Amelia reappeared in the room that she was sharing with Quark. A quick look revealed that the creature was laying very still in a relaxed position that might have indicated rest. Amelia waved her hand a few times to see if she could attract the attention of her roommie. The eyes didn’t focus and the head didn’t turn. Quark must have been in some sort of resting state. It was really hard to tell because of the no eye-lids thing.

Amelia stretched a few times and moved to the wall where the door had appeared before. It was blank for now and gave no indication that it would form a door. This perplexed her for a moment.

“Okay, so am I being summoned or should I come back at a time more convenient? Which is it?” Amelia frowned and tapped the wall with the end of staff very gently. “Friend!”

When nothing happened she shook her head. It had been too much to hope that she could get away with such an obvious reference. Wait. Maybe she had to say it in elvish? Crap. What was it in elvish? Several hunky elves appeared in her imagination and little else.

“Open. Appear. Do the thing?” Amelia frowned and decided that she was willing to cede that the wall had defeated her, for the moment. She had a few things to check anyway, having remembered them.

The first thing to check…

[You may use clan chat one. Next allowance in 49:00:02]

Friggin' sweet. Allowances!

“Hello the clan!” Shadow Fall had been silent, and then it wasn’t, immediately erupting into chaos as everyone started to talk over one another. Elisha, at least Amelia assumed it was Elisha, had to change the clan chat output to scrolling text.

First, she assured everyone that if they had rebelled, that was totally fine. This seemed to make a lot of people sigh in relief, as several of them had, in fact, chosen to try and overthrow her. Freaking mutineers. Tempest, Warper, and Justin of all people had thought it would be funny to be Rebels and were now enjoying themselves. They told her that playing the villain was pretty hilarious to them.

Raven immediately interjected that they were not the villains. If anything they were the cornbread vanilla plucky heroes and she and the rest of Shadow Fall were the villains because they knew what kind of crazy and powerhungry horror Amelia really was and still supported her.

Amelia for her part, thanked Raven for supporting her even if Raven had figured out that Amelia was actually the worst.

Forsythe and Aidan chimed in every once in a while.

There were some half-questions about where she was, what she was doing, but for the most part everyone seemed distracted.

Elisha herself had at one point said she was glad Amelia was alright, but she had, ‘an insurrection to put down, and a Khiafin to bully.’

Amelia did not know what that meant, but wished her luck anyway.

Then everything died down, people quieted, and casual conversation that she could tune out resumed.

Amelia turned her attention toward her inventory. There was something she had received the other day that had given her pause.

“[Examine].”

-----------------------

[Fragment of Pride]

A small orchestrion roll that can be added to a Guild Lodgings BGM Bards hearing the song will be inspired, learning the wordless tune.

------------------------

“Huh,” Amelia was a little disappointed that it wasn’t some sort of super weapon, but tapped the icon anyway. A thrilling surge of brass instruments began and played for a few minutes. It was… nice?

Amelia frowned, glancing up from her examination text at the wall to see if it had made a door. No such luck. She dismissed the window with the fragment of pride and instead opened her Chronicler to inspect Not-Raven.

The first thing she did, obviously, was rename Not-Raven to Epsilon. A huge feeling of relief flooded through her. Epsilon was so much better than Not-Raven or Storied Hero or, if Amelia were being honest where Raven couldn’t hear, anything she could have come up with on her own.

Epsilon was still Rank 0, but was approaching Rank 1 with 899/1000 Experience. Pride herself had been worth quite a lot points, but the statues with their reactionary fighting style had been worth very few. Amelia had sent Epsilon to wipe out as many as possible anyway.

Amelia had learned that Epsilon wouldn’t respond to, well, much. She told Epsilon to jump. The one-armed clone just stood there, swaying slightly as if simulating being alive. Previously, telling it to defend her worked, as it would stop what it was doing and zero in on any threat that was moving toward her instantly. Likewise, telling it to attack other things had it rushing off to do her bidding. She could pick something off in the distance, and as long as she could describe it appropriately, Epsilon would race off into the distance at speed.

