***Tzen Chu, imperial prince***

Tzen’s eyes were squeezed shut, his ears plugged, face covered with a cloth, retreating as far into his own mind as he could, his hand extended in front of him as he took another slow, careful step forward.

It’s not that important, a nagging, muted part of his brain said. This is ridiculous. I’d rather go back to work.

It was not to be trusted.

Diplomacy

Empathy

Tzen stretched the Skills to the fullest

You do not wish to eat me. You and I are the same. We understand each other.

A roiling burning grew in Tzen’s stomach, along with a desire to pounce on the tasty morsel in front of him. He hesitated, getting the vague sense that he…shouldn’t? It was a….

The creature did not have a concept of friend, but it understood the concept of helpful symbionts. For a brief moment, it considered that Tzen might be one of these.

Yes! We help each other! Tzen send those emotions across the bridge between the two of them.

Feeling the idea take hold, Tzen risked opening his eyes.

The Stalker’s drooling mandibles were inches away from his palm, the hairy creature looming high above him. Its bladelike talons rested on the ground beside it.

It’s mouthparts wiggled slightly as it studied Tzen curiously a moment before seemingly dismissing him, walking away into the darkness of the cavern in search of other prey.

Tzen sagged against the wall in relief.

Three days of cat-and-mouse with a creature able to make him ignore its presence, and he’d finally manage to get rid of it.

Responding to the creature with violence had been ill-advised as its aura simply redoubled when threatened. The oozing gash in the arm tucked against his chest in a sling was proof enough of that.

Only the pain of the wound had broken him out of the creature’s spell.

So Tzen had dulled all his senses in the hopes that it would also dull the effect of the aura, then brought his mother’s Companion Skills to bear against the creature, aiming for a soft win rather than a hard one.

Alright, it’s taken care of, Llortan said in Tzen’s mind. To the console, hurry. And make sure it’s not a Lure.

Obviously.

Tzen stumbled down the hall, his vision blurring. No food or water for nearly a week will do that to a man, no matter how high his Body is.

Normal humans would be dead, actually.

Tzen carefully made his way down the smooth-bored tunnel, keeping his eyes scanning the darkness for new threats. The Abyss was no place for a human, and everything seemed to want to eat him.

It was a terrible decision to sneak into Gadsint’s Temple of Awakening and break into the Filter…but the benefits were impossible to overlook.

Send a message for me, and I will give you the tools you need to take back your petty kingdom on this rural nightmare, The ancient creature had said.

An emperor must sometimes take power where it was offered. Drink poison if he could convince his enemies to do the same.

This deal was surely poison, but if the benefit was worth it…Tzen would happily take what was offered.

By the time he made it to the metallic altar at the end of the tunnel, Tzen’s vision was flickering in and out, barely able t oput one foot in front of the other. Every time he nearly fell, he reminded himself of his brother, and the family that scorned him.

He would make it back. He would take the throne.

He finally arrived, leaning against the strange altar justting out of the ground before spreading into something similar to a table.

In front of Tzen’s eyes, the altar flickered with light, and a series of incomprehensible symbols began to stream past it.

Tzen couldn’t make out a single thing.

Alright, reach under the console, you’ll feel a little button with your fingers. In a moment, I’m going to ask you to hold it down and enter series of commands…

Just like that, Llortan guided Tzen through the process of bypassing the racial requirement on the console, then requesting a soul transfer for Llortan.

Llortan told him that this was the only way the Harbinger could get a message to the fleet that wasn’t able to be blocked by the Administrator in charge of Marconen.

If I do this, your ‘fleet’ won’t destroy my world, will they? Tzen asked.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it. It entirely depends on how far the Ravager has grown. If the planet is under his control, we have to remove it from his control. But aside from Grethna himself, we have no interest in your planet, understood?

…understood. Tzen knew the mechanics of removing a dynasty from power better than most.

Many people would suffer, those who supported and fought for Calvin would die, but it would pass. The humble farmers and other nations would be spared. The Harbingers had no interest in them.

And when he had control of Boles… Tzen’s grip on the altar tightened. He could focus on setting the stage to recapture some of Marconen’s place in the universe.

We aren’t even the only humans in existence…

According to Llortan, humans were scattered through the stars, and Marconen was an outlier, deliberately left behind as other human planets entered into an era of unprecedented prosperity.

Precisely because of actions taken by this exact same Ravager nearly a thousand years ago. It seemed as if this particular soul bred chaos wherever it went.

The way Tzen saw it, the sooner Calvin was removed, the less damage would be done to Marconen in the process of eliminating him.

If it was only a few years from now, maybe a couple thousand people would suffer. If the unstable young man was allowed to continue growing his power another fifty, or a hundred years…it could be millions who died when the Harbingers eventually arrived.

If it went long enough, Marconen might be blasted into the stone age…again.

