Before the fire took it, and after its repair, Notre dame had been a hell of a place, Alexander mused while he craned his neck to witness the wonder of the replica cathedral turned Guild Hall. The towering vaults of the ceiling above the central space were incredible to behold. Stained glass in blues, violets, reds, and a plethora of hues between turned the narrow peaked arched windows into vivid lamps, even beneath a partially cloud obscured sun. The notorious north and south rose windows, those great circular patterns of intricately placed and colored panes were a sight worth crossing half the continent alone. It was beautiful, for a building. He wished he had more time to appreciate it.

  These were things that had been lost in the chaos of the Pulse. Most had burned. Some had been consumed by dungeons, whose warping influence on Gaia had rendered them unrecognizable. But the Peacekeepers had here a reminder of the glory of man, and the pursuit of higher purpose beyond mere survival. It made him feel a sense of solidarity with the Guildies, that they might be aligned in their ideals. Nobody built something like this just to serve as self-aggrandizement. He got the feeling that the buttressed arches and carved columns of the cathedral were a reminder to all within it that they served nobler cause than the one man for himself, or something.

  Armored figures bustled within the Guild Hall. Unlike the original cathedral, many of the galleries, those tall arched viewing points that lie above the ambulatory that served as main traffic passages around the outer edge of the Guild Hall, were enclosed, serving as offices, training rooms, and storehouses. Where the great organ would have been was the skeleton, painstakingly assembled with wire, of a dragon. By its size it was an adolescent wyrmling, much alike the one that Alexander and his comrades had dispatched when they purged the Muspelheim dungeon. That meant a tier three dungeon had been cleared from nearby. He wondered if they had realized that the blood of the drake they’d slain was, arguably, the most valuable part of the beast. Or that its core could be reignited to birth a new dragon hatchling, if it was tier three and you knew how to cajole the wyrmling soul inside.

  Time for inquiries didn’t seem to be on the agenda, he was led swiftly by the crew of Guildies in their matching armor and white cloaks behind their giantess Captain, whose black out curtain length red cape flared around the long legs striding imperiously forward. Gibbons and Howard, the two men he’d given his courtesy lesson to, were hauled off for treatment that appeared to be done in a clinic, judging by the curtained off rooms with wheeled beds posted along the north ambulatory, the path that went to the side of the vast vaulted cathedral. The nave, absent pews, of course, had been divided into one wide central causeway, along which he was currently traveling, and to the sides were sectioned off arenas, behind which the ambulatory was screened by dense stone walls ten feet in height, not quite filling the arches whose peaks supported the galleries above.

  As had been the case outside, around the greens of the horse track and stables, men in the arenas within the Guild Hall tested themselves against one another. Unlike those outside, however, these duels were of a higher caliber. No squires here, or trainees. Or wooden swords. Medics watched, almost vibrating with readiness to apply their gifts. Splashes of crimson and pained cries from one arena saw the attending physicians descend like a murder of albino crows. They retreated only a few seconds later and the wounded man was back on his feet for another round. Alexander was impressed, that had the look of some kind of joint healing effort, something he hadn’t seen before. Another mental note to share with Shiv, when he got home.

  Clearly, the Peacekeepers reserved the interior of their hall for the purposes of their elite. The flashes of light, clangs of sound, washes of fire, sprays of water, ice, or electrical arcs, made for a kaleidoscopic march through the central course of the Guild Hall.

  A duet in heavy robes, both holding staffs of gnarled coiled wood with monster cores embedded in their spiraled ends, in what Alexander came to realize were honest to gods wizard rods, were straining magical energies against one another. An orb of malicious neon purple hung between them, jittering first toward one, then the other, and their faces said that they wanted no part of touching that sphere of mana. A conclusion was reached, the orb sailed into one of the men who howled in obvious agony, which tapered off into a litany of sailor’s curses. The man who had lost the battle of control now bore skin that was startlingly magenta.

  “Hah! Donothan, howd’ya like your new paintjob?!” sassed the victor.

  “Best of three you cunty sneak! Best of three!” Rejoined the loser, as if he had not just experienced the sensation of acid all over his body to go with his new coloration, and then they were back at it, while Alexander and company fast walked on toward their destination, wherever that was.

  Stakes for losses was a good method to make the competition stiffer. A fight with no loser, with no consequence was of limited value, in Alexander’s estimation. Ben’s regime for sparring matches included owing your partner favors. If you were much worse than your opponent, or not taking it seriously, or having a bad day, you’d end up owing several afternoons of labor outside the training grounds to convince you to try harder next time. Thankfully, the dark brown metallic skinned master of arms insisted that rule didn’t apply to the Adventurer veterans of Getsome and Impervious, else everybody would have been serfs to the great Ben Grisham for eternity.

  A howl from the former victor announced that the game would go to its final round, but Alexander was moving on, too busy looking in as many directions as possible to see.

  Respectful nods, salutes, and salutations followed the Captain down the aisle between Guildie sparring sessions. Slowly, Alexander’s estimations of the Peacekeepers rose, nearly to regain his original high regard, before the errant sentries had dashed his hopeful expectations.

  Murmurs followed in the wake of the precession, and he knew he was the subject of most of them. Adventurers traveling between settlements wasn’t so unheard of, especially since the Guilds and towns had gotten serious about stamping out dungeon spawn and securing the roads, but tier threes weren’t ubiquitous, and, from this close, Alexander stood out some amongst the immature bloodlines of the tier two warriors. Not as much as their rather obviously upscaled officer lady, but black eyes and feathers did catch attention from the veteran Adventurers of the Guild.

  More than once, he heard a muttered “Otherkin” in their mumbled dialogues.

  There was no little contempt in the tones with which that accusation were made. Which attitude meant Alexander became even more concerned that New Chicago might be simmering atop a nascent war between its human population and the newcomers to Gaia. Brief skirmishes when the refugees of the one hundred eight realms initially appeared had not gone one-sidedly in favor of the humans. Not at all. That was why there had been covenants of peace established between them in the first place. If humanity had possessed the power, Alexander had few doubts that they would have pushed the Otherkin into the wilderness, where they did not eradicate them. But they had not, and could not, and the reality was, mankind needed the Otherkin.

