***Tirnanog, The Mycelium***

***Magnus***

I didn’t know what to expect from this whole mission, but sitting at a table with one of our enemies and drinking tea wasn’t it.

Right after Thalia had leaned onto Balthasar’s supposed neutrality, the ancient brought us to his herb garden at the Pinault homestead. Once here, he commanded his roots and vines to form a large table and enough chairs to accommodate everyone.

Balthasar had nurtured a cute, little garden trimmed to perfection, reminding me of those English country gardens back on Earth. The various plants were left to grow wild, but everything was planted in neat little patches and kept pristine with no weeds in sight. If the chosen plants hadn’t been from Tirnanog, there would have been nothing to be wary of, given the wholesome ambience of the surroundings.

Our group was taking up most of the space at the table, but Balthasar had made it wide enough to give Ancient Nisha Dawson some space. The Vier representative had tried to hide a slightly sour expression when we had shown up, but she hadn’t made any aggressive moves towards us nor said anything.

Astra and Thalia took care of introductions, for which I was glad because I was currently busy with some introspection of myself.

While the others were testing the waters and sharing idle chit-chat about Mary with the two ancients, I was trying to figure out where things had gone wrong.

Astra had been pointing out my not-so-recent behaviour quirks during combat more and more often. Like the mad laughing and the risky fighting style. Or my tendency to opt for violent solutions and throw myself headfirst into the battle.

So far, I have been able to justify all of my actions with one reason or the other. At least I told myself so.

But at the end of the day, I was no longer able to ignore that I had a problem. I could have dismantled the idiot guards in a more reasonable manner. They weren’t paired warriors and posed no significant threat. Beating them up would have been more than enough.

An argument could be made that with their mutations and abilities unknown, a decisive blow which ended the fight without any possibility of retaliation was the best choice. But… someone with such an ace up his sleeve wouldn’t have punched Astra like some thug. Not that I had stayed my hand long enough to give it any thought.

It wasn’t like I was stupid all of a sudden.

It all came back to acting before thinking.

Later, I was also a little off-kilter when the villagers attacked us. And as much as I desired to deny it, I would have charged Balthasar like a barbarian if Astra hadn’t stopped me.

Frowning, I tried to figure out when my impaired risk assessment had started to become a problem. Was the current me still the Magnus who stepped foot on Tirnanog? Or had something changed since my arrival?

To my horror, I had to admit I wasn’t entirely sure.

The old me was a man out for a vendetta. A vendetta he deep down knew could only end with his death. I hadn’t been sure how far I would go on my mission, and each day I survived I only tried to maybe go one step further.

Because each step I took would mean a little more pain for those who hurt my family.

It had started with joining the organisation, and becoming one of their agents after they revealed the truth behind my parents’ death and my sister’s disappearance. I had worked my way up the ranks from nothing more than an errand boy and spy to one of the key members leading one of the organisation’s larger resistance cells. After all, there was no such thing as a single leader within the organisation.

The old me wasn’t in the best of physical conditions. I wasn’t the special-ops guy who infiltrated a house to assassinate a target and steal important documents, then escape while being chased by several highly trained cops and bodyguards with combat augmentations.

No, I was the friendly neighbour from two houses over who would sit in his car and overlook the stoplight, then run over the target, all the while professing his innocence and how everything had been a horrible accident.

The old me was calculating and avoided physical conflict out of necessity. The organisation trained all of their operatives. In principle, I had received the same training that said special-ops guy had. But it would have never crossed my mind to take on one of those men in a direct confrontation. My body just wasn’t as fit as it would have been required.

This changed with my arrival in Tirnanog.

My new body allowed me to choose a different path of action. To solve the problem by punching it instead of using a roundabout solution.

Now that I was trying to confront my problems, I would have lied to myself if I had said I hadn’t revelled in the ability and fitness of my new self.

It would have been easy to attribute the problem to the hormonal issues of an altered body. But hunting monsters and killing my opponents with my own hands instead of by proxy, it was a new experience and I loved it! So I chose a more direct, physical solution whenever it seemed possible. Even if a social solution might have been better, or waiting for the fight to end behind bodyguards safer.

Okay, I probably never should admit that to a psychologist.

At the same time, there was also the aspect of my body changing and mutating. Were the mutations messing with my head, or was I the one who was messed up?

The mad laughing had begun right after my first mutation. Back then, I thought it to be an expression of my newfound fitness. A coping mechanism in the face of a deadly challenge. It wasn’t like I had previous experience with being chased by a deadly predator.

The laughing had started with my first mutation and had gotten worse with each additional mutation.

The first time I could think of to truly lose it was with the Caravaners after we added the mindflayer mutation. Slaughtering those bugs and the strange shapeshifter. It might not have been obvious, but I already enjoyed the fighting back then. And the thunder eel certainly didn’t help. It seemed like it was especially hard to hold back when Astra was in the line of fire.