He followed Llortan’s instructions, carefully devoting each and every symbol he pressed to memory, hoping to decode them eventually. He was literally using the language of the gods, and he would be a fool not to try and understand every bit of it.

He pieced together which button separated words from each other, and even small phrases, as Llortan often murmured to himself, speaking aloud what they needed to accomplish before giving Tzen specific instructions.

It wasn’t nearly enough to give him a functional knowledge of Harbinger, but it was enough to snag a piece here and there. He isolated the command keys to cancel an instruction and back up, carefully noting the command.

Alright, we’re gonna need an override there.

What are we doing, exactly? Tzen asked.

I can’t reward you for your help after I’m gone, so I’m reconstituting your mother’s soul and adding its experiences to yours to expand your Skill selection and limitations. It’ll make you something akin to a Ravager. Plus you get to feel closer to her.

“You have my mother’s soul!?” Tzen demanded, his skin going ice cold, the shock blowing away his exhaustion.

Yes and no. All of existence really only has a limited amount of experiences and variation possible. The System already stores all possible experiences separately, then when a soul moves from one body to the next, their whole life story is reduced to an alphanumerical code referencing these pre-stored experiences, before they are wiped and sent to the next body. Your mother as she was, no longer exists, but there is a one megabyte string of code that would perfectly recreate her. Neat, huh?”

Horrifying. You can’t possibly reduce a human life to a string of numbers.

We can, and we do. Press ‘confirm’, and we’ll trigger everything and get this show on the road.

Tzen’s finger hovered over the ‘confirm’ button. He loved his mother, but putting her experiences inside his body…did not sound wise.

It won’t be a separate personality like me, Llortan offered. More like an increase in talent related to certain aspects of the System. It won’t affect your identity, either. You’ll still be you. Just more so than before.

Then why perfectly recreate her?

I need the data on how she interacted with the System in order to pass it on to you.

…could you bring her back?

I could, but I won’t. The dead should stay dead.

Tzen clenched his jaw and hit the ‘Confirm’ button. An instant later, text began rolling across his vision.

Reincarnation request accepted.

Harbinger soul detected.

Removing from Host.

compressing data.

aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cueW91dHViZS5jb20vd2F0Y2g/dj11YjgyWGIxQzhvcw

Sending….Sent.

Tzen’s knees buckled, collapsing forward onto the console with a gasp. It felt as if something huge inside him he’d gradually gotten used to had been ripped away, leaving him feeling hollow and weak.

Recreating Life…

Checking for Life’s Experience compatibility.

89% Compatible. Applying updates to user’s Soul.

This may be uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable was an understatement. Tzen went from feeling hollow to splitting at the seams. His whole being seemed to slowly expand inside his body until he could barely contain himself.

A wake of nausea rolled over him, and in his weakened state, Tzen was unable to hold it inside, vomiting strands of clear bile on the ground before toppling over and shivering against the stone as his very being was altered at the most basic level.

It was invasive, and humiliating as every repressed memory and terrible mistake was somehow brought to light and examined with the relentlessness of a machine. Each horrible failure seemed to expand in his mind as he suddenly understood more, saw the possibilities he’d missed the first time around.

His mother’s insight, wisdom and strength of character were isolated and added to his own, their life experiences linked closely enough to allow them to overlap.

That didn’t make it pleasant. For every old humiliation and failure he’d suffered, he suddenly realized a dozen more that he had never been aware of.

As Tzen’s eyes began rolling back in his head and sparks began flying across his vision alarmingly, he barely made out a shape looming hungrily over him.

All his newfound knowledge pointed out that this had simply been the last of his many failures.

He was going to die.

*** Carl Daley, glorified switchboard operator***

One more paperclip, and my Rube Goldberg device will be complete, Carl thought, carefully straightening the length of metal and setting it down on the large eraser.

Careful…careful…

“What are you doing?” His boss said, leaning over his shoulder.

“Ack!” Carl shouted, accidentally nudging the dominoes, which began collapsing around the edge of the desk, heading toward the marbles balanced on the wing-nut.

Of course, it flubbed partway through, the railing for the marbles wasn’t quite finished, and they fell to the ground, scattering onto the ground.

“...Training my Kinesthetics?” Carl said hopefully.

“…amusing,” The Harbinger said, scanning the clutter on the desk. “Anything of note happen?”

“Nothing so far –“

Beep!

As if to taunt hi, Carl’s screen threw up a notification. Something of note.

Llortan ‘Pasha’ has undergone Emergency reincarnation, would you like to request a new one?

Yes/No

“Which one should I choose?” Carl asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” His boss said, reaching for the pistol on his waist. “For Greshna’s Vision.”

“Whoah, wait a min-“ Carl was in the process of flinching backward and cowering, as if that would do any good against a modern bullet, when a deafening Bang! split the air.

Carl felt a hot spray of something on his side.

I’m alive? He thought, slowly peeling his eyes open.