Of course, once Epsilon was over there hacking at whatever it had been directed, it couldn’t hear Amelia anymore. It would finish what it was doing and return or it would continue until Amelia walked her happy butt across the field and told it to stop.

Amelia snapped the book closed and stared at the wall again.

Nothing.

Okay. She had been polite and patient, had she not?

“Fine,” Amelia smiled sweetly at the wall. “Please remember, if the Quester Race feels uncomfortable in the testing of Empress Amelia of Elysium at any time, they may simply say they surrender to Empress Amelia of Elysium and she will immediately show them mercy.”

The words were a little over the top but after the last word was spoken the air seemed to crispin a little bit.

That’s what I thought. Doesn’t sound so nice does it?

Lines appeared on the wall and began to trace the form of a door, dark purple pulsing before the wall separated and opened before her. Shit-talking the wall had succeeded. Amelia immediately stepped through.

“Halt Knave!” Amelia and B-3 cried out at each other at the same time.

Undeterred, B-3 smiled vacantly and then continued, “prepare yourself! You have one minute!”

“You have one minute to prepare yourself. If it gets too hard, just say you surrender to me,” Amelia muttered, and then a cunning smile crossed her face as an idea flashed through her mind. “I’m not even going to give you a minute.”

Amelia reached out with her staff and tried to poke B-3. Instead of her staff passing through the construct or hitting it, B-3 seemed to blur momentarily right before she made contact, having stepped with incredible alacrity to the side, just out of her reach. Amelia’s eyes narrowed. The movement had seemed… familiar.

Amelia stepped forward more confidently and swung her staff. B-3 bent at the waist, and spun, feet sweeping soundlessly across the ground to appear out of reach again. She straightened without any change in expression. Obviously still counting down from the minute.

“You… are just like Fred,” Amelia squinted. “But is it because you’re faster than me or..?”

Amelia was about to start trying to tackle B-3 in earnest when B-3 startled her by yelling out, “time is up! Proceed to the next stage! The Puzzle stage.”

“Please proceed,” B-354 made a helpful sweeping gesture with her free hand. The giant claymore didn’t move at all even though she was only pinching the end of the hilt with her fingers, in that way she did.

Amelia sighed and resisted the urge to keep testing B-3. Truthfully, the puzzle stage was kind of her favorite thing. She was eager to see if she could get any more overpowered spells from it.

Entering the puzzle room was like entering every other room in this place. A disorientation followed by everything just sort of loading into being. She stared at the blank wall and started to try and psyche herself up. Amelia had been rewarded for answering quickly the last time she was here and she was determined to answer fast so she could maybe get a chance at an uncommon riddle or puzzle. She didn’t have to wait long.

Words immediately began scrolling on the wall at a pace she could just keep up with.

You cannot touch it or pick it up.

You can give it to others.

You can keep it.

You can break it.

Amelia mouthed the words a few times and then blurted out the first thing that came to her mind. She winced, wishing she had thought it out a little more. Fortunately her gut-check answer seemed to please the wall.[1]

The words disappeared and were replaced with ‘Continue Puzzles at Uncommon Rarity?’

Heck yes! She nodded a few times, and when nothing happened, said yes aloud.

In what place does today come before yesterday?

Amelia said a silent thank you to her dad, Francis, who actually asked her a very similar question once. She said her answer confidently. [2]

Proceed to Rare?

“Yes!”

Epsilon works in a butcher shop.

Epsilon is approximately 163 cm tall

Epsilon wears size 7 boots.

What does Epsilon weigh?

“What?” Amelia muttered under her breath. “This is one of those things where I’m going to feel really stupid, isn’t it?” Amelia settled down on the ground and crossed her legs beneath her, her expression slowly growing dark as she agonized over what she was sure was going to turn out to be a really freaking easy puzzle. [3]

**************

Elisha stared at the map in front of her and studied it with a blank expression. Rat and Gilduirn stood next to her, waiting for her to complete her review of what was going on.

