Vender Quip was old, prone to boredom, and didn't bother to hide it. As one of the humanlike volk the ravages of time were obvious: Liver spots on the bare skin, baldness, careworn wrinkles, a grimy gray beard, and clothing of a style that was out of date thirty years in the past combined to make him look like someone's great-grandfather who needed oversight but didn't have it. The animal features that indicated he was one of the volk, the grayed-out ears and tail of a basset hound, certainly didn't help. The stooped and arthritic "Old Vender" appeared to radiate an aura that said, "If it's bothersome, go aggravate somebody else."

In short, the old bastard had no business working the receptionist's desk of a company like the Crowsword Temporary Agency, but it was winter time and all the pretty girls that usually held the position were reassigned to cushier jobs during the off season. Thus, it was left up to the elderly or crippled former adventurers to handle the extremely rare cases that appeared on CTA's doorstep. One of those cases stood before Vender, patiently waiting for the sour old fart to get around to doing his job.

The elderly volk considered stalling for time until his shift was over, but ultimately thought better of it. The man in front of him, a human with features so average he could blend into a crowd right after stabbing the king in a public forum, set off Vender's rusty old adventurer's danger sense like a bonfire in the back of his mind. The agency's main hall was large, meant for fifty or more people to mingle between odd jobs while a dozen receptionists handled the dispensation of work and rewards, but in the depths of winter both Vender and this utterly bland-faced killer were the only two people in the entire space. Finally, he broke the silence. "Lookin' for work, or lookin' to make work?"

"Make work." Bland-Face's voice turned out to be just as expressionless as his eyes.

Vender pulled a sheet of paper from below his side of the counter and dipped a quill pen into a magically-warmed ink well. "Collection, escort, extermination, or investigation?"

"Investigation."

"Hmm; particulars?" The old man scribbled on the sheet as the requester began to speak.

"There's word of an... unusual man in the city, one who possibly isn't bothered by Diatom's winters. He may be here, he may not. I need to know, one way or the other, and I want to contact him for a private conference, but I have no idea where he typically stays or how to approach him."

"Do you have a description?"

"Ryujin exile. Tall, well-built, blonde with blue eyes. Draconian characteristics don't match any known race, but his scales have a distinctively silver sheen and he sports a hammer tail." The requester shrugged. "He might have connections with the Temple, but my friends were turned away when they tried to ask. That's why I've come to you."

"You know how it is in the off season. How much are you postin' for the reward?"

The man held up three fingers, then four. "Three silver for whoever takes the job. Four silver upon completion."

"That's a lot of money to lose to the lazy; most people don't pay up-front for that reason."

"I'm good for it." The man produced a heavy purse and dropped it to the counter with a metallic thump of jingling coins. "It takes money to draw in manpower when winter's on; plus, I'm relying on Crowsword to filter out the bottom feeders looking for three free silvers. Whatever's left over in the purse is the agency's commission."

"We'll see what we can do." Old Vender breathed a sigh of relief after the man left, then hefted the purse with a grunt and limped into the agency's back rooms. He always hated dealing with the "black" jobs; that crap was better left to younger men with sterner stomachs. "Contact, my ass," the elderly volk muttered, "damn assassins and their euphemisms."

King Augustinian Diatom, the 47th to hold that name since the first king claimed the Wolf's Tail Peninsula as his own, hesitated in front of the Ochre Light Pavilion in an effort to screw up his courage. He knew full well how ridiculous he looked: A king, afraid to enter one of his own halls? Hah! His Majesty merely shook his head. Let's see some emperor or pope exorcise the evil spirit locked away in here. Damn it, no sense waiting for the Pavilion to fall in on itself.

Barely two weeks previous the precocious Spark known as Tesla Stone finally received his long-awaited deed to the Waving Heathers, an eminently desirable property locked away in the middle of the Nobles' Quarter, and promptly fled on foot before anyone even knew he intended to leave. This turned out to be a source of great amusement both for Augustinian and his lovely wife, but what followed did not.

Upon hearing the news that Tesla vacated the premises of Lonely Mountain like a fire was lit under his feet, Trinzet likewise escaped from the Inner Harmony Palace... and holed herself up in the Ochre Light Pavilion. Any attempt to force her out was met with armed resistance and, since the guards were both overawed by her status as a war hero and generally outclassed as soldiers regardless, she remained there to this day. According to the maids assigned to babysit her, Augustinian's elder sister spent her days moping around the Pavilion like a girl dumped for the very first time (when she wasn't beating the guards senseless).

