“This thing… is what’s keeping Celes Rada from dying fully… even when she bravely sacrifices her life to save me again and again!” I grabbed Arianna’s wrist. “Put down the sword, princess.”

“Ash… Pharmacist… Come on, you… you can’t trust everyone like this!” Arianna implored. “What if it wakes up whenever it wants to, takes advantage of us? Lays its eggs in our brains?!”

“Are you going to take advantage of us, Nameless Dreamer?” I asked calmly. “Honestly, I don’t see the downside in having a Tardigrada in my spine. Staying alive even if I am horribly injured seems like a net positive if anything. Can you put a little Tardigrada in my spine too, Dreamer?”

Arianna glared at me, aghast at my insane acceptance of hosting a Tardigrada.

“I don’t take advantage of anything. I simply observe and act only when I need to survive,” the Tardigrada replied. “Also, I cannot reproduce.”

“Well?” I glanced at Arianna. “Is she telling the truth?”

“Smells like it, yes… but I... I’m trained to smell people, not whatever the hell she is!” The ginger girl waved her hand at the body of Celes.

“What are you?” I asked.

“I am but a shadow, a remnant, an echo,” the Dreamer replied. “A faded imprint of a civilization that perished millennia ago.”

“Did the Prodigious Desiccator land on… lay waste to your world?” I inquired. “Celes said you inhabited the dunes beneath the... ruins?”

“The ruins… yes,” the Tardigrada replied. “It's been too long. I do not know the truth.”

“Do you want to know?” I offered her my hand. “Someday, I’ll find out the truth… for you. I’ll fly to the Prodigious Desiccator, dive into his depths and search for answers. Do you want to know what happened to your civilization? Will you be my friend?”

“I accept your offer, ancient. I do wish to know more,” the Dreamer rasped. “This will be a very interesting path to explore…”

Our hands connected.

“Before I go, I must tell you something of great importance, Ash Sparks,” the Dreamer rasped.

“Yes?” I looked into her void-filled eyes, the ghost of the Pharmacist fading from my face.

“Magistrate Manning told me what he saw in my future. All paths, except for one… lead to our destruction. Under his guidance I have written an… invitation letter to the High-Inquisitor. The full force of the temple of Inquiry is coming to your castle tonight, Queen Sparks. They expect me to open the back door. I hope that you can show them your power.”

I nodded.

Sharp kitsune teeth closed over my arm. Numbness spread over my wrist and eyes woven from pure darkness closed. When they opened again a few minutes after, the gold rims were back.

“Celly?” I whispered.

“Ashy…” She replied, her voice once again soft and distinctively human. “Thanks for humoring my Dreamer.”

“Hey, it’s cool. Not my first, um... first contact.” I rubbed the back of my head, blushing slightly.

“I have no idea what that means,” Celes smiled softly.

“Ancient speak, ignore me!” I giggled.

She let go of my arm and stood down on one knee, suddenly looking very serious.

“Baroness Sparks… Will you…marry me? Will you become one with me and combine our Dantians into one?”

Arianna possessively sputtered from beside me. “What?! No! This is ridiculous!”

“Yes,” I accepted the hand of my kitsune. “Damn right, I will.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?” The ginger princess whined after Celes and I finished exchanging our Dantians.

“Nope.” I smirked at Arianna. “Do I need to reestablish the friendship contract or are you going to behave? We’re all equal in this equilateral fellowship!”

“Equa-what-now?” She blinked.

“An equilateral triangle is a triangle in which all three sides have the same length!” I clarified. “It is one of the basic shapes in geometry, which is one of the oldest branches of mathematics. Triangles, while more difficult to use conceptually, provide a great deal of natural strength in architecture because they support structures against lateral pressures!”

“I don’t need a bloody lecture about the bloody use of triangles in ancient architecture,” Arianna groaned. “Why can’t you be a little bit more... normal? I've never seen anyone so blatantly violate the sacred ritual of Dantian marriage!"

“Beep boop, I’m a facts machine that breaks the rules,” I giggled as I nuzzled into Celes, melting into the field of her focused serenity. “Also, I’m powered by hugs and addicted to serenity. More useless facts at 11.”

“Eleven what? What?” The highborn pinched the bridge of her nose. She turned to Celes for assistance. “Do you know what she’s talking about?”