  They needed their help to conquer the wilderness. Their knowledge and skills for combating the dungeons that had been thousands of years a fact of life in their own lands. Their experience in recognizing the lurking horrors of their own realms that now spilled over into Gaia from the Big Break. And the Otherkin needed the humans, who, though few in number, were attuned to the planet’s mana and who would grow rapidly as they subsumed the energies of invading dungeon cores, something only possible for those born to a world’s dragon pulse. Only Otherkin born upon Gaia could join in her gifts, all others would live their lives as dimensional immigrants, able to intake the ambient mana, and to utilize their cores’ powers, but not wholly integrated in the metaphysical sense.

  New Chicago was something of an experiment. A big question. Could humans learn to embrace alien life and coexist in peaceful society? Or could they not, and thus prove that, eventually, only a war of extinction would mark the end of Gaia’s Children. Because Alexander had no confidence that the few folk left could vanquish the Otherkin and have enough strength to turn aside the dungeons, or even Gaia’s own magic spawned challenges. Which was why he had to catch this murderer, and fast. Before the disappearances were laid at the feet of the Otherkin and something awful started when some dumb bastard inevitably followed their neanderthal instincts.

  Depressing philosophizing that absorbed the young man was interrupted when he saw that his escort had led past where the choir would have been. Between that and the morning’s interactions with the city slickers and gatekeepers his optimism had taken a beating, he was growing morbid. The sooner this hunt was over, the better, he needed a hug and to play with his kid. At least the beauty of the replica cathedral did something to pull his mood upward, even with its modifications for the purpose of fortifying humanity against the ravening wilds.

  Instead of raised benches for angelic voiced vocalists praising the almighty, there was a sort of action center. Long tables covered in marker strewn maps pored over by Peacekeepers. Many of those must have fulfilled scouting roles, because they were absent the heavy plate armor of their comrades, and instead outfitted more akin to Alexander, light cuirass or brigandines, absent pauldrons and heavy tassets, and with less cumbersome protection of their arms and legs. Logistics staff in comfortable looking robes were aggregating the scouting reports and compiling it into action plans, by the careful notes Alexander’s keen eyes made out.

  In the brief window that those reports and maps were in his sight he now had a fairly good idea about the New Chicago outlands and patrols within the city. Useful stuff. And, probably not information they would have given him freely.

  But what was he to do? Close his eyes?

  If they didn’t want visually outstanding bloodlines reading their intel they should use ciphers. He knew Getsome and Impervious did, Mark and Nathan, the respective leaders of those parties, insisted on it. Falcon’s Rest was a place of comradery, community, and openness, but tactical data on the city were held secret so that a repeat of the sneak attack on the settlement that had resulted in the deaths of four of the city’s founding members would not be easily repeated.

  Not that Alexander had any malicious designs for New Chicago, the Peacekeepers, or the citizens of the city, but his job was to find a predator hiding amongst thirty thousand people in a place he’d never visited. Information was the only way he was going to pull that off. So, he took whatever was available, until the deafeningly loud Captain turned from the data center toward the south ambulatory, where the various circle chapels on the back side of the cathedral, farthest from the towering doorway, had been converted into meeting halls. A couple of guards on duty at one slammed a fist to their shoulders in salute and opened the great oaken and iron bound door that led into the vestry turned conference room.

  Behind him, those doors swung shut on their massive steel hinges with an authoritative boom, and a latch was thrown, sealing the vestry to privacy. Inside, a long semicircular set of tables ran, like an audience hall or one of those big college auditorium classrooms. Half the seats were full, mostly in the front two rows.

  Waiting staff in the Guild’s favored white clothing were cleaning up what appeared to be the last of a late lunch, stacking plates, crocks, and bowls into carts for delivery to the kitchen scullions. It would appear the giantess Captain would not be getting that lunch after all, he winced. Oops.

  “I fucking knew it.” Lamented the tall woman sadly, her voice, for once, muted.

  After deeply resigned sigh, she turned and waved her men to sit at empty seats, which they took in the upper rows, apparently befitting their rank. She herself sat in the last empty seat in the front. The eleven chairs in the lowest row were occupied by other men and women wearing those same red cloaks, which meant that Alexander was now standing before Guild leadership. Ohhh Gooody! He snarked to himself.

  This was what he had asked for though, and may the monkey’s paw curl one finger while his wish was granted.

  Once all parties had seated, except for Alexander who stood like a young Ph.D. hopeful before the panel of individuals who could deny their future by committee.

  He hadn’t ever gotten to go to college, hadn’t had the chance to pursue the aeronautical engineering degree that would see his performance in flight school launch him to the front list for flying the best war machines the air force could field, so he hadn’t gotten the pleasure of experiencing the severe discomfort of all these judging gazes. Not since his trial for killing the Guild’s dungeon core, back when he was blacklisted by Safe Harbor’s Guilds.

  He was fairly certain protocol dictated that they be the first to speak, so, rather than dig himself any holes to climb out of, Alexander Gerifalte set to examining each of the persons before him and memorizing faces. It might be helpful to be able to choose them out of a crowd someday, if they turned out to be another Gary Lee Harvard, the psychopath who’d led Safe Harbor to ruin so he could play Machiavelli pulling the strings of his pet Guilds.

  His scrutiny made people uncomfortable, or so he’d been told, even without Greater Analyze giving you the feeling of being stripped naked while all the skeletons in your closet blabbed heinous shit. However, none of the officers refused to meet his gaze, which earned them several notches upward in his regard. When a ravening ghoul is bearing down on you, ragged claws dripping entrails, you want someone at your shoulder that doesn’t blink.

  All of the officers were tier three, was his next conclusion. They spanned the bloodlines of humanity, Ifrit, Oread, Morrigan, Marid, Djinn, Dryad, Brigid, and a single Outsider, to judge by that one’s doubled eyes, the second set angled and positioned above his cheek bones. Each of the weapons stowed in stands that sat behind their seats spoke to their role in combat, and none bore a preferred instrument that suggested they led from the rear. Great axes, tower shields and maces, twinned short swords, a trident, an odachi, kite shield and bastard sword, and so on, the men and women before him were front line warriors. Their clothing was clean, their capes immaculate, but their armor bore nicks and dings that spoke of heavy use in the thick of battles, and their implements of war were worn in the grips and handles, while also being razor sharp.

