CHAPTER SEVENTY TWO

  “Useless piece a junk!”

  The bartender hammered his fist into the dinged up, second hand holo projector, causing the picture to flicker and distort. Unfortunately, not only were his efforts rather ineffective, but it put a real damper on the overall viewing experience. What little of it there was, anyway. In truth, there was very little to see in the churning wall of static. The positively packed room of patrons threw up their myriad appendages and groaned.

  This was not an uncommon reaction.

  Across hundreds of worlds, throughout hundreds of sectors, pretty much the same conversation was being had, with marginal variations here and there.

  “Caltzcuzar, you doddering old fool! Did you forget to pay the Skyline bill again?! What do you mean you paid it?! Doesn’t look paid to me! Oh, you want proof?! Just open your eyes, ya dafty! Give you all the proof you need.”

  “Could be the antenna. Debris must’ve knocked the blighted thing askew. Again. Hmm? Hey, don’t look at me! Refrigerator says it’s your turn on hull duty.”

  “I put up with your habits for years, and all I ask is that you set enough money aside that I can watch my shows in peace and you can’t even manage that! You know what? That’s it, I’m moving back in with my mother! Should’ve listened when she said you were no good. And I am taking the armoire!”

  “Don’t you worry, honey. I’m sure someone is working on it right now, even as we speak. You just need to be patient. Ah-! No. Spit him out, hon. You know Rufus doesn’t like it when you do that.”

  All and all, the media wide black out lasted for a little over thirty seconds. In that time, marriages were shattered, governments crumbled, galactic empires fell—torn down by their very foundations until all that remained was utter ruin. Upon further reflection, it would appear most of these events were entirely unrelated to the thirty odd seconds of dead air.

  Although not all.

  The fact of which would surely come as a surprise to many.

  When the broadcasts finally flickered back to life at a little under forty seconds, the entire landscape of the battlefield had irrevocably changed. Where the feed’s adorable darling had once been, now there was only a field of blackened scorch marks and molten rock.

  And above it all, high above, draped in a dark cloak much too long for her diminutive figure, hovered a nappy-headed infant—crackling spheres of power orbiting her at insane speeds.

  +++

  Face a roiling thundercloud, Penelope tried to think back on her teacher’s instructions.

  “Remember, I’ll be just fine,” he tapped his mask suggestively. “Perks of the trade, see?”

  Penelope did see. She nodded. It was a very funny mask. As always, her teacher had great taste.

  “Well, it was more of a negotiation, really, but you get the point.”

  She didn’t, but that was okay.

  “Here’s the game plan. I roll over and show my belly, our resident creature graciously takes the bait, we exchange a couple blows, mano a mano. Naturally, I come out on top-“

  Naturally.

  “-make my daring escape, and live to fight another day. Then, after you’ve finished giving him the business, all we really have to do is wait.”

  Penelope gave him an inquisitive look.

  “Hmm? Oh! See, once my- uh, ahem, secret package has been delivered, it’s only a matter of time before he runs out of mana. Realizing this, he’ll more than likely opt for a high stakes game of hide and seek.”

  Penelope’s eyes sparkled.

  “Luckily, I know a neat little trick that should nullify the need to play his game whatsoever.”

  Penelope’s eyes dimmed.

  “My Mark 3’s should sniff him out, irregardless of whatever liminal space he’s slunk off to. Probably. I find it unlikely his skills allow him to remain there indefinitely. So, when he’s finally forced to pop his head out of his little hidey-hole, that’s when we strike. I need you to lay in wait until then, then hit him with everything you’ve got. It’ll be like taking candy from a baby.”

  Penelope recoiled at the ghastly mental image.

  “Oh! Sorry! I misspoke. It’ll be like- uh… like taking candy from one especially ill-mannered alley cat. Preferably with a couple aluminum bats handy—pi?ata style.”

  Now that was more like it.

  Her hair whipped about wildly. Amber eyes narrowed to glimmering slits. The gifts from teacher revolving faster and faster, only adding to the tempest brewing alongside her temper. She’d tried to focus on the task at hand. She really had. And yet, for all the talk of plans and contingencies—all the fair warning she’d received—none of it had prepared her for actually being there, in the moment. Watching, helpless, as the blade fell.

  Her heart had leapt into her throat. A scream torn from her chest unbidden. She’d rained down retribution, and yet, it hadn’t been enough. The perpetrator was gone, safe, and she was just so, so angry.

