Part 2 - Ghosts

The hovering scroll holding the table of challenges fell apart. The paper flakes it shed turned into pained skeletal faces, scattering across the floor. Frank readied his magic. There was a lurch, like he was suddenly on a roller-coaster. Except he didn’t move, the world did.

There was a wave of, not so much light, as pure change, as the cavern disappeared. Grass suddenly sprouted out of the floor, and his sight was cut off, as a cloth flap fell before him. An entire and familiar tent coming into being in less than a second, sweeping across his surroundings.

Frank frowned at it. If he was going to be attacked-

There was the sound of tea being poured from a teapot, into a porcelain cup. The careful trickle of an artful pour that came with practice, to hold a steady and relaxing tone of the tea burbling as it was poured.

Frank froze. “Oh. Those kinds of ghosts.”

His scars were still there. But the furs weren’t. He was armoured in Legion breastplate, with shield and spear on his back. The familiar weight of the open Legion helmet rested on his head. Frank reached up, and took it off. Hesitated a moment, before he made himself turn around.

“Welcome back, my Lord. Your tea is ready.” Trina told him, keeping her eyes low. As servants in the Empire did. Even when they were spying or stealing from him.

Her shoulder length brown hair was woven into a single braid over her right side. Trina was petite, for women here. With large, guileless blue/green eyes, and a delicate button nose. Her lips were a pale pink, contrasting her sharp chin and thin cheeks.

No matter how much Frank had fed Trina, her weight never improved. He had her followed one day and found out it was because she had family in camp. She took the food back to them, shared it.

Trina was wearing a strapless, sleeveless dress, one he’d picked out for his servants. The dress was dark green, with a low neckline that showed of plenty of cleavage. Racy, but not so far down as to be indecent, with white flower patterns stitched into the low neckline and the just above the knee hemline.

It was a flowing dress, with just a bit of flare. Frank’s seal was stitched into the dress on the stomach just beneath Trina’s breasts and on the back between the shoulder blades. The base of the seal was circular, as was traditional for household servants. Frank’s seal was a spear on a field of grass, pointed up. The wood of the spear was alive, spreading both roots along the ground, and letting out branches to the sides, all under a clear blue sky.

Trina didn’t react to his staring, keeping herself slightly bowed and holding a small, polite smile. Her eyes on the floor, neck and back bent in service.

“False service, they said, but that wasn’t… that was no reason… no… it shouldn’t have. I allowed it.”

She stood there, live, unharmed. Waiting on him.

Frank’s throat felt tight, his stomach sick, to see her again. He didn’t even know what happened to her, after the fire. He was in no condition to care for others, barely able to take care of himself.

Frank made himself walk forward, place his helmet on the armour stand and take his seat. Slowly sip his tea, while Trina bustled around his personal tent, making… dinner, from the lit-up lights in the corners of the tent. Enchanted threads for the soft yellow lights were woven into the cloth of the tent.

She served him a mix of bread, vegetables and meat, as she had every evening. Frank didn’t care about the food, barely paying any attention to it. His meals were better than the rations his soldiers got, and passable for visiting guests. That was what mattered.

All this probably wasn’t even real, for all it looked, felt, and smelled real. Frank was just among the mountains, in Blighttown. Wasn’t he?

He watched her work. Trina’s thin, calloused hands carrying prepared dishes to the table. The feet that moved in short limited steps, as if her ankles were bound with a shoulder width of chain. They weren’t. It was fashion, of a sort. Another reminder for the servant that they were not free, not to speak, walk, or act against the wishes of their Lord.

Familiar disgust at the sight rose up in Frank, but he hid it, as he had. It was a habit, after the Academy. Never one Frank was good at, but he tried.

Letting her walk freely when they were alone had only gotten her in trouble, when she messed up in front of guests.

Trina wore long, pristine white socks on her feet, over cheery soft brown boots, and kept her hands by her sides, when not using them. Frank knew that even if he raised his hand to her, she would not lift them to defend herself. To Trina, she was only a servant, privileged to serve someone so close to a High Court, and a Hero at that.

“It was like that for most servants. Either buying into the propaganda of the Empire and the Cult, servile because of it, or trying to get ahead and looking for angles to work and pretending they were servile so as not to tip off their mark. Telling which was which was exhausting. I thought her one of the first.”

Frank could order her to stay, any night, every night, and she’d have to obey. Not that she’d resist. This was the Empire and he a Hero. Trina would have loved to have kids with a Hero. It would catapult her status into the middle class. If she managed to keep hold of the baby, which, with their differences in status, would be his choice, not hers.

He’d never risked it. That’s what professionals were for.

Trina didn’t have a single Ability above two. It was endemic, among servants in the Empire. For Physical Abilities, anyway. Who knew what the mental ones were like? It wasn’t like they could be checked.

