“No sign of Cato yet,” Muar said through his Skill. It no longer had a name, as Misse had guided him in learning how to manipulate essence directly so he could communicate with her – or any god that wished to deal with him – without needing a Temple. He glanced over the surface of the world below, his senses covering almost the whole of Rikel. The Annexation would appear in a scant few hours — although nobody was supposed to know that.

  Of course, the suspicion was that some people did. The rumors had made it almost impossible to track down who might actually be working with Cato, so Misse had set a little trap. Different deities had been told different things, in an attempt to see who, if anyone, was leaking information to Cato. They’d both given it only a small chance of success, but there were very few opportunities like an Annexation.

  “Nobody has taken any of the other bait either,” Misse replied through his Skill, sounding half-mad and half-glad. “Which at least implies our Clan is uncompromised. Though I would have much preferred if we had caught someone. Nobody taking the bait can mean many things, after all.”

  “It’s probably best to take it as a victory,” Muar replied, still surveying the planet. He knew that Cato would appear; it was unthinkable that the invader would not resurface during an annexation. But the question was when, and in what force.

  As the timer neared its end, he invoked his [Crusader] title, sending out personalized quests to higher ranked individuals within the Five Gods alliance, avoiding any general call to arms. That could come later, depending on how things went with the initial stages. Under the circumstances, it didn’t seem to be a wise idea to immediately call for the lower ranks — not that Coppers and Silvers could reach Rikel anyway.

  Soon enough the other Azoths arrived, along with a few lower ranks who were meant to stay on the ground as support. It was the Azoths who had the portable Nexus crystals that let them venture out into the nothingness beyond worlds where Cato operated, and anyone below that would not be at all effective. Convincing Alums to join them was still a difficult business — in fact, just finding them was a problem. He did have some people pursuing the leads he had on certain specific Alums, such as a Tornok clan that Muar was certain would be willing to help once he could be found.

  His fellow Azoths distributed themselves around the world, each of them allotted a consumable offering divine protection as well as ensuring they all add additional resurrections. If he was asking people to fight against someone as dangerous as Cato, it was the least he could do to ensure they did not risk more than was necessary. Besides which, they all knew that the weapons the heretic had put in the skies could strike without warning, so they had to provide some defense against such an ambush.

  In a way he was making himself a target, floating as he was above the planet’s surface, away from any cities or towns that might keep Cato from using his weapons. But he had the same protections, and he knew that he was far and away the most tempting target, as Cato would not have forgotten who Muar was. That wasn’t ego; it was simply that Cato was a person, even if a strange one, and Muar had more experience with his ways and his agents than anyone else.

  Peering into the blackness, he knew there was something out there in vastness of nothing beyond the System, but so far he had not been able to see anything untoward. Maybe nothing had drawn Cato’s attention yet; the Core Elders – or more precisely, Misse – had suppressed the normal broadcast about the annexation, so only Muar and a few deities had the notification. Though it was technically Clan Shoh space, neither he nor Misse really trusted any of those deities to properly manage the test.

  Clan Shoh wasn’t happy to begin with, as everyone expected Cato to attack the new annexation — and in force. Given what had happened with the last annexation, Cato had turned what should have been a natural expansion of Clan holdings into a risk of significant losses. For the first time in untold thousands of years, the Clans weren’t trying to influence the True Core and push the new annexation to be in their territory.

  The timer finished and the portal to the new world opened. The Elders couldn’t suppress the broadcast about that, so the news was now public. Which meant that, if no leaks had occurred, they could start tracking how long it took Cato to find out and move his forces. The more they knew about him, the better they could plan strategic maneuvers to counter and entrap the invader.

  As he kept surveying the heavens, he caught sight of a few stars moving merely an hour after the news broke. It was subtle, something he likely would have missed if he weren’t specifically looking for it, but by focusing solely on his sensory Skills he got the impression of the large slabs of artifice Cato used. They weren’t within the System yet, but they didn’t need to be, to threaten the good and devout people of Rikel and their defenders.

  “Cato is moving,” he said to Misse, and through his Skill he heard her make a small noise of exasperation.

  “How can he move so quickly?” She mused, not really asking him directly. “Unless he was there already, but then why wait until just after the annexation became known? There has to be some logic to it.”

