The Newt and Demon

“This is as many as I can make on such short notice,” Throk said, as grumpy as ever.

Theo counted the various stills presented by the marshling. He had produced twenty of his base-level stills for them to work with. And he had done so in about four hours, which should have been impossible. But that’s what the alchemist relied on. The impossible. With this many stills, they could process a vast amount of Soul Blooms immediately. It was going to be another all-nighter if they wanted to get this done.

“Take whatever you want as payment from the treasury,” Theo said, sucking each of the stills into his inventory.

“I’ll have one house made of gold, thank you,” Throk said. “Or a pile of mythril, actually.”

Theo went through his interface, increasing Throk’s permissions to take from the storage at the smelter. “All the mythril you want. I’ll make sure Nira doesn’t export any of it.”

Throk rubbed his hands together. “Excellent.”

“Thanks,” Theo said, rushing out of the workshop.

Salire was already on alert, as was the defending force of the alliance. Zan’kir was already having a blast repositioning some guns. He had roped Ziz and his boys in to do some work on the east-facing cliffs outside of town. Since Theo had craved some paths over there, he didn’t see any sense in ignoring that as the best place to put a bunch of rail guns.

Each still in the lab was already working on a batch of Soul Essence. Theo took his twenty new stills and set them up on the second floor of the Newt and Demon. He wanted to distill all his things in the giant metal cube, but there was a problem. The lab—even if it wasn’t on the lab’s floor—provided several bonuses to distillation. They didn’t have Soul Blooms to spare. Salire arrived just as he was getting them primed to run, bringing enchanted water and Cleansing Scrub potions along to help the process.

“We’ll have some decent capacity, but I have the old notes from when we made the Soul potions before,” Salire said, tapping her finger on a stack of loose papers. “Unless Tero’gal alchemy changes the process, we’re looking at a week-long brew time.”

The idea hadn’t escaped Theo. But he had his hopes up. “That’s what I’m counting on. The Reforge Mind potion didn’t require a brew time. Which might be a function of the longer distillation time. But we’ll just have to find out. If it takes longer, it takes longer.”

“Right. I’ve got everything working at capacity,” Salire said. She helped him process the Soul Blooms, adding the correct amount of water to each still and getting the artifices running. “I have five of the stills running Suffuse Essences, but we have enough Burning Regeneration.”

“Did you run the numbers again?” Theo asked, smiling to himself as he placed the lid on another still.

“No, I took the upper bounds of your elf estimation.” Salire tried not to giggle to herself, but failed. “Elf estimation. Gods, we don’t even know how many there are.”

“Convenient time for the gods to shut themselves off, right?” Theo asked. “Right when we could have used their help… I just felt something strange.”

“Strange like… how? Upset stomach?” Salire asked with concern.

It took Theo a minute to figure out what the sensation was. He eventually settled on it being an echo from Tresk’s Dreamer’s Core. When he asked her telepathically, she dismissed it as nothing more than something that happened often. A little twinge of rule-breaking somewhere in the distance.

“Guess that’s nothing to be concerned about,” Theo said. “Famous last words…”

“Did you want to take this in shifts tonight?” Salire asked.

“Nah. I won’t be able to sleep,” Theo said, looking over the stills on this floor. Everything was running well. Salire had even set up an extractor fan and sensor on the second floor to make sure nothing went wrong. The extraction power of that fan wasn’t as great as the ones installed on the third floor, but it would do enough for a single run. “You can go to sleep like normal. I’ll just come grab you if something goes wrong. Although, if something goes wrong, I’m not sure what anyone can do.”

“Right,” Salire said with a nervous chuckle. Not like the fate of some elves rests squarely on our shoulders or anything.”

As evening set in, Salire headed out for the day while Tresk, Sarisa, and Rowan brought some food for everyone to eat. They used the counters in the shop portion of the building, mostly eating while standing up. Eating a Broken Tusk classic of wolf meat stew, they chatted for a while.

“That pulse of energy might be more concerning than I originally thought,” Tresk said. “My Dreamer’s Core gave a few interesting notifications about a rule-breaker. Kinda strange, though.”

