I look at the glosSword watch on my wrist. It’s past midnight. Where are these Hashat nobles? Did they all accidentally sacrifice themselves to whatever is supposedly slumbering under the ocean?

“Shh...” the prince whispers, gathering everyone’s attention. “They’re coming in a little under a minute. Steel yourselves and make sure you aren’t visible from the vantage point of the entrance.” The fire escape was tucked away behind the building, but there were a few parts of it that stuck out over the side. These areas would be visible from the front.

We all wait silently. Jairinka casts a small illusion powered by a precious stone–the kind sold by Pan’s, its surface slightly irregular, betraying that it isn’t a product of mass-production. Unfit for elementalism, but based on the obscuring fog twisting around us, excellent for Light and Moon manipulation. The use of the stone, as well as the naturally-deceptive nature of illusions, greatly mitigates the risk of someone detecting an energy signature.

For contrast, if I let out a small tendril of death energy...any decent Life practitioner would probably notice. Illusions are good at fooling the subconscious, and thus are much more likely to go undetected.

I can’t help but feel slightly jealous that Euryphel’s most salient abilities–namely, seeing threads of fate, sensing people and structures through the wind, and peering into the future–go completely un-neutered: They’re all either passive, or internal to the mind.

Ajun’Ra blends naturally into the darkness, likely due to some kind of enchantment on her robes. She doesn’t need to expend energy to conceal herself.

It’s funny to find that in this kind of situation, I’m the least useful, relying on Jairinka’s mist and Euryphel’s future vision to go undetected. That and the building’s natural cover, of course, but it’s good to have redundancies.

The first group shows up just as Euryphel predicted, five individuals in heavy, concealing robes. It’s difficult to tell any details about the newcomers with them being on the other side of the building. When they enter the building, everyone looks to Euryphel for the next order. The prince looks around and shakes his head, bringing a finger to his lips.

Over the next 20 minutes, over thirty new people arrive in small groups, all wearing similar dark, concealing attire. As a group of panting stragglers enters the building, the prince lets out a breath of air and softly clears his throat.

“That’s the last of them that I can tell,” Euryphel says. “Given that it is 1:07 am, I’m inclined to believe that the meeting was scheduled to commence at 1.” He looks around. “What were you originally planning to do once you caught Hashat?”

Hmm. Now that I think about it...if I am able to kill the people in attendance, would the loop progress? Or will I have to kill every member, not just those there tonight? From all the intelligence I’ve gathered, it’s likely that there are at least fifty more members of the organization who aren’t present.

I glance at Ajun’ra and Jairinka. My understanding is that they want to stop Hashat the cult, not Hashat’s individual members. An ideal win for them would be destroying the cult and consequently liberating its ensorceled members to once more be fully-productive members of society. I recognize that following out their plan would be sufficient to advance the loop; but I also know that it should be much easier to just murder everyone in the cult rather than try to upend the cult from the inside out. The former requires power, the latter finesse...and I know my area of strength.

Euryphel waits a moment for us to respond, but none of us offer up a plan. Euryphel looks at me and raises an eyebrow.

“We should capture and imprison them,” he states, taking charge. “I have a feeling we can use them as bait to root the rest of them out.”

Jairinka frowns but nods. Ajun’Ra inclines her head in supplication.

“What do you want us to do?” I ask, inclining my head toward the building.

He gives me a look. “You can capture all of them; go do it.”

I snort and give him a wry smile. “Alright then.” I wave my hand and all the thirty-two Hashat members freeze, their tendons and muscles futilely straining against immobilized bone. “But how were you planning to get them from here to a holding facility?”

–

Jairinka

“What do you want us to do?” the Corona asked. Jairinka had no idea how the decemancer could address his uncle so casually. I’m positive he’s never stepped foot in the SPU before today. There’s a story somewhere, one that explains this bizarre stakeout. At least the man has the good sense to defer to Uncle for commands.

