Sobon moved stiffly, de-spite the rest and the ar-ti-fi-cial nerves and ac-tu-a-tors he'd graft-ed into the "body" that the Founder had giv-en him. It was... nowhere near a prop-er med-ical fix, but Sobon had en-tered bat-tle with a worse body. Once. That had not end-ed up a suc-cess-ful bat-tle, ex-cept by the clas-sic mil-i-tary stan-dard: any bat-tle you sur-vive is a suc-cess-ful one.

  Sobon was un-sure whether this cur-rent mess would count as suc-cess-ful, in the end, even by that low stan-dard. Then again... he'd died sev-er-al times al-ready, and was still here.

  The Founder was not in the out-er, Djang-fac-ing part of its spaces, but Sobon did not hes-i-tate to pass into the cor-ri-dor that had un-mis-tak-ably been left open for him. The Founders' 'fa-cil-i-ty' was a hy-per-ge-o-met-ric en-ti-ty in its own right--it ex-tend-ed right out of nor-mal space, not mere-ly ex-ist-ing with-in a pock-et di-men-sion, but ex-tend-ing up into lay-ers of aether space, and Sobon knew that the Founder would not have left the open-ing in a state where he could en-ter if it was not an in-vi-ta-tion. The Founders, af-ter all, could wrap physics and re-al-i-ty around their fin-gers, cre-at-ing and al-ter-ing mat-ter in ways that de-fied any less-er users of aether.

  Pass-ing into the an aether di-men-sion for the first time felt to Sobon not un-like the first time he had ever used aether--a pe-cu-liar sen-sa-tion of a loss of con-trol, as though new things were pos-si-ble, and some deep-er part of him had nev-er pre-pared for these pos-si-bil-i-ties, could nev-er have pre-pared for them. And yet... Sobon could also feel a part of his psy-che that was dis-tinct-ly up-set that he could sim-ply walk into... what di-rec-tion was he go-ing any-way?

  A syn-thet-ic in-tel-li-gence of some sort re-spond-ed, the data not so much pulsed as wo-ven through the hall-way like a pass-ing rib-bon. Sobon was in-deed sim-ply trav-el-ling through nor-mal, three-di-men-sion-al space, but also, the fa-cil-i-ty's ori-en-ta-tion was tech-ni-cal-ly deep-er into left-right aether spin plane. The fur-ther he trav-elled into this branch of the fa-cil-i-ty, the deep-er he trav-eled into Left-right aether space, though that ab-stract con-cept was de-cep-tive and not use-ful in-for-ma-tion.

  Sobon, rather than chal-leng-ing ei-ther that in-for-ma-tion or his own re-ac-tion to it, filed the data away as true in his mind and moved on.

  Sev-er-al times, Sobon felt sure that he had come to an in-ter-sec-tion, but every path-way but the in-tend-ed one was sealed. By some trick, every time that hap-pened, Sobon thought he was go-ing straight, though he knew that must not be so. As be-fore, he re-fused to chal-lenge the ap-pear-ance; it was doubt-less a se-cu-ri-ty mea-sure, and Sobon had no in-ter-est in fight-ing the se-cu-ri-ty of a Founder fa-cil-i-ty, au-to-mat-ed or oth-er-wise.

  Those in-ter-sec-tions, how-ev-er, only served to high-light the one odd-i-ty of the trip: a sealed side door, with a holo-rib-bon say-ing "No ad-mit-tence." Sobon stud-ied it long enough to be cer-tain it meant what it said, and moved on, feel-ing less and less cer-tain about the fa-cil-i-ty and his place in all of this.

  When at last he found the Founder, the crea-ture was stand-ing in what Sobon knew must be some sort of mon-i-tor-ing sta-tion, a holo-graph-ic lift that sur-round-ed them with del-i-cate aether threads, threads that must rep-re-sent both con-trols and in-for-ma-tion. From Sobon's own per-spec-tive, the mass of data around the Founder was un-rec-og-niz-able, but he had no doubt that the Founder was be-ing giv-en every-thing it need-ed to un-der-stand the in-for-ma-tion.

  "Sobon of Crest," the Founder said, with-out piv-ot-ing in place or oth-er-wise phys-i-cal-ly ac-knowled-ing him.

  "Founder." Sobon paused. "You nev-er did give me your name."

