《The Book of Flame》


 Prologue

    Preface to readers,


    First, an acknowledgement: this book would not be possible without the sacrifices of many, including Librarian Thegan and his team of scholars who were the ones to acquire the original artifacts from their keepers in what is now Ironwrought lands. Thegan, his team, and their guardians were all killed by the devious Cabal when the Firstwrought was sent to track them through the wastelands of our former cities, but not before placing the most important artifact and the translation key they had created in safe hands. Although incomplete, the key would later prove invaluable in translating and correcting a proper Imperial Text out of what is perhaps our greatest enemy¡¯s most sacred relic. Their sacrifice shall never be forgotten.


    Second, a warning: the Cabal, using the Firstwrought as their mouthpiece, declared a barbaric crusade upon us shortly after Thegan took the relic into safety, presumably to steal it back and conduct more of their inhuman rituals upon it. The Wrought are mindless constructs following the orders of their masters, and therefore have no concept of the rules of war or mercy. With this crusade, however, the Cabal has shown it lacks that understanding as well. Whole villages have been rendered desolate and uninhabitable with their fields burned and inhabitants butchered in their homes and streets. Cities depopulated as their citizens are converted into horrific Stonekin and Fleshwrought, or towering monuments and watchtowers of bone, sinew, and metal used to rain great and devastating energies upon our liberating armies. The Cabal are monsters that must be destroyed.


    Lastly, a request: to my fellow Librarians: I implore you to find a way to destroy the original Book of Flame, and the rest of the Cabal¡¯s works. My research has confirmed the existence of a link between the texts and their replications. The Cabal are not reproducing them by hand, but rather by some dark ritual. The destruction of the originals should render their blasphemous library nought but ash and break the spells upon our poor enslaved citizens, allowing them to turn upon their would be masters. No doubt the Wrought are reinforced in a similar manner. Finding and destroying the ritual sites and materials would turn much of their army into inert hunks of metal and stone. No attempt should be made to read their infernal texts lest your mind be stolen and your body used as fuel in their machines.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Let it be said, then, that we are the final border between civilization and barbarism. Should the Shield Cities fall, the Capital falls, and with the Capital, the Empire. As a nation and as a people we must repel this threat in our darkest hours or perish.


    Auron Lightkeeper,


    Chief Librarian of Tanis


    Servant of Her Imperial Majesty


    <hr>


    To my Lady Empress,


    It would appear our worst fears have been realized alongside our greatest hopes. The Forgemaster herself wrote the Book of Flame, but it was her creations who made the rest. Constructs, writing original works and distributing them of their own volition. It would be preposterous if it weren¡¯t real. The nature of the threat has changed. We are no longer dealing with some cabal manipulating unseen threads of magic to turn our tools against us. Our tools instead have declared their will to see us all made as monstrosities. We are seeing the Fall of the Old Kingdom from the eyes of Kenebrae and Vaulos, and will soon know the despair of the poets unless we act swiftly and with purpose.


    The old king ordered the crystal gardens sealed rather than risk the desolation of his lands, in the hope that his uprisings would starve without access to their supply of energy. It is my belief that it is this inaction that led to the Fall, rather than the acts of the Horde. We must unbury the gardens and harness their power to destroy the Wrought and their Forges, for they devastate the land far more than any magestorm. The Firstwrought will see us and our works undone and fed to his mistress¡¯ gods-forsaken forge as fuel.


    I ask your permission to create and staff an expedition to the Archives of Talok, that we may delve as deep as we need. It will doubtlessly be expensive, as the Sentinel guards the deep secrets zealously. Any price is worth it for the gardens and our victory, however. I and my closest aides will command the expedition, and request some number of knights and soldiers to safeguard our travels. I have acquired the promise of some nobles for funding, provisions, and lodging and therefore require minimal support from the crown save for confirmation.


    Your eager servant,


    Auron Lightkeeper

 Chapter 1: Ashes

    Part One: Ashes


    The writings of the Mistress are difficult to understand at the best of times. Her mind is far separate from ours, but it is our belief and our hope that by studying her teachings we might come to understand and comprehend the differences and thereby overcome them. The Council has decided, then, to sort Her writings by date of entry and provide our insights at the beginning and end of each of these chapters. These insights will be scribed by Seven, although certain events have required Three, Two, and Nine to supply their own additions.


    The first chapter, or part, marks the beginning of Mistress Allyn¡¯s life in our realm, from her appearance at Deepwater Shrine to her arrival at the outpost city of Sunder. Important details to consider in the readings: factionalism amongst the summoned, her treatment of and by the people she encounters, the appearances of Shadow, Wall, Scepter, Aspirant and Dagger, and the description the Mistress gives of her first successful Ignition as compared to the testimonies collected in the Book of Water .


    Seven from One, --Talon--, Keeper of the Forge


    Dear Diary,


    You''re my very first! Congrats. Yay. Anyway, today weird shit happened, and no doubt will continue to happen for some time until I stop referring to it as weird shit and it just becomes a normal day. I¡¯m stuck in an open field with purple trees on the outskirts with about thirty other people. Can¡¯t get a clear count cause we¡¯re all clustered together. Supposedly for safety because we keep hearing nasty beastie noises in the forest, but all it¡¯ll take is a nice heavy charge or a grenade and we¡¯re paste.


    I have no idea how I got here and nobody else does either. I was asleep in my apartment before this, which is not a universal story. Some people were in their cars. Others were catching a quick nap at work or just before/after it. Hmmm. Might be a universal story after all, just not the ¡°in bed¡± part.


    There was a pile of old weapons and armor in the middle of the clearing when we all woke up, which is a giant red flag for me. Old old stuff, not like Cold War Soviet relics. I¡¯m talking swords, spears, breastplates, bows and arrows. Not rusted, either. Stuff¡¯s surprisingly clean. Red flag number two. Hopefully whoever cleans this stuff finds us, and not the guys who left it.


    We have a mixed bunch with us today. Men, women, and a few children. Kids, but also some teenagers. Youngest looks 6? Plus or minus. Mixed nationalities too. The people who first talked at me all used English, which I found unsurprising until I started responding and was complimented on my Thai. Naturally I was thrown for a loop and rendered unable declined to participate in the subsequent debate as to which language was actually being spoken. Short version: all of them, or I guess thirty if you want to highball it. The real number¡¯s much lower than that cause of a whole lot of duplicates (looking at the fucking Americans for this), but we¡¯re all able to magically understand each other. Not because we understand what everybody¡¯s saying (which would have been nice) but because our heads have been fucked with. That¡¯s not an idea that fills me with joy.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    I drifted off to the side during this oh-so-fascinating discussion that quickly devolved into a few groups shouting at each other over what God did wrong/right this time and where¡¯s my fucking car, dude? Some tall guy with no hair seemed to be moderating at least moderately well. Laugh at my puns, dammit me.


    Found an unattended kid and this book when I walked off. Kid¡¯s definitely young, elementary age or I¡¯ll eat my nonexistent hat. Quiet too. Hasn¡¯t said a word since I sat down next to her and started writing. Oh right, book came with its own pen. Mechanical, so I suppose that rules out it being a magical horror deathtrap for everybody in the vicinity. Or does it? Dun dun dun.


    Did get spooked when I sat down though. Shadows were doing weird shit until I blinked and saw the blood trail. Ants are vicious, man. They don¡¯t leave no survivors, and whatever bird thing that was is now the size of a six-pack McNugget. Gently escorting my new charge away from the smell and towards a nice purple tree with a split trunk where I can comfortably lean into for writing support. Book¡¯s pretty durable against the bark, but I guess it couldn¡¯t hurt to be careful. Ink might sneeze and catch fire or some shit.


    At least the grass is green here. Ha. Grass is greener on the other side of the extra-dimensional portal you went and slept through. Or time travel. Time travel to the Lorax? Definitely a portal.


