Part 2

The God Machine

Chapter 4:

Sunscald Garden

The loud sounds of metal crashing down on concrete echoed on top of each other through dim hallways. The sounds’ origin was rapidly getting closer, its arrival signaled by the smashing down of a door.

The mechanical automaton, a chimera, passed through, its six legs rattling as it took steps into the darkness. Blue magical energy surged through its open, glowing joints, powering its seven eyes as they constantly shifted around its head. Each eye shot forth a beam of light, scanning the surrounding area, revealing a clump of unconscious people on the floor. The same group of people that had so brazenly attacked the castle and city of its masters.

The eyes converged into a single mass, enveloping the group in the combined light. As it scanned, it passed its visual feed along to the waiting hands of its masters.

---

An ominous purple glow pierced through the golden light of the throne room as a portal formed on one of its walls. From it, a man stepped forth. Dressed in a pure white royal garb that matched his hair and wearing a golden crown upon his head, the man’s presence commanded immediate authority from everyone else in the room.

Seventeen guards stood in the room, one on each side of the carpet slicing the room in twine, and then five more at the bottom of the staircase leading to the three thrones, two of which were already occupied.

“Lord Sinvitas, welcome back.” Said one of the guards in the room as they all bowed to him.

“Yes, yes. Stand to attention.” Responded Sinvitas.

Upon hearing his words, the guards’s behavior changed immediately, as if flipping a switch. Their pupils contracted, and they became very rigid, staring ahead motionlessly like they were statues.

Sinvitas walked upon the red carpet, heading slowly towards his own throne.

The strident crimson of the carpet did well to mask the fresh blood dripping down from the king’s hands.

With every step Sinvitas took, he stepped past intricate marble statues and stainless glass windows, all depicting previous rulers and significant events in the castle’s life. The king had not spared these even a single glance during the entirety of his rule.

“Why go after them yourself? Our beasts would have caught them all.” Asked a voice coming from further ahead. This voice belonged to Cyntorum, the head of the guards.

“I don’t see why I can’t stretch my legs a little. This lazy lifestyle isn’t doing me any favors.” Sinvitas answered as he wiped away the blood on his hands on one of the guards.

“Why, I think lazy fits you well, though.” Replied a voice coming from the throne on the left. This man was Yaol, the head of staff.

“I suppose I need to cut your salary for that remark.” Joked Sinvitas.

An ethereal blue screen levitated in the middle of the room. The screen was a buzzing mess of colors, as if it was on standby, ready to have its transmission accepted.

Sinvitas stepped past the mindless soldiers and took his place upon the throne. Once there, he motioned for the transmission, to begin with. The brightness increased, and the colors fell upon the king’s visage. Though he had a few wrinkles, the passage of time achieved little in taking away any of his strength.

As the transmission began to play out, the three men on the throne watched with great interest.

Conforming to his position as the head guard, Cyntorum was equipped with heavy armor through which one could barely notice his disheveled black hair. Yaol, on the other hand, was dressed in garb more appropriate of an important diplomat. His blonde hair was well kept, and his outfit, which would otherwise be a standard set of noble clothing, stood out immediately by the short purple veil he wore on his shoulders that reached around to his chest, where it had a small opening for his arms to push through.

In contrast, Sinvitas let his position stand out immediately. Resting on a gaudy throne encrusted with jewels sat he, donning a long white cape with a gold lining around its edges and a crown to match, the lord of the city, silently observing the group of people who had so brazenly attacked his castle.

He twiddled his fingers tirelessly as his eyes drilled into every member of the group. His chimera was currently performing every single scan it possessed, all to confirm one single fact.

One by one, each scan returned negative. As the last scan concluded, the lord slumped back into his throne.

“So, they were not sent by the Empress.” Said Cyntorum with a voice that sounded more monster than human

“Just because they don’t have any traces of her magic on them does not prevent that possibility. They could be simply mercenaries.” Reasoned Yaol.

“As if she would trust sellswords with such a task.” Argued Cyntorum

The lord allowed himself one more moment of relaxation before returning his focus upon the matter at hand.

“It hardly matters now.” The lord spoke. “Their lives are forfeit.”

Cyntorum crossed his arms.

“Then let their black hearts burn on our pyre.”

“Patience, Cyntorum. We must first make a public example of them.” Argued Yaol.

Sinvitas raised his hand.

“Machine, my order is as such. Bring me one of the terrorists. This one we will execute publicly as the leader of the operation. The rest? Paralyze them.”

“What about the skull?” Asked Cyntorum.

“Grab all the bags they have on them. Even if they did not hide it there, our prisoner will part with that information so that he may escape the fate of the others.”

“Anything else?” Asked Yaol.

The lord’s eyes wandered across the room. For all the lavish decoration his throne room possessed, it was always the ticking hand of the grandfather clock that drew his attention.

“Don’t waste time.”

---

The mechanic chimera rattled as it received its command. It reached out for one of the unconscious people lying on the floor. It clutched her torso in its claw and lifted her off the ground. As it loomed over its quarry, a tail extended from its back, a large scorpion-like stinger attached to the end of it. It brought its stinger over her, and in one swoop, impaled her heart. A magic substance flowed outwards from the heart through her veins. Within a couple of seconds, all signs of life ceased.

Her entire body had frozen, down to its very last cell. WIth her done, the machine moved on to the next person on the floor. Each one of them suffered the same fate, freezing to their core with their heart pierced.

Once all but one heartbeat in the room stilled, the chimera grabbed the last remaining person together with all the bags laying by the paralyzed bodies and placed them on its back.

With its task now done, the machine returned to its master, leaving the room to the heist group’s frozen bodies.

A few minutes passed in complete stillness.

“That was so scary!” Shinko’s voice broke the silence.

From a corner of the room, Shinko and the rest of the group returned to regular size. A few seconds after, Skass dropped down from the ceiling.

To avoid running into soldiers, the group decided to hide in the room and leave fake mirage bodies behind to pass as them. Shinko had shrunk everyone she could and hid in a corner. Skass, meanwhile, hung on to the ceiling and used his agility to keep out of the chimera’s line of sight.

“Never thought I’d get a front-row seat to what could have been my own death.” Said Skass.

Tor stared at the frozen bodies.

“It’s really only now begun to dawn on me. We...we are actually going to die, aren’t we?”

“Oh, spare me the dramatics. Whoever’s in charge was moronic enough to fall for the decoy. We’ll make it out of here just fine.” Said Valerria, annoyed.

Collar approached the frozen bodies and looked them over.

“Indeed. The appearance of Mirage’s bodies is completely faked. The machinery should be prepared with sensors against that kind of deception.”

“I thought nobles prided themselves on hoarding the best technology of the land under their dresses, and this is what they have to show for themselves? Pathetic.” Added Valerria.

“Who cares? Let’s just get out of here!” Said Tor.

“I’m with Tor on this one. Yon, can you bring us back up?” Asked Skass.

“Of course. Let’s not waste any more time.” Said Yon.

Yon pulled out his watch and placed it on a wall, but this time it didn’t form a portal. Upon closer inspection, the problem became apparent.

“It’s broken.” A long pause followed his words as a feeling of despair kicked in.

“We have to get out of here, now!” He continued and rushed for the door, only to be stopped by Collar.

“What do you think you’re doing?!? Get out of my way!”

“We finally have the opportunity to consider our next moves carefully. Now is not the time to rush.”

“It’s the complete opposite. Our ruse will not keep the guards fooled for long! We need to make use of every second we have!” Argued Yon.

“And we will make use of it by preparing for what’s ahead.”

“Collar, just because I gave you free rein to help us infiltrate the castle does not mean that you are now the leader.” Said Yon.

As if waiting on these words, Valerria drew her daggers and pointed them at Collar.

“Obey, or you will not leave this room alive.” Threatened Valerria.

Though the tall man’s body was still shaking and bleeding all over from his burn wounds, he did not flinch at her threat.

“If you believe that you can escape on broken legs, then go ahead and try me.”

Yon looked unsure of what to do next. Valerria, however, couldn’t be smiling harder.

“Now you’re talking.” She said as she approached Collar.

Just before she could strike, Shinko got into her way.

“Have you all gone mad? We are stranded among enemies, and the first thing you do is try and murder each other?” She yelled at them.

Collar and Valerria continued to stare each other down despite Shinko’s words. Seeing the tension, Tor chimed in too.

“Sad to see you all act less sensible than a tavern drunk. You were all so quick to berate me for my shortcomings, but in the end, I suppose you were only doing it to mask your own foolishness.”

Valerria and Collar took their eyes off of each other and looked to Tor.

“Never thought I’d be suggesting this, but you should heed Tor’s words. Even he can recognize how foolish you two are acting.” Said Skass.

The two didn’t say a word, but it was clear that at least their desire to fight had disappeared. Valerria sheathed her dagger and walked away from Collar.

“You have one minute, Collar. Make it fast.” Said Yon.

Collar walked up to the three who had been watching the conflict.

“What’s your status? Any serious wounds after the fall?” Asked Collar.

Tor smiled and flexed, though whatever muscles he had were hidden by his equipment.

“No worries, my armor protected me during the fall.”

“Armor doesn’t guard against gravity.” Said Skass.

“No wounds on either of you then. What about you, Shinko?”

“I’m good. I’ll have a harder time helping you guys out now, but my magic is still as good as ever.”

Collar nodded. With them done, he only had one more person to check on, the one who had saved them from the chimera.

“Mirage?”

Mirage stood alone, not having moved an inch from the corner they had hidden in. It did not acknowledge Collar’s question, nor his presence. It simply swayed back and forth gently.

“You’re wasting your time. With all the damage that Mirage received, it’s a miracle its mind hasn’t completely gone away.” Said Yon.

Seeing Mirage’s sad state, Valerria could do nothing but laugh.

“It’s such a good dead ringer, no? My finest creation with boundless versatility.” Valerria said while patting Mirage on the head.

“But still.” She continued. “If you can’t go on anymore, it’s better that I kill you here. I hate carrying dead weight around.”

At this, Mirage suddenly started shaking and convulsing.

“P-Please...no…” It barely muttered in between its convulsions.

Shinko stepped in between the two.

“Leave it alone! It’s suffering enough as it is!” Said Shinko.

“But that’s what I want to put a stop to!” Said Valerria, feigning emotional distress. “All I want is to put poor Mirage out of its misery!”

“I...I...n-no…”

“Valerria, please. It’s gonna recover! You can’t just kill it!” Argued Shinko.

“Yeah, I think you’re being way too cruel.” Added Tor.

Valerria’s head sunk slightly as if disappointed at the arguments put before her.

“Really, you two? You’re really standing up for my broken toy?”

Valerria walked up to Shinko and stared her down.

“Are you terrified that if I’m allowed to kill Mirage here, your disability will get you purged from the group next?” Valerria asked, making sure to put a strong accent on the word disabled as she spoke.

Valerria was not wrong. Shinko had felt afraid ever since losing her arms, scared that she lost her worth to the group, worried that it would be her life that she loses next time.

A reality she was facing right now.

Shinko shook with both anger and fear, wracking her head as emotions clashed within her over what she should do. She truly wanted to help Mirage, but here she stood face to face with an oh-so-familiar ultimatum to her.