As the king, Augustinian didn't need to announce his own presence to enter the Pavilion; it was his own property, after all. This meant that he didn't have to worry about Trinzet having enough spare time to don armor and subsequently attack him, but it also meant that he had more than enough time to observe the state of the Ochre Light in the process of hunting for her. That's a lot of paintings. All on the same subject... creepy.

In ever-increasing proliferation, a man's visage stared outward from portrait after portrait. Blonde hair and blue eyes set into a face that was at once stern and chiseled, yet youthful and open. A pair of backswept silvered horns sprouted from his head; another pair of stubby, hornlike protrusions popped out where his ears should have been. The paintings varied from busts displaying Tesla Stone in traditional noblemen's garb to one massive full-body mural depicting the Spark riding an ailuros and engaged in battle with a dragon while a suspiciously, ah... underequipped lion-woman clung to him from the back of the saddle. The king dropped his leonine head into one hefty paw while his shoulders quaked with barely-suppressed laughter. My soul hates my eyes for seeing this.

"My Lord?" A young maid, barely more than twelve if she was a year, curtsied from an open doorway then waited expectantly.

"Ah, good." Augustinian turned away from the painting with perfect aplomb, his previous humor lost behind a politician's mask, then plucked a letter from his opened doublet. "I considered presenting this to her personally, but to be honest I don't want to know how deep the rabbit hole goes."

"Very deep, Your Majesty." The girl gently took the letter in her hands, then bowed. "Beyond this point at least half are covered by velvet drapes so as not to unduly influence the maids my age and younger, or at least that's what the head maid said."

"Ah." Augustinian's voice cracked slightly, along with his poker face, then he regained control once more. "I shall inform the queen; we'll see if we can't rotate the younger girls out."

"Please, My Lord, I'm afraid the Pavilion is turning into a hardship post."

"I'll see what I can do."

Down the back alleys of a rundown former merchants' quarter-turned-peasants' hive, safely ensconced behind the walls of Enigma Realty, Esperia Highwind paced back and forth in front of her desk and dry-washed her hands. A ryujin exile of the Blood Crimson race, her breath produced little jets of fire when she became agitated. At that time, she was clearly agitated.

For the older gentleman by the door, in oft-patched workman's clothes and clutching his hat in his hands, he silently wished she could have at least been calm enough to put on something other than a loosely tied fluffy blue bathrobe before letting him in. Nevertheless, he took a shaky breath and asked The Question. "So it's true then? The property's finally been purchased?"

"Effectively, yes." Esperia tugged her hair in frustration. "The deed to the estate was offered as a reward for clearing the haunt. Somehow, the royal family got involved and they sent agents to collect on the arrangement. As a result, it became impossible to arrange an immediate meeting between the two of you."

"A reward..." The old man's face paled. "So, that's it, then? It's over?"

"Maybe not." Esperia nibbled at her thumb claw in a pensive fashion. "I only met with him once, you understand, but he was unusually open with me in that time. If I bring you forward to present your case, I believe he may be willing to hear you out."

"This is... a remarkably thin lifeline you offer me, Miss Highwind."

"Sometimes, in life, all you get is a string. It's better than nothing at all."

"So long as you are fully armed and aware of your surroundings I give you permission to leave Lonely Mountain, but not the city of Diatom itself. Go ascertain the level of our city guard's improvement." Queen Amidahla buttered a slice of toast, then looked across the dinner table at her doting husband. "Are you sure that's wise, August?" Sotto voce, the queen passed the toast to a child on her right and whispered "Don't eat so fast, Francisco, you're not going to starve, and tell your brother Henry that mother says to stop hogging the peas."

"It's better than the alternative." The king held out his wineglass for a servant to refill, then continued. "She's been moping around so much that she's starting to obsess over the man. If I didn't give her some excuse to go looking for him then I'm afraid she wouldn't stop with just paintings. The Soai only know where she's getting them from in such a short amount of time." Without looking, he expertly caught a flying prawn launched from the fork of a clumsy four-year-old. "You're not trying to stab it to death, Natasha, control your strength."

Amidahla snickered indulgently, then tasted a light and flaky fish dish. "The cooks have outdone themselves again... Honestly, this sea change in behavior towards the boy is baffling. She tries to kill him one day, then gushes over him the next? Did you know she moved all those old gifts, those dresses and wigs, to the Ochre Light Pavilion shortly after she ran away there? The maids say she's trying everything on and endlessly muttering about whether or not he'll like it."