  “I’m sure there is, but I worry for Rikel,” Muar replied. “If he focuses everything he has, we might be forced back.”

  “Losing the annexation was always a possibility,” Misse replied, less concerned than he was. “It’s just a Hunting World, so it’s no great loss if Cato does take it, in the end. There will be others, but the more we can learn about Cato’s capabilities, and how well we can stymie them, the better.”

  “True,” Muar conceded, though he hated to give any ground to the enemy. He knew that this was a long campaign and they couldn’t win every battle, but it went against his basic instincts to believe that any particular battle was lost. “The question will be what happens with the annexation itself.”

  He only wished he had learned more about Cato’s capabilities when he’d had the chance, because knowing exactly how Cato brought his forces to various worlds would give them an invaluable advantage in the campaign against the enemy. The other Ahruskians did claim that Cato could have created much of it in place, but that seemed a step too far, especially considering that there was a very obvious variance of forces when it came to attacks. Places where there were more attackers, and fewer.

  So far, they’d not found whatever methods Cato was using to move his forces around — but that was not a surprise. Much of Cato’s artifice self-destructed in one way or another, melting into metal and sludge. Combined with the enormous distances that his vessels moved through, something like a portal or teleporter would be impossible to sort out from all the other detritus of combat.

  “I’m sure whatever Cato does, you’re the best one to defend against it,” Misse told him, and Muar nodded to himself before dropping down toward the surface again. So far he hadn’t drawn any fire, and while he was confident enough that he could survive a hit or two from Cato’s weapons, having to resurrect back in the Core Worlds would be irksome. It’d likely be another hour before any of Cato’s forces came close enough for it to be worth contesting, anyway.

  Some of his fellow Azoths had control of [Gellum Staging Area]. Azoth Millum had put a white dome of hardened stone over it, to shelter it from any aerial assault, and Azoth Kepth had ordered the incoming Golds and Platinums into lines so they could be screened. It was almost certain that Cato would try and slip his agents through, and it was up to Muar to stop him.

  Muar wasn’t sure how many people Cato had subverted, but he suspected that any of them that he had manage to seduce would have his artifice in them, the way Raine and Leese did. His personal theory was that Cato had suborned a lot more individuals than anyone knew, preventing any loose talk through strange and arcane means. Hopefully, Muar could still spot any such infiltrators, familiar as he was with Cato’s styles and methods.

  “Everyone, listen!” He projected his voice over the [Staging Area], drawing all eyes to him. “Be prepared to present the contents of any spatial storage or [Inventory] Skill, item, or ordinary backpack or pouch. I will be inspecting you personally, and any attempts at dissembling or hiding things will not be tolerated. Lest you worry about your secrets, keep in mind that I do not care. I am the [Crusader], I am [Chosen] of a [Core Deity], and nothing that a Gold or a Platinum has done or found matters to me.”

  Some people shuffled uncomfortably, but nobody dared argue with an Azoth. Muar didn’t try to hide his aura, making sure they knew they were dealing with the very highest ranks. He half-expected someone to try and break and run, but if anything the assembled hopefuls were too cowed even for that.

  Muar walked along the line of Golds first, surveying them with his senses and making them disgorge their inventories. Unlike with Bismuths or above, Gold and Platinum types had a spatial bag at most, so there wasn’t much to examine. Not like the sheer amount of equipment and miscellanea that accumulated in Estate-linked inventories.

  Despite saying that he did not care, he did silently judge what he saw. Some Golds were clearly struggling, with mismatched equipment, some of it still at Silver, clearly flocking to the annexation in hopes of the unique rewards such an opportunity offered. Such people Muar bestowed a blessing upon, as he knew well what it was like to struggle up the ranks, and their very presence here showed that they were worthy of some boon.

  Others were clearly sponsored, either by gods – he could see the divine blessings just as easily as he could see their ranks and names – or by mortal clans, with proper gear sets and a full suite of accessories. Those types didn’t need his blessing — and indeed, as many of the gods involved weren’t exactly allies of Misse and the Elns, any such blessing would be considered an insult.