“Damn it.” She said as she ran away from Valerria, leaving Mirage’s side.

Valerria turned to Tor.

“And what about you, Tor? Afraid that you’ll lose out on the one team member more brain dead than you?”

Tor did not appear phased by her words in the same way Shinko was.

“No. ” Said Tor.

“Then?” Valerria asked, annoyed.

“Leave Mirage alone.” Said Tor sternly.

Valerria looked stunned by his stubbornness. For once, she actually looked unsure of what she should do.

“You’re not making any sense. Mirage isn’t even human. I only gave it emotions so it can blend in better during our missions. If you are so attached to it, I’ll create another Mirage. Just give me five months or so. I’ll even program it to be your friend.” Said Valerria.

Tor didn’t respond to Valerria’s words.

“Oh, so that’s it! You just wanted someone to finally like you. That’s why you’re standing up for a doll. Hear that, Mirage? Isn’t he pathetic?” Said Valerria while glancing at Mirage with a look that said she was expecting a response.

Mirage trembled. Even though its chaotic shifting visage, its dread was plain as day to see.

“...yes...what an idiot.” It said.

Mirage’s words struck a chord with Collar. He felt old memories of his time as a slave resurface. Valerria, Mirage? One enforcing their will upon their other and torturing them as they see fit, another bending to their every whim and enforcing their desires regardless of how badly they were treated. He had already seen this play out so many times before.

“Good, then you agree with me that you need to die. Problem solved.”

This time, Collar was the one to step in Valerria’s way.

“Really now? After I graciously spared your life, you’re risking it for a puppet whose strings broke?”

“Mirage is clearly no puppet. You have no place to torture the poor thing so.” Argued Collar.

“No place? Is it not the duty of a parent to put down their child when it suffers so? You dare deny Mirage my mercy?” Asked Valerria.

With Tor at his side, neither of the men backed down. Seeing this, Valerria let out an exasperated sigh.

“I created the darn thing! And like I said, I have no interest in dragging useless meat around. Stand down, or die along with it. Your choice.” She spoke again, this time with a much more threatening tone.

“You don’t have to worry about that. I will make sure that Mirage does not get in your way.” Said Collar.

“Really? You will make sure of that? You can barely even stand.”

“Collar and I can look after Mirage no problem, so you can relax.” Said Tor.

“Enough! Valerria, save your bickering for after we are out of the castle! As for you, Collar, hurry up and finish your roundup!” Barked Yon.

Collar walked up to Mirage and placed a hand on its shoulder.

“Listen, I know it’s tough for you to respond right now, but I need you to tell me this. Are you able to reabsorb the bodies that you regenerate?”

Mirage nodded slowly.

“Good.”

“Tor, can you help me out?” Asked Collar.

“Sure.”

Tor carried Mirage over to the pile of bodies.

“Do not absorb anything past the outer layer of flesh. The chimera injected something into their bloodstream.” Said Collar.

Tor lowered Mirage gently down bodies until one of its hands felt touched the bodies. Its hand glowed faintly as the body it touched started to shrink and shrivel up. One by one, Mirage reabsorbed as much matter from them as it could. Though it did not alleviate its pain, it replenished some of its lost strength, allowing Mirage to resist its influence better.

Once it was done, all that was left was just a shriveled-up pair of bodies that were still very much alive.

“How are you feeling now?” Asked Collar.

“...better.” Answered Mirage.

Mirage managed to stand back up on its own, though it was clear that it was still very unsteady on its feet.

“Good. I have one more thing left to do. Try to recover as much strength as you can before we leave.”

Collar left Mirage and walked up to Shinko.

“What do we have left in your bag? Can you let me check?” Asked Collar.

The bag Shinko carried was the last bag they kept, the rest they left with the bodies to keep up the disguise. Before tossing them away, they made sure to put whatever items of worth they had in each bag in Shinko’s.

When Collar reached for the bag to go through them, Shinko pulled away.

“Don’t. The skull is inside there. If you brush your finger against it, you’ll die.”

“Let me do it. Grazing it won’t do anything to me.” Said Skass.

Skass pulled out each item one by one and handed it over to the person it was relevant to. Among them, two stood out immediately. It was a pair of syringes. A viscous orange liquid flowed back and forth through them as Skass kept turning them up and down.

“What are these?”

“My medicine. Time as a slave leaves its mark on one’s health as you might imagine.” Answered Collar.

“Oh no! Collar, are these two really enough for you?” Asked Shinko, worried.

“For now, yes. I can buy more with the gold from the mission.”

Valerria reached to grab one of the syringes from Skass’s grasp when Collar slapped her away.

“Don’t touch it.”

“You don’t trust me?” She asked, faking being hurt.

“I would rather trust the guards to let me walk out of the door.”

“Aw, come now, I just wanted a quick look at it. The liquid in it just reminds me of something.”

Collar took the syringe back from Skass.

“It’s so familiar I swear I have seen it somewhere before.” She said to herself.

Collar ignored her and pocketed the syringes.

Skass finished going through the items. The last one he pulled out was a pendant. This time, Skass approached Collar with it in private so that Valerria couldn’t see it.

“Is this yours too?” Asked Skass as he presented it to Collar.

“Yes, it is. How could you tell?” Asked Collar as he grabbed it.

“Ah, well. I suppose I would have a keepsake to keep me going if I was in your shoes. That, and I can’t imagine anyone else here holding on to jewelry instead of selling it.”

Collar smiled and clutched the pendant.

“Thanks.”

Collar turned back to the group.

“Alright, we’re ready to go now.”

Collar walked up to Mirage and lifted it on his back. The tall man visibly cringed as Mirage rested on his open burn wounds.

“I can carry Mirage. You don’t need to strain yourself.” Said Tor.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m already this damaged. Trying to spare me won’t do me much good.”

“Right, right. But if you need help at any point, let me know.”

“Of course.”

With everything done, the group left the room. The corridor outside was dimly lit by magical crystals affixed to the ceiling. The crystals constantly flickered as if they were on the verge of running out of power.

Cautiously, the group walked through the hallway. As they did, they came across a long set of doors on the walls to their left and right.

Deciding to test one of these rooms out, they had Shinko shrink and walk under the door. She returned quickly from her check.

“That looked like an out-of-commission generator room. Nobody was there, but either way, that room’s a dead end. This door is the only way in or out.” She reported.

“Are all of these rooms the same?” Asked Tor.

“If they are, that might be why the lights here are so weak. But why would all of them be out of commission?” Said Collar.

“What a pointless question. Idiots like you only serve to delay us. Am I not correct, Mirage?” Asked Valerria with a smirk on her face.

Mirage looked up at the two. With a fearful look on its face, it replied.

“Y-yes. You are a dead weight...to us.” It strained itself to say.

Valerria smiled devilishly, but Collar instead gave Mirage a look of pity that caused Mirage to be visibly surprised.

“Let’s just go.” Said Collar.

The group continued onwards until they started to hear some talking. The group approached the sounds’ source to find a couple of servants sitting in front of an exit.

“They don’t seem to have noticed us.” Said Tor.

“How do we get past them?” Asked Skass.

“Maybe we don’t. It’s quite likely that we will meet more of them past that doorway, and there is absolutely no way we can sneak past them with the damage that we were inflicted.” Said Collar.

“So you suggest stealing their clothes.” Said Yon.

“My clothes are still mostly fine, so I guess I’ll handle getting more.” Said Valerria.

Valerria broke away from her group and headed for the servants. Her right eye twitched as the intoxicant smell of alcohol filled the air around her. As she arrived before the doorway, her eyes fell on the four men slumped against a wall, each holding a bottle of liquor. Small drips of alcohol ran down their closed lips, and their eyes hung heavy from their faces.

“Filling yourselves while on the job, gentlemen?” She asked.

The men did not even glance at the woman before them.

“Can’t even mourn the passing of our children without a noble bootlicker telling us off, eh?” Said one of the intoxicated servants

“Scram lady, leave us to our sorrow.” Another one of them said while waving her away.

Valerria smiled as she drew her daggers.

---

Yon stared at his watch intensely. Though it was completely broken, Yon couldn’t help his habit.

“You took five minutes.” He said as if he counted the seconds in his mind.

“You try to subdue 4 men without any of them making a sound and see how long it takes.” Said Valerria as she handed the clothes over.

“Those are five minutes we won’t get back, Valerria. Five minutes!” Complained Yon.

Valerria threw her hands up, exasperated.

“Be faster next time.” Said Yon.

“Alright, alright, I get it.” She said.

“Did you kill them?” Yon continued to ask.

“And stain the clothes? No, I just threatened them to force them into a room and then knocked them out.” Said Valerria, offended at Yon’s question.

“You should have slit their throats after you got their clothes. We don’t want them waking up and reporting us.” Yon said.

“Yon, it’s fine. We’ll get out of here before that can become a problem.” Said Skass.

“And what if we don’t? What then?” Asked Yon, angry.

Valerria’s eyes narrowed.

“If you keep this up, Yon, we’ll be sure to find out.” She said sternly.

Yon looked ready to continue arguing but relented as he saw that everyone was ready to take Valerria’s side.

“Fine. What do we have?”

“These are four sets of servants' clothing, same as the ones you got for us. They are all male uniforms, so Shinko and I would stand out in them.”

“Then, how will the rest of us be able to sneak through?” Asked Shinko.

“That won’t be a problem. The clothes will go to me, Skass and Tor. Valerria doesn’t need a change of clothes. The four of us will move on as normal.” Said Yon.

“As for you and Collar, your missing arms and his charred skin would make you stand out the moment you step out. So instead, you will shrink yourselves and hide on one of our shoulders.”

“Alright, that sounds fine-”

“What about Mirage?” Asked Collar.

Yon remained silent for a second. Mirage glanced at Collar’s face as he was carrying it. It looked genuinely surprised by the stranger who was standing up for it.

“Mirage is very likely to make mistakes and alter its disguise thanks to the damage that it sustained. We must leave it behind.”

“But what about the fourth set of clothes? Can it not wear those?” Asked Collar.

“Not a chance. Any clothes that it wears will be layered underneath the illusion that its targets see. And it would not help hide its face even if that wasn’t the case.” Said Valerria.

“Then we shrink Mirage along with Shinko and me. There won’t be a problem, right Shinko?” Asked Collar.

“No, there shouldn’t, I suppose. You two will have to huddle close to me so I can keep you both shrunk, but otherwise, we will be fine.”

“Very well, since you seem to want to make Mirage your responsibility, do as you wish.” Said Yon.

“Good.” Replied Collar.

“Just one question, who will be carrying them? It can’t be me, obviously. If they accidentally touch any of my scales, they will revert to full size instantly.” Said Skass.

“I like to travel light.” Said Valerria.

“Very well, I will carry them then.” Said Yon.

“Wait.” Interjected Shinko. “If it’s not too much to ask, can you let Tor carry us instead?”

“Me?”

“You are carrying the skull on you. How could I entrust such a burden to him?”

“Between you two, Tor is easily the stronger one. If push comes to shove, he will fight off enemies much better and keep us safe. And he won’t get to make bad choices either, me and Collar will help direct him!” Argued Shinko.

