Chapter 14 - Games

            "I shall never understand your fascination with these Primordial worlds, Priest," Adrian barked from the rear of the file.

            "I do," Blaize turned from point and leered at Red's bare midriff, rolling his tongue over his teeth.

            "See, Jim," Red backhanded my shoulder, "he gets it."

            "Does that mean…" Blaize's eyes grew wide.

            "Oh…oh, no. No no no," Red laughed. "You? Just…no."

            "Uncouth," Ylysse shook her head.

            "Relentless," Marion chuckled.

            "It reminds me of home," I said. I wore thick leather moccasins and britches, a padded cloth jerkin beneath my chainmail, and a steel doughboy while we traveled to our next camp.

            "Swordplay I get. But this?" Adrian held his hands up to the dark, murky twilight of the forest we were crossing. "To master the interplay of combat is to push body and mind to the utter limits of the human animal, but to exist in a time so entirely primitive is self-flagellation."

            "He is a creature of the Flesh," Ylysse's stone face took on an uncharacteristic smile, "would you expect anything less?" She ruffled her fur vest, muscular bare arms clawing idly at daggers strapped around her tight cloth leggings.

            "Creature of the Flesh?" Red furrowed her brow at Ylysse.

            "Unmodified," Marion's yellow eyes flashed. She too walked only in leather and mail, her gleaming white plates slung over the white pack mule she lead by the bit between us and Adrian.

            "Implying you are…" Red scrutinized the lithe, exceedingly feminine shape of Ylysse.

            "Synthetic," Ylysse finished the sentence. "More machine than Man, in fact. More so than any of this lot, at least" she tipped her head up slightly.

            "Do not fret," Tomah chuckled next to Marion. "There is no prejudice for those who wish not to Modify," he pecked his gnarled cane against the earth, tentatively testing his next step before placing a sandaled foot down. His flowing black curls spilled over the shoulders of his austere brown friar's robe, cinched around his burly frame with a tattered rope. "Ylysse harbors no ill toward those who maintain their Cleanliness," his own purple-white eyes flashed iridescent in the twilight.

            "She can't feel no more," Blaize clucked from in front. "Modified top to tails, she is," Blaize rolled his tongue over his teeth again, eyebrows flaring under his cloth cowl, bow held with an arrow knocked as he craned at the torso in a thick cloth tunic, comically-oversized leather codpiece proudly on display over his own silk leggings.

            "Language, fiend," Adrian scolded from behind. His monstrous body naked, save a leather thong to contain any potential flopping. His purple-blue stoneskin was matte against the disappearing sun, pock-marked with chips and a fracture-like scar across the absurdly over-toned sculpture of his physique. He sauntered along barefoot, carrying with him a double-bit axe even bigger than Emilia the Berserk's. "You give those of us who have chosen to preserve our purity a bad name," he screwed his face up.

            "Prude," Blaize stuck out his tongue and bobbled his head.

            "Lecher," Adrian scrunched his nose at him and stretched his neck out toward him.

            "Why?" Red broke the tension.

            "The natural body is fragile," Ylysse shrugged. "Limited. Fallible. Bones break. Blood clots. Organs fail. Stomachs need to empty their waste. Skin, limited. Retinas, constrained. Eardrums, delicate. I chose to Augment my humanity beyond anything the Flesh could ever achieve. I am sensitive to things you could never conceive of. Adrian and Tomah have built their bodies into temples of muscle and strength that push the limits of human achievement and they are capable of a mere fraction compared to the motors driving my body and what the power of Induction can do."

            "How much of you is still, well, you?" Red eyed her up and down.

            "Only that which makes me Human," She said, unflinching. "My Pattern is still preserved within a brain, and many of the hormone-producing organs needed to influence its emotional expression have been retained, but most all else has been replaced with metal and polymer."

            Red extended a hand and poked her bicep. It yielded, a white mark slowly fading away from the contact point. "But…"

            "I am still a human," She smirked at Red's finger and flipped the long blonde braid over her other shoulder. "In both the Realm as with my Planar form, I have chosen to present as the human I feel myself to be. I am not merely a brain in a vat," She puffed her chest out. "I am a woman, and that is how I wish the world to see me. I would rather be leered at by the Lustful than fetishized by the mechanophillic."

            "I think she actually enjoys it," Blaize turned his head and winked.