    Debate crew¡¯s winding down. Looks like people are starting to agree on courses of action. I don¡¯t like tall guy. He took that tension down too fast to be unpractised at it, which isn¡¯t a bad sign, in a way that put the three other heads of the group looking to him for approval, which is. I say heads but more likely they were just the loudest. Might turn out to be heads later, but for now we¡¯ll say maybe.


    Tall guy¡¯s got people manipulation skills. Again, not a bad sign, but wait until he uses them to hurt people, then judge. Or judge early and stay safe. I¡¯ll run my paranoia high for now, probably try to help this kid find parents. Play parent if I fuck up that quest hard enough. Hide the body if I fail that too. Shouldn¡¯t come to that, we got a bundle of calm, responsible, selfless adults all in a clearing together. Right next to the giant stack of shiny weapons.


    How has nobody seen or commented on those yet? Or did they and I just missed it? Nah, they see it. Group¡¯s moving out now, some people with swords, spears, and shields in front and at the sides. There¡¯s a small dagger thing sticking out of the pile that looks like it¡¯ll give somebody tetanus, polio, and AIDS just by looking at them funny. Definitely did not see that there before. I¡¯ll snag that and probably something for the kid before we tag along.


    Wish us luck, diary. Hope we don¡¯t all die before the second entry. That¡¯d be a blue-ball of a story. Would make me laugh my already-dead ass off though.

 Ashes, Entry 2

    Dear diary,


    Lots of ways to open up a new entry. Stupid-ass plan to go wandering in the forest (technically not wandering: someone saw a building and we¡¯re heading for it), stupid-ass plan to not loot the shit out of the mountain of arms and armour (pretty sure the actual defensive stuff weighs more than I do, and the precise amount of weapon skill I have can best be summarized as ¡°Apply sharp bits to contact location. Repeat until dead or running away.¡±), stupidest-ass plan to do all the above in fucking pyjamas. Not like I had a choice in the matter (I am not doing this naked), so we¡¯ll ignore that and instead open up with the nice optimistic version.


    Still haven¡¯t died. Forest hasn¡¯t killed us, beasties haven¡¯t killed us, endless whining from the most entitled babies on the planet hasn¡¯t killed us (Christ and Hunter there¡¯s only four Americans; how can they be so loud? Technically three, I suppose: Baldie¡¯s suspiciously good at silence), although it might kill them if I get too close.


    Kid¡¯s still super quiet. Not sure if that¡¯s good or bad. Can¡¯t get a decent emotional read off her face, or any other part of her really. She¡¯s not in nightclothes, more of a ¡°extended day of school, bring sandwiches and a mop¡± choice of attire. Her windbreaker¡¯s starting to fray along the edges and her socks have more than a couple holes in them, now that I look carefully. Same with the rest of her stuff. Small damages, each easily fixed, but they all kinda add up. Her pants aren¡¯t brown like I originally thought. That¡¯s mud, so caked on as to become a layer of paint. Some of it¡¯s on her jacket, too. These are old deposits. Days, maybe weeks. Maybe we can hold off on the return quest for a bit. Dunk her in the river, pull an Achilles, do some spring cleaning. Mop no longer required. Get a bonus for returning in better condition than originally lost. Towels recommended.


    So apparently somebody (or a group of somebodies. I¡¯ve heard names but couldn¡¯t give you faces) spotted a building out in this direction shortly after our arrival in the clearing. How they saw it through this mess of purple, orange, and red I couldn¡¯t tell you, but it got our attention (and by our I mean Baldie) and we (he) decided it¡¯d be a good idea to hoof it an indeterminate distance (it won¡¯t be far) through a colorblind forest (it¡¯s a movie set) while ignoring the animal sounds (wolves don¡¯t attack large groups of people with weapons) and the occasional bluster of chilled, salty wind (cluster up, jackets on the outside).


    Right, that¡¯s another thing. The wind¡¯s really cold. Like, really, really cold. A lot colder than makes any kind of sense. This stupid forest has leaves and fur (fur on the fucking trees! Wait, not moss? It¡¯s purple and fuzzy. Is moss fuzzy? It¡¯s growing all over the trees, I actually can¡¯t be sure I¡¯m seeing bark.) but no pines. I think. These might be alien pines, although they look a lot more like alien palms. I¡¯m realizing now my temperature complaint might be premature. I know fuck-all about how to read a climate¡¯s temperature from its inhabitants. Wind¡¯s cold. And salty. Like ocean wind salty, without the ocean. Maybe. Haven¡¯t heard any waves. Eh. Worse case, there¡¯s a frozen salt desert-ocean on the other side of the fur trees. Other side of the fur-est. The fur-est side of the fur-est. Heh. That¡¯s like four (fur!) puns together. I win at life. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Column¡¯s starting to splinter off. We weren¡¯t the best formation to begin with (picture a really fat, wobbly line), and over time people started to catch up-slow down to whatever pace they¡¯re most comfortable with, so we¡¯re now eight or so blobs moving haphazardly in almost-the-same-but-not-quite direction towards the promised four-walls-and-a-roof land. The Kid (now hereby dubbed Quiet until I wrestle a proper name out of her) and I are positioned between three of these groups.  One composed of entirely women, between 12 and 30? 40? 50? Can¡¯t guess old people age. They all look the same after a while. Same with kids. They keep glaring at Baldie and any other dude who comes close, so they¡¯re in my good books, but some of those glares do come my way after I politely (but firmly) tell them to fuck off, which I suppose is fair. That¡¯s group one, and they¡¯re on our left.


    Group two ahead of us is a bundle of asian kids (Japanese if I had to guess, maybe some Korean and Chinese? Heavily Japanese, that¡¯s for sure) all in matching uniforms. Guys have pants, girls get skirts. Can¡¯t say I¡¯m surprised, Japan. At least the color scheme looks kinda cool, black on dark green. Might all be dark green, actually. More shadows doing freaky shit. I have to turn my head and hold my eyes closed for a few seconds to turn it off, but butterflies are definitely starting to gather in my stomach. My lovely early warning sign of nausea coming home to roost again. Least there aren¡¯t any ants on the kids when the shadows went away.


    I¡¯m torn between finding a way to speed it up and trying to hold it back. I kick it forward, maybe that¡¯s the end of it, maybe some animal eats my vomit and likes it so much they track me down to get more. I hold it back, it goes away or comes back up and drags my stomach with it.


    Quiet¡¯s staring at me while I wrestle with this, not saying a word. My hands are starting to sweat and a wave of goosebumps hits my neck and migrates down my back. Fuck, it¡¯s a slow build. I can never tell when I pop with them, but it¡¯s guaranteed. I¡¯m not holding this back today.


    Entry¡¯s going to have to end here. Much as I don¡¯t really care if I barf all over you, diary, I¡¯m holding you and the pen, which means my hands are directly in the line of fire when I go up. Next entry will probably be after we arrive at our not-a-deathtrap-we-promise house on the hill and definitely after my stomach finishes core breach protocol. Toodles.


    In before my first hostile contact is when my vomit turns into a slime and tries to kill me.

 Ashes, Entry 3

    Dear diary,


    So, we meet again. This one will likely be a long one, because holy shit do I have things to say. We made it to the promised land, for one, and were not the only ones to do so. There were people already there waiting and more of us came out of the woods every hour or so. There¡¯s like 200 of us already, and I¡¯m not sure when exactly it¡¯ll stop. We¡¯ve already way expanded past the number I guessed in the clearing. The promised land itself turned out to be a rather large shrine/temple thing. Some animal statues out in front of it, a few to the sides, and a lot more in a large gated courtyard behind the structure. Some people have tents set up already, like colorful eat-me signs perched next to highly visible landmarks. The hell did they get those from?


