As always, they awoke on the ground. Dax shot up almost instantly on her rear with her hands propped behind her, eyes wide with shock. Then she laughed and looked at Samantha with an amazed grin. “He feels the same way! It’s gonna work! Yes, yes, yes, it’s gonna work! Fuck yes!”

  Fighting back a grin at what her friend and Follower seized on from that vision, Sammy pushed herself up and met Dax’s eyes. “You still gotta do it, though. You might be surprised how difficult it’ll remain, but I’m glad for the confidence boost. But! Try to focus on… you know, the other stuff? Right now?”

  Dax blinked at her and looked away. Squinted her eyes, then frowned. “This is so bizarre. Me, a general? What the bloody hell is that about? An-and wasn’t I supposed to meet… you know?! Th-the Fortuneteller?! All we got was the vision? That’s not bloody normal, right?”

  Sammy had to take a second just to figure out how to respond to that. “It was certainly different, yes. Let’s not focus on that, either. So, um, do you have the Strategy skill, then? What grade?”

  “Yes. Grandmaster, at that. Hmm, that’s odd. I thought I told the System to change such instances to ‘mistress’ a long time ago. System! Change it to bloody Grandmistress already!” Her eyes suddenly bugged out in incredulity. “What the hell do you mean, it’s impossible?! No, it isn’t!”

  Damn that fucking orb bitch! The Emperor did that on purpose somehow, just to mess with us.

  Sammy thought quickly. “Oh! That must be my fault. I’ve heard here and there, you know… there are weird anomalies. It’s because of, you know… the incident. Me fucking with reality.” She did her best to look sheepish.

  Dax blinked. “Oh. I see. Well… it’s not a big deal, after all.” Clearing her throat, she squinted again at the air and muttered, “Let’s see, let’s see… hmm. So, the skill has an enhancer called [One Thousand Angles]. Apparently, I can invoke for massive potential boosts, but it, ah, puts a voice in my head, and it doesn’t leave. It permanently adds a smaller bonus still stacking with the bigger one and provides the perspective of some phantasm of a prior… me.”

  “Huh. Well, maybe you shouldn’t use it.” Sammy knew that was a pipedream, but she said it anyway. “Clearly, it’ll haunt you.”

  Dax returned her goddess’s gaze evenly. “I wouldn’t bloody have it unless I’m destined to use it, Madam. Let’s be realistic. Not only that, but it’ll save lives and I’ll learn to save more and more.” She sighed. “Guess I’m slated for Merrington, then. You’ll send Canny with me, yeah? Er- with us. A group. Can’t be too obvious!”

  “Of course,” Sammy offered immediately. “He’s all yours.” I don’t really have a choice here. This is an old, old agreement. Besides, I was going to send him anyway. “What else did you get?”

  Dax grinned smugly. “A new class!” She squinted and began, “[Battle Manipulator]! So it replaces… it… oh…” She blinked and blinked. “It didn’t replace [Crusader].” Blink, blink, blink. “It replaced [Rogue]. What the bloody hell…?” She took a while reading, muttering under her breath.

  The words of the orb suddenly came back to Sammy. ‘So you poured out your soul and fashioned your finest light to give me a piece of yourself, to bond me and graft me in.’

  “You’re leveraging Fate,” Sammy declared darkly. It made Dax look at her oddly, so Sammy tried to lighten up her voice as she continued, “I mean, someone has to! It makes a lot of sense. My Daughters of Fate are not supposed to be on the front lines — so to speak. But Fate is needed there, and I can’t be everywhere. I guess that’s where you come in.”

  Dax’s eyes seemed to shift between Sammy and whatever she was reading. Slowly, she nodded. “I think you’re right, Goddess. However… Estara mostly saves people or sets up for some big turnabout. This debuffs, curses, and kills. Wide radiuses of fuckery, here. True to a general, it ain’t made to take down champions — though I can weaken them — but it hoses the underlings. The more, the better. It’s tied to [Tactics] which I have at the same level as [Strategy]... and it has the same enhancer.”

  “Great. Well, at least it sounds pretty useful and powerful. Congrats.”

  Dax nodded even as she frowned, lost in thought and analysis. “Michael is gonna be so jelly.”

  Sammy grinned. Another slang word of sorts she’d taught her people. “I have no doubt. He’s worked very hard to get, quote, ‘deep’ into [Expert]. He’s closing on [Master]. And here comes the upstart cheating her way to exceed him.”

  Dax was quiet suddenly, eyes shifted downward. She stood, then offered her hand for Sammy, who took it to rise though she hardly needed it. Dax met her face-to-face and asked, “You saw more than me, didn’t you? I’m not a complete buffoon, Madam. I heard plenty of what others saw, and I saw the haunted undercurrent in your gaze, even before you knew about the voices. If there’s something, tell me. Please. Why would you… pity me? That’s what I see in your eyes.”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Sammy was at a loss. The situation with Bast came to mind, where honesty had won her the first of ‘the hand.’ Or how the truth had helped heal Tashome. But then, there was the ‘tough love’ of the FT with regard to Crow. She’d awoken something in him then.