  Alexander was convinced within a few seconds that he’d have his work cut out for him standing toe to toe with any of the Peacekeepers officers in a straight up fight. Which was mostly fine by him, since straight up fights weren’t something he ever intentionally offered to a respectable enemy, whenever being a sneaky bastard was an option. Outside the city, in the dark? They would likely be unable to touch him. However, he was here in their domain and under broad daylight, so he’d best get hold of forty days’ building stress and acute aggravation. Be a professional. That turned into a mental chant as they all stood silent for a few more moments.

  Twelve superhumans in enough armor to build a respectable facsimile of a tank, and none of them real happy with you, was enough to put a little effort in his appearance of calm. One thing you learned about dealing with powerful folk was not to let them see you sweat, or you conceded an implicit advantage of being the weaker party. Fortunately, the tension broke sooner, rather than later, with the grumbling of the blond Captain who’d ushered him into the bowels of the Peacekeeper Guild Hall.

  “Oh, for love of—Can we just not with all the dick wagging, just one goddamned time?!” She asked, exasperated staring at her comrades in arms.

  “Grace, you’re just grouchy because your lunch got carted off while you were busy dealing with what looks like an outlander mercenary, probably the source of the assassin rumors we’ve been getting since this morning.” Remarked one of the other Captains, a red headed, heavily freckled, blue eyed picture of Irish handsomeness, and also an Ifrit with subtle orange flames shimmering barely visible from the backs of his gauntleted hands.

  Grace, not the name that would have come to mind for the giantess, leaned forward to rest her elbow on the table that protested slightly at the weight, her upturned hand becoming a vigorously pointing indicator of her displeasure.

  “I fail to see your point, Mason. Just like I fail to see why you lot decided to have my well-deserved meal packed away so you can mug at a guy with a writ for public assistance by the city leadership. We got word two hours ago to be expecting a visit, so what exactly the fuck are we doing sitting here pretending to be two strange cats in a barn?!” She shot back.

  His estimation of the no bullshit lady rose considerably. Finally, somebody who doesn’t like playing games.

  “Fine! You win! I guess we’ll just let anybody walk in here like they own the place.” Mason, the ginger officer with hands raised in surrender and a sour twist to his mouth.

  That seemed a little unfair, in Alexander’s view. He’d tried being polite. Polite hadn’t worked. Being an asshole had proved far more efficient in moving things along. He was about to say as much, forgetting his previous self-assigned injunction for speaking out of turn, but was beat to the punch by a compact, but still well-built Marid woman to the far left of the Officer’s row, fine marine blue scales glittering on her cheeks and down the sides of her neck contrasting nicely with her tanned Hispanic features and jet hair.

  “Noted! Both of you! Christ!” the twin saber using Captain interrupted, slapping her hand down on the table loudly, before she addressed Alexander directly, “Okay, okay, you’re Alexander, a Classed hitter from the Northern Wild, vouched for by Governor Bastian, blah, blah, blah, this is the Peacekeepers Guild, we’re in charge of the greater Midwest, until somebody else proves they can do it better, which they fucking won’t or we wouldn’t be here. There! Everybody’s introduced, I got patrol in half an hour, let’s wrap this shit up.”

  Almost as an afterthought, the Marid Officer turned her head to pass an order to one of the junior Guildies to run to the kitchens and grab “Her bottomlessness” a fresh lunch, which, white cape flapping with the speed of their passage, they ran to obey.

  The blond Oread with a cacophonous set of pipes and a blood sugar linked temper instantly became mollified with the promise of food. The Ifrit man rolled his eyes slightly but deferred to his fellows, the fires dancing above his hands fading a bit as he reined himself in.

  Alexander could be oblivious, but not when the signs of stress in these people were so incredibly obvious. There was a situation here, and his presence wasn’t the major cause of it, but had, apparently, not made things any easier. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what the problem might be, not between his treatment since entering the city, the comments and fatigue of the embattled Boss, and the interactions with his guard team.

  “Did I walk into a tinder bundle chasing a spark?” He asked drily of the assembled Guild personnel.

  A few shared glances answered the question well enough, but the Outsider Captain with all four eyes trained on Alexander spoke aloud, sounding tired “You could say that.”

  After another glance at his colleagues, disconcertingly enough that look was given with only the eyes on the left side of his face, like a chameleon with independently scrolling eyes, he continued.

  “More like New Chicago’s got problems enough trying to reconcile ten thousand or so Humans immigrating, no, more like running for their lives from outlying regions that are effectively dungeon spawn riddled wilderness, with an even faster growing population of about the same number of Otherkin that poured out of the Big Break. Folk are jittery, it’s only been three years, but where the Humans have barely started picking up the pieces, with a bare few thousand child births I know of since before the Pulse, the Otherkin are going to quickly outnumber us. These interdimensional refugees brought their kids with them, they also do not appear to have the restrictions on reproduction that we do. Not to mention, apparently, ever since the dungeon break, there’s report of a few dozens of people, at least, going missing every year since the Otherkin got here, so, you do the math.”

  Alexander did. He did not like the direction it was pointing.

  “Which kind of begs the question,” the Venator Outsider said, “What are you going to do to help me find whoever, or whatever, has been eating people in your home, and near mine, before it sets off an ugly race war that probably Humans don’t win. Or survive.”

  He saw that the Peacekeepers didn’t shy away from his assessment, so they’d clearly been over this already. Good. It would have been tough to convince them of the dangers based on the word of a stranger who’d only arrived that day. With everyone on the same page, he was now confident that they’d be able to come to terms to get this situation under control.

  A black man with a face of hard planes, grizzled grey salt and pepper beard, deep dark eyes, and a cornrow braid that ended in a flair of a short pony tail, the soft whirls of never-melting ice crystals around him declaring his frigid Marid bloodline answered, in a deceivingly mellow tenor, “We’ll do what it takes to protect New Chicago. You’ll get what help we have, so long as you do the same.”

  A war axe with an ice pick opposite to the half-moon bit stood near Alexanders height in the stand behind the walnut brown toned Peacekeeper Captain’s chair. The gauntleted hands cupped on the table in front of him gave him the impression they could crush coconuts, so “what it takes” was very likely to include a bit of the old ultraviolence. Good. That man followed up his declaration with music to Alexander’s ears.

