In the wake of his announcement, Randidly scanned the surrounding faces to gauge their reactions. From their somber expressions, it seemed that the prior demonstration with Octavius Shrike had reached them as Randidly had intended; they were finally willing to work together. He had seen it in the way the strongest of Earth helped protect the weakest as Octavius had manifested his image, but Randidly wanted to be sure that incident would not be an isolated cooperation.

After all, the heavy power of Octavius’s image had come as a surprise, even to Randidly. He had never encountered the Overseer’s image in the past. It just turned out that Octavius had an image that was uniquely situated to oppress a room full of people. That vast beast that Randidly had sensed… it was truly an impressive image that had likely taken hundreds of years to develop. In a fight, without Nether, Randidly likely wouldn’t put up much of a fight.

However, it would have been better to let Octavius run wild for just a little while longer in order to hit the message home. Randidly glanced to his left. He had no choice but to cut the image vanity short; Through the walls of the ballroom, he could feel a wooden raft infested with children crash into the solidly built wall of the building and fall to pieces. The children rather adroitly hopped off of the thing and escaped any serious injury, and the building didn’t even seem to notice the impact, but Randidly wasn’t willing to let Octavius continue to so callously pressure the surrounding area while children were close.

Also, I definitely sense Delilah, but how the hell did she convince the rest of these kids to follow her…?

After sending a quick message to Tatiana to handle the issue, Randidly turned back to the assembled people. There was still a large group standing on the central island that held Randidly’s challenges, but he was pleased to see that they hadn’t even managed to finish the first challenge in the three hours since he had been here last. Since it was Earth’s most powerful that had been struggling with those tasks, hopefully, the combination of the challenges and Octavius would make the lesson stick.

Alright, no need to stroke my own vanity. Time to get down to business.

Randidly began to speak. “Defying statistics. Being the exception. It’s an easy thing to say… but a hard thing to do. All of us here represent the powers of the Earth. We have four bases of these Corrupted Invaders before the Epic Danger Zone will reveal itself. Octavius has also been kind enough to provide some details regarding the benefits and costs that we are presented with, which I want to share with you all before we start planning.

“As he said earlier, the actual Corrupted Invaders aren’t that difficult of a foe. Compared to the First Calamity, they are an easier task. For Earth in general, this will serve as an effective way to gradually adjust to the foes within the System… but let me assure you that these invaders aren’t the real danger. The real danger is that if we fail to accomplish the goal in time, the ‘worlds’ these invaders come from will henceforth rely on Earth for Aether. And there is quite a large number of worlds we would suddenly be responsible for.”

Randidly looked calmly around, catching out of the corner of his eye the motion of Tatiana sending one of the new Order Ducis recruits to go investigate the arrival of the children. “I believe I need not explain to you all the consequences if we were to fail; the density of Aether on Earth will fall from our current, rather rich existence after clearing the Danger Zones to something even worse than Earth was originally. All the benefits that we have earned so far we will lose.”

The man in the wheelchair from Zone 1 rolled himself a short distance forward to draw attention to himself and then spoke. “Then what are the benefits we can obtain? Is it simply that we are fighting for a way… to avoid suffering such a large loss of Aether?”

“A good question,” Randidly said. His emerald eyes narrowed as he really looked at the young man in the wheelchair. Tatiana, perhaps sensing his curiosity, sent Randidly a message stating the man’s name was Richter and that he really had not walked since the System had arrived. But as far as Tatiana could tell, the cause was mental, not physical.

Their gazes locked. For a brief instant, the young man stiffened as Grim Intuition whirred to life with enough force that the observed young man could tell what was going on. Randidly’s full attention concentrated this man next to Theodora Greyman. But just as quickly, some internal instinct of Randidly’s had him withdrawing his focus and turning back to the assembled crowd. In the corner of his eyes, he saw Richter’s expression turn awful and a string of notifications pop up in front of him.

Congratulations! Your Skill Lantern of Harsh Truths (R) has grown to Level 119!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Lantern of Harsh Truths (R) has grown to Level 141!

Randidly had been steadily getting Levels in the Lantern of Harsh Truths since he had spoken earlier and demonstrated his images, but this jump was entirely unexpected. Despite himself, Randidly cast one more look toward Richter. What did you just realize as I examined you that had a larger effect than my entire lesson to the people of Earth, I wonder…?

Still, you are certainly a curious one. The muscles of your legs have really atrophied. They have been cast aside by you, huh...