  One by one he sent the Golds through the portal, after he was satisfied they were not one of Cato’s agents. A few required a more thorough look; mostly those who were well-off but not backed by anyone, but he didn’t say anything specifically. It wouldn’t do to punish those who had engaged with the Divine System on their own merits, and were rewarded for their prowess.

  Once he had worked his way through the Golds, he started on the Platinums. There was an even broader cross-section of races than had been present in the Golds, coming from further away to try their luck at a brand new annexation. Several parties, generally of the same race but some of a more mixed nature, and a few solos or pairs.

  One pair was deeply suspicious, as they had no divine or Clan backing and were exceedingly well-equipped, but his senses couldn’t find anything wrong with either them or their gear. Fortunately, he didn’t have to rely on his own judgement alone, and he invoked his Skill to communicate with Misse again. Normally a [Core Greater Deity] would have far better things to do than personally supervise a few low-rank individuals, but this wasn’t just about the ranks. It was about the threat Cato posed.

  “[Deity] Leklem can vouch for them,” Misse said, her presence passing over the [Staging Area]. “They are simply skilled.” Muar nodded and allowed the pair to repack the various elemental mauls the two had as reserve weapons, equipment vanishing into their spatial storage before they hastened through the portal. He continued down the line until reaching one individual he found deeply suspicious.

  Elki-Leem was from a race he didn’t recognize, though that was hardly surprising considering the scope of all reality. With thousands of races, there were many he’d never heard of, let alone met before, but most of them weren’t immense titans that moved with an incredible grace. It was that movement which bothered him, close as it was to the smoothness of the System’s most blessed — or Cato’s agents.

  The triple-sized Platinum emptied his inventory, revealing a number of appropriately oversized spears. Some were still Copper-ranked, others Silver, some obviously crafted, which was interesting as crafting was generally a sign of mortal clan backing, something not reflected in Elki-Leem’s [Appraise]. Yet none of them had that particular fuzz of Cato’s artifice, nor did they prompt a defense quest. Still, he once again called on a higher form of scrutiny as he asked for Misse’s opinion.

  “A conjoined mind,” Misse said, sounding surprised. “I haven’t seen one of those for a while. There are a few truly ancient Alums like that, but I haven’t seen any recently. Perhaps they’re related?”

  “Perhaps,” Muar conceded, scrutinizing Elki-Leem again. The titan seemed somewhat nervous, but so would anyone who was faced with an Azoth who could decide their fate. “What are your intentions on Gellum?” He asked aloud, subtly invoking one of his Skills that, among other things, encouraged telling the truth. It wasn’t perfect, but even the gods couldn’t read minds directly.

  “I want to see what the annexation has to offer, to improve myself and gather what information and resources I may,” Elki-Leem replied in a deep rumble. Muar grunted, still not liking it but ultimately finding no valid reason to detain Elki-Leem further. Some support from an Alum – even if it was simply advice – might explain the advanced nature of the titan’s movements, and of course it would not do to deny those who made good use of the System’s gifts. Muar let the Platinum return his equipment to storage, and continue on through the portal.

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  He continued on through the line, but ultimately didn’t find anything bearing Cato’s touch. Not that he was going to leave Gellum unmonitored, and there was a fight for Rikel impending in just a few hours, but at least for the moment he was satisfied that Cato had not slipped something through. While he couldn’t keep a permanent eye on it himself, he would make sure trustworthy members of the [Crusade] were in place to respond to any provocation.

  Exiting the dome, Muar looked upward to see more stars moving in the sky, visible to his senses even in daylight. Though soon enough even Coppers and Silvers would be able to tell they were there, especially when Cato decided to use his weapons. Which he inevitably would, as the [Crusade] was not going to let him invade Rikel uncontested.

  Muar sent out a broadcast to the other Azoths, coordinating through his [Crusader] title, and all but a few took to the skies. Those with aether, gravity, and fire talents had found they could do little out in the nothingness, the effects of their Skills dissipating in the terrible void, but they were utterly ruinous on the surface, so they maintained the vigil there.

  He rose ahead of the others, darting out toward Cato’s forces. Just as the blue sky was starting to turn black and the curve of the world became visible below him, one of those terrible rending beams came out of nowhere and slammed into him before he could react, even as an Azoth. The protection of the divine crystal held, if only for a moment — and that moment was enough for him to dodge away. He bared his teeth in a dire smile as he began to dart here and there, bouncing around randomly to stymie the foreign weapon as he flew upward toward where Cato’s forces waited.

