King’s Dream regrouped with the rest of the Adventurer forces, bringing their prisoners with them and depositing them onto the other side of the Rift to be dealt with by others more specialized in detaining and transporting captives. Phoenix spared a wave to Bliss, who was with her own party, called Attitude Plus, that had been tasked with said prisoner handling.

  Phoenix’s party, however, wasn’t done with their task even though the fighting had temporarily ceased. It became apparent that, aside from the ambush forces and some stragglers, the remaining nobles had retreated further within Tulisuda. Once back within the Rift, Phoenix finally had the time to observe their surroundings before the expedition would begin further exploration of it.

  The pce was massive, ringed in volcanic mountains far off in the distance with quarries littered throughout the valley they currently found themselves in the center of. If not for the exorbitant amount of va flows and inhospitable craggy rocks that made up most of the terrain, they could have fit half a dozen cities the size of Tulimeir in here.

  As her party awaited their next orders, they took a moment to rest and recover a bit. Uriel gently nudged Phoenix’s arm, tilting his head towards Dazien. He was currently a few meters away surveying their surroundings, ever vigint of potential enemies.

  She gave a huff and muttered, “I don’t think he wants to talk to me right now.”

  Uriel frowned and crified, “He doesn’t or you don’t?”

  “Both? He still seems preoccupied and I don’t really know what to say. How should I apologize?”

  “Honestly,” he replied bluntly, then added, “But I never said you should apologize. You asked how you can show that you trust him and I gave you a way that worked for me, but like I said, he knows better than to sh out like that.”

  He gave a sigh. “Look, Daze and I have had our fair share of arguments over the years. I know he doesn’t enjoy being mad at anyone, and he was never one to hold a grudge. Sometimes it takes him a while to sort out his mind and morals to find his direction again, but he always wants to talk things out eventually. Either way, he needs to apologize for how he treated you and that’s hard to do if you’re avoiding each other.”

  She hesitated a moment then asked, “Would… You said he needed space, and I don’t want to push him if he’s not ready. Will you try talking to him first? Just to see if he won’t get angry at me for trying?”

  Uriel gave a slight smirk. “Offering me up as a sacrifice to the hungry lion?”

  “I’m not sure he’d enjoy eating me as much as you,” she said with a crooked smile.

  He paused at the phrasing and raised an eyebrow at her. The look made it obvious she had said something odd, and she reprocessed what she had said before dropping her burning face into her palms. “Oh gods, I just meant that I’m all skinny and there’s, like, way less meat on my bones. Which now that I say that out loud, doesn’t make it sound any better,” she expined in a rush. She groaned in embarrassment and contempted just going for a va swim.

  Uriel chuckled with a shake of his head. “I’ll go ask if he’s calm enough and ready to chat. Just no more talk of cannibalism please. Nobody likes cannibals,” he joked, then made his way over to his best friend.

  While she couldn’t hear what the two said, they both gnced her way a few times before Uriel finally waved towards her, indicating that she should join them.

  Phoenix apprehensively made her way towards the pair and Uriel patted her on the shoulder, saying simply, “Now hurry and make-up so we can focus on the fight ahead.”

  “We’re not petunt children,” Dazien said with a roll of his eyes, crossing his arms in indignation.

  Uriel just smirked again and said, “Then stop acting like one,” before he left them to talk things out and returned to the twin voxen to join them in meditation while waiting.

  Dazien’s posture rexed as he faced her and he spoke up first, his voice solemn, “I owe you an apology, Phoenix. I shouldn’t have lost control of myself and dumped all that on you the way I did. It was childish—”

  Phoenix interrupted him. “No, I’m sorry. I—I don’t think your dreams are childish or unimportant. I didn’t ask for information because I wasn't ready to really start my quest yet, and I don’t think a monarchy is a bad idea here or anything… you know, if it has a good monarch that is. I just… I didn't ever really stop to think about those beliefs and how they might not fit well in this world. Everything is so different here with the Rule of Caste and monsters… I’m still learning and I want you to know how grateful I am that you've been willing to teach me so much. Please…” She paused, staring at her hands as they clenched around her dress from nerves. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. Just please forgive me for making you think I didn’t care and not expining things sooner.”

  As the silence stretched, she chanced a gnce upwards to discover wide amethyst eyes staring at her, his face unreadable. She thought he might get angry again when instead he gave a sigh and shook his head. “There’s nothing to forgive. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions about how you felt. I just…”

  He got an awkward lopsided smile on his face as he quietly admitted, “I’m a Defender. I wish I had been able to protect you. Not just from monsters, bullies, or kidnappers, but from your fears and doubts, too.”