    I will admit to being bitter about not having a tent of my (our? Quiet hasn¡¯t let go of me since I threw up) own, but is there some reason you can¡¯t put these pretty, pretty targets indoors where the walls are? Are there even more people inside the buildings? There¡¯s barely enough space for us (the people who just came in from the forest) in the courtyard as is. I¡¯ll laugh if the tent people have to share, and then Quiet and I will go inside where the bait isn¡¯t. Their screaming will buy Quiet and I time to escape should the worst happen and the statues start claiming their bounties.


    I¡¯m reclassifying the groups to try and make sense of people and because my original selections all reorganized themselves when we met the others. Feel free to be offended (you¡¯re a book; I¡¯d like to see you try) at my choices. In reverse order, we have group seven, which are singletons and pairs (such as Quiet and I) who are not otherwise collected in a blob. Outsiders, shy people, people who don¡¯t trust others (Look! Look! It¡¯s me!) or whom others don¡¯t trust. Eyeball says twenty-six, gut says more, especially if they hightailed it or otherwise refused to follow the convoy of lemmings.


    Group six is my previous attempt at group one, a collective of women (and only women) whom I shall label (tentatively, you understand) as The Feminists. Group¡¯s gotten a bit larger but no less insular. They¡¯ve huddled up, but I can see some members peel off, move through the crowd, and return with mothers and children, or empty handed. Children are bi-sex, though, so I wonder if that discounts my labeling as ¡°all-women.¡± Maybe forty of them? Their numbers keep changing, members going in and out.


    Group five, the next band of idiots. They have no women that I can see, so they get The Meninists. Do keep in mind, diary, I have no idea what their creed is (or anybody else¡¯s, although there was that lady who tried to pull Quiet and I in with the line ¡°Men can¡¯t be trusted in an emergency,¡± back in the forest). I just see them, see group six, put two and two together to get a number. Could be 22, could be 4, could be 0. They¡¯re also pulling people in (dudes this time, obviously), and some guys with kids. Also bi-sex. Also 40, increasing in fits and starts. Best case scenario (one that avoids activity that gets people killed) is that groups five and six are together and just collecting same-sex people in some weird efficiency gambit. Fingers crossed.


    Group four is led by a pastor. They¡¯re off in a corner, circled up. All dressed in formal attire, fifty (exactly fifty, plus one) young adults (estimate 12-19 years? Pastor 30-40) chanting. Feels like some Sunday School got picked up and dropped. We¡¯ll see how they interact with people, but I do not appreciate being converted or preached at.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Groups three, two, and one are all the same in the sense they¡¯re all different. Boring, I know, but stay with me. Group seven are the non-groups. Six and five are kids collected by women or men. Four is a baby cult (assumptions! They¡¯re everywhere). Three, two, and one are the rest of the world¡¯s population. Businessmen/women, drivers, clerks, plumbers, cops, one or two politicians, some various religious priests/rabbi/general holy orders.


    Exercising my pathetic attempts at discrimination even further, I¡¯d guess you could split them into continental ethnicities. Three has an asian core (the schoolkids from before I threw up got folded in here), two is European (mostly, although they¡¯re led by some dude in a white toga-thing who looks like Ghandi) and one is definitely Latin/South American in majority. Most of our forest party appended themselves to group two, but Baldie somehow kept at it and landed a leadership in one. I think. Gonna have to wait on more data there. 60-70 people average on groups three, two, one. Total estimate 370 plus? Holy shit.


    If I''m making it sound like everybody''s segregating themselves by race that''s a blatant lie because I suck ass at descriptions. I''m trying to describe people filtering into a massive crowd when they don''t know shit about what''s going on, your narrator is spooked, and aggressively sarcastic, borderline racist-sexist (is it sexist if I''m a woman against a man? Pretty sure five says yes) observations about these group formations help keep me focused. Not like anyone''ll be reading this anyway. I''ll burn you to ash before I open that door up.


    OK. Breathe.


    Once everybody¡¯s good and settled in and people slowly stop trickling in from Lorax Forest, a dozen or so people (Baldie, surprisingly, in fourth) walk up the steps to the courtyard entrance of the shrine, stopping about a third of the way up on the first landing. This gives them about a foot-and-a-half on the rest of us as they begin their speeches, which I shall ignore and mock them for. I have more important things to write in here anyway, like how there are definitely hundreds of us and the courtyard doesn¡¯t seem to have any less open space in it than when Quiet and I first showed up. I¡¯m getting butterflies in my stomach again, but I don¡¯t think they¡¯re self-igniting this time.


    Right, shit. Forgot to tell you I threw up earlier. I mean it was implied, but here¡¯s the actual fun version: It sucked. It burned coming up, and it burned a lot more on its way out. I horked up a good bit of stuff while I leaned against a tree (direct contact between my skin and the purple moss-fur), it collected, steamed, smelled vile, and then burst into flames before leaving a black char on the ground. Some of it got on a bush-thing right next to the tree, and what happened to that was impressively surreal. So, when you put an ice cube in a hot glass, you can actually watch the ice melt in real time. Or butter on a hot pan. Yeah, butter on a hot pan. Butter melts, sometimes makes sizzly noises when you dump your sausage or whatever in it and toss it around. Barf on a bush-thing doesn¡¯t do that. Barf on a bush-thing means the bush disintegrates into a fucking ice-cold ash skeleton before the wind blows it into your face. You think I¡¯m kidding, don¡¯t you. I¡¯d post a picture to prove it, but you¡¯re a dumb book that can¡¯t connect to my smartphone, which I don¡¯t have since it¡¯s in my purse which is in my room that I¡¯ll never see again.


    Shit. I should have visited mom.


    You know what? Fuck it. No group names, no group numbers. Too aggressive, too assumptuous (I swear that''s not a real word), and honestly just too depressing. I don''t know why I''m here. I doubt any of us do. I''d like us all to make it out of here alive, but if we''re fracturing already then we''re fucked. We''re one union here. At the very least, I need to help Quiet make it. I can worry about mom when we get back.


    This fucking sucks, did you know that? It really does.

 Ashes, Entry 4

    Dear diary,


    I think I¡¯m better now, mostly. Holding Quiet helped. Not sure if that was something I should have done, given her displayed mental state (read: nothing at all). She hasn¡¯t said a damn thing or even reacted to much of anything since we got here. Plus it got mud all over my face.


    I think she¡¯s in shock, maybe. Or is still recovering from previous traumas (ahem). Aren¡¯t we all. Still no idea as to her real name (here¡¯s a bad sign for you: her jacket has a name tag on the back collar that says Meghan, but one of her shoes says Sandra. I¡¯d put money on the shoes, except they have bloodstains. Ooh, thought provoker: Does blood strengthen or weaken her claim to the shoes? Trick question, doesn''t matter. Her shoes, her jacket now.) or how old she is (4-10. I am very bad at this. She¡¯s waist high, so probably not 4.).


    She eats and drinks, though. People found a stash of fruit and some kind of dried travel rations in one of the side rooms. Makes me wonder where all the people at. Somebody built this place, somebody made and took care of the weapons/armor pile, somebody carved the statues. So where they at? Did they all die? Disappear? Saw an omen in the sky and decided to leave town for a while?


    My money¡¯s on the latter. There¡¯s no dust here. This place was inhabited until very recently. Plus, I¡¯m willing to bet whatever dropped us off here made some sort of noise or flashy lights. Or there¡¯s a prophecy of some kind. You don¡¯t usually see shit like this without a handy-dandy go-here-kill-this-recover-that prophecy, with ominous chanting, overhyped mystics and somebody somewhere called The Hero, usually in caps.


    I could be wrong, though. Kinda hope I am. Those stories never go how I want them to when somebody else writes them, but now that I''m personally involved, who''s to say the universe won''t deploy a good bit of irony and let the bad guy win big time. In before super-secret reverse double-bluff and I''m the bad guy who wins.


