“This way, Elder Brothers and Sisters,” said the goon, masking any disdain she might be feeling about giving honor to a pack of naturals with practiced efficiency.

Yenx marched along with the rest of the blanks, thinking rapidly. The most important thing to him, or at least the one he had the most control over, seemed to be investigating the Treasure clamped around his wrist. He reached out and tapped on the gem he hadn’t yet tried, resolved to show no alarm, whatever the result.

Thanks to Bajj’s warning he was unsurprised to suddenly see runes forming in the air before him, moving around with his face as it bobbed along with the motion of their march.

Name: Yenx

Biographical Details:

Race: Lizardman

Sex: Male

Age: 9

Rank: Aspirant

Glories: None

Party: None

Vital Statistics:

Might 14

Prowess 12

Endurance 8

Brilliance 14

Cunning 14

Appearance 6

Myrmidon Record:

Tally: None (natural)

Class: Blank

Level: 1

Skills: None

Pledged: None

He read quickly through the long sheet. It was a description of him, or at least the Big Strong Sect’s impressions of him. A lot of the information on it was useless at this time, but it all seemed to add up to him being the lowest of the low, someone who would have to be taught everything.

He blinked a few times, glanced all around his field of vision, and finally worked out a way to sort of send the text away, letting it dwell down in a corner of his eyesight. The Treasure on his forearm was also handily marking the people he could see for him.

All of the other Aspirants, both the lizardmen Zemp had lectured and those that they’d met later, had ‘Blank 1’ floating along at about neck level, inked out in the air in those same little blue letters. Their guide had ‘Frame Pilot 18’ attached to her.

Going off of his own label, that was apparently Class and Level, but beyond the naïve meaning of the words he had no insight into what the Guild’s concept of those was. He tapped the gem again and saw, with some relief, the words disappear from his sight.

Their guide led them down a medium length hallway, longer than the rooms that he’d spent the rest of his brief waking life in, but not long enough for him to get winded. She obviously knew where she was going, and nothing about her bearing seemed to invite questioning.

“Sister Bajj,” murmured Yenx, sidling over to where she could hear him, “Thank you for that information.”

She glanced over at him, as though puzzled, and he indicated his arm band. She gave a satisfied nod.

The tunnel opened up into a new chamber before they could talk any further, a much larger chamber than they’d seen previously.

The Hall of Welcome, if this was it, was simply enormous. It was a huge rectangle, with straight walls and a straight roof that felt like it might slide down and crush the inhabitants at any moment. It was lit by a truly unreasonable amount of torches, dozens at least. It had the same glossy black painted coat as the last room that they’d been in, and there was a sort of a lumpy platform in the middle, where the floor swelled up to a bit taller than a person.

A group of other figures, with their Treasures fixed about their forearms, waited for them. Yenx figured these were the rest of the Aspirants, the sponsored ones who hadn’t had their memories destroyed. There were more of them than the blanks, maybe half again as many.

They were all looking up at a being on the top of the central lump, and when Yenx joined them he found the answer to his earlier question, of what kind of myrmidon could cow something as mighty as Zemp.

The human atop the platform was a throng of thousands in a single body. Reality seemed to warp around him, like he was a heavy weight resting on the thin gauze of the world, straining it to the brink of its endurance.

He had at least Four Treasures about him, and he wore the Guild’s loop around his brow, like a crown.

“Welcome,” he said, and Yenx jumped a little, despite himself.

The myrmidon’s voice seemed to emanate from just behind his ear, as though he was being held in a warm embrace and murmured to like a lover. It was the furthest thing from the booming, commanding tone that he’d expected.

“Junior Brothers and Sisters, I am Arro, one of the Autarchs of the Big Strong Sect. I hope that you will address me as ‘Uncle’, should you have occasion to do so.”

Yenx was among the first to drop into a deep bow, fist balled inside his other hand. Zemp had suggested that a woman would be waiting to welcome them to the guild. Had the plans changed?

“No need for obeisance,” said Arro, “I’ll take your bows when I’ve earned them. I want to see respect, not mere brute fear.”

Yenx looked back up, cautiously, only to see the Autarch looking straight back at him. He wondered if this was another Art, that everyone would see the myrmidon looming down at them in particular, or was he actually being stared at?

“I know what you’re all thinking,” continued the Elder, “The ‘Big Strong Sect’? Why not the ‘Big Strong Firm Sect’ while we were at it?”

A few of the other Aspirants found the energy to chuckle at that.

“And we thought about it! We really did! I blame there being lots of Elder Brothers, not a lot of Elder Sisters.”

More chuckling, a few genuine laughs. Arro strutted over to one side on his little platform.

