Trappist-4, Two Weeks Ago

“We take these implants into ourselves to forge our lives anew. We were weak, so the Elders created the Gauntlet to make us strong. We feared death, so the Elders allowed us to master it. We were lowly, so the Elders gave us the stars,” Six figures chanted on a small hill, a cold wind whipping at white robes.

Thousands of soldiers surrounded the knoll, silent and reverent as the ceremony continued.

“The Elders have given us much, and only ask one death. We give it freely.” Each of the robed figures lifted a long, bronze knife from their side, holding it to the sky to catch the red alien sun. “Through death comes life, through hardship comes greatness.”

The six plunged their knives into their chests.

They died with honor, and pride shone in their unblinking eyes as blood ran down their chests. One by one, their bodies crumpled. A moment passed.

Then they vanished and began their pilgrimage.

“Though death comes life,” Imesel repeated in chorus with a thousand other voices. “Through hardship comes greatness.” She rubbed her thumb on the inlay of the long bronze knife at her side, blood hot in anticipation. Her cadre would be next.

The Strud priest at the base of the knoll gestured her cadre forward, and Imesel was glad to see that her five charges did not hesitate, though it would only be their second pilgrimage. She placed her hands on their shoulders one by one and smiled down at their brave faces. “You will do us honor today, I know it.”

The first pilgrimage to the Gauntlets was the easiest. Like most of the Forged Races, Isemel took her First Pilgrimage of the Elders when she came of age, taking the holy Implant into her body, then drinking the poisoned wine the priest gave them.

The poison had been painless, and she had woken with the others of her age on the first level of the Gauntlet. All were eager to prove themselves, to use the gifts of the implant to become strong enough to fight in the Elder’s armies.

There was no poison for the second pilgrimage.

She remembered her second trip to the Gauntlet. Her hands had been slick with sweat. Her fingers nearly slipped from the knife when she plunged it into her chest, and the thought that she might miss her heart and live terrified her. Her blade stuck true though, and she woke in the Gauntlet with her guardian and the rest of her cadre.

The pilgrimages became easier after the second. Today would mark Isamel’s fifth and final pilgrimage.

Her gaze settled on her cadre again. They were young still, but Isemele knew better than to underestimate their resolve. The Gauntlet hardened those that made the pilgrimage, and the strength and skills they developed there had transformed them.

Habnide was their ranger. She was an Aelshen like Isemel, tall and graceful, with four long arms and a skin of iridescent scales. Dhorranu, their warlock, and Gestrud, their skald, were both Strugs, short and powerful with snout-like noses and three thick fingers on each red-skinned muscular hand. Mertar, their healer, was a Bhouvil, a slim, insectoid-like race with a chitinous exoskeleton and faceted eyes.

All of her cadre were between the levels of ten and twenty except for Isamel, who had reached level 68 before the end of her last pilgrimage. She would act as the cadre’s guardian, protecting and guiding them through the gauntlet until their pilgrimage was complete and they returned from the Gauntlet to the honor of fighting in the Elder’s armies once more.

Isamel’s pilgrimage would be longer. Once she saw her charges through their challenges, she would continue through the Gauntlet in the hopes of becoming Tempered.

Out of the seven Forged Races, there were only few thousand individuals who had who had passed through the full Gauntlet. Growing strong enough to do so was the work of decades or even centuries, but the Tempered that emerged were powerful beyond imagining.

The Strub Priest led them to the top of the hill. From it, Isamel looked beyond the thousands of warriors watching the ceremony to the smoky horizon beyond. The haze rose from a city they razed two days ago after they routed the heretics that claimed this planet from it. Three Elder Arks that brought Isamel and the rest of the army to this planet sat near the ruined city, dwarfing the ruins of smoking towers of metal and glass.

The battle for the city had been short. Races that had not been Gauntlet Forged were always weak, and these soft, fleshy creatures had been especially so. Most didn’t even carry a weapon and had died running.

They did have magic though: the holy magic of technology, which was the domain of the Elders alone. Like all that sullied this sacred magic with their unclean touch, the Elders had sent an army of the Forged Races on Holy Arks across the stars to cleanse their heresy.

Isamel was a veteran of scores of cleansings, but creatures on this planet were the greatest heretics that Isamel had seen, The few in the city that resisted used sacred magic that approached the Elders in potency. Metal sticks that shot metal at incredible speeds, and stones that exploded after being thrown. She had fought other heretics on other planets that had sticks that shot metal, but none had shot them as quickly or as far as these heretics hand been able to.

Isamel turned away from the burning city, her eyes settling on the black pedestal that stood at the center of the hill. On it sat an open box that held five silver Gauntlet bindings and one deep gold sphere the size of her thumbnail. It was an alpha implant, the Elder’s greatest gift to the Five Races.

“It is time,” Mokt, the Strub priest intoned.

Isamel straightened, clutching the bronze dagger close to her chest. She could feel its cool metal through the thin robes.

“Who comes to receive the Elder’s gift?” The priest’s voice boomed from the hill.

“Pilgrims of the Gauntlet,” Isamel and her cadre replied in unison.

“And is it your first Pilgrimage?”

“No,” they replied, “We have made the journey before.”

