cut in, both his hands raised diplomatically.

“Easy, easy.”

His voice was cool and half-amused. Karma turned to look at him and found him already fixing his gaze on her.

“Karma, please do refrain from sharing such information here. It’s bound to cause upheaval.”

Before Karma could reply, he turned his head to Sins.

“Lady Sins, come now. We both know you aren’t the sort to raise your hand over nothing but words, please take your seat so we can continue.”

Sins seemed taken aback, then she seemed even more explosively furious. And then she eased up slightly, her magic dying down into the background level it passively sustained, and her face returning to a calm- if ruffled- mask of neutrality. She sat down and waved a hand.

“My apologies, I don’t know what overcame me.”

Karma nodded, answering the woman even though she hadn’t addressed her directly.

“I, too, apologies. My response was… disproportionate.”

The look on Sins’ face to be confronted with the simultaneous implications that she had initiated the dispute and been the lessar in verbal conflict was to die for, though as there was no additional spike in the woman’s magic Karma imagined she’d get to live for it instead.

She spared a glance at Tamaias once she was certain Sins was done with her tantrum.

He was good. He was very, very good. He’d seen Karma angry, and he’d subtly complimented her information gathering while asking her to back down by pointing out that it was achieving exactly what she’d wanted it to. He’d seen Sins nearly murderous, and he’d deliberately referred to her with a title where he’d used Karma’s name, then framed the conflict as beneath her- feeding into her sense of superiority and putting the expectation on her ceasing her confrontation. In a few seconds he’d read both parties, figured out how to talk each down without pissing off the other and calmed the situation with two sentences.

Karma had heard that Tamaias had been Overseer each year purely for his natural charisma and political neutrality, she saw now that he was one of the few people she’d met who not only lived up to his reputation, but ever so slightly exceeded it. It was for this reason that she listened to his next words out of genuine interest as much as she did for their potential usefulness.

“Phew, I thought the tower was about to come down around us. That would’ve been an afternoon’s work.”

The wavy, rough voice of Lesifarz carried across the table- half marred by a laugh even as it spoke.

“Aren’t you the Overseer? I thought it was your job to delegate everything you don’t want to do so you can kick back and enjoy yourself.”

There was no malice in the jibe, and Tamaias responded just as light-heartedly as he had been addressed.

“True, though frankly I’d rather piece a half-kilometre tower back together than watch you lot get into a shouting match next to a literal sleeping Butcher.”

Lesifarz burst into laughter at this, slamming his fist down into the stone table multiple times- though evidently not using magic, as it remained intact. Karma saw Balogun shift in her seat, and sure enough the Bârëi woman was the next to speak.

“I am not sure how things are done in Bermuda, Sir Tamaias, but I would very much like us to get back to the matter at hand. What do you say regarding the Butcher among the contestants?”

Tamaias straightened his face with that slight exaggeration which could be interpreted either as genuine effort or a sly mockery of the one demanding seriousness, and Karma had no doubt that Balogun and Lesifarz both took it to mean exactly what pleased them most. The Overseer licked his lips before speaking.

“I understand your concerns, Lady Balogun. Lord Dumare has an extremely promising offspring entered in this, promising enough to be called a prodigy in fact. They will undoubtedly do well to serve Bârëi’s future heir. It is only natural that his emissary be serious about their well-being”.

Balogun softened ever so slightly upon hearing his words, which had no doubt been calculated to simultaneously acknowledge Dumare’s child’s importance, affirm Balogun’s place as his trusted advisor and deny that the offspring in question would become Dumare’s heir in the place of the child she herself had bore him. Her answer was as cushioned as her face.

“It is… refreshing, to see my concerns acknowledged. But you didn’t answer my question.”

Tamaias widened his eyes slightly, clearly embarrassed.

“Ah, my apologies. I get carried away with the sound of my own voice sometimes.”

Lesifarz interrupted with another amused jeer.

“You don’t need to tell us, we know!”

Tamaias grinned, then continued talking.

“My view is that Karma here-” he gestured to Karma, looking straight at her for a moment as he did so- “was about to share her own input. I for one would prefer to consider all options, and if she is even one quarter so sharp as her father, then all the more reason.”

Balogun paused, considering his words. A quick glance around revealed to Karma that every Immortal at the table was doing likewise. Much to her surprise, it was Lintona Riris who spoke next.

“Princess, I mean no offence, but you are but a child. Each of us has seen a century, at least. Most have seen several. You have yet to live for even two decades. I have seen you eager to speak throughout this meeting, yet it is the custom in my homeland for the young to observe their elders until such a time as they can measure up to their wisdom.”

Karma stared into the skeletal-thin face of the woman as she spoke, looked into her eyes and felt them burrowing through into her soul. And once she had finished taking her measure, she burrowed right back while delivering it.

“It is the custom in my homeland for the wise to take a person’s measure, rather than assume they already have it from the lines on their face.”

Lintona didn’t answer, she simply leaned back and gestured as if to give permission. Karma saw a flicker of a smile play at Balogun’s lips, and something altogether indescribable on Sorafin’s. And then she tuned out the Immortals and focused on speaking without wetting herself under their stares.

“I believe that, rather than each of us acting on our own preconceptions or half-remembered anecdotes, it would be best to gather more reliable information on the Butcher in question.”

She stared pointedly at the still sleeping Bob Danielz, suppressing the shudder that overcame her just for thinking what she was about to suggest.

“Why don’t we wake this one up?”