Artyom stepped out of his personal bathroom dressed in a T-shirt and actual sweat pants with a towel wrapped around his head. After getting back to TOAL headquarters and going through the ever-rigorous security checkpoint, he went straight to his room and right into the shower. The body disinfectant spray the checkpoint guards used always seemed to leave a residue on his skin, which tended to become very uncomfortable if left on for too long.

There were many times when Artyom decided to ignore his hygiene when there were more pressing matters, and he always paid the price. So despite the two urgent meetings he had lined up back-to-back, he’d taken the time to thoroughly clean himself up.

He sighed as he took in the familiar smell of his room and walked over to the end table beside his bed. He looked up at the wall behind it, taking in the many hanging pictures featuring him with various Earthers, each one somebody he’d played a major role in rescuing from whatever hellscape they were summoned to. It occurred to him that he still needed to take a picture of him with Kai Freeman, the second latest kid he rescued. But in the meantime, there was already a picture in his possession that still needed framing.

Artyom found just the spot for it on his thoroughly adorned wall and hung the photograph in a snug little corner. He smiled at his handiwork, and the contents within. He, Tommy, and Neitra smiled back, as if they’d been friends for a lifetime. With everything that happened in that mission, it sure felt like it’d been that long. He sighed as his eyes shifted to the joyful Neitra. The only one who stood out from the others, the only one who wasn’t from Earth. And she deserved to be up there with the rest of them.

Before he could appreciate the newly minted memory more, Artyom’s phone rang. He slowly picked it up and answered.

“Artyom, where are you?” came a nasaly voice from the other end. “I’ve been waiting for you in the research labs for 10 minutes!”

“Sorry Abhi,” replied Artyom, addressing the runic researcher. “I was still washing off the sanitizer they sprayed on me at the checkpoint.”

“Ooh, yeah, I forgot to do that after my last deployment, so I don’t blame you,” winced Abhi. “But it sounds like you’re out now, so head over here as soon as you can.”

“Will do,” replied the half-asian man as he hung up the phone.

“Well then,” said Abhi, looking blankly at the pair of objects sitting on the table.

“Well what?” asked Artyom, eyeing the researcher.

“They’re exactly what I expected them to be,” he replied, matter-of-factly. “Both the staff and the crystal you brought me.”

“So are you just going to stand there staring at it, or are you going to tell me?” he asked. “I’ve got a meeting with the entire executive council after this, and I need to bring them something about what’s in front of us so they don’t freak out about everything that’s coming.”

“Yeah, I heard about that.” The Indian man sighed and shook his head. “I can give you what you need, but in my opinion, it just raises even more concerns.”

Artyom leered at him until he finally raised his hands in acquiescence and spilled the beans.

“Let’s start with the staff first,” said Abhi with a gulp. “It definitely looks like the real deal, the Yamastra. Pretty sure it’s mentioned in the Ramayana, the ancient Hindu epic, but I’ve only ever read the abridged version, so I can’t really say much beyond that. But still, it kind of hits home for me, you know?”

Artyom nodded understandingly. A lot of TOAL agents reacted strongly whenever they encountered tangible proof of their faith from back home, even the Abrahamic ones through the direct intervention of archangels and the like in various Worlds. And in front of Abhi was the holy weapon of his religion’s god of the dead, and the significance of such an artifact wasn’t lost on Artyom. Even though it wasn’t the first time he’d encountered such an item during his tenure as one of TOAL’s researchers.

“Right, so the details,” continued Abhi. “Besides its strong connection to death magic, the Yamastra also has a strong elemental affinity towards the concept of Order, rather than chaos or evil like most death-related artifacts I’ve seen before. But that’s just more proof of the weapon’s identity.”

“Yeah, the god who gave it to me said he was all about the concept of duty, so it makes sense.”

“Yup, that’s one of Yama’s domains,” replied Abhi. He took a dry gulp of air.

Artyom cocked his left eyebrow. “It sounds like there’s more to it. You said over the phone that something about this would bring up more concerns than it would solve.”

“That’s right,” he slowly nodded. “You know that most divine artifacts only work in Worlds where its original creator is active, right? Like a magical thunderbolt granted by Zeus in one World will only work in another where there’s also a Zeus or an extremely close equivalent, like the Roman Jupiter.”

“Yeah, of course I know that. What are you getting at?”

“Well, the staff in front of us is still active. As in here, in TOAL headquarters.”

“What?!” exclaimed Artyom. “How the hell is that possible? We built this place in a broken shard of reality far enough away from its parent World that there’s no interference from any System or deity! How is a god’s artifact still powered?!”

“I mean, he is the god of the dead. And not just some generic ‘big bad scary death god,’ or whatever. I mean the actual god that presides over the primordial concept of death itself. That’s the kind of thing you can’t exactly run away from, otherwise everyone here would be immortal. And last time I checked, we’re not.”

“Yeah, just ask Claire and the rest of the medical team and they’ll let you know how right you are.”

“But as I see it, that’s a good thing,” replied Abhi.