I looked down at my tea and decided to use one of my sub-identities to keep thinking over the problem. Maybe hold me back if that was possible, though it felt like the sub-identities were a part of the problem. They made fighting a little too easy. The sub-identities had magnified my ability to act on what felt like pure instinct instead of holding back to consider a situation before charging in.

Maybe I could make it a point to pause and consider the situation before acting in the future.

The residue of some tea herbs at the bottom of my cup irked me and I used a spoon to fish them out when Thalia’s raised voice drew my attention.

“You can’t be serious about claiming us to be at fault here!” the psychic proclaimed with more than a little fervour in her voice.

Nisha shrugged, seemingly unbothered by Thalia’s outbreak. She was a lean woman with white hair. For an altered human she wasn’t very big.

She had only reached my chest when she stood earlier for Balthasar to introduce her.

Except for her totally white eyes she looked human, giving no hint to what her abilities might be.

Balthasar and his daughter had this whole dryad and druid theme going on, which at least allowed us to assume they had something ‘planty’ going on. Maybe poison too.

If the other ancients were anything to go by, then we didn’t want to fight Nisha.

Felix and Mary had descended on a battlefield with thousands of participants and changed the course of the fight. I hadn’t gotten the opportunity to witness their full abilities, but it would have been foolish to believe them to be anything but magnificent.

Zacharias had given me a beating with nothing but physical prowess, sending me to the hospital for a few days of recovery. Which was no small feat given my starfish regeneration. And apparently, Zacharias had some cloning ability, meaning there were more of him, turning him into a small one-man army.

I hadn’t even fought a tenth of his full strength and he had broken my body and my armour.

And then there were Balthasar’s mind-bending powers. The guy was controlling some root system permeating the entirety of this village. Was the Balthasar sitting next to us even his real body? Or was he some facsimile, intended to ease and entertain us while his real body hid in some untouchable bunker? Or was he the roots? Some human-turned-plant monster the size of the village?

I supposed it would have been too easy to just ask him and get a straight answer. There was no way he would just explain his abilities when asked.

No, we certainly did not want to get into an altercation with Nisha. Especially not without knowing for sure that Balthasar would intervene on our behalf.

Nisha played with her hair, pretending to study it with a disinterested expression as she thought of an answer. “The Vier are on Thich’s side for the same reasons as Hochberg ultimately sided with Aerie. I won’t claim to know the entirety of the game Zach is playing, but I believe my people can benefit from the war no matter what his goals might be. I hoped Greta would decide differently and join our side, but we didn’t need her anyway.”

I raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Nisha and Balthasar were apparently out of the loop regarding Greta’s death. Was it wise to inform them that Vanya had taken over as Hochberg’s Matriarch? Had Vanya somehow managed to keep the information from slipping out?

And how was it possible for them to not know? The Thich delegation had a communication device and should have reported Greta’s demise to Zacharias. There should have been plenty of time to do so.

Was it stupid to give away such an incredible feat of counterintelligence? I hadn’t expected it, but it looked like Vanya had managed to root out at least all Vier spies within Hochberg. And Thich was clearly not sharing everything they knew with Vier.

It might be worth it to sow a tiny seed of doubt between Vier and Thich.

I was still thinking while Nisha continued, “Our two clans have a long history as allies. Our economies are intertwined by trade. I won’t pretend we are fighting this war for anything else than economic reasons and power. And getting a good standing with Earth might be a nice side benefit. They have been trying for years to regain some power. I am sick of watching my people fight for survival without much of an improvement or hope for things to change.”

“You can’t be serious!” Astra shot back. “Hasn’t the great Clan War been all about removing Earth’s influence from Tirnanog? To stop them using us as a grand experiment?”

Nisha wore an intrigued expression as she tilted her head as if looking down on a defiant child. “It’s not like they ever stopped using us as their experiment. All we achieved was to boot their physical presence off Tirnanog. They are still watching us and receiving their data all the same. Maybe letting them stay wouldn’t have been so bad. Maybe they would have more of an incentive to build a proper civilisation on Tirnanog if they had a proper presence in this world.”

I choked on the tea I was drinking, which naturally drew everyone’s attention.

“May I ask what’s so funny?” Nisha asked with a slightly irritated tone.

“You can’t be serious, lady.” I coughed. “I know you haven’t been to Earth recently, but if there’s anything further from the government’s goals, then it is setting up Tirnanog as future competition. Same reason as to why they aren’t seriously working towards colonizing the solar system. Right now, they still have the excuse that space colonies would inevitably fail because the technology isn’t there. Human’s being unable to adapt to microgravity and radiation and all that shindig.”

