[-=Nox=-]

The Triumvirate of Virtue emerged from the other side of the docks, in full force, marching our way. The Searcher and the Enforcer looked pretty defeated, ashamed even, while the Legate was blazing with fuming rage. I saw her power as White radiance that shone like a miniature sun in my tongue scanner's view.

“Valerianne Yul! Get off that Rimmer ship this instant!” She yelled as soon as she spotted me.

“Would love to, but can’t. Too drunk and tipsy! You know how it is!” I yelled back. “I could totally fall overboard and drown due to my current alcohol-influenced condition!”

Knight Lazarus saw Nicodemus kneeling on the dock.

“Are you offering a prayer to Virtue? Good man.” Lazarus padded the bald head of the ex-captain.

Nicodemus looked aghast.

“Wait a minute! That’s my sword!” Lazarus looked at me.

“Nuhuh! It’s my emotional and physical support sword.” I declared. “You can’t take it from me! I require it to stay balanced and also to look more menacing!"

Lazarus tried to ascend the gangway and bumped into the magical shield that surrounded the ship.

“Sorry, no non-Rimmers allowed!” I told him. “This is a floating club by invitation only! Your name isn’t on the list! You'll have to bring me wine and snacks if you want to party!"

“Drinking is a sin!” Legate seethed out.

“Is it? Can you read me the full list of sins please? I’ve totally forgotten what they all are!”

The Legate turned red. She didn’t like my positively-drunk attitude one bit.

“You’re an acolyte of Virtue, not a Rimmer!” She growled.

“Why can’t I be both?” I shrugged. I wasn’t even sure where I was going with this, but it was quite funny to piss off these pompous human beans.

“Nicodemus, why does your merchant ship have a magical barrier shield?” Legate asked the kneeling man.

“I assure you this is just a safety precaution!” I yelled from the deck. “You never know when the Sextants might attack! Nobody expects the Sextant Inquisition!”

Legate didn’t laugh at my amazing jokes.

“What are you hiding?” She growled at Nicodemus.

“He’s not hiding shit, clearly he’s just a dumb, human merchant here to sell uhhm… Rim sausages. He is definitely not here to steal all of your talented children!” I yelled. “Also, I’m making this fantastic, impervious barrier. I’m way above you in the magical department. Like a super-duper-Archmage! Wait, no. I’m a Goddess! Worth at least 10 Archmagi! Maybe 20! I don’t know. Also, I’m super drunk! That makes me ten times more powerful!”

Legate choked. “You’re an Archmage?! Impossible!”

“How do you know? Maybe I levelled up since last time we were hanging out in the courtyard. Also, why would you pose as Alyssa using such crappy illusion magic? Do you pick up 20 year old boys while wearing her face? Is this your thing, you dirty, old cougar? I saw right through your shite illusion, by the way. That’s how almighty I am!”

The Legate turned even redder. “What level is she?” She barked at the Searcher, who now had a new, smaller sphere of Inquiry on her.

“Level zero, Legate Feuerstahl!” Alyssa responded, shaking.

“Hey Alyssa! Is that a backup pearl of Inquiry? How many of these do you guys have in total?” I waved at the Searcher. Alyssa didn’t look at me. She was quite ashamed that she lost her big, shiny ball.

“You’re a ZERO, Valerianne. Do not test my patience!” The Legate hissed.

"Oh, are we on a first name basis already, Ingriddy?" I yawned.

I could hear her grinding teeth all the way from where she stood.

"What is it you guys worship again? Virtue? What does Goddess Virtue even look like? I haven't seen a single artwork of her in your Convent. Why, I bet she's an old, hideous crone with a million moles! No judgment, just an observation on your lack of Divine portrayals… portraits.. ah iconography! I bet she's nowhere as stunning as I am!" I pointed at myself.

"You dare blaspheme about Virtue?!" Ingrid growled.

“I am the eldest, wisest, bestest of all current gods and spirits, Ingrid. My current body is just basic tomfoolery. An illusion powerful enough to trick even your Searcher. I’m actually quite ancient. Why, I took a nap for six thousand years just last week! I love to play practical jokes on kids like yourself! Would a level zero be able to do this? TAA-DAA!” I lifted the big sword of Knight Lazarus with only my thumb and forefinger. My arm and fingers nearly broke from the strain as I burned through my blood. Totally worth it, though.

The Legate paled, mouth flapping like a fish. She knew that a level zero would have no possible way to hold a steel sword up like that.

I stabbed the sword back into my ship's deck.

“Go home to your Convent, Legate Fu Feu Frpflp. Fuck it, I’m too drunk for your weird germanic name! I bet you don't even know what Germania was."

“I’m not going anywhere! You’re coming with us! You robbed our convent!” Ingrid seethed. “You stole money, weapons and tools from my Knights!”

“Just a practical joke! We Gods love to play jokes on mortals! I’ll send you the sword, the glow-ball and the money in the mail when I get bored of them!” I giggled.