            "To be objectified and harassed? Yes, it is my favorite thing," Ylysse rolled her eyes.

            "This is a weird question but, were you a woman before, um, you know?" Red shrugged her shoulders and made herself smaller.

            "This frame is modular," Ylysse looked at her crotch and smiled. "I may present however I so wish. I have chosen to present as feminine because it suits me, for now. I may choose to present in any configuration I may desire in the future, Human or Construct, should my whim change. Whatever my biology was previous to this is irrelevant."

            "Alright, alright," Red held her hands up, palms flat. "Any configuration?" Red eyed her crotch as well and flared her eyebrows.

            "Not you, as well," Ylysse deflated with a sigh. "How is it that I am so constantly surrounded by such thirst? Why is it so hard to show Restraint such as you, Priest?"

            "Because they seek the novelty of your Synthesis, and I am fascinated by the unique perception captured by your Humanity," I winked and smiled.

            "Puh," Adrian scoffed loudly. "Gag me with your maudlin prose."

            "Corny" Blaize sang, unturned

            "Saccharine," Tomah sniffed.

            Ylysse winked at me and smiled before her face returned to its usual stony glare. "How much longer, Priest?"

            "Six weeks, thirteen hours, twenty-one minutes, thirty…" I paused, "two seconds."

            "To the waypoint, asshole," Red elbow-checked me into Ylysse, who elbow-checked me back into Red.

            "Hey, hey!" I exclaimed. "It's just up here," I pulled the map out of my back pocket and analyzed it. "We should be coming up on a clearing any time now, and then the campsite is just on the other side of it.

            "Clearing?" Blaize stopped and turned.

            "Other side?" Adrian came up to a halt.

            "You don't think…" Marion trailed off.

            "I mean…" Tomah also trailed off.

            "Yeah," I squinted an eye.

            "What?" Red darted her head around, unable to follow.

            Marion started pulling on her plate. I fished around in my hip bag for my own gear as well. No sooner had I located it then Blaize had transitioned into chainmail and a steel cone helmet. Tomah girded his loins and Ylysse pulled on a rough leather helmet. Adrian too had pulled on a helm, though his was a steel-spiked great bascinet with full gorget and hounskull visor. I donned my plates and lowered my bardiche. Marion mounted the mule. "Wand at the ready."

            "Oh?" She questioned, then her eyes grew wide. "Oh," she equipped her jewel-beset breastplate and a gold diadem circlet.

            We approached the edge of the clearing in silence. At the other side, an illuminated window shown orange like a firefly in the distance. Darkness had now set fully and Blaize led us cautiously into the clearing, bow held at the ready, fingers held at the cheek. He slowly padded forward, each step near-silent as he deftly wove his wool booties through the moist, blue-green grass. The moon shone as a waxing gibbous high and small in the eastern sky, giving plenty of light to navigate by without torches or spells.

            We held back and waited for Blaize to signal our advance. When he had made it half-way across the field, he knelt down and held his hand up flat to us. He then turned it 90 degrees and held up 3 fingers. He pivoted it 90 degrees again, holding up his first three fingers, pinky and thumb retracted. Then, he held out his pinky and thumb, retracting his other three fingers, then held up a full hand of five. Then, he held up his index finger and made a twirling motion before returning his finger to the string of his bow, feathering the knock on his arrow, ready to draw at a moment's notice.

            Marion held two fingers up to her eyes, pointed them at Tomah and Ylysse, then flicked them in a gun motion to the right side of the field. She held three fingers to her eyes next, pointed them at Tomah, Red and myself, then waved them opposite to the left side of the field. She pointed forward and drew her sword and held an open-hand chop next to her ear, waiting to extend like a coiled spring. As quietly as we all could, we began moving into position, skulking through the tall grass of the field, holding the forest to our backs. When we were in line with Blaize half-way up the field, he lit the tip of his arrow and shot it as quickly as he could in a long, high arc another quarter or so up the field.

            It landed in the center of a group of Dark Elf bandits, waiting low to jump passers-by such as ourselves.

            “Huh?” The one dead-center in the vanguard looked around. His compatriots echoed and mirrored him in kind, frantically wheeling their heads around looking for the origin of the arrow.

            “It came from over there,” One of the three bowmen in the back shot an arrow in Blaize's direction. It whizzed by him a dozen or so meters wide.

