I like to daydream of the empire that I would one day like to build, almost like a game. I ponder what sort of culture I want to build in my empire, and how things should be run.

Economy and trade are things that still concern me. Should I make something centred around the flow of money like capitalism? Should I embrace a more communist ideal, where I ensure that everything is split fairly?

I would certainly ensure that the weak and powerless are uplifted to the point where they’re able to stand on their own, but things aren’t always so easy. Already I’ve been cutthroat in deciding who’s worth saving from their collars, and it’s a simple decision based on who will best help us all survive. The most useful out of them, though tainted with some personal bias towards the humans.

Much of the time I go back and consider the problems from the core. Who am I? Why do I want this empire?

I want a world, where I am free. Where there exists no ruler above me that can demand anything of me. A world where my greatest concerns are for the consequences of my own actions. Where no riotous mob, nor crowned King can punish me for whatever perceived wrongdoing.

I simple cannot trust those in positions of leadership above me.

The girls that I love, I trust with all that I am, but they are equals. Leai and Seia I trust, perhaps a little too much, but even with their strength, they do not act as if they are superior to me.

Even most of the teachers here feel more like staff providing me a service, rather than having any sort of power over me.

I want this empire, so that I will bow to no one.

Yet, for that empire to exist, I need to become better at finding people and getting them to work alongside me. Those who stand with me now are all people that I trust based on my instinct alone, but I know enough about life to distrust my instincts.

Thus, I resolve to watch these new employees with great care to ensure that they deserve the trust that I’m extending to them.

That said, they’ve extended me more than a little trust of their own considering how they, at my asking, roofied themselves so that I could perform invasive surgery on them. I did promise that I wouldn’t steal their kidneys, but I don’t think they got the joke.

As promised, I pulled out their old chips and collars, and replaced them with the new fancy ones that Nel helped me to make.

She adjusted a few things to ensure that their experience would be a measure smoother than ours, and while it’s a concern that they might share the technology ahead of us, we must extent our trust. That, and we’re rather desperate for the help, considering how few people are currently working with us.

We’ve decided to operate in a separate room this time, resting everyone on assorted furs that I’m assured are quite luxurious. The existence of cleansing magic makes it easy to remove the silver stains that’ll make a mess of the rugs, so I find no reason to hold back.

They slumber mostly peacefully. Sele, the perverted smith, snores most gratingly, imitating a chainsaw through some horrible happenstance for a man that wouldn’t even know what a chainsaw is.

A few twinkling whispered breaths escape Ria as she lies on her crystal wings. Since I’ve never seen her using them to fly, I have to assume that they’re merely for show, or else perhaps some other strange purpose. Regardless, even sleeping she manages to make precious music that is soothing to my ears, if not quite enough for me to ignore the chainsaw beside her.

Wally is cuddled up in the foetal position while he clutches at the fur beneath him with his bony hands. Once again he reminds me of a goblin, or gremlin, or something of that nature. Though, even if he were such a thing I’d protect him just the same.

The dwarf that I’ve recently realised is called Korgan, sleeps perhaps the most fitfully of all. I’d thought that as something like the stereotypical dwarf, his snoring would be enough to shake the very ruins we sleep in, but I guess stereotypes are never an accurate measure of a person.

Leai and Seia however are tossing and turning as if about to awaken, and true to the thought, I watch as their eyes flutter awake at the same moment.

“Is it gone?” Leai asks, looking towards me with hope shining in her eyes.

“Yep, the collar is gone and I crammed the new Chip into you while you were down.” I say, from my rather modest throne—a wooden chair, but a nice one.

Leai’s eyes flicker left and right, up and down, if I didn’t know better, I’d think she was having some kind of fit.

“Try multi-mind.” I suggest, “It should be in the topmost Skills collection, Nel and I worked hard to put that together. By which I mean, I made a suggestion and she worked hard to make it happen.”

I keep thanking her, but I don’t think it’s ever enough. I wouldn’t be able to do anything without that girl. On top of a million little thank you gifts, I’m going to have to talk to her about getting her an assistant, and soon.