Having served him dinner, she stopped next to him, bowed, close enough to grab, touch. Ready to fetch anything he might ask for.

“Is the dinner not to your liking, my Lord?” Trina asked, when Frank didn’t eat. She still wore that empty smile. The one she’d gotten, after…

A drop of red hit the floor. Frank watched as her nose started bleeding, slowly at first, but picking up. It bent out of shape, more injuries appearing. Bruises on Trina cheeks, shoulders, arms. Large, angry, red ones, from belts and thin sharp bruises that almost bled, from the switch. Several teeth fell out of her mouth, bloody, as her pink lips darkened and bleed, bruised as well.

Trina’s dress tore in places, first having both seals torn out. Frank couldn’t see her back, but he knew. That was what had happened to her when they discovered she was a spy for a rival mercenary company. “Or so the spymaster had claimed.”

It could have been malicious. Or just wrong. Frank still didn’t know.

The seals went first, then the dress. Torn away to reveal breasts and a stomach that quickly accumulated bruises and whip marks.

Frank could hear the whistle of the switch through the air, hear her screams. Like he was there again, forced to watch her “interrogation”.

The screams rang in his ears as Trina looked at him, still with that empty smile. Silent, waiting. Her eyes had blackened from the beating, and the skirt was torn off next, until she was left in nothing but a belt of cloth that only made her look more naked, exposed, not less.

Her legs got the same treatment as the rest of her, sprouting bruises and whip marks. Then the burns started showing up, as the boots and socks disappeared.

Frank couldn’t see them, but he could smell her flesh burn, as they put her feet to the fire. At that point, she was long since out of Health, and ready to confess to anything. Agree to almost anything, to make the pain stop.

Frank had let it all happen. Been helpless to stop it, because he was only one section leader among several. The Hero yes, but not the Captain of the company, who’d overseen the interrogation in person. Invited Frank along to “teach” him how to treat spies and traitors.

“This too will be part of your duties, when you lead your own company.”

The tent went away, and the smell of burning flesh got stronger, under a clear night sky. Frank remembered looking up and wishing for rain, if only to stop the burning.

Once she’d confessed to everything, named her co-conspirators, it got worse. The other spies in camp were rounded up for their own torture sessions. Women, men, children, it didn’t matter to the spymaster or the Captain.

Trina, as the one who’d “cooperated” was given the “mercy” of living.

“Spy” was branded across her forehead. Trina had already been hoarse from screaming, by then. She was in agony with each touch of the branding iron, her face a rictus of pain. That scene was still a regular in Frank’s nightmares.

Two soldiers had to hold her down. “Whore” was branded just above her chest and on her back, where the seals had been.

It went on, with a sadistic choice that made Frank sick, even past all the rest of it. What kind of choice was it to choose between being able to feed any children she might have, and more torture?

Trina chose pain and service, as they’d promised her life. That if she cooperated and paid for her crimes, they’d let her go, after she paid off her debt. Frank knew a loan shark taking advantage of a mark when he saw one. It was blatant. She’d never pay the debt fully. They wouldn’t allow it.

The rings they put on her were instruments of torture, irons clamped around the base of her breasts, held in place with two chains, around her torso and neck. Her wrist cuffs were attached to those chains behind her back, up by her opposing shoulder blades, and a leash left her bound to a pole in the middle of camp.

Free to use and abuse, for all the soldiers. As a final mercy, they gave her dinner and a potion, to recover for the coming ordeal. So she’d survive the night.

Frank didn’t stick around to watch, after that. He would have forbidden any of the men from his section from going, if he thought they’d listen. But with the Captain’s blessing on this whole horror, it wouldn’t work.

Trina looked up at him now, from her knees. Abused, tortured, with Frank unable to help. Unable then, unable now. Leashed to the pole behind her

She’d served him for months, before this. No one, nothing, could justify any of it. It was barbaric, medieval torture, straight out of the dark ages.

Hells, by the time she confessed, it was far past the point of knowing if any of it was actually real. Or just a witch hunt that broke her, until she said anything to make the pain stop.

They’d found no actual, firm, physical evidence she was a spy. Just plenty of witnesses willing to speak to her “suspicious” behaviour. The same men and women who’d called her friend yesterday, now spat on her. Frank didn’t know who to believe, but none of it justified any of this.

Malicious laughter rang in the air all around him. Suffering, real and imagined, that didn’t let him sleep that night. Trina needed help, and he didn’t help her. She was his servant, his responsibility. But the Captain wouldn’t listen to a word he said.

“You’re weak to women, Ebner. I’ll handle this for you. Consider it a favour owed. It will teach you to take care of your own problems, before I have to.”