  “Real question is, Alexander of Falcon’s Rest, what is it you actually need from us? We have manpower to form hunt teams. We have trackers, perhaps with skills that can trace this threat in ways you can’t. Better yet, we have the trust and cooperation of New Chicago’s populace. They will be more…accommodating for men in our uniform than for a strange face. Especially a tier three with a bearing that, begging your pardon, does little to put one at ease.”

  Another Captain, this one a vaguely Persian appearing heritage with short blue streaked with crimson hair in a kind of topknot, spoke up from behind her steepled fingers, intense red eyes marking her for an Ifrit, accept there were hints of scales on her neck. A hybrid? That was new. Despite her soft voice and moderate volume, her tone was edged with disapproval.

  “Reports came in earlier of a group of masons and trade journeymen tangling with Otherkin and being thrashed. Not so very long later, we have two veteran warriors incapacitated upon our very doorstep. This does not inspire hope that you are able to make inroads with the locals to conduct an expeditious investigation.”

  Alexander shrugged, nonchalant. It was what it was.

  “If people would quit being aggressive assholes, I’d quit kicking the shit out of them.” He answered the implied accusation directly.

  Timidity was not the way with Guilds or their leadership. Or with Adventurers who spent time in the Green generally. A few accepting nods in the meeting hall confirmed his position on the matter. It was the way of things, sugar coating it just wasted everyone’s time.

  “Howard and Gibbons were overzealous in their duties.” Captain Grace, the giant Oread who’d escorted him spoke up, quietly for her, which meant she still filled the chamber with her oration.

  Her face turned into a wry smile and several of the other Captains and attending Guildies rolled their eyes, appreciating the understated humor with regards to the pair of sour apples so grating that they got consigned to gate duty together to keep them out of everyone else’s hair.

  The model of a Valkyrie looked around at her comrades and reminded all in attendance of the way of things.

  “Everybody knows that no threat of violence is made casually, nor treated so amongst the soldiery, no matter where they hail from. Our men had it coming, I checked with the one who could talk myself. I can only assume eight tier two tradesmen attacking a foreign-born tier three Adventurer armed were not practicing good judgment either. It isn’t expected that the offering of insults should not be returned by admonishment. Within reason.”

  That last was delivered with a slight injunction towards Alexander, who took it to heart. Don’t kill anyone, don’t harm anyone more than strictly necessary. He nodded in reply, with a respectful ‘But of course’ to ensure everyone knew he was on board, not that he ever intended anything else.

  The cinnamon skinned lady Captain, staring down her proud nose at him, still wasn’t satisfied, nor the freckled Ifrit, by his terse expression. They sort of half started to speak and noticed the other was about to comment and froze each other momentarily. In the end, it was the trident bearing Half-Ifrit who took the lead between them and she spoke without prevarication.

  “That doesn’t change the situation.” The officer said, shrugging back her red cloak and sitting taller, a domineering bearing for all her small stature, “People are on edge, tensions have been creeping toward a breaking point since last winter, since the Big Break and the arrival of all these Otherkin, if we’re all being honest. Another whacko mercenary digging around isn’t going to make things better. It is in my opinion that we should offer our guest here a quarters, where he should stay, while we conduct a thorough sweep of the city with all available manpower.”

  Oof, somebody’s cranky, Alexander noted, but he kept the sarcastic smile off his face. No need to egg these people on, they were under enough pressure. Besides. She wasn’t completely wrong.

  “Counter offer,” He replied, keeping any of the tension he felt out of his voice, “You give me a couple of Peacekeepers as an escort, to keep me out of trouble, while the rest of you do your thing. I get to do my job, you all get to do yours, and we mostly stay out from under each other’s feet. Everybody’s happy.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  The cryomancer captain scrubbed a gauntlet through his heavy beard and answered, instead of his more aggressive colleague, “Compromises between allies build stronger relations. I don’t see a problem with this. Shall we make a vote of it? All in attendance, that the Peacekeepers in good standing here may have their say as well as we at the high table?”

  The antagonistic Captain frowned, but acquiesced with grace.

  “Let it be so, seconded.” She declared to the chamber.

  Captain Mason, the ginger Ifrit, mumbled a curse and called with no little resignation, “Carried. Let’s get this done and be doing. At the least, now we know we weren’t imagining the disappearances or chasing our tails for nothing.”

  It was the chameleon eyed Outsider who spoke now, with an official tone and a projecting voice that filled the vestibule.

  “A threat discussed in hypotheticals has become a reality. We have here a contracted Adventurer from the New England region that has chased this vermin into its hole, somewhere within the demesne of the Peacekeepers and New Chicago. To save lives, and to reduce tensions between Human and Otherkin, it is paramount that the actions of the killer be stopped. All unassigned Peacekeepers will now form squads to aid in a grid by grid canvas of the settlement, both within the wall and the warrens beyond. Two are needed to liason with our guest, who has been deputized by Governor Bastian to find and slay the menace with all the blessing of New Chicago. Aye to agree, Nay to seek a better way forward.”

  “Speak your ayes.” The as yet nameless Outsider Captain addressed his Guildsmen.

  A chorus of men and women filled the chamber, unanimous.

  It was good, Alexander judged. A bit of a rocky start, but, good. The leadership was skeptical, which was valid and suggested caution, good qualities in Guild brass, but reasonable, with an open mindedness that bespoke men and women who held their positions for reasons not merely related to strength of arms, for all those were clearly on display. His brusque speech and refusal to bullshit around hadn’t made the Guildies defensive either, which could happen in those less assured in their own competence, who could feel threatened by even the slightest rubs against their perceived authority. Lastly, they, for the most part, had that all important quality that was critical to men and women wielding power: a sense of humor.

  Wit, irony, a sense of the ridiculous, these he had found important in those making decisions. No one had grown up prepared for the insanity of Gaia’s waking, or the reality of a world absent much of the technology that had been familiar to them all their lives, to say nothing of dungeon spawn, Otherkin, and the transformation of humankind at a fundamental bio-aetheric level. If you met somebody in a seat of power that couldn’t take a joke, or were without humor in all this, you’d better keep your eyes on the exit, they were, like as not, to be completely batshit, or wound so tight as to be on the verge of a breakdown. On the other hand, Alexander knew he had a not exactly common perspective, so maybe that was just his predisposition toward absurdity speaking.