  "Nor do I in-tend to. Lin-guis-ti-cal-ly, for our peo-ple, our pro-fes-sion-al iden-ti-ty be-comes our iden-ti-ty, in-so-far as we are noth-ing more than that pro-fes-sion at any giv-en mo-ment. Sim-i-lar-ly, our no-table his-to-ry, in-clud-ing crimes, be-come ad-e-quate sub-sti-tutes for an iden-ti-ty, in-so-far as they are un-am-bigu-ous." Gen-tly, so gen-tly that Sobon might have missed it, the Founder pressed them-selves back with aether force, dis-en-gag-ing from the holo-graph-ic mon-i-tor-ing sta-tion. "In the Founders' lan-guage, ap-pro-pri-ate names for me would in-clude 'In-tern', 'Be-tray-er', 'Mur-der-er', 'Liar', 'Fool', 'Ma-nip-u-la-tor', and oth-er, less of-fi-cial and less po-lite vari-ants. To me, you re-main 'Crestan,' though I un-der-stand that you pre-fer an ex-plic-it iden-ti-ty mark-er."

  Sobon found that de-tail of the Founders' cul-ture both ir-ra-tional and ir-ri-tat-ing. "I do," he con-firmed, not both-er-ing to hide the ir-ri-ta-tion in his voice. "Isn't your pro-fes-sion-al iden-ti-ty ul-ti-mate-ly am-bigu-ous in most cir-cum-stances? To a col-league, or oth-er per-son of sim-i-lar stand-ing?"

  "You for-get that as a cul-ture, we speak with in-tent, as much as words," the Founder said, sound-ing mild-ly amused. "If we have any need to dis-am-biguate, the in-tent of the word con-veys the specifics. When do-ing so, the word it-self is su-per-flu-ous, but it re-mains... po-lite, to sum-ma-rize the in-tent in a sin-gle word. It is an ex-er-cise in brevi-ty and holis-tic in-tent."

  Sobon rubbed his... or rather, he still had Alas-si's head on this pup-pet body, as grotesque as that felt. Was he rub-bing her head? He hat-ed this whole sit-u-a-tion, though he had lit-tle doubts things would re-main screwed up for a long time. "I wish I had more time to rest," Sobon said af-ter a mo-ment, "but I get the im-pres-sion we don't have that time. And pre-sum-ably, that means we don't have the time to waste on idle chat-ter."

  "Time flows strange-ly when fate is ma-nip-u-lat-ed," the Founder said, "a fact that you sure-ly know. But you also, to my cha-grin, are not wrong. There have been at-tempts to break into this fa-cil-i-ty from the 'oth-er end', at-tempts that will some-day suc-ceed." The Founder ges-tured, and with a hiss and a qui-et thunk, the door be-hind Sobon closed--and an-oth-er, near-by, opened. "Come, let us dis-cuss more com-fort-ably."

  Sobon turned and stud-ied the door be-hind him, but was con-fi-dent when he turned that the noise it had made in clos-ing was en-tire-ly for his ben-e-fit. So he fol-lowed the Founder into some-thing like a con-fer-ence room, if the Founders as a so-ci-ety had any need to ded-i-cate whole rooms to such a ba-sic con-cept.

  It was, func-tioan-l-ly, a very ba-sic room in-tend-ed for sev-er-al rest-ing peo-ples, but laid out specif-i-cal-ly for pre-sen-ta-tions, and with some mi-nor tools whose pur-pose beamed them-selves into Sobon's mind with in-tent. In re-al-i-ty, there were only three ba-sic types of tools here--the syn-thet-ic in-tel-li-gence, which could be queried for in-for-ma-tion, a pre-sen-ta-tion ap-pa-ra-tus for for-mat-ting and pro-ject-ing in-for-ma-tion, and the cir-cu-lar glyphs on the floor whose self-iden-ti-ty trans-lat-ed in Sobon's mind to [float-rest].

  The Founder took one of these, and im-me-di-ate-ly be-gan re-lax-ing in open air as they had when Sobon had first met them, and so Sobon moved into an-oth-er of the cir-cles, to find that his body was pressed up-wards--from with-in, and even-ly, in ways that might have been com-fort-able to any-one else. Sobon blinked, try-ing to study the sen-sa-tion and the aether flows around him, but his nerves and aether sens-es were still itchy and burn-ing, a re-sult of the pa-thet-ic half-body he still resided in.