“Why?”

“It keeps listing the offending person as ‘Death,’ which can’t be right.”

Theo had to have a long think about that one to make sense of it. He followed a trail of logic until he arrived at a conclusion. His theory was based on the way the system gave him a name. He had originally been ‘Belgar’ according to the system. But that changed when Belgar’s soul left the void, settling on Tero’gal. The system automatically updated names based on certain conditions.

“My guess is that Kuzan was doing something naughty, and had it hidden from the system. Now that he’s gone, whatever he was doing was unveiled. Now that the system views him as ‘Death,’ that’s the message you get.” Theo nodded to himself, sucking up another greasy piece of wolf meat.

“What authority does Tresk have to take care of something like that?” Sarisa asked.

“Depends on the infraction,” Tresk said. “I only get my superpowers when something super naughty happens. We’re talking about aliens and stuff like that. Even then, we’re not really supposed to kill anyone. Just banish them.”

“We don’t really know Tresk’s job yet. I mean, she’s the right hand of the arbiter. The mechanism where she can go into people’s dreams is a great way to get information from the sealed ascendant realms to the mortal realm. In theory, she can steer people to do something with secret information.”

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“That’s cheating,” Rowan said. “If the whole point is that the gods are sealed away, and everyone down here has to do stuff the old fashioned way.”

“The ascendants have a very specific role now,” Theo said. “I think we can steer the development of the mortal world with a vote. We don’t have all our rules in place, but Fenian can even come down here when he likes. Once the change happens.”

“But he’ll be restricted,” Tresk said. “I think he’ll have an energy bar or something like that limiting his actions. And no direct involvement in conflict. Stuff like that, y’know?”

“Yet you still haunt my dreams,” Rowan said with a sigh. “Sounds like an abuse of power.”

“Stop dreaming about those sexy ladies, and I’ll stop invading,” Tresk said, giggling to herself.

“I cannot determine my dreams! No matter how many times you drag me from that warm bed to go skydiving, I’ll never relent. The heart wants what it wants.”

The meal was pleasant. While the group threw around theories on what they thought might happen after the next shift, they weren’t likely to reach a conclusion. Theo was almost certain the ascendant thrones would get together with the system, defining what their responsibilities were over the next few weeks. Only when the end finally happened would they have it in stone. Right now, there were too many hanging threads to tie up. Some of the system’s power was likely tied to the shards themselves.

Salire and Rowan headed out for the night eventually. While Tresk was willing to stay up all night with Theo, Alex had already gone to bed. Since she couldn’t fit in the building, she soon became bored watching through the window. Not as though anything exciting would happen. Tonight. It was a long, boring night of watching the stills bubble away/ But Theo couldn’t afford to lose a single drop of that essence.

A series of sharp knocks came from the front door a few hours later. Tresk was falling asleep on the counter when she sprung up. Theo shared a look with her. When the knock came again, a pair of glowing wings sprouted from her back.

“Uh. That’s not good,” Tresk said, her daggers appearing in her hands. “We got a naughty bad boy at the door.”

“Yet the bad boy knocks so politely,” Theo said, cracking the door open. A man in a black hood stood there. Theo watched in his future vision as the man reached out to shake his hand, but was otherwise reserved. “Half-elf?”

“How did you know?” the man asked.

Theo didn’t want to say that it was because his hood had tilted to one side during one of many possible futures. “Lucky guess. We’re closed.”

“You’re the alchemist, aren’t you? Why does that lizard have wings?” the man asked.

“It is normally polite to introduce yourself before pointing out a lizard’s wings. You know that, right?”

“That’s a long story. May I come in?”

Theo shrugged. If Tresk had her wings out, that meant she had some unreasonably strong power at her fingertips. Anyone who wanted to fight would be sorely mistaken if they made a move. He opened the door fully, allowing the man inside. The alchemist could feel the power of several magical items coming from the man. They radiated energy like he had never felt before.

“My name is Elrin from the Manastream Clan in Whisperwood… You won’t know where that is,” the man said, sighing as he fell into a chair. “These are old things. Ancient things.”

