Why did this happen...?

I don’t know.

Arax wants scripts...?

That’s what she said.

Why kill Miles then...?

Maybe she only needed one scripter.

No. I’m not a scripter. Miles was. Why not kill me?

I don’t know.

Why did it happen so suddenly?

I don’t know.

Why didn’t he say anything!?

I don’t know.

What do you know!?!?

...

Please... someone tell me what to do.

Defiance...

What...?

She said Miles had defiance in him. A spark.

That’s right... he would never stop...

No, he wouldn’t.

Maybe he would retreat, even kiss a beast’s boots, but he would always be planning her takedown.

Should you be doing that?

I don’t know...

Can you beat her somehow?

I... don’t know...

What do you know?

... Miles... I need Miles!

***

“Riala... It’s okay if you go to sleep,” Berla said to the girl, who’s eyelids were growing heavier and heavier.

“No... I want to wait for them...” she said defiantly, leaning against Hati, half asleep.

It had been one and a half hours since Miles and Tomar left to meet Arax for the first time. Nobody knew how that meeting would go, but the hope was that they would be able to make a deal with the beast, or even simply keep the old deal in place for the moment.

Alternatively, there was a plan for dealing with Arax for good, should the opportunity arise, but Berla had tried to forbid Miles from taking that route, even if they thought they could take her. Despite their name, category ten beasts operated outside of any norms and categories, and there was no telling whether they could die, or even be injured. The thought that these two might try this absolutely terrified her. Before they even considered attempting it, they would need a lot more data and actual information of what Arax was capable of.

“We should’ve gone with them...” Berla mumbled.

“We couldn’t have done anything there,” Reurig said.

“We could’ve stopped them from doing something stupid,” she retorted.

“What if they come back and the beast is gone? That would be pretty amazing.”

“That would mean they attacked it without knowing anything about it, which would be beyond reckless. But yes, that would be amazing...”

Berla understood that Miles had left them behind to protect them, and Reurig was right as well. If that beast got serious, the two of them would surely not have been able to do anything to help. They weren’t talking about a category three, which Berla could take care of on her own, even with her handicap. It wasn’t even a five, which she could’ve handled with one partner and some luck before her accident. No, the abilities of beasts jumped by leaps and bounds past that point. A six was enough to decimate entire squads. A seven would require a small army to take down. And from eights and above she had only ever heard horror stories...

“Hey, Hati,” she said. “Have you ever met another beast as strong as Arax?”

“...”

“Hati...?”

“Hey,” Riala said, poking his side with closed eyes.

“Huh?” Hati said, coming out of his daze.

“You’ve been pretty quiet. Is everything okay?” Berla asked.

“Uhm... yes.”

“That was not convincing.”

“... I... have a bad feeling... And Miles was so scared— Erm, I mean, I’m worried about—”

“Wait, what?” Berla said, interrupting him. “What do you mean, ‘He was scared?’”

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, no, no. What do you mean by that?” she demanded. “He seemed okay! Nervous, but not scared!”

“... He smelled confused and scared just before he left. That was weird, coming from him...”

Hati had only known the group for a week, but given his animal and beast senses, he understood them rather well by this point. Not only was he watching their every move, curious to learn how humans worked and operated, he was also able to perceive things that wouldn’t always be obvious to other humans, like how they were feeling.

While fighting the moderators, most members of the group had been a little fearful at some point, but to Hati it had seemed like Miles was operating without emotions at that moment. He wasn’t angry, or scared, or happy, which were all feelings the beasts could smell even on each other at different points during that encounter.

Right after, when they entered the town, they were confronted by armed guards, but once again, Miles didn’t even flinch. Even when he raised his voice, it was not out of actual anger. Hati had been able to tell that Miles was calm and collected the entire time, only getting louder to underline what he was saying.

Even when Miles heard about Arax, he didn’t seem to have strong feelings initially. In Hati’s eyes, it had seemed like he was rather already thinking about ways to deal with such a beast. However, when Tomar and Miles returned from the prison, something had changed. There was some fear in him, and it got worse over the next few days. There was also confusion though, indicating that he might not understand why he was feeling this way himself.

“You can smell that...?” Berla asked.

“Yes,” Hati said, nodding.

“What am I feeling right now...?”

“Uhm... we don’t usually say that stuff out loud...”

“It’s fine.”

Hesitantly, Hati responded. “... Anger, fear... and loneliness.”

“That’s quite accurate...” she noted.

It was a little unsettling for her to hear that Hati had such insight into what was going on inside her, but she was more focused on what Miles had felt. She agreed with Hati’s sentiment. It was weird that he had supposedly been scared. He wasn’t the type to be fearful, and would instead calmly analyze how to handle and get out of a problematic situation. He hadn’t said it, but Berla even assumed that he was anticipating the meeting to a degree, because he might learn new things. If he was scared though, she had apparently misjudged him. Had she realized this sooner, she would’ve definitely gone with them.