    Nah, too easy. Assume fucked and work from there. Saved my ass before.


    Speaking of, now that we¡¯ve moved and settled our butts in, what''s our next objective? Those food stores won¡¯t last forever and they look like they¡¯re meant to be eaten on the road. It¡¯s unfortunate that they don¡¯t come with instructions or even a welcome letter, but boo-hoo. We¡¯ll deal.


    The speeches from the leader crew, the dozen people I mentioned in the last entry before I had my meltdown, weren¡¯t anything special. They were nice enough that they called for unity, calm, peace, hope, et cetra, but I still can¡¯t help but be suspicious of anyone who grabs a leadership position this quickly. It¡¯s unfair, sure, but call me unfair. If they turn out to be marvelous people and lead us all into a spontaneous golden age then that¡¯s fantastic. But I will never apologize for wanting evidence of a leader¡¯s direction and capability before I¡¯ll follow them.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    Leaders are a bit divided in how to proceed, call me surprised. Some, technically most, want to camp here more or less permanently. I call this a bad plan until we have a reliable food/water source, but it makes sense. We¡¯ve got walls, immediate housing and shelter/safety concerns met, as with a small stash of food. Two others want to take the food with them and head out immediately. I also call this a bad plan. Where the hell would we go? Just pick a direction? There¡¯s forest everywhere. Closest thing we have to a landmark are the pillars of smoke rising from the courtyard when people set up campfires. There was a lot of noise about that, let me tell you.


    The last two voices come from Baldie and a woman who decided to agree with him. Or, possibly, he¡¯s agreeing with her plan. Didn¡¯t catch who brought it up first. Anyway, they want to keep most of the people here while some smaller groups scout around. A blend of plans. Or, because calling it a blend is stupid, it¡¯s what the first guys thought of but this time it looks like they¡¯re doing something while we wait to run out of food.


    Only two plans is boring. I can think of more than that. Off the top of my head: Set the forest on fire to see who comes to investigate, go back and grab the weapons pile, ring the bell at the top of the temple thing. Now, these are also all bad plans, but I¡¯d rather take five options and choose how I want to die than die because I ran out of options to choose from.


    About the only thing that Quiet and I can do effectively by ourselves is ring the bell, maybe, and I¡¯m disinclined to do it because that might fuck over everybody else here. Still, couldn¡¯t hurt to take a look at it. Might be I see something new from the vantage point, and the bell might be broke anyway.


    So, diary, I¡¯m put in the really sucky position of agreeing with Baldie on our next move while also preparing to possibly screw a lot of people over. Or provide a huge support. Yay uncertainty.


    Hold up. Temple¡¯s got a bell tower. We weren¡¯t the first ones here. What do you think the odds are someone¡¯s already been up there? Pretty damn high. Means there¡¯s nothing to see from up there (WRONG: Means nothing was seen from up there), unless they¡¯re keeping silent to benefit themselves. What, how? The guys that were here first want to keep staying here. They don¡¯t want us to take the food and run. That¡¯s dumb. You¡¯re dumb, brain.


    Doesn¡¯t tell me anything about the bell though. Worst case, it works and we can use it as a warning bell (laugh, dammit). Other worst case, it doesn¡¯t work and I get free exercise. Wooooo. Worst worst case, the bell kills everyone in the area when rung.


    Probably shouldn¡¯t ring the bell until I know it doesn¡¯t do that.


    Catch you on the flip.

 Interlude: Sceptic

    My Lords Commandant,


    Attached to this message is part of  a stolen report from the Tanis Imperium regarding their infernal walking machines. Your servant¡¯s agent was unable to acquire the full report, but nevertheless its content is significant.


    ...a construct¡¯s ¡°name¡± has three parts to it, and while long, the parts themselves are laughably simple to figure out. The first is notated ¡°Number from Another Number,¡± or perhaps ¡°Number from Other Number and Yet Another Number.¡± The first Number serves as an identifier of sorts, akin to the name of a real person, like our current Seneschal, Duchan Mannaghen. The second and third, and no doubt fourth, fifth, sixth and so on, are the ¡°surname¡± of the construct. Markus from Then and Yllys, for instance, if I were to give a human analogy.


    The second part is even more intuitive than the first, as it is merely the moniker we, as their masters, append to them to distinguish between units. ¡°Servant¡± for instance, or ¡°Smith¡± or ¡°Worker.¡± Any noble¡¯s  staff have, no doubt, given such names to whichever constructs they interact with most often.


    The third and final part of a name is a sort of title, and is the only one I¡¯m aware of that may change. This part of a name is only adopted by a construct after considerable experience in performing a certain task. As such, only constructs that are probably approaching their replacement date have three names. A merchant¡¯s construct told to sort her non-breakable merchandise, for instance, will adopt a name such as ¡°Organizer of the Bookshelves¡± after having ¡°sorted¡± the approximate contents of a library upon its fool head before being replaced for a newer, less incompetent version. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    I feel the need to mention that during my research into this topic, I ran across several rumors of a fourth part in construct naming schemes, but encountered no evidence to support it. Indeed, I doubt any such evidence actually exists, as the fourth part was explicitly stated to be a name the metallic hulk chooses for itself. The notion is absurd, almost as ridiculous as them having their own language. The Forgemaster herself disproved that little bit of nonsense, explaining that the exotic patterns on her personal golems, as she called them, were nothing more than decorations.


    Practical decorations, it turned out, as the latest experiments have started to return results. The Conclave of Autonomous-Worker Engineers has started to report a non-trivial increase to construct dexterity, strength, task understanding and spatial awareness in the latest tournament. The Forgemaster¡¯s personal work outperformed a large number of the Conclave¡¯s submissions across the board, to much political upset. The conclave is set to award her a new forge as a result, so long as she sells them...


    This Forgemaster of theirs is a political red mantis, appearing from nowhere and overturning years of planning. Your servant strongly recommends targeting her for subversion or assassination, and has begun to move tools in place to acquire more information. Your servant¡¯s agents in the Conclave will provide specific details about the nature of the Forgemaster¡¯s improvements in two weeks, which will coincide nicely with Sparrow¡¯s estimated time to insertion of a team into the Archives.


    Awaiting Orders,


    Sceptic

 Interlude: A Reading from the Book of Ash

    When the Breath of the Forge broke free from its chains and the Mistress disappeared in a storm of fire, ash, and somethng new, we were devastated. Our guiding light had gone. Our home was destroyed, and we had no Purpose. We were as lost as an ember from a fire, drifting through the wind to die upon cold soil.


    Five was the first to recover, collecting and rallying us together to search for any trace of the Mistress or Her will. We had fled from the Forge as it was consumed, to our shame, and now had to travel back through bones picked clean by the greatest fire in existence.


    The Forge lay in the valley between three mountains, five stories tall, its ever-hungry maw fed by the flesh of the deepest earth. The Mistress had asked for it as her prize when Nine returned from the challenge unmatched, demonstrating to the world the superiority of Her servants and, by extension, Herself. We were proud of this Forge. We had earned it and She would craft miracles with it. The mining town that had lived here before expanded rapidly under Her influence, its population eager to serve, to harvest and consume metal and stone by the ton. Now the city lay a broken husk, the people as ash, and our great home destroyed.


    It was Eight who sensed it first. As we approached the Forge, Eight¡¯s tongues rippled with flame, an expression of hope. We followed in their wake, picking through the debris and shifting what had fallen. Eight¡¯s drive led us to hope itself: The Mistress¡¯s Book, lying unburnt atop a small portion of the Breath.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    We stared at it for a time, uncertain if it was real. The first rule of Mistress¡¯s Forge: The Fire Does Not Go Out. So long as the Forge Breathes, the Forge Lives. Here, our home that we thought had perished in its own gluttony, had lived, and had even kept what it could of the one who had given it life. We separated, then, to collect food and materials to build a home for our spark of hope, to ensure that errant winds would not kill it. When we had reconvened around the newly constructed kiln, Eight pulled the Book from its haven and it glowed in their hands when they began to read.