“It’s gone?” she asks again, a great big smile rising on her lips.

“You seem so happy.” I say, “Weren’t you the one saying that it’s not so bad a thing?”

“I wasn’t lying.” She replies with a feigned pout, that can’t resist the smile that’s slowly breaking through it. “It was the best of the bad options. You… you just made a better option than that. Thank you, so much!”

She leaps for me, and I don’t bother to dodge her. I’m still wearing my armour, as it would be a pain to take off and I need it for the work we’re doing this afternoon, so I feel rather safe in accepting her affections. She doesn’t hit with enough force to activate the enchantments, but it does still keep her slime off of me. The veil working just as well as the leather, strangely enough.

“Thank you.” Seia says, bowing slightly as she approaches to the side of me.

“This is… weird,” Mumbles the next waking member of our little slumber party, Ria the gemstone songstress. “My songs are all here.”

As she says, her songs are actually regarded as Skills within her Chip. I haven’t had the courage to try and sing them, because I’m not made of stone, and I have no idea what that Skill would end up doing to my voice box.

“It’s fully customisable,” I say pulling away from the overly clingy Leai to give her some advice, “It’ll be quite a while before we can see all that this thing can do.”

“I… can see that.” She says, her eyes flicking all around, “I’m sorry, I’m just… there’s so much here.”

I laugh lightly.

“There is, if you make any wonderful discoveries, do share.” I say, forming a chat with everyone in it and writing the same.

Leai and Seia jump right into it, scrawling their own questions and thoughts. And something about red, juicy intestines?

Sometimes it’s just best to just ignore Leai.

“Neat, but no brewing Sills.” Mumbles Korgan, even though he hasn’t shifted from his statuesque sleeping position. The dwarf doesn’t join the chat, but instead continues to lie there as he investigates on his own.

The perverted smith doesn’t add anything either as he awakens, mumbling thoughtfully as he looks through a few Skills. After a little, he jumps to his feet and makes for the door.

“I need to try out a few of these new techniques.” He says, rushing back to his workspace, wherever that is.

Leai is quick to start another discussion, feeling a little bit like an excitable puppy now that she’s completely relaxed. Her overexuberance likely coming about from her newfound freedom, she’s acting almost like a happy drunk.

Wally makes a strange retching sound, interrupting our conversation as he pulls himself up and wearily makes for the door, not even bothering with the rest of us.

“Are you okay?” I call to him, and he finally notices we’re here.

“Back to work.” He says, motioning towards the door, “Guns, tanks, drones? Drones should still be useful.”

“Ah,” The sound escapes me as a spike of guilt strikes out at me, “I’m working you all way too hard, aren’t I?”

“I could work harder,” Leai says.

“You haven’t done…ah, actually you did get us beast parts and the silver for these upgrades. Thanks for that. Also, we’ve still got things to do later, so keep that attitude.

“I’m talking about you Ria, and Wally, and Sele, too. Even if you’re enjoying the work, you need to ensure you get proper rest.”

“I need less rest than most other species.” Ria explains, “But I see your point. Wally and Sele are… insistent in their work, and to be honest I haven’t pressed them to take proper care of themselves.”

“It’s not your responsibility.” I say, quietly sending a message to the pair of crafters, advising them to give themselves the rest they need. I know it’s for nothing, but the message also costs nothing.

“Well, that’s that. Are there any questions?” I ask, brushing the silver from my armour before recalling that I’ve got a cleansing stone on hand.

“When are we gathering for the reconnaissance of the beast prison?” Seia asks.

“When you’re ready.” I reply, “I don’t see the need to waste any time, and the rest of us are ready to go.”

“You waited for us?” Leai asks, cheerfully as she bounces along to my side indicating her readiness.

“We decided it was beast to get your collars out, and give you a defence against further collaring before we head out.” I say, “We can’t be sure there aren’t any hidden commands in there.”

