“BattleLord?” The aide’s words echoed in BattleLord FlameHeart’s aching head as he picked himself up off the floor.

“I’m fine,” he grated out. Nothing back here seemed damaged. “Go back to what you were doing.” The last thing he needed was to deal with his aide when he felt this poorly.

What had just happened? He remembered calling on Tranquil Conviction, but all he’d gotten was a cryptic remark followed by darkness overtaking him. Had he simply passed out or had Tranquil Conviction done something to him?

He should have taken Tranquil Conviction’s involvement after the invasion started as a bad sign and retreated. It would have cost him in the eyes of his peers, but not as badly as this fiasco was likely to.

Why would you give up on the invasion of a Tier One world?, they’d have asked. Well, it wasn’t Tier One - it’d started at Tier Zero, which meant he’d felt like he was dying for weeks - and more than that, it was clear that he was facing a serious enemy that wasn’t the world he was supposedly trying to conquer. After this, it was clear that his enemy was Tranquil Conviction himself. It was also clear that he was going to lose.

FlameHeart had never believed the rumors that said the Shameful One of Strategy was angry with the Kaelitha Lord - it was exactly the sort of rumor that would be spread about such a successful ruler, and the Lord was very successful in battle. Perhaps it was true that Tranquil Conviction was jealous of the Lord’s success.

Why else would he try to sabotage the invasion? FlameHeart had called on him for aid after-

His head hurt.

What was he hearing? :Serenity! Get out of there! It won’t hold for long!:

Someone shouting from a very long way away. Someone he didn’t know. Someone trying to speak to the Shameful One? Perhaps he could learn something by listening.

FlameHeart picked up the tokens he’d used to call the Shameful One and dropped them on the floor. After the assault he’d suffered, he wasn’t going to show Tranquil Conviction even the minimal respect he had before, for his skill. He was supposed to be the Strategist; that didn’t mean he should attack his own side.

He’d wanted advice, but what he’d gotten was betrayal.

FlameHeart was surprised he wasn’t angry. He should have been angry; he always had been in the past when he was betrayed or even let down. For some reason, he wasn’t.

For some reason, it felt right. Like he should lose.

No, that wasn’t it at all. He didn’t feel like he should lose. He felt like the locals should win. Like that was a win for him.

What had Tranquil Conviction done to him?

Rissa frowned as she sat on the curb, well away from the sounds of the others playing cards. Everyone else knew she was monitoring Serenity, but they’d watched her make map updates often enough that the fact that she’d moved away from everyone else to concentrate a while back wasn’t really surprising anymore.

She hadn’t told them what was happening since the last time she updated the map. If she was completely honest with herself, she was terrified. She’d only caught bits and pieces of his fight, but she knew he’d passed out afterwards. Pushing the BattleLord’s memories to the forefront and hoping he’d shift into that form was the only way she could think of to help him, but now she had to get him to leave the building before they faded too much.

She didn’t think he’d be able to hold the shape for long. If he were alone, that would be fine; he could shift back into his smokelike form and escape.

He wasn’t alone now.

She was glad he’d given her such a solid link to him. It was still working even when he didn’t try to hold it.

What else could she do to help? Was there anything at all?

Once he emerged from the back room, the BattleLord tried to seem normal as he watched the controlled chaos that was managing the ever-unfolding disaster of this invasion. His aides mostly knew what to do; he’d laid out the plan clearly and they were executing it as well as they could. They hadn’t yet adjusted for the losses they’d suffered at -

At -

At somewhere he’d been and hadn’t been told about -

:GET OUT OF THERE! ALONE!:

His head hurt. BattleLord FlameHeart tried to conceal it; he was used to concealing weakness.

Why did his name sound wrong? It didn’t have the usual echo of a Name-

“BattleLord? We’ve pulled the messengers together; you said you’d have commands for them when you came back out, to spread to the other locations?” His aide crouched in front of the BattleLord respectfully. It was probably wise; interrupting a BattleLord, even at their request, was dangerous.

Flashes of memory pulsed in front of his mind’s eye. When had he seen a BattleLord he didn’t recognize do that to his aide? Or attack in rage when he didn’t kneel like a slave? He hadn’t -

He couldn’t have -

“BattleLord?”

BattleLord Flameheart tried to pull his increasingly scattered thoughts and memories back together. He’d told the aide to gather messengers for what he decided after his “thinking” in the back. He’d expected Tranquil Conviction to give him a strategy; he’d more than half expected it to be to leave the city and settle somewhere outside. The Shameful One wasn’t known for fighting lost battles; he was known for winning and turning apparent loss into a victory in the far future.

The other option he’d considered was a general offensive into the city. It would have caused chaos; destroy the people who’d destroyed his future. They might just be peasants, but the fact that they were here at all made things difficult. It might even give the Kaelitha of the future an entry point; it’d happened before. Kill the peasants and the powerful might fall in a few years. With no other command, that was definitely the normal choice.

