Lugh leaned back in his chair, careful to slouch a bit to make it look natural. With the sensors inside every room within the facility, he could never be sure if Peja or one of her lackeys was watching him. He’d learned this long ago when another Associate had forgotten and paid with her life. She’d been brought back but stuffed into another world to pay the debt for her resurrection. As far as he knew, the woman was still working it off centuries later.

His usually pristine hair, almost black but with artful streaks of silver at each temple, was mussed from distracted hands while the world went mad around him. Crystal tablets and papers covered much of his desk in little stacks. His large screen, made from decoherent mana within a crystallized matrix and tied in with the Associates' systems, revealed his most recent scans and their frustrating results.

He rubbed his forehead, not bothering to pretend his frustration was anything but sincere. The slight hum of his office’s security systems failed to bring its usual reassurance, now more a reminder of his imprisoned existence. With Peja’s orders, no one would have any breaks for the foreseeable future, which meant Lugh was trapped here. It also meant he couldn’t access his personal resources, making finding Enigma much more difficult.

The man had appeared out of nowhere a while back, somehow within Lugh’s shielded lab cut off from the Associates, Oververse, and any other form of intrusion outside the Greater System itself. With the Mundane’s presence disrupting the site’s carefully balanced security, there’d been little time for a comprehensive analysis. Instead of harvesting the interloper for little gain, Lugh had taken a bit of a gamble and installed his standard package of tracking and utility minions, his systems confirming successful integration. He’d then tossed Enigma through a Gateway to a city far from the Associates. Yet, the man might as well have returned to whatever reality he’d sprung from with how thoroughly he’d vanished from all detection.

Of course, Lugh had other ways to track his subjects. Almost in reflex, his essence reached out, trying to connect with a particular tiny sliver of his soul, but there was no matching resonance – only silence. The beautiful soulbound dagger he’d provided, Everlasting End, didn’t answer. He’d given such weapons to many promising subjects like Banshee and Enigma, their obvious utility ensuring their use. But beyond helping to keep his subjects alive, they also served as a secondary tracker allowing Lugh to pinpoint their exact location. Yet, despite all these preparations, Enigma had apparently never pulled the weapon from his dimensional storage bracelet, leaving it unable to communicate.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he smothered the surge of fury that came along with his continued failure. After all, it wasn’t the only open mystery plaguing his thoughts. At the same time that Enigma was living up to his name, one of the Associates’ assets down on the prison world’s largest continent went crazy.

Lugh had looked into this Boruta’s background once Peja and Sera dumped him with the project, and the Lurran had clearly lost his mind over the last few local centuries. It was a well-known axiom that the death of other creatures was necessary for optimal growth. So much energy was often trapped inside those without true vision, calling for a little judicious redistribution of their power. Yet, while Lugh might harvest and cull a few select individuals in pursuit of his path, Boruta killed thousands.

As one of their assets, visual recordings captured many of the madman’s exploits. There was something to be said for the artistry of creating “accidents” or even simple assassinations, but Boruta had obviously gone in a different direction. Torture, cannibalism, and murder were just the start of his activities, though they didn’t make him too different from some of their other Lurran assets. The man’s worst crime was how he’d wasted countless resources in his inefficient harvesting, much of the precious energies lost with the way in which he killed his victims.

Unfortunately, before the Associates could get any sort of return on their investment, their asset had gone and died on them, foiling centuries of plans. They still had no explanation for why the madman had left his territory, nor how a Peak Initiate could suffer a final death without some powerful being’s intervention. With how closely they tracked all of the Initiates, they could be sure that none had been anywhere close to where their asset perished.

Lugh couldn’t help but think there had to be a connection between Enigma and the asset, even though he’d sent the man to Gealidesh, nearly a thousand kilometers away from Boruta’s forest. There should have been no way that the two could interact in such a short timeframe, even using one of the flimsy local airships. Yet, the Associates’ projections had gone wrong almost immediately after Enigma’s entry into the prison world. Some piece of data was obviously missing, and like a persistent itch he couldn’t scratch, it was driving him mad.

Now he was stuck looking into the background particulars to try and ascertain where their strategy had gone awry. Well, and to let Peja know who to blame so she could eliminate or otherwise punish the culprit, depending on how well they’d ingratiated themselves into her good graces.