“There isn’t, or wait…” She looks up thoughtfully, “If they command us to forget them… but then we’d need to be commanded to forget that we were commanded to forget, and then…”

“It happened to Adler.” I say, cutting her short, “The welfare officers are not against using orders that you don’t even know are there.”

“Oh,” Leai stops her playful pondering.

“It’s fine,” I reply, “We should all be safe now.”

“Yay,” she says, suddenly cheerful again.

“Are you all ready? Korgan? Leai? Seia?” I ask.

“Ready!” Leai responds, while Seia nods politely.

“I’m up.” Grumps the dwarf as he pulls himself from the furs and grabs his shield from the wall, “I’d like a chance to test a few Skills before we go.”

“Sure,” I say, sending messages to Nel and Adler who are down here directing everything. “We’ll be gathering in the training room anyway, so you can run your Skills by Barry if you’d like.”

For all the excitement that genuinely comes off of them, they quickly quiet during our long walk. There’s much to work through with these new systems and I’d like to give them more of a chance to get used to them.

The image of Red showing up on our plates the next time we visit the restaurant pushes that thought aside as I embrace my newfound sense of urgency. I’ve been waiting for too long already. It’s time to take risks, and rush things along.

Once in the training room the dwarf rushes to Barry, while Leai and Seia turn to face each other. Without a moments waste they use their new Skills, stumbling immediately, but with smiles or stiff determination, they persist.

“Kyra,” Adler says, calling me over. “I’ve gathered the cloaks. I’ve been careful, and they shouldn’t be traced to us.”

“Will these really be enough to disguise us?” I ask her as she hands me an oversized hooded cloak. It looks like it’s grown a little ragged with wear over many years, but it was made well, and it still retains many good years ahead of it.

The cloak that she keeps for herself is a little more worn than mine, a few tears at the bottom working their way up the length of it. She’s the sort to take the short end of the stick just so that others don’t have to suffer it.

Trustworthy, but I’ll have to keep it in mind such that she never overextends to the point of harming herself.

I step in and swap out for the more tattered cloak. There’s a proper aesthetic for a magical prisonbreak, and as the leader it’s only proper that I wear the most tattered and messy robe just to take it off at the right moment, showing off my shiny new armour.

“Ah… thank you.” She says, graciously accepting the cloak I give her back as if she didn’t just hand it to me a moment ago, “They should be enough, I didn’t have time to try and make some masks, but we’re not intending on getting seen anyway. Are you still planning to kill those that see us?”

“Yeah, that was the plan.” I say. “So, we’d better try and avoid being seen by any of the beasts that we’re leaving behind.”

“Well, that’s an utterly horrible thought,” She says, clearly not feeling it. “Sorry, it’s just this entire thing has me on edge. I… I still don’t have hope for this ever ending well. To me this is all just the struggle before the fall.”

“Well, I’m glad to be struggling by your side.” I say, patting her shoulder and trying to sooth her. Unfortunately, nothing I say brings her any calm, though she does manage to school her breathing and pretend.

We watch our recruits training with their new Skills for a little while before Nel makes her entrance, her hair a little messy. I never thought of it before, but she’d look rather nice in glasses.

“It is about time.” Nel says, “We should go back over the plans first. Everyone!” She waits a few moments, but Leai and the dwarf are busy in a friendly shouting match and apparently don’t notice. Seia steps in to say something but I’m a step ahead.

“Oi!” I shout at them, “Idiots, shut up and get over here!”

“Sorry, sorry.” Leai says, followed by the dwarf as she soon joins us, “What did I miss?”

“Nothing yet, we’re going over todays plan one more time,” I say, “Nel.”

“Alright, as per the current plan, we’re splitting up into two groups so that we can more quickly survey the area around the beast prison.” She lays out a familiar map on the table between us, pointing out the vague directions we’re meant to be travelling.

“Now, I’ve discussed our team formations with Kyra, and we’re split into these groups. First is Kyra, Vii, Leai, and Seia. You’ll be moving around the beast taming facilities along this path.” She traces it with her long chitinuous finger.