It was what he’d planned to do if Tranquil Conviction didn’t override him, yet somehow he couldn’t bring himself to give that order. He wasn’t certain why; it simply seemed wrong.

It would have been helpful to have the Shameful One’s direction. It would have reduced the shame the BattleLord felt about leading his troops away from their commanded arena. Still, it was the right decision. It had to be.

The BattleLord turned to his aide. “Yes. They’re to prepare for transit. We’ll be leaving the city once we have a destination. Have any of the Outer Scout Groups reported back yet?”

The aide shook his head. “Not with a destination. The few reports we’ve gotten all say that there aren’t any large enough locations without this sort of dense population.”

The BattleLord found that hard to believe for a moment; dense cities had a maximum size, and the Scout Groups should have been well outside that by now. They also couldn’t be too close together without areas in between; food had to come from somewhere. Dungeons couldn’t do everything, especially if the population was high, and portals were too expensive for food for anyone except nobles and adventurers.

A memory surfaced of looking out a window from far above where a flyer would go - above even where birds flew - looking at city as far as the eye could see. That had to be his imagination; he wasn’t normally that imaginative, but it had to be. It couldn’t be real. “Very well. Let them know to make ready; we’ll leave once we have a route determined.”

“Shall I have them consolidate on the larger locations? It would be more secure.”

It was a good suggestion, but for some reason the BattleLord had a gut reaction of horror. He knew that consolidating on more defensible locations would lead to death. He wasn’t certain why that was even a bad thing, since it would be death in honorable battle, yet something in his muddled thoughts said that it was bad.

“No. I don’t want them moving around; too much of a chance we’ll be seen. We need to keep everyone as concealed as possible before we move.” That had to be why he didn’t want them to move. Didn’t it?

The aide headed away to brief the messengers. BattleLord FlameHeart badly wanted some time in the quiet and dark to think. Something was wrong; Tranquil Conviction had done something to him. Something that muddled his mind and his decisions.

He wouldn’t pay any attention to those strange thoughts, nor to the words that appeared in his mind. They were clearly the work of the Shameful One.

He needed to calm himself down, refocus on his plan and his requirements. He couldn’t succeed as a Kaelitha anymore. He’d failed. He’d failed badly.

He’d been set up to fail by Tranquil Conviction. Why had the Shameful One done that?

Several of his usual guards started to follow the BattleLord as he hopped out of the store. He waved them off; the building was safe. It was guarded; he didn’t need guards in here. They seemed reluctant, but couldn’t argue with the orders of a BattleLord, especially not when he was correct; other guards were stationed at each of the entrances. No one - certainly none of these humans - could get in.

As he did, the BattleLord felt the ache in his chest that spoke of an armor plate starting to detach itself. He knew why it was happening; he’d decided to abandon the Kaelitha and start his own Clan. He was no longer sworn to them, so neither the Clan mark nor his rank-symbol were accurate. He didn’t know what the new ones would be, and he’d have to deal with that when they appeared. It was likely the rank-symbol might take time; he’d have to win over the soldiers he’d brought over to his Clan before he could get a proper Clan Lord marking.

He couldn’t bring himself to worry about what the marks would be. They seemed less important than they should have. Far more important was getting away; getting to a safe, secure place before his armor plate fell.

That much was normal. Unless you had strong bonds with others, losing chest armor always made a Sterath want to be somewhere defensible. It was a tremendous weakness; why, it made them as vulnerable as a human!

He found himself tracing a route he’d never been on before, yet somehow knew he’d scouted earlier that day. A route completely without guards or even ordinary foot traffic. The second floor was mostly deserted, but even so he was surprised; he’d thought they had better coverage.

He reached an inconspicuous human-sized door and slipped inside; it had a small sign on it that he somehow knew read “Mall Staff Only”, even though he’d never learned whatever provincial tongue these humans used. The door opened easily and he carefully hopped in; nothing in this entire city was built for a Sterath.

It was a good, secure place to rest where no one would find him.

Beyond the door was an office. It looked like it had probably once held several desks, but there was now only one large desk left. It tilted at an odd angle due to a broken leg; the chair sitting next to it was in even worse shape. It looked like the chair had been used to break the floor-to-ceiling window in the wall.

The room seemed suddenly far less safe, yet he knew it was. The outside was far less of a threat than the Sterath.

The armor plating on his chest released and fell to the floor. That was fast; he must have already been forming the plate behind it for a while. The new plate was what made the old plate go, after all.

He looked down and saw the new armor. It was as soft as skin, and easier to damage. That was how it had been marked in the dim past, after all. Before it started simply marking itself. He could see the marks starting to come in, but they were still very faint and not yet possible to make out, even in the light that came in through the broken window.

Movement across the room caught his eye. A Sterath now stood where none had been a moment before.

Tranquil Conviction.

This was a bad time for the Shameful One to show up, when he was at his most vulnerable.