But Richter’s situation was a curiosity, nothing more. Rather than dwelling for any more time, Randidly returned to Ricther’s question. “Right now, the Aether demands of those worlds are currently being supported by the Nexus itself. And have been for a thousand years, so the raw materials inside of them are extremely valuable, especially considering where we are in Earth’s development. If we clear the threat in time… the Nexus will continue to foot the Aether bill.”

“So we still get the materials either way,” King Phriun crossed his arms across his greasy body. His eyes were blazing with barely controlled fury, likely after being so forcefully suppressed by Octavius’s image. At least he seemed to be channeling his pride in a reasonable manner.

Randidly winced. “Technically, but raw materials function in a similar manner to those of us who have the Aether constructs empowering us; without Aether, they will weaken back to normal materials very quickly. Right now, each of those worlds is an undeveloped treasure trove, with enough space for every Zone to benefit. If we fail, those benefits will become… sparse.”

For a few seconds, there was silence. Then Mrs. Hamilton raised her head and spoke. “Shall we make plans right now then? Divvy up the responsibility while we are here. And with this handy glowstone tile floor, we can ensure that the relative strength of each of the forces will be equal.”

Randidly smiled wryly. “You have read my mind, Mrs. Hamilton. The Order Ducis has taken the liberty of making some preliminary groupings based upon geography and known associations, but these are, of course, up for discussion. Tatiana, if you would distribute the information…”

Very quickly, more servants came out of the side hallway with additional maps and lists. After a few discussions, members of the various Orders went out onto the glowstone tile and Randidly withdrew the suppressive effect of his Nether. They began to develop a rough outline of the individual strength of their members.

Some Orders perhaps forced to face the knowledge that they were much weaker than they had hoped, but that mattered less to all assembled than clearing this hurdle.

Randidly took a deep breath. He felt the surrounding people’s willingness to work together. It became a tangible image. How long will this last, I wonder? Luckily, the time limit is less than two weeks… hopefully the largess of humanity can handle that span of time...

Tatiana performed admirably in her role as host. Naffur stepped forward, looking more serious than Randidly had generally seen him in their interactions these past few weeks, to serve as acting leader of the Order Ducis. Both spoke eloquently about the information available regarding the four Danger Zones they would need to clear.

With Kharon and the Order Ducis acting in concert, most of the other political entities fell into line. No one disagreed with the groupings that they had provided, mostly because Randidly was sure that Tatiana had considered the issue from every angle before even ‘casually’ providing these suggestions.

Franksburg, King Phirun’s Zone, and Zone Seven. Donnyton and Zone Eleven. Zone One, the Order Valorem, and the various independent powers including the newly arrived Zone, the other Orders, and powerful individuals from bubble cities that were integrating well to New Earth. Finally, the Order Ducis would be led by Helen to handle their own Danger Zone.

The Nemesai, of course, were more than willing to abstain from any participation.

While the groups hashed out the details of how many people to send, Randidly glanced toward Theodora Greyman. She stood still in the area where the challenges had been attempted, next to the leader of the Order Valorem and Richter. She seemed perfectly at ease. She even smiled politely at Randidly as he looked over and then turned back to listen to Naffur.

Shaking his head, Randidly turned away and tried not to yawn. If she doesn’t try something else before the night is over, I’ll wake up and put on a pair of shoes tomorrow.

*****

The infiltration, as far as Tim could tell, was going swimmingly. At least Delilah’s beaming smile seemed to advertise that everything was going according to plan. Which of course, gave Tim a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

After crashing their boat, they had managed to find a side entrance into the ballroom that led to the staff corridors. Since no one was currently in the corridor, the children had immediately hurried forward like a mass of hungry rats, sniffing around for sweets.

“Keep up everybody!” Delilah called over her shoulder. Despite being the youngest, she also seemed to be the most physically fit and led the group from the front. “There are probably guards or something around here, so we need to be-”

Following their fearless leader, the children rounded the corner and skidded to a stop. Because Tim was larger but less agile on his feet, he ended up stumbling into Delilah’s back. But her superior Strength was enough that he bounced off of her bony shoulders and fell on his butt.