“Damn it...” she said under her breath, admonishing herself.

Berla was still beating herself up, when a yell broke the relative silence of the temple, in the middle of the night.

“Bren!! O—n — d—r!!”

“—? Lilly!? What happened!?”

Reurig’s and Berla’s heads snapped in the direction of the door.

“Was that Tomar!?” Berla asked.

The question had barely left her mouth, when the door flew open and Tomar came running inside, Lilana in his arms. Ignoring the others, he went over to the long couch table and kicked down the items on it with his foot, before laying her down on it. While he scuffled over to the desk, grabbing two quills, the others finally got a good look at the body.

“No... Miles!!” Berla yelled.

“Oh no...” Reurig said.

Hati simply stared, as Riala sleepily opened her eyes.

“Hm...? Are they back—” she started, until her eyes fell on the unmoving body on the table. “Huh...?”

“Riala!” Tomar said, as he crouched down beside her. “The soul extraction script! I don’t remember the fucking script! Write it on her body! Hurry!”

“O-okay!” Riala said.

She didn’t have enough time to process what was happening, but she immediately jumped into action, taking one of the quills from Tomar and hurrying over to the table.

Reurig was watching and waiting with bated breath, understanding enough to know what had presumably happened, and what Tomar was trying to do. What was going on didn’t quite register with Berla though, who awkwardly slid off the couch and grabbed Lilana’s arm, as she started to sob.

Hesitantly, Riala lifted Lilana’s robe, searching for a large enough spot to add a script, while trying her best to avoid looking at the gruesome, gaping hole in her chest.

After Tomar finished up a modified ritual script, used to apply Callings, he dropped the quill and walked over to the table, where Riala was also about to be done. These two scripts, used together, were supposed to extract a soul from a vessel and move it to another. They were based on the ritual platform script and the one that the god Gallas had used to remove Miles from Tomar’s mind, with the group’s theory being that this would allow them to transfer Miles to a new vessel.

It was barely more than a theory, but it was all they had, and it was all Tomar could think of as he had looked down at them back at the clearing. Would it work at all? Would it work after death? And how long would he have? He didn’t know. But maybe, just maybe, they were still in there. And maybe they could get them out. Picking up Lilana’s dead body and a lamp, he ran back through the tunnel as fast as could, and then straight to the temple, not caring who would see. Including Bren and Brie, who were now standing at the open door as well, shocked and confused.

“Done!” Riala said.

Tomar crouched down next to her and quickly checked the two scripts one more time. One on Lilana’s lower leg, the other on his hand. Designed to work in tandem, he then pressed them against each other, to use the output of one of them as the input for the other, and finally, he activated them.

Please... he thought, and after just a second or two, that had felt like an eternity, Tomar felt a familiar pain in his head.

‘Huh?’ a voice resounded in his mind.

“Yes, yes, yes!! One more time!” he said, and activated the scripts again. Seconds passed, but nothing happened.

‘What is going on...?’

“Come on!” he pleaded after a moment, and tried activating the scripts once more. Again, nothing happened.

‘Tomar...?’

Wordlessly, he tried a third time, and a fourth time, but the scripts just kept failing. Reluctantly, he let himself fall backwards, to sit on the floor. It wasn’t working. He had gotten one of them back, but not both.

“She’s dead...” Tomar whispered.

‘Lilana...?’ Miles said in his mind. ‘Arax! Tomar, what happened!? Are you okay!?’

“Yes, I’m okay...” he said quietly, as he looked up at the others and addressed them. “Miles is with me... but... Lilana is gone...”

Everyone present had trouble processing what had just happened within the last two minutes. Especially the guards, but also the others, who were looking back and forth between Tomar and Lilana.

“Miles...?” Berla asked, as she hesitantly looked away from the body and started crawling around the table, towards Tomar. “He is...?”

“Yea... wait,” he said, and dropped control over his body.

“Miles!” Riala immediately exclaimed as she recognized his mana, and she hugged him from the side.

With an affectionate expression, he looked down at the girl, as his gaze wandered to the young woman that was approaching him from the other side. “Berla...” he said, as he embraced her with his free arm.

“Miles!” she said, and held him tightly.

They stayed like that for a moment, but his eyes soon fell on the body on the table, and the hole in its chest. He realized that Lilana and him must’ve been dead, but he was back at the temple now, with Tomar and the others.

The script... he thought, and looked around Berla’s head, on Tomar’s hand. They had extracted him from her body, but it had only worked on him, not Lilana. Tomar tried several times, but nothing happened. She wouldn’t be coming back. Not even this way.

“God damn it...”