  She’d made a promise to herself the first time teacher had gotten hurt trying to protect her. That she wouldn’t allow anything like that to ever happen again. And even though she knew, intellectually, that he was perfectly fine, it didn’t feel that way. No, it felt like she had failed him. Because for all she was capable of, for how mature she appeared, she was still only a child.

  A four-month old baby at that, and she’d just received a rather large fright.

  Unshed tears prickling at the corners of her eyes, Penelope’s fear and anxiety quickly transformed into affront and outrage. Her peerage rearing it’s ugly head. For the first time since this entire ordeal had kicked off, Penelope finally acted her age.

  As if a switch had been flipped, the system recognized empress cut the crap, and threw the mother of all temper tantrums.

  +++

  The tolling of a bell resounded, indicating the call to morning prayers.

  Down below, in the unseen courtyard, Richard could hear the slow shuffle of hundreds of feet, as the clergy and their parishioners filed into the long nave of the cathedral. Quiet voices reached him from where he hovered near the vaulted ceiling of the church. So close that he might’ve banged his head on the ribbed arches if he jumped too high. Standing on what was ostensibly thin air, the large, stainless glass windows stood at chest height, and shone like glittering gemstones besides.

  Refracted sunlight dyeing the pews far below a wild variety of vivid colors.

  Prayer began with a communal hymn. The exact words and harmony of which seemed to fade into the background just as soon as it left their mouths. Leaving only the resounding echos behind.

  “Do you know why I pick these locations for our lessons?” his master spoke up. “The significance behind them?”

  Richard dragged his eyes away from the communal gathering, and turned to address his master in full. Sitting cross legged on the head of an especially tall statue—what was ostensibly himsculpted in a suitably deific pose—his master seemed especially morose today. Strange, considering they were literally squatting in a place of his worship.

  Richard took a second to collect his thoughts, then replied.

  “Well, if I’m not mistaken, so far they’ve each correlated to the respective energy type in some way.”

  “Explain.”

  “The lesson on life energy, for instance. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we found ourselves in a forest with an overabundance of plant life. Rampant, verdant, untouched by man.”

  “And the little refresher we had on mana?”

  “You mean from beneath that mountain range, literal spitting distance from the most potent concentration of mana I’ve ever encountered?”

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  “Which would make this…?” he gesticulated with his hands.

  “Some sort of natural font for whatever the third primary energy type happens to be, if the pattern holds. Though I’m still unsure of what exactly that energy type is. It couldn’t be faith, could it?”

  For the briefest instant, his teacher’s expression darkened, before he broke out into a pleased grin. It was so fast, he might’ve thought it was his imagination.

  “In a way… yes. In another, no.”

  “Peachy.”

  “It’s soul energy. The third primary energy type is soul energy, and it’s replenished,” he waved a hand down at the gathering below. “Through prayer.”

  Richard blinked. Stared. Nonplussed. His master merely stared back, professionally unbothered. Finally, Richard was the one to break the silence.

  “You’re screwing with me.”

  “You have to admit, though, I had you for a second there,” his master chuckled.

  Richard joined in, wiping unshed tears from his eyes. Once his master managed to catch his breath, he elaborated.

  “Belief. Fonts of naturally born soul energy form in places sanctified by mass, communal belief. This doesn’t necessarily have to come in the form of a place of worship, though that is traditionally the most common.

  “Belief in one’s self works just as well. Belief in a cause, a motto, or a vow of some kind all apply. That churches happen to make up the majority of soul fonts is more a quirk of the nature of soul energy, than anything.”

  His master plucked a large white feather from out of seemingly nowhere.

  “Call it what you will. Belief. Faith. Will. It’s through the application of soul energy that the natural order of things can be entirely upended. And it’s only with a will capable of moving mountains, often times through sheer stubbornness alone, that such a thing is even made possible.”

  Without disturbing the mana or life energy around them, the long feather began to gently rise from his hand.

  “It only makes sense, therefore, that, with enough stubborn belief concentrated in a single place, enough of it would rub off to eventually become self sustaining.”

  Despite what appeared to be a mundane trick on the surface, Richard was utterly transfixed by the sight. Mostly because, by all rights, there was no reason whatsoever for it to be doing what it was. No force pulling or pushing on the feather that he could tell, and yet something was doing so regardless.