            With that, Marion chopped her coiled hand down and dug her spurs into her sturdy white steed. The slow mule charged headlong into the crush, Marion's white plate shimmering, her ornate black and gold shield smoldering in the bare light of the torch arrow and the bright moonlight. She had a long-chained spike flail spinning at the ready as the leather-clad beast drove her like a wedge through the group. She unleashed a full-force swing into the face of the middle archer in the back rank, their head all but exploding as the steel bludgeon struck them square on the nose. The force crushed their face with a sickening thud, their limp, lifeless body falling immediately to the ground. With a deft leap, Marion ejected from her steed, slapping it on the haunch, prodding it to continue forward and not rear or turn back. Upon landing, flail spinning overhead, she yelled a scream that sent chills down my spine, even from my distant vantage.

            In the confusion, Blaize loosed a secret arrow from his hidden position. It whizzed through the tall grass and landed square in the eye-socket of the mage on the left flank. They screamed an unearthly howl, both hands gripping the shaft now sticking out of their head. They tried to pull it out in a panic, the serrated barbs taking the eye and several large chunks of brain with it as they dropped to the ground, gasping and seizing.

            Now, their feet about them, the Dark Elf in center-right of the vanguard rushed Blaize's position, sword drawn, large heater shield covering him from arrow fire. He did not quite reach his position, however. Adrian, who had been running in from behind Marion, had finally caught up. Ax hafted on his trailing shoulder, he drove his leading shoulder into the shield of the approaching assailant. The goon flew back into the thick of the vanguard. Adrian, still sprinting full tilt, heaved the ax in a spiral motion. Like a ballet dancer, Adrian skillfully manipulated his momentum and began a series of pirouettes, ax held at the base, transferring the energy of his sprint into a deathly rotary blade. Perfectly timed, the ax finished its fourth revolution by catching the farthest-right Elf on the vanguard with the leading edge square in the chest. The bit cleaved through the peak of his breastplate and then clean through him, his top half flying several dozen feet back diagonally onto the lifeless corpse of the mage Blaize has felled.

            The handle of Adrian's mighty whirlwind collided with the brigand in the center of the vanguard, displaced to the right by Marion's wedge. He staggered back, nearly tripping over the flaming arrow behind him. Then, from seemingly out of nowhere, Ylysse dove from the tall grass, knives extended in front of her, driving her daggers into his chest, her feet landing on his abdomen. She sprung from her coiled stance, pulling the daggers out with her and leapt at the second mage across from her, on the mid-rank's right flank.

            Having sprinted past me, Tomah emerged from the grass on the left flank, fists at the ready. “Hey, over here,” he said to the rear archer.

            “Huh?” They turned to face him. Tomah unleashed a devastating blow to the nose, the only unguarded portion of their banded leather helm. The Elf howled in agony. Tomah kicked them in the chest, knocking them to the ground, their chainmail dragging them down with a sickening thud. Tomah followed the kick forward and planted his knee on their chest, then began pummeling them, blow after blow, bone and blood splashing all over his fists as he reduced their head to a pulpy mush.

            I had finally reached the fracas, jogging low with the bit of my bardiche trained forward. The shield-bearing warrior who rushed Adrian had recovered, longsword held at the side as he bobbed back and forth, waiting for Adrian's spin to wind down so he could pounce. Lightly plated and with his back toward me, I jammed the swooping, hardened point of my polearm into his kneepit. He howled in pain as his leg collapsed forward. I hoisted the long, axe-like crescent over my head and pulled down in a diagonal strike, decapitating him cleanly below the chin line of his pointed skullcap, chainmail making a metallic jingle as his cranium clunked to the ground and his body fell forward, limp.