“And where will your Pilgrimage begin?”

“It will begin in a challenge.”

“And where will your Pilgrimage end?”

“It will end in death, so we can be reborn to serve.”

Isamel knew the words well. She began mentally preparing herself for the trials ahead.

Thunder cracked in the distance, but there were no clouds in the sky. Isamel wanted to turn toward the direction of the noise, but she kept her body straight and her face impassive.

“And who among you will guide and protect them?”

Isamel stepped forward.“This one will guide and protect them so that they can grow strong.”

“And will you return with them, Guardian?”

“I will only return when I am Tempered.”

“Then it is decided.” Mokt clasped his hands and continued in a softer voice, so only Isamel and her cadre could hear. “You all know what is coming. You will be bound together, waking in the Gauntlet, where you will face its challenges. I must remind you, while your implants give you many lives out here, in the Gauntlet, you only have one. Become strong, survive and grow, so when you return you can be of greater service to the Elders.”

Mokt then turned to Isamel, smiling. “Except for you, of course, Isamel. The 3rd Cohort’s greatest warrior, off to become Tempered. You have a different challenge. Your deaths will be countless. Your journey will not be one of survival, but of resilience. Good luck to you.”

The priest’s voice boomed again. “Kneel, and receive your implants.”

Isamel and her cadre knelt and lowered their eyes while still clutching their knives to their chests. The priest stood behind each of Isamel’s charges in turn, holding placing silver implant at the base of their skull. Isamel knew the feeling well. The cold metal pressing on the back of your head for a moment, before it dissolved suddenly into your head, merging with the implant they all carried, binding them to the same location within the Gauntlet. She knew her Alpha Implant would feel much the same, dissolving against her skin, flowing to her implant and make it anew.

As she waited to feel the cold metal of the implant on her skin, she heard more thunder. It was closer, louder, and more frequent. It reminded her of the sound the metal sticks made that the heretics wielded.

The thunder was deafening now, ringing out in quick staccato cracks of sound that rang against her eardrums. The army shouted and milled in chaos, and Isamel heard screams among the thunder.

“Form ranks!” She heard a sergeant bellow above the thunder.

She was so close to receiving her implant. She hesitated.

Mokt laid a three-fingered hand on her shoulder. “Go, Isamel. Do what you do best. The implant will still be waiting for you when you’re done. I’ll bring it to the Elder Arks for safety. Come find me after.”

Isamel nodded and stood, raising her bronze dagger to the sky. “3rd Cohort, to me!”

Mokt strode quickly from the battle, the box containing the Alpha Implant held tightly to his chest. Each Elder Ark only gifted the races one every year, and the potential that it represented was invaluable.

Sounds of the battle faded behind him as he moved to the safety of the Arks. They emanated shields of sacred magic that protected them from harm. Despite the depth of the heretic’s technological blasphemy, Mokt knew that Arks would survive any weapon raised against them.

He was almost to the ark when he saw the bodies. Scores of heretics lay surrounding the corpses of sentries that had guarded the Ark. The priest began to worry. Was the attack just a diversion? He ran for the Elder Ark’s entrance, afraid of what he would find.

A group of heretics worked at the Ark’s surface, attaching large blocks of gray putty to it. There were 5 of them, four of them running black strings from the blocks, the fifth standing watch. That heretic shouted a warning and raised an object to his shoulder.

Mokt saw the flash from the object and jolted as something impacted his enchanted armor. The armor held, but heretic’s weapon flashed again, and an impact threw Mokt backward.

The other pagans had turned to face him as well and raised their weapons to their shoulders.

Mokt sneered in disdain. He had made his Second Pilgrimage, and the Gauntlet had given him far more significant obstacles than what a few heretics could provide.

He called upon his barrier spell, a golden glow appearing in a sphere around him, and drew his war hammer. He sprung toward the heretics, crossing the distance between him and the blasphemers in a split second.

His first blow took the lookouts head from his body. His second wring crushed a heretic’s neck. He pivoted, and his backswing ripped open another’s ribcage. He turned to the other two heretics but was forced to step back as his barrier cracked from repeated impacts from their exotic weapons.

With a gesture and a focus of his intent, gouts of flame sprung from Mokt’s fingers, immolating one of the last two heretics, who wore strange oval stones than hung from the clothing on their chest.

Then the stones exploded. Shards of metal flew in all directions, breaking Mokt’s shield and flinging him to the ground. He lay there, stunned for a few moments, then staggered to his feet. He found his hammer a few feet away.

Nothing remained of the heretic with the exploding stones, and the one that had been standing near him now whimpered on the ground, pieces of their skull and one of their eyes torn away by the blast. He considered killing him but decided that he would let the heretic suffer.

Belatedly, Mokt realized that he no longer held the Alpha Implant. He looked around in panic, then sighed when he saw the box lying near heretic. He bent to scoop it up, only to realize the case had come open in the blast, and the golden Alpha Implant rolled gently across the churned up soil.

Mokt dove for the implant, but before he could grasp it, it touched the heretic’s head and melted into it.

Mokt could only watch in horror as the heretic’s body stiffened, and disappeared, leaving just torn and bloody clothes behind. Isamel’s Alpha Implant was gone.