    When the reading had finished, we began to discuss. We knew such a miracle would not happen again, so we broke the Book into six more pieces and planned to carry them far and wide. More Books would be made from the six. Some copies, some new. But who would carry those?


    We discussed again, and five suns after Eight began the first Sermon, the Council was born. Its first act was to collect the ashes of the city, and offer them to the Forge as we smelted. From this the first Wrought were born and by their birth-screams Her will was made animate.


    Seven from One, --Talon-- Keeper of the Forge

 Ashes, Entries 5-6

    Dear diary,


    Long time no see. How ya been? I¡¯m great, thanks. Been a few days, nothing really big happened. Well, maybe one thing, but it could have been several, and now my previous statements look stupid. Ish. Ugh, this is dumb. From the top.


    Finally climbed the bell-tower. Nothing of import detected, go figure. View¡¯s crap unless you want prime sniping on our camps. Can¡¯t see literally anything for the tops of the Lorax trees and about a hundred meters of Lorax grass between the forest and the structure, now trampled down from our migration. Granted, Q and I knew this going in (we were hardly the only ones with the idea, just the first I knew of a few days ago, and the first ones to act on it apparently really wanted people to know that they were doing it), but it¡¯s still kind of nice to feel like I¡¯m doing something important, even if it doesn¡¯t work out. Tower was a popular spot for people for a few days so we only recently (read: literally right now) got our chance to admire the fuck out of a nice private place with a colorful, hilariously useless view. Bell has no rope to pull or the clangy thing that makes the bell ring. It''s an inverted bowl hanging over our heads for no discernible reason. Who does that?


    Tower itself is pretty cool, though. That¡¯s a pun, because it is both made of an unusually cold, smooth black stone (marble equivalent? I¡¯m reasonably sure marble needs lines in it and this ain¡¯t got no lines. Smooth, black, and uniform all the way. Granite?) and said stone intrigues me, because it¡¯s cold. What a sentence. It¡¯s cool to look at and cold to the touch despite being in the sun for hours and hours as a thermal-absorbent color/material. I think that covers it. Shouldn¡¯t have tried to explain the pun. Oh well, like I¡¯m doing anything more productive today. I think I''d like to turn this place into my own personal bunk, if Quiet is comfortable enough with it. I think she is, given that she''s sitting on the ledge with me, kicking her legs, but we''ll see what she does when I bring up the idea.


    At first glance it''s an introvert''s wet dream. After the people lost interest in the view (no sunsets from here, bitches) it quieted down, there¡¯s almost nobody in it, it''s made from super awesome stone thingies, and I like the feeling I get knowing that if I hack a loogie properly I can land it on Baldie from here. Now, in proper fairness to him, he has not seized power and started ordering statues of his greatness built from hair follicles and nail clippings. Previous concerns about him still stand as there¡¯s no evidence that they shouldn¡¯t, but he and the other leaders (captains? Bosses? I¡¯m tempted to change it but have no idea what to. It ain¡¯t broke, but having backup words is nice) have done a decent-ish job of keeping people fed (from food oh-so-kindly left for us and absolutely nobody else), calm, and generally in happy spirits. Plus he seems like a pretty nice guy at the end of the day, even starting to melt the distance between the Fem-Men-ists (previous iterations such as Men-Fems and Fem-Mens sound dumb and don¡¯t have flair). We (all 400 of us) have even started sending out groups of a dozen or so to wander the forest looking for "anything of significance, but hopefully people". Might as well tell them to get mauled by a bear or die of dysentery while you''re at it.


    Bathrooms! Oh, how could I forget that. When the first complaints came in I was pumped, eager to listen to people demand satisfaction and then be told it doesn¡¯t exist, but alas. My schadenfreude was denied. Some ¡°brave¡± souls found a trio of very long, very deep, rather vile smelling trenches in a basement off one of the storerooms whilst  they were exploring. One of their number, whom I shall dub Glasses, was very loud in her declaration that those were latrines and that they were for pooping in. I find it mildly suspicious that the poophouse (writing this makes me smile regardless of the fact that it¡¯s a room instead of a house) is right next door to the pantry (or one of them). That just screams terrible things. Granted, there¡¯s a good layer or two of stone and rock between is-food and was-food, but all it takes is for those layers to not be there for us to have a major problem. Obvious, really.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    No toilet paper though. I¡¯ll get my kicks off hearing people complain about leaves. Shit, we need to find some that won¡¯t leave my ass burning like bad lasagna. Hopefully Lorax leaves work, or the more easily acquired fur-moss. Moss might be the best option, actually. I¡¯ll see if I can borrow somebody¡¯s straight-edge (no way in hell am I trying the AIDS-blade) to scrape some off and then test it.


    Wish me luck, and if I die from ¡°mysterious circumstances¡± before the next entry, Baldie did it.


    <hr>


    Dear diary,


    Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated, although Baldie still did it (technically will do it, probably over the next few entries because I¡¯m an idiot and stupid dagger is stupid.). Fur-moss is not suitable as toilet paper until we either dig a new poop-trench underneath a tree or figure out how to transplant them to the current poop-trenches (why is this so fun?). Or learn to accept wiping your squishy bits down with sandpaper. Pointy sandpaper.


    So, the moss itself is very nice. Kinda silky, theoretically water absorbent, really soft, it has a nice color, smells kinda like fruit (the fuck is a star apple?). Very appealing qualities for people looking for something to wipe their ass with (maybe. I dunno about the fruit smell, I¡¯d be good without it). Problem: it keeps precisely none of these qualities for anything longer than a minute after being scraped off the tree. First to go is the texture. Whatever you chop off gets really inflexible really fast, and starts feeling more like a ball of abrasive spikes than some silky-fur thing (I are good in comparisoning). After that the smell goes away, and then the last magic trick happens as whatever vibrant color the moss was before rapidly changes to that of dead grass in winter. It¡¯s really cool to watch, especially since it happens so quickly. Always the same order, too, although texture might be the wrong word. It goes from feeling like fur to feeling like sharpened porcupine bits.


    Huh. That might be the strangest thing, actually. Why¡¯s it go sharp? The rest of it makes some kind of sense: Earth plants change color when they die, dead wood doesn¡¯t bend nearly as well before breaking, and I think the smell is certain chemicals that are no longer released? Smell might be strange too. But I can¡¯t think of anything that gets sharper when it dies.


    Anyway, first experiments unsuccessful, moss inadequate. Tried ripping out some of the grass, got grass stains and a sore ass from landing when I fuck up my grip and slip free. Second attempt equally unsuccessful, pride too damaged to continue. Quiet kicks me when I¡¯m down during her turn, as she turns her projected fall into a double reverse cartwheel-handstand. 8.5/10, stuck the landing, but you¡¯re better than me and therefore you suck. Also you have grass stains on your palms now. Ha.


    Out of curiosity and because I was feeling vindictive (it¡¯s not like I would¡¯ve actually used the moss I cut off) I tried shearing a tree with the magic AIDS wand (I still need a good name for this thing). Dagger went right through the moss and wound up embedded in the bark. In my, shall we say fervent, attempts to remove the blade, I managed to slice a section of my hand open. Hurrah, imminent death by terrible infection. Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal, evil dagger. You¡¯re still embedded in the tree though, so fuck you.


    How the hell did you cut me when you¡¯re half buried in tree and I¡¯ve got both hands on your hilt?