The Legate was done playing around with me. She pointed her palm at me, drawing power from the Convent well, ready to slice apart me and my new, shiny ship. She had an insanely high level, I knew, because the pearl of Inquiry on my belt and my tongue told me.

Her Sunder spell would punch straight through the shield, the ship and through me. I sighed. I really didn’t want to do this, but she left me no choice.

“Stop!” I yelled.

“Yes?” The Legate squinted at me. “Are you ready to come willingly?”

As me and the Legate chatted I had moved the healing gem into the center of my body, where a complex magical matrix was brewing for many hours now. I activated the spell circle inside of myself. It worked! It shot an incredibly thin Void command line toward the convent, following the line of power that the healing gem was drawing from. All of the magical artifacts on me sparkled, burning out as I drew power from them to fire the invisible command line across a great distance.

A third of my blood burned away as the gem of healing cracked in half and shattered within me. My blood churned, devouring the remnants of the gem.

Upon arrival at its destination above the Triumvirate's well of power, the command exploded in a very specific way. Magical, burning sparks, made up of microscopic, ongoing explosions that triggered the activator within my fake dungeon sphere.

I made a gun-shape with my hand and pointed my index finger at the Convent standing upon the distant mountain.

“I’m ready to show you my incredible power. Look at me! Now look at your Convent!” I yelled.

The Legate glanced at the Convent. She clearly didn’t take me seriously. This had been a mistake.

"This is for a girl named Ingrid that your Convent killed! This is for her forgotten love Castillia! This is for all of the ghosts for all of the souls you have broken!" I yelled and the Legate paled.

“Abra cadabra! Exploderus maximus!” I made a motion with my finger-gun pretending to fire a spell at the mountain.

The Void-bomb masquerading as a dungeon core received the command and exploded with the righteous hellfire of a thousand stars, shattering the protective shield and mixing with, cracking thousands of dungeon and monster cores all around it. The total release of magical energy was truly catastrophic. The Universe shuddered and all of Europa shook. The mountain that the Convent stood on had exploded with a blinding flash, a circular blastwave cutting through the clouds, shaking the very foundations of Kleinburg. A few of the shoddy buildings toppled in the city. A mushroom cloud several hundred meters in height rose into the sky from where the Convent once stood.

“You… you…” Ingrid trembled, as the blastwave reached us, flapping the flags atop the ship and the capes of the Virtuous.

Undoubtedly she was feeling true terror of impossible things, of power beyond her comprehension. It was ironic that her ghost had helped me destroy the convent.

“I am a drunk Goddess. Do not screw with me, Ingrid.” I said, blowing at my finger. “I’ll level Kleinburg next if you don’t leave me alone.”

The Knight and the Searcher looked at the gargantuan mushroom cloud. They had clearly never seen devastation of such power. They both gulped, backing away from my ship.

“Legate, I suggest we retreat before she makes her threat a reality.” Lazarus said, wisely standing in front of her hand.

“Ingrid! Do not agitate this mad Archmage any further! Please, I beg you, I have brothers and sisters in the city!” The huge knight cried when she did not move.

The Legate glared at me one last time and lowered her hand with resignation. She didn’t know that I couldn't possibly explode anything else. I was spent, burned out, aching from within as remnants of the healing gem dissolved in my blood.

“You’ll pay for your sins, one day, monster.” She growled under her breath.

"My real name is Nox. Tell everyone about me! Sing my name in the streets of your city! I am the Goddess of Eternal Night, the true nemesis of Virtue!" I yelled, listening to the dings of completed quests in my soul. The human workers of the docks and ships nearby heard me, saw our interaction. My name would spread like wildfire through the city and the surrounding countryside and beyond it now.

There was only one Quest left to do today. I decided to hammer the iron while it was hot.

"...and just one other thing, Legate! Clean up your sewers with some cleansing magic and replace your pipe filters. I have a Quest from River Altaira. If you won't stop dumping sewage into the river I'll totally come back and vaporize your entire town!" I yelled. "Don't think that I won't!"

"Fine." The Legate nodded shakily. The full impact of what I had done had finally reached her, breaking her spirit. I heard another ding in my soul as the System determined that I defeated my third Archmage of the day.

The Triumvirate started to retreat into town. They had been undone. I knew it, they knew it, the System knew it.

[Congratulations, you pathetic weakling! You've levelled up to: Level One! Good for you!] The System spoke with my voice.

Wow, did I really sound like that? I was a dick. I rubbed my face, feeling somewhat embarrassed.

June emerged from the ship. She grabbed Nicodemus by the hand, took the contract tube and guided him inside the ship. He had been utterly broken. He couldn't turn his head away from the enormous explosion that had blotted out half of the sky. Neither could the rest of the Rimmer crew that had come up to the top of the deck of the Resurgence and were now staring at the inexplicable doomsday that had befallen Kleinburg.