  He had a world to defend.

  ***

  “And you vow not to speak of this to anyone else?”

  Goyle sighed at the Azoth who had arrived at the Punchy Bastards guild hall. In a way it was hardly surprising; anyone who needed Alum-ranked senses had a very tiny pool of candidates available, as most Alums were buried deep in the War-Worlds — and ones with a sensory cornerstone rather than a combat focus were rare even then. He still didn’t like working with or for the gods, but getting a lead on something potentially interesting was good enough to make him agree.

  “Of course not,” he said, mostly lying. If he wanted to be a god, or play around with the divine, he could have done so long ago. As it was, he worked for himself, not for Deities or other Alums. That independence, while still being mindful enough of the rest of the System to not simply vanish into the depths of the War Worlds, was what set the Punchy Bastards apart. Accordingly, he didn’t really respect the Azoth and didn’t really mean what he said, but he agreed simply to make the process move along more quickly.

  “Then, record your observations here,” the Azoth said, producing a number of memory crystals from his inventory. Such crystals weren’t cheap, though as Goyle had been an Alum for hundreds of thousands of years, it wasn’t like expense even mattered to him anymore. His Estate was cluttered with the detritus of millennia; treasures that planets would fight for just gathering dust. Nevertheless, Goyle took the crystals and stowed them away before waving the Azoth out of the Guild House.

  Once he was gone, Goyle flexed his Skills and left the Core. At Alum he barely even needed the portals, able to tear open his own passageways with raw essence manipulation. It wasn’t like anyone could even complain, as most Clans knew better than to try and dictate the movements of someone so far above Azoth that the combined might of an entire Clan – sans their own Alums – was irrelevant.

  It had been a while since he’d bothered with the Inner Worlds, but if the Deity was to be believed, there might well be something interesting there. Goyle stepped out onto the surface of Heimdall’s moon, shaking out his heavy fur — for some reason, traversing the space between his own impromptu portals always made it stand on end. He looked upward, stretching out his senses as he rose into the air, his perceptive Domain covering the moon and the world below, all the way to the edges of the System’s influence.

  Many would think that the gods would have better senses than Alums, but such was not the case. Becoming a Deity was simply a different path, one of authority and control rather than the strict self-improvement of Alums. While Deities surely had access to whatever Skills they needed, there was more to sensing than just having the Skill and the power. It took practice, understanding. The ability to parse out the tiniest whisper of a hint and know whether it meant something, or was just a random confluence of events. Deities had better things to do than to spend centuries honing their understanding of either ordinary or esoteric senses.

  It took several hours of study, his Skills and eyes stretched to their utmost, to find that there was indeed what the Deity had asked about. Tiny bits of something, floating so far out into the void that it was almost impossible to believe. There were moons out there, and worlds, but there were also things of metal and glass, things with a form he could grasp but with a function he could not discern.

  More, there was also the kind of light he had been trying to study and understand for some centuries now, a kind far beyond what could normally be seen. The sun emitted it, true, but it was slippery and did not do much to illuminate — yet he could sense pieces of it bouncing around the outer reaches of the moon’s atmosphere, down to the surface and even through the portals. There was something very enticing about the intense, compressed structure of the light, which showed it wasn’t just the simple chaos of sunlight, but he couldn’t pursue it just yet.

  Goyle recorded what he sensed into the memory crystal save the light, and then stepped through to the next world, standing upon a mountain peak to observe as there was no handy moon to bring him further toward the stars. Once again he took his pose, staring upward for hours as the world turned and allowing his senses to gather every tiny speck they could. And once again, he found the bits and pieces that he had been warned about, puzzling the subtle fragments into a picture of what was out there. Not to mention more of the oddly compressed light which, as he thought about it, seemed somewhat familiar.

  He put all his observations into the memory crystal, everything but his thoughts on the compressed, invisible light. That was his, and just because he was doing a job for a Deity didn’t mean that he was obligated to include unrelated speculation. Especially if it might mean that he wouldn’t get to investigate it himself.