His boss’s corpse lay next to him, a gaping hole in the creature’s head. Carl was covered in flecks of blood and brain matter.

“What the fuck is going on?” Carl whimpered, drawing his knees up to his chest.

Yes/No

He sat there for an hour, staring at the blinking light in front of him, weighing his options, trying to process what had just happened.

Will they kill me if I say yes?

They’ll definitely kill me if I say ‘no’…just later.

Not sure of what to do, Carl screwed up his courage and clicked ‘yes’.

Llortan dispatched. ETA five years. Please hold.

Carl glanced down at his dead boss.

“So, um…do I just clean up the body, or…”

***Tzen Chu***

Tzen opened his eyes with a gasp, and immediately began retching as the sheer quantity of Warp washed over him, sinking into every fiber of his being.

It had been strong before, but now it was practically overwhelming.

What’s going on? Why am I not dead?

There was the half-eaten carcass of a strange creature still bleeding beside him.

An offering?

The meat of a creature was foul and unpalletable and poisonous. Tzen knew this from experience, but…the fact that it was there had meaning.

Why is the Warp so high?

Tzen could feel the nagging energy of processed Warp in his chest: He’d had a Break while he was unconscious.

I must have been out less than an hour. Much longer and I’d start mutating.

Tzen grabbed the console and climbed to his feet, his arms and legs shaky. Peering down at the glowing console, he scanned the incomprehensible symbols.

One line on the upper right hand side seemed to be moving more than others, squiggling a little bit at a time until a new character was added at the front, pushing the rest of them forward.

A moment later, the console flared red and showed a line of text in bold letters, blinking six times before shrinking into the lower corner.

…How do I get out?

Maybe Llortan intended Tzen to die in here…

No, he probably did, I knew too much. It is a rational decision.

The Harbinger had fulfilled his side of the bargain, Tzen felt more than he’d ever been. Surviving afterward was not part of the deal.

Tzen scoffed. He’d half expected to get nothing at all aside from the removal of the tumerous voice in his mind.

Fighting off a wave of nausea, Tzen desperately tried to decipher the text in front of him.

He knew ‘confirm’ and ‘parse’ ‘command phrase’ ‘return’ ‘idle’ and more than two dozen other words.

A pitiful amount to learn a language…

Unless you were in your Forming Day.

The gibberish in front of him seemingly unraveled like snakes in front of his eyes, presenting their meaning to his Warp-addled brain.

You have manifested Harbinger Language!

Decipher the text and speech of the oldest civilization in the Galaxy.

Harbinger Language level 1: 5% correction

Tzen didn’t stop there, he battered his mind against the puzzle that was the Console, trying to pry meaning out of the torrent of nonsense he was assaulted with.

+3 Mind

+3 Intuition

Harbinger Language has reached level 2! 10% correction

Harbinger Language has reached level 3! 15% correction

Harbinger Language has reached level 4! 20% correction

Harbinger Language has reached level 5! 25% correction

24/41 Warp remaining.

Please Choose an Ability!

Language barrier: User may coach their thoughts in Harbinger or any other language they are fluent in, typically whichever is more poorly understood by the enemy, making Mind reading/controlling magic significantly less effective unless they are fluent in all languages the user is.

Some Coding required: Correction applies to handling System-interface machines.

Words of Power: Increase or modify the effect of an Ability by (Correction) by stating it’s desired result in the language of the System.

You’re Speaking My language: (Correction) bonus to interacting with Users who share a language with the User.

I choose Some Coding required.

A moment later, the words scrolling across the console seemingly opened itself up to him, it’s meaning fatally clear.

Warning, ???? the filter without closing the ???? has caused a ????? build-up in Warp ????. Please ???? ????? to remedy. Sending ? ??? ?????? to the nearest Admin.

???????????? error! Retrying…

Retrying…

Warning, ???? the filter without closing the ???? has caused a ????? build-up in Warp ????. Please ???? ????? to remedy. Sending ? ??? ?????? to the nearest Admin.

???????????? error! Retrying…

Retrying…

Concentration at 12372718 of 5000000 working load.

Heart hammering in his chest, Tzen watched the number go up, as he could practically taste the Warp in the air. The familiar white fog of the Siphon seemed to be creeping in fron down the tunnel, the concentrated reality-changing poison swirling around his ankles.

Not long now.

Tzen bit his lip and pressed the button on the bottom of the console, re-entering the access code from memory.

Enter Password.

He repeated the code LLortan had instructed him to enter the first time.

Nice try, Tzen! The console taunted him.

Tzen closed his eyes and took a deep breath, activating Empathy. He felt his mother’s hand guiding him through his memories of the strange creature, isolating what was important to him.

…Pe-li-or

He entered the one word he’d ever seen the Harbinger show any emotion about, his motivation for revenge. The creature must have entered the new code quickly. It shouldn’t have had time to think of a complicated password.

Access Granted. Welcome back, Pasha.