We make a philosophy to explain our life. Then our life changes.

Vali

1 Day Later (Lighthome Time) - Captain Buzz - The Honey Trap Mead Bar

I take a big swig of sour mead. Watch a young male gyrate on stage. Roll another joint. Goddamn this is a terrible bar. Guess it suits me well enough.

My contact is late. I’m tempted to give up. Drink with authority. Have at that young fella. Be a queen for the night. I don’t. My contact will be along. Eventually. And my body count is high enough.

I spark up, to the annoyance of the killer bees at the next table. One sneers at me. “They use smoke to keep us docile.”

I blow smoke in her face. Her wings thrum in anger, but I have nary a fuck to give. I may be a hiveless, broken down old honey bee, but I’m also Captain Buzz. Last of the Tiger Gang. Try me, cunt. I’ll show you docile.

Miss Killer gets up, but her friends pull her away. Smart. I return to regrets and ruminations. How the fuck did it come to this?

After the Winter Invasion, the gangs of Helhome were virtually wiped clean. It would have been an amazing opportunity if anybody had two brain cells working together.

I had two brain cells, but no plan. A spy with no one to spy for. Should I have kept looking for Tiger? Then what? The Tiger Gang was always a little hazy on step two. Finding Tiger had been a dream. A theme. A code. A lie. Finding Tiger may have been Cy’s goal, but the Tiger Gang’s goal was to follow Cy. Come Hel or Highgarden.

It took me a while to realize that. The lies we tell ourselves are the most carefully crafted. I stopped looking for Tiger. I stopped looking for the Tiger Gang. I started looking for Cy. I did not find him.

But I’m not totally useless. And Helhome was in shambles. With some wit, and will, and murder, I found Cy’s old sacred text. The one taken from him when he first reached Helhome. A short, but illuminating read. Mostly about a gnome and an orc and a reminder to steal his real text back from Wrecker. Really put the Winter Invasion in a new perspective.

So here I am, looking for Cy in Lighthome. Because he’s not in Helhome, and he’s not in Lowgarden, and I’ve run out of good ideas.

A business-like bee bustles into the bar. I figure she’s my contact, so I wave her over. She slides into my booth and I slide her a mead and a joint. She accepts both with a happy nod. Guess she’s not all business.

“Pleased to meet you, Captain Buzz. I am Agent 52. Unfortunately, The Hive does not have great news. None of the people you are looking for are on Lighthome.”

I frown. This is not news. I know they’re not here. If they were here, I’d have found them. I want to know where they went. “Cool. Do you know why they left?”

She regales me with a micro history of the burnt branch. Gnomes and thunderbolts and battle magi used against each other. It’s interesting, but not particularly useful. I’d already pieced most of this together from what I learned in Lowgarden. I find more interest in what she doesn’t say.

“What happened to the harpy?”

She shrugs. “We don’t know. She survived the battle. Was on the scene until she disappeared a week ago.”

I nod. “Where was she last seen?”

“At her nest. About five hours straight up. Smells of chrome and condor. Can’t miss it.”

Five hours straight up? Fuck I hate Lighthome.

Bee-52 invites me to her hive for more detail, but I demure. Five hours later, I boozily buzz into Saga’s nest. It’s a cutesy little treehouse. It’s also a wreck. Burnt to shit and torn to fuck. There’s ash. And chrome and condor. But it also smells of elf and ozone. What fucking elf lights a fire in the great tree?

I find the remains of her sacred text. Crystals sewn in cloth. There’s just fragments left. A life reduced to non-sequiturs. One scrap says Tell Cy. I’d love to, lass.

I squat in the remains of Saga’s life. Roll another. What now?

I’ve run every lead in Cy’s short text and got nothing. Every lead I can check. Can’t get to Wreckworld. Could probably get a symbol blessed by Wrecker, but I’ve nothing left to sacrifice. Nothing but hope.

I smoke, read, and ruminate. I can’t get to Wreckworld, but do I need to? Fucking place blew up. Must have thrown a few bodies clear. I could look for some of these people in other realms. Like Vali. He’s probably in Gianthome. I can get there.

A few hours later I’m back at the Honey Trap. I give up. Hurl a few killer bees around. Destroy a young man in the bathroom. Smoke, and smoke, and do my best to drink the bar dry. It’s good.

I wake to pain. Loud pain. Why so loud, pain? Need water. Quiet water.