            In front of me, Ylysse had left her daggers embedded in the chest of the mage on the right flank she had pounced and was now brawling with the archer in the rear rank. Adrian had recovered from his spin and was closing in on the two to level a killing blow against the haplessly light-armored foe. I wheeled around to face the left vanguard. Marion had engaged the Warrior next to me, deflecting an onslaught of blows and swinging her flail onto his shield between his thrusts and slashes. Behind me, I could see Blaize, bow drawn, waiting for an opening to loose an arrow into a vulnerability that seemed not to be presenting itself. Tomah was now squared off with the fully-plated Knight on the left-most vanguard, purple-white eyes shimmering as he dodged scythe-swings. Leaving Marion to her devices, I trotted behind the thresher and jabbed as his armpit, trying to hook the plate guarding his shoulder blade. He spun around just as the edge got near his elbow and hooked the scythe under the bit of my bardiche. I gripped through the disarm, at the cost of being spiraled, winging me wildly out of line, my back to him when I finally regained control. He then advanced on me, twirling the scythe high in the air, the moon illuminating the blackened body and glinting off the keen silver edge of thresh as the business end now faced me. Before he could drop his hand, however, a yellow orb of ki bowled him over, Tomah became visible behind him, sandaled feet square beneath his shoulders and arms pulled into fists at his hips, hair blown back as though he were facing down a hurricane. Behind him, Adrian came running, again at full tilt, axe hafted on one shoulder, Ylysse crouched in a squat on his other. He skipped, planted a foot on Tomah's shoulder and vaulted into the sky, blue-purple body blotting out the moon as Ylysse bounded off him yet higher. Adrian dropped the axe off his shoulder, below his feet, then started a front-flip. The Axe swung in an arc as Adrian fell to the earth, ending the flip with Adrian now squatted down between his knees, axe extended in-front of him, the bit buried to the handle into the earth beneath the Knight who now lay vivisected nave to chops.

            From the sky above, Ylysse's body encased in a pink-white flame, two spectral katars manifesting from seemingly nowhere onto her fists. In an instant, she ripped through the sky, a magenta streak behind her, blades cutting through the light plate of the warrior Marion was fending off, embedding deep into his back before disappearing into thin air, Ylysse ricocheting upward off him, scrubbing her excess momentum with a quadruple front-flip before landing in a graceful crouch, arms out to her sides.

            "That the sweet fire of heaven may purge hatred from your soul," We all whipped around to face the mage from the right flank, now engulfed in waves of blue energy, blood oozing from the daggers embedded in his torso and running in rivulets down the sides of his mouth. He sputtered, more thick, viscous, purple-red blood spurting from his nose and lips, his chin crimson and wet. "Quod dulcissimae celestae ignis ut purget tuus odium autem animus!" he screamed in a modulated, demonic voice as he levitated into the air, arms extended, clouded white eyes devoid of pupil and iris, before collapsing into a heap.

            The lit fire arrow, now almost entirely burned out, dimmed a few times before regaining its intensity, then grew larger and larger, flaming tendrils licking at the moon, lighting the entire field. We all reared back from the intense heat as the blaze condensed and took shape. Arms emerged from the golem as a cone-like tornado swirled faster and faster, a violent wind feeding more and more air into the maelstrom. "Shit!" Marion's voice barely carried over the howl, "Fall back!" She yelled at the top of her lungs.

            "Pulvis et cinis ut cinis et pulvis," Red intoned, skirting directly behind us, with her wand held out. The jewel on her chest created an orange bridge of fluid energy to the stone on her wand and projected a blindingly-white beam of raw, channeled power onto the elemental. Slowly, the failing flickers at the fringes of the flame turned white, and as the fires cooled into clouds of ash, the winds blew the dust away into nothing as they roared to a halt with a whoosh. Almost immediately, the white beam was no more, the grass settled, and the fire vanished from the blood-soaked field, leaving us alone, panting in the pale moonlight.

            "God, I love a mage," Blaize clicked his tongue as he approached, the rest of us too dumbfounded to respond.

            "Du-da-da-da duh dah du-da-da," Red bobbled her head, and twirled her finger as her wand arm fell limp to her side. "Cue the victory music," she smirked and then passed out, collapsing straight down.

            Faster than the eye could process, Ylysse's after-image stuttered through the darkness as she caught Red before her head hit the ground. Tomah rushed over in tow and scooped her up. "We will take her to the cottage." He began carrying her over to the glowing yellow window at the end of the clearing.

            "Check this out," the rest of us whipped our head back behind us. Blaize was rummaging through the pockets of one of the Archers. "These guys were loaded," he let a cascade of gold coins fall out of his hand.

            "Gauche," Adrian shook his head.

            "Barbaric," Marion shook in kind.

            "What's that?" I pointed at a piece of yellow parchment peaking out of the robes of the Summoner. Blaize wended over and unfolded it. "No idea, Cleric, you have the bonus to Scholarship."

