I plopped down into my favorite chair, kicking my feet up on the ottoman. With just a thought, twelve flat, black squares appeared before me, spaced evenly of three rows and four columns. They were first connected to my soul in order to give them access to my view of my demesne. Then they were each assigned a participant to track. The result was twelve windows that showed each of the twelve competitors in real-time. This was a feat only available to me within the grounds of my estate, the epicenter of my domain, where my demigod powers were the most concentrated.

Wolfram, who stood beside me, spoke up, “Why did you do that?” My Attendant is highly capable and loyal, but his thinking is often quite narrow. Ninety-two years of service and he still hadn’t changed much. Though I’ve long suspected that something about these powers is related to that phenomenon.

Rather than handing him the answer, I threw the question back at him, “Why wouldn’t I do that?” He thought it over.

“You’re giving them a challenge to overcome?” he guessed.

“Close, but there’s more to it. For one thing, they’re too confident; they need a reality check.”

“And what’s the other reason?”

“Bait,” I replied casually. He already knew, after all, he was the one who handed me the report.

Wolfram and I watched the various scenes in silence. Von and Lloyd were conversing while hidden within a copse of trees.

“Oh?” I expanded Von’s window. Lloyd had handed him his card. They exchanged a few more words before heading off in opposite directions. “Von truly is a worthy Apostle,” I smiled.

I could hardly remember the last time I met someone so suited for the role, mine or otherwise. Was it four hundred or five hundred years ago? Wiesis’s current Apostle purportedly closely resembled him, though I had yet to meet him. Wiesis himself, however, I’ve met before, though he was still an Apostle at the time. The man was rather unlike his lord, Lucas, but the two shared the same ideologies and values. Wiesis was a good man, one I respected, even if he didn’t reciprocate.

The death of Lucas during the last Mithos war had wounded Wiesis so deeply that his then recently inherited Imperium ran rampant, nearly flooding capital city Squall’s End. When I heard what happened, out of respect for the late Lucas, I ordered a temporary halt to all Vagabond and Jesters operations within Battos. Wiesis needed time to grow accustomed to his new role.

My bittersweet reverie was interrupted by a voice. “What are they doing now?” asked Wolfram curiously.

I turned my head to face him. “Causing chaos.”

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

I bounded over the overgrowth lining the edge of the grove, enjoyed the brief feeling of soaring through the air, then hit the ground, resuming my mad scramble. The Ratatoskr pursuing me was relentless.

You owe me for this, Von!

Frankly, this plan was absurd, but I couldn’t deny its effectiveness. We weren’t trying to win. Instead, Von, as characteristic of him, had concocted this madness with his own amusement in mind.

It was an interesting plan, but unfortunately for me, it involved a lot of running. As for Von, he would spend as much time as possible hidden away, until he was either found or I signaled him with the piece of shadow I had left him.

My mad dash through the grounds of the estate had been going on for only a few minutes, but I was already huffing and puffing.

Why, might you ask, was I running around like a drug-fueled chicken? Simply put, I was ‘recruiting’ assistance. The player who had my pursuer as their target was out here, somewhere. By making as much of a ruckus as possible, the chances that person would find us drastically shot up.

“Screw – hah – you, Von!” I shouted, desperately sucking in air between each word.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t yet come up with a way to slow down the persistent Ratatoskr. Using my shadow-whip was too risky; if he’d be able to pull me right in if he caught it. We were running too fast for one of my shadow-creatures to keep up. Other possibilities came to mind, but none were effective enough to attempt.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

“Looks like Lloyd’s having a rough go of it,” Wolfram commented.

“Hm,” I muttered as I scanned the viewing windows arrayed before me. Von’s scheme had started to pick up steam. While players were slowly being picked off, Lloyd had managed to hold out for quite some time. The moment he had been marked was when the chaos began in earnest.

“What do you mean, you don’t have your card? Don’t you have to be eliminated for you to lose it?” the Ratatoskr, Dak, barked.

“The rules didn’t say anything about not being able to give it away, only that you have to hand over your card when you’re eliminated. I don’t have the card, I have nothing to give you,” said Lloyd, measuring his words.