Frank wasn’t. He didn’t agree. With any of it. The sight before him made his stomach rebel all over again. He found it hard to keep his breakfast from coming up.

He’d found her, like this. In the morning. Stained with cum and covered in new bruises. Missing a few more teeth.

Frank had washed her then, with a wet rag. Brought her breakfast, some fresh clothes. Helped her dress. That was all he was allowed to do. It felt entirely insufficient. He couldn’t do what mattered: couldn’t free her. Was forbidden from even tending to her wounds, on pain of a whipping.

For both of them. He would have taken his.

It bought her at least a bell of reprieve. Before the next round of abuse. Every time he visited that week, she had that same, empty, polite smile. Moving like a doll, her mind… hidden away, somewhere far away, running far from this horror. Or so he’d hoped.

That was the day he decided he couldn’t stay in the Empire. Not even for magic.

Fighting four battles over the same bridge for different sides was one thing. At least he was killing soldiers who were paid to go to battle. They knew the risks. It was stupid, and a waste of lives, but such fights were an understandable kind of stupidity that came from Noble prides clashing, fights over rights of taxation, struggles for power and funds.

It was terrible, but very human.

This? This was not human. It was not normal, for all so many treated it like it was. This was monstrous, unacceptable. Frank couldn’t accept it. But he lacked the power to change anything. He was one man, in an Empire with at least a few million souls. Trying to run with her would only piss off his patron and have assassins sent for both of them. He might survive that, but Trina wouldn’t.

This world was no different than Earth, in that. If he wanted to change the world, to make it better, he needed the support, the power to act on his ideals.

Frank couldn’t outtalk the finest nobles of the Empire, any more than he could the politicians of Earth. He couldn’t outfight their warriors, or plot better than their spymasters.

They all had years, decades on him.

But his limits were broken. Magic could elevate a man, from a commoner, or just a Hero, to a Power in his own right. The starting Limit on Magic was two. Rare Bloodlines usually had Abilities boosts, possibly Magic ones too. They could, in rare cases, raise Limits as well. By one, or two.

Frank’s Magic Limit, like every Hero’s before him, was eight.

While a lot of effort had been invested in censoring them, stories of Hero’s that became mages survived. They were powers unto themselves, if allowed to grow. Not powerful enough to match the full might of the Empire, but enough to match one of its High Noble families. Enough to be heard, listened to.

Plenty of good men and women had left the Empire long before he took up his contract with the mercenary company. The sensible ones kept going until they were out of the Empire. The stupid ones disappeared, or showed up on the stage in traitor’s square. Their heads impaled on spikes.

Frank wouldn’t end up as one of them. He kept his head down, his opinions to himself.

That was really hard, with Trina looking up at him, as empty as the day he’d left here there. Washed, fed, watered, and clothed. But still bound to the pole, and free to use. He’d walked away, to fight another day.

It was the sensible, logical choice. But oh, how the shame of it still burned.

Frank didn’t think about that day. Frank did his best not to think about things he couldn’t change. He’d learned that lesson on Earth. Dwelling on all he couldn’t change hadn’t improved or fixed his life, or helped anyone else. Dwelling just drove him into a depression so deep it took a trip to another world to get him out of it.

So he didn’t think about things he couldn’t change. Like the past. Like Trina.

It was really hard not to think about it, here and now, face to face with her. Frank could tell himself it was just a test, an illusion, but it felt real. Shadows gathered around Trina in the morning twilight, chuckled, laughed at her. At him.

The ground fell away, as if he’d walked away. As he left, shadowy hands reached for Trina and Frank looked away.

“It is just an illusion, a phantom torture born of my own mind.” Nothing he did here would change the past.

Frank had never stuck around, for the rapes. He knew himself well enough to know he wouldn’t be able to stand that. Which was a special kind of hypocrisy, when he’d stood by and watched the rest of the torture. Under orders, but that hardly mattered.

Telling himself that it wasn’t real, that what he’d imagined wasn’t real, didn’t help much. Worse had actually happened. He was just spared from witnessing it, knowing about it.

Trina didn’t have that luxury.

She spent six days bound to that pole. A full quarter of a month. Afterwards, Trina was assigned among the whores, with the camp followers. Still in deep debt to the Captain and company, to pay the debt off at abysmal rates.

“You allowed this. Some hero you are.” A familiar voice called out.

Stepping out of the shadows of the other colourful tents, Deadbeat stalked towards Frank, without stopping. She circled him like prey. It was her body, her movements, her voice. But her eyes were pure silver, with shining dots of gold for pupils.

Her voice was as derisive as Frank’s own thoughts on the matter.

“I allowed this?” Frank asked, feeling guilt, shame, and old anger boil in him. “You allowed this.” he spat back.

“Era min fomine.” that fucking Empire saying came from its mouth.

“Might does not make right.” Frank denied.