  Dazien pced a comforting hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to tell me everything, but I hope you know that I want to help you. I would never betray you. You are my teammate and my friend, and I hope that I can become someone who you can rely upon. Even if we disagree on something, I hope we respect each other enough to be able to talk through it… not do what I did. You didn’t deserve that, and I’m a jerk for taking out my frustrations on you. I’m sincerely sorry for that. I’m the one who needs to ask for your forgiveness.”

  She felt her body rex at his words and nodded. “Of course, I forgive you. You put up with my crazy stunts and awkwardness. I can deal with the occasional tantrum,” she lightly teased, giving him a small smile. “For what it’s worth… I really do think you’ll make a great king someday. I’ve seen the way you care for your current subjects at the orphanage, after all.”

  Dazien returned her smile and teased with his own, “I guess you would make a fairly decent councilor,” he said with mock reluctance.

  Absently running a hand through his hair, he added with hesitancy that she was unfamiliar with him ever dispying, “Maybe… you can help add some of that democracy you spoke of within my kingdom someday? Perhaps, put in a council that helps me out with the day-to-day stuff? I… I think it might be nice to pn some things with you. You know, for the future… if you’re not entirely against the idea.”

  She flushed slightly at the unexpected words before saying, “I’d like that. Once all this divine quest business is finished, I would be honored to help you establish your own pce.”

  Dazien seemed relieved as he nodded. “Right, first step is getting stronger, then worrying about your quest right?”

  Phoenix nodded and said with a grin, “‘One day at a time,’ is what my mom always told me. It’s easier to just focus on the next step. I’m not sure how good a councilor I’ll be, though, now that I think about it.”

  He almost looked sad at her words before shaking his head and giving the smile she was most familiar with. “Well, you’re already the Princess of my ndless nation. I’m pretty sure that means you’re contractually obliged to help out.”

  She chuckled, “I’m not quite sure that’s how things work.”

  “I’m the king, remember? It works that way if I say it does.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It is in my kingdom.”

  “So iron-fisted dictator it is then?”

  He ughed, “I can strive to be a benevolent dictator at the least. Perhaps, if your council proves effective, I can lessen my grip a bit.”

  Phoenix shook her head with a smile, “I guess, if anything, I need to stay with you just to make sure you don’t become one of those corrupted politicians.”

  Dazien gave a cheeky grin as he said with a hint of mischief, “Maybe a little corruption isn’t too bad. Just make sure it doesn’t impair your judgment and you should be fine.”

  His words triggered a memory and she suddenly pulled out her test quest reward, “That reminds me, I wanted to give you this. I think it’s something you seem to want a little more of after all this.”

  Dazien’s eyes widened at the proffered gift and said, “Another Spirit Gem?”

  “Of Judgment,” she supplied informatively. “It would just be sitting in my collection gathering dust until I hit up a merchant to convert it into Bits ter.”

  “I don’t think things can gather dust in a dimensional storage,” he noted before adding with feigned suspicion, “Wait, you’re not just trying to buy the king’s favor, are you?”

  She ughed again, which made Dazien rex more as she shook her head and joked, “It seems you’ve caught on to my corrupted ways. Is my bribe suitable enough to get back into the king’s good graces?”

  His grin widened and he exaggeratedly plucked the gem from her hand, “It is a grand gift,” he said, examining it carefully then he pced it back in her hands, “But I can’t accept it. Thank you for the offer though, my noble subject.”

  Phoenix let out a noise of mock hurt as she put a hand over her heart, “Subject? I thought I was a princess?”

  The would-be king was about to speak when a call came up from the main group of Adventurers, putting a halt to their friendly banter as they attempted to mend the bond between them. The pair of them quickly rejoined the rest of their party to learn what their next pn of action would be.

  After some minor deliberation, the contingent had decided to press on and put a decisive end to the internal threat, unsure of how exactly the enemy was pnning to sabotage the Reality Rift.

  Everin Starrk would stay as the Emerald Caster guarding the new forward outpost directly within Tulisuda, while continuing to triage the injured as needed, and Paul Waynd would lead the advancing party to root out whatever straggling forces remained. King’s Dream would join their Mentor along with a majority of the initial strike force that had taken back the entrance.

  Phoenix was just gd that she wasn’t at odds with any of her party members anymore and hoped to get back to her new home soon in order to tear down the remaining walls her secrets kept between her and her friends.