“Hey, Cad’, is this for real?”

I usually have a rule of non-intervention once the game begins, but I’ll have to make an exception. “It’s true,” I confirmed, projecting my voice to their location through my Imperium. “Lloyd gave his card away. It’s kind of a unique situation, so I went ahead and set the glove so that you could still eliminate Lloyd. If I hadn’t done that, he’d be invincible.”

Dak folded his arms. “Now what? Does he go get his card for me or what?”

“No, you get nothing,” I bluntly stated.

He threw his arms up, “The fuck!?”

Honestly, I felt kinda bad for the guy, Von’s quite the bastard when he wants to be. That’s one of the few differences between us; he’s got no qualms with literally running people ragged. I decided to lend him a helping hand. “If you want the card, you should head towards the main gate.”

Lloyd, wheezing as he laid there, suddenly barked out, “Cadius, come on! You already screwed us once!”

I snickered.

“Hey, don’t just laugh! Get over here so I can punch your teeth in!”

Oops.

“Ahem,” Wolfram’s voice could be heard through the viewport, “Lloyd, please make your way to the mansion.”

“My lord! I thought you agreed to not imitate my voice?” the real Wolfram barked. There was a pregnant pause. “Don’t just ignore me!”

“…Can you just let this one slide?” I tentatively asked, clinging to the slim hope-

“No.”

Shit.

A sudden movement from one of the viewports caught my attention. Wolfram, to his credit, immediately shifted gears, having seen my focused expression.

“Looks like we hooked one,” I commented.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

“Crimson wisps, you’re a slipper bastard!” The man shouted.

“Thanks for the compliment,” I retorted, plastering a smile on my face. To be honest, I was starting to feel somewhat unsettled. He had gotten a good hit in, knocking me to the ground, then just stood over my prone form. Those eyes, they were wide and jittery, unhinged. A blade was pulled from its scabbard, sunlight reflecting off the polished steel.

Shit! This guy’s trying to kill me!

No Anima. I fumbled for the blade at my hip.

“AHH!!” the man roared as he plunged the blade down.

Before the sword could pierce my heart, something appeared above my chest. The sword bounced ineffectually off the obstruction.

“Ha!?” he cried out in frenzied confusion.

A familiar voice rung out. “Tsk, tsk. What made you think that this was in any way a sane idea?”

The man’s shadow rippled, and another familiar figure silently rose up from its fathomless depths. In one elegant motion, Wolfram unsheathed his blade and severed the man’s sword-arm at the wrist, leaving behind a patch of blackness that kept him from bleeding out.

“AH-urrghh!!” the man’s scream was cut short. Wolfram had dropped his blade, letting it sink into his shadow, and put the man in a chokehold.

I couldn’t move, I could barely think. One moment, I had a sword pointed at my heart, and the next, the assassin was now down one hand and gasping desperately for air. There was nothing that I could have done in the past two weeks to have prepared me for this.

The assassin’s struggling slowly died out. Wolfram let go and he dropped like a sack of wet rags. Instead of hitting the ground, however, he sank into it. I blinked. Oh, Wolfram had used his Imperium to send the man to some other location, probably a holding cell or something.

“Von?”

I belatedly realized Wolfram had been trying to get my attention. “Sorry, I um. Thanks for saving me,” I said, barely managing to form a coherent sentence.

“Don’t mention it. We had been watching closely for this moment,” he informed me, eyeing the bloodstained grass. “I got a report this morning. Allegedly, an assassin had infiltrated the city and registered for the Heist Game. Cadius suspected that you and Lloyd were the likely targets, so we monitored the two of you to ensure your safety and to swiftly capture the culprit.”

I blinked. “Why did Cadius think we were their targets? You’ve got other important people here, right?”

“He said it was ‘a hunch.’”

“Figures,” I snorted.

There was a long pause.

“What happens now?” I asked.

“You’ve been eliminated,” I heard Cadius’s voice.

“What?” Almost as if he read my mind, a mirror materialized in front of me. There, on my neck, was a glowing red mark. “Well, shit,” I pouted. “Wait, if that guy can’t play, what happens to my cards?”