“You would argue with the God of Strength?” The thing wearing Deadbeat’s face asked.

“The Cult of Might doesn’t speak for the God.” Frank argued back. He might disagree even if the God himself proclaimed it, but he wouldn’t be stupid enough to do it out loud. Instead, he dug up a quote from his days spent searching for a Cult he wouldn’t feel complicit paying.

“It is upon those shoulders best able to bear it, that the greatest Burden is laid.” Frank quoted the Cult of Burdens.

The angel, for what else could it be, prowled around him in Deadbeat’s body, finally stopping right in front of him.

“How many burdens will you take on your back Frank, before it breaks you?”

His teeth clenched, but before he could respond the scene changed again. It changed to what he’d thought of: Frank, in his Commander regalia submitting a request for a personal mistress. As every officer of an eightith or above could claim. With five hundred fighting men beneath him, Frank more than qualified. And those were just the professional soldiers.

Frank didn’t like thinking of the conscripts.

He had done a run around the Captain. Once Trina was assigned to the whores, there was nothing in any rule that denied him the right to take her as a personal mistress and pay her accordingly.

He sold the whole thing to his men as personally seeing to Trina’s ongoing punishment. She was forbidden from leaving his tent, and kept in truly skimpy clothes at all times, to better sell the deception.

His Captain found out about it, but never confronted him on the subject. When he came around, the Captain would simply treat her as any other mistress of a lower officer. Free to joke and touch, but not take. That wouldn’t be polite.

Frank never touched her, not when they were alone. When Trina realised that he did not mean to abuse her further… they never needed to put on a show, that he was punishing her, for the guards.

She cried enough each night, anyway.

Frank met those pale silver eyes, the points of gold in them. “I did what I could. It wasn’t enough, but I did what I could.”

He tried to say it firmly, to back it up with belief. But it felt too little, insignificant. Like nothing at all. Asking “Where the hell were you?” as a follow up felt pointless. He’d already had a heated argument with the local priest, back then. He didn’t need another one, with this thing.

“After a week of constant rapes, you took her in to quiet your own guilt Frank. How noble of you!” Deadbeat’s face and voice mocked. Frank’s head started falling. Had he not thought that same thing, a hundred times over?

Frank paused. “Actually, I thought that exact same thing.” He’d thought it most night he spent listening to Trina weep, berating himself for not being able to do more. Using it to fuel his focus, his studies. To give him the strength to go out into battle and kill people, other soldiers. Frank wasn’t a monster hunter.

Not anymore.

Frank knew he was a killer. The Empire had made him one. He’d chosen to become a killer, among the options he could find. It was the least bad one. To kill other poor bastards, conscripted for a pittance, with most of the money going to their Lords. Or other free man soldiers, there for the same coin as Frank was.

Fighting battles none of them cared about, for distant masters. Frank hated the whole business of war. It was still the least bad option for him.

He studied the angel, Deadbeats face frowning at him in disapproval.

Trina wasn’t unique. She wasn’t special. The men and woman she named under torture were tortured themselves. Mutilated, castrated and worse, before being burned alive that same morning Frank brought her clean clothes.

He didn’t blame Trina for their fates. She’d managed to keep denying that any of her family was involved. It was the only thing she wouldn’t budge on. They were still expelled from the servant’s quarters. Gislav, Hulina and Vrist, forced out with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Gislav wouldn’t be able to sew without his needles, and Hulina and Vrist didn’t have great skills, beyond doing laundry and working as simple labourers.

But at least it wasn’t worse.

The punishments weren’t special, what had happened to Trina and those she named as conspirators. They were on the cruel side, as laws went, but not beyond the pale. Not for the Empire. Frank had heard of many grisly fates like them. Seen a few, in the years since coming to the Academy. But in towns, such things were kept behind closed doors, in buried dungeons. So those being punished wouldn’t offend their betters with their suffering, or befoul their fine outfits with blood or bile.

Trina was just the first time it had happened to someone under Frank’s command, in his care. A civilian too. Possibly an innocent one.

That was the thing. Even after everything, he didn’t, couldn’t know, if she was actually a spy for someone. “It hardly mattered anymore, did it?”

Trina spent her days with the same empty, polite smile painted on. Obliging, obedient, servile, to any request. She wasn’t the first or the last life, wrecked by the Empire.

“What’s the point of this?” Frank asked. “To rub my failures in my face? I’m aware of them.”

“Are you, Frank Ebner?” The thing challenged, and the whole scene changed again.

He knew these rolling hills. The tall, soft grasses. “This is the morning after my third victory.” Frank realised. His section was setting out tents, pouring out drinks. It had been a brutal night battle, the enemy breaking as dawn arrived. Over some river crossing in the bush, in the back of beyond.