“I’m kidding of course, there’s actually a historical reason for our, um, honored name. It makes sense, I swear. Back when… wait, half of you are blanks.”

He slapped himself rather theatrically on the forehead. Yenx wondered if there was anyone dumb enough in their group to actually believe that any part of this little performance was really extemporaneous.

“The Invokers of Ywekru, the Double God’s blessings on them, get slightly different memories each time they use their Arts, so let me get everyone on the same scroll here.”

Arro moved across the stage, turning his attention from group to group within the crowd. It felt like his regard was actually tangible, like the world was deforming itself where his gaze rested too long.

This wasn’t just a duty to this guy. He enjoyed this. The Autarch was a showman born, or rather, thousands of such.

“Where to start, where to start,” he mused, then held up a finger. “How about at the beginning? Eh?”

Everyone nodded along with him, to his evident delight.

“All right, well, way back, longer than any grandfather who is alive, people noticed that eating one another was the way to go. The how of it isn’t important, basically nations that did it had great leaders and those who didn’t lacked them. It’s not important. Point is, the first myrmidons were just elders, bosses, community leaders. Whoever could get the bodies of their fellows. No organization, no way to channel the essence. Just masters gobbling up the bodies of their minions to get stronger.”

There was a pregnant pause, before the Autarch gave a theatrical shrug.

“Nothing like now, right?”

The chuckles this time were tinged with something Yenx wasn’t quite old enough to understand, a complex mix of emotions.

“Our island has a big forest in the center, you’ll see a map at some point. This forest had two tribes, eventually nations, inside of it. Humans on one side, Beastmen on the other. The myrmidons in the east, the Beastmen, formed the Big Sect. Those on the west, well, they were the Strong Sect.”

Arro held up a finger, as though catching himself in a fib.

“I should say ‘we’ were the Strong Sect. I came up back then, was in one of those first Parties. Twenty years ago, at least.”

Yenx blinked at the time jump, found himself craving a map. Where did the saurin come in?

“We call that time the War in the Woods, though it wasn’t much of a war, not by the standards of what would come later. It’s when the Party System got formalized, when we started training the new guys in the Paths that you will all follow today. We didn’t have these yet,” he pointed to his crown, “But we had a variety of Treasures that were, with the benefit of hindsight, the obvious precursors.”

Yenx tapped the gem on his armband for long enough to see the Autarch’s class and level listed as ‘Stud 44’ before turning it off again.

“These are Sigils, by the way, if nobody’s told you what they were called yet. The sponsored Aspirants know that, of course, but I figured I’d mention it for the blanks. It’s easy for us to forget how much you’ve all lost.”

Arro beamed solemnly down on the crowd, doing that thing where he seemed to be looking right at Yenx again.

“Where was I?” he asked himself, “Oh, right. Hemesh with its Strong Sect and Averna, the holy land of the Beastmen, with its Big Sect. We fought a year and a half, then the Guildmaster came along.”

The Aspirants who weren’t blanks in the crowd tapped fists to forehead at the mention of the Guildmaster, so Yenx followed along.

“Everyone but the blanks knows the story, of course, but the bones of it are that he convinced both Sects of the merits of a merger, killing those who dissented.”

Arro paused for a moment here, and to Yenx it felt like the first genuine moment in the whole speech. He stared off into space for a moment.

“It was a weird time. I don’t know. I was almost on the wrong side of things. It was, hmm, I’ll say it was less obvious then than it has since become that he was correct.”

He recovered his usual aplomb in a second, slick enough that Yenx felt like he might have imagined the momentary wistfulness.

“In any case, the nations of the forest were allied, their Sects merged. The Big Strong Sect was formed. But the Guildmaster wasn’t satisfied. His dream was, and is, to unify every Sect, get every tribute on the island running to the same group of myrmidons. So we tried to spread out. In particular, we tried to spread to the South.”

Another pause, this one more obviously calculated.

“It didn’t go well. This was called the Border War, but it barely deserves the title. The Nincenji Singlekings were herders of goblins, and we could make no real headway against the numbers of their thralls. They, on the other hand, never quite managed to get over their critters’ manterror and force them in among the trees. There were a couple of duels, one or two small engagements, but not a lot really happened.”

One of the Aspirants, a human with a truly pronounced nose, actually raised a hand at that, but put it down when Arro frowned at him and shook his head.

“The stalemate continued, a war in nothing but name for five whole years. Ultimately the Nincenji Tripleking convinced the Elders of Averna to make peace, despite the Guild’s best efforts.”

Arro gave a rueful chuckle.

“The Guildmaster was enraged, of course, but there wasn’t anything to be done. We’d spent what influence we had with our host nations, and given them scant victories to show for it. We turned our gaze away from the south, to Mojjoth and Glikos to the west and northwest, but our hearts weren’t really in it. The conflicts with them never really even got a name.”

