Several pictures of graves scrawled across the screen, no two exactly alike. I had a very hard time believing that any human would bother constructing something quite like this. Some of these gravesights would have been too much effort to construct, especially given the fact that this wasn’t friendly territory.

One was a stone with a hollowed center, shaped roughly like a ring. It was suspended by woven vines as thick as my torso, wrapped up and in braided knots among ten trees on either side. Beneath it a ‘V’ shaped stone rested on top of a mound, as though it were ready to receive the stone hovering a meter above it. The commonality between this and the other markers was the fact that no vegetation grew in the area around it whatsoever.

Others were even more outlandish, a collection of a dozen trees appeared to have been halved and intersected each other, sheltering a rounded marker like a hut. Another didn’t touch the ground at all, the stone itself and a tightly woven knot of other stones, roots, and somehow flexible branches wrapped it.

What was even more maddening is that I had no idea why they were there.

“Has anyone actually been buried in these locations?” I turned my gaze to Harris briefly, studying the cycling images with a blend between fascination and anxiety. This was the work of a biotic, and it would have to be a Unique.

“We have confirmed that each site has one human corpse buried there.” Harris nodded.

“Do they do anything?” I hastily then added, “I realize they may just be graves, but these days I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t.”

The Knight-Commander snorted, “too true. In this case, no, they aren’t simple graves. For some reason the biotics avoid these locations, and tend to act with less coordination around them. And, to our knowledge, a new one hasn’t appeared in some time.”

I mulled that over for a few seconds, finding the situation quite unusual. If nothing else, this was at least something that was more on the beneficial side of things, so we wouldn’t actually have to get involved for it.

Except so far I hadn’t heard anything that would particularly require me to be sworn to secrecy.

“I’m assuming there’s more?” I opened my approach broadly, glancing at the Lords. Peter shuffled uncomfortably beside me as Harris sighed loudly.

“We know the biotic that’s responsible for creating these.” He said, “it’s the closest thing to one of these Unique’s that you’ve spoken of that we have.”

I blinked at that, leaning fully back into my chair after realizing that I was sitting forward.

Peter misinterpreted my body language, “we realize it might be dangerous having a biotic around. Truth told, we weren’t sure if we should tell you. But, given how much help you’ve been and how active you’ve been around, we decided it would be better to let you in on this.”

I shook my head, “I understand. Having a biotic acting friendly isn’t exactly the norm.”

Ned was clearly disappointed, “well, I was honestly hoping for a bit more of a reaction.”

“I’m not sure how common they are,” I paused, “but these pseudo-biotics, if that’s what this is, are something we’ve run into before.”

I imagined the look of surprise on their faces was exactly what Ned was hoping to see on mine.

“Ordinarily we wouldn’t be forward with this information ourselves, but, we know a pseudo-biotic that’s friendly. He calls himself Yaga.”

“Calls himself Yaga?” Garland leaned forward with interest, “in other words, it’s capable of communicating?”

“Yes,” I stated, and then asked, “yours doesn’t talk?”

“Not that we know of,” he answered, “it’s been known to help our people out if there’s biotics in the area, but it generally keeps to itself.”

“And you have tried to talk to it, right?” I looked around, noting that Harris was uncharacteristically quiet now.

“We have, but if it knows what we’re saying, it keeps well to itself. Not many have even seen it, even amongst us.” Ned tapped his fingers on the table idly, “well, there was hear tell that this thing was talkative in the beginning, but we’ve heard nothing from it since.”

“Then, at best, we might consider this thing as a neutral party, leaning more towards assistance,” I paused, “Yaga might be able to tell us more, but I doubt he’ll be willing to come out here.”

“Too dangerous among strangers?” Another of the Lords asked, more curious rather than acidic.

I chuckled, “too distracted by learning science.”

A heartbeat passed before Harris chuckled, “hmm, seems these… pseudo-biotics, as you called them, are as different to each other as we are to each other.”

“In any case,” Penelope cut in, “we still have the issue of what’s going on out there. I’m not alone - surely - in assuming that our situation is far too deviant to be considered unlucky, yes?”

There were several grumbles in agreement, “it’s true. After learning of Damond, Gilramore, and Sunvilla’s fate, I almost feel as if we’ve been unfairly treated.” Peter chuckled grimly.

“Which leads me into another concern of mine. You don’t seem to have run into hardly any Unique biotics, aside from this one, and the same situation was present in Sunvilla to my knowledge. That either means that you truly had no Uniques here, or-”

“-they were never detected.” Penelope finished the thought, grimacing as she did so. “As much as I’d like that not to be the case, we haven’t exactly had the time to be roaming further afield.”