“Hello sister.” says a humongous bumblebee. “I’m Bee-12. Welcome to Gianthome. Did you get here the hard way?”

“... water…”

“Yes, you did. Let me take you to the water.”

I’m gently refreshed by being dumped in a raging river of alcohol. I barely survive, but my hangover doesn’t. It’s traumatically effective. I come out feeling great.

“So! To business. I’m looking for a giant named Vali.”

Bee-12 bobs cheerfully. “We can find him. Let’s go ask the hive.”

“Negative.” Helhome doesn’t have a hive. The other realms do, but I’ve never been to one. I plan to someday. Not today. “I’m too busy. You go ask and come tell me.”

Bee-12 bobs, takes my busyness at face value. Bees don’t lie, so I must be busy. She thunders off, as I look for something to do.

A few hours later, Bee-12 thrums back. Vali lives in a glacier a few days North. She offers me a ride. I’ll be deaf by the time we get there, but I gratefully accept. The fuck I’m flying to a glacier.

We drone North for days, either drunk or hungover. It’s peaceful. I mean, we get in a few fights, but I don’t do a lot of thinking. It’s a nice break.

Vali’s glacier is stark and beautiful. Huge, rough hewn columns of crystal clear ice support a prismatic cavern of spectral beauty. Or, they did, before the whole thing collapsed.

“Well dang.” says Bee-12. “What happened here?”

I smell ice and alcohol, elf and ozone. Grind my teeth. I’m beginning to detect a theme.

Bee-12 offers to get help to excavate the ruin. I thank her, but I’m very small. Think I’ll just fly in through the cracks.

“That can’t be safe. What if it shifts?”

“Don’t worry. I’m more shifty than a pile of ice.”

I penetrate the ruins. Buzzing deeper and deeper. Let’s see what they were trying to hide. I reach the inner sanctum. It’s blasted to shit, but it doesn’t hide the huge spiral of runes carved on the floor. Some of it’s still legible. Vali was etching his sacred text into the ice. Casting a spell with his everything.

Fuck.

I roll one. Think. I’m out of leads to Cy. Someone’s blasting them all with lightning. That’s annoying, but is also another lead. Whoever is burning Cy’s life down knows a lot about his life. If I could catch up to them, maybe I could beat some answers loose. If I can get to Godhome. Because that’s where Vali was trying to go.

You can hack a hole to Godhome using your sacred text. I’ve never seen it, but this is what it looks like. It’s a nasty shortcut. Sure to scramble your brain. From what I’ve read of Vali, he may see that as a feature. Does me no fucking good.

Getting to Godhome with no memory would be the same as giving up. Why bother? I can just give up here in Gianthome. I’ve already got a new friend.

If I want to search Godhome, I have to go the hard way. Find my purpose. Commit. But what’s my purpose? What can I commit to?

Finding Cy? That seems desperate. Finding Tiger seems delusional. Rebuilding the Tiger Gang? That seems desperate and delusional, but close. Close to what actually drives me.

Could I be the god of hopeless causes? No. The cause may be hopeless, but I’m not. Hope’s all I’m running on. Hope and alcohol. I’m the scout that never gives up. The spy that never dies. The relentless seeker. The relentless avenger. Relentless grim death. No, that’s too far. The relentless seeker, that’s who I am.

My focused devotion burns away the haze of Gianthome. I feel properly myself - maybe for the first time. I also realize that Godhome may be a dead end. Vali was going there, his killer may have gone somewhere else. It doesn’t matter. My only lead is to Gohome, so I will search Godhome.

Reality folds sideways and I slip through. I cast my senses through a void of nothingness and catch a whiff of elf and ozone. There you are mother fucker.

I decide to go there and there I am. I find a dark elf wielding shadows and lightning. His skin is metallic and covered in runic tattoos. He’s staring down an ancient lynx-kin. Holy fuck, is that Bubbles?

“Do you know why I’m here?”

“More so than you do.”

“Then you’ll surrender?”

“Never.”

The elf smiles maniacally. “Excellent.”

They clash in an explosion of cosmic force. Dang! I bob and weave, look for an opening. Get blindsided when a naiad grabs me. She pulls me close. Whispers.

“Fly sister. Tell Cy.” She opens a portal to Darkhome.

“Tell him what?”

“Tell him you found Tiger.”

I’m hurled through the portal.