Purify made quick work of cleaning the gory mess. The spell even dissolved all the chucks of discarded viscera that remained. It was interesting that it could distinguish what was to be cleansed and what wasn't. Then again the shaping of the mana was a couple of orders of magnitude more complex than the shaping of the original Cleanse spell. Maybe, it was kind of like programming? Not that I knew a damned thing about coding. On the other hand, it could make more sense to look at this like a circuit issue? That's what the shapings looked like to me, organic curvy circuits. Hmm. That did bring up a few interesting ideas. What could be changed before the spell failed? I'd have to sit down someday and explore that thought, but not today.

  I walked over to the remains of Lumi. I'd have no better opportunity to try to bring him back, it would be ages before I could alter the spellforms for my new spells. I'd have to hope that one of them could manage as they were, and I knew that the longer I waited the harder it would get to bring him back. Renew the Cycle? I didn't have the needed components, I'd have to buy them in the CStore. Also we couldn't afford the ten hour casting time, not when I wasn't certain we had even one hour, before Militech came to find out what had happened to their agents. I'd have to try to brute form it with Life Crafting.

  "John, I'm going to try something insane watch my back please." I kinda hated that my requests were starting to just sound like orders. I had thought that balancing my Classes would have already solved the personality seepage of the God Emperor.

  "I've got you." He vanished, just poof and he was gone. I really wanted to know how he did that. If it wasn't for my Aura having a hold on him, I'd have no clue he was there.

  I sat down by the golden rug and rested my hands on it. I could feel Lumi's energy and his presence. Maybe that would be enough. I drew heavily upon the Tower's mana, and as it flowed into me as I started shaping Life Crafting consciously, for the first time. Its structure was so complex, layer after layer of winding paths of mana, new shapes and formations almost like knots embedded in the mostly circular patterns. I poured all my focus into making it perform perfectly. Soon, I lost track of anything unrelated to the spell.

  When the final curve of the last layer was complete, the torrent of mana I'd been holding back rushed to flood the channels of both myself and the spell construct. Oceans of energy ripped through us and slammed into the remains of my Companion. It didn't seem to take long before the flood died back down to a trickle and then stopped. Where once there was a rug, now there rested the glorious form of Lumiar the Golden Plains Wolf, at the very least a semi divine being. Unmoving. Unbreathing. Unliving.

  I hugged his large head to my chest, giving it scritches even if there was no one in there to feel them. I used the remnant energies of the spell to start his lungs and heart, then forced the brain stem to take over the job of keeping them running. Soon all the autonomous functions of the body where working and being handled by the lower brain. The higher order functions, specifically consciousness, wouldn't spark no matter how hard I tried. And I tried so very hard.

  I checked and double checked everything seemed to be physically fine. The things that had made this body Lumi's simply would not return to us. Maybe they couldn't.

  I'd failed.

  I failed again.

  I failed dozens of times.

  Some part of me simply wouldn't accept that it was impossible, so I kept trying. Stretching myself into a wreck about to combust.

  At some point John stopped me, pulling me away from the body that I had clutched ever tighter, scritched ever harder. Why couldn't I do this? The body would be "alive" for a time, I could keep it that way indefinitely, but should I? Maybe he would be able to come back with time? Perhaps I could draw his soul back when I knew more. Soul... A wild idea emerged from my despair. Maybe I could merge the faith energy into the spell.

  I waved John off and started again. Weaving the spell and threading a small amount of golden energy through the construct. Golden light flared as it ignited the spellform, changing it into something more than the sum of it's parts.

  {[NO!]}

  I was slapped down by some undetectable force. A black wall greeted me...

  When I came to, Lumi's body was gone. Perhaps John had taken it away, perhaps whatever force had stopped me.

  We had never gotten to know each other as we should have, Lumi and I. For some reason that hurt the most. I turned to John but he just shook his head. So that was it then, I could never try again. What? Tears? No. No tears. It couldn't be tears I was too tired for tears.

  After a while I managed to start rebuilding myself, slowly drawing my heart back together. I couldn't afford to remain idle for too much longer. I might have already taken too long. Breathe. Listen. Count. It helped and it didn't.

  I checked in with Alina and it seemed that everything else was still fine. Folks were only just starting to worry about us, and nothing was on any of the scanners. Which meant I had a bit more time to think. Today I had to settle on a plan for our future one way or another. First, we needed to buy time until Alina could complete the Stargate. That could be months, it would certainly be at least a couple of weeks. Then we would need even more time to design and build a strike force. I had some ideas about weaponizing the Probes, since they were our fastest producing units.

  What could we do that would make all the Corpos back off for that long? I had to start with the understanding that at least one Corp knew almost everything I had ever told "Sally" or "Megan". Which if I understood their interconnected spying dynamic at all, meant at least the rest of big five, had some of that information as well. That conundrum put a lot of my ideas into perspective. This view limited options severely. Which meant that there was an answer I wouldn't like that was immediately obvious. Pick one of the Big Boys and spread my metaphorical legs for them. Argh! I really needed to work on my mental imagery. I reflexively cast Purify on myself, nope I still felt unclean from that thought. I wanted a brain bleach spell posthaste.

