Without another word, the Cerberus turns and heads down the hall, clearly expecting me to follow. Which, of course, I’d love to, but I have this issue where my sword is embedded in a werewolf…

“Hold on to this for me, would you?” I say, releasing my side of the sword. Its face twists in anguish at the sudden weight exacerbating its stomach wound, but to its credit, it doesn’t make a sound. I don’t feel great leaving my strongest weapon behind, but I always have my trusty backup stick…

Rather, it’s more that I firmly believe that if my negotiations fail, we’re all dead anyway, so being under-armed is not going to make a difference. The other side of that is… maybe I could get away if I burned Energy at maximum. Plus, that would give the people inside the time to maybe kill off the other werewolves… but then the Cerberus would get the stone. Probably. Zathis could always encase it in rock or something… then the army would be after me again, but I’d have no backup.

I shrug to myself. At least it’s not certain death… and maybe Lauren would rogue her way to survival. That’s a pretty shitty worst case scenario though, especially compared with getting my hands on a dominated boss monster. I have no illusions of being able to actually control something like that, but, if it lets me start the Domination process… there’s more than a little potential there. I just have to pray the souls I enslaved are both intact and delusional enough to vouch for me. If they don’t, I’ll use the Energy connection to dump orange Energy into it to slow it down while I run like hell.

The sun beats down on me as I emerge from the cave, trying not to think about how many Carnines and Lieutenants are still massed outside. I fail. It’s a lot. At least a thousand remain, but it could easily be more with the way the hills hide their true numbers.

The Cerberus stops in the center of the clearing outside, and I immediately realize that, although the monsters have cleared a space for us, we’re still entirely surrounded. Fuck. The Cerberus turns and faces me. “Begin.”

I raise my hand slowly and begin to carefully walk towards it, but stop just a foot short of it. The things heads tower well above my reach, so it’s more practical than anything, but it serves the dual purpose of allowing it to make the final move. Signs of trust and all that. I don’t even want to think about the Energy response this thing can give if it wants to.

It inclines the middle head, the one that’s been doing the speaking, to my hand, and touches it. I don’t miss the fact that the fire and ice heads stare intently at me, likely watching for any underhanded moves. Fortunately, they can’t see what I’m going to try, so I’m… partially safe. I activate River’s Source and let my concentration deepen until the weird soul world comes into focus around me. Kaythe appears next to me, as well as the Cerberus. The Carnines and Lieutenant sit dutifully, but immediately bow upon registering that the Cerberus is here. “Master.” The Lieutenant speaks. “But… why have you come here?” It shoots an openly hostile glare at me, and I raise my hands to hopefully convey that it’s not what it looks like.

“Most… peculiar. I believed you to be lying with absolute certainty, and yet, here they are. Now let us see if you spoke only truth. Carcicus, tell me, are you the source of this creature’s knowledge of our goal?”

“I am.”

“Why did you see it prudent to share that information?”

“I… believe the monster could do no extra harm with that knowledge, and that it might allow a peaceful resolution. I hoped to convince it to give the stone willingly.”

“...Very well. The creature has offered me a deal, and I would have your advice. It offers the stone in exchange for…” It turns to me, waiting. “Oh, ah, a connection similar to the one you have… Carcicus? But a more equal one. You would maintain your physical form and independence, but we would be linked. I would gain some of your characteristics, and you, some of mine. As the bond grows in strength, which happens naturally over time, you would gain access to my… soul Energy, and begin to grow because of it. I can promise that the positives are numerous and useful. Kaythe here used to be a simple Cathid, and the bond turned him into a warrior.”

“It is true!” Kaythe wiggles happily as he speaks. “I have grown much under the Predator.”

The cerberus examines Kaythe with a critical eye before returning its attention to Carcicus. “What say you?”

“The monster made a deal with me to seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict, and your presence here indicates it has adhered to the deal, despite the fact that there was little I could do to punish it in the event it failed to uphold its end. That is worth something, though I do not think trusting it is wise. It is crafty, and seeks to turn much of what it encounters to its own purposes.”

“Yes, I agree. It has said it wishes the same things as we do. Do you believe it?”

“I cannot know. The magics it uses are unlike any I have seen so far, so it is possible.”

“Can you leave this place?”

“I cannot. I am dead. Only my essence lingers here, captured in service to the monster. I serve willingly, so long as it furthers our goals.” Not the most flattering way of putting it, but it’s not wrong.

“How do I know you will not attempt to lock me in here, with the others?”

“Carcinus could tell you why that would be a terrible idea for me, but the short of it is that you’d probably kill me or take over my body, I don’t know which. It tried to do the same when I first took them.”

The Lieutenant dips its head in silent agreement. Silence lingers for a long while as the Cerberus thinks. It’s clearly intelligent, but is it desperate enough to risk this? My hope is that it never really believed it could win alone against the things that created this place, but it hoped to find true oblivion in the process, or at least bloody the nose of its tormenter. If that’s the case, it might start to believe we could win… and it might trust me just enough. If it’s confident, then I’ve already lost, but I doubt it would have taken the time to come here if it was.

“I… will trust you, creature. Rest assured, if you betray me, your suffering will be legendary.”

“Fair.”

I let River’s Source fall away, and immediately feel the mule kick of a headache that follows using it like that, but power through. This is no time to be showing weakness. The Cerberus does not move its middle head, but its eyes open, and stare at me as though its trying to see into my soul… again.

“I need you to be willing. If you’re not willing, bad things will happen. I’ve never tried this on something… stronger than me.”

“You do not sound confident.”

“I know it will either work, or I’ll be the one suffering, so it’s more fear for my own sake.”

It lets out a low, grumbling growl. Not positive, but it doesn’t move away. Here goes… everything.

I push gold Energy into my hand, and carefully press it against the boundary between our bodies, having already mobilized a fair amount of orange Energy for… a variety of safety reasons. No counterattack comes, however, and slowly, my Energy leaks through. Point after point disappears, and before long, I’ve used half of my entire pool. No notification. Kaythe took like… two points to get the initial bond formed, and I’ve put in around fifty- no, it must be more, because I’m still regenerating during the process. Just how strong is this thing?

I get to only about twenty remaining Energy before a notification pops up:

[Warning! Willpower of Domination target substantially exceeds that of the user. Extreme damage will result if the bond is rejected! Proceed? (Y/N)]

Not like I have a choice.

[Calculating soul fidelity…

Insufficient.

Querying for solutions… Done.

Compressing…

Bond instability detected! Resolve immediately!]

“What is this?! It seeks to take my strength! You lied to me, creature! I will-”

“I didn’t lie! It’s temporary! I’m not strong enough to tie us together with you as strong as you are, but it will come back! You’ll be stronger than before, by leaps and bounds you’ll grow, but you have to trust me!”

“Deceiver!”

“We can do this! Trust me!”

[Warning, instability critical. Total bond failure imminent!]

“I should never have tried. I’ll do this myself.”

“You’ll fail and die alone! You’ll rejoin the cycle, and this will have been the last chance you had, and you will torment yourself forever because of what could have been!”

“Then at least I shall die whole.”

“I will make you better than whole.”

“... You swear this?”

“I swear on my life, and my love of it.”

[Instability lowering to within tolerable levels. Proceeding…

Compression complete.

Bond initiation complete.]

[Congratulations! Cerberus domination milestone reached! Cerberus 5% dominated. -50 Max Energy.]

Minus fi- oh for fucks sake.

---

End of book one.