Damn it, Lem, how dare you get yourself killed and leave me with the cleanup.

Zedna was pissed. In fact, she was more than pissed, she was angry. Really fucking angry. The kind of angry that makes your face red and clouds your thinking. But more than that, she was tired. She had built her gang from the ground up and now it was crumbling apart around her, leaving her alone and without allies in a sea of murderers and cannibals.

She never intended for the gang to end up this way, but when running into other factions assimilation was often the best option, as fighting would result in a pyrrhic victory. It had been years since she started the gang, and while some of those who joined were alright, some were batshit crazy. A fact not helped by the Shard itself. Sometimes she could feel that growing dread creeping in on her, telling her to let loose and that it didn’t matter anymore, to just let it all go and give in to her desires.

Calmly, she took out a Pikkory Nut from her dimensional space and popped it into her mouth, saving the chewy sensation. Pikkory Nuts were nothing special; their only defining characteristic their tough and chewy consistency. She had brought whole tubs in with her when entering the Shard, but now she was running low, another thing to be scared of. There were only so many comforts she could go without before losing the last of her morality.

Zedna was not a good person; she had come to peace with that long ago. But she didn’t think she was a truly bad one, either. The Tower rewarded those who could make harsh decisions, and she was forced to make them every day. It was just, more recently, those decisions stopped being true decisions. After all, was it really a choice when choosing between two equally bad options?

It’s all that bastard Lem’s fault. Even if you had to get yourself killed, did you have to kill off my most loyal supporters as well?

Lem was her second in command. Now ‘was’ in the past tense, as he was now dead, leading many of her inner circle in an ill-fated attack on someone that shouldn’t have been provoked. Only one person had made it back to tell the tale, but one was all that was needed to spread the word to the rest of the factions that she lost her most powerful supporter.

Zedna ruled her gang with an iron fist. She had to if she wanted to keep order: there was no other way to control all the divisive elements. With her personal strength along with her powerful faction she was able to play the smaller splinter groups against each other and maintain harmony. Or she used to be able to. Ignoring her orders, the smaller factions had taken the influx of new blood to the Shard as a chance to go recruiting. Now their factions had swelled, and that combined with losing her second in command along with many of her elite forces had closed the power gap.

Ruling with absolute force was the best option for keeping in line murderers and cannibals. Truthfully, it was the only option, but even though it was the path she had to take it came with downsides, the biggest being the consequences should she ever lose her iron grip on the gang. Just one slip, one opening, and she was done. And that’s exactly what Lem’s death was: an opening.

But she had ways to deal with that. She wasn’t some spring chicken just out of the egg. No, the nail in the coffin was Henry. She had trusted him, not the same way she had trusted Lem, but he had been on her side, or so she thought. She couldn’t have been more wrong. He had been waiting patiently, biding his time, choosing the perfect moment to strike.

Now it was too late, and Zedna was starting to realistically evaluate the endgame. Her goal was to leave this blasted Shard, but to do that, she had to secure her own life first.

A knock on the door sounded, interrupting her thoughts.

“Come in,” Zedna barked.

Opening the door, Ravvik stepped into her office, forcing her to hold her tongue lest a string of cruses flow out. She had sent him on a mission along with two others, hoping to be rid of the three of them for good. No one would miss them, and they were all unstable elements that everyone would be better off without. It would be much better to have them gone, but apparently something had gone wrong, as at least Ravvik survived to tell the tale.

Zedna stared at the man, examining his current condition. He was looking down, but that was normal. There were few that could withstand her gaze.

On first glance, Zedna didn’t look like the leader of a gang of bloodthirsty bandits. She was petite; not just short, but small too, barely reaching the chest on some of the taller members, her muscle mass indistinct to the casual eye. She had black hair, which she kept short, and sharp piercing yellow eyes. It was her eyes that gave her the ability to stare down men more than twice her size. A casual glance only showed a watery yellow color, but for anyone who stared longer, her eyes seemed to come alive, yellow flames appearing like shadows in their depths.

“Out with it then,” Zedna said to Ravvik. “What’s the result of your mission.”

“My apologies, leader,” Ravvik said, his voice disgustingly subservient. “The mission was a failure. Both Shiq and Derro are dead.”

“Describe to me in detail what happened.”

Ravvik stumbled through the explanation, the flow of events not clear. Multiple times Zedna had to ask for clarification throughout the story, but eventually he finally got the whole thing out before she dismissed him.