"It's the fate of every lioness, Ami. They're always born with great strength, so they look down upon all average men as inferior beings. That is, until one comes along who can out-muscle them with a single damn punch. Now that the switch has been flipped for good, she'll pursue him to the ends of the earth like a lovestruck puppy." The king paused, then nodded. "Yes. A killer puppy with battleaxes for brains, but a lovestruck puppy nonetheless."

"-Who will try to build a pride around him. How a power-focussed lioness can accept the idea of multiple wives vying for one man's attention is beyond me."

"You're a lamia, darling, the living epitomy of monogamy. Most zoan women are just born differently."

"Regrets?"

"Never; unlike my father, I'm not a closet masochist. My hands are full enough with you alone. I don't have the energy to spare for a one night stand, let alone a second wife, even if I was interested."

"Good answer."

"I do try." Augustinian sipped his wine, then chuckled. "The poor fellow; she won't take no for an answer, now. He'll be harassed until he gives in, like an arctic moose harried by a pack of frost wolves."

"That bad?"

"Worse. Father couldn't speak of mother's courtship at times without visible shivers." The king leaned back in his chair and shook his head. "You didn't see all those paintings, either."

"All that for a Spark, of all people."

"Bah. He has Old Man Hess' seal of approval and, by extension, the bishop's. Tesla Stone appears to be a special case, to be treated with care."

"If that's so, why haven't you warned him of the incoming feminine calamity?"

"And spoil the man's fun?" Augustinian placed a paw on his broad chest in faux concern. "Perish the thought."

Outside the safe and comforting walls of Diatom city, winter was in full swing. Twenty foot snow drifts marched across the open plains, pushed by heavy winds that swirled from both the Hemlock Ocean and the Kraken Gulf. In the forests of the Wolf's Tail Peninsula, ear-splitting cracks were a common occurence as frozen sap burst tree trunks apart from within. Most animals, even the bloodthirsty monsters, found a den and curled up to hibernate and wait out the worst of the season. Only the earth shaking monstrosities were unaffected by the cold.

Tesla Stone plowed through the lesser drifts around the city's walls with a single-minded determination. Trussed up like an eskimo, the ryujin man would simply kick his way through the piles of snow and march on with what looked like no direction in particular. Far overhead, guardsmen watched Tesla's strange looping track, through a spyglass or even with the enhanced binocular vision available to cataphracts, and placed bets on which direction he would randomly switch to next. Eventually, they got bored with the game and looked for something else to amuse themselves with.

They were missing the point. "Goddammit, slow down you little bastard!" Nexus Rabbits were needlessly fast, had very little meat on their bones, and were worth very little in the way of experience points from a gamer's perspective. On the other hand, the little electric bunnies were technically monsters who happened to have a 100% drop rate for the lowest grade of magical stones. Not only were those stones relatively valuable in a monetary sense, they were absolutely essential to the creation and maintenance of basic golems.

Lunatic Shot could take out a Nexus Rabbit with contemptible ease, but only if you noticed the rabbit before it noticed you. In other words, there was no homing function to the ranged skill; like the name implied, the spell was like a bullet fired from a rifle. Honestly Tesla should have let the rabbit go the instant it jumped and ran, but it was the only one he'd found all day and he was beginning to feel frustrated. Still, he realized he had to look like an idiot chasing after a rabbit with his bare hands. Unfortunately for the rabbit, that only increased his determination.

"Hah!" Tesla dove into a drift, arms outstretched, and sank in all the way to his ankles. An instant later he popped up from the top of the drift with a struggling rabbit dangling by its ears in his iron grip. "Quiet, you." The ryujin swiped the Nexus Rabbit with a ball of Nocturne Dust and it went limp. "You're lucky all you know is how to run away. If you tried to fight me, I'd kill you purely out of frustration." Tesla stuffed the rabbit into a bag and cinched it tight. "Time to go home."

Nexus Rabbits were totally necessary for a penniless noob, even a level 376 peerless noob who owned a glorified warehouse of cheats (especially if he doesn't want to take advantage of those cheats). To make money, you need a product to sell. The only problem was that he didn't have anything of value except the Waving Heathers, and there was no way he was willing to part with it. With no other income, Tesla chose to hunt monsters.