I waved a hand at our surroundings. “But guess what? They had that technology all along! They just aren’t giving it to the masses. Longevity, self-healing. They have all that and more. Given what I have seen here on Tirnanog, tweaking a few chromosomes to allow people to live in space can’t be too hard! But they don’t want that and keep all the nice gene editing restricted to their elites. They don’t want to colonize space for the same reason they don’t want to colonize Tirnanog, even though it would be way easier! Don’t you see it?”

Nisha frowned.

“They don’t do it because they have figured out their system. They turned their world into a nice little bubble of conformity ever since it was created in 2834! Since then, they managed to stamp out the last bit of national individuality on Earth. Whatever names countries and societies had is nothing more than a geographic label nowadays. And they kept their system running for a thousand years without major hiccups. Some people might dislike the current order, but there is absolutely nothing they can do about it.”

I gestured around us. “A village like this one, the clans, you are their biggest nightmare, lady. Small, tightly knit groups with their own social structures and values different from what they established. You have proven they don’t know how to stay in control while setting up their system elsewhere. And giving up control is not their thing. Nisha, if Earth ever decides to colonize Tirnanog in earnest, then you and your people have a problem. Because it means they found a surefire way to stamp out the clans and establish second world government on this planet.”

Nisha was about to reply, but Balthasar was faster. “You seem very convinced of this. Care to share why you believe you know them so well?”

I shrugged. “Because I worked within the confines of their system for and against them. The world government’s bureaucracy isn’t something you can defeat once it is as firmly established as it is on Earth. It would take a mighty outside influence to cause them to stumble. They have perfected the technique of keeping their people just happy enough to keep most of them from revolting while suppressing those who might incite others to rebellion. Some with ambitions and the character traits to work with the system are elevated and used to keep the government running. And everyone who isn’t convenient lands on Tirnanog sooner or later.”

“And you were someone who wasn’t convenient, Tulkas?”

I nodded. “Highly inconvenient.”

“Be that as it may.” Nisha shook her head. “You might be right on some level. But if Earth truly doesn’t have any further goals for Tirnanog than continuing their research, then nothing truly changes for my people or this conflict. Our aspiration for resources and power remains. And with Jeng’s inevitable collapse next winter, a lot of land will be up for grabs.”

I looked towards the others who seemingly also realized the problem with these negotiations.

Nisha was operating on an entirely different set of assumptions than us.

From her point of view, the blow which had been dealt to Jeng’s infrastructure was fatal. All Vier and Thich had to do was wait for next summer, by which Jeng’s starving population would have either torn itself apart or succumbed to the forest’s monsters.

They didn’t know about the wormgate and that Aerie had evacuated the non-combatants. Jeng still wasn’t in a well-defensible position, but they certainly wouldn’t collapse next winter.

The question was, should we reveal this to Nisha?

If the changed situation would deter Vier from giving the Thich further assistance, it might turn a battle of equals into a one-sided beat down. But if it didn’t, we might give away tactical knowledge which might allow us to tilt the war massively in our favour. It would make a huge difference for Thich and Vier if they knew their opponents had a miniature wormhole to ferry around supplies and troops between their industrial base and the frontline.

As much as I wanted to educate Nisha on the errors in her assumptions, doing so might make everything harder for us.

“So we can only agree to disagree then?” Astra asked. “You are solely in the war to take out potential competition and grab Jeng’s lands in the aftermath?”

Nisha inclined her head. “If that is the least outcome my people can get, then yes.”

Astra nodded. “Then it might be time for you to leave.”

The displeasure at the casual dismissal was hard to mistake on Tisha’s face. “What gives you the right-”

“Balthasar’s claimed neutrality gives us the right,” Astra interrupted. “You had plenty of time to talk with him before we arrived. It’s time for us to do the same.”

Nisha’s lips pressed together tightly.

Balthasar only nodded at his fellow ancient. “The youngsters have a point, Nisha. They are brazen in how they are leveraging my own words against me, but it is you and our other comrades who had to turn this into a political power play. If I want to stay out of it, then I can’t give you any amenities.”

Nisha stood abruptly and stepped away from the table. “If that’s your conviction, Balthasar. I know how stubborn you are. I only hope for your well-being should you change your mind. I will take my leave now. We will see each other again?”

Balthasar nodded. “In a few decades at least. Once Charmaine is grown up I might travel again. Or whenever you decide to pay me another visit. I am sure one or the other issue might give a reason. Till then, I certainly won’t leave this place.”

Nisha nodded and turned, then strolled out of the garden.

I quickly reached over and took Astra’s hand, using our special communication method to share a suggestion with her.

Astra looked doubtful but nodded after a moment of contemplation. “Nisha?”

The ancient turned around and locked eyes with Astra.

“Make sure your friendship with Zacharias is mutual before you bet your people’s welfare on his plans. From your comments today, we got the impression he might not be as forthcoming with his allies as he should be.”

The ancient looked confused for a moment but gave off a dismissive snort before she stormed off.