For Rallindin Peregaust, Liberator of Nations, Integrator of the Six-Fold Technocracy, and risen, ascendant Goddess of Magic, the world became her oyster. For a time. A great battle in the war was fought with an alliance of six nations bringing their varied technologies to the forefront, under the banner of the One, True Enlightened Soul. The Hope of Tomorrow. And the battle was won. Their enemy was put on the defensive.

  Sadly, they excelled at it, and the supposedly destined Great Advance of the Saints stalled (she blamed Shar Al Muria for pushing that ridiculous name, and ultimately it was abandoned). Attrition set in, and the enemy began effective terroristic tactics that forced Rallindin and Tanjhere to hop around endlessly to affect the healing only they could against the highest [Entropy] effects.

  They adapted somewhat by starting a Healer Corps and inventing various lesser methods as well as teaching ways to blunt or distribute corruption before and during attacks — or delaying the destruction from the higher forms after they began. Nothing could quite break into their capability levels, but it mitigated things. It helped.

  Over time, the enemy started targeting them, too. The best and the brightest, the most dogged and determined, forged in the fires of a vicious war, rose to the top. Among them were familiar and eventually precious souls Rallindin realized were tied to her. Three young women who effectively became adopted daughters in time, awkward though it was to her. She worked to thicken the threads of those bonds, knowing their importance.

  Technological development caught up in counters on both sides, creating trenches and lifeless war zones. Their enemy effectively attacked the land itself, making it all the more depressing and horrifying as an environment.

  Rallindin focused on everything behind the curtain of destruction as much as possible. Not only was it her nature to build up civilization and apply technology from the farmhouse upward, but developing a huge, capable new generation of magic-users would ultimately serve the war effort.

  As the Goddess of Magic, she used her power and authority to standardize spellcraft at the bottom and stimulate creativity and imagination at the top. [Wizards] inevitably became [Magineers] in her new paradigm. Moreover, she set a template into System reality itself through the runes spooled out, formed of the very structure that made it up. This would persist across the wholeness of time, whatever the case.

  The System couldn’t forget them and neither would the souls within it.

  The Marring of Memory affected everything. She was certain she should be able to turn back and see a history, but instead, it was shredded and indistinct, with muddy spots and those of complete darkness. All was blurred. The work of her life — amidst all the rest — was attempting to follow those lines of the structure to the source, somehow.

  It was no accident, all the souls of leaders she was led to. Most of all, Tanjhere, with whom she was like two souls swirled and twisted together. The anxiety to understand was just as strong within her. They knew she was somehow the key. Or perhaps the lock, as something within her was buried and awaiting discovery. Elusive, though. So very, very elusive.

  Another thing was elusive, too — The Seventh Card Reflection. A frustrating puzzle, all of their existence on Talspora, and she knew there was a piece left to find. It was a final key before the Deciding Day, a key to understanding herself enough to take the final step to victory. Perhaps it was even the other kind of key she needed; regardless, the work could not be finished without… her.

  A sister of sorts, but a rival too, like all the rest. An enigma that relishes her role to test me, to taunt me. But I complete all tests. Inevitably. Have I not, yet? She’ll yield, she’ll kneel — when I finally snatch her from the ether as my next pearl.

  She scoured the planet with every spare breath, in-between stirring technological development and fighting off the forces of the Supreme Fulgurate and the powers of the Glimmering Oils. Fortunately, her allies combined were effective at maintaining the stall and the trenches, and their enemy was content to dole out his endless attrition from the back lines, confident it was his kind of war to win. She worried he was right.

  Loyal though they remained, her allies showed glimmers of their restlessness and the bitter challenge still in their heart. They were changing. It had mostly been for the better, but it remained unquestionable that their power had only increased. What would it take for them to lose confidence in her? Only one. It would take only one lost, to ruin what balance they had.

  Shar Al Muria. She’d be the likeliest. The least patient and the most lusty for glory. But could she betray me, and yet retain what I made sure she cherishes even more than dominion? Tenuous. So tenuous, my manipulations.

  Meanwhile, the distant halls of the Augment Lords remained silent and neutral, refusing either side doggedly. Rallindin had tried multiple tactics to convince or drag them in as a piece that could turn the tide, but they wouldn’t budge. She suspected another Card Reflection lay hidden within them, but could not force its revelation for anything. It remained dormant.

  Initially, she thought it was the Seventh, but in time it became clear from the signs and portents to be false. It was the Eighth or the Ninth. She needed the Seventh first.

  From deserts to jungles to the very ocean bottoms, Rallindin searched for the final piece of the grand puzzle out in the world. She fought legendary beasts and terrible remnants of the bygone era, she made new friends and new enemies, and she crushed the warring of factions under her decisive, ruthless boot because she had no time for kiddy gloves. She assimilated primitives and the civilized alike into the Perfect Way of Progress. All irrelevant, ultimately. She did not find who and what she was looking for.

  Not in the material world.