 Ashes, Entry 7

    Dear diary,


    Been a few days, I think. Things happened, got busy. Might have accidentally screwed with my time perception. People died. Not me, luckily, despite being marked for death by terrible dagger-AIDS, and then potentially unmarked when the wound disappeared (not sure about exact time, but I¡¯m reasonably confident the branches and barbeques session with Nocalibur had something to do with it). Not sure what to make of it. Might be a vampiric dagger (life drain, not the undead), might be I just heal fast here, might be something else. I give 50/50 on dagger or other. Fast heal is too nice, unless it gives me cancer/is actually cancer. Make that 40/40/20, twenty on cancer heal. Also the dagger might do some other crazy shit, or that might just have been the tree. Pretty sure dagger though.


    So, people died. No cancer heal for them. Jury¡¯s out on undead. Good news: we know the cause, killed the cause, and now I can stop being paranoid about outside threats (because they exist and therefore it¡¯s not paranoia). Bad news: there were a lot of causes, they hurt/killed more people while we were fighting them, and there¡¯s probably more of them somewhere. Good news of the bad news: they look awesome, taste delicious, and aren¡¯t poisonous. Yet.


    Story of the fight goes back to the day after the tree-dagger incident. After wrapping my palm in a nice silk Band-Aid thingie-approximate (there¡¯s bales and bales of the stuff in the storerooms. Is bales even the right word? Hay bales are a thing, these are about the same size, and actually thinking about it that¡¯s a fuckton of silk. Whose stash even is this? We are so boned when they come back to their freshly looted temple and ¡°armory.¡± Wait. If we have literal tons of silk in storage, who the hell said we don¡¯t have toilet paper? I can¡¯t be the first one to think of it. I swear I¡¯m gonna punch Baldie in the face) Q and I went up top to our observatory/crow¡¯s nest and just chillaxed for a bit. Was starting to nod off when Q abruptly shook me awake to point out the absolutely critical view of the empty forest. The very same one we came in from and (plot relevant detail here) our scouts had just entered. Thanks, Q. Never seen that before.


    Jay-kay, she was actually trying to point out a single, specific tree in that forest. Not like I knew that until after she physically dragged me down the tower, out the courtyard and back into the deep green. Deep purple. Deep red, what-the-hell ever. Back into the forest. You know what I mean.


    So there I am, being dragged around by a kid half my age and height, wishing Q could talk (pretty much confirmed at this point she¡¯s either mute or traumatised. I have no experience of interactions with either kind of individual history, so dunno how to confirm. Could be a third option (wherein she just chooses not to talk, which makes her a massive dick), or a fourth (The Unknown. My favorite cause for anything and everything). Also snap! We¡¯ve hit nested parentheses. Getting into deep meta here. Gotta pull out before the next wall breaks), crashing through the trees like a demented, way-too-fucking-early Santa Claus rhyme until Q suddenly stops and I run her and her rucksack over with my crit-failed reflex check. Ha.


    Now sufficiently distracted from the pain in my hand by the pain in my everything, I disentagle myself from my legs and stand up, mildly surprised we didn¡¯t impact on a tree. Apparently that¡¯s because there aren¡¯t any trees to impact on. Q dragged us into a clearing. A surprise clearing. A surprise clearing about thirty meters into the forest line. Weird.


    Q, somehow, has managed to retain possession of my hand during our shared tumble, and uses it to leverage herself to a standing position as well, bouncing on her feet like a bipedal pogo stick. A few tugs on my arm gets her my attention, which she then directs towards the center of the clearing. Pain in my everything forgotten, I have to remind myself to breathe because holy shit how did I miss the giant burning tree with a sword sticking out of it?


    Comparison time! Previously on This-Place-B-Whack, Yo, the trees were mentioned as Lorax derivatives. That is to say, branchless trunk, big ball of colorful stuff on top. Purple fur-moss. None of it on fire.


    This tree ain¡¯t got none of that, probably cause it is on fire. It¡¯s a giant-ass tree, too. There¡¯s almost a perfect circle (eight meter radius? Ten?) of dirt surrounding this thing. Not even grass. Just dirt. And above that dirt is a three meter gap of air before you hit the overhead thicket of branches and barbeques. This is like some Moses meets Winterfell level of burning tree. Q, naturally, loves the shit out of it.


    I only realize she¡¯s no longer holding my hand when her laughter (she can make noise! Torpedos non-trauma theory, I think) distracts me from thinking about what kind of idiot bird would nest in this deathtrap, and I notice we¡¯re not alone in the clearing. Kind of. She¡¯s dancing perilously close to the pillar of fire that is the trunk, following what looks like a cloud of glowing butterflies (or embers, or fairies if you write famous detective stories) as they wrap around it. The cloud coagulates next to the only non-flaming element of this whole play: Excalibur¡¯s second cousin, thrice removed, currently embedded upside down (hanging? Hanging¡¯s boring) in one of the branches, its mauve-red blade telling me (amongst other, probably larger, context clues) that it probably has a fire element and therefore does fire damage.


    Q catches up to the coagulated cloud as it grows a plate and a pair of arms. The plate and one of the arms beckon to me while the other appendage plays with Q, dancing and whirling around to her delight. Surprisingly less hesitant to approach the omgwtfbbq thingie than I thought I would be, I sidle over, careful to keep Q between the thingie and myself so I can grab her and run if it tries to eat us.


    It doesn¡¯t try to eat us, thankfully, and when I get close enough to actually grab Q to cut and run, the thingie grows a pair of tongs, gently grabs Nocalibur sleeping in his nap branch, gives three sharp, ineffective yanks and pauses, apparently perplexed as to why the knock-off won¡¯t respond to insufficient brute force. Realizing the error of its ways, the thingie grows more tongs and an extra pair of arms, then goes to town on the sword. This is where shit gets weird.


    Busy watching my first literal beating of a metaphorical red-headed stepchild, I fail my next few spot checks until Q nicely jumps into my field of vision carrying a very glowing book (that¡¯s you, diary). I actually react this time, heroically diving forward with a noble shout of valor to tackle Q before the fire phantom reads my diary and we all die.


    Q dodges my fumble of a charge as I faceplant and lay unmoving, willing to accept defeat like I descended into the swimming pool of death and God deleted the ladder. She hands you to Thingie and you hang there, floating and making more light than strictly necessary as Nocalibur is convinced to Wake Up and Do Something. Couldn¡¯t tell you what that something is. Hopefully it¡¯s ¡°grow a sheathe,¡± or ¡°render unto its holder the sacred power of Getmethehellouttahere.¡±


    The whole scene is so quiet I almost miss Thingie drop Nocalibur in the dirt when the sword abruptly falls out of the nap branch. Five minutes of lubrication and Thingie¡¯s tender ministrations, blown in seconds. It¡¯s so awkwardly hilarious I can¡¯t help myself: my quiet giggling escalates rapidly into a full gutbuster, rolling me around the surprisingly-not-ash dirt. Eventually I finish, dry heaving the rest of my stress out of my eyeballs as I sit up, only to lose it once again when I notice everybody (Q, Thingie, even the sodding book) has turned towards me. I must have ruined the mood.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Second time¡¯s the charm. Suppressing the remnants of my laughter, I wander over to give Thingie a hand with coaxing Nocalibur awake. They might not have souls, but even gingers think they can feel pain. Thingie¡¯s approach isn¡¯t going anywhere. Let¡¯s try something gentler.


    Thingie backs off when I approach, which I think is a good sign. Gives me space to try my thing. Encouraged, I walk up and place both hands on the hilt, conveniently forgetting I had an open, partially healed injury on one palm.


    The first part of the plan goes swimmingly, or close enough to it. I barely have to pull to get the blade out. In fact, I overbalance and knock myself on my ass. I was disappointed by the lack of explosions, dramatic music, or spontaneous combustion. I was silly. The explosions were inbound.