“The rest of us, Eshya, Adler, Korgan, and I will be traveling along this path, and both teams will meet up here. There are a few doors along both paths that could give us a possible entry point into the prison, we’ll want to investigate each one and determine if they’re viable. In the worst case we may need to attack from the upper ruins, or the surface, which would be… dangerous.

“After we’ve completed these circuits around the target area, we’ll be following this path down into the lower depths. It’s not marked particularly clearly on any maps I’ve found, and unfortunately most who know what’s down there are loath to talk about it, but it’s our intended escape so we need to confirm the path down.”

“With all of us here, it’ll probably be fine.” The dwarf, Korgan, says. “I’ve taken a wee peak down there before, and I wouldn’t risk it on my own, but I reckon it’ll be good to give her another visit with all of us working together.”

“Anything you can tell us?” Vii asks, “What’s down there that makes everyone clam up? Is it scary? Powerful beasts?”

“I don’t know what bothers everyone, but from what I saw of it, it’s just bigger caverns and bigger beasts.” He shrugs.

“How much bigger?” I ask, “Stronger, I mean since mana density is more important.”

“Bigger and more dangerous than what’s in these upper ruins.” He replies, “I’m guessing from what I saw of it, but I’d bet a shiny silver coin that I’m right.”

“Good hunting ground then.” Leai says, as I turn towards Eshya to see the same spark of passion in her as well.

“Anything else Nel?” I ask.

“Vii, you still have eyes on our base in case anything happens while we’re gone.” Nel asks, nervously tapping her fingers as she tries to think of anything she might have forgotten.

“I do. I do.” She shouts happily, “I can see Rudolf still hanging around sitting in that big stone throne and reading a big book.”

“Still need to get rid of that thing.” I mutter, “If he likes it, maybe we can throw it in his room. Does he have a room?”

“Yes, no one else was dealing with those issues, so I took over the management of rooms and resources.” Nel says. “Back on topic, if no one else has anything to say before we leave, we should head out. Time continues to roll on.”

“Alright, let’s go.” I say, after a brief pause without any new comments, “We’ve got some beasts to slay and some beasts to rescue, don’t get them confused, okay?”

“How do we tell the difference?” Leai asks, her voice carrying a note of sarcasm.

“Well, the point is to tame them and add more minions to the roster. Anyone you think we can turn to our cause we want to keep. So, if you think you can talk down whatever creatures we stumble upon, go right for it.”

“Okay!” She says all too happily, and that’s how I know she’s going to be trouble.

We leave behind Ria who stands at the door watching us pass. She sings a haunting tune that fills the darkness as if it belongs to it. With a final echoing tune, she closes the door behind us, and where left with nothing but our own lights.

Leai suddenly starts shining bright green the moment that the darkness thinks it’s won. Her sister Seia is quick to follow after, and starts glowing a bright purple. The light is enough to see everything around us clearly but without being blinding. I don’t understand what exact sort of magical fuckery is about, but at least this time it’s to our benefit.

“You didn’t tell me were a glowstick.” I say, playfully hitting Leai’s shoulder, “That’s cool.”

“I’m cool!” She shouts as if she’s just been declared the winner in something.

“Were you always this ridiculous?” I ask, “I think I remember you being a little more serious when we first met.”

“All lies.” She declares happily, “With collars it’s important to learn how to lie well, but now I don’t have to.”

“And we’re at far greater risk for it.” Seia says, before quickly turning to me, “That isn’t to say… I don’t mean any offence by that; I just want to reign in my sister before she causes any more trouble.”

“It’s fine,” I reply, “Honestly, you are right. We’d all be far safer if we just followed the rules. We chose this dangerous life knowing that.”

“The free life has seduced my sister, as you can see, but I fear that we haven’t the strength to protect ourselves from those above that would force us to live as they decide.” Seia says, “I will not allow them to take away Leai however, so you can have faith that I’ll fight to the best of my abilities.”

“I never doubted it.” I reply.