            I trudged through the high grass and took the note from him. "It is a letter," I unfolded it and scanned the crisp calligraphy. "Looks like this lot was paid by the Duke of Haimricke to, quote 'eliminate' us."

            "And so, our quest continues," Marion pushed her bottom lip up and closed her eyes before turning toward the cottage. "Hurry up and finish looting the bodies. Looks like we will need to take a detour and have a little chat with the honorable Duke of Haimricke tomorrow."

***

            "You should sit with Tyson and I," Standish grabbed my cuff. I spun around to see him and Tyson looming behind me. Neither wore Masks or Second skin, to my surprise. Standish's smooth caramel pate was adorned with a light golden circlet and he wore loose, charcoal-black monk's robes with a scandalously-low neckline exposing his preponderant pectoral cleavage. Tyson wore the traditional tapered, pleated khaki slacks and white oxford button-down, the top few buttons undone, exposing the gold chain resting on a tastefully groomed bush of chest hair. He swept his ring-studded hand in front of Standish, to his side, and shook my hand before re-lacing his fingers in front of his sternum, elbows akimbo.

            "Gladly, Grand Master," I bowed my head and took up space at his hip, locking my hands together and hiding them in my cuffs.

            "Ha!" He threw his head back and flashed a pearly-white, impossibly disarming smile. "I am no longer a man of any authority," he blinked heavily. "If you must use an honorific to address me, I prefer my Scientific accreditation. Emeritus will do. But," He lunged in front of me and stopped dead, taking me aback. His face suddenly became very severe as he held his index finger sideways against his nose, "Only in public. If you call me anything other than Standish in private council, I will have you hung by a tree with your entrails as the noose," He pointed at me and flashed a quick smile before turning and continuing his walk at pace with a saunter, hands held together behind his back. Expressionless, Tyson fell in step next to him as I did the same, trying hard to hide the shock.

            The amphitheater was half-empty as the Founders slowly streamed in. Red was sitting near the middle with Marion and the Templari, an empty seat reserved next to her. She waved at me and patted the chair. I grew my eyes wide and jerked my head at Standish, who did not seem to notice. Red's own eyes grew wide as a hand flew to cover her dropped jaw. She waved me on and turned to the others who huddled in together, heads occasionally popping up to eye me before quickly jerking back into the scrum. Standish lead me up a dais adjacent to the center stage where other Cardinals had started congregating.

            “Do you understand what happens next?” Standish slid into a row of seats and held an open palm out for me to sit next to him, at his left. Tyson slipped awkwardly into the seat at the head of the row, half his frame bulking into the aisle.

            “We are to meet the Grand Vizier of the Adjudicators,” I sat next to him, hands gripping my wrists, still hidden in the cuffs of my Cassock.

            “And the importance?” He flipped his robes and adjusted his posture to sit very closely next to me, on the edge of his chair, barely alighting on the corner, his face inches from mine, his hot breath misting behind ear. His breathing quivered.

            “We are a society of Judgement,” I snapped away from him, reflexively.

            Standish smiled, satisfied, and eased back into his chair, lounging. “So, she is our Ruler. Does it not trouble you that she too has arrived to Suom from Nils as well?”

            “Why would it trouble me?” I remained impassive, eyes fixed on the stage as production assistants milled about, testing the mic and adjusting the podium.

            “That you Dainish will be subjugated by Nils gardè,” his clouded yellow eyes grew wide as a wanton smile crept across his face, eyes meandering hither and fro in no discernible pattern, following signals not obvious to my own comprehension.

            “I am proud to bring affront my classical Dainish heritage on the sensibilities of the Éfuarétians. I was chosen to load my historical bearing on the Cardinalry of Fabrican Suom.”  I adjusted my posture and held myself taller, “Was I not hand-picked by the Archbishop to build a bridge between the Cardinarly and the Ajudicators as an aspiring Adjudicant myself?”

            “Right, yes, right,” Standish tapped the fingers of one hand against the tips of the other as though playing his it like an instrument. “A bridge, yes,” his unique, artificial accent read as comical, but his face emoted genuine intensity. “Hm,” he smiled, brow furrowed, and shook his head at me. “You are to be my voice, yes,” he flared his eyebrows as a tightness took his left cheek. “I am to be Sainted, you know,” he rolled his eyebrows with a mystifying fluidity as he languished in the stadium seat. “In Nils. They are to deem me an Avatar of the Archangel of Balance, Libras.”