Yon mulled over her words for a little before relenting.

“Very well, if you insist. Tor shall be the one to carry you.”

“You have that much faith in me?” Asked Tor.

“In all of you.” Answered Yon.

The group got ready. The three changed into the servant clothes, after which Collar and Mirage grabbed Shinko by the waist, allowing her to shrink all three at once. Tor then grabbed them and put them on his shoulder where his vest met his neck, giving them the option to quickly hide underneath it.

With the preparations done, the group stepped outside. The transition in color felt natural and pleasant, the weak lights of the corridors giving in to what felt like a dimly lit night. In stark contrast to the tight and moody hallways they had traversed so far, a vast marble garden now stood before their eyes. The somber low ceiling had been replaced with what could only be described as a starry night sky. Several marble fountains and the many star-like lights on the tall ceiling gave the entire garden a very noticeable blue tint.

In this expansive garden, the four could see hundreds of servants lying about eating at tables, admiring beautiful blue flowers, as well as the mechanical automatons patrolling through the numerous pillars of the garden.

“It’s cold.” Whispered Valerria. “So cold. The people of this city are really damaged in the head if this is the temperature they prefer.”

The significant drop in temperature was not what bothered Yon and the rest the most, for the moment they stepped into the garden, what could only be described as a hushed voice, began twisting at the corner of their minds, though it was far too faint for any of them to notice it.

“They’re here!” Exclaimed Skass.

“Who?” Asked Yon.

“The presences I warned you about before, they’re here! They’re all over the garden. There’s so many of them, so many!”

Valerria rubbed her temple.

“It just never ends with this city, does it?” She said, annoyed.

“We can’t go any further! We will die!”

“Sorry, Skass, but this time we have no choice. This is the only avenue we have left.” Said Yon.

Skass shook with fear. Yon knew he couldn’t let Skass go out while in such a sad state, or he would be captured immediately.

“Listen, we have our disguises. Whatever is producing that abhorrent magic has to be under the king’s orders, so it won’t harm servants. As long as we keep calm, we will be fine.” Said Yon.

“We’ve come this far already, right? Compared to what we went through before, this is just a walk in the park.” Said Tor, trying to lift Skass’s attitude.

Skass shook for a few more seconds before gathering his resolve.

“That was a terrible joke, man.” He said, half smiling.

“Let’s not tarry any further. We will split up here since traveling in a group is too risky. We shall meet again at the exit.” Said Yon.

“Damn right we will.” Said Skass.

The four went off in different directions of the garden.

---

Tor paced nervously among the other servants, trying to not arouse any suspicion. Though surrounded by beautiful marble and frost flowers, none of the people around him seemed happy.

“Think they’re ok?”

“With explosions that large? You know well they aren’t.”

“But the guards assured us that nobody was injured!”

“That’s just so that panic doesn’t spread. Those rotten nobles are holding us here while our loved ones are dying!”

Everywhere Tor walked, servants were talking about the fate of those caught in the bombings. The few that did not speak of the events that had transpired were instead stuffing their face full with food and liquor to the point where even the machines had trouble carrying them refills.

Tor felt guilty as he watched them. He had not been informed about the usage of explosives before he arrived in Aslagard, and he didn’t get the opportunity to think about the damage they must have done. Now the wails of those they hurt were all he could hear and see.

“Ignore them and keep going.” Yelled Shinko into his ear.

On Tor’s shoulder sat Shinko, with Collar to her right and Mirage to her left. They were holding Shinko by her waist so that her ability would maintain both of them shrunk. From this position, the three sat on top of Tor’s clothes, next to the nape of his neck, instructing him as needed.

So far, the four had encountered very little threat as the garden was filled with other servants and offered multiple different routes to take, which allowed them to avoid guards.

“Ah!”

Tor jumped a bit as he felt something touch his leg. He looked down to see a dark orange ball at his foot. A cycler, a specimen belonging to a race of monsters that were coerced by magic to serve humans, and Tor had just next to it as it was doing its job. The servants' feverish eating had tossed many leftovers on the floors around them, causing many cyclers to come out and roll over the remains, absorbing them into their bodies to be digested.

“Are those machines too?” Asked Shinko.

Collar tried to tell what the creatures at Tor’s feet were but found himself unable to discern anything. He discovered that problem no matter where he tried to look. Even with having just one intact eye left, the gargantuan shapes he was staring upon were too much to process. Collar could not judge the distance they had moved or how close they were to Tor, and whenever he tried to look over Tor’s shoulder, an immense sense of vertigo always hit him.

The sounds were not any better either, for, at that size, the sound of a person speaking normally hit him like a shockwave.

Opposed to Collar was Mirage, who made no attempts to survey the area and instead just stared at nothing in particular and let the sound waves wash over it with no resistance.

“Tor, watch out! Some guards are approaching from the east. They are talking about the messy eating servants, so move west and distance yourself from them.” Yelled Shinko into Tor’s ear.

“You could tell?” Asked Collar.

“Of course. Using my magic in this way would be quite useless if I was left essentially deaf and blind by it.”

“That must have taken a lot of training to achieve.”

For a second, Shinko looked almost melancholic.

“Yeah, well, sometimes you don’t really get a choice.”

Collar stared at the young girl. Despite her energetic attitude, she looked drained as she uttered those words. It was something he was not so unfamiliar with himself.

“Oh, guards coming in from the right, pretend you are mingling with the crowd until they pass you by!” Said Shinko.

Tor did exactly as Shinko said and slipped the attention of the guards. As Collar watched Tor avoid every obstacle with ease, a thought came to mind.

“Shinko, the reason you asked us to be assigned to Tor, it wasn’t for our sake, was it?”

“Yep, you guessed it. I didn’t feel good leaving Tor alone. I’m sure Skass and the rest can manage just fine, but I figure Tor had a real chance of being caught and executed, and I’d rather we all get out of this alive.”

Collar chuckled.

“To tell you the truth, I did not expect to meet kind people on this job.”

“I don’t know if I would call myself that. I don’t have the energy to care about all of these people Valerria and Yon hurt, but at least the people I’m with I want to keep safe.”

Shinko looked like the melancholy would take over her again, but she was quickly snapped out of it as she saw what was awaiting ahead of them.

“Tor, there is a large group of soldiers ahead. They are covering a wide area, so moving to avoid them will look suspicious! Just keep calm and walk past them! The three of us are going to be hiding under your vest until you get past them.”

Tor gulped.

“As you say.” He whispered.

“Can we really trust him with this?” Asked Mirage.

“We have no choice. Let’s go.” Said Shinko.

Shinko Collar and Mirage dove and hid beneath his vest.

---

Mirage watched as the two kept on guard and waited for the coast to clear.

“Why did you choose to have us be carried by this idiot? We would have had a much easier time with Yon.” Asked Mirage.

“I already said why.” Answered Shinko. “Everyone else can manage on their own, but Tor? He would definitely get caught and killed. I don’t want that to happen to anyone in our group.”

“There’s no point in sacrificing yourself for others. How foolish.”

“That includes you.” Continued Shinko.

Mirage blanked, surprised at Shinko’s words.

“You care for my life, you say? After you ran away from Valerria, you dare make that claim?” Accused Mirage.

Shinko struggled to answer.

“I’m sorry. I just, I just remembered something and...I shouldn’t have left your side.” Said Shinko, as if she couldn’t find any words to form her apology with.

“What a sad excuse. For as stupid as he is, at least Tor stood his ground.” Said Mirage.

“Mirage, you know that’s not fair. That Shinko stood up for you in the first place was brave enough on its own.” Said Collar.

“Hah, she should have just piped down if it’s so hard for her then. To begin with, if she had known her place when fighting the golem, she wouldn’t have lost her-”

“Enough!”

The shirt beneath them shook lightly. Collar’s yell had startled Tor, but not just him.

Both Mirage and Shinko stared at the man sitting next to them with fear in their eyes. After a few seconds, Shinko looked away from the two of them.

“Sorry.” She muttered.

Collar felt a smidge of anger bubble up inside him. He looked at the hurt creature before him and reminded himself that it was not its fault that it viewed things this way.

Collar leaned unto Shinko so that her magic would not break when he reached his hand out and placed it on Mirage’s shoulder.

“I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Mirage pulled back but quickly stopped itself as it couldn’t allow itself to exit Shinko’s range.

“Don’t talk as if you are any different from Tor. Just another disposable fool. And you’re certainly no better than Shinko. If you had her disability, you would have fled before Valerria too!” Mirage’s voice shifted between male and female as it answered, betraying the pain it was still in.

Though the rest of her body stood perfectly still, Shinko instinctively placed her arm stump on Mirage as if wanting to push it away from her. Even knowing that this would force Mirage to return to its original size and give them away, Shinko didn’t stop herself. Mirage understood the meaning of her action and did nothing in response.

Collar stared at Mirage. Even with the constantly shifting appearance, the pain could still be read plain as day on its face. Whatever anger Mirage felt against them, it felt fabricated in order to hide something else.

Ignoring the insults, Collar replied gently.

“I mean it, Mirage. Soldiers, golems, even Valerria. I won’t let any of them lay a finger on you. I swear my life on it.”

For the second time, Mirage looked taken off guard by Collar’s words. Its face shifted wildly as it tried to process Collar’s intention.

This time, Shinko was the one to respond.

“Why?” Asked Shinko.

Collar turned his gaze over to Shinko. The girl stared back at him with anger in her eyes.

“Why do you care so much about Mirage all of a sudden? It’s done nothing but insult you ever since it got here! The only ones here who treated you worse than it was Yon and Valerria, so tell me, why do you care?”

At Shinko’s words, a vague experience of regret formed on Mirage’s face.

“Didn’t you stand up for it yourself?” Asked Collar.

“Answer me.” Said Shinko sternly.

Collar inhaled deeply, unpleasant memories bubbling up to the surface as he thought of how to answer her question.

“Because I know what Mirage is going through.” Said Collar.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Asked Mirage, both curious and offended by Collar’s words.

“I’ll tell you, but first. Can you tell me how well you two know each other?” Asked Collar.

“Us?” Asked a cautious Shinko.

The impulse to look at Mirage flashed for a second in Shinko’s mind, though it was just as quickly pushed out by the anger she felt towards it.

“Not that well, honestly. This is your first mission, right? So you don’t know, but just because you are going through it with us doesn’t mean that you will be with us on your next mission. Our groups vary from mission to mission. Mirage always goes with Valerria, and this is only my second mission with Valerria, so we haven’t gotten to talk much.”

Shinko finally glanced at Mirage.

“Or at all, I guess.” She added.

“And outside of missions?”

Shinko seemed apprehensive to answer the question in Mirage’s presence.

“Well, the thing is-” Shinko finally said but was quickly interrupted by Mirage.

Mirage’s appearance changed erratically as it spoke, betraying just how uncomfortable it was to share this information.

“I’m only brought for missions. Valerria doesn’t allow me outside my cell until I’m needed. No point in me conversing with idiots like you two, she says. All I do is look at pictures of faces and clothes and train my illusions with them. Day in and day out.”

