The Imbued of Beroh Keep had little experience in the realm of accounting or administration, as it turned out.

  This would have been the sort of thing he’d ask Helmold Brecht to do, but alas, the wretched traitor was no more.

  For a moment he considered opening his Soulspace and asking his divine son Vos. But after disturbing his slumber, defeating him in a duel, and consuming his storied weapon and his very soul, he imagined the self-fashioned God Emperor of the ancient world wouldn’t be in the mood to do him any favors.

  Valtr, Vengarl, Irina, Radovid and Vella were busy leveling and clearing Zones. Now that their business was concluded, Krum, Alma, and Evelina would likely do the same. The old wise man Dobrogost was a possibility, but while Redmane trusted the fellow, he didn’t know his capabilities yet. Pietr knew much of history and religion and the occult, but if he knew anything about how to run a Faction he hadn’t shown it.

  Which left one candidate.

  Redmane finished his meal with the Imbued of Beroh Keep, gave his thanks for the hospitality, and promised to be in communication soon.

  Then he leapt into the body of a little bird perched on the battlements of Castle Redmane.

  For a split second he beheld Krum, Evelina and Alma in a moment of wide eyed, open-mouthed shock, in reaction to his body winking out of existence.

  When he arrived at Castle Redmane, there happened to be a housemaid standing next to him, looking out at the forest. His appearance made her shriek and fall over on her rear.

  Redmane helped her up. “Apologies.”

  He left the stunned maid and went in search of Flora. And, per the norm, she was easy to find. No sooner did he reach the bottom of the staircase leading from the castle walls to the barracks did he encounter a team of three Floras, making beds. There were a few people sleeping in the bunks on the opposite end of the long room, most likely the sentries on daytime duty.

  The Floras looked up and beamed identical smiles. “My lord!” they said in unison.

  “Glad you’re well,” he said. “I came to let you know our domain continues to expand. If you care to send out more of… Yourself, to seed those areas. I also come to beg a favor.”

  The closest Flora to him set down her laundry basket and approached him, came up onto her tiptoes and placed a kiss on his jawline.

  “I shall do whatsoever thou requirest,” she said.

  He smiled and conjured the atlas of Volos, so she could see all the fresh territory under the dominion of House Redmane.

  Her eyes grew wide. “My lord hath been busy, I see.”

  “It was unintentional. Circumstances required a detour, and the situation developed from there.”

  “My lord maketh the most of every development,” said Flora, with a smile.

  If it were anyone else, Redmane would think he was being mocked. But the look in her eyes was, for lack of a better word, simple. Pure. Those eyes sparkled like emeralds, full of affection.

  Her gaze began to put a spell on him. But he remembered why he was here, shook it off for a moment.

  “The favor I ask is this,” said Redmane. He produced the main Faction menu, which displayed the status of House Redmane’s Sanctuaries, Zones, Gnosis account and the Marketplace. “There is much to avail ourself of, within this system. But I have not the time or the mind to make the most of it. Perhaps you do.”

  Flora leaned against him, peering at the menu.

  “I would love to, my lord,” she said. “But how am I to interface with this, if the System doth not acknowledge me?”

  Redmane frowned.

  He hadn’t thought of that. She was like him, something monstrous or divine, or both. The System classified them both as Monsters. Redmane’s integration came when he consumed the flesh of a Sicarius. He wondered if that’s what it would take for the System to acknowledge Flora as well.

  But there weren’t any more dead Sicari lying around just then. He would have to find a workaround.

  He could let her take a bite out of him. He was divine.

  But that didn’t seem likely to work. He’d sown her seed with his own blood, so technically she had consumed a part of him already.

  She had consumed other parts of him, but the System wasn’t likely to acknowledge that.

  Perhaps Pietr could do it. The body of a Spawn was technically his body. He didn’t have any other ideas presently, so it was worth an attempt.

  Redmane reached out with his senses, located Pietr in the bear-chimera form he’d created for frightening Helmold to death and then having him for dinner. At the moment he was somewhere in the forest near Beroh Keep, bent over the carcass of a deer, having an after dinner snack. The snake heads belonging to Aric and Aerin Morholt hung limply in a catatonic state. They appeared to be sleeping.

  I need you for a moment, said Redmane.

  Pietr’s bloodstained face rose from the deer’s belly. I am ready whenever you require, my lord!

  Redmane called his Spawn back to him, and its constituent souls returned to his Soulspace.