“That we can die?”

“That it still works here, I mean,” he replied with a frown. “Chances are, it might also end up working in just about any other World as well. And this is a weapon that makes even the Eye of Balor look like a spitball in comparison. I mean, it took half a minute of concentrated fire to take down a single Fatewatcher, and the Yamastra took out four in an instant!”

“Yeah, this is definitely something we’re going to need for whatever’s to come.” Artyom eyed the staff solemnly, before his gaze moved over to the crystal shard sitting next to it. “So what about that? After we destroyed the larger crystal it came from, everything went back to normal, so to speak. I figured it was some kind of conduit for that goddess’ power, and breaking it released everyone from her grasp.”

“And it looks like your hypothesis about it is correct. It’s definitely constructed using rune magic, and seems to be a really good conductor of it too.”

“Don’t even think of trying to repurpose it,” quickly shot Artyom. “It’s still probably got some connection to the goddess inside of it and she might be able to use it to hijack whatever you build out of it.”

“Come on, Artyom, do you really take me for an idiot?” chided Abhi. “I might not be as paranoid as Gus, but anyone with a semblance of common sense can see something like that coming from a mile away, even if all of my scans show that there’s no longer any sort of connection! I’m not going to take any kind of risk like that.”

“That’s fair, sorry for not giving you credit.”

“Don’t worry about it, I gave the same speech to the other researchers too, just in case. So we’re all on the same boat about this.” He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts before continuing. “Right, so this material is a really good conductor of Rune magic, and a crystal of the size you described could easily cover an entire planet, judging by my estimations, given that size boosts the signal strength geometrically, and there aren’t any impurities to jam the signal, and…”

“Abhi,” said Artyom, lightly nudging the researcher with his elbow to get his focus. “You know, this being a Rune magic booster makes sense, since it created a lot of disturbances with our comms which are powered by the same thing.”

“Oh, sorry!” He quickly apologized. “And you’re right there too, it seems that this goddess is all about Rune magic. And it looks like it’s been constructed with tier 5 magic to boot!”

“I remember her gloating about how we didn’t understand the intricacies of the runes, and how she was able to find a loophole that just brought Tommy’s soul over after he died on Earth,” said Artyom, recalling the monologue he pushed the goddess into before the final battle. “Hold on, tier 5? Didn’t we just find some runes that strong a little earlier? From the same World I rescued Kai from?”

“Yeah, I’ve been working on integrating it into our current gear, so hopefully we won’t deal with any more interference once I’m done.”

“And the World I got it from was one where that same goddess was active,” continued Artyom.

“Uh huh, probably because she’s the one who shared those runes around in the first place, so of course the crystal would be made with the same tier,” the Indian man continued nonchalantly.

“You know, Abhi, you seem pretty calm about all of this,” curiously prodded Artyom.

“Well, my job is to just look into these things and learn whatever I can. It’s your job, along with the rest of the executive council, to freak out about it. I wouldn’t be of much use if I were having a panic attack now, wouldn’t I?”

“No, I guess not. Glad to have a level head around, in that case.” Artyom nodded. Before they could continue, his phone began to chime. Picking it up, he saw that it was an alarm.

“Oh shit, I’ve got another meeting to get to with the executive council!” exclaimed Artyom, making his way out of the room. “I’ll fill them in on everything you’ve told me!”

“Hold on, there’s one other thing I think you need to share with them,” interrupted Abhi, forcing Artyom to pause at the doorway.

“And what’s that? Can you make it quick? I really don’t want to be late for this!”

The researcher nodded while giving Artyom a glare for how he prioritized his meetings. “These crystals don’t just boost rune magic through space, they also work across Worlds.”

“So that’s how the goddess was able to influence both of those Worlds, and she might not even be from them either! Hold on, if she can extend her magic between Worlds through these crystals, wouldn’t she be able to do the same here? I mean, that shard seems to still have some power, maybe there’s still a trace of her influence on it. Could she potentially figure out where headquarters is through that?”

“Yeah, that's what I wanted to tell you,” replied Abhi, crossing his brows. “But for the most part, the crystal seemed pretty inert when I first observed it. The Yamastra probably did something beyond just breaking it apart, and it could’ve ‘killed’ the connection so to speak. But I’ve still got it surrounded by tier 5 rune jammers, courtesy of the upgrade you got me and studying the effect the same crystal had on all of our tech. So there’s no way to tell for sure if we’ve been compromised, but all of the safety and security features we have built into the place beyond my jammer should minimize the risk of that. But I know it’s not how Gus or the executive council rolls, just settling for a minimized risk.”

“Hope for the best, plan for the worst,” said Artyom, nodding along. “Thanks Abhi, I’ll pass the info along at my next meeting.”

“No problem!” exclaimed the researcher. “By the way, I heard rumors that something happened to you during your last deployment, and you’re going to be making some big changes around here because of it. Something about changing TOAL’s mission?”

“All true, and all for the best!” replied Artyom, as he made his way out the door. “You and everyone else will see for yourselves soon enough!”