  The same day he had met this Founder, his body had been ripped mer-ci-less-ly to pieces by a Djang man, some rel-a-tive of the Djang Roy-al Fam-i-ly who was out of pow-er and re-bel-lious. The man's chains had ripped out his bones and even pulled the spine straight out of his brain stem, all the while some-how not do-ing quite enough dam-age to kill him out-right. The bas-tadr had even seemed to be-lieve he would get away with it, but--well. The Founder was pre-tend-ing, quite suc-cess-ful-ly, to be the Di-a-mond Lord, supreme ruler of the world, and had re-quest-ed Sobon's pres-ence. To have done so much to the Di-a-mond Lord's guest was... un-wise.

  Sobon didn't know what had hap-pened since, but it didn't take much imag-i-na-tion. Ei-ther the man would sub-mit and be judged for what had hap-pened, or he would fight. De-pend-ing on who else he dragged into the mess, it might al-ready be over, or it might drag into a war. That sound-ed ex-treme--Sobon's own in-stincts were that the man would be swift-ly brought to jus-tice--but Sobon had learned too well that jus-tice didn't work cor-rect-ly in this world. It was en-tire-ly too like-ly that he would show up with some kind of larg-er army, de-clar-ing his own cause just and de-cry-ing Sobon as some kind of mon-ster for dar-ing to de-fend him-self.

  It wouldn't be the first time, and Sobon had only just ar-rived on this damned plan-et a few weeks ago.

  "I sup-pose these rests aren't as much val-ue to you as I would have liked," Sobon heard the Founder say, and he brought his at-ten-tion back to it, as it float-ed across form him. "It is a gen-uine pity. I've sam-pled the seat-ing of the child races, specif-i-cal-ly those rat-ed most com-fort-able by their re-spec-tive so-ci-eties, and none of them come with-in thir-ty per-cent of a float-rest. Even less-er at-tempts to per-form the same gen-er-al tech-nique, by those of less-er aether, can-not com-pare. I sup-pose it is sim-ply the... en-ti-tle-ment? I sup-pose we are sim-ply too used to com-fort be-ing a solved prob-lem."

  "It doesn't do much for me," Sobon agreed, try-ing to keep the frus-tra-tion from his voice. "The sit-u-a-tion?"

  With-out ges-tur-ing, the Founder flick-ered im-ages into the space be-tween them, and Sobon found when he looked that the aether pre-sen-ta-tion ap-pa-ra-tus was also avail-able to him, though the con-trols were un-fa-mil-iar. Ei-ther way, the in-for-ma-tion that the Founder pre-sent-ed be-gan to mu-tate in ways Sobon sus-pect-ed were for him alone, as the fa-cil-i-ty or its AI ad-just-ed to what Sobon him-self knew or could un-der-stand, and added and re-moved in-for-ma-tion to not over-whelm or un-der-in-form him.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  "This is us, and this is this world," the Founder said, show-ing the plan-et, its fa-cil-i-ty, and a vague net-work be-yond. "Ac-cord-ing to our data-base, your species un-der-stands this sys-tem as Rex-hai, and thus the plan-et is Rex-hai 2, but there's no rea-son for you to know the name. It is with-in Founder space, and not par-tic-u-lar-ly close to Im-pe-r-i-al con-trolled space."

  "Why did it the Ri'lef ressurec-tion pro-to-cols find me, then? As op-posed to any-one else?" The map, once dis-played, made any hint that this was sim-ply co-in-ci-dence be-yond im-prob-a-ble.

  "Ob-vi-ous-ly it didn't." The Founder ges-tured, not with their hands, but with a holo-graph-ic pres-ence that merged seam-less-ly into the pre-sen-ta-tion, and the yet-un-la-beled net-work was high-light-ed. "You are... a mo-ment... ap-par-ent-ly the ap-pro-pri-ate term is 'a hack at-tempt'. Founder fate mag-ic chose you as an en-ti-ty like-ly to en-sure that this sit-u-a-tion was re-solv-able." The Founder swiveled to-wards Sobon, some-what, and their pres-ence, some-where above and around them, changed pos-tures, too sub-tly for Sobon to make out any de-tail. "I should clar-i-fy--not my fate mag-ic. It was an in-tru-sive ac-tion tak-en by the net-work, and like-ly not the only one. There have cer-tain-ly been oth-er and var-i-ous in-tru-sion at-tempts since then."

  "I hope not more un-for-tu-nates be-ing born into this world," Sobon said, men-tal-ly reach-ing for the pro-jec-tion, and ma-nip-u-lat-ing what he un-der-stood as his own copy of it. But al-though he prod-ded at the mod-els, no new in-for-ma-tion was sur-faced.