            “Archangel?” My visage faultered.

            “Ahaha,” Standish's eyes grew wide as he breathed intensely through his nostrils, turning his head to an ignorant Tyson for faux support. “He's not familiar with-,” he pointed at Tyson, unmoved, before returning attention to me. “When a Templari has been chosen to Ascend, they are not offered a Cause to Beatify, but instead a Value their Valor is Paragon of. I am to represent the returning of Balance to Probability, a feat they claim sponsored by the Archon of Measure, Libras, the Scales of Time. I have performed Miracles in its name, it is claimed, and my deeds will be Parable for Advocates to study,” his focus locked in the middle distance, off into the space at my shoulder, his eyes flaring yet wider.

            “And this pertains to her, how?” I pointed at a stern, severe woman striding onto stage, swagger in her hips.

            “My Nemesis,” he turned his entire body toward her suddenly, and leaned over the seat in front of him. His eyes narrowed, then grew wide with fixation, his soul swelling into the shimmering reflection. “She confounds me,” he shook his head, unblinking.

            The lights dimmed as she walked from the pit up to the lectern. The audience went silent, seats now filled, rear aisles packed to overflowing with hangers-on. “Ahem,” she pronounced explicitly. “There are more of you here than I sized the venue for,” she rubbed her finger against her thumb, almost like a tick. “I am Commandant-Vizier Carol Cecilia. I am to preside over this Foundation's First Adjudicate Season. You Dainish have shown ineptitude in your ability to make the choices necessary to compete in the Continental marketplace, but are unrivaled in your contributions to the Great Truth. You have crowned more Nobles of Science per citizen produced than any other Fabrican and your Core pilots are unrivaled in their skill, but you require a Classical world to achieve such feats, and thus lack the industry necessary to produce anything of meaningful Value to the Cause. All simulations where Suom existed with After-Common Era sensibilities ended in Oblivion. As such, we have been reset quite primitively. We will be Socially seeded at in the Mid 21st Century CE, however, we will be technologically seeded 3rd-Century ACE, in an effort to try and eke out some utility. As all of you are aware, we have quite steep targets to hit if we want to raise our Level Cap on time. Overmind needs direct temporal evidence a Common Era Civilization can reach Diplomatic Consensus with access to the world-ending technology available to a First-Epoch, After-Collapse Civilization, and can accurately steer that Civilization toward a stable Nexus.

            “Don't drool,” Standish elbowed me in the rib. “But yes, we are implanted in the Golden Age of Cores.”

            “The Pre-9000 Band,” my eyes grew wide, “I had not considered...” I trailed off.

            "Yes,” his pupils contracted hungrily. “The Age of Heroes.”

            “And we are an Archeological society...” I trailed off

            “Which is why you may have one acre of my property for your Forge,” he righted himself in his chair and rested his elbow on his knee, leaning his cheek onto his hand. “There is a spot about four kilometers from the manse. Strong flowing creek, elk, and a deposit of good clay nearby. sNo hematite deposits on the property, but there is probably some bog-iron or siderite caches around. It will only yield pig-iron, but you can easily fold it into something usable if you are willing to give it the time.”

            “Suom is constructed from cutting-edge Fabrican technology,” the Vizier continued, “We are expected to transition from Experimental into Stable faster than any other Civilization with a slate of Mutations as broadly chosen as ours. Nils was bountiful and has built a large Seed. Too big for you to accumulate enough immigrants from Dain, in fact. So, Timwark kicked in the remainder as part of our peace accords, as well as a contingent from Nils itself to oversee various positions of governance, at least for the first Season. Overmind has allowed a rare intermingling of Founders as part of our core Experiment.”

            “Incredible,” I stared agape.

            “Dain, Timwark, and Nils. The three largest Core superpowers,” Standish flared his eyebrows. “I expect great things from you and your Templari cohort. Great things,” he leaned back in his chair again.