  Alliance with one of the big five would at least buy us some time, but I was under no illusion that I would get good terms. They would come in and strip everything bare, like the fucking bloodsucking locusts that they were. Then force me to pump out whatever bullshit they wanted nonstop. We'd be treated like valuable slaves at the very best.

  After what had happened on our last day in NC, we couldn't risk expanding underground there too much more. That was apparently where they hid all of their mistakes. We had gotten extremely lucky that it took as long as it did to run into the consequences of Corpo experimentation. At least that was my currect working theory on what those things were. Though I'm sure the Death Korp was loving the light work. After all that they usually endured, this task was probably like a vacation to them.

  At some point, I could use the Kriegsmen to just bulldoze every thing under their boots. But I had a feeling I would not like the end results, if I let them off the chain. Even if I wanted to go that route, they weren't yet ready to be deployed on that scale.

  The last option I could see, is for us to just sit under the cloaking fields for as long as possible. I kept thinking that it would only be a matter of time before the Corpos got smart and just bombarded the whole area to root us out. I could expedite some of the building sized Khalai shield generators to counter that. Though that brought up the issues of power generation. Well, not really. Power wasn't really very much of an issue with the odd properties of the Pylons. Hmm. We would need a source of Minerals and Vespene. Which led us back to digging if we were huddled under shields.

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  Which led my mind to a mixed solution. What if I kept the Town and Valley tucked under Shield Generators and Cloaking Fields? As secure as I could make them in just a few days. Then I'd give just myself up, with a Probe and enough Wisps to make one Moon Well, obviously in exchange for keeping the Corpos away from our small area.

  Then I'd make them an Outpost at a place of their choosing. They could knock themselves out studying the Khalai tech and the "Magic" of the Well. Even run whatever sick tests they could come up with on me I guess. It wasn't likely they'd fuck me up too much. They already knew they needed me to make it all work properly. So my willing cooperation potentially had more value than just hijacking what we had right now. Them playing around with my scraps should delay them, for long enough to bring us up to the next level. Which meant that it was time to upgrade everything I possibly could. I'd have to make lists for peoples areas of responsibility.

  This would all depend on me being able to see ahead and try to outthink the Corpos. Just long enough to punch through the sky. I should prepare a few nasty surprises to cover myself from being overly exploited. If they figured out a work around, I'd just have to last long enough for my people to come get me. With an Observer following me they would always know where I was.

  My mind even without overclocking was shifting from thought to thought at a blistering pace. My hands shook a bit. I just told myself to stop being a pansy. Was it worth it? What where any of these people to me? I might end up become a Guinea Pig in some Corpo meat lab. Then death would be a mercy. NO! Stop. This was not a mental track I was going to entertain.

  The responsibility to keep everyone save was mine. I started this, I'm why any of these folks were here, in harms way. I'd have step up to protect them now, so that they could have my back later. Otherwise, I didn't see a way out of this.

  I wanted a good path, a safe option, but there were none. I shrugged to myself. Fuck it.

  So I would pick the best of the bad options. Yeah. I would buy my people the time.

  This was a gamble. I was betting on the premise that the Corps wouldn't be able to fullyunderstand the technology in a usable manner for years or hopefully decades. They'd never be able to understand the mana aspect of things, there was no way they'd get that power.

  The first step of this insane plan would be choosing who to approach.

  Then the brakes halted my spirally thoughts. Wow, I really must have still been fucked up from everything that had just happened. Give myself to the Corpos. Was I fucking insane? I went over everything that I'd just dreamed up a few more times in my head. Really picked everything apart and evaluated the merits.Yes. Yes, I was very messed up. This wasn't a good time for me to be making decisions. I couldn't trust anything in my head, right now.

  Well that wasn't a bad thing, there was a few folks nearby that I could trust.

  "John, I think my brain is too screwed up to function properly right now. Let's get the cleanup and after action done here, then I need some sleep. Maybe some rest will reset my screwball thinking."

  "Good idea." I think he meant that, but how would I know? My brain was playing its own self destructive game now.

  Waking Jaina up wasn't difficult. What was difficult was that she immediately started crying. I did my best to comfort her, but in many ways I was just as devastated as her. I guess it was going to be a team effort to pull ourselves back together. I quickly discovered that I could no longer cry. Something blocked it off after I'd poured out the waterworks for Lumi. It was handy problem to have, because it let me seem calmer than I actually was. That in turn helped Jaina to reach a state of calm faster.

  Me being usefully dysfunctional for the win. Yay.

  Wait, was I really being that guy? Argh. I gave myself a mental slap. This wasn't about me. It was about Jaina.