Lugh swiped at his display, and the report vanished. A pointing finger expanded another file along the page’s side to show points of interest for Boruta’s most recent exploits. While pretending to study the results, he mentally reviewed his contingencies. Depending on the circumstances, the blame should fall on his primary or secondary targets. Still, he considered setting up a tertiary patsy, just in case the other two were somehow protected from Peja’s wrath. It didn’t hurt to be extra careful, especially when his continued existence was on the line.

A beep interrupted his thoughts. Letting a small frown show, he opened the communication with a thought. A young blonde woman, her hair in the same tight pinned hairstyle that Peja preferred, appeared in his display.

“Sub-director Lugh,” Sera said with a professional nod and just the proper respect for someone in his position. “Lady Peja would like an update.”

“Senior underseer Sera,” he began with the hint of a nod towards the woman. “My last report from yesterday still stands with nothing new to report.”

“I see,” she replied, drawing out the last word. “Unfortunate, but if that is all, I will convey your lack of results to Lady Peja.”

Lugh waved a hand, showing a bit of the frustration he largely kept bottled up inside. “I have completed detailed scans within the northern wilds far beyond the Remnant’s borders, even extending the parameters out to nearly a thousand kilometers. I have reports along multiple physical and dimensional boundaries, visual records within hundreds of locations, and projections covering thousands of variables. Everything is compiled and already at your disposal with a summary reporting the same.”

Sera sniffed as if doubting his words.

“Let me remind you that this was dropped on me after that asset suffered a final death,” he continued, adding a little heat to his words. “It’s obviously not my fault that someone in the Association screwed up Lady Peja’s plans.”

“Understood, sub-director Lugh.” A dangerous glint sparkled in her eyes above tight lips.

“Well, if that’s all,” he said, lifting his nose and looking slightly down towards the pickup while preparing to cut the connection.

“Another moment of your time,” Sera interrupted. She leaned forward, her face growing in his display. “I’m sending you Lady Peja’s invitation for an Associates meeting.”

He blinked but smothered the scowl that tried to emerge at another useless meeting with that group of fools and power-hungry animals. Peja might see something in his reaction, assuming she reviewed the security recordings of this conversation, but he doubted Sera had a high enough perception. “Of course, senior underseer Sera,” he said instead. “What is the nature of this meeting?”

She gave another nod with the exact amount of deference for his title. “We will cover many topics, but the primary goal is to understand the status of your Boruta Dunmaru project,” she finished. The ghost of a smile tugged at her mouth while she leaned back as if entirely comfortable with her part to play in the matter.

Realizing that he wasn’t the only one setting up a target for Peja’s wrath, the sound of his heartbeat intruded on his thoughts, the pace increasing against his wishes. Needing to cut the communication before he gave himself away to this amateur, he simply nodded.

“Until then, sub-director Lugh,” Sera said, her smile widening for an instant before her image dissolved into swirling colors.

***

Eli hummed a song while studying the object on the blanket before him. It was an 8-string instrument similar to a guitar, but its body had a peculiar triangular shape. The strings were some sort of silvery metal, the tuning knobs gold, and the entire body stained red. Strumming it produced a beautiful, almost metallic, sound, but with a surprising depth to the notes. With a bit of practice, he thought he might be able to play a few of the simple songs he knew.

Triantala

Item Class: Uncommon

The name didn’t tell him a whole lot, but at least the object was somewhat familiar compared to the other musical instruments he’d already inspected. There had been something that looked like a giant bagpipe, but with two flexible metal tubes spotted with holes leading off from the oversized leather bag. Another might have been a harp, except that he couldn’t get it to play a sound no matter how hard he plucked the golden strings.

On his lap was a wooden tray pulled from his DS. It wasn’t the best writing surface, especially with how the corners repeatedly dug into the inside of his legs, but it was better than using the blankets or ground. He’d already filled up a few pages with notes while working through the bracelet's contents and wrote more details about the guitar, or triantala as it was apparently called. Idly adjusting the wooden tray again, he finished with a brief sketch along the margins for later reference. A moment later, the item vanished at his touch.

He leaned back against the massive tree, briefly stretching to get the kinks out after sitting for so long. Since he’d arrived back here so late in the day, the sun already halfway to the horizon, he’d decided to put off his journey to the manor until tomorrow. That way, he could get a good night’s rest and start fresh at dawn. Plus, he could spend some hours finally sorting through his storage bracelet – a project he’d been forced to put off for weeks until Fluxi clued him in on how to operate the darned thing.