            “...Suom is a still only at Stage One in terms of geoscaping,” The Vizier was saying as Standish and I tuned back in, “so we will have to establish robust supply and transportation infrastructure before we can deploy the Constructor Swarm in full force. The Fabrican will need to be prospected and its resources exploited to build up a sufficient Material Budget if we are to achieve any measure of success in the first Season. I cannot force any of you to do otherwise, as is the nature of our Bargain, but we were not founded as a Bedroom Fabrican like Xianxi. It will require most, if not all of us to resist the allures of Mining if we are to build a society future generations will be proud to be a part of. I do not believe, however, that this will be a hard ask. The dormitories in even Suom and Éfuarét are spartan. A colonist's quarters do not lend themselves to the Realm in the same way life in Dain and Timwark and Nils would have.”

            The auditorium was dark as night, save for the spotlight on Vizier Cecilia. She was cool and collected. There was no murmuring. There was no side conversation. All hung on her every word. "It has been quite some time since a new Fabrican was born. This is a momentous occasion. As Founders, it is we who will decide how successful Suom truly is. The simulations of Overmind may only make predictions, is cannot determine the true Fate of Suom, but should our progress approximate that which is projected, Humanity and Fabricanity will have taken a huge step forward in our journey to the Promised Land. We will bring the glories of the Great Truth ever closer to reality."

            She paused and all in the hall, Standish and myself included, stood and applauded her. The reception was uproarious. Standish was unreadable. His visage as opaque as the Masked faces speckling the throng.

            "I know many of you came only for this speech," she nodded and waited for us all to return to our seats, "and I bid you a safe remainder of our journey. I assume everyone is thoroughly briefed on what happens next when the transport touches down, but I have scheduled a slate of lecturers to discuss the broader strategy of how the See plans to achieve our Season One goals. My team has been optimizing the Core Loop balance and has analyzed the mechanical workflows to help establish the most efficient methods to accomplish each of your Role's individual responsibilities. As stated, it is not mandatory that any of you utilize these methods to achieve your own personal ends, but it is important to maintain a long-term perspective to that end and appreciate the needs of the Fabrican and how they relate to you as an individual. As Founders, we all were warned of the sacrifices that will be expected of us to ensure the success of our Host. Life as a Colonist is not the lavish, cushy experience many of you may be used to. Even those in Roles of authority and of high Seed levels will quickly realize that very little separates you from another. There will be little room for Bourgeois flexation and ostentatious opulence. Those of sufficient means are expected to reinvest their accumulated wealth back into their communities and patronize the endeavors of Culture. I know I need not worry about you Dainish Hardfolk, but some of you others may not be familiar with the obligations that come with Noble stature. To those implicated, I implore you to take heed of the Hardfolk's humble example. They embody the true soul of our Fabrican and its Mission."

            "Mission?" I cocked an eyebrow at Standish.

            "Mission," he flared his eyebrows at me. "We are an Arch-Prelature. We will not earn status as an Arch-Diocese unless we hit our Season One targets."

            "So she is not a Bishop?" I pulled my chin into my neck.

            "Correct," Standish extended his blink, mouth held back in a thin line. "If the Adjudicators cannot establish a functioning See, governance will be turned over to the Cardinalry, and then the Templari, should they also fail. The Commandant-Vizier must prove her quality if she wishes to earn her place as an Archbishop."

            "I thank you all again for being here. I will pass the podium next to Pastor Vishwaram, the director of my Balancing team. She will discuss fiscal policy in relation to the Central Point Bank. As you are all aware, finances will only allow the Bastion of Suom and its accompanied boroughs to be Domed. We will require a large portion of the National Budget to be funded on Treasury Debt, meaning there will be ample opportunity to invest any accumulated Points back into Suom's Corporate entity, the Suom Conglomerate Enterprise. I expect our Open Market to be quite lively, with many requests on the Bounty Board, and few Entrepreneurial endeavor with sufficient capital to take on the risks necessary to complete them, so it will be incumbent on the Treasury to fund the small business necessary to grow our Economy," she swept her hand to the side and moved away from the podium, leaning her face into the microphone as a tall, thin woman approached the stage. "Pastor, please take it from here," she clapped and the audience joined in.

            "As you are all aware…" she a large slide of text appeared mid-air, projected from some pointless source onto a non-existent screen.

            "That's enough for me," Standish flashed an impish smile and snapped. He and Tyson disappeared without a trace, leaving Jim alone in an entire row of the Dias.

            "Great," Jim slinked back into a shrug against his chair and batted his eyes up and down the row. When he returned his gaze to the stage, he swore he and the Vizier made direct, prolonged eye contact before disappearing down into the stage pit.