  Could he really be making it float by believing hard enough? Surely not, right? It sounded ridiculous.

  “Alright… well, it certainly looks very… impressive? Please tell me it’s good for more than just party tricks? Because right now it’s looking like junior’s first magic kit could give you a run for your money.”

  His master snorted.

  “Did you not hear the part about subverting the laws of reality? Trust me, with enough soul energy, and a great enough will-”

  One moment, something about the reality above his master’s palm … flexed. And in the next, a titanic wave of disorientation roughly bowled him over, and clogged up his nostrils. Ran roughshod over all of his senses, in fact. His vision doubled. The world spun. And to top it all off, he was suddenly assailed by a military grade injection of déjà vu. All of this happened in moments, and when his vision finally cleared, the white feather above his master’s palm was… actually, hold on a second?

  Why was it blue?

  “-it becomes possible to do a great many improbable things.”

  Just as Richard was about to call foul on this third rate magician—it wasn’t slight of hand if he’d been knocked half unconscious dammit!—when the feather changed colors again, this time without the debilitating waves of disorientation.

  “Of course, the less probable it is what you seek to change is to occur, the greater the cost that must be paid on your end. Both in soul and willpower. I like to think of it as the economy of equivalent exchange. Wherever your intention and the universe at large fail to meet eye to eye, your soul and determination must make up the difference. We call these minor disagreements with the laws of physics and the fabric of reality: Edicts.”

  +++

  The space around her shuddered. Quaked. Distorted. A warbling heat haze nearly obscuring Penelope from view.

  Golden waves of authority rippled out and away from her, as if a stone dropped into a celestial pond. Her Pacifier of Perennial Consumption a familiar weight in her mouth. Familiar, yet not nearly so comfortable as she remembered. She was agitated, and her regalia reflected as much. It’s placement feeling oddly restrictive all of the sudden. Penelope plucked the pacifier free and sucked in a deep breath, and the world seemed to take a breath with her.

  Suddenly, a cloud of trilling white insects descended from the sky—gravitating unerringly to converge on a spot some hundred or so meters distant. Whereupon they swarmed. Bunched together in the rough shape of the titular big-headed mascot. It’s figure flying across the open ground at speed. Apparently keen on making a hasty retreat.

  Penelope barely even noticed.

  Much too focused on an insignificant point immediately below her. The point of transit. The lingering seam which somehow separated one world from another. With her unusual eyes, she could see it as clear as day. It was growing fainter and fainter by the second, just as the creature’s paper swarm silhouette was growing further for every heartbeat that passed.

  Penelope’s inhale, meanwhile, had still yet to abate. Her gasp having morphed into a constant force of suction. From which was born a devouring cyclone. A winding twister which only seemed to be growing more powerful by the second. Her stomach growled, though whether in impatience or giddy anticipation was entirely up to interpretation. The sound traveled far. Much farther than it should have.

  A name burned itself into her mind.

  |Wicked Revelry: Sin of Gluttony|

  ~Binge. Feast. Devour.~

  The air screamed. The world drowned out by a piercing whistle. The shriek of the wind as it died an ignominious death. Sucked inexorably into her bottomless stomach, as if the very atmosphere had sprung a spontaneous leak.

  Penelope dropped from the sky. Eyes fixated on one thing, and one thing only. Slowly at first, then all at once, the seam in space began to tremble. As she neared, the effects of her named skill, her Wicked Revelry only grew more and more pronounced. The fabric of space bowed, stretched, ripped, then tore. The spinning cyclone first pulling onto those outer threads of reality, then giving them a sharp tug.

  The barrier between realms burst like a soap bubble, leaving only a jagged rent in space behind. A rent which she promptly dove headlong into. Already shooting forth in hot pursuit. Vanishing mere seconds before the natural realm was inundated with creatures that did not belong.

  Liquid shadows and waking nightmares spilled from the breach in droves. By the hundreds. The thousands. Tentative at first, but with growing confidence, they poured on through unceasing. Unabated. Without end.

  Twisting ink blots, like rushed brush strokes, scrawled their way across the moonlit sky. Every new invader bringing with them a tiny piece of their realms dull monochrome. And yet, with so many pouring through, all those little pieces began to add up. The drain of color spreading like some viral disease.

  In a spreading area around the tear, specs of shadow, like flakes of ash, began to rain down from above.

