“Tarquin. Boy, I hope you’re hearing this, because I’ve been way late in sending it. I think I’ve gotten everything together that I could. Weapons, armor, everything you’ll need if this goes sideways and somebody else buys your contract out before I can. I’m even sending you this dragon-silk robe thing. I don’t know, but it will let you fly.”

“You’re gonna fly, you stupid motherfucker.”

“Just don’t die, and get down here soon. Earth is a beautiful planet. You’ve gotta see it for yourself.”

Finishing the message, Nic paused for a moment, looking it over. He hoped it conveyed…

Whatever he felt.

The words floated in mid-air, written out in golden light.

A set of chalk rings had been inscribed on the ground around him, containing various weapons, Shards, and other pieces of equipment he’d prepared. The mercenary license had taken form as a small, floating tablet of red clay marked with a golden eagle. As he gave the message a final doubtful glance, he closed his eyes and willed it to send.

The words vanished. The equipment blurred into streaks of gold that rose into the air, becoming needles of light that pierced through space. The mercenary license vanished, fading out of view.

Nic waited.

And waited.

A pane of blue light resembling water sat under his hand, golden writing appearing on the window every few seconds. It was full of titles, lists of accomplishments, prices. A grand collection of every mercenary company in the cosmos.

-- Blacksun Dragoons, Slayers of Wyrms, Seven-Times-Tested, Defenders of the High Peak --

-- 3 Men, 80,000 Credits --

--Stonefire and Karthain, Inquisitors, Hunters of the Dream Immortal --

-- 2 Men, 50,000 Credits --

The top of the list was dominated by companies of no more than four or five. Their titles were sparse but prestigious and their prices were massively expensive. Near the middle of the list, large companies of a hundred men or more were found, boasting of every minor title they’d ever won.

Nic flicked his hand down, and the water rippled then reformed. At the very bottom were the smallest, scrappiest companies. They could be five or fifty, but they charged literally nothing, hoping to make their gains not on payment but on a share of the spoils from the new world. Most of them didn’t have any titles at all-- they were newly formed as the cheapest way to get aboard a freshly-integrated planet.

The System wouldn’t make it free, of course. A price had to be paid simply to move through the infinite dark of the cosmos.

Nic sighed.

If he had been able to join a legion, with Tawley and the others alongside him, that was their plan. Pool up and scrimp and save their pay to buy a license, and sell themselves out to whatever bidder was willing to offer them a share of the blood and glory.

Explore the cosmos.

Fight like demons.

Nic’s eyes lost focus for a moment, seeing that future-that-might-have-been so clearly it eclipsed reality.

Then a new line of writing flickered into place on the water-screen below, and Nic pushed all his will and aura against the tiny panel, trying to seal the pact before even a split second had passed.

-- The Winterhome Irregulars --

--27 Men, 0 Credits--

As his will pushed down, he felt a connection snap into place. A line of thought that spread through the underlying dark of the cosmos and bound him to the machinery of the System. It connected his will to the Settlement’s Totem, and through the Totem, the grinding gears and long calculations of the System’s administration.

There was a moment where he could feel the edges of his consciousness buzz.

“Unusual…” He distantly heard Sofia’s voice say. “I fear you’re bleeding into my archives again. You shouldn’t be feeling anything…”

And then a doorway snapped open. It was outlined by the same blue, rippling water as the screen was, but contained a portal to absolute black.

Nic was on his feet in a split second.

Through the door came Tarquin, looking- looking like hell, really. Dirty faced and scratched up, with a long red line of half-healed scar tissue cutting a ragged curve across his right cheek. He wore the robe Nic had taken from Baby Boots, the green silk and golden embroidered dragons looking out of place against the rest of his possessions, and the mop of curly hair that flopped down along his horns.

It was clear he’d been through hell. The scar was new. His hands had been badly burned, the skin turned red and raw and covered by ropy distortions.

But he put on a smile when he saw Nic. There wasn’t even a second where he didn’t recognize his brother.

“Nicolas! You’re tiny! And pink!” Before Nic could say anything, really, he was hauled into a gut-squeezing hug, so tight that he squeaked out inadvertently. “At least I hope you’re Nicolas, and I’m not hugging some poor lizard who’s going to be so confused…”

Nic patted him on the head.

As Tarquin finally let him down, more were coming through.

Every one of them was injured. There were broken limbs, missing eyes. Scars so fresh they almost glowed against their pale city-dwelling skin. The lucky ones had only been beaten. Others had clearly been tortured.

Nic’s heart clenched with rage.

The ‘mercenaries’ were loosely dressed in the armor and weapons he had sent, but their eyes went wide as they took in…

Blue sky. Green grass. Water lapping up at the wooden foundations of the village.