It was exhausting work, even at his level, not so much because of the difficulty of the beasts he brought down but rather because it took more effort to find something to kill in the dead of winter than at any other time of the year. After three days of a hand-to-mouth lifestyle, Tesla had an epiphany. What if I capture something alive, then "farm" it in a more literal sense?

Naturally, the city guard would have none of it. Walls were meant to keep monsters out; there was no guarantee a working menagerie wouldn't escape the Heathers and wreak havoc in the middle of Diatom. It was then, however, that a young soldier fresh from her home village mentioned the swift, but shy and retiring, Nexus Rabbit. They weren't exactly docile, but they were non-violent. They bred as swiftly as their non-monstrous cousins and ate the same things. Also, though a butchered Nexus Rabbit didn't drop much in the way of meat, they always gave you a small magic stone. In other words, they were perfect to raise for basic cash if you could somehow manage to catch one without killing it.

Since they weren't dangerous, Tesla was given permission to bring Nexus Rabbits to the Waving Heathers and raise them. For the first few days, it was actually pretty easy. As fast as the little buggers were, they tended to be rather relaxed so long as you didn't come within ten feet of them. This made it easy to disorient select targets with the hallucinatory "dream" version of the Lunatic Shot, then knock them out with a tossed ball of Nocturne Dust. Tesla killed a few for immediate cash every day, stuffed the rest in sacks, and carried them home. Although most of the reward money he obtained from the king was spent on equipment for a golem workshop and an ailuros to call his own, there was enough left over to arrange for the construction of a series of rabbit hutches to keep all the bunnies in.

After nearly a week, however, the rabbits were finally on alert. Tesla's total number of captures and kills dwindled until, finally, an entire morning's worth of hunting netted him just a single Nexus Rabbit. Tesla sighed and waved to the guards as he passed back through Diatom's titanic gates and began the long walk home. Guess I'd better let it go for a while. I reckon I have enough stones for about a month of eating out, feeding the beasts, and experimenting with golems. That reminds me, should I go to the stables and check on Crucius, or go to the observatory and experiment? No-no, Crucius definitely comes first; he's undoubtedly hungry by now.

In another ridiculously game-like nod, Tesla was surprised to discover that the otherwise totally mammalian ailuros reproduced via egg laying. Pair-bonding with a newborn was as simple as placing your hand on an unhatched egg and channeling a little magic into it. Shortly thereafter an ailuros cub the size of an adult housecat would force its way out and latch onto you like an old friend.

Crucius hatched from his egg like a round shot from a cannon, ricocheted off of a nearby wall, and landed atop Tesla's head like a sack of grain. The ryujin was terrified the silly cat had either brained itself against the wall or was impaled on his horns, but the cub was completely unhurt; Crucius merely gave a catty yawn and promptly went to sleep. Since then Tesla carried Crucius everywhere within the Heathers, only leaving him in the stables when he left the property. The Soai must have been picking on me when they created him. In a perfect reversal of Tesla's desire, Crucius was yellow-furred with emerald-green tiger stripes. Red armor would look too tacky on him. How can I play the old Hasbro barbarian now?

As to the workshop, that was easy. It turned out that the Heathers' observatory was nothing more than a vanity piece commissioned by the Skywalker clan during their glory days. The squat tower was actually too low compared to the surrounding trees to be used for its original purpose, so the Skywalkers wound up employing the structure as a glorified storage shed. When the treasury was emptied so many years ago, all the extra furniture, seasonal displays, and other bric-a-brac were transferred out of the tower and into the repository. Likewise, whatever was used to "mothball" the Heathers kept the old observatory in mint condition just like the rest of the estate.

From there it was a simple matter to have all of Tesla's newly-purchased materials and equipment transferred to the tower. At three stories in height, it had more than enough space to work on small-to-medium scale projects with room to spare for expansions at a later date. There wasn't enough space to build a cataphract, naturally, but Tesla figured that sort of job was out of his league for now, anyway.

When it came to actually building a golem, however, Tesla was still stuck in neutral. He was pretty sure he had enough magic stones set aside to construct a basic golem core, which constituted both the central processing circuit and magical "fuel tank" that kept a golem going. He also had enough raw materials to fashion a golem's superstructure with. The problem was that he didn't know what to make.