  "Per-haps some," the Founder ad-mit-ted, and al-though their voice and in-tent gave noth-ing away, Sobon was sure that the state-ment was eva-sive, and pre-sum-ably a non-ad-mis-sion. "But the mat-ter of con-se-quence is this: the fate ma-nip-u-la-tion will con-tin-ue, and es-ca-late, un-til there are re-sults. Giv-en that you seem to gen-uine-ly want to fix this bro-ken world, I can con-tent my-self with let-ting you be the... con-se-quen-tial fac-tor, in me choos-ing to give my-self over to them."

  "Be-cause the next at-tempt won't care about the con-se-quences to the plan-et?"

  "Or about my life, or yours." The Founder's pre-sent-ed holo-grams flick-ered, and Sobon though they were in-ex-pert-ly con-ceal-ing things. He pressed light-ly at the pre-sen-ta-tion, try-ing to ma-nip-u-late it men-tal-ly, but his aether sens-es were sim-ply not dex-trous or sen-si-tive enough, not any-more, and he pushed it away in frus-tra-tion. The Founder stud-ied him, and then, per-haps out of pity, the pre-sen-ta-tion opened up, re-veal-ing faces, iden-ti-ties.

  There were two of them, and while Sobon didn't know them, he could rec-og-nize their ori-gins. One was an in-de-pen-dent sys-tem not too far from Crestan space, while an-oth-er was a known Founder's Child race, one as-so-ci-at-ed with their wargames. Like most Founder's Child races in their wargames, their so-ci-ety had both evolved and de-volved, as they un-der-stood one of theirs would be cho-sen every ten years to par-tic-i-pate in [The Game]. And if a [Play-er] of [The Game] came to their world...

  It would not end well, one way or an-oth-er, but be-ing pre-pared was far wis-er than not.

  "The peo-ple be-hind these ma-nip-u-la-tions are, broad-ly, per-form-ing sim-i-lar ac-tions to what I thought I would be per-form-ing when I came here, though they are ex-pe-ri-enced and adept, while I was young and naive. I at-tempt-ed to in-ter-fere with the fate ma-nip-u-la-tion in each case, which is... most like-ly why the third can-di-date was even nec-es-sary. I had hopes that there would be a bet-ter res-o-lu-tion, but my re-sis-tance was proof that in-ter-ven-tion was nec-es-sary."

  Sobon stud-ied the iden-ti-ties, but the ex-pla-na-tion felt lack-ing. "You said they were still try-ing to break in."

  "Yes. Agents of fate car-ry the essence of their ma-nip-u-la-tor with them, and that in-cludes you. The fact that you en-tered this fa-cil-i-ty--with my per-mis-sion--will ac-cel-er-ate their at-tempts to break into the sys-tems and re-gain con-trol. In that way, when you said that we had lit-tle time, you were quite cor-rect." The Founder didn't move, phys-i-cal-ly, but their pro-jec-tion en-tered into the pre-sen-ta-tion again, its fin-gers steepling and eyes nar-row-ing, show-ing a de-vi-ous side that their phys-i-cal ap-pear-ance en-tire-ly masked. "Thus we need to dis-cuss the fu-ture, Sobon of Crest."

  "So dis-cuss it," Sobon said, push-ing the ex-ist-ing pre-sen-ta-tion away.

  "My in-tent is to give my-self over to them," the Founder said, "and by so do-ing, es-tab-lish that the sit-u-a-tion is con-trolled. How-ev-er, I will be un-able to lie to the Su-per-vi-sor that I will con-tact, as a mat-ter of aether pow-er and sen-si-tiv-i-ty. If the sit-u-a-tion is not un-der con-trol, with-in cer-tain stan-dards, then they will con-tin-ue with more hasty and con-se-quen-tial ac-tions, ac-tions that will taint the on-go-ing plan-e-tary ex-per-i-ment to such a de-gree that the ex-per-i-ment's end is guar-an-teed."

  Ex-per-i-ment. Sobon didn't need the pre-sen-ta-tion to trans-late the Founder's in-tent, but it did, spelling it out with di-a-grams and sec-tions of text tai-lored to his own ed-u-ca-tion. The Founders had cre-at-ed this world and ma-nip-u-lat-ed its form, all so that they could watch and see what hap-pened. But if they thought the ex-per-i-ment was over, or would pro-duce an un-de-sir-able re-sult... they had no prob-lem with wip-ing the ex-per-i-ment away and start-ing an-oth-er one.