An entire world that wasn’t made of concrete and the bones of the dead.

There were faces among them that Nic recognized, older boys who’d ‘graduated’ from the orphanage onto the streets and younger ones who Tarquin had brought through to save from City Layer d23. There were ones he didn’t know, too, rougher and older ones. A veteran with a wiry black beard and a single leg stood out, hobbling forward on his crutches and grinning a yellow-toothed smile as he drank in the sights of Earth.

“Oh, Nicolas. This is Bailiff. We brought him and some of his boys, they ah, they were members of a mercenary group before.”

“Not too many stories to tell, I fear...” Bailiff said, sighing and reaching into the many pockets of his leather tabard for some tobacco. “But it was a good few years in a life that’s been, hand to my heart, an utter run of crap of luck. Happy to serve, sirs.”

Nic nodded. The three men who came with Bailiff were all similarly crippled, missing limbs or with crushed cultivation cores…

But a veteran’s experience was worth having onboard. Especially if Tarquin’s company had been bought out by someone else first, whisking them away to some hellish war on the far side of the known cosmos.

Inkspur leapt up onto his shoulder.

“Since the fool has LOST HIS TONGUE, I will make the introductions. You see before you the Lord of Winterhome, RULER-TO-BE OF THIS MISBEGOTTEN MUDBALL, who strikes fear in the hearts of his enemies and strikes the earth to glass under the roar of NUCLEAR FIRE, who…”

Tarquin’s smile just crooked up at one edge, and he leaned down, rubbing a finger under Inkspur’s chin to scratch at the spiny little thorns that bristled from beneath his beaked jaw. “Okay, okay I get it. Nicolas is doing the silent thing now, and you’re the loud one…”

He straightened up, staring down at Nic. His smile dipped a little lower. “Yikes. Brother, I’m gonna be honest. You look like someone’s run you through one of those stamping presses they use to make newspapers.”

Nic chuckled. “Yeah, you look like someone used your curly head as a mop for a prison floor.” He said through Inkspur, raising a middle finger to make sure all the nuance was translated.

“You are not gonna win this one, Nicolas: you’re pink and I am literally covered in slime from hugging you. You are the exact color of a bar of soap and the exact opposite in function, so if you think it’s wise to get into a bout of insults, you’re the same fool as ever.”

“Oh good, now that you’re here, I can go back to having every moment of my life be an argument.” Nic just shook his head and grinned. Tarquin wasn’t as clever as he thought he was - only Nic was that clever - but he missed the idiot. He missed so many parts of home.

All around, the mercenary company was throwing themselves into the water, their weapons discarded on the shore as they dove into the clear rippling lake and threw splashes in each other’s faces. They fought, celebrated, howled…

Nic’s eyes narrowed.

The portal was still open. The black door was lingering, almost as if-

Not everything had come through.

His sword was in his hand in an instant, and he pushed Tarquin aside, shoving him off the pier into the waters with a squawk as he strode down towards the darkness. “Sofia!?”

“Yes, this is… Highly unusual. Even if the governor chose to interfere, holding up a nexus-way like this, that should be.. It should be just impossible.”

A figure was emerging. It was a shadow on a black night, only distinguished by the slight motion that made its edges visible as silhouettes against the absolute dark of the portal. A calfskin boot emerged. A glove of white satin.

A man with an angel’s golden, emotionless mask of a face.

Brass clockwork was visible in the center of his chest, between the unbuttoned fall of an exquisite jacket of albino snakeskin edged in silver. A faint golden halo surrounded him.

“Nicolas Winterhome. By agreement with my sadly deceased subordinate…” The voice was commanding, rich and deep like the slow drip of honey. Unhurried, rich with leathery texture. It was the kind of voice a god might have. “You were to be delivered three things. One, a promise of no punishment from the System for obeying its commands. While those commands were… creatively interpreted…”

There was a hint of humor.

He actually found what Nic had done funny.

“The bargain remains, and clemency is given. Two, you requested a mercenary license for your friend. Again, it has been given…”

He reached out his hand.

“Third, and finally, an artifact equal in value to the pearl, which has been restored to the girl Azmin Hale…”

Within was a key of two-colored jade. An image of a kirin wrought in gold decorated the top, its curling tail snaking down to hold together the two halves of the key’s stem, which was split between white and green jade stone patterned with scales. The tines and prongs of the key were sharp, and freckled with ancient dried blood.

It filled Nic with a sense of immediate dread.

“Take it, or renege the deal and lose the protection you bargained for, as well as the mercenary license and those it has brought you…”