He’d come through here, after the fires. Further north, the Ilvir Mountain range loomed in the distance. Frank’s soldiers were setting up camp. His was already up, raised first alongside the section standard. Gathered around a cook fire beneath the standard were his officers. Each a Commander of eighty men and women.

Each of the sub-section Commanders were entrusted with eighty soldiers, and there were five of them. With his own personal eighty and the scouts, it was a full 500. Each subsection was further divided into 5 double parties of sixteen, with a Head party leader of eight, and a Reserve party leader leading the other eight. The party of eight was the standard squad of the Empire’s Legions.

One of the sub commanders was missing.

Frank spotted Fridrih out by another cook fire. The man was always late for Command meetings, because he first took the time to check in with all of his men.

Of the 80 men under Fridrih, twelve were missing. Frank knew seven were in the healer’s tents. He’d be paying out another five death benefits from his pay chest and his own funds for the rest. The company benefits were pitiful for common soldiers. The company had little use for dead men. The conscripts got it worse. Their lives were already paid for.

Frank would send some coin, allow letters to be sent from squad members, telling of how they died. He would write his own condolences, empty as they were. All of it was little enough in the face of a grieving family. His efforts always felt inadequate, to Frank.

It was worse when the company came back through somewhere they’d taken on conscripts recently.

Parents who hadn’t been informed would come out to greet their returning heroes. Wail and weep, when they realised their sons or daughters were missing. Frank always felt helpless when it happened.

He did not walk to any of the fires, instead glaring at the thing wearing Deadbeat’s face.

“Must you wear her face?” Frank asked. He shouldn’t have. In the blink of an eye, the body changed.

Instead, Trina stood there, with the same silver and golden eyes. Untouched, unharmed, unbowed, as if to mock him. Frank’s hands clenched into fists, but he kept his temper in check. Losing it wouldn’t help here.

“This is a test, a challenge. It is trying to provoke me. This is supposed to be about Logic, so figure it out, Frank.”

He didn’t like thinking about any of this. It hurt to remember. There was a flash in the open sky, high above. Frank flinched from the rainbow light. They’d burned, in the end. All of them. Fridrih, and his woodpipe. He liked to play the instrument every morning as a call to rise.

Rilueta, his wife, would have to raise Binila, Traum, and Griel on her own. An officer’s widow with two boys and a girl, none of them above twelve. At least as an officer’s widow, she’d get an actual pay out for his death in service.

Unlike the “rabble”, or the commoners.

Krest, and his crazy shepherd tales. His sister was a cobbler in Pierwel. Lariana, happily married.

Munuala, and her sling trick shots. She’d scammed dozens of fellow soldiers out of coin, before Frank informed her it would be better for her long term health if she went out with her comrades, to scam other sections.

Zrael and his obsession with always having a perfectly trimmed beard. Always chasing women, crashing and burning every time. He got nervous, once actual flirting started.

Women and men, by the hundreds. All burned in that damn field.

Frank’s head hurt, his heart ached. Remembering hurt, but how could he forget?

They died in his service. Under his command. He hasn’t even written letters to their families. Frank did write and leave behind an inheritance paper, with multiple witnesses to its signing. The document would tell the agent executing his accounts to share whatever balance of coin was left in his personal coffers with those who died with him. With their families.

It was cold comfort, here and now. When Frank could see his soldiers alive, eating, joking, some arguing or even fighting. See them all again, and know, that but a few months after this victory, all of them would burn.

All but a lucky few, caught near his Mageling recall specialist, just as the fires fell.

Trina, or the asshole wearing her face, started tapping her foot on the grass.

“How long have I been in this?” Frank wondered. He felt like he’d fought in a pitched battle. He was sweaty, ill.

It could have been a few minutes, or an hour. He’d lost track of time. Frank needed to beat this. Deli and Katri were waiting on him, and unlike the past, the future wasn’t written yet.

Frank looked around, trying to understand through the pain and sickness. What was the point of this?

For him to forget them, make peace with their fates? He had, in a way. It wasn’t perfect, but Frank understood that worrying about things he couldn’t change didn’t help anyone. Once the fires were called, he couldn’t save them. And he couldn’t have predicted the fires.

That was the spymaster’s job, or the Captain’s. They were the ones that got everyone killed.

He’d left the Empire. Frank was trying to do better, be better, in part because of it all. He doubted the challenge was to merely face them. They came up in his nightmares often enough.

“What then?”

Trina disappeared, strapless dress with seal and all, and was replaced with another figure. The Master Merchant’s wife.

Frank glanced at her, before returning to watching the field around him. The angel snapped her fingers.

“The end draws near.” She said, as the world shifted again. This time, to the cave the caravan had taken shelter in, when the first snow storm caught them in the open. The one where Deadbeat had begun pursuing him.