“You never leave Valerria’s side then.” Noted Collar.

“...Correct.” Mirage answered hesitantly.

“So? What’s the reason then?” Asked Shinko.

“...Back when I was a slave, I’ve been on the receiving end of a whip thousands of times. But you know who it was that held the whip half of the time? It was not one of the owners, but other slaves.”

Shinko and Mirage listened to Collar’s words intently.

“I couldn’t understand why. They struck me with such ravenous conviction like they truly believed that we belonged with the worms. It was normal for an owner to think that, but one who experienced the same hardships should know better.”

Collar’s tone grew heavier with each word he spoke.

“One day, after one of the beatings, I snapped. I followed one of those bastards secretly, waiting for a chance to murder him. What I ended up seeing completely killed my desire to do so.”

“What did you see?” Asked Mirage with great curiosity.

“The man was being held down as his spouse and children were being beaten. The slavemaster who delivered the punishment held the whip in the same way the slave did. He taunted him the same way the slave taunted me. Every movement, every word he spoke, the same. He and the slave carried the exact same venom.”

Collar laid back as much as he could without severing the connection to Shinko’s magic.

“It was then that I finally understood why he did it. The poor man was so scared of his and his family’s abuse that he had taken up many of the same behaviors as his masters. He hoped that by being on the same side as the one that administers the punishment, he could no longer become a target. But you know yourself, that’s not how it works.”

Shinko looked towards Mirage. Her previous anger was gone, replaced with pity and remorse.

“Mirage, I’m so sorry.” Shinko said.

Mirage was shaking. It looked about, ready to burst into tears.

“Slave? You dare compare me to a slave? What do you know you, you, you garbage? I am nothing like you! I join Valerria because she is right in everything she says about you!” Mirage lashed out at Collar and scratched him across his cheek.

That was all it managed, as the sudden movement and shock drained its fragile body and mind, making it fall on Shinko’s lap, where it breathed heavily in between its tears.

“It’s ok, Mirage. She’s not here right now. You are safe.” Collar said as blood dripped down his cheek.

Shinko tried to reach and help Mirage, only to stop abruptly as the sight of her arm stumps entered her vision. Seeing this, Collar placed his hand on Mirage’s head and gently stroked it.

“Mirage. Collar. These aren’t names. They are labels, meant to dehumanize us, make us forget who we really are.”

He could feel Mirage start to tremble underneath his touch.

“I...I am not human in the first place. I was created-”

“-by Valerria, I know.” Said Collar. “But so what? Everything that exists was created by something else. That does not grant them ownership of it, let them be human, monster or god, and it does not let them dictate what your true worth is.”

“I am nothing.” Said Mirage, tears running from its face.

“That’s not true! You are something, someone! You are our friend!” Added Shinko.

“You don’t know a thing about me.” Mirage argued weakly.

“And how much do you know about yourself?” Asked Shinko.

Mirage tried to reply but knew that it had nothing it could say.

“See? Why don’t you try to get to know the real you, together with us, after the mission? Just go out and grab a drink?” Asked Shinko happily.

“...How can I trust you two? After everything, how do I know that you won’t tell on me?”

Collar and Shinko glanced at each other.

“Screw that bitch.” They both said in unison.

Mirage stared at them, shocked, and then started to chuckle, though it quickly stopped itself.

“No, no!” Intervened Shinko. “Keep laughing! That’s good!”

Mirage shook its head as if to clear its mind.

“Thank you. I look forward to that drink, then.” It said.

“Oh, of course! Oh, we have so many things to discuss, us two!” Said Shinko.

Shinko began to bombard Mirage with questions that the latter found itself struggling to keep up with.

“Shinko, I think it's better if you go easy on them. They are still exhausted.” Intervened Collar.

“Oh, right, sorry!”

Mirage looked at the two apprehensively.

“Collar, what you said about Mirage not being my name…”

Collar smiled.

“You are free to choose your own name, of course.”

“Oh, oh! Your appearance too!” Said Shinko quickly.

“My appearance?”

“Yes! Until now, your appearance was only a tool for the missions. You should pick a look you want, one you want to be yours and yours alone.”

“That might be too much this soon. Don’t force yourself. Even if you can’t think of anything right now, there’s always tomorrow. “ Said Collar.

Mirage shook its head.

“No, I think I have something.”

Mirage’s appearance began to shift. Its mind flowed freely for the first time, not constrained by Valerria. The trail of its imagination took it to a visage it had never seen once while awake, but one that had always come to visit it in its dreams. Mirage’s form shifted naturally and gracefully to the image of that person.

When done, what stood next to Collar and Shinko was a young woman with long red hair caught in a ponytail, dressed in a beautiful orange dress.

Mirage made pained sounds as it tried to push that form further and recreate every detail in her mind. Unlike all the forms she had taken before, she felt the urge to perfect its visage. Despite her best efforts, however, the only piece of her face she managed to recapture was its cerulean eyes.

“Hey, hey, it’s ok. Don’t strain yourself right now; you’re still too injured.” Said Collar.

“No, no, it’s not because of that. Valerria, she, she made it so that I can never maintain one face. I don’t understand why she made me this way…”

“We’ll figure out a way to make it work, I promise.” Said Collar.

“You’re beautiful…?” Said Shinko, as if waiting for a name.

Mirage hesitated for a bit before bashfully answering.

“Alice.”

“You’re gorgeous, Alice.” Said Shinko and hugged Alice as best she could.

Alice smiled and then turned to Collar.

“And you? What is your name?”

Collar raised an eyebrow.

“Collar.”

“No, your real name.” She asked.

Collar’s gaze shifted around uncomfortably.

“Vermith. My real name is Vermith.” He answered apprehensively.

“That’s a good name.” Said Alice.

“Yep, got a nice ring to it!” Continued Shinko.

“Don’t tell this to anyone else.” Said Collar.

“Don’t worry, you two! Nothing that happened here leaves our lips!” Said Shinko happily.

Shinko and Alice talked slowly, with Shinko doing her best to allow Alice to explore herself through their conversation.

Collar, in return, finally realized they had been stationary for a good while now.

“Shinko, we need to check out Tor. Something might have happened to him.”

The three slip out of his vest carefully as to not arouse any suspicion. When they pop their heads out, they are treated with the sight of Tor sitting at a table with other servants, ravishing plate after plate of delicious-looking food. Any thoughts regarding leaving seemed to have left his mind entirely.

“You can’t be serious. I don’t think even Valerria thought he was this much of an imbecile.” Said Alice.

“You’re too nice.” Said Shinko angrily.

The three climbed into Tor’s ear, where they yelled together at him.

“What are you doing, Tor? We need to get going!” They said in unison.

They yelled just as Tor was being handed another plate of food, causing the man to toss it into the server’s face out of surprise.

“Tor?!?” Yelled Shinko.

“What are you doing, man?” Asked one of the fellow servants sitting at the table.

Cyclers quickly begin to flood around Tor’s feet, absorbing the dropped food into themselves. The commotion was small, but it was still too much for comfort. Tor stared dumbfounded and embarrassed as more and more eyes fell upon him.

Seeing him frozen from embarrassment, Shinko whispered what to say into his ear.

“Ah, I’m sorry everyone, I was just hit by a grim thought for what has happened to my family, and my body reacted on its own. I am very sorry!” Said Tor.

“We get it, we get it. Try to relax.” Said one of the servants.

“To hell with that!” Yelled one of the servants whose clothes Tor had just stained in the cake.

“We can’t stay holed up here while the fate of our families is unknown to us!”

“But our orders are to stay here!”

“Screw them!”

The servants started to argue with each other, drawing much attention to themselves from both the guards and the automatons. With such a distraction, Tor was able to walk away from the scene of his mishap.

“Alright, we don’t seem to be tailed by any guard, at least. Still, it sounds like servants don’t have much freedom in the garden.” Said Shinko.

Alice glanced at Collar, who still looked troubled.

“That’s very concerning. If the guards are under orders to not allow any servant passage, then we are well and truly stuck here.” Said Collar.

“But we can think of something, right?” Asked Shinko.

“Shinko, look at the state we are in. It’s hard to say which one of us three is wounded worse. To top it off, we are forced to rely on Tor. The man’s got strong arms, but he can’t hope to compete with experienced soldiers trained in magic. There’s nothing that we can do.”

“Nothing that we can do, yes. But when it came to distractions, that duty always fell to someone else, didn’t it?” Asked Alice.

Collar and Shinko both squinted their eyes in displeasure at the mention of that woman.

---

Both men and women’s eyes were fixated on a single servant girl who walked among them, here upbeat jaunt cutting through the garden’s gloomy atmosphere like a knife. The cold air flowed through her brown hair, gently brushing it aside as she passed further and further in.

To have the attention of so many servants, Valerria couldn’t help but smile.

*So blissfully unaware. I wonder how angry they would get if they knew.* She thought.

Even so, many servants paid her no mind, too busy weeping and worrying for the fate of the family they had outside. This did not escape her attention.

For a moment, Valerria stopped and took a deep breath. She let herself admire just how much her hands had helped break. The pain and suffering etched into the faces of dozens and dozens more.

As she took in that breath, she couldn’t help but notice a particular detail. The air was pure and clear. Though the garden was made so that it appeared to be placed under a night sky, it was still built perhaps a hundred meters beneath the earth. For there to be clean air, there needed to be circulated from the surface.

*I suppose that will do.* She thought to herself.

Valerria made quick headway through the garden, avoiding both guards and automatons. But the third threat, the one Skass warned about, even she had to pause before.

Standing at the same height as the golems from the castle but made entirely out of flesh, the thing before her looked like nothing that belonged in this world. Yet, even when faced with such a monstrosity, Valerria did naught but admire it.

*What a beautiful golem I could make out of you.* She mused.

With a heavy heart, Valerria sneaked past it. Soon, her quick feet took her to a heavily guarded part of the garden. Every road and path one could take in the marble garden would lead them here. No question about it; this is where the exit was located.

It was also the most unassailable part of the garden. Makeshift fences blocked all but one entrance to that area, and the one open entrance was patrolled by a dozen guards and several automatons.

If it was just that, even Valerria might have turned to other options. But the fact of the matter was that she was not the only one looking to enter that guarded part of the garden.

“Let us see our families!”

“We need to know that our children are alive!”

Several dozen servants were yelling at the guards, trying to push past them. With that kind of tumult, Valerria saw an opportunity.

She approached the restricted area, though stopped before getting in range of the servants and guards. From there, she tried to get a good look at what laid past the guards. Just as she expected, past that point was where all the nobles of the city were lounging, safely tucked away with their families.

There were a few, however, that strayed close to the fence. They were no younger than teenagers and no older than young adults. Most likely sympathizers of the common folk that their parents had a weak holdover.

Valerria ran her gaze over them to find the prey that would be most easy to manipulate and quickly found it. It was a young man with strident black hair who stared at the gathered crowd of servants in a manner not dissimilar from her own gaze upon him.

With a mere glance and motion, Valerria drew his attention to her. The man walked over to the guards and then pointed to her. After a bit of arguing, they begrudgingly allowed her to walk over to him.

“Quite an inquisitive stare you have, miss?”

