Nic snarled and reached out with no hesitation, curling his fingers around the twisted, strangely warm shape of the jade key. Unlike the pearl, there was no burning or pain. Only a brief and unsettling sense that, whatever the key was, it could sense him back.

“And so our bargain comes to an end. Do not deal with the gods so lightly in the future, Nicolas Winterhome. To say my superiors have given you a gift is an understatement and a slight lie of omission. It will grant you great power and great opportunity to become overambitious. The Native phrase is…” A smile on his brass lips. “Rope to hang yourself with.”

Nic raised an eyebrow, and met the angel’s eyes dead on. “You seem amused by this. Why? What’s your stake?”

“Oh, me? Nothing really. When you have lived as long as I have, you simply take up a fondness for oddities. When something surprises me, that thing becomes precious. I wish you well, Nicolas Winterhome, although the gods I serve would not agree.”

“Maybe you can do me a favor then.”

The slightest change in expression. The faintest air of surprise. “If it is in my power. But I fear my powers are very limited.”

Nic didn’t have time for these ever-laughing creeps. “Tell me where Shane is. Azel was following him, so I bet someone is still keeping track…”

“Ah yes. The boy whose angel you killed. He lives, I can say that much, and you will meet soon.” And with that, the angel stepped backwards into the void. The portal snapped shut, instantly shrinking down to a single blot of darkness, which simply dissolved into the daylight.

“Nicolas…”

But Nicolas was examining the amber teardrop in his hand. The creature within had almost no form, no defining features. It was a loose, oozy blot of nothing.

“Nicolas, that was Ek’Zahmau…”

“Yeah, and who’s that..? Because he felt a lot scarier than Azel.” He finally looked up.

“Ek’Zahmau was one of the first-”

“Nicolas!” Tarquin’s voice cut through hers as he hauled himself back up onto the pier, spluttering out water in great coughs. “You bastard! Why the fuck did you push me, and why the fuck are you talking with angels now!?”

“I just-” Nic shifted uncomfortably. “I knew something was coming through, and for a second I was worried it would stab you through the back.”

He had envisioned the scene with such terrifying clarity that it almost seemed to be a vision from the future, something about to come into reality.

A cold steel point stabbing out of Tark’s chest. Red blood swelling out from the wound. The smile on his face going slack, losing its life, before he was hauled back into the black. Snatched away at the last moment.

“I’m not a child!” Tarquin protested. “I’ve killed three of the governor’s men, myself, just with the one Shard.” As he climbed out of the water, golden-red flames danced on his skin. They spread out, covering him in a mantle of fire that burned the clinging droplets to steam, instantly drying him off.

And making a pretty defiant show of power.

The flame receded into a ball in his hand, an orb of flickering light. He clenched his fist and smoke poured through his knuckles.

“Yeah! Fuck that Nicolas, I have been through some shit. I am here to watch your back, not get shoved out of the way.”

Nic sighed. “Inkspur, if you mistranslate this, I will wring your scrawny neck. Tell him I’m sorry, and panicked.”

“Good.” Tarquin said with certainty. “I get it, but…” He cast his gaze back to the mercenaries. Several of the brighter ones had crawled out of the water to fetch their weapons when the angel arrived, while others were still in the water, staring up in confusion.

Now they all sat hunched, listening to the two.

“We’re here to fight, ain’t we?”

He looked out at the silent crowd, gesturing for them to speak up. A few half-hearted mumbles answered him.

“We’re sick of being pushed around, ain’t we?”

This time their voices lifted slightly before receding.

“We’ve been the trash of one planet. We’ve lived that life. Now we’ve got a new planet, a new try at things. We ain’t gonna sit down and lose out again! If it means blood, we’ll spill blood. If it means death, we’ll die!”

Someone tried to interrupt, and Tarquin flicked a sizzling dart of flame into the water beside them, silencing the heckler.

“It’s not about pride or money. It’s about freedom. You’ll never have it again if you let this chance run through your fingers, you slack-jawed idiots. You’ll just be sitting there, wondering like a fool, how’d I get old? Why’s my dick all soft? Where’d all my teeth go?”

“And you’ll realize you never made a choice or a difference in your life. You were just a leaf going downstream, you big sucker, you fucking puss-out.”

“Meanwhile, down in hell where the real big boys get to go, the rest of us are laughing it up at you bumping your senile bald head against the cupboards trying to find a nice bowl of porridge to gum on…”

They were laughing now, and cheering.

Nic saw himself, really. His own stupid, reckless bravado. His eagerness to cut his name into the world if he died trying. That same fire still burned inside him, but it was embers now, hidden under the ash of growing up and sobering himself with reality.

He had left City Layer d23 and Tarquin had stepped into his shoes.

Nic looked out and saw young faces. Young in a way that was almost like a poison of reckless confidence.

How was he going to keep these idiots alive?

“You know…”

“Ugh...”

“You could ask someone who has hard-won experience keeping idiots alive.”

“Shuuuuut up.” Nic groaned.

---

The Key of Omens. Astral // Treasured Artifact. Forged from fragments of a drowned sun, this key represents a dying immortal’s final grasp for enlightenment. While he could not save himself, the immortal succeeded in granting a path to those who came after, opening a door through which they could achieve greatness. Grants inspiration to the mind, aiding in forging Techniques and other acts of art.