“No idea.” The kitsune shrugged. “I’ve gotten used to ignoring her arcane-jargon nonsense.”

Two burly garrison guards dropped a large leather couch next to the tent and departed.

“Aww yus, my throne is finally here,” I declared, dragging Celes towards the couch. “All this standing is exhausting and my chest is freaking killing me. Pretty sure I have at least four broken ribs… maybe five.”

“That’s a couch,” Arianna observed. “I would have expected you to drag an iron throne from the catacombs or something…”

“Nah, couches can fit more people. They’re superior in terms of comfort.” I slumped onto the couch, padding the seat next to me. “Commere.”

“You’re starting to sound like the Eternal Flames city prince,” she grumbled, accepting my couch invitation. “First you’ve acquired all of these concubines and now you’re gathering couches.”

“Guilty as charged!” I laughed. “It’s a legitimate strategy. Maybe you shouldn't have told me about the amazing advantages of couches and concubines.”

“What? But…” Arianna blurted.

“I’m going to have a power nap. Wake me up before something terrible happens, okkai? Okkay.” I put my head down on the lap of Celes and closed my eyes.

“Hey! Don’t we have to plan for how we’re going to take down the temple of Inquiry squads and…” Arianna groaned. “Are you snoring? She is snoring!”

"Shhh. She's in a healing-state, powered by my focused field." Celes hissed at Arianna as the Ash part of me drifted to sleep.

A tent went up around us, assembled by many hands of the dummies. A tall dummy, the wrists and ankles of which were bound with steel rings stepped into the tent. It was wearing a fanciful coat covered in silver plates and a pirate-style hat that I had found in one of the many chests brought up from the catacombs. A smiley face drawn on with charcoal completed my new image.

“Is that dummy wearing clothes? Why is it wearing clothes?” Arianna gaped at the ‘pirate’.

I bowed to the trio on the couch, silver-plated coat clinking. It was a bit odd seeing my own body sleeping in 3rd person.

“Ladies,” a gruffier voice spoke from my sleeping body.

“What?” Arianna twitched, looking from sleeping Ash to the decorated dummy. “Did you… is that… what?!”

Two dummies dressed in old armor carried a single-person chair into the tent. I sat the pirate-hat-wearing dummy down onto it, facing the trio.

“It’s nice to have total physical presence,” I spoke through Ash as the old chair creaked under the dummy’s weight. “Being a ghost is fun and all, but I do like the feeling of being perceived as a person rather than a servitor.”

Four more dummies dressed in ancient armor marched into the tent, hanging a large map of the castle and the Gold city on the wall.

“The situation room is shaping up nicely, if I do say so myself.” I turned the dummy’s face to look at the maps.

“Right. You're the Pharmacist… of course,” Arianna muttered, squinting at the dummy in the chair.

“I like the simplified, happy face, charcoal-drawing,” Celes commented. “I think it’s cute.”

“There’s something very extremely off-putting about it though.” The highborn shuddered.

“That is to be expected, Annie. You’re used to servitors having no agency, no self-awareness and no ability to speak. This is the future, the kind of future that I’m building,” I replied.

“This future of yours has me worried,” Arianna whined.

“Now, now, it’s not like I’m going to have T-2000 Servitors running around,” I said with a chuckle.

Two dummies brought a table into the tent and a human warrior brought in the large ward book from upstairs, placing it down in front of me. I quickly flipped through the pages with wooden fingers tipped with metal thimbles until I found what I was looking for. I turned the book to Arianna and tapped at the picture of a triple-winged snowflake made from hexagons and triangles.

“What is this ward? Why does it look like a more complex version of the fire-resisting pattern you’ve taught Ash six years ago?”

“That’s because it is,” Arianna replied. “This is what keeps the castle from catching on fire during Deathstorm Convergence. It’s the stability ward.”

“Do you know of this symbol? Have you seen this anywhere before in the Gold city?” I showed the picture to Celes. The kitsune shook her head.

“Thought so,” I sighed.

Arianna raised an eyebrow at me. I grabbed a piece of paper and a charcoal stick and sketched the stability ward into it with the precision of a steady wooden hand controlled by the servitor inside the dummy. I handed the paper to Celes.

“Put a bit of your Qi into the symbol on the paper,” I ordered.

Celes did as I instructed. I gave the paper to Arianna. “Use the spiral pattern to set it on fire.”