  They would dis-pose of the failed ex-per-i-ment--a very po-lite way of phras-ing geno-cide, Sobon though, sup-press-ing the anger that rose with-in him. And even if that didn't in-clude Sobon, and even if Sobon could ar-gue for the lives of Ki'el, and Lui, and Mian, and oth-ers, that still left... what? Tens, hun-dreds of mil-lions? A bil-lion peo-ple? Sobon didn't query the syn-thet-ic in-tel-li-gence, didn't want to know. Plen-ty of them would de-serve death, but all of them?

  What frac-tion of a bil-lion peo-ple had to be worth sav-ing? Sobon re-fused to let it be a mat-ter of num-bers. "It's re-pul-sive," he said out loud. "In-fu-ri-at-ing."

  "Yes," the Founder said. "But the sin isn't the killing, Sobon of Crest. The sin is cre-at-ing some-thing in-tel-li-gent only to de-stroy it."

  Sobon shook his head--but had to ad-mit, that was pos-si-bly the truth. "We can't get into that kind of talk right now," he said, forc-ing his thoughts back to the mat-ter at hand. "What you want is for me to find a way to sta-bi-lize things so that you can say hon-est-ly that they are sta-ble."

  "An ad-e-quate sum-ma-ry," the Founder replied. "The stan-dards that we must meet are that the Fa-cil-i-ty is neu-tral-ized, that no fur-ther con-tact be-tween my-self and the in-hab-i-tants be per-formed, and that the lo-cal po-lit-i-cal sit-u-a-tion can-not pose a risk to the Fa-cil-i-ty or the ex-per-i-ment as a whole." There was a pause. "The last is more com-pli-cat-ed than it ap-pears."

  Sobon frowned. Al-though he thought he grasped the sit-u-a-tion pret-ty well, that state-ment didn't give him an im-me-di-ate an-swer. "Why?"

  "This in-for-ma-tion is priv-iledged, but I will al-low it, on my per-son-al mer-its," the Founder said, and Sobon thought it was talk-ing to the Fa-cil-i-ty's in-tel-li-gence more than to him. "The fa-cil-i-ty con-trols a num-ber of spe-cif-ic high-or-der aether al-loys, if you will par-don the mis-ap-pro-pri-at-ed term. Among the most con-se-quen-tial are [mor-pho-log-i-cal], [con-va-les-cent], [meme-graph-ic], and [meme-clas-tic]. I will give you a few mo-ments to con-sid-er the terms."

  Sobon re-viewed the in-tent, us-ing the pre-sen-ta-tion soft-ware as a re-place-ment for his own dam-aged men-tal aug-ments. Mor-pho-log-i-cal aether was a spe-cif-ic fate ma-nip-u-la-tion that pre-pared bod-ies and spir-its to mu-tate--and ide-al-ly, mu-tate suc-cess-ful-ly. Its pres-ence made so-ci-eties more di-verse, and its ab-sence made so-ci-eties self-sim-i-lar, stale. Con-va-les-cent aether was its spin-in-verse--an en-er-gy that brought things, on a large scale, back to where they had been pre-vi-ous-ly. They were com-pli-cat-ed, fate-based aethers, and could co-ex-ist, even side-by-side; how-ev-er, they were also in-cred-i-bly pow-er-ful, and the amount of each, let alone both, would shift the course of so-ci-eties.

  Meme-graph-ic and meme-clas-tic were sim-i-lar-ly op-po-sites. Meme-graph-ic aether was a high-er aether as-so-ci-at-ed with prophe-cy, div-ina-tion, and more broad-ly, the gath-er-ing and dis-sem-i-nat-ing of in-for-ma-tion, and its pres-ence in so-ci-ety would lead to peo-ple jump-ing to the right con-clu-sion es-sen-tial-ly with-out cause. Meme-clas-tic aether, on the oth-er hand, sup-pressed thoughts and in-for-ma-tion, and could force peo-ple into ig-no-rance and fool-ish acts even when the an-swers were ob-vi-ous and read-i-ly avail-able.

  Sobon stiff-ened as he stud-ied the four terms. He al-ready knew that the Founders ma-nip-u-lat-ed the course of worlds and cul-tures, and the Ri'lef had said much of this in dif-fer-ent ways, but... hav-ing it laid out in front of him was still vis-cer-al-ly up-set-ting. How much of his his-to-ry, and every oth-er cul-ture that Sobon knew of, had been changed just by the ex-is-tence, or the lack, of cer-tain types of aether? Aethers that fa-cil-i-ties like this ex-ist-ed to ma-nip-u-late?