  Corpus: 2022

  Then he promptly created a new Spawn just for Pietr, in a simple humanoid body not unlike that of a demi-human.

  Corpus: 1522

  Pietr looked between Redmane and Flora, and bowed as gracefully as a demi-human could.

  “My lord and lady,” he said.

  Redmane nodded at the atlas of Volos and the Faction menu in front of them. “Do you see this?”

  “I do, my lord.”

  “Try interfacing with it. Select something from the menu.”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Pietr got closer, examined the options. He chose ‘Marketplace’ and the system took him to the next screen.

  Flora beamed. “It worketh!”

  “I have a new task for you,” said Redmane. “Stay with Flora. She will manage the Factions’s assets and affairs, and you’ll aid her. Just navigate the menu for her and select what she bids you to select.”

  Pietr looked a little crestfallen. “My lord, couldn’t a simple Spawn do this?”

  “Doubtful,” said Redmane.

  Pietr frowned and inclined his head in acceptance. “I understand, my lord. It will be as you say.”

  “It’ll have to do for now. Until we can figure out how to get the System to recognize her.”

  But Flora was already monopolizing Pietr’s attention. She was shoulder to shoulder with him, looking intently at the menus, scrolling through the Marketplace, making Pietr stop and choose things and then carry on.

  She looked up at Redmane. “My lord, is there aught thou requirest?”

  Redmane pondered that for a moment.

  “High quality metal,” he said. “In as great a quantity as you can find.”

  She smiled, nodded and returned her attention to the menus.

  With that properly set into motion, Redmane had a moment to consider his next move.

  The Seal of the Sphinx awaited him. But it would be an arduous trek through the Fangs of Frost, that chain of islands off the northern coast, beyond the fishing village of Kenvik. It would be wise to regain Corpus and Gnosis.

  The latter he could replenish right here. The former required Monsters to kill. But he had already cleared the Zones on the way, so he’d have to look elsewhere. He could join Valtr and Vengarl’s Coterie for a bit, they were in the midst of hunting and he just so happened to have sent a few little birds and a Flora to watch over them.

  He searched out one of those little birds and took a peek through its eyes.

  The Coterie sat around a campfire in a lightly wooded meadow, eating freshly grilled sausages and tough bread with mead to wash it down. Valtr and Vella were laughing at Vengarl’s joke. Flora and Irina were having a conversation about different sorts of herbal tea. Radovid sat slumped forward, looking as if he were about to fall asleep.

  He sensed something strange, as well.

  Something he first sensed when he emerged from the Abyss after synthesizing all his Skills together.

  He had Spawn nearby, but they didn’t feel like any Spawn he had ever created. They would not respond to his call, nor could he borrow their senses. But he was fully aware of their presence all the same.

  There was something wrong with them. Something preventing them from connecting with the mind of their master. It felt like a vortex of anger and hunger. Too loud to hear anything from the outside.

  It called for further investigation, and now was as good a time as any.

  Redmane jumped into the body of the bird.

  Vella and Irina shrieked. The noise jolted Radovid awake, and he almost tipped into the fire before catching himself. Valtr and Vengarl’s gazed darted to the tree limb Redmane sat on, shocked but not bowled over.

  Flora smiled brightly and said, “We meet again, my lord!”

  You have entered Zone: Morazan Valley

  Tasks:

  Slay Chief Wroclaw

  Slay Shaman Nitra

  Slay Grandmother Gruu

  Tasks Completed: 1/3

  Grandmother Gruu…

  Out of curiosity, he reached out with his higher senses to find it.

  [Gruu] marked as Prey

  Redmane’s eyes grew wide.

  He sensed the location of the Gruu burrow with Astral Hunter. And he sensed his Spawn with God Body of the Devourer. And they were in the same place.

  Because they were the same thing.

  The Coterie must have noticed the stunned look on Redmane’s face, because they didn’t speak. For a long moment the snapping of the campfire and the distant chatter of night birds were the only sounds.

  His gaze shifted down to them.

  “I’ll take care of the Gruu,” he said.

  And then he stood, the wings of the Manticore bursting from his back, and took off with no further explanation.

  “Nice to see the boss is doing well…” said Valtr.

  “Aye…” said Vengarl.

  Redmane beat his wings against the chill night air to gain altitude, then locked them out to gain speed. The wind streamed through his hair, made his worn cloak billow out behind him. In the distance he spied a town, but that wasn’t his destination. It was to the south, in a cavern at the bottom of a deep ravine.

  Why hadn’t he been able to sense them before?