Wolfram was the one to answer that question. “They’ll go to the person who had him as their target.”

I felt a bit miffed that my fun had ended so soon, but whatever. “At least tell Lloyd-”

“He’s already been eliminated,” Cadius cut me off.

“Drat,” I stood up, “I’ll have to settle for just watching, then.” I looked to Wolfram, then down towards his shadow. “Can you give me a ride? I don’t really feel up for walking.”

He nodded, then gripped my arm. “This might be a bit disorientating,” he warned me.

For a moment, I felt weightless, then I dropped into a lightless abyss. It felt like plunging into a lake, but instead of water it was some viscous fluid. Instinct took over as a fluid filled my lungs, causing my entire body to convulse and heave. The silence was maddening; not even my own noises of distress could be heard. Opening my eyes was pointless as, once again, I was in a lightless abyss.

The pain from my violent full-body spasms blocked any attempt at rational, coherent thought. Coughing, desperate for breath. Wretched, I felt wretched.

My surroundings changed abruptly. I stumbled as gravity took over, feet met solid ground. A hand held me steady. I coughed several times before belatedly realizing that my lungs had been, in fact, clear. Huh? No matter how closely I examined myself, I found no signs that I had even been submerged in any kind of liquid; my clothes were dry and breath unhindered. Could it have just been all in my head? Or was it something else?

Fuck it, I’ll think about it later. I repeated the phrase to myself, almost becoming a mantra used to quiet my bewildered mind. With that settled, I turned my attention to the conversation happening in front of me.

“Why didn’t you warn him about that?” I heard Lloyd say.

“I told him it would be disorienting,” Wolfram grumbled.

I opened my eyes and saw Lloyd, arms folded, staring daggers at a somewhat taken-aback Wolfram. Between the two was a rather comfy looking sofa chair – throne hybrid. Beyond that wonderful piece of furniture, several squares hung in the air, arranged in a grid. Through them, I could see each of the contestants still participating in the final round.

“Yeah, this is a great view.” I walked up beside the chair. “Hey, can one of you get me another chair?”

I didn’t need to turn around to know that the two of them had looks of disgust on their face. The sound of knuckles cracking, real or imagined, sent a shiver down my spine.

“…I’m just glad you’re safe,” I heard Lloyd mutter, barely audible.

I spun around and pulled him into an embrace. “Sorry, I got careless,” I told him.

“Mm.”

“By the way,” I spoke towards the chair, “what was that?”

“What was what?” Cadius asked coyly.

“You know what I’m referring to. That thing that stopped the blade. Wolfram didn’t do that. That leaves…”

“Well, it was an illusion,” he began. I waited for him to continue. “…that I temporarily turned into reality.”

“WHAT!?” Lloyd and I shouted simultaneously.

“Agh, don’t scream in my ears like that!” he complained. “It’s just as I said. That’s all I’ll say for now.”

I stood there, slack jawed. That’s an absurdly powerful ability. Yes, there are demigods that can call down tempests and split the earth in two, but this was different. Cadius’s ability was downright terrifying.

“It is regarded as one of the strongest Imperium of them all, I’ll have you know,” he said smugly. “What else could explain the fact that no one has dared to invade Milon in nearly a thousand years?”

Yeah, that made sense. With that power, the possibilities were infinite. Even if there were harsh restrictions on what, where, or even how fast he could real-ify stuff. Honestly, I couldn’t even begin to fathom what the pinnacle of mastery with this skill would look like.

The screens moved around, expanding, and filling in the gaps where, presumably, the now-eliminated players’ viewports were.

“Oh, and before I forget. Let this be a lesson: under no circumstances are you to ever, in any way, oppose a demigod within their demesne. You can’t hide, fight, escape, nothing. In fact, it’s better to just treat them as a god while they’re there,” he said with the most serious expression I’ve seen from him yet.

…So, rather than try to wrap my head around the events of the past few minutes, I just shrugged, shoving all those thoughts to the back of my mind, plopped down on the arm of Cadius’s chair, and engrossed myself in watching the remaining competitors duke it out.