Arianna squinted at me, produced a spiral pattern with her hand and applied it to the paper. The paper sparked, but failed to catch fire as expected.

“Case in point,” I said, pointing at the paper in Arianna’s hands with one of my wooden hands. “This is the key to stopping the Stormweavers. Your family sat on this secret knowledge for how many hundreds of years, Arianna?”

The Manning princess paled.

“Why isn’t this ward on every house in the Gold city? Why is it not tattooed on every person?” I asked her.

“Because… this arcane ward like the rest of the Qi-runework matrices from the book... belongs to the Manning family," Arianna whispered and lowered her eyes.

"Exactly. The Magisterium has been hoarding life-saving knowledge just like the Guilds," I said darkly. “At least you were nice enough to teach a simplified version of it to me, before you shoved me into a burning building.”

Celes gasped. “Are you saying… If this was drawn on my teacher, she’d still be alive?!”

“Put more Qi into the fire-spiral,” I ordered to Arianna. She obeyed and the piece of paper in her hands flashed, instantly igniting and burning up.

“It won’t be enough to simply decorate people and buildings with this rune,” I explained to the forlorn Celes and ashamed-looking Arianna. “Mass-producing and introducing this rune to the public will definitely help prevent the spread of fires… However, for runes to stop a direct attack they must possess enough Qi in them so that the Stormweaver knights cannot simply overwhelm them. This is why all of this is important.” I waved my wooden hand at the maps. “Remember the three key ingredients of Blitzkrieg?”

“Rapid troop movement and decision making versus an overconfident enemy,” Arianna muttered. “How can we possibly achieve all three in time? The mail servitors don’t fly that quickly, can’t deliver notes fast enough…”

“They do not,” I agreed. “That's why I’m force-marrying all of these Guilders and their minions. It’s not merely means of gaining power or ranks of cultivation. I’m connected to every one of my drones via their Dantian.”

“Hrm...” Arianna muttered. “But it’s a one-way connection… how can…”

“It doesn’t need to be two way. The more people I tie to myself, the more people I can draw power from, building a bigger and more powerful Qi fractal database in my mind.” I explained, pointing a steel-capped finger at the dummy’s head. “I can see what each of them is up to via the connection and can coordinate them.”

“Coordinate them? How?!” Arianna blinked.

“Close your eyes and focus on your connection with me,” I ordered. “Feel the Dantian in your pinkie.”

The ginger girl closed her eyes. I pulled on the thread connecting us.

“Oh… I feel your pull in my pinkie! Three short pulls… three long ones... three short ones…” Arianna opened her eyes. “What does it mean?”

“Morse code,” I said. “Primitive, pulse-based, code-style communication. The word I just sent you is ‘SOS’ or ‘help’. Morse code can be used to send fairly basic instructions… a way to coordinate my troops.”

“Ninety nine hells!” Arianna swore. She looked at my wooden body, then at the castle map that was now being dotted with colorful pins by another dummy. “You really can instantly coordinate hundreds of warriors from the Citadel! This is amazing! I’ve never seen anything like it!”

“Well, hopefully it’ll surprise the Stormweavers just as much,” I rubbed the back of the dummy’s head with my hand in a very human expression.

Celes didn’t say anything. She simply smiled down at Ash as she hummed divine-tones ever so softly. Both of her hands were placed on the chest-plate of my armour and complex patterns of Qi were pouring from them, doing something… Ah. The Qi pattern she sent out was kneading, readjusting, relaxing and slowly repairing my cracked ribs. I knew that most of her focus was dedicated to healing my injury, so I didn’t bother her.

“What about… the over-confident enemy thing?” Arianna asked. “Do you have an idea for that too?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Two hundred years before I was born, the French Empire invaded the Russian one. The Russians set a trap for the French - they retreated and hid bombs all over their capital city. When the French army entered the Russian capital... the firebombs went off, setting the city on fire. The French lost most of their army during the resulting firestorm."

"Okay… so… you suggest making a trap?"

"Yes. We will destroy the city... before the Stormweavers get here.”

“What?!” Arianna gasped loudly. Even Celes looked up in concern.

“Not all of it, just the empty and abandoned buildings. We’ll make it look like the city is… devastated and already on fire, while all of its defenders are all dead.” I smirked at the pair of my mates.