  He didn’t know. Whatever he did in the Abyss must have refined his senses to the point where it corrected a deficiency in them he wasn’t even aware of. It made him wonder what other shortfalls he had no cognizance of.

  No matter. Eventually, they would all be overcome.

  Redmane sailed down into the ravine and dismissed his wings when he knew he was close enough, guided unerringly toward the Gruu burrow by not one sense but two. He landed on the loamy ground and crept toward the spot where two round-bellied Gruu sentries sat against the ravine wall, guarding the entrance to the burrow.

  Great Gruu

  Monster Type: Gruu

  Level 74

  He crouched behind a nearby boulder and considered what to do.

  It would be simple to kill and consume them all. If the level of the sentries was any indication, this Grandmother likely wouldn’t be higher than level 80.

  But it wouldn’t solve the problem, nor would it help him understand why they came to be in this condition in the first place.

  Pietr, said Redmane.

  Yes, my lord?

  What do you know about the Gruu.

  The Gruu are holy creatures, my lord. The very flesh of Kraal, struck from its body by the God Breaker in his final battles with Belskaya and the rest of the Five Heroes. In the ages since, they mostly slumbered underground and were sometimes roused by unlucky miners or explorers. If you’d like my academic opinion, I suspect their mass awakening coincides with yours.

  You never told me about this.

  You never asked! Forgive me for saying so my lord, but you don’t seem the overly curious sort.

  Redmane blew out a sigh.

  Well how do I fix them?

  Fix them? I don’t follow.

  They don’t recognize me. How do I make them remember that they’re… Me.

  There were a few moments of quiet.

  Summon me to you, my lord. I believe I have a solution.

  Redmane recalled Pietr’s body and Spawned another, of the same type as the last. A simple demi-human frame.

  Pietr looked around in a slight daze, then he noticed the hulking Gruu and quickly crouched behind the rock next to Redmane.

  “We have to get inside,” he whispered. “To the Grandmother. Preferably without aggravating the whole burrow in the process.”

  “Then what?” asked Redmane.

  “Then I will join the mind of the Grandmother to yours, in the same way I joined our minds on the eve we met.”

  The night he learned what he was. The night he broke the Seal of the Manticore.

  Pietr had indeed joined their minds together as one. Evidently it had been the only way to circumvent whatever the Five Heroes did to him in ages past.

  It sounded like a fine plan. But he had to choose how to get them in.

  He could give Pietr Astral Stalker and the two of them could proceed into the burrow as spectres, but they would inevitably have to reappear. And the instant they did so, they would be surrounded by furious Gruu. They could employ the usual technique of luring the swarm out with a decoy, but the Grandmother would spawn more if threatened. Not an issue if the goal were a simple kill, moreso with what they had planned.

  There was another option, perhaps.

  Redmane stood and walked toward the entrance to the burrow.

  Pietr made a panicked noise, called out to him in a whispered yell. “What are you doing?!”

  Redmane didn’t answer. He strode up to the two sentries, who had leapt to their feet and were lumbering toward him with their arms stretched out to seize him.

  Nightmare Aura

  Gnosis: 877

  The Gruu fell back on their behinds, scooting away from Redmane as fast as their bulky bodies and spindly limbs would allow.

  He waved for Pietr to come, and the two of them entered the burrow side by side. Per the norm, it was a maze in three dimensions, but this one wasn’t as large as the last he’d cleared. Within a few minutes they located a path to the Grandmother’s chamber, leaving a path of cowering Gruu in their wake.

  The Grandmother towered over them in its chamber, growling but frozen with fear. Its lesser spawn flowed away from Redmane as he strode toward it like water retreating from a blot of oil, creating an open area precisely the size of the reach of Nightmare Aura.

  Grandmother Gruu

  Monster Type: Gruu

  Level 81

  He side-eyed Pietr. “Ready?”

  “I am,” said Pietr.

  The priest placed himself between Redmane and the Grandmother. He held up one hand toward each, index fingers raised. The tips of those fingers began to glow, brighter and brighter, until they were incandescent.

  He gave Redmane a sheepish smile. “Let me warn you. This may have some unusual side effects.”

  Redmane’s eyebrow rose.

  Pietr wilted a bit under his steady stare. “Or it may not! Simply being cautious. But in the joining we might lose our own personalities and become consumed with a mindless everlasting hunger, from whence we may never recover.”

  “What?”

  Enimakia’s Joining

  Pietr’s fingertips flared like little suns, and the world went white.

  PATREON