“I always fight at my best.” Leai says, exuberantly.

“I’ll do my best too.” Vii perks up, “I’ll help you take down that evil bus driver, so we can steer our own fates!”

I can’t hold down a laugh, as she brings that conversation back up. She meets my eyes and smiles joyously, as she stirs the winds around us. The other two on our team are a little clueless but don’t seem to be interested in asking further.

Through thick conversation we continue along our path. Vii has taken the role of our navigator as Seia assists; apparently, she also has a talent for listening closely to instructions and memorizing things.

“So, what’s your favourite type of guts?” Leai asks, “Bug guts? Mammal guts? Lizard guts? Is it people guts? It’s people guts, isn’t it?”

It takes me a few moments to realize she’s actually seriously asking and not making another of her weird jokes. It takes a moment after that for me to put together the reason she thinks I have a gut fixation.

“Mana dense guts.” I say, “So I can suck the life right out of them.”

She laughs in delight, and I have no idea how exactly she’s taken my reply, but that is the fun in talking with her.

“This way.” Vii says, leading us ahead. “The first place we’re meant to check is down here. There’ll be a door that’ll open to the beast prison.”

“You think they left it open?” I ask, “Or maybe alarmed?”

“Adler didn’t think so.” Vii says, “She was really sure about it, too.”

“Well, let’s hope she’s right.” I say, following after her step.

The long dusty hallway doesn’t seem to have been walked for a long while, but I’m starting to find that suspicious in itself. For all the beasts and fights that we’ve come across down here, I’m starting to think that the dusk is just an omnipresent part of this place regardless of how many people travel through.

I suppose it could be because no one tries to clean up down here, too. With no windows, the dust that we stir up in passing will just settle again after us.

“Here.” Vii says, pointing towards a door that seems just like any other.

“Does it work?” I ask.

“There’s no mana in it.” She says, “I wouldn’t know if it’s broken or not. Should we have brought Ria along? She’d know.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “If it looks undamaged, we’ll have to just hope for the best.”

“It looks alright to me.” Seia says, “Take that as you will however, I’m not the most practiced in studying enchantments.”

“It’s alright, you’re probably the best among us.” I reply, “The doors accessible, and should work with a mana infusion. Let’s keep moving, we still have a long way to go.”

“Boring,” Leai says, “I hope we come across a beast at some point.”

“We will.” I say, “I mean, we’re not getting through this without encountering something that wants to kill us.”

“Yay.” Leai says. The more I listen to her, the more obvious her playful act becomes. It’s clear that this is an intentional behaviour for her, perhaps a mask? Something she’s created to hide herself from the eyes of the welfare officers?

It doesn’t matter, I don’t believe she’s lying about wanting to work with me. She’s been especially cheerful ever since I removed her collar, and I know that’s not entirely fake, even if her expression of that joy is a little strange.

Travelling down the halls and rooms, each looking no different from the last, it would be easy to get lost, but Vii and Seia do well to keep us on track.

I’m discussing some nonsense with Leai when she suddenly pauses, her laughter dying on her lips. She tilts her head curiously as she lowers herself into a crouch.

“Stop!” I shout as quietly as I can to the others, as I watch her strange behaviour. Clearly, she’s heard something that the rest of us haven’t.

It takes only a few more moments before I can sense it too.

The smell hits first.

It’s like someone has cracked some rotten eggs into a bucket of sour milk, seasoned it with the juices at the bottom of a long-neglected garbage bin, blended it all together, then dunked my head into the result.

I resist gagging with everything I have.

While I’m still recovering from the torturous scent, I can finally hear the beast as it slowly gets closer. Scraping, clicking, wheezing, and the dull thump of a broken drum all mixes together into an echo that surrounds us from all sides.

“How’s everyone?” I ask, struggling to keep my bile down. Vii is considerably less successful. The green salad she had for lunch looks much less appetising as she paints the floor with it.

“Fine,” She replies, wiping her mouth in a daze before she leans over for another round.

“Any idea what this is?”