  Nandi Neitra was being careful about not letting her beautiful white wings—a passive ability from her Wing Aspect—trail along the dirt-covered ground. She bemoaned the fact that she currently had to walk upon it in order to draw out the intricate runes along the decrepit temple stone.

  They were in a rush, however, and she couldn’t trust this task to any other lest they falter and cause all of their deaths. It was disconcerting to be in this pce, away from the whispers of her god to guide her, but she had practiced well for this very moment. His cleansing light would wash over her upon her return, and if she proved herself worthy enough, he may even bestow his Blessing or maybe even his Favor upon her.

  “And you’re certain this will work to inform the Soul Reapers of our success?” the cinderen woman with ashen grey hair asked her.

  “Lady Ruwena, I have assured you numerous times about how this will go,” she replied with as much patience as she could muster given their present circumstances.

  “But won’t Waynd and the others be caught in here and kept alive? They could ruin everything, Priestess Neitra,” the Chancellor worried while pcing items around the massive ritual diagram she was still working on carving out.

  “It’s High Priestess,” she corrected through clenched teeth, reminding herself once more not to smite the Sapphire Caster where she stood, “And you can leave the Fallen Padin to me. He didn’t have the strength to stand up to me when we cast him out from my Lord’s divine light, I doubt he will have grown much in the six years since.”

  “There was a report of an Emerald Cleric of Rebel too,” Gciel Ruwena pressed, “We have taken heavy losses already. They already killed my husband and daughter, and captured my son. This must work. There is no turning back for any of us now.”

  Neitra paused in her ritual work to meet the cinderen’s glowing red eyes. She couldn’t wait to be free of the irksome woman, who was so short-sighted that she had no idea how the noble managed to become Chancellor of the OOM’s Tulim branch without a heavy amount of Bits changing hands. Not to mention the fact that the woman was so self-centered that she didn’t seem to care about killing her captured son in the process of reaching those short-sighted goals.

  With another grasp of her resolve to remain calm, Nandi expined, “I am well aware of the risks, Lady Ruwena. However, I trust in my god and know we will succeed. Once we complete this activation ritual, it will signal the Soul Reapers to come retrieve us from here.

  “They’ll have plenty of time to arrive before the reys finish triggering the connected enchantments we’ve pced throughout this scrap of reality, which will colpse this pseudo-world and sever the connection it has to Makera. We will be perfectly safe in their dimensional vessel, while Tulim will suffer the backsh.”

  “And what if those Soul Reapers don’t show up in time?” Gciel argued, pcing a pile of Void Shards worth more than the Ducal Pace into the center of the runed circle, “We’ll be trapped within a colpsing reality as it… what? Disintegrates into its component parts and returns to a state of formless magic?”

  “That won’t happen,” Nandi reassured, “Their leader wouldn’t break the Oathbond he made to our Arch Priestess.”

  Gciel paused from the ritual work to stare at her and admit, “I hadn’t heard about that. What kind of bond would he agree to? Was it a Mutual Bond?”

  “It was,” she confirmed but frowned to herself, “I do not know the exact details but it ensures that they won’t just turn their backs on us as we assist each other in our goals. They want the souls, while we want to cleanse this tainted nd and rebuild from the ashes in our god’s pure image. No more ugliness and pain, just pure clean bliss.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that,” Gciel muttered with a roll of fiery eyes, returning to the work at hand before adding, “I’d prefer to join them in traveling the cosmos and gaining more power than this pitiful pce can offer me.”

  That idea caused the priestess’ mask of calm to break momentarily at the sheer ridiculousness of a cinderen being offered pcement within the new world the Renseres would be building.

  Their god had long ago decided that only humans –the first and most ancient of Caster species from which it was said all other Casters spawned from– would be chosen for the honor of poputing their new, perfect, world. No more furry voxen and felions, or scaly sirens and viperans. No marked up runeforged and cinderen, or pointed-eared gemites and elves. No lesser winged abominations like the arrogant draconid, aloof avians, or fickle faeforged. None of the other species which deign to call themselves Caster just because they could bond to some Aspects. Only pure, uninfluenced, untainted, humans could unite as a single species.

  Before Nandi could remember to py nicely, she scoffed at the cinderen woman with the volcanic complexion that dispyed the obvious taint of Fire and Earth, “Don’t worry about staying; we don’t want to introduce filth again when we’ve just cleaned it.”

  “What. A. Bitch,” the Sapphire Caster whispered under her breath.

  “I heard that,” she retorted, her Emerald Caste hearing easily catching the words, “And you’re just proving my point with that filthy mouth.”