Arro took his position back in the center of the platform, looked up, as though he could see through the roof.

“The Gods took a hand, at this point. The Chief God of our island, Ykenka, the God of the Present, petitioned the Double God and was granted the right to marry off his daughter, Ymoska, the Goddess of the Future. The Gods of the other islands flocked to our humble land, and their mortal followers trailed along behind.”

The Autarch looked back down to his audience.

“The thing to understand about the island is that Nincenji covers the bulk of it, and it’s all the best land. It was a band right across the middle of the island, with the wastes to the south and the forest to the north, covered in acre after acre of farmland, all worked by endless legions of goblins.”

The Aspirants with memories were nodding along to this description.

“Where else was the Emerald Empire going to land?”

At the mention of the Empire there was an unmistakable reaction. Faces contorted in anger, fists clenched. This was not merely a rival, but a hated enemy.

“The Weeds landed peacefully enough, begging the Tripleking for trade privileges, promising wonders to delight his weary people. They were received peacefully and in friendship, no one knew what they would bring.”

He scowled to himself.

“Before too long they were everywhere, Emerald Empire ships in the ports, their greenwives bending the ears of the Doublekings and their merchants stirring up discontent among the populace.”

Arro seemed to take a hold of himself, as though to cut emotions off at the root.

“Blanks, if you want the details, you can ask your colleagues for them. The important thing is that the Emerald Empire suborned the eastern provinces and made war against the Tripleking. Their ‘advisors’ were myrmidons beyond what the Nincenji orthodox could cope with, and their wonder weapons were tilting the battles ever further in their favor.”

He gave a solemn nod, as though to underline what he was about to say.

“Fate’s a funny thing, isn’t it? We’d fought the Border War against the Nincenji nobility, and now we were the only ones who could save them. It took the Guildmaster to make it happen. He surrendered himself, went bound before the Tripleking, and brokered an impossible deal. We finally crossed that border, finally found ourselves taking war to the Nincenji heartlands, but we did so as their defenders.”

His eyes took on a faraway cast, as though he was lost in his memories. Yenx didn’t believe it for a second.

“With the Guild’s entry the Sect War was joined in full, and all of the most famous battles took place. Shining River, Two Dawns, The Hilltop and a dozen more. Guilders clashed with the Empire’s advisors, while Orthodox and Emancipationist phalanxes ground against one another. It was conflict bloody beyond words, it made every war before, or since, look like a bad joke, like children playing with sticks.”

Arro grimaced, looked own for a moment.

“And we were losing.”

He raised a hand sharply, as though to still an outcry, and Yenx saw that more than a few of the Aspirants had, incredibly, opened their mouths to protest.

“I know that isn’t what your parents taught you, but in the Guild we speak the truth. The truth, unfortunately, is that the Empire, with the Grove behind them, had the better of things. We were being ground down, Parties losing members left and right. The Tripleking actually tried to abdicate at one point. Things were bad.”

Arro gave a rueful grin.

“It was only the enemy’s hubris which saved us. The Empire had finally landed a legion of its own troops, and they were unstoppable. It seemed like the deathblow, and their advisors flocked to join up with it. It pushed its way through our lines with ease, smashed us in a pair of battles I still shudder to remember. It reached the borders of the sacred wood, and nobody had any real hope that we could stop it.”

Despite himself, Yenx felt drawn into the Autarch’s story. He willed the pause to end, willed Arro to go on with his story.

“And then they did the one thing that on one from the island would ever imagine doing. They pushed on through and invaded Nwaddruh, the sacred mountain kingdom of the Goyles. Madness.”

Arro gave a sheepish shrug.

“I can only imagine what possessed them. They’d smashed everything else we claimed was invincible, they must have thought the winged demons were just another exaggeration. Or perhaps they thought their flatbows would save them. I couldn’t say. I’d give a lot to know why they did it.”

He looked from one audience member to the next, taking his time.

“With the Legion destroyed, the rebels sued for peace. The Guildmaster wanted to launch a counteroffensive, but we managed to persuade him against that course of action. I met with the rebel Doublekings, watched the greenwives, the Dryads, move unhindered among them. We made a partition, split their new country of Jendha off the east side of Ninenji, let them take half the country to preserve what we could.”

This memory was plainly an outrage to the autarch. His teeth clenched and his jaw worked like he was chewing on it.

“With my own hand I signed the Nine Years Peace, brought an end to the Sect War and ushered the Guild into its present era.”

Yenx looked to the others, hoping one of them would ask the obvious question, but Arro answered it before anyone needed to.

“That was seven years ago.”