“Not surprising, we were committed to defending, not incorrectly at that.” Garland nodded, “so, we might have something else going on because of one of these Unique’s influence, is that correct?”

I shrugged, “possibly. We still have no idea what all of these creatures are capable of. Some have shown capability to communicate telepathically, for example.”

Harris face remained unmoved with this detail, the only Lord in the room who remained stoic at that. I met his gaze then even as he frowned, perhaps suspecting that I knew something of his ability.

Quickly, I brought attention back to me, “our plan is relatively simple. We intend on expanding the sensor network for Argedwall while also clearing out the surrounding forest. At the same time, we’ll look for any clues as to the whereabouts of any Unique biotics, and also seek to find any hint as to where the biotics might be coming from. The Knights have cleared many hives already, and once we get more mechs outfitted with up-to-date tech, Argedwall should be able to take care of itself fairly easily.”

“At which point, what will the Legion be doing?” Harris tapped the console, bringing up the original map.

“We’ll devote our attention to finding any unusual threats in the area,” I shrugged, “not much will change, really. If possible I’d like to have a few hives set up in the area for continued Matter Energy farming, but that’s a secondary concern that we can address after the area is safe enough in general.”

The next few minutes were spent going over a few minor details of the plan. The bulk of which was the expected range that the Lords and their Legion attachments would be expected to move in the course of a day.

“This Round is adjourned.” Harris stated, “Matthew, if you would stay behind for a moment?”

I nodded, not missing the curious glances from the other Lords. “Certainly. I had a few follow up questions in any case.”

Fran took her cue to take the others outside. Thanks to Alice, I’m sure she could put together what I wanted to ask the Knight-Commander.

Only when the room was empty and sounds distant, did I speak up, “I’m assuming this is about the psychic power you have?”

Harris’ features were almost as stoic as ever, and if it wasn’t for my enhanced senses, I wouldn’t have picked up on the twinge from his eye at the question. “That’s a rather blunt way of putting it.”

I nodded almost apologetically, “I figured it would be best to get past any wary posturing. As far as you might be concerned, you’re the only psychic here in Argedwall, or is that not the case?”

The man huffed a sigh, gesturing to a seat nearby before sitting himself, “yes, to my knowledge. Given that, I’m wary of how others may… perceive me, given my station. I’d rather not be accused of intentionally warping others' perspective of me.”

“Psychic powers are a slippery slope like that,” I agreed, “though from what I’ve seen so far they aren’t exactly the catch-all ability.”

For a second he hesitated, before sighing, “that’s been my experience, at that. Tell me, how are you aware of it? You certainly don’t seem to be…”

“Affected?” I smiled, “that’s a bit more complicated.” I contemplated telling him exactly what I could and couldn’t do, between trying to remain obscure and leave him guessing.

But, I believed that, for an ally positioned this closely to us, having transparency would be the best policy.

“I’m not psychic,” I began, seeing the slightly crestfallen look on his face. ‘Must have been hoping that I could teach him… or someone to share his plight?’ Before he could absorb any more of that, I carried on to say, “I’m psychically dead. To the few psychics I know, I may as well be a rock for how much they can interact with me.”

He gaped for a fraction of a second, “you know others?”

Harris recollected himself with a breath, “I mean to say, other psychics? And that you’re… what? Psychically null, then?”

“Something like that. Not even telepathy works.” I shrugged, “mechanical mind and all that.”

He quirked a brow at that, “another time,” I shook my head, “it’s a long story and not immediately relevant. I know three psychics, Alice is one of them, one of my companions. The other is Yaga.”

“Hmm…” he murmured as he fell into thought, seemingly considering things.

“I have to ask,” I started carefully, “this pseudo-biotic of yours. Is it actually not capable of communicating?”

Harris cringed.

“Ah.” I couldn’t help but let that slip.

Chagrined, he admitted, “it is capable of communicating. What I’m about to tell you is something I’d done without the information I have now, so please keep that in mind.”

I felt my gut tighten at the worst case scenario, “I’ll try.”

He sighed, sitting himself back, contemplating how to speak. Finally, he began without preamble, “we were desperately trying to get our lines in check. It was nearly four months into our defense since the first biotics had shown when suddenly we were faced with additional strains. It had started with the abominable scarecrows, which were bad enough, but had then developed to involve the mushroom spore like creatures. The defense got… desperate.”