Everything about the slim information Archive Recall gave him was, well, ominous.

But he put it aside, wrapping the key in a cloth and pushing it deep into his bag, before forcing himself to smile. To look up into the sun. Today was a good day.

Today, Tarquin was back.

For the rest of the day, Nic was among friends. The newly-arrived mercenaries were in awe of the water, the trees, the blue sky. Most of them wasted no time vanishing into the forest, running races through the moss-furred stands of tree trunks or hunting for herbs. Others sat down at the spot, gulping greedily at the air as they experienced the first real chance to cultivate in their lifetimes.

Everything that this world had, they had been denied.

Nic followed Tarquin and a few of the others who kept their wits about them, heading into town to make arrangements for the rest.

It was curious, watching the bright-eyed mercenaries interact with the Natives for the first time. They looked like grubby children, and for the most part, they were - but they knew things that the Natives’ planet had never learned or had forgotten in its rush for strange technologies.

One by one they found their places.

Ankles - only the tomb and the sept knew how he got that nickname - was a smithy’s apprentice, and eagerly joined in with the father and son as they worked at setting up a crude, baked-clay crucible to extract metals. Rhineland knew a bit of everything, but his passion had always been tailoring, ever since a short-lived stint as a page in a rich mansion. He found his place amongst a trio of women who were trying to make a crude cloth out of the reeds growing along the lakes edge.

Finn went off after a girl. Lannely was looking for something to drink. They drifted off, and Tarquin and Nic were the last ones about as they toured through the floating village, watching bright orange fish come up to nibble at the algae growing around the piers.

“This Shard is pretty good.” Tarquin said. “Solved pretty much all of my problems, at first. And I could finally stand up for the others…”

Nic grinned. That’s what he would have hoped for.

“Then I got cocky.” Tarquin shook his head, pointing to the scar along his cheek.

“I tried to solve everything like I was some crusading knight. I picked bad fights and I didn’t back down. It ended with… Well, remember those thugs who more or less killed you on the Temple steps? Well their boss came for me with eight men. And I got the better of him, Nic, I got all of them. I walked into a room with eight people wanting me dead and not one of them survived to get the job done…” Nic could hear the echoes of that moment in Tark’s voice now. A mix of horror and triumph at what he’d done. His hands clenched, little embers burning on his fingertips.

“But the boss had a boss of his own, and no matter how hard I fought, there was always another bastard behind the bastard I killed. It felt like the whole city was out for me. I ended up holed up in that old bakery we used to play in, trying to hide, waiting for it to end…”

“And all the while the story keeps going up the chain, until it reaches the top. The governor’s son. And he found out who I was, and about you, and…”

The story trailed off with a long sigh.

From his shoulder, Inkspur said. “This is the problem with people. You kill a dragon, everyone KNOWS TO RUN WHEN THEY HEAR YOU COMING. You kill a person, hmmph, three more people show up.”

Nic snorted, but it was true. People fought in swarms.

“It’s alright. You were an idiot. I’m glad, Tark, 'cuz someone’s gotta do my job while I’m away.” There was a second’s delay as Inkspur translated, and then Tarquin laughed, some of the stress ebbing out of his body language.

”I’unno Tark, but everyone I ever met in d23 was miserable. Nothing works for anyone. Except it does, it works just a tiny little bit, and people get so afraid of losing that little bit that they think the smart thing is to do nothing.”

“So I’m glad someone picked dumb fights instead of just sitting around afraid all day.” Nic said, sighing.

They’d walked around the edge of the city by now, coming back into the shadow of the temple. Tarquin stared up at the building of red-white stone, the color of a dawn, the reflection of its five towers reaching across the water like a hand.

“So what plans have you got for this world, then?”

Nic paused. He hadn’t been thinking that way. Everything was short-term, everything was about climbing the next hill.

What road was he on?

He could chase the meaning of this new dao, the Aleph, and learn how the Heretic had turned flesh to metal and glass.

He could drive forward towards unlocking the Secondary slots for his Shards, and developing them into something new.

There was the First Wave Treasures list, calling to him to amass wealth so he could buy something fantastic and precious.

All of his pets needed resources and guidance to grow…

The city needed the same…

And Nic, with a sigh, shook them all off. The world was huge and his routes towards power stretched in every direction, trying to tempt him to wander between them. But whenever he reached one goal two more would emerge. He’d long since learned that he couldn’t travel in a straight line without being waylaid by adventures and opportunities.

What he needed was focus.

When he’d first used his new senses to analyze his striking power, it had given him twenty seven percent efficiency. When he’d struck down de Vega, he’d briefly reached higher, but still under fifty. More than half his power was wasted.

If he didn’t solve that, the gains he earned from anything else would be cut in two.

“I’m going to do some training.” Nic said. “There’s a hunt coming up in two days, and I want to be ready. I’ve got some ideas for where you could adventure, though?”

“Oh?” Tarquin grinned. “I could do with some adventure…”

“Good, because there’s an island in the sky above us with your name written all over it.”

Tarquin’s eyes flashed with greed. But before they could part ways, Tarquin off to his adventure, Nic retreating to meditate and practice…

Sofia blinked into existence in front of them.

“Nicolas. You need to come with me, now.”

Nic’s sigh could not be more explosive. Of course. Of course.

Why did it seem like he couldn’t walk in a straight line without something new popping up…

“The Convocation is beginning.”