Theo shared a look with Tresk. “Is he speaking English? Why are you speaking English?”

“That’s an even longer story. So, are you the man handling the shards?”

“Theo Spencer. This here is my partner, Tresk,” Theo said, gesturing to the winged marshling. “Her wings are out because you’re breaking the system’s rules.”

“Yeah, accept the prompt, buddy,” Tresk said, glaring. “Or I’m gonna slap you pretty hard. With my fists.”

“That’s called ‘punching,’” Elrin corrected.

“You get the point, elf boy.”

“I suppose we’re at an impasse,” Elrin said. “I have no plans to accept the message to change to the new system.”

Tresk pushed off from the counter, rolling her shoulders. “The other one. Did you even read your messages?”

“I skimmed them… Ah, I see the one you’re talking about. Yes, I’ll take that one. But this has me wondering.”

“Fight?” Theo asked with a shrug. “We’ve been doing more fighting around here recently. Might give Tresk a chance to know you better.”

“Why not?” Elrin asked, gesturing to the door. “Business later. Fighting now.”

Tresk had trouble getting her wings out of the door, but the party marched along toward the empty field on the far side of the river. As long as Tresk held her punches, this guy would be fine. If he wanted to march in like he owned the place, he would do well to learn how things worked around here. Well, he seemed friendly enough. And he held a comforting energy that Theo couldn’t deny.

“So, where are you from?” Theo asked.

“From what I’ve put together on my own, I’m from here before the latest change,” Elrin said. “I was fighting for both Iaredin and Earth when everything was frozen in time. How about you?”

“Near-future Earth,” Theo said.

“Interesting. Any rules for the fight?” Elrin asked.

“You won’t be able to hit her, or do any damage,” Theo said. “As long as she has the wings, she’s empowered by the system to banish you.”

“That hardly seems fair.”

“Yet you haven’t backed down! Getting cold feet?” Tresk asked.

Elrin shrugged as they entered the open field. Theo stretched his future sight as far as it would go. The pair were already fighting, and the newcomer elf wasn’t doing well. It wasn’t in Tresk’s nature to go easy, and this was no exception.

“Good luck, bud.”

A halberd appeared in Elrin’s hand. Theo was blasted by the sheer power of the thing. He had never felt a magical item with such power. It was intense enough where he questioned if the weapon itself wasn’t a powerful person, emitting a strong magical aura. Tresk stretched her wings wide, rolling her shoulders. A blink later, she kicked off of the ground and went straight for the poor elf’s heart. He only barely parried, the haft of his weapon ringing out.

“Oh, she’s fast,” Elrin said, sweeping his weapon through the air. He blurred, appearing behind the marshling and thrusting forward with a concealed dagger. The sound of steel ringing against steel echoed over the open field. “Too fast.”

“You’re quick!” Tresk said, spinning around. Demon horns had sprouted from her forehead. “Now I’m faster.”

No matter what Elrin tried, it didn’t matter. Tresk was granted too much power from the system for him to overcome. The most striking thing was how strong this guy was, though. Even with the system’s power through her Dreamer’s core, Elrin was keeping up at points. He was strong. Not as strong as Khahar was, but he would have easily overpowered Fenian. And that was before the other thing got involved.

Tresk unleashed a flurry of blows at the elf. Theo could tell she was holding back, but she put enough force into the strikes to send shockwaves of force radiating outward. The marshling danced around, cackling as she had the time of her life. She let out a small gasp when something fell from the sky. Theo watched it in his future sight as a tiger wreathed in blue energy came falling from the sky. He didn’t warn Tresk as that would be unfair. And he always followed the rules. But the result of the encounter was the tiger gaining an injury, so it was time to call it off.

“Enough,” Theo said, snapping his fingers to get Tresk’s attention. “Call the tiger off, Elrin.”

“Predictive powers?” Elrin asked, panting for breath. “Guessing it doesn’t end well… Fine. I’ll accept the prompt.”

“Bah. We were just getting started!” Tresk shouted. “But man! That was GOOD!”

“Come on, you idiots,” Theo said. “Let’s get some tea.”

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