  "Jaina, I know you are not okay right now. I'm going to let you have time to process, but lets start with this. None of this was your fault." Yeah, it was mine. Her eyes opened wider but she didn't seem to have any other reaction. "Going forward we'll get better at searching out assholes like those two skanks." And I'll do the same or worse to them. She nodded as her face firmed up. Her eyes narrowed. She went grim real quick. I couldn't blame her, it was a better reaction than I expected. But I couldn't sense her emotions right now. In fact, the part of me that could do that seemed asleep right now. Huh.

  "I think we both know I'm not very good at emotional stuff, so I'm just spitballin' here. If you need to talk, once we clean this up and we all get some proper sleep, I'm here for you." She smiled a little before her face went back to stone. She nodded again.

  "First we need to figure out to give you back the tower. This is too much power for me to be trusted to safely handle. I'm certain there will be a lot of consequences for what went down here today. We'll have to weather them later."

  "Yes my Lord. It is simple, just hold still." She placed her hand over my heart. I felt a brief pulse of cool clear mana. She frowned. "You really latched on to the command sigils hard, my Lord. It will take a moment for me to untangle this."

  "Take all the time you need." I gave her a stupid grin. Seconds stretched to minutes and the minutes stretched to just about an hour. I felt her mana working the whole time, her energy control was leagues above mine. I could sense her dedication and passion for magic in every little adjustment, every shift of energy. That part of my abilities was obviously still worked. Hmm. Why would one set of abilities be offline while the rest worked fine? Finally, I felt the Tower's control return back to her. Thankfully, she left me a connection, but only a minor one.

  "You'll still have a student's access permissions. I think it would behoove you to come for lessons soon, my Lord. Your strength is frightening, made worse by your control being rudimentary."

  I laughed, "Yeah, that sounds about right. I'll try to make time for it. I have a feeling time is going to be in short supply, though." My mood shifted quite a bit during that statement. I wanted to sigh but held it in. I read somewhere once that people found it annoying. Some folks even thought of it as a sign of weakness. I could no longer afford to be weak. Nor ignorant for that matter.

  All my efforts had been too scattered. Too random, from one thing to the next. I was reacting to much, not acting enough. The one thing my previous thoughts had made very clear, I... no we required a long term plan. There was a need to sit down with everyone and work out a plan. Not just for tomorrow but for the next few years at least.

  Jaina still had her hand on my heart, her mana was softly pulsing as she was searching for something. I gave her a questioning look.

  "Just making sure you are still yourself my Lord. You are." She gave me another weak smile.

  "Ha! Good idea." Trust but verify. What a good phrase that was.

  With Life Control, I could probably suss out the cyberware that the imposters had used, that allowed impersonation. We could go over all the Nomads, and likely find any other moles. One thing was certain, whether she was an agent or not, I wasn't looking forward to dealing with Amanda.

  I had some Probes drag the two still catatonic imposters to the town square in front of Town Hall. Alina had restored the Nomads to the exceptions list. Needless to say their exclusion had ruffled some feathers, but no where near as much as when I explained why it had happened. If I hadn't shown them the agents and let Ricky, their Doc, examine them they probably wouldn't have taken my word for it.

  That said, they did allow me go over them one by one. I was shocked when no one objected, given their earlier grumblings. I was even more shocked to find no other moles in their ranks. At least not of the same kind. I let them get back to their routines.

  Which left John, Jaina and me with Amanda who was clinging to Jim as hard as could be. She wasn't crying though. Real steel, she was.

  They had been, ahem, being intimate, when I called this gathering. I was sorry I stripped the joyful moment away from them. It was a day for crappy feelings. It also told me that Raynor had decided to trust her before this had all played out. I'm sure he had his reasons, I was also sure he was better at dealing with people than I was.

  "I don't know what they did to the real ladies, but they said they'd been embedded with you for a year. I don't know if they could have been lying. I can't really trust my opinions on it right now." Or just about anything else going on in my head.

  She stared at me with an iron gaze. "They're probably dead. Once they had a personality imprint they wouldn't have needed them anymore." Her voice was flat, just another list being read. I wished I had that level of self control. She shook her head, probably trying to wrap her head around how she of all people didn't notice. I nodded. I had been avoiding thinking too much about that part of things. I had never really known the true ladies, but did that make it better or worse?

  "It doesn't change our position, unless you want to count it as a violation of the treaty." Again that flat tone, maybe it wasn't control? Maybe she had just shut down?

  "No, Amanda. I'm not going to hold this against the Aldecaldos. If you can stand continuing in this with us, that's what I want." We needed them too much for a falling out.

  She nodded.

  The light of this day, almost two days from when we had arrived back in town, was almost gone.

  "I suggest we all get what rest we can and then meet up after to figure things out. Hash out the meaning in all of this." Raynor with the sage advice.

  We all went our separate ways, to our own beds. To sleep and perhaps to dream. I found that despite my wonderful blankets, my bed was very cold.