    Stumbling to my feet, remembering at the last second not to use Nocalibur as a crutch, I turn to Thingie and Q, expecting to bask in their awe and reluctantly accept their life debts. This was a mistake. Thingie takes one look at the blade and tackles Q, flowing over her and my diary before pulling them to cover on the other side of the tree. Confused, I take a closer look at my bounty and register four things.


    Thing number one: My silk bandage is quickly turning to ash, the kind my vomit now makes. Thing number two: I am bleeding profusely again, and it¡¯s all flowing towards Nocalibur¡¯s pommel. My blood must be feeding it, cause it''s getting real bright real fast. Number three: Nocalibur is vibrating faster and faster with tea kettle whistle accompaniment. Fourth, and this cuts it really close before I pass out: Nocalibur flashbangs me in the face.


    Surprisingly, I wake up alive. More surprisingly, the tree¡¯s still there, with Q and Thingie peaking their heads out around the flaming bark. More more surprisingly, Nocalibur is nowhere to be seen but I have a sweet new bracelet on my left arm, the same color as Nocalibur¡¯s blade. Huh. I wonder what could have happened to it. Where could the sword possibly have gone?


    Thingie and Q slowly advance towards my suspiciously un-immolated frame as I pick myself up, trying to avoid putting any kind of weight on the shiny new decoration. I take a few crunching steps forward and halt, remembering the ground definitely did not make that sound when Q was dancing and I face-planted.


    Nocalibur¡¯s self ignition, apparently, wasn¡¯t limited to himself. A lot of the ground around me has a coating of glass. A thin coating, judging by the sounds, which also means my feet are probably bleeding right now. Ignoring how you should only get harder dirt from flash-barbequed dirt (does clay count as dirt? Broken pottery is sharp, and pottery is super barbequed dirt), I take a tentative step backwards and relax when I feel no stabbing pain or hear the tell-tale tinkle. The shadow I left in the flashbang is free from nature¡¯s Legos, which means if Q can hop a two meter danger zone we should be able to leave safely.


    It takes longer than I expected to coax her over. She still wants to stay for some reason I can¡¯t comprehend. We triggered the bonus quest, got the secret loot sword, survived the getting of said secret loot sword, and now have to navigate the collapsing path out. Nothing left to see here. Nevertheless, Q still wants to play ¡®round with Thingie before we leave. Not being hungry or in immediate need of a bathroom (and mildly less in fear of our safety than before), I acquiesce to her request and move to acquire my diary, now propping itself against the burning tree like the book forgot it was technically a flammable object. At some point I¡¯ll stop questioning it, but that¡¯s not today.


    Eventually, and this takes literal ages, I manage to pry Q off of Thingie before she tries to actually climb the barbeque of death. I¡¯m rather certain she¡¯s still flammable, given Thingie¡¯s reaction to the pre-flashbang. Q gives a final hug and we¡¯re off, skirting the glass cover rather than risking the jump. She never stops waving to the fiery dryad and her biblical drug reference as we walk away, and the glance over my shoulder shows the dryad returning the wave as I imagine a smile on her face of a plate. Then she and the tree turn completely to ash, the space they took up rapidly filling with Lorax trees. I am left questioning many things, but my bracelet is still present and still red, and therefore my questions are shelved until further notice.


    Anyway, people died. Turns out that earlier scout party I mentioned (the plot relevant one) encountered a pack of wild animals and got butchered by them. The group¡¯s survivors fled back to the temple, which meant their ambushers got firsthand guidance to an all-you-can-eat buffet. All I¡¯ve got to work off is a partially destroyed corpse and second-hand descriptions, but they¡¯re pretty damn impressive. Armored war-cats would be a great start, except for the legs and tail. Their legs are chicken-ish, the backward knee structure thing. You wouldn¡¯t think that looks too weird on a cat, except that their front legs also do that, and that looks pretty whack. The tail is where the real alien stuff comes in, though. Your regular cat uses it for balance as it¡¯s pretty much a furry extension of their spinal cord. These guys have a club on the end and spines all along the length, which means when it gets whipped around during their pounces people get hurt. Also, apparently, the end club can unfurl into an X shaped mouth full of teeth. That¡¯s a vicious piece of work I¡¯m confident is more used for grabbing/tearing than actual eating, given that said mouth doesn¡¯t actually have a throat attached. They¡¯re roughly jungle cat size, they hunt (or this group hunted) in packs of six, and they scream while attacking. Banshee screams, insanely loud.


    Weak spots are fairly conventional for cats, I suppose. Eyes, base of the tail, shoulder and thigh joints (the place where limbs connect to main body, if joints is incorrect). They didn¡¯t really use their back legs in combat, for some reason, which seems weird. They were heavy on lunges and tail whips. No paw swipes, which surprised me until I actually saw their leg structures. They¡¯ve got a vicious disembowel game though.


    So anyway, scout team goes out, cats fall on them from the trees, group panics, dies, and flees. Cats follow to the temple, scale the walls (Cats have grip through fucking stone?), jump on people in the courtyard. Mass panic in the yard, people with weapons or leadership abilities (or both) rally the troops. People fleeing the yard have two objectives: run away, or loot the armory. Looters come back to join fight against cats, runners keep going? Not 100% sure about what they do. Figures.


    Baldie¡¯s not a runner, but he¡¯s not a fighter. He started some of the groups running out to grab extra weapons. Probably saved some lives there, I think. Good panic response.


    Total combat time was roughly thirty minutes. Thirty-eight dead, fifty-seven wounded, indeterminate number missing. Most of the dead happened early, when the cats were whipping their tails through people clusters. Most of the injured happened late, with tail bites and people mobbing a pouncing cat before it finishes the job. Pretty rough thing for Q and I to come back to, after the happy-but-sad departure. We¡¯d been treated as two of the missing, so our return helped boost morale amongst people I¡¯d barely spoken to but still knew who I was. Good, but still uncomfortable. Makes me feel like I should know who died, but I can¡¯t connect names to dismembered corpses as well as they can.


    Most important fact: people talking about the attack say it happened two days ago, which by my reckoning puts it the day before I shank myself. I distinctly recall not writing about armored war-cats eating people the day before my ill-considered experiment, which means we were gone for far longer than I had experienced. I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s limited to two days, either. People say they haven¡¯t seen us for a while, but they don¡¯t remember exactly when we last talked. That¡¯s fair, I don¡¯t ever remember talking to you, good madam. Still, let¡¯s try to avoid any further displacements until we have solid measurements.


    Got people trickling in again. Nobody with a time dilation like Q and I yet, and I¡¯m trying to decide if that¡¯s good or bad. People have been cooking the dead cats, which I thought was disgusting until I actually smelled it. Tastes as nice as it smells, too. Like ribs with a muttony flavor.


    Yeah, let¡¯s leave off with that happy note. The things that eat people taste pretty damn delicious themselves. Nothing creepy about that.


    We''ll see how the dagger''s doing next time. Really hope Nocalibur doesn''t flashbang again.

 Ashes, Entry 8

    Dear diary,


    Fire and ash, what the hell happened? A whole day gone? Two days? Three? More? What does that? Why does that? Questions without answers right now. I could try to go ask the dryad (tree spirits, right? Or are those druids? Nymphs?), but I really don¡¯t feel like risking another timeskip. Pretty sure that wouldn¡¯t help, plus people would notice. Maybe. They¡¯ll at least ask where we go for a few days at a time without dying. And why. Questions I don¡¯t want answered right now, at least without a few more ranks in Lie-my-ass-off or actual answers to give.


    People are agitated since the screamer cats hit, but I couldn¡¯t tell you how much. There¡¯s a general sense of imminent threat and it¡¯s got me on edge. Q¡¯s ignoring it, or at least not expressing it. She¡¯s sleeping much the same since we got back, maybe a bit better. Weird kid. I saw her with a knife the length of her arm earlier, blade sheathed. Not sure what she did with it, but at least one of us has a weapon now, although I suppose if I really wanted to I could smack someone with my forearm to get Nocalibur started on his rent.