  The next world was much the same, and the one after that. Goyle went from one of the Inner Worlds to the next, unhurried, surveying each of them, and on each one finding the same thing. Sometimes nearer, sometimes further, but there was always some signature of Cato’s presence. If he had to guess, the ones closest to the frontier had more, but it was difficult to say so he didn’t try.

  The total loop took months, but he did not find a single world that was free of the indicators. Yet when he returned to the War Worlds of the core, there wasn’t the slightest evidence of anything Cato-related. He even rose up above the floating islands, daring the Alum monsters that nested there to cast his gaze to the Core Worlds themselves, where they danced about the War Worlds, but found nothing.

  This, too, went into one of the memory crystals, and Goyle tore his way back to a nearby city with a flex of essence. There was a Temple, of course, and he strode in, flexing his aura to notify the priest of his presence. Soon enough someone came out – a Bismuth, of course – to meet with him and take the box full of memory crystals.

  “Thank you for your service, Alum Goyle,” the priest said, withdrawing a different crystal and holding it out. “As promised, your payment. A divine favor.”

  “Glad to be of service,” Goyle half-lied, taking the favor token and stowing it inside his estate alongside a half-dozen similar tokens. There was a reason it was essentially impossible to hire Alums to do anything: not even gods had much of substance to offer. At Alum, it was about the experience, the understanding, the exploration. There were no shortcuts to grow as an Alum, no blessing or equipment that made any real difference in the long run. He wouldn’t have even taken the offer if it weren’t for the fact that it was genuinely interesting, and he was glad of it, in hindsight.

  Goyle returned to the Punchy Bastards guildhouse, casting out his senses to find the two new recruits and waiting, impatiently, for them to return from their current errand. He could have eradicated the world elite they were fighting over on War-World Moz with little effort, but that wouldn’t have been fair to them and he needed to ask them questions regardless. Ones they had to be in the mood to answer.

  As was usual for such things, it took nearly a full day for the pair and their Ahruskian friend to fell the Azoth and return, but he was waiting when they came back. Unlike before, Shiel-Ruyu wasn’t there to sit on him. Yet he wasn’t stupid, so he waited a full forty seconds until after the two walked in and then inverted his Domain to sequester himself with the pair he wanted to speak with.

  “Hello, you two,” he said, but the pair reacted to the sudden intrusion by summoning their weapons. “No, no, you’re not in any danger,” Goyle assured them. “But I really, really want to know. I was out surveying for Cato’s presence, and he was everywhere, and everywhere he was there was light exactly like the kind you two use to communicate.”

  “Oh,” one of the two said. There was another burst of that condensed structured light about them, one lasting a little longer than usual, then the two sighed in unison. “This is a very delicate matter,” the same one said. “We need a private space. Perhaps one of our Estates?”

  “I have no objection,” Goyle said, since even within someone else’s Estate, it wasn’t like Azoths could do anything to him. He neutralized his Domain and let the pair find a likely corner, where one of them gestured and created an Estate portal. Following them in, he found that the interior was relatively sparse – just one building and one warehouse – but was absolutely full of stuff. He instantly took all of it in, cataloguing the various bits and pieces, and while most of it was the usual accumulation of an Azoth, some of it definitely was not. Realizing this, he flexed his Domain again, shielding all of them from any kind of observation as he regarded them.

  “We weren’t ready for this quite yet,” one said. “But it’s true, we’re with Cato, and what you’re sensing is one of his pieces of knowledge, his technology.”

  “Considering you were so interested before, we thought you’d want to know more rather than attack us, but we weren’t ready to try and confront Alum,” the other one added, her voice rather more cheeky. Goyle didn’t much mind, as nobody in the Punchy Bastards paid real attention to rank, but he did understand their issue. It was essentially impossible for anyone to run or hide from him, and even with their genius, at Azoth they simply couldn’t stand up to the full might of an Alum.

  “I don’t really care about the whole Cato thing.” Goyle dismissed the entire [Crusade] and the upset deities with a single sentence, as it was entirely a political issue in his mind. The chance of learning more about the strange, compressed, structured light was far more enticing. “Tell me about this technology.”