“Hello Mr. Ogre,” Delilah said in an overly bright voice. Tim’s gaze snapped sharply upward. “Nice to meet you. I’ve met other ogres, but never-”

“The pleasure’s all mine.” The ogre in front of them was the most massive specimen that Tim had ever seen, although he admittedly had not seen many. Such was the ogre’s height and width that he almost entirely filled up the five-meter high and three-meter wide hallway. In a perfunctory manner, the ogre adjusted his glasses. “However, it appears that you have wandered somewhere you shouldn’t.”

The kids glanced at each other, nervous about the ominous size of the ogre in front of them. But Delilah stepped forward, her forced brightness transforming into genuine self-assurance the longer she talked. “Oh, no, you probably hadn’t heard. We are allowed to be here. We just-”

Again, the ogre cut Delilah off. “How unexpected. But if you are allowed to be here… I suppose you simply need to hand me your invitation and I can let you proceed.”

Delilah’s expression twisted. “I…. we… we lost it. So-”

The ogre raised his extremely large hands and cracked his knuckles. “How… unfortunate. Then I simply must apologize for what is going to happen next, but I was given very clear instructions on how to deal with interlopers.”

Before Delilah could muster up a response, the ogre leaned forward and began to hurry down the hallway toward the group of children. He was perhaps ten meters down the hallway, and his long legs devoured one of those meters immediately as he accelerated toward the group of children.

Releasing a collective squawk, most of the older teenagers behind Delilah twisted around and fled. While the ogre was lumbering down the hall with heavy footfalls, Tim only managed to make it back to his feet before Delilah grabbed him painfully around his wrist and yanked him forward.

“We are running directly toward the ogre!” Tim shouted in alarm. Then he felt stupid because Delilah could obviously see that. How could she NOT see that with the huge body of the ogre rushing toward them?

But Delilah tugged him inexorably forward. “Call the moss spirits! Let’s see who is stronger, this bozo or all of Kharon! Go go go!”

“You’re crazy!” Tim’s face turned extremely strange. The huge body of the ogre was only six meters away. In terms of momentum, the enormous ogre was enough to crush them entirely into paste that would be spread along the floor of the corridor in its wake. Each step shook the ground and because there was only a little distance between them, also shook Tim.

Four meters away…

“Conjure the moss spirits!” Delilah said again, this time emphasizing the statement by an explosion of moss spirits out of the nearby walls and ceiling that were clearly responding to her own call. Very quickly, more quickly than Tim’s frazzled mind could keep up with what was occurring, those moss spirits came together to form a large emerald body standing behind them.

Tim realized suddenly that he was following around a six-year-old girl and hoping that she act reasonably. He should have known as soon as she had crashed their flying ship…!

“TIM!” Delilah yelled, but this time there was genuine concern in her voice.

Even if I’m an idiot for following here, I’ve done it. And dad always says men should take responsibility… Tim was trembling, as the huge ogre was only two meters away, but he still called the moss spirits. In that secret way that he had, his soul shivered and then began to sing in a way that all the green things responded to.

Acting on instinct, he released a clear note of necessity into the surrounding air.

They came in a surging wave, in such a volume that even Tim was surprised. Emerald spirits seemed immediately from the walls, floors, and ceilings, as well as blasting out of the nearby vents. He reached out mentally and pulled and he felt as though the whole world was spiraling to assist him. In fact, Tim felt like he could feel the whole of Kharon, with a bright curiosity at its core, that began to stir at his call-

The ogre was right in front of them. The condensed moss spirit raised its arm and smashed its fist forward. The two forces collided, and a shocked Tim watched as the condensed moss spirit exploded into a cascading waterfall of brilliant light and nothing else.

The ogre-!

Shrieking with laughter, Delilah made a sharp gesture. After a jerking wrench, Tim found himself standing with her on the other side of the ogre.

“How could we stand up to an ogre, Tim?” Delilah asked disapprovingly, as though a frontal conflict had been his idea. “Better to just avoid the fight. Now quick! The kitchen should just be through there!”

Delilah pointed to a normal-looking set of doors. Emerald lights danced around them excitedly, seemingly wondering what the two of them were going to do next. Tim was almost numb. At some point, Delilah had shifted her grip so she had a more comfortable grip on his hand.

With the ogre still rumbling after the other kids, the duo hurried forward. As though by magic, the doors to the kitchen opened up for them… and revealed a figure that had Tim skidding to a stop.

“Uh… hi dad,” Tim said weakly.

Derek Moss crossed his arms and frowned around at the playful currents of moss spirits in the air of the hallway. “Looks like we have some stuff to talk about, don’t we?”