  +++

  The walls of the ravine sped past in a blur as he raced towards the sight of the apparent incursion. Legs pumping as fast as they would go, he refrained from activating the ability of his Tabi of the Wandering Ronin. Sure he’d need all the mana he could possibly get his hands on shortly. His eyes tracked up and up and up in a vain attempt to take in the sheer scope of the disaster.

  Good lord. They’re like a mushroom cloud, the blasted things. Well, either that, or a serial murder of crows. Seriously what on earth is going on?

  More alarming than the growing swarm of dancing shadows which blotted out entire swathes of the sky, however, was the sudden appearance of his master by his side.

  “You can’t be here! Where’s Penelope? You’re supposed to be watching over her!”

  His master rubbed the back of his head uncomfortably.

  “Ah! Well, about that. There’s good news and there’s bad news.”

  “Cut the crap! Where is she!?”

  The avatars face screwed up in a scowl.

  “Firstly, I understand that you’re under some amount of stress-”

  Richard barked out a laugh.

  “Some?!”

  His hands were shaking and he couldn’t seem to control the muscles of his jaw. For whatever reason they kept on spasming. His heart raced. His stomach churned.

  “-but! I will not have you taking that tone with me, Mr. Secondly, the only reason I came to see you, instead of following in after her, was to point you in the right direction. It’s that way, by the way.”

  His master pointed and Richard course corrected accordingly.

  “Yes- uh, yes,” Richard took a deep breath. “That actually makes sense. My apologies teacher. Thank you.”

  “Think nothing of it. Oh, and rest assured. More likely than not, the girl is fine. Imperials aren’t considered the cosmic cockroaches of the multiverse for nothing. Just- don’t let one of them hear you say that. I did once, and it still haunts me to this day. After all these years, mother still hasn’t forgiven me.”

  Richard let out another long exhale.

  “Alright. Good. That’s good. So she’s safe then?”

  “Hmm? Oh, goodness no. She’s gone and banished herself to the shadow realm, silly thing. Which, while not the deadliest of all the aspected realms, is most certainly up there. Some real monsters lurking in there, that’s for sure. There’s even a few I might’ve been wary of before attaining godhood.”

  Richard nearly fell flat on his face.

  “And you didn’t think to mention that part first?!”

  “Well, I didn’t want to alarm you.”

  “Alarmed! Consider me alarmed!”

  Richard activated his Borrowed Mileage ability and picked up the pace. He skipped across the intervening distance, crossing a hundred meters in a scant few seconds. When he was a quarter kilometer from the breach, he paused. Ducked inside a craggy recess as a trio of shadow wraiths screamed by—trailing monochrome in their wake like their bodies were paintbrushes.

  +—|-Demented Shadow Wraith-|—+

  ?[Lvl 81]?

  +—|-Demented Shadow Wraith-|—+

  ?[Lvl 79]?

  +—|-Demented Shadow Wraith-|—+

  ?[Lvl 84]?

  Richard frowned at their high levels. Peaked out to get a better look. This close, the flying shades and shadow wraiths were thick in the air. Farther off, surrounding the realm portal, a dense cyclone of the living shadows climbed high into the sky. A black pillar of shifting silhouettes shooting to the stratosphere. And more of them appearing all the while.

  The lowest level among them that he could make out in the mid fifties range.

  “Might as well be a living fortress,” Richard muttered under his breath.

  His master perked up.

  “Does this mean what I think it means?”

  Richard sighed.

  Dang it.

  It wasn’t ideal, but it would seem Mark 4—the ultimate version of his fully integrated talisman craft, and the culmination of a year’s worth of experimentation—would be making its debut appearance a little earlier than expected.

  Richard reached into his storage, and pulled out a bundle of what looked like red cloth. A mix between a large tarp and patchwork blanket, to be exact, if a little too thin to provide much in the way of warmth. Shooting one last glare up at his visibly excited companion, Richard stepped out into full view, and was immediately spotted by at least a dozen high level wraiths.

  “Show time.”

  Richard threw the patchwork blanket over his shoulders, and leapt into the fray. Entirely unaware that what he ultimately did next would spark a storm of discourse and discord the multiverse over. Setting off a chain reaction of preemptive moves and reconsiderations by some of the major players on the inter-dimensional stage. The effects of which would be felt for many years to come.