“Valerria.” She answered.

“Well then, if I may?” He reached out his hand.

Valerria walked with him, basking in the disapproving gazes of the nobles. One noble above all others stood out, however. She was a woman with lace yellow hair dressed in a cerulean dress, adorned with pistachio-colored flowery patterns, with a regal crown resting upon her head.

She was the queen of the city, Raviela, and her gaze fell squarely on Valerria. Valerria could feel herself being analyzed by the frigid queen.

*I need to escape from her.* Valerria thought to herself.

“Tell me, do the guards treat you with any suspicion?” Valerria asked the noble with a slightly hurried tone.

“Of course not.”

Valerria smiled and ran her hands on the young noble’s chest.

“Then what do you say we move to a place with a less gloomy aura?” She asked.

“Of course.”

The young noble led her to the exit of the garden. There were two guards present, though they offered nothing but an inquisitive glance in her direction as they passed them by.

The two of them were now back inside corridors. Valerria obediently followed the young noble as he led her to a much less walked-in part of the complex. He stopped in front of a door in a nondescript hallway.

“After you.” He said as he opened the door for her.

“Thank you.” She said and entered the room.

The young noble followed in after her. The moment the door closed behind him, the floor beneath his feet was painted red.

The incredulous man wheezed, unable to say a word. He reached out for his neck, only to feel his fingers overwhelmed by a rush of warm and wet liquid. His eyes strained as he looked to Valerria, only to see her wiping away his blood from a knife.

“Now, how to find where the air control system is.” She mused.

The young man fell to his knees and then flat on the floor, every ember of his life fading away.

“Ah, you.”

Valerria crouched in front of the dying man and thrust her knife into his skull.

“Poor material, but I have to make do.” She complained as her hands started to glow.

Valerria worked her magic. Like Mirage before, she took the man’s body and mind and forged it into a golem of her design.

For this golem, Valerria had it keep the young noble’s appearance, with only one slight adjustment. Valerria sacrificed several furniture pieces in the room to forge a filling for the cut she left in its neck. Though the filling would be immediately noticeable if one were to touch the golem’s neck, it was enough to fool someone who was not paying attention from a distance.

“Now rise.” She ordered.

The golem took several attempts to get back up to its feet as if the simple act of movement was alien to it.

“Well, not much else that I can expect from such a slapdash creation, but no matter. I left you with the memories of the material. Access it and then take me to whatever looked like it could have been the air control system or anything related to it.”

The golem took a whole minute to process the request before it started walking. She had to rush to open the door for it before it would slam into it.

“I hope nobody notices.” She whispered to herself.

She followed the golem through the building until they arrived at an open spot where it appeared that workers hung out.

“So that’s the best lead you’ve got for me.” She noted, disappointed.

The golem was already showing signs of falling apart, and so Valerria ordered it to find an abandoned corner to break apart in.

With that taken care of, Valerria snuck inside. The workers were not told to expect anything, nor were there any guards stationed there, making Valerria’s job extremely simple. It wasn’t long before Valerria found the room she was looking for.

Valerria opened the door and drew her daggers. She slice and stabbed-

“Help! Guards!”

One.

“Rush her!”

By.

“Argh!”

One.

Until not a soul was left alive in the room with her.

Valerria walked past the 25 corpses and stepped in front of the machinery that was circulating pure air into the garden. Valerria cycled through the three available magics in her left knife. None of them were suitable for this.

She then cycled through her right dagger. Fire, invisibility, and then...

“Ah, how lucky! I did enhance it with poison. For a second, I was starting to think that I remembered wrong.”

Valerria’s right dagger’s edge glowed green as it emanated poison vapors. The magic itself was slow-acting, both in how long it would take to kill a target once inhaled, as well as generating enough vapors to affect a person in the first place.

“Ah, but such a shame to leave the blade behind here.”

She combined 7 bodies into a two-meter-tall golem. Where its face should have been was instead a massive leaking hole. Valerria then pierced the golem with her poisoned dagger and transferred the power over to it. The dagger’s blade returned to normal as its magic was entirely absorbed by the golem.

With her golem prepared, she punctured the large air pipe and propped her golem’s open head over it so that it continuously excreted its vapors into the air stream. It would take a while for the poison vapors to reach a high enough quantity to affect people, but that was perfectly fine.

With her work completed, Valerria turned to the rest of the corpses. It was a lot of material to leave behind unused, and she had just the idea for what magical ability to pass on to it. She cycled her right dagger once again.

“Now, all those idiots need to do is stay calm and not make a fuss.” Said Valerria as she got to work.

---

“Tor, stay calm!” Shinko advised Tor as he stared ahead, terrified.

“What’s going on?” Asked Collar.

“I...I don’t know. Something appeared ahead.” Said Shinko, panic gripping her words.

“What did? A machine? Golem?”

“Neither. I don’t know what it is.”

A scant ten meters ahead of Tor a creature, who had appeared before him as if out of thin air. The being stood higher than even the tallest automaton in the garden, with disproportionately long and narrow limbs. All of its facial features were missing, covered by what appeared to be a thick layer of skin. Despite this, its head perfectly snapped in the direction of the people walking around it, even completing revolutions with no apparent damage to its neck or spine.

“H-Help,” Tor whispered, panicked. He was utterly torn between the knowledge that he needed to keep a low profile and the fear crawling at his head, begging him to run.

“Keep quiet!” Yelled Collar. “This thing is obviously a monster, yet nobody but you is acknowledging its existence. If you act on your fear, you will immediately stand out to it. So just keep quiet and walk away.”

“You could tell that nobody was reacting to the thing?” Asked a surprised Shinko.

“Honestly? No. I just made an educated guess since I couldn’t hear people panicking.”

“A-Alright. I trust you guys on this.”

Tor slowly backed out. This appeared to work at first. However, as he took a step back, the servants that the monster’s head was transfixed suddenly ran away, leaving Tor, the closest human to it.

The monster instantly snapped its head around to face Tor.

“Get away from me!” He yelled and ran away from the creature.

The sudden acceleration nearly sent Shinko flying off of his shoulder, only to be caught in time by Collar and Alice.

“He couldn’t do it.” Said Alice calmly as she hung on for dear life to his vest.

“Tor, please!” Yelled Shinko.

Tor ran as hard as he could, deaf to the dismayed pleas of his comrades. Already everyone around was looking at Tor, wondering what was wrong.

“Damn it, he’s not listening! He needs to stop running!” Complained Shinko.

“Maybe he shouldn’t. Look at that.” Said Alice calmly while pointing Shinko to what was behind Tor.

Shinko had been trying to get Tor to stop running and hence stopped paying attention to her surroundings. When she turned around, she was greeted with the sight of twelves branch-like fingers approaching at them from above.

“Tor, take a sharp turn now! The thing is about to get you!” She yelled.

To this, Tor listened. He made a sudden turn as the sound of concrete being smashed apart reverberated behind him.

“Don’t stop running!” Ordered Collar.

“Collar, what the hell are those things?!?” Cried Shinko.

“It doesn’t matter. Just keep guiding Tor.”

“Do you realize how hard this is for me? No amount of training helps when everything is a god damn blur!”

“Don’t worry, this thing is traveling in a straight line at Tor. You only need to tell him when he needs to dodge it.” Noted Alice.

“Don’t make it sound so easy!” Whined Shinko.

As Shinko continued to lead Tor, Collar and Alice stared at what was behind them. Despite running far away from it, the monster never moved an inch from its spot to chase Tor. Instead, its body, especially its arms and fingers, kept extending to the point where the beast, with its legs still firmly anchored to the ground, was now stretched over the entire garden.

With Shinko’s help, Tor managed to avoid several attempts of the monster to catch him, but that would soon end as Tor suddenly found himself in the grasp of a guard.

“Let me go, it's coming for me, let me go!” Tor pleaded.

“What’s wrong with you? What are you talking about?” Asked the guard.

“Don’t you see it? It’s right the-”

Tor’s words were cut off as the fingers wrapped themselves around him. Tor was ripped out of the guard’s grasp in one quick move and pulled back towards the monster’s main body.

*My banquet of skin. I would never, I would never.*

Tor heard the voice of the creature in his head.

*Endow it with yours. I would never, I would never.*

Collar got ready to jump off of Tor’s shoulders and save him but stopped as the fingers binding Tor froze and shattered. Tor fell to the floor, where he found himself surrounded by several automatons. These machines were unlike the chimera that had come to greet them in the dark room. Their frame was much smaller, and they possessed no visible weapon with which to attack with.

They were machines merely meant to serve, and serve they would.

The automatons turned their heads to the fallen man and ran a quick scan on him. Confirming that he was uninjured, they turned to the beast and attacked it. The monster’s fingers wrapped themselves around the machines, though they were able to break free of its grasp by freezing and shattering the appendages.

“The machines are malfunctioning!” Yelled the guard.

Completely forgetting about Tor, the guards ran after the machines to reign them in as they struck the monster.

“What’s going on?” Asked Alice.

“I have no idea, but let’s not stick around and find out.” Said Collar.

The confusion and noise gave Tor ample time to get up and run away. This chaos nonetheless also drew more servants and guards to the scene of the fight.

And more importantly, it drew more monsters.

“Oh god! There’s more of them! So many more of them, and they’re coming from all directions, and they are staring directly at us!” Yelled Shinko.

“Why is there a goddamn monster zoo here?” Whined Tor.

“They know that Tor is the target.” Noted Alice.

“Are they the same as the one that attacked Tor?” Asked Collar.

“No. They are all completely different from each other.”

“Describe them to me.”

“Right. There’s one with a large skull instead of a head with long horns protruding from it, and it has a really bulky frame. It’s about as tall as the golems we fought before they transformed.”

“I think I recognize that.”

“A long...fish? That’s made entirely of large bone fragments with a large fish skull at the end and has no skin, and it’s sort of swimming in the air. It looks about twice as big as the first monster.”

“I don’t know what that could be.”

Shinko proceeded to describe as many creatures as she could.

“I know what some of those are, but some of them are supposed to have been extinct, and others don’t even belong in our universe.” Said Collar.

“And that means?” Asked Alice.

“That we need to get out of here. Shinko, do your best to guide Tor to where other machines are. Unlike the people, it seems the machines can detect the beasts, and they will defend Tor from them.”

“Right.”

With Shinko’s instructions, Tor succeeded in leading the monsters to automatons that rushed to the man’s defense, giving them enough time for him to arrive in front of a vast, fenced-off area, guarded by several soldiers and automatons.

The guards, already distracted by the crowd of servants, overlooked Tor. However, the automatons, already having been informed by the other machines, started pushing through the crowd to get to Tor and protect him.

“I don’t understand what’s going on at all!” Said an exasperated Shinko.

“Calm down. Ignore unnecessary details and only tell us what you see then.” Said Collar.

Shinko nodded and tried her best to settle down.

“I see… Yon and Skass! They are hovering around the entrance area where the other servants are!”

“Good. What else?”

“Monsters are approaching us from every direction but the front. There are none behind that barricade, so if we can push through to the exit, we can escape them.”

“Good to know.”