“Tell me, Challenger: what is wrong, here?” The Angel wife asked.

Frank looked around the cavern. Time wasn’t frozen, people murmured, talked, moved about. It looked fine. Deadbeat was with her party, Deli with the other pilgrims.

Frank studied the stones, the carts. Nothing was wrong. But he didn’t say as much. Frank doubted that was the answer she was looking for.

“Why show me Trina? Why Fridrih? Krest, Zrael?”

It had to be about the people, not the room. Who did he know here? Deli, Deadbeat, Katri, the Master Merchant, the Captain of the Guards…

…

Frank’s head hurt.

“I know more people, don’t I? I spent weeks among them.” He softly said.

“Cherna. She’d been a pilgrim, hadn’t she?”

…

“And Crisk. The man who we picked up in Last Light. He didn’t approve of me leaving after Deli.”

Frank hadn’t seen much of them, or seriously spoken to either, since getting to Blighttown.

There was an ache in his head. Groaning, he bent over, hands on his knees, wishing it would stop. When that didn’t help, he put one arm to his forehead, feeling for a fever. While slick with sweat, it felt cold, not hot.

“Why is my head hurting? Our paths diverged. That’s not extraordinary, or special. People drift away from each other all the time. Neither of them are ghosts, to haunt me like the rest.”

Frank was stumped. He knew there must be some point to all this, if it was causing such a reaction, but what?

There was another snap beside him. Deli now stood there, her shining silver eyes filled with disapproval.

“Last chance, Frank Ebner.”

The new room was the merchant caravan common room in Blighttown. It was the night of the celebration. The night they brought down the Strongarm. Deli was off among other warriors, talking, re-enacting some of her moves. Lilijah was stuck in a start-stop talk with several other Hunters. Distracted, each time a pretty woman passed her by.

Brar was drinking with other Shield Guards, complaining about careless party members. The conversation topic among them had the feel of a long running tradition.

And Frank stood there, beside a version of himself. By the table he’d played cards with Rio for most of the night, looking out over it all. The celebrations, the noise. All the people there.

…

He wasn’t dumb. He knew all of them, most of them. Had chatted and spoken to many. “So who was it? What is it? Of all moments, why this one?”

If he checked his notes, there’d be little entries for each one: their trade, skills, family status, topics to raise. Things to help him remember them. He took out his notebook, to start going down the list. Paused, half-way there.

…

Frank looked around. “I know these people, don’t I?

“I should, know them.”

“So why?”

His stomach slowly sank as Frank’s headache spiked again.

…

“I never needed notes to remember people before.” Frank recalled.

The Hero looked out at a sea of faces, all familiar. All somewhat friendly, acquaintances.

But only a few were more than that.

Each one of those, had either sought him out, or they’d been pushed together.

Mauricius, with long hours spent with no company but each other.

Deli, with her rescue and oath. Sneaking under his defences under the duties put on him as pilgrim leader.

Deadbeat, who approached him and he pushed away.

Lilijah and Brar, who he had to get to know as party members. As part of his duties as commander, to reach his goals and be a good party leader.

His eyes wandered around the room looking for others. They found one.

Lilijah’s caretaker sat a few table over from the sober watchmen. Sitting on his own, among other firekeepers that ignored him. Quiet, keeping out of the way. Not wishing to bother anyone.

He’d come in at some point, during the celebrations. Frank had ignored him, that night. Left him there on his own.

“I don’t even know his name.”

There was a crack in his head, a lance of agony that made him grab for the pain, Frank pressing both palms to his temples trying to make the hurting stop. He fell to his knees and barely felt the impact, as liquid agony poured right into his mind.

Faces, conversations. People and bonds, dozens, hundreds of them. Heads on spikes, and empty places in his lines. And always, always at the end, the Fire.

Burning, burning; burning it all away. Till nothing was left. Everyone was gone.

In that deep, painful darkness, as he lay among the ashes of his people; officers caught in the open, free men and conscripts all reduced to the same base matter. Party members, people who’d served, shielded Frank in battle. Who’d he’d drank and shared meals with.”

“All nothing but ash.”

Their fates burned more than the fires had.

Laying there in the dark, face down in the consequences of his failure, choking on the fumes and heat, some small part of him had asked: was it even worth it?

“What is the point of reaching out, meeting people, bonding, if I’m just going to lose them anyway?”

Hadn’t that been the same reason why he’d given up on Earth? What was the point of raising children, only to watch them die long before their time?

What was the point of bonds, if they hurt this much at the end?

“It’s so much easier to tune them out. Ignore it all. Ignore the world, and the people in it. That way, when they fail, leave or die again, it won’t hurt as much.”