From the sound of it, they had actually found a reasonable mark. Too bad they had been destined to fail. Shiq was useless in a straight up fight, the coward barely able to utilize his battle skills. Ravvik and Derro were passable, but both had their own flaws, which it seemed had been exploited. Although from the description he gave, Ravvik was lucky enough to make it back. The earth elementalist sounded powerful, and without his ability to fly he would have been a sitting duck on the ground.

That should have been the end of it, the incident just a small divergence from her crumbling plans, but something stuck out to her. It took her a minute to realize: it was the woman, the earth elementalist.

Ravvik had called her a stone woman, and Zedna had taken that as a description for a stony visage. But maybe he meant that literally. What if she actually was a woman made from stone?

Zedna jumped up, pacing back and forth in the limited confines of her office, jaw working overtime as she chewed away at the Pikkory Nut still in her mouth. Ravvik had called the woman an earth elementalist, but what if she wasn’t? What if she was a Stonebender? Unlike many others, Zedna knew where the exit portal was; her only issue was getting there. And if this woman actually was a Stonebender, then…

Plans started to fall into place as her mind moved in a thousand directions, stitching together parts of previously trashed ideas to form a new cohesive whole. If she could pull the right strings maybe she wouldn’t go down with the ship after all.

Ravvik stepped out of Zedna’s office, a shiver of fear crossing over him. He could still feel her eyes on him, even though he never actually saw them. Once was enough: there was no need for a second glance. When he first saw her, he thought she was some eye candy for the real boss. Then a few months later he had been privileged to watch one of her “demonstrations”. She was a monster in Humen flesh, and he had vowed then never to cross her.

But times change, and those burning yellow eyes no longer had the same hold on him that they once did. He was a changed man. His previous self would likely balk at what he had become, but then, his previous self would have died ten times over in this shithole of a Shard. He still wasn’t stupid enough to openly disobey her, but their once larger than life leader had shrunk back down to normal size. And just because he wasn’t stupid enough to openly disobey her didn’t mean that others weren’t.

Moving his way through the underground complex Ravvik ingratiatingly nodded his head to everyone that walked past. It’s not that he was necessarily weaker than them, but without a power backing him his life could easily be made a living hell. Let alone Zedna any of the faction leaders could order him around with impunity.

After passing through numerous caverns and passageways he made his way to an unassuming door before knocking on it hesitantly. After a response from the other side he opened the door and walked in.

He had debated long and hard about which leg to hug, and after much consideration he settled on Henry. Before the recent events Henry had been a stranger to him, just another one of Zedna’s loyal army, ready to punish whoever she felt stepped out of line. More recently though his faction had been growing, seemingly appearing out of nowhere like dandelions in the spring.

The rooms in the underground base were all small, and Henry’s chamber was no exception. There was only room for a desk, a bed, and a small washing station for basic hygiene. After entering, Ravvik quickly gave his greeting.

“Esteemed, sir, my name is Ravvik, and I have some information you might be interested in.”

Henry’s soft smile twitched, which of course Ravvik was unable to spot because of his obsequious bow. Henry nearly sent Ravvik out because of his servile voice, but in the end decided to hear him out.

“Information? Very well, go ahead and speak. I’m willing to listen.” He wasn’t really, as he was in the middle of some important planning, but he didn’t get to where he was by ignoring details, not matter how small. Perhaps this fool actually knew something?

“Of course, esteemed sir, it’s like this…”

Ravvik told Henry the same information he previously told Zedna, the difference being the information was a lot more coherent now that he wasn’t quaking in fear. The story was also filled with a lot of needless compliments, which Henry glossed over, the effort to vocalize them going to waste.

Once Ravvik was done, Henry lapsed into silence, thinking over the information. Ravvik thought this was a good sign, showing that his info was valuable, but really Henry was just trying to think of the best way to get rid of him. Until, like Zedna earlier, he came to the same realization she had.

Quickly formulating a plan, he let a beaming smile creep onto his face.

“My good friend Ravvik, you’ve brought me some valuable information.” Although you don’t know just how much, he said in his head. “I would be happy to guarantee your safety in the gang if you would do a small favor for me.”

Relaying some instructions, Henry sent Ravvik off to tell the same story to some of the other faction leaders, but this time with some embellishments. If he wasn’t wrong, Zedna knew her time in the gang was finished. He had been wracking his mind for a way to figure out her next step, spending hours going over reports from his subordinates for the smallest clue. He had never suspected the information would just drop into his lap.

Sweeping the previous documents from his desk, he started on new ones, inwardly delighting over his good fortune. Finally, it was his time to rise.