  To his surprise, instead of responding immediately, the cheekier one summoned one of the oddities to her hand. A book, which he could have read without opening if he’d wanted to, but he hadn’t known that it was important. Now that he did, he started going through it before the Azoth even started speaking — and found, to his delight, that he only understood some of what was written there. That there were hints and implications toward even greater things, truths and ideas he had never heard of before.

  “We’re Cato’s agents, we don’t know all that much about his technology ourselves. But we can put you in communication with him directly. It was he who gave us the ability to use the signals you’re seeing, and more besides — and he’s willing to share that with you.”

  “And at what cost?” Goyle said, as there always was one.

  “You’d have to leave the System,” the quieter one said. “He can offer more to Alums than the System does, after all. I imagine you don’t care about getting stronger, but about doing things you like. Cato wants to extend that offer to every Alum, but you can imagine that hasn’t been easy when any Alum could eradicate us with a thought. Not to mention the gods.”

  “That is fair,” Goyle allowed after a moment of thought. Even if he didn’t care, many people did, and Azoth was far from sufficient to keep them safe from any gods. Though they were clearly blessed, so there was someone on their side. “Yes, I would like to hear from Cato about this.”

  “If you wish to speak to Cato directly, the easiest way is to go to the world of Corocol,” the cheeky one said, consulting the book. “You will want to take this with you, it will allow you to talk to him.” Once again a piece of oddity was summoned, this one being a small model of some blue lizard — or so he thought, until he let his senses delve deeper and realized it was alive, but in hibernation. The quiet one tilted a few drops of some liquid from a vial into its mouth, and it woke, heart beating properly once again.

  That seemed exceedingly strange, but he’d seen weirder Skills during his long life. Summoners and tamers were fairly rare, but not unheard of, though the fact that this particular creature was base Copper was quite odd. The quiet one fed the creature a few spherical pills that seemed exceedingly dense and not like usual food, and it came even more alive, looking up at the quiet one. She stroked its head before tickling it under the chin with obvious affection, then nodded to the cheeky one.

  “Go with Goyle there and link him up to Cato in Corocol,” the cheeky one instructed, and the lizard turned around and scampered over to him. Goyle shook his head, but scooped up the lizard and placed it on his shoulder, where it clung tight. A surprising amount of intelligence for a creature so small, but Goyle suspected that was by design.

  He didn’t bother issuing any warnings or instructions to the new blood. If they were, for some unforeseeable reason, lying to him, then there was no way they could hide from him. If not, there was nothing to worry about, so he simply took his leave and punched open a portal to Corocol. It was one of the nexus points where the frontier met the Inner Worlds, one of the most valuable worlds that a Clan could hold — and so it was amusing that, apparently, Cato was using it as a base.

  Goyle flitted to the top of the moon, stretching out his senses to what he’d observed before, the tiny bits and pieces of light that demonstrated Cato’s presence, and was not at all surprised when he sensed a weak but very clear burst of structured oddness from the lizard on his shoulder. Then it spoke.

  “Alum Goyle,” a voice that was definitely Cato and not the small creature riding his shoulder said, the lizard vibrating in very odd and interesting ways. “If you’re here, I assume you’ve met my representatives and have become curious about things beyond the System.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Goyle said, mistrusting such sweeping statements. “But I am interested in the strange light that you use. How it works.”

  “How it works, and why,” Cato said, seeming entirely too pleased. “I’m guessing that your Bismuth cornerstone was a perceptive one? Perhaps something to do with vision?”

  “It was,” Goyle said, a little suspicious even if such a thing was not difficult to infer. Any Alum could look at a Bismuth rank or higher and make that kind of guess within seconds.

  “Then yes, I have many things I can tell you. What light is, how it defines time and space, even how it is related to the very stuff that underpins everything in the universe,” Cato said. “But of course, the price is both secrecy and, I hope, your help in convincing other Alums to treat with me. I will be honest, Goyle, that my goal is to bring down the System. But not the people within it. What I have to offer Alums are fights or vistas of knowledge beyond what they have ever imagined — if I can manage to reach out. Will you help me do so?”

  “Maybe,” Goyle said, not too interested in advancing Cato’s agenda, but definitely interested in what he had said about light. There was something to it that tickled his mind, some intuition that just seemed right. “I’m not averse. But first, I want to know what you can tell me about light.”

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