Collar thought about what to do next. The machines were being blocked by the guards, and with Tor being dressed in the garb of a servant, he would be denied passage just like all the others. The only way the machines would get through the guards was if Tor started taking visible damage from the monsters, at which point even the guards would want to investigate, but with the otherworldly makeup of the monsters, it could be too late at that point.

It was so frustrating. Plan after plan and idea after idea. Collar was not cut out for this. Even after all the training Yonnera put him through, he could still feel his brain burning for having to think up so many things. If only he could simply come in armed and appropriately prepared, he could have simply killed the opposition in a fair fight without needing to complicate himself with all these roundabout solutions.

And why was he not provided weapons and armor by Yon anyway? Tor had both, so why was Collar not given any? What was he supposed to do if he did not have his unnatural strength? Break his fists and get reduced to a bloody paste by the golems? What was that man thinking?

“They’re getting closer!”

No, he wouldn’t have even gotten to that point. He would have been melted by the vibrating walls in the sewers. That was just it! Yon only brought Collar to be a sacrifice to get him through a tiny portion of the heist. He was meant to die all along!

“Collar, what should we do?”

Shinko’s words snapped Collar back to reality.

“Thanks.” The man breathed heavily. He had done the one thing Yonnera always warned him against, sweating the small stuff.

“Give me a second, I’ll come up with something.” He said.

The monsters were approaching, and the machines were failing to push through the crowd as the soldiers were fighting to hold both them and the servants back.

If Collar willed it, he could attempt to make an escape attempt on his own. Simply use Shinko and Tor as a distraction and then bulldoze through the crowd.

“Vermith, we need your plan now.” Said Alice.

Collar looked to Alice. He felt guilt, the guilt of seeing a person who has had all freedom taken away from them never get the chance to live their life. The guilt of dooming that person to certain death. Someone who had suffered exactly as he and Yonnera had.

Seeing his frustration, Alice took Vermith’s hand.

“You can do this.” She said.

The guilt of betraying the eyes that behold him with such trust and confidence. The very same eyes his wife saw him off with ten years ago.

Collar breathed in. He was confident in the success chance of the plan he came up with, but his own fate was uncertain.

*Please forgive me, Yonnera, for the risk to myself I undertake now is not for you.* He thought to himself.

“Fine, here’s what you need to tell Tor. Shinko, prepare to shrink him the moment I give you a signal.”

Shinko nodded.

“And Alice.”

Collar pulled out his two syringes and placed them in Alice’s hands.

“Please keep them safe. I will need them when I return.”

“I will let nothing happen to them.” Alice reassured.

With Tor’s instructions given, the man turned to the guards holding back the automatons and yelled.

“The terrorists are here!”

Immediately, everyone in the garden turned to face the man with looks of concern and shock.

“What is that idiot doing?” Asked Yon as he watched Tor together with Skass.

“He’s gone mad! The monsters drove him mad!” Skass wailed and panicked as he watched the mass of monsters get ever closer.

Seeing the fear starting to build up already, one of the guards intervened.

“What are you babbling about, servant? We already captured all of the interlopers. Stop speaking nonsense.”

Tor immediately fired back.

“You see it in your machines! The terrorists already killed the guards in the first half of the garden, and they’re currently being held back by the machines! That’s why the ones here are trying to leave so badly!” Yelled Tor.

“What utter nonsense! Hold your tongue, or we will cut it out!” The guard yelled and drew his sword.

Just then, a charred and heavily wounded man walked from behind a pillar. In his hands, he held two girls, one with missing arms and another one with red hair, by their necks.

“Ah, there is one of them!” Yelled Tor

Collar smiled and tossed the two at Tor’s feet.

“What sorry excuse for guardians you possess, people of Aslagard!” Yelled Collar.

The crowd panicked and tried to push through the blockade with all of their might, only to be tossed aside by the guards.

“Heed my words, servants! If one of you takes a step past the fence, I will personally sever your head!” Yelled the guard as they all advanced towards Collar.

Guards and machines were coming at him from the front, and from every other direction, he could hear the monsters closing in on him. Collar pulled out his pendant and took a peek inside. Within was a picture of a white-haired woman smiling warmly.

“To see your visage, I would cross a hundred seas. To touch your lips, I would climb a thousand mountains. To hold your hand, I would slaughter a million men. Guide my path, Yonerra.” Collar kissed the pendant before placing it back in his pocket.

With the guards moving out, the machines were finally free to leave. They quickly approached Tor and made sure that the man had no wounds. They then joined the guards as they closed in on Collar.

Once the last soldier had walked past Tor, Collar made a quick gesture with his hand. One of the guards noticed it and quickly turned around to look at Tor, only to find that he and the other two women had completely disappeared.

“Intruders! Sound the ala-” The guard tried to yell, only to be interrupted as he was forced to smash apart a marble pillar thrown at him.

“What’s the matter? Am I not enough to entertain you?” Said Collar while smiling.

“Damn you. Machines, tear him to shreds!” Commanded another guard.

The automatons threw themselves at Collar. Collar readied himself for their assault, only for the machines to sail past him and attack the monsters that had by now caught up with the group.

“What are they doing? Why are they swinging at nothing? The intruder is right there!”

“Have they really malfunctioned to this extent?”

The automatons continued to fight with the beasts regardless of the orders of the guards. Like Collar hoped, even though they had acknowledged Collar as an enemy, the beasts were much greater threats according to their sensors and therefore prioritized.

To Collar’s dismay, however, the machines were losing their battles one-sidedly, far worse than even their small frames would suggest. It was as if the machines were not running on full power.

Collar had to hurry.

“What’s wrong? Is this all that I can expect from you?” He yelled at the guards.

The guard who had taunted and threatened Tor fell for Collar’s taunting and charged Collar ahead of his comrades. He drew his sword and swung at Collar. However, even years of training give away when overtaken by emotion, and Collar quickly sidestepped the attack and retaliated with his own strike.

Aiming to disable the first soldier right away, Collar braced himself for the pain as his fist made contact with the guard’s right shoulder. The impact would surely pulverize most of his already heavily damaged fist.

But it did not. In fact, Collar could feel nothing from the impact. The guard took note of Collar’s confused expression and smiled.

“Why not try it again, friend?” He asked.

Collar gritted his teeth and aimed for the guard’s head this time. The guard made no attempt to dodge it as the fist hit him head-on. Yet again, there was no impact.

“Get it yet?” Asked the guard.

Collar pulled back his hand. He had paid close attention to his second strike. He felt a strange sensation when his fist approached the guard, but he couldn’t tell exactly what happened.

“Still no? Here, how about this.” The guard said and sheathed his sword as he took a hand-to-hand stance.

“Damn it, Jeffrey, what are you doing?”

“Keep quiet. This one’s mine. Just handle the machines.”

Collar readied himself for the fight. These terms were quite favorable to him, and yet if he couldn’t find a way to punch through his armor’s defenses, he would lose to a single guard.

Collar watched the guard in front of him, waiting for any kind of move from him. The servants had gathered around at a distance to watch the fight. Seeing the pathetic state of the intruder, they immediately understood, this was not a fight. It was an execution.

Jeffrey smiled.

“Scared?”

“Bored.”

Jeffrey snapped. His right gauntlet glowed an intense red. Collar readied himself for an attack, only to find himself flying through the air, a line of blood spraying out of him.

“How about now?” Jeffrey asked while laughing.

“Shut up and help us with the machines. They won’t listen!” Complained a different guard.

The machines were still fighting the monsters. Though the automatons put up a valiant effort, they were running on fumes. The only reason the beasts had not torn them to shreds already was that any visible damage left on the machines would alert everyone.

“Fine, let’s just freeze them solid.” Said, Jeffrey.

“He’s getting up!” Yelled the people in the crowd.

“Oh, you want more?” Jeffrey asked as he turned around to face Collar.

Collar stood up with serious effort, massive amounts of blood flowing freely out of the large hole that had been punched into his gut.

“I see. Your armor absorbed and stored the energy of my punches. At the very least, your armor has a good degree of mastery over the frost.” Collar talked slowly.

“How are you still alive?” Asked Jeffrey, shocked.

Collar tried moving his legs but found them affixed to the ground. Even lifting his arms felt like having to push up the world to make a millimeter of progress.

There was almost nothing left of him to give.

“But can it make up for an incompetent wielder, I wonder?” Asked Collar while chuckling slowly.

Again Jeffrey drew his sword and charged him. This was just what Collar hoped for. Even though the other guards had allowed Jeffrey to take him on alone, the moment the fight showed even the slightest hint of turning against Jeffrey, they would all be on him in an instant.

The crowd gasped as Jeffrey’s sword pierced Collar in his open wound. Flesh and blood in the area started to freeze over, just as the touch of the golems in the castle did previously.

“Doesn’t matter how you’re living with that wound once I’ll shatter your entire body to pieces!” Boasted Jeffrey.

“Good luck.”

Gathering up the last embers of his strength, Collar grabbed Jeffrey’s sword arm and squeezed as hard as he could.

Jeffrey yelled in pain as the metal twisted and his bones were crushed. The sudden pain forced him to let go of his weapon.

Collar wasted no time, pulled out the blade piercing him, and then tackled Jeffrey to the ground, landing on his chest and pinning him to the ground. With his target immobilized, Collar thrust the sword into Jeffrey’s neck. Though the armor could absorb the energy behind the thrust, it couldn’t stop the blade from moving entirely. It would still pierce his neck, just slowly.

Or so it would have. The blade stopped completely as Jeffrey activated the full body shield used to protect from the explosions previously. Without energy behind it, Collar had no hopes of piercing the shield.

Collar had just lost his one chance.

Seeing their comrade on the ground, the other guards finally intervened, knocking Collar off of Jeffrey.

“That was pathetic.” Said one of the guards.

“Shut it. I am going to kill him this time.”

Collar struggled to stand up. The one good thing he had going for him was that he was still in possession of Jeffrey’s blade, but that did little to make up for the fact that now he was staring down fifteen guards instead of one.

Not to mention, he couldn’t even lift the sword he gained.

Collar could finally feel pain and exhaustion take over. The annoying voices of the servants and guards faded away as the world grew silent around Collar. The stinging pain of the cold air hitting his wounds finally gave way to a soothing nothingness. Collar was quickly approaching the point of no return.

“Well, so much for that,” Collar said while letting the blade fall to the ground.

The guards and crowd followed the man’s every move. To toss his only weapon aside so casually, he must have some magic ready to attack them with.

“The plan failed! Nuke the garden and make a run for it!”

Collar yelled as loud as he could, so loud that his voice could be heard from every corner of the garden.

Immediately, the crowd freaked out, and it was not just them. Servants from all over the garden started running.

They pushed past the automatons battling the monsters and past the guards. Several guards facing Collar disengaged from the stand-off to stop the wave of civilians trying to make it past the barricade.

“Damn that bastard, that’s an obvious lie!” Complained Jeffrey.

The guards moved in quickly and attacked Collar. The man stood still, and the guards found no difficulty in piercing him with their blades. Immediately his body began to freeze up rapidly.

*Please don’t let me die before I free her.* Was his last thought as he was entirely encased in ice.