Khiafin fidgeted behind them, “I could just leave and go entertain myself if this is going to take a while?”

Rat and Gilduirn cast a few strange looks at him, and Elisha didn’t even look up.

Finally, Rat looked up at Khiafin and asked the question that she and Gilduirn had been wondering for a while now, “so, you’re a Rebel? That happened.”

“Truth,” Khiafin nodded, his mouth pressed into a thin line.

“...and you killed Raven and Forsythe and took their skillet and their arm…”

“I gave those back,” Khiafin interjected helpfully.

“Yeah, okay,” Rat looked like she was struggling with how to phrase her next question.

“So, why exactly are you standing in the base with a red name among all the Imperials?”

“Elisha told me to, and I’m afraid of her,” Khiafin answered easily. “Besides, my name is always red. I think people are used to it, if we’re being honest?”

“I’m certainly not used to it. I think we should all gang up and beat you to death,” Gilduirn said solemnly, looking super unnerved that Khiafin was just hanging out with them.

“I’m not supposed to fight back,” Khiafin frowned. “But if you were to send me to the Cathedral, you would be doing me a solid.”

“Leave him,” Elisha said without looking up. “He knows what he did. He owes me for coming to help heal him in a lot of dungeons with his guild when I could have been world-hunting with every one else. How many days do you think you owe me Khiafin?”

Khiafin sighed, “...a lot? I don’t know. Counting is for plebeians.”

“So why don’t you just stand there until I have a use for you and then we’ll just let bygones be bygones about how you killed two of my favorite people in an epically poorly thought out betrayal,” Elisha said sweetly. “Okay? Okay.”

Khiafin waved a hand toward Elisha as he helplessly gave a pleading look to Rat and Gilduirn.

“Oh, nevermind. You can stay right there,” Gilduirn started snickering and then turned his back on him, completely ignoring him.

“Yeah, good luck!” Rat seemed to agree with Gilduirn. While they didn’t know exactly what was going on, it was obvious that Khiafin wasn’t willing to risk enraging Elisha anymore than she was already was. It was also obvious that she was torturing him somehow, and that was a-okay to them too.

“Okay,” Elisha closed her eyes and finally straightened. “It’s not good. My guess is, judging from what is going on, that the Imperials are actually outnumbered. By a lot.”

“There is a certain romanticism to being the rebel faction,” Rat pointed out.

“Not to mention that every person dreams of maybe being the new leader, Emperor, or whatever.” Gilduirn added.

“Or Empress,” Rat elbowed him.

“Sure, if you want to keep the status quo,” Gilduirn smiled lopsidedly.

“More than that,” Elisha said, gritting her teeth as she interrupted the two, “it appears that if an overwhelming number of people inhabit a part of the city, that faction will gain control of the Cathedrals in that section of the city.”

“That’s, what does that mean?” Rat stared blankly.

“It means, if you include all the Cathedrals in Blutonsi, there are eight zones and the Rebellion can resurrect in six of them and the Empire can resurrect in two,” Elisha said slowly.

“So… we have to resurrect in the Palace District or the Keristrazly Courtyard?” Gilduirns eyes widened. “What about people who are heading into the city?”

“My guess? If they are not close enough to the middle of the city they get teleported to a neutral Cathedral in a nearby region. Far and away.” Elisha started heading toward the edge of the room. “I’ll be back, I need to get everyone to start moving into the center so we don’t lose the two districts we have and to consolidate losses.”

“Is putting us all in the same place a good idea?” Rat called after her.

“They can just push in to one district or the other at a time and lose the ability to resurrect or fight there,” Elisha called back. “So, yeah!”

Rat and Gilduirn looked at each other and then Khiafin.

Khiafin smiled and spread his arms, “go on then, she’s in charge right?”

The smile faded and his expression darkened moments later when he heard a whistle.

“C’mon boy. Come here.” Elisha called through the doorway.