“There had been rumors of some kind of biotic that attacked other biotics, and that it had come from the west somewhere. It was all just hearsay and superstition at first, a defense that wanted to believe in something.” He shook his head, “that’s what we thought at first. We didn’t have the system we have now, the Lords and such. We were less organized, and grasped onto anything we could.”

“Then, one day when I was on the frontlines myself, leading a scouting party out to try to get through to another city and see if we could get any support. We were attacked by a large group of biotics, we scattered, later to find that most of them died.” He met my eyes with steel, “except for me. I’d found our local legend, just after it had finished building a gravesite. I’ll freely admit that I thought I was done for, but it just stared at me. The biotics all around seemed to not even be able to see me, wandering around and away listlessly.”

“And that’s when it spoke to you.” I surmised.

Harris frowned at the interruption, but continued, “yes, that’s when it spoke to me. It wasn’t what I could call a learned person, but it was smart in its own way. I was still terrified that it would bury me, at least on the first day, but after traveling with it in relative safety for three days, I realized it wasn’t concerned about my presence in the slightest.”

“But, I had to come back to the city. There’s only so much I can do without food and water, and after a full two weeks, I came to understand that I had to come back to the city. There was no hope that I could make it out, but Digger seemed to know that. Digger was its name-” he quickly explained, “-and in spite of not being wholly aware of things that you or I would be, it did seem to know that I couldn’t stay around it forever. As we parted, though, I told it… that humans can be dangerous to it. And that if it needed to speak to a human, it would be best if it tried to speak to me. I may have warned it even to stay away from people altogether, but I cannot remember exactly what I’d stated then. It must have taken my warning seriously, because we’ve never heard from it since, and sightings have been scarce.”

I waited for him to finish, more specifically waiting for whatever he’d indicated that should be kept secret.

“Well?” He asked me, catching me off guard.

“Well, what? Is that it?” I frowned, tilting my head.

“What do you mean, ‘is that it?’” He scoffed, “I may have chased off a valuable protector, where I should have shown gratitude I instead taught it suspicion.”

I laughed, throwing my hands up to disarm the man's anger, “look, I’m not saying that’s a good thing, necessarily. You might have guaranteed that no one here is going to develop psychic powers as quickly as you did, but that’s hardly the worst thing that could happen.”

“That sounds fairly bad, actually.” His face twisted into a scowl.

“It’s not that big of a deal.” I shrugged, “but, anyways, I’m assuming that your newfound gifts began sometime after you returned to the city, allowing you to quickly become everyone's focal point. Your ideas were probably accepted over many others, is that so?”

The grimace returned in full force, “aye, that’s about the size of it. When I realized what was happening, it was already too late to change course. I was rising fast in control, and I knew that I had to put some balances of power in place. Hence the Lords,” he gestured to the table, “they’re here to make sure I don’t mistake my own opinion for being the only opinion.”

I nodded at that, “a good idea, certainly.”

“On a related note,” he leaned towards me, “you seem to be insinuating that those contacted by these pseudo-biotics will develop psychic abilities.”

I shook my head, “not all. There’s some kind of predisposition to it. I’d say it’s far rarer than not, but we’re not sure yet. For all I know, you just existing is giving your entire city the chance to become psychically inclined. You throw out mental waves all the time.”

This time he very visibly flinched. “Ah. That would be… complicated.”

“It would,” I granted, “but, we’re working on discovering if that would even be a problem. From what we can tell, most abilities don’t actually do what the movies seemed to indicate, at least not yet. You shouldn’t be able to mind control people against their will, for instance.”

I strictly didn’t mention that Wolven did that exact thing to those that it had woven into its mass. Not likely the best topic for the time.

“So, that at least confirms, or lends credence to our hypothesis at least,” I nodded, “it changes nothing for now, though. But we’ll have to keep an eye out for this… Digger, you mentioned.”

“I suppose that will be for the best,” wagered Harris, “then, I thank you for hearing me out, and giving that information. I’d feared that the first group of outsiders we encountered would be less than amenable to sharing information.”

“And more about taking advantage,” I surmised, “I agree that’ll likely be an issue for most groups. But, I figure that as direct neighbors, it’s in our mutual best interest to have absolute trust in the other. And besides that,” I grinned widely, “biotics are my main concern.”

He smiled, and we exchanged pleasantries and bid each other farewell for the time being.

Now, we’d have the ever so thrilling time of stomping through a jungle looking for Uniques that might be more capable than anything we’d seen before, Wolven hopefully notwithstanding.

“For the Legion,” I sighed, but a smile betrayed how eager I was to get started here. This would be much more fun than Sunvilla.