  There was another, though — the spirit world. A world she neglected other than to house her Heaven and to act as a focus and channel for mana. It was an uncomfortable, ignored thing for most in the world, truthfully, who’d forced the supernatural to the outskirts and hiding on the periphery.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Rallindin dominated the physical realm, capturing the entire planet other than the eyesore of the Fulgurate’s endlessly more degenerated territories, but the hidden realm of spirits remained a mystery. Evidently, that was not acceptable for victory. Awkward though it was, she adapted. She dove right in to seek out the one who would complete the Hand.

  Information from denizens she gained the trust of — such as the riddle-happy Sphinxes of the Thousand Temples — eventually led her by threads here and there, to an apparent nexus of many old and storied paths. A blessed or cursed place where The Lady of the Moon ruled. A place known only as the Wyld.

  True to term, it was a deep wilderness — a forest of giant, twisted trees, strange plants, and endless vines big enough for a giant to walk on. All of it was a thick, tangled-together mass and colored in washed-out whites and silvers. It was said those who entered lost themselves and became beasts to roam it forever.

  She knew she had to go. But she wouldn’t go alone.

  North, South, East, and West, the glittering mass of gigantic alien vegetation stretched before her within the vague fog of the spirit world wilderness. At her side, it stretched before Tanjhere, too.

  And then control shifted to Sammy, floating in the spirit world as Rallindin, staff in hand.

  Two sets of widened eyes met the other. “Azure?!”

  “Samantha!”

  “Yes!” “Yeah.”

  Sammy cleared her throat and turned to look at the tangle in front of them, blinking. Fidgeting as she got used to ‘things.’ “Feels like forever since I’ve been in a body, somehow.”

  “Quite,” Azure said breathlessly. “You noticed they don’t seem to know about The Lover, despite the lateness of their development?”

  “I did. Noteworthy, isn’t it? Not only that” — she lifted her arm suddenly, which was bare between the copious jewelry wrapped around it — “Oh shit, I’m white as bone.”

  “And voluptuous. I noticed. Your eyes are weird, too. Have you looked at me, yet, though?”

  Sammy turned her head, indeed just registering her lover’s appearance. Her skin was dull blue-gray, her hair violet, and her eyes cat-like, with oval pupils in the midst of vibrant green. She had a tail similar to Lovie's and was dressed something like a futuristic Egyptian queen. What was most unusual, though, was her ears weren’t pointed. At all. Just round.

  It was such an oddity Sammy gasped. “Oh no!”

  Azure grimaced, which made pointed fangs pop out slightly. “Don’t say ‘Oh no!’ It’s bad enough that everything sounds weird and muted. Lame ass human ears.”

  “Nice, Azure. Real nice.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Me too. It’s just shocking. Must be an oversight.”

  “I should just shapeshift to get them back. I think I can do that…”

  “Let’s try to stay in character, Az-... er, my fine paramour, Tanjhere The High Alchemist! Come, let us away and find this Moon Lady!”

  Azure rolled her eyes. “Ralli would never say something that lame. But you’re always Chestnut to me, honestly.”

  “Heh… fair enough. It’s like a typical modern game. RPGs, anyway.”

  “Do what?”

  “Role Playing Game. Video and computer games. I wasn’t exactly… hardcore. But I noticed when it was one where you picked a name, it didn’t really matter, because there weren’t permutations for everything from the voice actors. Or maybe the developers need an easy ID, too. So they’d use something else to describe them. ‘Lone Wanderer’ for example, even though I picked Hoebag #9 or whatever.”

  “Did you really pick that?”

  “No, of course not,” Sammy lied. “Anyway, what about my eyes?”

  “A thin ring of blue crystal in the middle of glowing white, inside and around.”

  “Oh. That is weird.”

  “Uh-huh. So what were you going to say before you noticed your super whiteness?”

  “Oh. Uh… I forgot.”

  Azure sighed longsufferingly.

  “Wait! I remember. Just that Ralli doesn’t know jack shit about the past. It’s all super vague. It feels splintered, broken… muddled. Not like you would typically expect of a hard reset, right?”

  “So the Cycle referred to could be a softer thing. Periods of clarity in-between some screwy existence.”

  “Fits with everything being busted. Hmm. I wonder if Earth is lodged in a screwy period?”

  “Leading up to you, things seem clear and continuous, just with you absent for a long period. Doesn’t seem to fit.”

  “I skipped across space, why not time, too?”

  Azure made a doubtful noise. In Tanjhere’s throat, it was like a growl. Her eyes squinted as she pondered it more. “More likely it's a fracture out of the normal cycle. A vapor come and gone.”

  “Damn. It’s pretty fucked up to think about my home universe over and done with. I think I better just think otherwise and hold out hope there’s a… bigger picture. Or something.”

  Azure opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally, she said, “Sorry, babe.”

  “It’s alright! Really!” Sammy painted a smile on Ralli’s face and shifted her gaze. “I belong here, after all. We should be where we-... we’re needed most. And right now… I guess it's in that huge, uninviting hellscape of giant terror vines that is probably a trap.”

  Azure-as-Tanjhere followed her lover’s gaze and winced. “Don’t remind me.”

  Hoebag #9 never found her father because Sammy never finished jack shit.

  Next Chapter...

  Note that this is partly a Deikmorn & Nyomel chapter. Oh hohoho...

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