  He shrugged to himself, discarding the tangent. The room was starting to move, decisions were being made around him, voices issuing commands and requests for communications, maps, and rosters. None of it was directly addressed to him so he could safely ignore it, focusing instead on reading the general mood of the room. If he had to put a word to it: eagerness. Anticipation of pulling a splinter that had been festering.

  Captain Grace, wiping her mouth on her kerchief after having horked down an impressive volume of food for dinner, rose and strode to loom over him, not intending to do so, but forced to loom by default over most non Oreads. Alexander, for all that he was commonly one of the taller men in a room, had the pleasure of looking up at the warrior woman. She winked at him and tilted her chin toward her comrades, the pair that had been most suspicious, who were busy issuing orders to assign squad leaders.

  “Nothing personal, you know. We owe it to our troopers, and the citizenry we serve to be careful. It’s not often somebody makes their introduction to the Peacekeepers by stabbing their men, even if we all want to stab Gibbons sometimes.” She said, a slow smile spreading as she spoke.

  A wave of his gloved hand joined his easy reply.

  “It’s all good, your Bigness, I don’t blame anybody. In fact, I’m glad you all have your heads on straight, that hasn’t always been the case for my record with Guildies. Those two idiots set to poop duty aside, you Flatlanders have run a tight ship, and not so’s you all can ride high on the hog for it. Near as I can tell, the Peacekeepers intend to do just as their name suggests, and I am here for it.”

  A purse of lips at his “Bigness” title was enjoined by a sigh from the fashion model writ large.

  “You know I was five foot and barely change, maybe a hundred pounds tops when this horseshit started? A dainty lass with a gymnastics scholarship, before Gaia took a big crap on everything. Then, one day, we gets word by courier that if you can hunt one of the drakes and harvest it’s blood, you can accelerate your development by leaps and bounds. Well, we figured we could use the power spike, y’know? A couple months later, I get to go through puberty all over again, and, a year after tiering up, I get to start getting tailored by the same people who make sails. I also get to pretzel rebar by hand, but that girl I remember in my mirror is long, long gone.” Narrated the Captain wistfully, her sapphire blue eyes distant.

  She focused those gems on him and said, “I tell this story to emphasize that a girl has her conceits, so ease up on the Bigness stuff. I take that off friends, and we’re not. Yet.”

  Message delivered.

  “Heard and understood, Captain. My apologies.” Alexander conceded immediately.

  He was an awkward git, and often sarcastic, but he didn’t go out of his way to be a tit, especially when boundaries were clearly drawn.

  The hardened expression softened slightly, and she offered a hand to shake, “Call me Grace, Alexander. It’s fine, now you know. Don’t feel bad, I have this conversation like you probably have to tell people about the hair and eyes. Tier three fucked most of us over, one way or the other.”

  A clasp of the bare hand, the gauntlets tucked in her belt from her recent repast, and a firm squeeze and he answered simply, “All good Captain Grace.”

  He was glad they’d smoothed over that little bump in the road and didn’t bother mentioning that he didn’t actually have many conversations about his blood line traits. For one thing, Alexander wasn’t overly concerned about his Outsider features, folk either got over it or not, he didn’t particularly give a shit unless they wanted to make a nuisance of themselves, like the Flatlander mob he’d had to pound earlier. For another, within Falcon’s Rest everyone was tier three, and had been sooner than pretty much any other humans on planet, thanks to the dragon blood.

  There’d been other routes to initiate the transformation, some of them sort of sketchy. Holding your hand in a fire, or trying to freeze yourself or waterboarding to force nascent elemental blood lines to the fore, that kind of thing. Mostly doomed to fail if you hadn’t also been actively utilizing your abilities, strengthening yourself by killing dungeon cores to absorb their energies. Drinking the blood of dragonkin was the surest way, it was an exponential booster of the body’s connections to its core. That was how Falcon’s Rest had done it, all of them, so they quickly realized they weren’t alone in their new forms. A second dragon, culled from a field dungeon after the big break, had been bled dry to keep as a reserve for boosting citizens to tier three in the settlement. Even so, lot of people outside his initial home settlement, especially refugees from remote clusters of survivors unaccustomed to the full expression of latent human forms, had taken it hard when they’d transformed overnight. And not just the ladies, no few of the lads had a tough time accepting extra eyes, additional limbs, or scales across their necks and backs or whatever else. Alexander couldn’t help but be a little contemptuous of worrying about vanity when there were so much bigger fish to fry, but he could be sort of callous, so who was he to judge?

  “You wouldn’t happen to be the same Alexander that solo’d a Reaper one time, would you?” Captain Grace asked, coming out from left field.

  “The very same.” He answered, surprised that she knew about that little adventure.

  That was from way, way back, his first year after the Pulse, before he’d even gone to Safe Harbor.

  Small world. He wondered how far tales of Adventurers and rumors of their doings got spread or how much the truth got mutated during its travel. He’d heard some humdingers. Oswald the Goliath, who bear hugged an Ogre and broke its back. John Thunderbolt, whose spells put down a mature manticore guarding a tier two dungeon core. Lights Out Evee, who put thirty arrows through Orc berserker visors from a hundred yards and stopped a warband charge on a village by herself. Dreadnought Ben, who slayed a red wyrmling, cleaned out a horde of Doppelgangers, and withstood a cyclops eye beam without a scratch on his metallic hide.

  Alexander had been there for the dragon and that last one and Ben Grisham had said it hurt like a motherfucker, like all the wasps on God’s green Earth stinging you everywhere, but it was still kind of rad that he’d done it. The weird combination of fire and lightning that was a cyclops eyebeam could give an armored truck a bad time.

  “Huh. Always wanted to fight one, something about putting down a death scythe slinging Lich just feels right.” Captain Grace told him, admiration warring with envy tinging her tone.

  His mind flashed back to the Tech’duinn dungeon guardian, its skin crawling tone, the unnatural stillness of its skeletal form, an incarnation of mortal endings.

  “Trust me, you probably don’t.” the Venator muttered seriously, “I don’t even know how most Adventurers would even start, it had a Soak of like ninety-five percent and damage resistance to almost everything physical. Creepy, undead fucker.”

  A raised eyebrow from the Peacekeeper officer indicated she was clearly doubting.

  “Then how did you?” She asked without emphasis, not entirely certain if the mercenary Adventurer was humble bragging or not.