But Frank had somehow ended up in charge of the Pilgrims. Responsible for them. For Deli. She’d slipped right into his sphere of responsibilities. Past all his walls. It had taken Rio weeks to do the same.

“What kind of extrovert am I, when I spent weeks with these people, and made no friends?”

That didn’t make any sense. That wasn’t him. Frank wasn’t like that. When pressured, struggling, he reached out to people, he didn’t hide from them.

Not so long as there was some hope left.

Frank could feel it now, as the river of agony slowed down to a trickle. There was a wall in his head. A dam, fortified, with a barred gate. Holding back all that pain, all those memories. Stopping him from adding to them. From connecting with most people. They couldn’t get in.

It felt… it felt almost like Ignore. Or like Ignore had for his senses, like he could tune out everything. Except here, things outside the walls weren’t ignored, so much as just didn’t matter. They got no attention.

Went in one ear, and out the other, leaving no impression, no impact, no connection.

“But I got rid of Ignore. So what…?”

Frank called up his Lifecord, feeling unsure, uncertain.

Aspects (Limit)

Physical (18)

Mental (18)

Mystical

Agility: 4-2

Body: 3-1 (7/40)

Reaction: 4-1

Strength: 3-1

Instinct: 3 (5/40)

Logic: 5-1

Presence: 4-1

Will: 5

Destiny: 10 (10)

Fortune: 1 (10)

Magic: 0+1 (8)

Soul: (4-1) 2

Gift of Life

Health = 42

Recovery – 3/day

Gift of Heart

Mana = 8

Recovery – 15/day

Gift of Self

Guiding Light

Warm Smoke

Skills (+Applied,-Inactive, Unable,)

Traits, +Skills

Agility = 2

-Basketball 2

+Smooth 2

-Reflex 2

-Deflect 3

-Riding 1

+Carving 2 (8/30)

Instinct = 3

-Empathy 1 (0/20)

-Reflexes 2

+Bargaining 1 (9/20)

-Survival 1 (4/20)

+Channel 2

+Frostfire 1

Destiny = 10

Summoned Hero (Divine Blessing) (162/352 days) – Destiny 4

Scorched (Creational Curse) – Destiny 3 (81%)

Outsider (Invited Invader) – Destiny 2

Foolish beyond Reason (Achievement) (162/352 days) – Destiny 1

Body = 2

-Conditioning 1

+Soldier 1 (0/20)

+Pain Management 1 (11)/20)

Logic = 4

-Ecology 4

+Biology (5) 4

+Science 2 (0/30)

-Mathematics 4

-Tactics 4 (0/50)

-Strategy 2

+Runes (Red Sun) 3

+Runes (Eversnow) 1

Fortune = 1

Reaction = 3

+Awareness 3

+Search 3

-Ignore 2

-Riposte 2

+Mage Staff 1

Presence = 3

+Extrovert 2

+Public relations 2

+Command 3 (9d)

-Pilgrim 1 (4/20)

Magic = 1

Banked Еmbers I (Scorched)

Strength = 2

+Lift 2

Spearman (Red Sun) 2 (0/30)

+Medium Armour 2 (0/30)

Will = 5

+Temptation 4 (3/50)

+Resistance 4

+Principle 1

+Persistence 4

Soul = 2

The Wonder of Magic II

+Pale Gate Greeting I

The wall holding back all those memories felt like a Skill. But Ignore was inactive. Frank just checked. The wall couldn’t be from that Skill.

“This doesn’t make sense. People can’t just do this. Repress memories, yes. Trauma does that. But we don’t build an imaginary wall in our head, and I can feel one. It feels real. As real as… that’s… it’s like a mental construct. Like the patters I hold in my head for my runes. It has to be a Skill. It’s not like Will alone can-“

Frank froze, a lump of ice going down his spine, settling in his stomach.

An old academy lecture hall replaced the cavern around them, the scene changing again. Frank felt it shift in time with his thoughts.

Frank was recalling Kristianos Prupole, their foundational teacher. The wide classroom was filled with desks and Heroes. The professor was in just starting a lesson on Abilities.

“As we’ve established last class, four is the limit of mortal flesh.” The professor lectured. “Does this mean no one goes beyond four? Of course not!” Some Heroes laughed at the question, having fives themselves. The professor struck his desk with a book, for emphasis and silence.

“What does this mean, young Heroes? It means that Abilities at five and six become empowered, to do more than mortal flesh and base materials can. Monsters can rend steel with claws, or freeze even the most stalwart of solders with nothing but a look.”

The professor intoned a warning, his voice grave:

“Remember this my students, the Ability is empowered, and It in turn empowers you. For good or ill. Much like Strength five can lead to tragedy, so too do other Abilities have their own pitfalls. Once you reach past fours, be wary. You would do well to be careful how you apply Abilities empowered beyond mortal limits. Some very promising students of this very prestigious Academy have managed to do great harm to their progress, through misuse of their Abilities. You are not exempt, or beyond such Failings.” The professor’s voice rang off the walls, and the memory stopped there.