  What should I do? What’s needed isn’t always the same. The FT was silent, too. Absent.

  Looking Dax dead in the eyes, there was ultimately only one thing Samantha Elizabeth Raine could do. She took a deep breath and said, “I met your higher entity. Very aware, very strange, very… surly. I shouldn’t go into details, Dax. I love you and I need you to trust me on this. More than anything, I need you to trust your voice, because you’re going to have to pick it out among not only what you gain through your abilities, but from that extensively powerful, deeper voice inside. Maybe it isn’t even a voice, I dunno. But I want Dax to make choices, not… it. Find your center and hold to it. Hold to who you know you are.”

  Dax certainly got slammed by the revelation. She stared, swallowed audibly, and looked away, shaking her head and muttering to herself. She blurted suddenly, “How, when I don’t know who I am?”

  “Who are you?” A cluster of things rose up in Samantha — an intuitive invocation of Goddesses, traits, and the FT.

  She floated upward as she grabbed Dax’s face in both hands, looking down intently as she declared, “You are the one to ride in the Chariot with me; who can take the reins in my stead and excel. You are the one to flatten and crush the land into shape for my covenant and firm foundation.” The wind began whipping around them in a turrent, as Dax looked up, wide-eyed and spellbound. “You are the Sixth, fitting over the Five to make a gauntlet, to make a fist that gathers my might and smashes the blasphemer! You are the meeting of angles into spears, you are the Crusader of Life and Liberty! Who are you, one born Daxerris Stoneboro? You are…”

  The Goddess of Fate, Mirrors, Light, Illusion, and Pneuma lifted her hands and extended them wide, as if presenting the one below her. Through Five, she wove lines like accessways, like tiny opened gates, and in the narrow passing, each was transmuted. She then ran the lines of power together through the one below her — the Sixth. All blended within and spooled back out amplified, emerging like the multidimensional hands of an alien being. They reached multiplicitously wider. Further.

  She grasped far east, west, north, and south, reaching through Fate, reaching through the interstices of reality to the spirit world and Limbo, through pneuma to all the free places of the south. And she did something deceptively subtle in performance, yet obvious in result. She thrummed, she shook, she stirred.

  She made a noise.

  “The Emperor.” Trumpets blared like the beginning of a march, like the declaration of a grand campaign. It was a sound promising glory and blood; it was a warning that justice was on the move. More than anything, it was a clarion call to soak into bones — to itch in men’s souls — that it was their hour to rise up. To cast all else aside, to suffer and die for higher things they were coded and fashioned for. A primal drumbeat was started, and its signal translated to one word.

  War!

  Dax fell to her knees, unbidden twin tears falling from her eyes. She looked up at the Higher Goddess as she performed her new miracle. She’d felt the work pour through her, felt that inner being not only consent and agree, but gleefully cheer. Within her, it veritably cackled, perhaps the first and only time she’d been aware of it.

  They All felt it, truly, and felt it together, in unity.

  Azure, waiting, watching, and managing the mirrors in Heaven, closed her eyes and nodded simply, as she felt those lines arc through her. It was nothing terribly new, and her inner self had automated nearly everything into her lover’s control. In this, it was her nature to facilitate. Go for it, Chestnut.

  Crow, standing over documents and open books in his investigations and ponderings, looked up at the stirring within him, crossing his arms. [Death] within him simply shrugged at the coordination, as if idly flicking a marble. Hmm. Interesting.

  Bast, returning in a Pegasus carriage from a quest with spoils already ‘pocketed,’ leaned back and put his feet up in his deliberately cushy, comfy alcove. His clothes and body were stained with blood he hadn’t cleaned. Suddenly, it seemed quite appropriate. He chuckled as his inner being reveled in what was to come. I’ll do my part, rest assured. Charge into the fray, boys and girls! And the latter? Save me a kiss!

  Tashome slid away from his desk and calmly sat down cross-legged on the floor, closing his eyes and meditating on the matter as it commenced. His inner self was resigned, yet quite approving of the change in the air. I’ve always waited for this. Here we are again, siblings; rivals. The last time, I pray.

  Orswyth, writing notes after a sermon in Geirkos, looked up at the shift he felt. He calmly went to his knees on a prayer mat and was as receptive as possible in agreement with the others. His inner self was no different, affirming the rest in their act. No different than the daily surrender, friends — or even a sip of water. Like it, this is necessary, so let us walk it with joy and savor the moment.

  Meanwhile, the Goddess floating in the air simply laughed. Laughed and laughed. The FT was laughing with her, their gazes entirely on the world they’d touched, and how they’d steered it that much more to their ends.

  Within, undetected, unknown, the inner being of Samantha cracked an eye open briefly, then closed it.

  Sammy felt a tremendous surge of hope within her at the successful act of Orchestration — not quite that, actually. Rehearsal.

  Oooh, ooh, we’re halfway theee-er, Oooh OH! Liiiivin’ on a pray-ayer! Take my hand, we’ll make it I swear-ear! Haha! Everything is on track, baby! The Seventh, our Crazy Sister, is up next. Soon, I hope.

  Thanks for reading!

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