  "We can dis-cuss the of-fen-sive na-ture of these fa-cil-i-ties an-oth-er time," the Founder said, af-ter some mo-ments of Sobon con-tem-plat-ing in si-lence. "What you need to un-der-stand is that these aethers are be-ing pumped into the plan-et from this fa-cil-i-ty through ex-traspa-tial nodes. There are, quite lit-er-al-ly, lo-ca-tions in this world rich-er in mor-pho-log-i-cal en-er-gy than any-where else. Rich-er in meme-graph-ic and con-va-les-cent en-er-gies. Ar-eas where im-pos-si-ble things sim-ply hap-pen, and ar-eas where some tru-ly un-for-tu-nate peo-ple sim-ply can-not un-der-stand what is hap-pen-ing around them."

  Sobon closed his eyes, think-ing. The top-ic of con-ver-sa-tion was still... yes, why the sit-u-a-tion posed a risk to the Fa-cil-i-ty. "The lo-ca-tions where peo-ple can more eas-i-ly di-vine the truth are also lo-ca-tions di-rect-ly con-nect-ed to this lo-ca-tion."

  "Cor-rect." The Founder pro-ject-ed a map of the world, with the fa-cil-i-ty and a dis-tri-b-u-tion net-work high-light-ed. "Sim-i-lar-ly, mor-pho-log-i-cal en-er-gy is re-lat-ed to tran-scen-dent aether and qi abil-i-ties. Peo-ple born in cer-tain places, or which spend long years in cer-tain places, are able to gain abil-i-ties com-pa-ra-ble to the Di-a-mond Lord. What they lack is prop-er ed-u-ca-tion. And in cer-tain places, peo-ple gain in-cred-i-ble in-sight. The two to-geth-er will in-evitably lead to new peo-ple with the strength to break into this fa-cil-i-ty."

  "It is rea-sons like this why my peo-ple al-ways raise a few in-di-vid-u-als with suf-fi-cient in-sight to rule the rest of the civilza-tion," the Founder said, their pro-jec-tion shift-ing to be dis-tant and cyn-i-cal--Sobon got the im-pres-sion they didn't agree with the choice at all. "There are var-i-ous hy-pothe-ses about how these en-er-gies should be used, and how the cho-sen lead-ers should be raised; hy-pothe-ses that have lead to var-i-ous ex-per-i-ments. This world is one of a great many with a de-lib-er-ate-ly war-like his-to-ry, where the world is in-tend-ed to see the One Leader as a be-ing meant to be over-come. But... you have al-ready seen, have you not, that they do not see it that way?"

  Sobon turned his at-ten-tion back to the Founder, fi-nal-ly be-gin-ning to un-der-stand. "The were told long ago, in a prophe-cy, that space aliens would de-stroy their civ-i-liza-tion."

  "A mis-un-der-stood prophe-cy, if that re-flects how it was told to you," the Founder said. "But yes, this world is led to be-lieve that the Di-a-mond Lord shields them from an evil from be-yond. De-pend-ing on if and how we re-veal that the Di-a-mond Lord has been killed, and by a be-ing from be-yond the world..."

  Sobon closed his eyes and sighed. "Okay. I get it. We need a plan be-fore we act." He leaned for-ward. "How long do we have, and what oth-er as-sets do we have? What oth-er con-trol over the sit-u-a-tion?"

  The Founder's pro-jec-tion of them-selves twitched slight-ly, into what Sobon de-cid-ed was a smile, and they be-gan talk-ing de-tails. It was a dif-fi-cult and dan-ger-ous sit-u-a-tion... but he couldn't leave it at that. They would fig-ure some-thing out. They had to.

  What-ev-er dif-fi-cul-ties this plan-et had, Sobon re-fused to be-lieve geno-cide was an ac-cept-able op-tion.

  Alien Dice. I don't remember because I haven't reread that in a long time, but I believe that was basically about innocents being dragged into a weird alien death game thing, and my version... definitely and specifically was that.

  choose one special ability, plus having any other native magical abilities of their species, and they are given a nanotech space ship. They travel around, enslaving people of other cultures and giving them their own ability, in order to expand their team power in what is basically a really, really screwed up pokemon tournament, where the person's own life is definitely on the line. Defeated 'trainers' are killed or enslaved, and the 'player' and their ship level up as they defeat other players. In the end, the last remaining player is named 'champion', their entire stable of sentient human allies and slaves is killed, and they are trapped, eternal and powerless, prevented from going home or going to any other Game planet, becoming nothing more than a witness of things to come.