They stood in the middle of the classroom, Frank and Deli the Angel, surrounded by other Heroes, frozen in the memory. Large, stained glass windows let in sunlight, filling the classroom with a rainbow of colours.

Frank focused on his Will section, struck by a strange certainty.

Will = 5

+Temptation 4 (3/50)

+Resistance 4

+Principle 1

+Persistence 4

Something… something was off. Something was there.

Will = 5

+Temptation 4 (3/50)

+Resistance 4

+Principle 1

+Persistence 4

§ łŁ _ əɶϙϪ

As he pushed, that trickle of agony and loss in his head grew into a steady stream. Not like he was taking down the wall, but opening the floodgates. Frank’s vision blurred, wavering. Looking, trying to force it unleashed a heavy weight: pain, grief and loss. For each of the men and women, who served in his section. Frank knew most of them.

Soldiers who had served under him, and would never serve anyone again. It hurt, but Frank pushed on through the flood, his sight slowly clearing.

Will = 5

+Temptation 4 (3/50)

+Resistance 4

+Principle 1

+Persistence 4

+Ignore 1 (4/20)

“That… that is almost a Failing. Scheiße.”

He’d been going through life, Ignoring his aches and pains. Ignore had to have spread. A habit, formed, overused, and abused in the end. From Ignoring his injuries, to Ignoring the world around him to Carve. All the way to Ignoring the very people around him. Frank was starting to Ignore the whole world and everyone in it, when they didn’t involve any of his plans.

Outside of a few individuals that slipped through, he was only seeing people as connections, services given and asked.

They were like dead numbers on a budget page, making pros and cons for each one. Balancing his temporal budget for the best returns, in pursuit of his goals.

“That’s no way to live a real life. Or treat others.”

Angel Deli stepped up to him, taking his hands in hers. The voice it spoke in was that of a church choir, not another borrowed voice, for once. It was not quite the full on Worldvoice, but sounded like its little brother.

“You’ve found your true Challenge, mortal. Can you face this Trial?” it asked.

Before Frank could answer, the scene broke around them, the walls of the Duelling Grounds coming down.

“What?” Frank asked, feeling deeply unsettled. “Did I fail, pass?” The agony, the gates, they were closing again.

Angel Deli’s face filled with amusement as she faded into silver fireflies.

“The Challenge was to find the hole in your senses and memories, Frank, when we threw it in your face. While Wilfully blind to the problem.” She told him.

“That’s why it was a Logic challenge.” Frank realised.

Because it didn’t matter how hard he looked, he’d never see it. He had to notice the discrepancies between who he’d been, and who he was now. How he acted, spoke, remembered things. Puzzle out that something was messing with him, and that that something was his own Will.

“Dealing with this, now that you are aware of the problem, will be your task for the coming months, young hero. If you can convince yourself to pay the price.”

He’d passed. “But how am I supposed to convince myself to want something, I apparently don’t want?”

What would be the point of suffering through all that? He had magic to work on, a party to lead. Now that he was aware of the problem, he could adapt.

“Or would that be Failing?”

Frank hardly had time to consider the matter further, as the walls were coming down. All the Heavenly light gathered to a single point before him. If he hesitated, it would wink out, and he’d miss his chance. Frank had to make his wish now. He’d come up with the right wording in advance:

“I am about to use the fires I was blessed with. My Health will be both kindling for the flames, and my shield.” He explained quickly, just in case the office angels up there weren’t talking to each other. “I ask for mending, healing. A blessing to aid me through my ordeal.”

The voice that emerged from the point of light sounded pleased, if a choir could be such a thing. Happy, maybe. “You ask an angel of Endurance to help you endure another ordeal? To aid in your suffering? Well wished, mortal.”

The orb of light burst, blinding Frank for a moment. He reached for the flames, just in case the healing started immediately. It shouldn’t since he’d asked for healing during his attempt to break the Curse. He wasn’t willing to risk this whole thing, on trying to ask for the direct removal of the Curse. A failure would waste the wish.

The warmth that usually accompanied healing didn’t come, not immediately.

As his eyes cleared, Frank saw the walls finish breaking. His eyes however were riveted to floating orbs of light hanging in the air before him. Each radiating peace, calm. Impossible as that might be, looking at the orbs felt like looking at a spa, or a well done vacation commercial. Inviting Frank in, waiting for him.

They radiated a feeling of recovery, of rest. Of Health and healing.

There were six of them, and Frank was sure that touching one would heal him. Hell, it might heal anyone who touched an orb. How much, he wasn’t sure. But he was about to find out.