  He met her eyes with his own and grinned roguishly, “Cheated. Entropic mana ignores Soak. Also, I ruined the best magic spear I had on that bastard, a polar core and frost brand enchant totally destroyed. And that damned Fiend ivory and Umberite ore scythe was bait! It was five years before anybody could even figure out how to refine and use it for anything. Had a souped-up gardener using it as a main arm for two years while we developed the skills and traits to smith it.”

  Truly, the guardian of the low tier necropolis dungeon was a wickedly over tuned creature for newly matriculated, immature classed Adventurers that faced it. If not for how little time the necropolis had had to develop, how little time the Reaper had had to solidify its foundations on this new plane of existence, he would have died, more than likely. But, if there was one thing Gaia had done for him, it was when he’d asked for a way to break the rules of this ludicrous world, the planet had granted his wish, to whatever extent was possible. Entropic magic destroyed Soak. Entropic magic warped and unraveled other types of magic and corroded mana structures. A Dracul dungeon guardian, a tier four, and which had evidenced a life with experience against different classes of mana assisted warrior had referred to him as an Unweaver. Against a monster composed of animate bones, death magic, and shielded primarily by its mana ward, he was uniquely equipped. Alexander was a Reaper’s natural predator.

  Grace Miller had heard of many talents, mages of a whole host of mana types, wielding various arcane powers. She’d never heard of any one of them that could ignore the mitigation of Soak. Normally, you had to brute force your way through it, overpower it. Or, by repeatedly chopping away, wear it away, often by exhausting the mana supply of the creature’s core.

  “Fuck.” She whispered, mostly to herself, “That is cheating.”

  Then she jerked spasmodically and leaned down whispering over loud in her excitement, only half the room could hear her if they cared to listen, “What do you mean refine and use the scythe?! How?! Where?!”

  Ahhh, now he knew what got her attention. This here was a lady who appreciated the artisans of warcraft, a fellow gear nerd. Well! Did he have a little surprise for her!

  Alexander was carrying a portion of the Reaper’s scythe on him, in the form of his Messer, his war knife, which he had lovingly dubbed Talon. Other than its sister blades, nothing like this existed elsewhere on Gaia, not that he knew of. Other awesome products of the various dungeons and master craftsmen out there in the wide, wide world, certainly, but not like this.

  Clearing his cloak from his belt, he slowly drew the thick, slightly curved, heavy single edged knife, its obsidian black sheen of primary edge bevel stark. The rest of its exposed blade was black braided with ivory white grains, it reminded him of a grey scale anodized titanium, the way it shimmered whites, greys, and blacks. Overall, it exuded a sort of hungry gleam in the aether lights of the chamber, its edge limned faintly in angry crimson, fueled by runic inlays of Ur’garnets.

  A low whistle of appreciation greeted the reveal of the weapon, whose elegant lines, precise bevels, and utterly utilitarian design marked it as the work of a master bladesmith. Alexander, the architect of its design, if not by far solely its maker, was rightfully proud. This here was his Talon, there were none like it, and it was his.

  The mana-soaked stones cut by a crafting class with a Greater lapidary trait were harvested by a quartet of Mining specialist harvesters from the Appleton mine, now a field dungeon guarded by a big copper golem that called lightning. Twice he’d attempted to kill the golem, and twice he’d failed, it moved its core to avoid his attacks and the arcane lightning it wielded blew him out of his boots the last time he’d tried. Shiv had to restart his heart after the raid team dragged his body to safety. The garnets were a consolation prize, along with three tons of golem arms that it kept regrowing, and a confirmation that the dragon pulse beneath Gaia’s surface breathed her energies into the very stones. He was gonna get that bastard golem one of these days, yessir.

  The runes that empowered his weapon to vorpal potency were a legacy of a dear friend murdered.

  Kim Summers’ runic library and techniques lived on in a bookish Galdur Scribe with a gift for gem cutting. The man wore comically oversized glasses but otherwise looked like an athletic Joe Pesci, and his heavy Long Island accent was a thing to behold when he got rolling about his trade. Together, he and Alexander argued, bitched, and made each other miserable while pushing humanity forward every time they managed to reach consensus. Alexander won few of their debates, but his was the task of the devil’s advocate, the critic. Nobody liked having their art judged harshly, even when it forced them to satisfy their own perfectionism to make it that much better. Alexander’s lack of decorum and emotional awareness served the good of Falcon’s Rest in this particular case.

  As for the material of the blade, it was a hell of an achievement in magic and metallurgy: Umberite, an ore native to Tech’duinn, the Reaper’s realm refined in a Muspelheim volcanic forge to purify it into a metal called Nether Wolfram. Twilight Damascas, a layered alloy of metals from Nut, the realm of night he’d claimed during a raid on a tier four dungeon threatening Falcon’s Rest provided the other metallics. These he combined chemically, with the help of a radically talented alchemist and Pyroclastic Canoneer named Wynona Saki. She loathed forges and smelters but had a gift for synthesis of new alloys, optimizing their properties, including the aetheric ones.

  Under her guidance, the metal stock bars were dissolved in an Aqua Regia bath. Using electrodes powered by lightning mana from a massive electric eel inhabiting Maine’s many waterways, one hooked to a diamond rod, the other to a dragon fang, the process catalyzed by the mana of the transformative Chimaera stones added to the acid bath, which resulted in recrystallization into a new alloy joined physically and metaphysically to a Muspelheim Red Wyrmling’s tooth. The composite matrix of dragon reinforced by the midnight black metal complex, would be denoted by his Greater analyze as Styxian Ultimet, and its creation pushed his Warforger trait to evolve to Foregmaster, while Saki, already a Greater Alchemist, reached the coveted Master Alchemist for her achievement.

  Styxian Ultimet was more or less unworkable by conventional methods. Not even George Two-point-oh, a steam driven industrial power hammer had been capable of deforming the resulting composite. It had taken the effort of another savant of Falcon’s Rest, a man named Jules Reynolds, with the class Quintessence Shaper, to, with great effort, manipulate the stock into a blade. Jules, who could mold Tungsten like puddy, had needed to use a blacksmith hammer and anvil to pound the alien metal alloy-dragon fang composite to specification, something only he could do, because, for anybody else, the anvil would have shattered before the Styxian Ultimet took shape.

