Carem walked down the street with complete confidence. Anything less would get him stopped by the guard for a screening. They picked up on subtle cues, targeting people who were hesitant or nervous about the armed security at every corner.

Carem was both, but he didn’t let it show in his mannerisms. That would be self-defeating. The wounds on his temple had long since healed, likely thanks to the roots, and the guards searching for the hard cancerous lumps in his forearms were always hesitant to really press down hard on a woman.

One of only a handful of benefits. Carem thought with a scowl. Ever since taking residence in Elina’s body, it was as if he’d become invisible overnight, and that grated on his ego.

No, he needed to get a new body as soon as possible. His operating theory was that he needed to subordinate another’s will until they were at his complete mercy before moving over to them.

Maybe you didn’t move. Maybe you’re just another copy. Like dad. That means you’re stuck in this body.

Carem shuddered, physically brushing off that thought with a wave of his arm, disguised as adjusting his shawl.

No. I have the roots. None of the copies ever had the roots. Dad never had the roots.

Maybe some of them would have, if you hadn’t killed them.

Carem suddenly realized his posture was devolving to a slump as the nagging voices chased each other around the inside of his skull. A slumping posture would give these brutes a reason to ask questions.

Shut the fuck up and pay attention! Carem scolded himself with every ounce of his control, standing up straight moments before one of the guards glanced at him. Their eyes met, and Carem gave the man a hesitant smile and kept moving on.

He walked on, dreading that the man might call him back, but thankfully the idiot hadn’t taken the smile as an invitation. Carem rolled his eyes.

He could be comatose, drooling on his chin, and some idiot would see it as an invitation, so he’d gotten lucky just now.

The place he was heading was even tougher to avoid ‘that’ kind of attention. His feet took him toward the Pleasure district, where women sold their time to men with money and no need of a wife.

He wasn’t planning on selling his body, though.

The thought of a sweaty man hovering over him, abdomen flexing like a sliver swimming, eyes dull and unfocused, staring straight ahead…filled him with a deep-seated, visceral hatred that seemed to well up from nowhere.

He’d absorbed over thirty women’s memories. He knew what he was missing out on. No thanks.

No, he wasn’t in the pleasure district for fun or money, He was in the pleasure district to find a man.

A man’s body, more specifically.

Carem had certain standards of living that he’d grown accustomed to over the course of his life. To meet those standards, he needed money, and he needed a penis.

Preferably attached to someone handsome, but at this point Carem might be willing to compromise on that one.

Carem tucked his shawl tight around himself and took up a position in a hidden nook overlooking the pleasure district, watching the coming and going of the flood of stupid.

It took him only an hour to find his ideal candidate: Kethro Pine. The son of Gunder Pine, Carem’s main business rival. The boy was rich, young, athletic, handsome. Everything Carem had been, and everything he would be again.

If his father was any indication, the young man would go to fat and lose his hair in his late thirties.

I can live with that.

Carem needed a body too urgently to be that picky about it.

Kethro was sauntering down the street, shoulders swaying from side to side with an exaggerated, preening stride, his entourage of young men fanning out behind him.

I think melting this fool’s brain would be doing him a favor at this point, honestly.

Carem carefully dropped out of his hiding spot and began stalking the rich young man. He wasn’t the only woman there who had eyes on Kethro though, as the young man had a rather heavy sack.

Of copper.

Between his money and his father, many women considered ensnaring Kethro to be a ticket to an easy life, and Carem found himself swept up in a crush of whore groupies chasing the young man for one reason or another.

This is humiliating, Carem thought to himself as he elbowed a particularly aggressive woman out of his way, edging closer and closer to his target. A little Mind magic, and he would gain the man’s attention, make himself all the boy could see, then when they were alone, he would go about systematically destroying the man’s personality, making him completely reliant on Carem.

Unfortunately, there might be some sex involved in the beginning.

Carem shuddered, but pressed on. He needed a new body.

Carem was closing in on Kethro who had stopped to chat with an older-looking whore. Carem flared out a Bent construct, getting ready to sink his first hooks into the boy when he heard a familiar voice through the crowd.

“Isn’t it odd how all weapons are phallic?”

A shiver ran down Carem’s neck, and his head was twisted to the side by a force more powerful than reason.

There, off to the side, his prey was seducing a warrior, leaning toward him and smiling, her chest nearly squished against his.