All the way from the nobles, Tor, Shinko, and Mirage had met up again with Skass and Yon and were watching Collar’s fight. At this point, Mirage had assumed a nondescript appearance different from her Alice persona as to not catch the attention of Yon or Valerria.

“We should help him!” Argued Tor.

“He’s done for. We leave. Now.” Said Yon.

“But-” Said Shinko, only to be interrupted as Mirage placed its hand on her shoulder.

“His eyes were not that of a man who accepted his death. He most likely believes that the guards will keep him alive for questioning to find us. If we get caught here, they will be able to execute him.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Said Shinko weakly.

“Mirage, what was that?” Asked Yon.

“Ah, I am very sorry. I spoke out of line.”

“I’ll leave that for later. Now, we need to go.”

The group followed Yon through the noble area of the garden and where the exit awaited them. As they stepped through the panicked nobles and servants, something immediately stood out to Shinko.

Two guards were far more heavily armored than any other guard they had seen so far. More importantly, the person they were guarding had a completely different air about her than any other person they had seen in the city.

Shinko’s suspicions were confirmed when she heard her give both the nobles and her guards’ orders. She was the queen of the city.

“Let’s retrieve him.” Shinko heard her say to her guards.

Shinko wanted to help Collar, but it was out of her control. She watched as the queen traveled down, out of the fenced area and towards Collar.

At this point, the man had been frozen solid.

“Perfect, now let’s shatter him!”

“Stop.” Raviela said as she stepped in between the guards and the frozen man.

“My queen? What do you wish?” Asked one of the guards, confused.

“To punish the intruder who has done so much harm to my beautiful city, personally.”

She walked up to Collar.

“Take him away.”

“Of course, my lady.” Answered her personal guards.

---

The group ran through the hallways, utterly unaware of what direction they should take to escape the castle’s underground layer.

“What do we do if we encounter guards?” Asked Skass.

“Pray they think of us as servants and send us back.” Answered Yon.

“Stop right there, criminals!” A voice boomed behind them.

The group froze solid. They turned slowly only to see Valerria behind them, smiling from ear to ear.

“God damn it, Valerria!” Said Tor.

“It’s great to see you too.” She said while laughing.

She walked up to the group only to stop when she noticed that Collar was no longer with them.

“Did the big log get captured?”

“Yeah. He sacrificed himself so that we can escape.” Said Shinko.

“Finally useful for something. Good for him.” Valerria said nonchalantly.

Shinko stepped up to Valerria.

“How dare you say that? He gave his life for us!”

“And your problem is? I was just praising him, right, Mirage?”

Valerria looked to Mirage, waiting for it to back her up, but Mirage remained silent.

“Right, Mirage?” She repeated in a much lower tone this time.

Mirage clenched its fists. Despite its ever-shifting face, Valerria could tell it was scared.

“Leave Mirage alone, Valerria. It has nothing to do with your trite.” Said Shinko.

Valerria furrowed her eyebrows.

“Are you certain you can carry the weight of those words, Shinko? You got kinda light lately.” Asked Valerria.

“Out of everyone in our group, it was you who deserved the fate Collar suffered, Valerria.” Shinko said while staring Valerria down.

This time, Valerria did not say a word. She simply drew her daggers, ready to strike Shinko down.

“That fool deserved to die.” Said Mirage, interrupting the two.

“Mirage?” Asked Shinko.

Unlike Shinko, Valerria had a look of satisfaction on her face.

“There you go. I guess the damage kept you from answering right away, right?” Asked Valerria, to which Mirage nodded.

Shinko looked to Mirage with a genuine look of disappointment on her face.

“Valerria, stop this. We need to move, lest we get caught and executed.” Said Yon.

Valerria glared at Yon. Even the leader trembled slightly under her gaze.

“You are asking me to forgive a lot of things, Yon. Ask me again, and it will be for yourself that you beg forgiveness for.” She threatened.

“What a sad excuse for a leader.” Said Mirage.

“I know, right? Maybe I should be the leader instead.” Said Valerria as she laughed.

It was then that Shinko understood what Mirage was doing. Without Mirage to take her side, Valerria’s anger was too quick to rise.

Still, she could tell that Mirage was in great pain, having to go along with her master.

Yon nodded.

“Very well. Let’s move out then.”

Valerria smiled and sheathed her knives.

“Let’s go then, darlings, onwards to freedom.”

The group continued through the corridors. It became evident that only the marble gardens were meant for the nobles and servants. Everything else they saw was very mechanical and utilitarian, almost as if the entire area beneath the castle existed to generate energy, and the gardens were built hastily around it.

Still, besides that, they were not encountering any resistance. Just workers that paid little mind to the group.

“Why is everything so weakly guarded?”

Valerria smirked.

“Who knows? Maybe little old Collar was not the only thing distracting them.”

Yon thought of asking her what she meant but decided against it. Valerria was clearly at her breaking point.

Eventually, the group arrived in front of a pair of huge, ornately decorated doors. No matter what they tried, the doors did not budge.

“Well, this is a problem.” Said Valerria.

“Do not worry, my lady. I will get that.” Said a voice from behind the door.

The group took several steps back and readied themselves for combat as the door opened. What stepped before them was a man dressed in royal garb and wearing a crown.

The king, Sinvitas, stood in front of them, holding a featureless body, the same body that the chimera had taken away. Clearly, the facade expired as the body was slowly dissolving away into nothing.

“Well, this is quite a surprise. I do believe you are the terrorists who have been killing my people.”

The group was shaken. The lord of the city stood before them.

Unguarded.

Valerria leaped from her spot and lunged at him with her daggers. In one fell swoop, her blades slit the man’s throat. Blood sprayed from his wound wildly, staining the ground in front of him.“Quite impolite, aren’t you? Won’t you all share your names first?” He said as blood continued to spill forth.

Sinvitas placed two fingers on his wound, and a purple light shone from them. The group watched in awe and fear as his neck wound had wholly closed up like it was never there, to begin with.

Once his wound was gone, Sinvitas tossed away the featureless Mirage body.

“If you so badly wish to skip to the festivities, I have no choice but to oblige.”

Sinvitas got ready to attack the group but stopped as he took notice of Yon. Sinvitas looked shocked. Yon, on the other hand, looked like he understood what was happening.

The one to finally break the silence was Sinvitas.

“What brings you here, brother?”

Yon closed his eyes.

“So it is true, then. You took over Aslagard after all.”

“Of course. If you hadn’t broken off to form your own group, you would be ruling with me now.”

“Ruling over arrogant nobles is not what I wish to do with my life.”

“But we do oh so much more here. Perhaps skinning your companions alive while you watch will make you reconsider my offer.”

Sinvitas got ready to attack the group, only to be tackled to the ground by an invisible force.

“Now, run!” Yelled Valerria.

The others didn’t quite understand what was happening, but they didn’t have the time to question it either. They all ran as fast as they could through the doors that Sinvitas had left open and prayed that whatever was holding him back would stall him long enough.

However, the distraction was short-lived as Sinvitas quickly tossed away the invisible assailant before freezing it and shattering it to pieces in one hit. The frozen pieces revealed that its size and form were both inhuman.

“Man-made golem, in both master and material. Urgently made, too, from fresh sacrifices. It would seem that his group has quite the monster in it as well.”

---

“Oh god, oh god, oh god.” Said Shinko as she ran.

“Stop talking and keep running! If he catches up with us, we’re dead meat.” Said Yon.

“There’s more monsters up ahead!” Yelled Skass.

“More of them?!?” Yelled Tor.

“All of you, keep calm! If we keep running without betraying the fact that we can see them, they will leave us alone!”

“How can you be so sure of that? Maybe they communicated with each other somehow!” Argued Skass.

“No, no, she has a point. Sinvitas was surprised when he saw us. If he didn’t know, chances are neither do the monsters up ahead.”

Skass swallowed nervously.

“God, I hope you all are right.”

The group continued through the corridors until finally, they encountered a monster standing perfectly still in the hallway. Everyone did their best to ignore its presence as they passed it by. The beast did not react to them whatsoever.

This reoccurred several more times as the corridors they passed through contained more and more monsters until they barely had room to move past them.

It all ended when the corridors gave away to a large open room. To the right of the group, a large set of stairs was located leading upwards. Their exit back into the castle.

Despite this welcome sight, there was not a single smile on their faces.

“I’m impressed. Sinvitas actually got outmaneuvered.” Said Cyntorum.

“A gourmand takes his time to enjoy his meal.” Replied Yaol.

The two men were sitting at the top of the stairs, staring the group down. Accompanying them were several guards standing at the bottom of the stairs. These particular guards did not react to the intruders’ presence, instead only staring ahead at nothing in particular, as if they were sedated.

Before the group could even think of a way to escape, monsters came flooding in from the corridor they had just come out of.

Even worse than that, Sinvitas himself entered the room through a portal and rested on the stairs before them.

“Well then, brother. Did you get to consider my offer while I let you exercise your legs?”

“What an offer that was…” Yon said.

He tried to think of anything that they could do, but they were truly and well captured. The only opening left was another open corridor straight ahead, but as this was likely the only exit for them, it would only stall the inevitable.

Meanwhile, Yaol couldn’t help but burst out in laughter.

“Oh, you guys won’t believe it. Yon, your brother was sitting there with that portal open the entire time, waiting for you to finally get here. It’s comical.”

“It’s pathetic. That’s what it is.” Said Cyntorum.

“And you two are part of his original group, I’m assuming?” Asked Yon.

“Indeed we are.” Said Yaol.

Sinvitas clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention back to him.

“If you lot are done wasting time, let me continue. While Yon reconsiders my offer to join us, what about the woman with brown hair. You were the one who created the golem, weren’t you?” Asked Sinvitas.

“You could tell, how sweet of you.”

“Your talents would fit right in with us. Join me, and I will spare your life.”

Valerria laughed.

“I’ll think about it while I split your skull in two!”

Valerria charged Sinvitas. The guards stared ahead motionlessly as Valerria jumped over them and towards the lord. This time, her blade pierced the lord in the eye while the right dagger cut through his neck much deeper than previously. And she was not done. This time he would die before he could even think of healing himself. Or so she thought.

Valerria tried to pull back her dagger but found it stuck. She could not remove it from his eye. In fact, the blade began to sink into it.

“I suppose you are too impolite to join me after all.” Said Sinvitas.

Valerria jumped away just in time to avoid a killing strike from the lord, though the blow still severed four of the fingers on her left hand.

“Damn it.”

Valerria clutched her bleeding hand.

“My damn dagger.” She whined.

She watched the dagger slip ever deeper into Sinvitas’s eye until it completely disappeared. The dagger left behind long, purple cracks that ran across his face beginning from his eye.

“What the hell are you?” Asked Valerria.

“Such impoliteness must be punished.” Said Sinvitas.

“Didn’t you play around enough with the escapees? Just kill these intruders already.” Said Cyntorum.

“No. I need more stimulation for my senses to recover.” Said Sinvitas.

With everyone distracted by Valerria, Skass snuck up behind Shinko and reached into her bag, making the girl shudder.

“Skass, what are you-?”

“Ssh. Don’t let them notice me.”