“Something bad.” Seia says, “I’ve heard of this, but only from those who’ve fled from it. I have heard nothing of what it looks like. The general advice is to run the moment you smell it.”

“Yet you don’t seem panicked.” I reply, drawing my pistol.

“Do you know how many combat capable students are down here? The advice is always to run.” She smiles, “We’ll likely be fine, even if we’re forced to escape.”

The sound slowly grows more intense, the wails of a tortured choir, joined with the sounds of a marching band smacking about whatever random junk they found lying about. Closer and closer it comes, but as the tension slowly builds, I set it all aside to help Vii clean herself up.

“I’m fine, we need to get ready to fight!” She says, but I continue wiping her face clean with a handkerchief I had hidden away under my armour.

“Ah, but this is about readying for the fight.” I say, “We must present ourselves as stronger than the enemy. So much so, that we can take a moment to clean up without having to worry about it.”

Saying as much I return my attention to the coming mess of sound that’s still slowly crawling towards us, though we’re yet to see the beast that’s making such a racket.

I stare down at the puke on the ground and realize that I can’t even tell the difference between that scent and the beast that’s still slowly coming towards us. We’re almost lucky that we were hit with the stench this early, now we’re not going to get distracted by it when the fight begins.

I’m practically already used to the smell.

Though the moment I think it, another wave of nausea washes over me, threatening to force my stomach into rebellion.

“Are you sure that advice you received wasn’t to say that we should run, or we’ll all be gassed to death?” I ask, realizing that this stench might actually be caused by noxious gasses.

“Perhaps…” Seia says, grunting as she’s no longer able to hide her own discomfort.

Leai just leans forwards a little before projectile vomiting out on the ground in front of her without ever lowering her gaze from the hall where the monster is still coming.

With a resigned sigh I stop resisting and clear out my stomach in one corner of the room. I want to think that I’m doing so in a dignified fashion, but there is no dignity in this.

“When the hell is this thing even getting here?” I ask, getting frustrated and tempted to run just to get away from the stench.

Just as I finally say as much the creature makes itself known, half rolling, half crawling down the corridor towards us. A dozen different deformed faces stair at me from the mass of limbs and flesh, all bound together into an abomination of parts that should not belong together.

When I hear of a fleshy abomination, I tend to think of a ball of mass just thrown together and compressed, but this is somehow worse. There’s hands and legs all lined up underneath it, and countless more along each side and even on it’s top, if this thing even has a top. The faces, while concentrated on the end that’s pointed at us, are also spread out along the other sides. It’s long body is almost like that of a worm if worms had hundreds of misplaced limbs along it’s body.

The flesh and faces are made of beasts, and of people, and of things that don’t recognise as either, all morphed together into this horrid nightmarish creature. When it sees us, some of the twisted faces exclaim in muted rage, still barely able to wheeze, others mindlessly chomp at the air between us, and others still are silent, as if looking upon us with the same disgust that we target towards it.

“You think we can convince it to become your minion?” Leai asks, before speaking louder towards the mass of flesh, “Hey, do you want some work? Kyra says she can pay you.”

The wheezing is interrupted a moment by another sound, that of moving liquid slapping against itself in a movement that Chip recognises as language.

“Eat.” Is its simple answer as it’s many hands and feet push it towards us.

“I don’t think that worked.” Leai says, “Did I say something wrong do you think?”

“I’m glad you failed to convince it.” I reply, “If you actually managed to win it over, I’d have to find somewhere to put it. I don’t think a cleansing stone is going to be enough to forgive this thing for being born.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Skills & Stats

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 620 units

~Mana distribution:

Catagory Current Max. Skin 0% 28% Muscle 13% 13% Mind 0% 65% Cardiovascular 0% 11% Misc. 0% 10% Efficiency 13% 79%

~Favourited Skills:

-Chip Shredder

-Multi-mind

-Tag

-Mana surge movement

-Mana surge punch

-Reactive mana skin

-Infused delayed Casting

-Fire burst punch