The amulet of healing had been an excellent, handy resource, but alas. Some things were worth sacrificing to make a good impression upon my new crew and a few dumb Archmagi who had underestimated a level zero human.

“How did you do that?” June had come back to me. Her eyes were as round as saucer plates. She, like the rest of the gathered, local humanity that had seen the mushroom cloud, did not expect something like this from me.

“Void magic, alchemical science and the absolute greed of the White church!” I said. “Those morons were stockpiling thousands of dungeon cores in one place. Not a smart thing to do. You’ll be able to do this too, someday. My Apostles levelled mountains, cleaved seas and rearranged the flow of rivers! Every God who tried to stand in my way was ultimately vanquished, devoured. Honestly, it’s lucky for us that the Virtuous have no depictions of their Goddess. It’s much more difficult to manifest anywhere without a visualization. If anything the fact that they’re using MY stolen triskelion spiral is probably not letting their god come into existence, because it already belongs to me.”

“So, uh, are they reinforcing belief in you then?” June asked curiously.

“Nah. They didn’t know that I existed until today. They don’t use my name on the spirals. Nor do their prayers of Virtue mention me. It’s probably about to change, considering how I’ve shaken up their world.” I giggled. “They’ll probably introduce me as the antithesis to Virtue now, the evil that stands against the Light of day or whatever.”

“You don’t mind being their nemesis?”

“Nah. Playing the role of malice, wickedness and sin is just fine with me, as long as my enemies think about me. It’s how I chipped away at other Earth Gods over centuries, while my Apostles vanquished the people that worshipped them with words, swords, magic, alchemy, gunpowder, germs, and steel.”

“You seem so clueless at times though…” June whispered.

“I am quite clueless, but I’m progressively getting less so as I understand more things.” I smiled, giving my Apostle a hug. “I’m made of broken, mostly erased, disconnected information held together by a carcass of bones and meat called Valerianne Yul.”

June nodded. I stopped whispering my secrets into her big foxy ears and turned towards the rest of my crew.

“Rimmers! From this point forth you’ll be known as Pirates of the Nox! We’ll sail the great oceans of space across the majesty of the nebulous currents of magic and do great and horrible things.”

My new crew did not look very inspired. If anything they looked terrified of me. This was fine. I could work with fear. They would probably learn to love me, in time.

“You can’t just take over a Rim Searcher ship and do whatever you want. The Academia of Magic will…” Tamara said.

“They will do nothing, Archmage Keppler. I plan to stay within the legal boundaries of the Rim Academia. Do you think I’m going to keep you all collared like little kittens? This is just a precaution so all don't stab me while I rest. Exploding the Convent took a bit of mana out of me.” I wasn't lying to Tamara. I was at 1 Void once again, mostly leaning on my sword and June

“But then…” Tamara asked.

“You will all be signing soul bond Reiu contracts with me, as is the Rimmer tradition!”

“You haven’t been given a Rim middle name, you need to sign a contract with the Academy for that to work.” Tamara commented.

“I don’t need middle names attached to my soul. I am Nox, mortal. I had ONE name for millennia and I’m not about to change that. All of your contracts will be attached to the soul of my Apostle, June Rim Maldiver.”

Tamara blinked. I had found a loophole in their system. She didn’t like it one bit.

June choked. She suddenly realised that I was about to alleviate ALL of her debt, by reassigning it to the crew of the Resurgence.

“Thank you, Goddess.” She whispered, hugging me tighter. There were tears in her eyes. She couldn't believe it. She expected to work as a Void mage for the Rimmers for decades before she could walk straight and proud, not be burdened by the weight upon her soul. Her love for me burned brighter, resonated across her Void.

“You know, it’s quite ironic, Archmage Keppler. Just a few days ago, you were the only one to believe in me as you fed me soup. Now thousands will believe, fear and think about me. As long as stories about what I had done today pass from human to human I will not be forgotten and grow stronger with each day. I thank you for that, Tamara.”

“I… uhhh.” The female Archmage was out of words.

“I’ll be resting in my Captain’s Quarters. Crewmen! I’ve confiscated your shiny trinkets, so don’t cry when you find your own cabins somewhat ransacked.”

The crew made noises of disgruntlement.

“Blame it on Nicodemus. As you all know, Reius aren’t a usable currency on the topside of Europa. Gold and gems are. Your Captain owed a LOT of backpay to my Apostle June. She’s performed plentiful jobs for him in towns without seeing a single dime. So, I’ve had your shinies confiscated. You all can go to Nicodemus and demand the worth of the items be repaid with his family’s soul debt! That is all. Good night.”

The crew angrily glared at Nicodemus, who sat on a deck bench cradling his head in his hands. He was distraught with the current flow of events. All that he’s worked for had come undone in a mere hour.

I leaned onto June and she helped walk me to Captain’s Cabin. Once she brought me to the room, I leaned towards her and kissed her, enjoying the blissful currents of her Shadow mana. It was simply sublime.