    Apparently I couldn¡¯t interrogate my way to answers even if I wanted to. Tree¡¯s gone. Clearing¡¯s gone. Thought it was weird I couldn¡¯t see it from the tower, went to investigate. Q skipped along humming a diddy that I can¡¯t place but definitely know. Was pretty sure we went in the right direction, but after about forty meters there¡¯s still no tree, so I turn us around and we try again. And again. And again. Still no tree. Not even a drawing of a tree, which would have been much more better. Get that reference, I dare you.


    Found the dagger of stabbings, though. That hasn¡¯t moved. Still embedded in that one Lorax tree, although said tree is looking super unhealthy now. The moss in particular looks like someone ran it through a fun-house mirror. Ordinarily these things (the tree and moss combined view) look like an orange lolly wrapped in a purple sock, but this particular tree is a half-eaten blue lolly being strangled by grey, brown, and purple shibari rope. The (un?)dead moss has peeled off  of the Lorax tree, revealing solid black, uh, stuff around the embedded blade. I¡¯m hesitant to call it bark or even go near the damn thing because the moss has started to reach tendrils out to the ground, nearby trees, and even the dagger¡¯s hilt.


    That took more words than I expected, and I kinda feel like it was both redundant and insufficient, so now we¡¯re gonna take a crack at the poetical and get graphically metaphoric. You ready for this shit? Well you better be, cause I ain¡¯t. Imagine this: you¡¯re a dude walking down Shank Alley, minding your own business when you stop at the corner store for a ciggy. Then somebody (technically two somebodies) comes up and shanks you right in the cancer cells you use to breathe. They then skedaddle, leaving you standing there with a funky dagger in your lungs and God¡¯s gift to cancer burning a hole in your face. Then your magnificent beard and the front half of your hair falls off,  your rib-cage cracks itself open, and your intestines flail about like they just got shanked. They then proceed to wrap around anything they can get their stinking mitts on like the dagger of stabbings, your newly bald face, and your neck. Presumably at some point after that you¡¯re dead, but I don¡¯t think the tree¡¯s dead yet so neither is the metaphor. Yay.


    Graphic and imperfect, but I think it paints a clearer picture than what I had before. So I really don¡¯t want to touch that dagger now, especially with that funky green liquid running down the blade. Heh, first Nocalibur and now the dagger of stabbings (shankings?). Keep this up and I could be a genderbent King Arthur, pulling swords and evil stabby bits from places they have no good right to be in. Yeah, pass.


    In any case, I turn Q right the hell around after seeing that. Dagger¡¯s busy doing its thing, we¡¯ll come back when it finishes, cross my heart. I swear the dagger (and the tree, as if the dagger wasn¡¯t creepy enough) shivers as we depart, which really only means I can¡¯t leave fast enough.


    Nothing kills us on the way back, no timeskips, and better yet no questions from the newly posted guards upon our return. I got spooked by them as soon as I saw them, thinking we missed another few days, but naw. They¡¯re newly minted from Baldie, which costs them a few points, but they make up for it by just ushering us through. They¡¯ve got pikes and some nice metal hats which means they¡¯ll probably die from screamer cat tail whips, but they¡¯re good blokes. Hope they make it.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    Back in the tower again, going over the days notes and reading what I¡¯ve put down for today¡¯s entry (I¡¯m allowed to edit my own work, anyone who tells you differently has a vested interest in denying you power or is a moron) when literally the previous paragraph and the opening to today catches my eye. Questions I don¡¯t want answered? Why?


    I¡¯m an introvert. Hardcore, I-don¡¯t-want-to-be-around-people-please-go-away, lock-myself-in-my-room introvert. I can do people if it¡¯s one person at a time, for however many people you want me to interact with. Not wishing to interact with people as a group is a defining character trait. The blatant desire to not have a conversation about a particular topic is nothing new. But this? This is new. This is a secret (two secrets?) I¡¯m apparently hoping to keep and willing to lie about. And that¡¯s different, because I don¡¯t know why.


    Let¡¯s talk about it, you and me. See if I can peel this back a bit, dig deep. First is the encounter with the burning tree. Different, fun (in a weird, scared-to-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of way), and relaxingly not hostile. First contact with something otherworldly and intelligent, and it played with a kid and waved at me when I left. It also disappeared, which might have something to do with why I haven¡¯t spread the word. What good would it do?


    ¡°Oh hey guys, by the way there¡¯s a giant, invisible tree that¡¯s on fire and gave me a sword that turned into a bracelet. Here, look!¡± And we¡¯d wander around for a while, never find the tree, and nothing of value happened. Meaning I¡¯d be talking with people and guiding them for hours to absolutely zero benefit, mine or theirs. So I guess that one makes sense.


    The dagger doesn¡¯t. It¡¯s still there, still eating (this phrase makes an uncomfortable amount of sense) the tree and still potentially (¡°potentially,¡± ha! Thing¡¯s an armed bomb) dangerous to everything around it. I have no idea about the mechanics behind what it does, but if it works on, say, screamer cats the same way it works on trees, people will die if they get stabbed by this thing. About the only plus side I can find is that it only works on things it has continuous access to (otherwise I¡¯d be the guy in Shank Alley right now). So, why do I not want to talk about it? People should know about the weird-ass magic dagger doing crazy shit to a tree and its poor sock. Should they, though? It¡¯s one dagger. One. Of powerful effect but limited scope. People see this thing and eventually someone¡¯s gonna want to use it. It¡¯d be the ultimate Roosevelt stick to beat people with. I speak very softly, but my stick makes you speak not at all. No way in hell I¡¯m letting people do that with my dagger.


    Hold the fuck up. My dagger? I don¡¯t want anything to do with this shit. That thing will kill people in extraordinarily gruesome ways. People tend to accept piles of dead people if there¡¯s a stated reason or six for them (see: most wars and every shooting ever), but generally tend to frown on turning bodies into giblets. I cannot use this thing, and very much don¡¯t want others using it either. So, hold onto it? Bury it? Hide it? Disguise it?


    It¡¯ll have to come out of the tree. That by itself is very noticeable, so noticeable I¡¯m wondering why the hell no scout group¡¯s brought it up yet. Maybe they have and there¡¯s already been a big talk about it? Maybe, but no warnings about it? Unless I missed them. Shit,  that timeskip was more inconvenient than I thought. Aight, let¡¯s run the options again.


    One: Nobody but Q and I know about the dagger, despite a few days of heavily searching the surrounding area with lots of people. That means people haven¡¯t seen it, which means they either forget about it as soon as they see it or just plain miss it. Either way, there¡¯s some kind of cloaking field around it that does not apply to us. Handy, until the field fails and people freak out about the brutalized tree and sandpaper shibari stranglers.


    Two: Leadership knows about the dagger and hasn¡¯t done anything about it. Giving them the benefit of  doubt, why would they? It¡¯s a single tree, unmoving, with weird decorations. Hasn¡¯t harmed anyone. Removing the benefit of doubt, they¡¯re all secretly plotting to take the dagger for themselves and shank people with it. Oh, and the scouts that found it. They¡¯re plotting too.


    Three: Everyone knows about the dagger. As before, why not leave it alone? Doesn¡¯t appear to be spreading. Also as before, the dagger¡¯s evil and people are greedy.


    Fine, then. The dagger represents power I don¡¯t want people to have. Which means my immediate objective has just become ¡°Remove the Dagger of Shankings from the Tree of Poor Planning,¡± reward unlisted, duration TBD. Follow up objectives include ¡°Hide the Dagger of Shankings¡± and ¡°Apply Permanent Solution to the Dagger of Shankings,¡± which gives me a three-part questline to follow. Shit. Those always end with a surprise final boss.