“Spears, swords, even these casters of yours,” She said, reaching out and laying a hand on his caster. “They’re all long, hard, instruments of brutal conquest, aren’t they? All of them designed to penetrate someone. I wonder where they got it from?”

Rather than snatch his caster away like a sane person, the warrior simply flushed crimson as she began stroking the shaft of his weapon up and down suggestively while maintaining intense eye contact.

For Carem, the man’s stammering response faded from his perception entirely, as his vision seemed to dim, until she was the only thing he could see. Even his hearing seemed to tune into her words and actions, letting everything else diminish into the background.

That girl right there had given him several fragmented pieces of the puzzle of Ilethan magic, and if he could get to her just one more time, he might be able to fill in the blanks of some of the more complicated techniques, some of the darker secrets.

What if it’s a trap? Like last time? A tiny voice in his head prompted, sending a little spike of fear through his heart.

If it’s a trap, there will be signs.

Carem glanced around as casually as he could, his powerful Mind cataloging and sorting the hundreds of people present in seconds. A few men glanced at Nadia with envy, but kept moving. There was no one on the roof watching like last time either.

He spotted a short, middle aged Uleisan foreigner with greying hair leaning against a building across the street from Nadia and watching her closely, but that was fine, he wasn’t important.

Mind made up, Carem pushed his way through the crowd, angling towards his prey, arriving beside her at the moment she sent the young warrior on his way, visibly drained.

“You’re pretty.” he said, giving her a shy smile.

***Calvin***

Calvin was sitting on the rear of the train, watching the wooden struts keeping the rails in place passed by underneath him as they gradually glided along behind construction, at about walking speed. The thirty cars had been filled with food, water, beds and toiletries, along with basic utilities, like oiled tarps and cookware.

The train concept was being field tested as they went, and results were highly promising. A single Juntai man could drive a train over four hours and a hundred miles before feeling fatigued. A Veteran could likely take it even further.

Get a team of say three of them, and they would be able to take shifts, sending hundreds of tons of product from country to country in a matter of days, rather than months or years.

It’s all coming together, Calvin thought, resisting the urge to rub his hands together evilly. As long as a Kugeya doesn’t try to mate with the damn thing.

The size and shape of the train somewhat reminded him of the enormous man-eating insects that wove through the canopy.

Maybe a little bigger and heavier, but close.

The train was a little over two hundred miles away from Allast and counting, and the sun was beginning to go down, marking the second day of the human workers spending the night; bundling up on the train and sleeping inside the safety of the iron boxes.

Another two weeks and he’d be spitting distance from his March, creating the first link in the journey between Juntai and the rest of the world. Calvin intended to create another trainyard on his land that would split the track three more ways, heading west to Gadvera, north to Uleis and northeast to Boles.

The train to Boles would be more practical if he simply added Uleis as a leg in the journey from the eastern collection of city-states, but Calvin knew that giving them a straight line to Boles would weaken his position personally.

If he had a direct connection to every country nearby, his nation would become the center of the world.

Uleis might be geographically closer to Boles, but if people could come to Calvin’s March to get goods from Boles cheaper and faster, then that minor distinction was meaningless.

So much to do. Connecting his city to others was poised to consume the next couple years of his life, unless he could find a way of speeding things up.

Some might say that producing close to fifty miles of track a day is pretty fast, Elliot said.

Yes, well, I’m not the most patient guy. Who wants to wait until they’re old to rule their wizard kingdom?

Calvin blinked as another Bent flowed through his connection to Nadia.

46/47 Bent remaining.

That’s enough, Nadia. Calvin thought. I can let natural regeneration take it from here. Any sign of the target?

No, mostly just gullible savages…wait a moment…hello there.

What is it? Calvin thought.

A cute little Juntai girl has a crush on me. Let’s see where this leads.

Keep me informed… Calvin rolled his eyes. But not THAT informed.

Boo.

New possible target spotted, ravager. She seems intent on taking Nadia somewhere private. I’m moving to observe.

Calvin kicked his heels against the back of the train, having already gone through dozens of interactions just like this. The desire to get Nadia alone wasn’t an uncommon phenomena, apparently.

Wow, she’s really frisky. Kissing noises and the soft moaning of women transmitted through the link between them, most likely because Nadia had somehow deemed it relevant information.