  The Outsider matter shaper then needed to apply his powers in combination with a file made of the same material to bevel and grind the blade, under Alexander’s years honed guidance in bladesmithing. That done, the first belt from a bench grinder they used to try to polish the blade threw angry red sparks and melted apart within a few seconds, meaning Jules had to hand sand and finish it, burning his mana to exercise his powers over the fantastically resilient material. However, as if it knew what its purpose was, once they managed to obtain the correct blade geometry, its edge formed an s-shaped hollow grind secondary bevel unbidden. As if the material wanted to sever living things and was willing to adopt whatever form helped it do that best.

  The result was worth all the effort. As the giantess warrior made clear in her approving expression toward the weapon while he gobbled on about its making.

  And not only for himself. Alexander’s war knife, a broad bladed two-foot lance head, a kukri, a four-foot estoc, and sixty gnarly looking rivets for shields that would shatter blades that challenged them or rend flesh with a light shield bash, all went into active duty. Besides, the arms themselves, they’d figured out a dozen different tricks for forging, sanding, shaping, and smithing next generation super magic materials in the process, so double win.

  As far as Alexander knew, they’d made the nearest thing to Adamantium that he had ever seen. This knife resisted even his entropic mana, which was another first. Most blades grew dull when he ran his magic through them, its inherent disorder scrambling the fine geometry of the edge. Not so this one. A razor it was and a razor it remained, no matter what he did to dull it. The golem high steel guard and fiend ivory hilt, wrapped in dragon wing membrane, just added to the weapon’s grandeur. This war knife was worth more than most human settlements, to those who had the analysis skill to view its full glory.

  A loudly exclaimed “Uffda!” accompanied Captain Grace’s reverent study of the weapon. She made to thumb the edge and he quickly curtailed the coming brutal flesh wound with a raised hand and a hurried chant of ‘bad idea! bad idea!’.

  The extended thumb froze and her crystal blue eyes widened.

  “Really? It’s that sharp?” Captain Grace, professional soldier asked, mildly skeptical with her forty-five percent Soak and whopping thirty-three points of Durability.

  She could use a cheese grater to scratch an itch and barely exfoliate. Still, the mercenary Adventurer had sounded serious.

  He was greatly relieved when the reaching hand stopped. He was serious about not touching the edge. Even hair whittling blades could be safely touched, provided you were careful. However, Alexander’s Messer made a scalpel seem like a butter knife. It wasn’t merely sharp in the mundane sense, the materials, the energies innate to them, they were inimical to life. An alchemically refined and artisan crafted magic weapon whose components came from the realm of death, the realm of night, and the realm of fire was dangerous, go figure.

  Alexander sucked his teeth a moment at the close call and wagged the thumb in his off hand and answered, “Guess how I know? All the way off.”

  Fortunately, the Phoenix sun restored even amputated digits.

  An expeditious retreat of the warrior’s favored hand ensued.

  “Jeez! Put that beautiful, terrible fucking thing away!” The giantess Peacekeeper commanded, rubbing her nearly maimed hand unconsciously.

  Hand wounds were obnoxious, every melee fighter knew that, and avoided them, lest weapons drills and combat training become even more painful.

  Like a moth drawn to the flame, the Peacekeeper warrior nerd couldn’t help asking, “Does it ever need honing?”

  “Not really,” He said shaking his head, “It’s part of Talon’s natural mana field, first, its material property, second, and a hell of a rune lattice, third.” Alexander told her while sheathing his little buddy.

  Alexander enjoyed discussing field work and magitech, he could do it all day, talking like office workers burning company time regaling each other about a shared hobby over the water cooler to avoid doing real work. His enthusiasm was unforced as he got his geek mode engaged.

  Something about the casual slouch and guileless attitude of their “guest” Captain Grace Miller found mildly disquieting. Falcon’s Rest was small, but rumored to be unusual in that it consisted entirely of tier threes and even their non-combat classes participated regularly in dungeon kills all over the New England region, if the tales of merchant caravan guards were not outright lies. The lack of nerves regarding being around the tier three, powerful braves of the Peacekeepers could be excused in that case. Especially when the first two fighters of the guild to test him had resulted in absolute defeat.

  That had been too easy, nobody fought a Peacekeeper and won clean, she told herself, hiding her pique at that embarrassment. They might be dickheads but Howard and Gibbons were blooded men at arms. Grace had sparred with them herself and, while she was their better in all things martial, they weren’t impotent. Except that they had been. So that was worrying, what had come to New Chicago that was leading this Hunter-killer a merry goddamned chase? To add onto that, the Adventurer mercenary was nattering on about metallurgy without a single care in the world. She had to admit a weakness for arms and armor, but this was well beyond her expertise, bordering on obsession. She’d have to keep an eye on this weird visitor.

  There’s nothing like swapping tech tips with folk who appreciate how cool post Pulse arcane smithing is, Alexander thought, growing almost cheerful at getting to indulge in shop talk. Captain Grace was an attentive audience, and, as a bonus, she had pull, so maybe the Peacekeepers would find motivation to go kick the dogshit out of even more dungeons to claim their prizes or promote mining or exploration teams to find hidden resources amongst the Gaian wilderness. Besides, Falcon’s Rest was gaining a reputation as a top-class hub for manufacturing arms, armor, or other difficult to produce high performance equipment to the other settlements, so this here was just free advertising to potentially big-time customers.

  “Styxian Ultimet, the Nut-Tech’duinn alloy metal and dragon fang composite, seems to form sharp edges on its own!” He concluded, spreading the good word of his and his peers craft, “This property gets reinforced by a wicked set of runic inscriptions supported by the right gemstone matrix, Ur’garnet, in this case. Same as a polar bear core imparts frost to a weapon, or one of those Gigawatt eels puts a hell of an electric kick into a defensive rune. As soon as we finished the polish on the edge, with the rune engravings ready to go on the alloyed composite, it cut the hell out of anything that touched it. Three Anchor tanks tested the edge and three Anchor tanks, with better than fifty percent Soak, wound up with a laceration that went all the way to the bone at the slightest touch.”

  Thoughtful chewing of lip occurred from the giantess and she finger gunned him, stating “Like those stupid spiders that spin monofilament webs.”