Euryphel gave the Corona a knowing look, his mouth curving up slightly. Perhaps it’s not that Corona Dunai found Uncle, but rather, Uncle found Corona Dunai. But...why? The Corona was a decemancer from Godora. He was young and powerful, granted, but Jairinka knew that there were many such individuals in the capitol.

But Uncle seems to be having fun consorting with this Godoran. Jairinka glanced at Ajun’ra. There must be something the two of us are missing, something missing from our background reports. Ajun’ra had mentioned that the Corona had nightmares about being stuck in what seemed to be a sophisticated dilation chamber, but...not even a Corona could afford access to such a thing. She wrote it off as some kind of delusion, possibly a Remorse nightmare curse.

The Corona was certainly...an enigma.

“You can capture all of them,” the Crowned Prime said languidly, his mouth curving up into a coy smile. “Go do it.” He made a shall shooing gesture.

“Alright then,” the Corona said, waving his arm in a half-hearted gesture. “But how were you planning to get them from here to holding facility?”

A split second after, the first prince chuckled, saying, “Oh-hoh, that was fast.” He summoned a small wind nimbus to sit on. I suppose we’re allowed to manipulate energy again.

“What happened?” Ajun’ra asked, eyes narrowing at the Corona.

He smirked, arrogance wafting from his now-violet-tinged eyes. The Corona was certainly quick to start cycling Death energy again.

“I took care of them. They’re not dead, just immobilized. If you were watching me when the SPU ambassadors came to the Opascal Base scarcely a week ago, well, I gave them a similar form of welcome.”

Ajun’ra crossed her arms, using Dark energy to affix the soles of her shoes to the shadows covering the fire escape. “I wasn’t watching.”

“To answer your question,” Uncle butted in, raising an eyebrow. “I’ll simply let the Guard take care of it.”

Jairinka nodded in understanding. The Guard always followed Uncle, even when it seemed like nobody was anywhere nearby.

It doesn’t matter how many dimensional doors Uncle goes through in the palace, nor does it matter how quickly Uncle flits around when he leaves the palace in disguise. He’s taken me on a few fun outings, the two of us sneaking out wearing common tunics, but the Guard is always there.

“What Guard?” the Corona asked.

“The Prime Guard,” Eury explained. “My personal entourage.”

Dunai frowned. “I haven’t sensed any sort of guardsmen nearby.”

“That’s because they count skilled Life, Dark, and Regret practitioners among their number, allowing them to evade detection. Apparently, even from someone like you, at this range.”

“And how do you see them?” the Corona asked.

“They can’t evade the sight of a high-affinity End practitioner, it turns out. I see them just fine.” He tilted his head. “They’ve closed in on the building. One moment...there, we can go.”

“I see them now...” the Corona said, frowning. “I had to really focus: They blend in like chameleons. You’re right, though, that they’re already inside putting people into restraints. We can leave.”

Jairinka met Ajun’ra’s eyes. Her expression said it all: perhaps we’ve bitten off a bit more than we thought involving Dunai, and consequently, Euryphel. They aren’t much older–Y’jeni, Uncle is only 28, and Dunai is even younger. But being around the two of them...it feels like two old, bored masters are playing a game together, and Ajun’ra and I are somehow pieces on their board.

Regardless, it’s too late to turn back now. Jairinka fell in behind his uncle to return to the palace, wondering what tumult the coming days would bring.

—

I can’t deny that I’m tired when I wake in the morning. The accommodations provided to me are excellent, and the bed is plush like a cloud. But by the time we returned to the Palace of Fortitude, it was after 2 am, and I found it difficult to fall asleep.

I cannot, however, renege last-minute on my morning appointments with people off of Jairinka and Ajun’ra’s list, so I get up at half-past five to take a shower.

When I return to my bedroom, a folded note lies conspicuously on the bed. I pick it up and read:

I’ve liberated you from your tedious meetings.

Come join me for breakfast in the inner palace.

A guard will escort you at 7:00.

-E

So much for keeping my appointments. But if Euryphel says that my meetings have been dealt with, I’ll take his word for it.