Umm, her fingers are going through my hair. That’s kind of normal, ri-

The connection with Nadia was severed instantaneously.

The target showed himself! Kurawe’s voice echoed into Calvin’s mind.

Calvin shot to his feet, heart hammering.

He’s in the body of a young woman, about five three, hundred and ten pounds, age maybe twenty years old. No marriage jewelry or trepanning wounds on her skull. The explosion wounded him and prevented him from getting access to Nadia’s skull. I’m currently following him. Do you want me to engage?

No, I want to know if there’s more than one of him. Calvin thought. Follow him back to wherever he thinks is safe, and be sure to keep that aura up as strong as you can get it. I’ll be there in a few minutes.

Understood, ravager. I’ll –

Kurawe’s voice cut out as Calvin lost connection with him too.

Something got me. Kurawe said in Calvin’s head. My apologies, ravager, I didn’t see what did it.

That little bitch tried to drill holes in my head! Nadia cried, sounding deeply offended.

Damn.

Calvinian Summoning

Chimera

Atom Ant

Heart of the Swarm.

Calvin burst into smoke, replaced by seven man-sized wasps with Spinner movement organs inside of them.

Calvin took control of them as one and used his experience piloting Refraction spinners to squeeze an inordinate amount of speed out of the giant insects.

Between their boosted Attributes and the refraction spinner organs literally warping space around them, they were able to reach the fastest speed Calvin had ever experienced.

Land seemed to slide by effortlessly beneath him as Calvin rushed back to Allast at his top speed, his only restrictions seemed to be the way the air compressed in front of him and threatened to shred the wings of his wasps, even with their drastically improved attributes.

Calvin arrived back in Allast in just under fifteen minutes.

Where was it? Calvin asked.

We were in the pleasure quarter, Nadia said. Toward the West entrance.

It didn’t take Calvin long to find what he was looking for: A massive smoking hole in the ground, with a charred corpse at the center and wounded civilians with varying burns being tended to around it.

Did the Diocese take matters into their own hands? Calvin thought, his wasps circling the scene from above.

***Carem***

Even before Carem opened his eyes, the pain was there, like a steady friend. He’d lost a hand and gotten a hole in his shoulder biting at that carefully prepared bait, like a stupid mindless fish. He even remembered dismissing the obvious watcher in the heat of the moment.

He remembered being consumed by the desire to take her like he had before. He remembered the explosion, then the desperate flight from the brothel, trying to stem the flood of blood and ichor by clamping down on his mutilated wrist.

Then a flash of light.

Then nothing.

…

Carem opened his eyes.

He was in a steel cell, both of his arms and legs strapped to a heavy hardwood chair reinforced with steel bands.

His stump of a right arm was bandaged, as was the hole in his shoulder and the cuts along his chest and face.

Someone wanted him alive.

Interesting.

In the distance, Carem heard the squealing of ungreased doors, and the sound of footsteps on steel as someone approached. Multiple someones, even.

He didn’t have to wait long before the door to his cell swung open, and a grizzled man covered in lean muscle walked through, trailing three similarly dour looking fellows.

Carem recognized the one in the lead instantly. He was the commander of the Jutnai military. The Diocese of Force. a man who could literally ride lighting and send it hurling downwards at unsuspecting targets like the gods themselves.

“Are you the mutant?” he asked, scowling as he looked over Carem’s injured body.

“I am,” Carem said. It was a little late to be playing coy, and he’d rather not be tortured any more than he could help.

The Diocese of Force glanced back at his followers. “Doesn’t look like much.”

He turned back to Carem and leaned forward until Carem could smell the man’s breakfast. It had a lot of spices.

“Mutant. I heard you can suck a man’s secrets straight out of his skull. I also heard the foreigners were looking for you, and that made me think you have some information they want.”

The Diocese reached out and pinched Carem’s cheek. “You tell us everything you know, you suck all the secrets we tell you to, and you get to keep breathing for as long as we want to keep using you, sweet cheeks. Sound good?”

“I much prefer being alive, if that’s a good answer.”

Carem’s vision exploded into stars of light as the Diocese smacked him upside the head.

“Keep your answers to yes or no unless I tell you, understood?”

Carem spat out a mouthful of coppery blood and met the Diocese’s gaze.

“Yes.”

You fools have no idea what I’m going to do to you.