Getting back to work, he sent his mind within the DS, studying the contents already shifted into a few piles. The things he’d reviewed were on one side. On the other, smaller groups of objects sat waiting for his perusal. There wasn’t too much left, and he figured he’d probably get through most of it by the time he went to sleep. The next unsorted item was highlighted to his augmented sight just before an object settled in his right hand.

Weighted Sphere

Item Class: Common

“Well, that’s a whole lot of nothing,” he said, turning it around in his hands. Maybe a hundred more sat within an open barrel inside the dimensional space. About the size of a dark grey racquetball, he’d seen them a few times over the past weeks, but he was no closer to understanding their purpose. Like many of the paraphernalia he’d perused, the reason for Lugh storing it away was a mystery. Eli figured his first assumption that the man had treated the storage bracelet as a kind of “junk drawer” was indeed correct.

Idly tossing the ball in the air and catching it, he was surprised at how light it was. For a “weighted sphere,” it didn’t weigh all that much. Still, the smooth metallic object gave him an idea.

Standing up, he walked into the nearby woods, looking for a good target. Weeks ago, when this whole adventure began, one of the first things he’d done was hurl a small rock at a blood cultist asshat about to sacrifice Dara. The toss had connected with gruesome results, though it might have been more the help of Guide’s Tracking program than any particular skill on Eli’s part. Still, one of his gripes during the fight with Boruta and the recent trial had been the lack of any ranged attacks. If these spheres were tough enough to take one of his throws, they could be an excellent addition to his martial repertoire.

After a few minutes of looking, he spotted a fallen pine tree with blue leaves not too far from his campsite. Someone had already chopped off much of the lumber, leaving little more than the stump on its side, its spindly roots dry and darkened with age. Shielded by the thick forest canopy overhead, the half-meter wide stump and the ground around it had remained bone-dry. It should work well for his purposes, assuming he could manage to move the thing.

He glanced around, toggling on Manasight. Way out here in the forest with only the sacrificial structure nearby, he couldn’t imagine who would have harvested the wood except for the blood cultists, but he didn’t see anyone. Plenty of little creatures and birds were in the trees, their chittering calls making him think of home. Further into the forest was a multitude of lights from larger animals, but so far, they didn’t seem too interested in him.

Satisfied with his relative safety for the moment, he pressed a hand into the top of the wood, leaning down and giving it a little weight. It held up well to the pressure with only a slight give in the rough bark. Planting his back foot in the ground, he gave the stump a little shove to test the heft. As if it was hollow, it rolled away, some of its roots kicking up a cloud of dry earth right in his face.

“What the hell?” he coughed, wiping some of the muck off.

Feeling impressively stupid at his carelessness, he walked over to the stump’s new resting place a few meters away, a slight trail plowed into the ground from its passage. Getting on the other side, he pointed it back towards his camp, giving it a little shove to send it on its way. Surprised anew at how easy it was to move the big hunk of wood, he wondered if it really was hollow or if the recent changes to his body had somehow increased his strength.

A few minutes of work had him set the thing on the side of the nearby earthen slope. The stiff old roots made it a bit difficult with how they stuck out, but a little digging into the rain-soaked soil created a small cavity that fixed the issue. With only a little more effort, he had a nice target with a decent backstop to catch his missed throws. Hopefully, with how the stump sat at an angle, any potential ricochets would bounce into the soft ground.

He walked down into the damp grass towards the nearby boulders, counting off fifteen paces to start. Moving a small stone to mark the spot in the turf, he turned back as one of the weighted spheres materialized in one hand. Judging the distance, it was about right for a pitcher throwing to home plate, not that he’d tried that since school.

Taking a stance with his body turned slightly to the side while eyeing the stump, he targeted the center of mass to make it easier on himself. The soft wet soil squelched as he twisted his bare feet to get a better grip, remembering how he’d fallen hard after throwing that rock last time. There was a better than even chance he’d miss a few times, and these weren’t exactly the best conditions. At least there was only a gentle breeze, the vegetation dotting the slope undulating in the late afternoon air.

With the sphere gripped lightly, his arm went back before shooting forward at maybe half strength. He barely caught the motion, the metal ball missing the target by only centimeters, burying itself with a thump into the side of the slope.