I look around the room, trying to detect any traces of vitality, but find none. Perhaps Euryphel uses his Prime Guard to discreetly deliver small correspondances within the palace.

I go back to sleep for a bit, then wake and wait for my escort. It turns out to be the same guardswoman from yesterday, and she leads me down a set of different corridors stretching through the outer and inner palaces. We end up before a small, white, wooden door in one of the open hallways of the inner palace. If I have to guess, I’d say that the door belongs to a service closet.

As before, the door opens on its own. I pass through, only to find that Euryphel is standing behind the door. We aren’t in the sun room, nor his bedroom, but rather a rustic-looking salon connected to a kitchen operated by a crew of four. The room smells divine.

“Welcome to my salon,” the prince says as he gestures for me to take a seat on a large loveseat. He lays on a nearby couch.

“How do your doors work?” I ask, interested in finding out how the prince controlled space in the palace.

The prince calls out to the kitchen for a pot of tea before replying. “The doors employ sophisticated Dark enchantments, like the kind you might use to create dimensional storage.”

I look at the glosSword in the scabbard on my waist, and recall its use of a reactor: an energy-font stored away in some other dimensional space and carefully tethered to the sword. That must be the kind of Dark enchanting the prince is talking about.

“Sounds expensive,” I reply.

“Undoubtedly,” Euryphel says. “The palace was constructed a long time ago, though. I think one of the former princes had talent in space manipulation, one of the rarer subdomains of the Dark affinity.”

The tea comes out, already steeping in a glass pot with aged copper accents. The prince pours us each a cup.

“So, what’s the plan?” I ask.

“The plan,” he says, taking a tentative sip, pulling away from the too-hot cup, “is to use the bait to catch a big fish.”

“That’s not quite a plan,” I chide, grabbing my own teacup to warm my hands. “How do you think to use our bait?”

“Like I said, before you came, I had already been investigating Hashat, inspecting the arrows of fate winding about the city for troubling patterns.” Euryphel blows on his tea and stirs in a sugar cube. “The members we captured are now a lost cause. They’re unmasked, captured, completely vulnerable to the punishment of the state. There’s nowhere to run.”

I frown. “Unless?”

“Unless the group manages to prove its worth.”

“You mean...unleash a monster on Godora?”

The prince fingers his porcelain cup. “Not quite. The beast they hope to awaken lies under the Illyrian Ocean, on the Godoran coastline...but they plan to use it on Selejo. Their thinking, I have come to understand, is that the SPU must prove its superiority by ending the farce of ceasefire and neutrality.” The prince smiles, his lips thinly pressing together. “They’re a prideful bunch, the nobles who have joined Hashat.”

“I’m still unsure what this has to do with the prisoners.”

“It’s simple: We tell Hashat that they have one week to raise the monster from the depths of the Illyrian ocean and turn it on Selejo. If they complete their task, we will release the prisoners.” The prince smiles. “Though I don’t think that will be necessary.”

“Won’t this put Godora in danger?” I ask, sipping from my teacup. “I believe that I need to protect Godora, not let it suffer terrorist attacks.”

“That’s why you, Jairinka, and Ajun’Ra will return to Godora and wait for them. My intelligence suggests that they actually do have the capabilities to raise an abyssal monstrosity from the ocean, believe it or not. Destroy the monster, and the cult will naturally dissolve, its purpose extinguished. Then you should move on to the next layer of your loop.”

The prince says this calmly while sipping his steaming cup of tea, his right hand simultaneously fidgeting with an ornate little teaspoon.

It sounds like a shallow plan: It relies on a lot of uncertainties, and the prince hasn’t suggested any contingencies. What if the metaphorical bait isn’t taken, and Hashat’s members don’t embark on a wild quest to free the monster slumbering in the Illyrian deep? What if the monstrosity refuses to show? What if it’s too powerful to be stopped?

But this is a loop, not real life: if something goes wrong, there’s always another attempt. Even if I, as a Godoran Corona, would refuse such a risky plan in a world with consequences...here?

“Just give me notice when they’ll be coming, and where, and I’ll figure out the rest.”