  “Bingo!” Alexander rejoined, scowling slightly at the thought of those creepy crawly bastards with their lairs like something out of a gory horror flick. Birds, squirrels, panthers, and most animals for that matter, couldn’t see the threads before they ran into them. The results were gruesome and the spiders liked to move once every couple of days, when prey started avoiding places that dripped gore from the branches around their nest.

  Pretty much the same deal, anyway, except his knife blade didn’t become harmless when you heated it over a flame, or have its edge restored when you rapidly cooled it, the way the silk of horror-show slicing web spiders did. Which was why the sheathe on his belt was also special in nature, as a regular old wood and leather affair was swiftly determined to be inadequate to the task of restraining Styxian Ultimet forged weapons, especially Galdur Scribed ones. Thin laminated Red Wyrmling Scale, courtesy, once again, of Jules Reynolds’ gifts at doing the impossible with materials that couldn’t normally be shaped. The dragon scale inside the leather prevented the rune enhanced metallic composite edge from parting the sheath neatly and burying itself in one’s leg as they exited the smithy with a freshly bandaged hand to tell everyone what they’d done. He was not proud that his knife’s first victim was himself. Twice.

  “Jeez!” Captain Grace mumbled again, thinking about her claymore, whose length meant a full sheath was essentially impossible.

  She’d lop her own legs off carrying something like that she decided. Who’d have thought there’d be downsides to a sword being too good at cutting? Still, she was definitely interested in the short sword of the dark-haired monster hunter, who was being ridiculously open about the methods, materials, and properties of their gear. Most Adventurers played these things a little closer to the chest. The smiths she’d spoken to while contracting their services certainly hadn’t ranted on about how to make them, they guarded closely their techniques, only advertising the end result of the craftsmanship.

  Definitely she was dealing with an odd one. Normal people didn’t focus like this she decided, they were bound to get distracted, especially in a new environment as flagrant as the grand cathedral.

  Then there was the frankly unsettling nature of those eyes, even worse than her comrade with his extra pair and their disconcerting independent tracking. These black and green ones seemed to look inside you. Coupled with the way the mercenary appeared to scan unconsciously, cataloguing every single thing he saw or the intense, instant ill will possessed towards things that needed killing arose, such as the Vorpal-silk Spinners, she noted a discontinuity.

  Harmless one moment and immensely dangerous another, with very little between. Many of her fellow red cloaked officers were cut from that cloth, herself included. Warriors with years of fighting in the green, battling the dungeon spawn tended to end up that way, the ones that survived it. She’d definitely be keeping an eye on this one.

  Mayhap the mercenary could be recruited, the devoted officer for her Guild mused. Able bodied combat classes were always in demand, so long as they had the skills. Gibbons and Howard had established that fact rather succinctly, which was the only good thing Grace Miller would say about the pair for the immediate future.

  While they’d chatted, the Peacekeepers troopers in their white cloaks had mostly departed, given their orders by the red cloaked officers, which left Alexander alone with the Guild brass. No matter how impressive or wondrous the Notre Dame replica vestibule was, he was ready to get out of here and get back to trying to find a clue that would get him moving closer to ending this contract.

  From somewhere in the stratosphere, the Oread with the commanding pipes got her comrades’ attention, “One more to keep our Adventurer friend here out of trouble! Who wants it, eh?”

  Clearly, she’d nominated herself as the first.

  Whatever part of him that disliked the notion that he was being treated like he needed babysitters took great malicious glee that none of the Peacekeepers present appeared to relish that duty. After not a little grumbling amidst themselves, it was the axe bearing Marid, the grizzled black man trailed by tiny snowflakes who volunteered.

  “I’ll take the duty,” the caramel skinned warrior built from tree stumps sighed, “If Captain Miller misses lunch, we’ll have a diplomatic emergency when Falcon’s Rest finds out she ate their ranger. Best somebody with a cool head is around to keep a lid on things.”

  Was that a pun? From a senior warrior caste Guildie? Things might just be looking up, Alexander thought. Bout damned time, he was due some good luck.

  “Yuh huh, you keep it up buddy,” Captain Grace retorted, plainly facetious, “I’ll put my meals on Captain Pruitt’s tab.”

  “Woah now! No need to get hasty!” the Guildie officer, apparently named Pruitt placated, making settle down motions with his gauntlets toward the notorious eater that was his comrade.

  He spun to address Alexander directly.

  “Speaking of, seems you been busy stranger, when jeet last?” Captain Pruitt inquired in a cordial tone, noting the advanced state of wear on the Adventurer youth’s gear, the shadows under his eyes, and the slight gauntness of cheeks.

  Alexander watched the rest of the Peacekeepers filing out to their tasks and considered the question, once he’d parsed the local Chicago parlance. Probably the roasted walking potato and game from before his short snooze. That was a little over twelve hours ago. No. More than that, he’d eaten just after midnight, it was probably two hours past noon at this point. A scrub of his hand over his face permitted the aggravating roughness of stubble on his chin the to remind him that he’d been largely unable to do more than maintain the barest notions of hygiene, as well as skimping on meals and sleep.

  “Call it fourteen hours, Captain. If you’re offering food, I’ll accept it gladly and speak your praises to anybody that asks for a hundred miles.” He said, not even remotely joking.

  Forty-seven days on the road, pushing hard to keep up with a murderer possessed of freakish stamina across just under half the continent was enough to make a solid lunch worthy of naming his second born. That was coming sooner than later, probably. With the boy coming on three this year, he was starting to get the impression Brigitte O’Connor might be warming to the idea of bouncing one of her own on her hip. She didn’t even blush when he walked in on her playing horsy to the lad’s cowboy anymore, which had once required oaths of secrecy backed by dire foretelling of violence if he spoke of it to anyone.

  He was meandering about home again. Head in the game Alexander, find the killer. Then deal with it. Then fly for Falcon’s Rest with all speed.

  The two Peacekeepers ignored the traveler’s briefly maudlin expression and set to leading him to a mess hall held along the cathedral’s west ambulatory. Roasting meat, stewed vegetables and tubers, boiling beans, all the smells of decadent feasting denied him set his mouth watering. His mood lifted instantly at the promise of this kingly repast.

  “I will die for you, or kill others in your name.” He promised his hosts, when he sat down with a tray of vittles, steam carrying the scent directly into his nostrils.