As a low level golemeister, Tesla could only forge basic golem cores. He quickly realized that the core made the golem; even a body crafted of the finest materials could only wave one arm and say "babu" if a core of that level was installed. "Basics" were too small; they could only carry one or two inscriptions to dictate actions at the most, and the magic reserves of the fuel tank were far too limited for complicated movements. It was possible to increase the capabilities of basic golems by increasing the number of cores installed in a single body, like the dearly-departed hedge clipper dogs and firestarter bird of so long ago, but doing so made a golem that easily fell out of tune and required lots of maintenance. Such was the case with most of the household golems in Diatom, which explained why golems in general were so unpopular. Tesla was beginning to understand why golem engineers were forced to grind their way to higher levels by engaging exclusively in repair work.

At the same time, if basic golems really are useless, why the hell are they incorporated into the game in the first place? Doesn't this nerf low level golem engineers and puppeteers too much? Tesla shook his horned head, lost in thought. Maybe I'm overthinking things, making this more complicated than it needs to be?

As Tesla's thoughts meandered, his feet did the same. Eventually he found himself in an open market; the need to buy and sell the necessities of life didn't go away even in the wintertime, and the press of people engaged in companionable trade actually warmed the surroundings as well as a mug of hot ale. Aided by Book, Tesla found a reputable food vendor and bought himself a bag of ice bear skewers straight off the grill and a cup of freshly brewed tea. The bear meat was a little tough and naturally gamey, but the tea was sweetened with honey; for simple fare, they paired well. There was nowhere to sit while he ate, but Tesla was long since accustomed to dodging the occasional bump and accidental elbow from passers-by while juggling food and drink.

Here and there, guardsmen could be seen on patrol. Compared to before, they were already more alert and mindful; the professionalism of the city watch grew by leaps and bounds. By the same token there were many more out and about at any given time. The guard stations were practically denuded of manpower as no one was allowed to slack off in the back rooms while the youngsters did all the work.

Tesla examined the swords and daggers scabbarded at their waists with a wistful eye. God, the combat job classes are so much easier. Sword, shield, armor; slap them on and go adventuring. That's all it takes. If my stats weren't pushed so damned high compared to this zone, I'd be useless here. What good is a golemeister without a golem? He didn't even have the two homonculus skulls anymore. The mirrored skulls were currently floating in pressurized vats of nutrient-rich fluids as they slowly stitched together a new body. Tesla had them separated for the moment, on the off chance that he was dealing with two homunculi rather than one. He figured that if their snail-paced reconstruction came to a stop in an unfinished state then he would try putting them together to see if they would resume and complete a single form. At the same time, the pendant of Julius Denatus lay upon an examination table undergoing multiple automated appraisal spells in an attempt to reverse-engineer diagrams for the missing or corroded components and inscriptions.

It'll take months before I make any headway with the homunculi, and I can't properly control them without the pendant. Across the market, a guardsman adjusted the sword at his waist while giving the press of customers and vendors a professional scan. Elsewhere, two more guards held a cutpurse at daggerpoint while a third tied the thief's hands behind his back. I need to protect myself with something more than my bare hands. The nearby ice bear peddler chopped more strips of steak for the grill with a freshly sharpened cleaver. Not a golem, but a blade... wait.

Tesla straightened where he stood; his eyebrows lifted in dawning comprehension. That's it! I can't equip a sword, but I can command a golem. I can't build an advanced golem or repair one in a reasonable amount of time, but I can build something with one or two really simple actions. The ryujin passed his empty tea cup back to the ice bear vendor with a thankful nod, wadded up the paper sack around the now-meatless wooden skewers, and tossed it into a nearby refuse crate. I've been restricting myself to the classic ideal of a golem: Something that embodies the image of a humanoid or animal body. Didn't old man Bandicoot design a basic golem out of a feather duster? What I need is something hand held that can function in a manner similar to a blade.

The ryujin Spark reoriented himself toward the Waving Heathers and marched out of the market with a purposeful stride full of enthusiasm. It needs to be simple. I have no skill with a sword, so I need hand guides built into the grip to make sure I'm always holding it properly and a function to ensure I can draw a cut even when I'm just clumsily hacking away at a monster. It'll have to be rugged, too. It's not like I know how to properly defend with a sword, either. I wonder if I can incorporate a gimmick or two to make up for my lack of job class-oriented combat skills. Ideas flashed through Tesla's mind as he made his way home. The easiest route would be to start with a chainsaw base. No need to incorporate activator switches or command words for the prototype, I can just rely on my remote control abilities as a golemeister to operate the functions. Rotating a sharpened chain around a channeled blade should only take a single inscription. If I attach a guard down the length of the "blade's" back, then it can protect my hand if I need extra leverage against stubborn armor while also helping to keep the chain from jumping out of its channel. This will necessarily turn the weapon into a single-edged "blade," but I think I'm fine with that for now...