“Boy, do I suck at this,” he muttered, thinking he’d need a bit of practice to make this work as another sphere materialized in his hand for the second try.

He repeated the process, his eyes locked on the center of the target, where a knot sat surrounded by thick bark. His arm went back and shot forward. Again it was almost too fast to catch the grey blur, but the high-pitched crack and small blast of woodsy debris marked his results. At the same time, a flock of dark birds in the nearby trees took flight, squawking madly while the bushes and grass shook with small creatures dashing away.

“Sorry, guys,” he said with a bit of humor. Even from this distance, he could see a tiny chunk taken out of the trunk just off center from the knot. He still had to work on his accuracy, but the spheres could definitely cause some damage.

Feeling ready for the real test, he willed another metal ball into his hand. He reached for the familiar feeling of slowed reality, and the air thickened in response, hugging him until he felt like he was standing in heavy syrup. The gently waving grass at his feet slowed until almost frozen, the ground turning less slippery as it firmed under him. At the same time, a few nearby birds seemed to be held up by nothing in the sky, their raucous calls drawn out and almost haunting within the sluggish world.

Embracing the incredible control that came with his time-dilated environment, his arm went back. He paused, his eyes locked on the target, and his arm started to come forward. For this throw, he put more strength into it to see what he could really accomplish, pushing himself to the limit. As usual, his body responded with pain when he forced himself to move more quickly against the resistance. His shoulder protesting, he tried to ignore it while remaining focused on the knot he was trying to destroy. As if he had all the time in the world, he made minute adjustments to the angle of his arm until the last moment when the sphere left his hand.

Even within his bubble of sluggish reality, the grey object was barely visible before the stump disappeared behind an explosion of particulates. A low-pitched boom sounded, the pressure wave visible for a split second as the nearby grass flattened, the concussion shaking his body.

He dropped to the wet grass, trying to escape the expanding debris cloud. As slivers of wood and tiny pebbles whooshed past, he huddled on his side, turning away to sacrifice his broad back to any stray damage. Whether it was luck or the angle he was at, only a few tiny blows struck, and nothing that felt larger than sand or gravel. Still, he remained there for a few more moments until the sudden wind evaporated.

Relieved at dodging the worst of it, he pulled back his power, the hug of air vanishing as little piths and thunks sounded around him while rubble rained from the sky. Above the nearby trees, hundreds and thousands of birds took to the heavens in a cacophony of angry calls.

Lifting his head from the turf, he got his first look at the aftermath of his throw. “Holy shit,” escaped, the words coming out slowly as if dragged against their will by the sight of the wrecked stump.

His attention was pulled away as his shoulder gave a painful spasm, a clear consequence of his limit testing. Triggering Lifesight revealed some swelling already forming around the joint with tiny little tears in the nearby tissues. A quick pulse of healing energy helped with the pain, though he’d take another look when he returned to his camp.

Perhaps worse, he’d managed to rip his last clean shirt, the fabric above his shoulder torn along the seam, the long sleeve held on by a thin thread. With a thought, it vanished into his DS since he didn’t want to ruin it further. He wasn’t sure what he could do for a replacement but guessed he’d be going through the looted clothing again to find something suitable. That, or maybe there was a sewing kit he’d missed.

Getting up and moving closer, he whistled tunelessly at the results. The stump had shifted sharply back into the slope, with some of its roots snapped off. There was a huge gouge near the center; the wood cracked like some giant had taken a big axe to the thing. Various sized chunks of the woodsy remains lay scattered on the nearby turf.

Lost in thought about the results, he spent some minutes looking for the metal balls. He even cracked open the stump to see if one had been embedded in the wood but didn’t find anything. He had better luck with the first sphere, finding it buried in the nearby soft soil. Brushing off the bits of mud took only moments, the object looking like it had survived its adventure unscathed.

Standing beside the pulverized target, he turned to look around for any signs of the other two, but all the dirt and debris he’d kicked up made his task nearly impossible. “Well, shit. I guess that pretty conclusively demonstrates my new strength, though I’ll have to figure out a way to better measure it without all the destruction. Oh, and I’ll have to find a way to make more of these mini cannonballs.”

Shaking his head as he thought through the experiment, he decided to put off any more practice for now. With the Lurran sun going down, finding the spheres would only get more difficult, and he didn’t want to waste them. Plus, he had a proof of concept, which was a victory all its own. He’d just try to be more careful next time.