Skass grabbed the shrunk skull. He then quickly pulled it out of the bag. Separated from Shinko, the skull started to return to its original size in Skass’s hand.

“Valerria, dodge!” Yelled Skass as he threw the skull.

Valerria got out of the way just in time for the skull to miss her. The skull flew through the air, growing ever further. The guards and monsters caught under the expanding shadow of the skull fell lifeless to the floor, their souls and minds shattered in an instant.

“Oh, you’re returning it. How polite.”

The skull landed on top of Sinvitas.

“See that? If you don’t want to share his fate, you will let us through!” Yelled Skass

Cyntorum sighed.

“How’s that for stimulation?” Asked Yaol.

“It’s acceptable.” Said Sinvitas.

Skass stared speechless as Sinvitas lifted the skull above his head before placing it behind him. He then rested his back on it.

“Do you have anything else left to entertain me with?” Asked Sinvitas.

“Run!” Yelled Yon.

The group ran to the next open corridor.

Sinvitas closed his eyes.

“I suppose not. Cyntorum, go after them. Bring Yon back alive and try to not ruin the bodies of the sacrifices too much.”

“Stop leaving your messes to me.” He said and walked down the stairs.

“Why complain? They are heading towards a dead-end anyway. Be grateful you are getting some stimulation to your senses.” Said Yaol.

Sinvitas raised his hand and fired a purple beam from it on the wall opposite of the staircase. The wall gave away to a roughly carved-out tunnel.

“Go grab more beasts for the chase.” Ordered Sinvitas.

“Very well.”

---

Slowly, the light came back into Collar’s eyes. He woke up to find himself tied up in a large, beautiful room. Before him stood two heavily armored guards and a third figure, who stood too far to the right for his left eye to be able to discern anything but basic shapes and colors.

Collar tested the strength of his binds and found himself too weak to break them. The slightest of movements sent spirals of pain throughout his body thanks to the mountain of wounds he had accumulated.

He had no way of escaping on his own. And so, he would negotiate.

“Would you please step a bit more to the left? I wish to see who I am talking to.” Said Collar.

“Who sent you?” The figure asked with a female voice.

Collar stayed silent but groaned as the figure pierced his leg with a sword.

“What are you here for?”

“Ask me something else. You seem to already know the answer to these questions.” Replied Collar.

The figure remained silent for a second before taking the blade and putting it to Collar’s neck.

“What would happen to me if I were to slit your throat right here and now?”

“You would die, devoured by monsters.” He answered.

The answer seemed to have struck a chord with the figure. She hesitated for a few seconds before pushing the blade closer to Collar’s neck.

“Did the leader of your operation tell you any details?”

“Just that we came here to steal the skull, nothing else.”

“And how do you think your leader got that information?”

Collar raised an eyebrow.

“You?”

“Good to know I didn’t catch an oaf.” The voice said before turning Collar around to view her.

Everything made even less sense now.

“The queen? But why sell out your own city?” Collar asked, shocked.

The question made the queen push her blade into his neck further. He could feel it slightly cutting into his neck.

“Ah, my apologies. It must be because of the monsters, right? You wanted someone to come and remove them, but why do it in such a roundabout way? And why not pick actual soldiers and not thieves?”

The queen finally removed the blade from his neck and handed it to one of the guards to wipe away the blood from its edge.

“You are partially right, but the monsters are only a symptom. Something terrible happened to this city. It lost its king.”

“I’m afraid I do not understand. Has Sinvitas perished?”

“Yes. It happened six months ago. My husband was struck ill with a powerful disease, and none of our healers could help. Thus, I took the task upon myself to find him a cure.”

At these words, Collar’s gaze seemed to soften up significantly.

“And I did. But when I returned, I found my husband completely healthy. And different. In all the minute ways that it mattered, he was different. A few weeks after this change occurred, the monsters started appearing.”

“You could see them?”

“Yes. But after a couple of days, they completely disappeared. At first, I thought I was losing my mind, but then I caught hints that they were still present, places where the monsters had not been careful, and they malformed the concrete or tables with their weight. Something terrible was happening. And now I don’t know what kind of beasts they are or how many of them are present inside the castle.”

“If that was all, you still had some room to confront the fake king, no? Even invisible, the monsters would be horribly outnumbered by your soldiers.”

“That was exactly the problem. I also discovered him converting our soldiers. By the time I realized it, a third of our soldiers were already turned into his puppets. They act completely normal usually, but that is only to hide the fact that they are possessed. Even if I managed to convince the soldiers that their king is an imposter, the ensuing battle would devastate my city.”

Raviela walked up to the two guards in the room with them.

“I did everything I could to spare the remaining ones from that fate, but every day, one or two slip away from my grasp.”

“I see. Well then, the last thing to ask, I suppose, is, what do you want from me? Do you want me to save your husband?” Asked Collar.

“Don’t be such a fool. My husband is long dead. What I want is to see the imposter who took his life to grovel before me as I take his.”

“And if I refuse?”

“You will die. Now.” Answered Raviela.

“Very well, I will help. I don’t expect escape to be possible under the conditions that you listed anyway.”

Collar tried to get up, though his bindings quickly pulled him back down the ground.

“Ah, I should have figured. Well, anyway, let’s talk about payment.”

One of the guards snapped.

“Payment? You terrorists killed half a dozen children in your bombings, and you demand payment?”

The queen did nothing to stop the guard as he punched Collar in the face. Though painful, the hit was not what got to Collar.

“Children?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know! You blew up a school in the western sector of the city!”

Collar recalled that Valerria arrived into the city through the west.

“Enough. I believe that not executing you on the spot is payment enough considering the damage you have done to my people.”

Collar stopped to consider his words for a moment before staring Raviela dead in the eyes.

“Every last coin of your treasury. Its tracking magic removed and handed over to me. That is what I ask for.”

Even the queen appeared to lose her composure at that request.

“You ask for Aslagard’s ruination.”

“That is the fate it shall meet regardless if the fake king is not deposed. I can assure you that acquiring a superweapon was not his end goal. If the Empress catches wind of this, your city’s name will only be remembered for the giant crater she will leave behind in its place.”

The queen sighed.

“The Empress, you say? You threaten me so, you make such demands even though you were sent by her to assist me?”

“Excuse me?” Asked Collar, shocked.

“So this is what she sends me. Fine, I accept your terms.”

Collar remained silent for a little while. To hear that he was in actuality working for the Empress filled him with such disgust that he almost considered calling off the deal.

But in the end, this was not about him or how he felt.

“No, I need to know for sure that you will honor our deal.”

“You wouldn’t dare suggest!” Said one of the guards.

“A simple seal. If either of us breaks the terms of our agreement, that person dies.”

“Or I could kill you right now and simply coerce one of your allies instead. I only need one pair of eyes to see the beasts with.” Raviela said plainly.

“The beasts are aware that my partners could see them and are actively chasing them down. Even Sinvitas is likely on their trail right now. No, you need me. Though, of course, you are welcome to kill me. If you were in the garden, then I am sure you heard my yell. It would be interesting to see if the king could hear my voice from here, no?”

Collar smiled.

“Hear me as I reveal just how much you know about him.”

Raviela closed her eyes.

“Aslagard will hunt you down until the end of your days for this.”

“I’d focus on recovering from your financial loss first.”

Raviela turned to her guards.

“Bring me a seal, a set of armor, and some healing stones for him.”

The guards begrudgingly accepted her orders and left. With the two of them having to wait, Collar thought of asking some questions.

“So, you say the empress is the one that tasked us with retrieving the skull, but I still do not understand why. Could you not inform her of everything happening here while the scope of the corruption was still small and have her send soldiers to remove the king?”

“Sinvitas made sure that any object that left Aslagard was heavily scrutinized for anything that could give his operations away. Getting out the bill of purchase for the skull was the most I could accomplish. You also overestimate the freedom of our empress. Her hands are far more tied than you believe.”

Collar raised an eyebrow at her statement.

“What a pathetic excuse, but I suppose it does not matter now. The innocent always have to pay for the incompetence of those above them.” Collar snarled.

Raviela stared at Collar as he spoke with ever-increasing anger.

“To begin with, it seems like the only reason he was able to get away with such extreme measures was that your city was already one that squeezed the life out of everyone but those fortunate enough to be born with power. Even with all of his monsters, the fake king fits well in such a world, wouldn’t you say?”

“That woman had beautiful white hair.” Said Raviela, ignoring Collar’s words.

“You...You looked.”

“Speak one more word, and I will make sure she meets the same fate as my husband.”

Collar felt the rage in him rise as he struggled with all of his strength to break free from the binds.

“Make sure to direct that anger at our enemies, partner.” Raviela said with a hint of mockery.

After a short while, the guards returned with the requested items. One of them grabbed the seal and demonstrated that it was indeed authentic. With that done, Raviela grabbed the seal and pointed it towards Collar. The seal began to glow red, waiting for each of their vows.

“I vow to give Collar all of the gold of Aslagard, free of the magic that tracks it if he is to fulfill his vow to me.” Said Raviela.

“I vow to help Raviela kill Sinvitas.” Said Collar.

With their vows taken, the seal unwrapped and tied itself to both of their hearts. If any of them go against their words, they will die.

In that instant, Raviela and Collar looked into each other's eyes. The only condition that frees one from the vow besides completing it is the death of the person you took the vow towards.

They couldn’t trust each other.

“I look forward to working with you.” Said Raviela.

“The pleasure is all mine.” Replied Collar.

One of the guards walked up with the suit of armor in tow.

“My lady, he should get dressed now.”

“Not quite. We need him to be fully combat-ready first.”

Raviela grabbed one of the two healing stones the guards brought. It was pure white, a stone that was infused with holy magic.

The moment Collar saw the nature of the stone, he was struck with terror.

“Get that away from me!”

His collar’s red markings blinked slowly.

“Now!”

Raviela put away the stone at his behest.

“What’s wrong? Why did your necklace flash red?” She asked.

Collar was shaking in fear.

“Use the other gem on me, please.”

“First, explain to me what just happened.” Demanded Raviela.

Collar was frustrated. Thanks to that, he had to reveal his weakness to her right away.

“My collar is set to kill me if I come in contact with holy magic for too long. Please, use any other element to heal me.”

Raviela smiled.

“How interesting. Very well, the other healing stone is of the frost element. However, you do realize how painful the healing process will be for one whose body is not accustomed to the frost? Even to citizens of Aslagard who are accustomed to the cold for their entire lives, the process is most often lethal.”

Collar grit his teeth.

“It does not matter.”

“Very well. Men, gag him. I do not want him making sounds while he’s being healed.”

“That won’t be necessary. I will be completely silent without your assistance.” Said Collar.

Raviela hesitated for a moment.

“Very well.”

Raviela walked up to Collar and placed the stone on his forehead. A blue wave of magic washed over his body. Though pleasantly chilly at first, it was quickly replaced with agonizing pain as the magic selectively froze, shattered, and reconstructed Collar’s individual cells. Millions upon millions of times every second, he felt the debilitating cold followed up by the pain of his blood, skin, and flesh being crushed and then reconstructed.

During all of it, Collar didn’t make a single sound.

And during all of it, Collar could think of only one thing.

Yonerra.