Hmm, 14,000 rpms might be a little too high on the face of it, but I need to account for varying armor types the chain's bound to come in contact with. Should I go a little higher? Though walking all the way to the Nobles' Quarter from the outer walls of a city the size of Diatom was quite a trek, as far as Tesla was concerned it beat the alternative by a long shot. True to his word, he had no intention of riding in a carriage ever again if he could keep from it. While Crucius was still a cub, Tesla would have to walk. Of course, according to the stablemasters he bought the big cat from, ailuros matured at an incredible rate. Crucius would be ready for saddle by the end of spring. On the other hand, that was only beneficial to the average players who logged out daily; a 24 hour wait in real-time translated to nearly a year in-game, which made the growth rate of pets seem miraculous, but to Tesla he was still going to have to walk for months.

Luckily, he was used to it. Sidestepping fellow pedestrians while keeping your hands on your coin purse, nodding with courtesy to the king's many subjects and respect to his guardsmen, slipping on and off the street to make way for mounts and drawn vehicles- Tesla became capable of these sorts of things without any conscious thought applied to the effort. Speaking of durability, should I go with straightforward steel for now? Maybe a little diamond grit applied to the teeth of the chain for denser materials. I wonder if there's mithril here? Adamant? Thorium?

Slipping into the Nobles' Quarter itself was easy; the guardsmen knew Tesla by this point, seeing him as merely an eccentric nobleman's page or the like. He didn't bother to disabuse them of the notion, as he didn't really care what they thought about him. Tensioners, chain hooks, hand guards... I should probably task one of my peripheral co-processors to download some schematics from the 'web and pass them on to me through a neural link. No sense in suffering needlessly from a snapped or jumped chain.

As usual, the interior of the Quarter was nearly denuded of obvious signs of life. This helped Tesla to pick up his pace without disturbing his reverie. One hand, or two? No, definitely two; I'll lose a lot of control and strength relying on one hand to manipulate such a device, and it's not like I can equip a shield in my off hand anyway. Besides, that way I can add more length and heft to the "blade" and improve its destructive capacity.

Tesla wanted to remain lost in such pleasant mental exercises all the way home, but somehow a sour note began to break into his train of thought with steadily increasing intensity the closer he got to the Heathers. Eventually the angry wasp's buzz of noise resolved itself into a rather heated argument that snapped him back to the here-and-now like a popped rubber band.

Sure enough, the source of the slow-motion trainwreck was stationed right in front of the only gate leading into the Waving Heathers. Two whole convoys of manpower and cargo stretched back along either side of the gate. The team on the right appeared to be composed of common folk from the outer provinces, possibly even the Krakenside. They flew a pennant over their heads, though the poor cloth was so patched and drab it was impossible to even guess what decoration might have once been on it.

To the other side were clearly representatives of the royal court's servant class. There were ladies' maids, armed guardsmen, cooks, and other, more specialized, workers Tesla couldn't make any sense of even with Book's assistance. Needless to say, a variant of the royal pennant flew above that particular wagon train in freshly-stitched splendor.

Both groups looked like they were ready to draw blood from the other; neither appeared willling to back down. This wasn't helped by the image of two individuals, clearly the leaders of both groups, engaged in a match of finger-poking and face-to-face shouting in a tone shrill enough to put Tesla's teeth on edge. The leader of the common faction was a red scaled ryujin woman with broken horns, splendid wings half-mounted in rage, and a sinuous tail. She wore nothing more than a long coat with only one button precariously straining to hold its panels together, pants that were way too tight, and a pair of high-heeled boots that rose up above the knees. Her every breath produced a gout of angry flame with each snarling statement, and she wasn't trying to hold it back for the sake of politeness.

Her counterpart was a zoan woman, a statuesque lioness with a bosom all out of proportion to the rest of her body, restrained by a quality breastplate that clashed horribly with an otherwise ill-fitting purple ball gown and bluish wig. She might have had on dancing shoes, but at the distance Tesla stood he couldn't tell for sure. What he could see was that the crescent moon battle axe she had propped on her shoulders was big enough to behead an ox-like bos with one strike, and that she was dangerously ready to test it out on her opponent's waistline.

The first-ever meeting between Esperia Highwind and Trinzet Diatom gave every indication it might also be the last.