New Artwork

Greetings to the future! [Note, I backdated this so the archive will still show at the right. I will try to figure out a better solution for this when I can.]

I do not know when I shall get around to finishing this story. However, for your amusement and my personal improvement, I have been working on new artwork for all of my various stories. Feel free to view my Trope Brigade-related sketches, and let me know if you have any special requests.

Cheers,
--J.

Chapter 10: Bāgha Svārthī

The waiting was the killer. Only one full day had passed since Drache and Arratoi had vanished into the air, just hours after the hunt was cancelled, but there was still no trace of either. Cavall would not admit to being worried, but Hebi could still tell that she was—at the very least, to the degree that it negatively impacted their graduation qualifications if they lost their subs.

Hebi didn't know what she would do. It was her childhood goal to graduate and take a well-paying career that would have her set for life. Losing a whole person meant the likelihood of that happening was a mere fraction of what it was.

At the same time, the retreat had taught her some disturbing things about life, the universe, and everything—first, she no longer wanted to major in Base-JP. It was a fine base, certainly, but her natural fires gave her little comfort and instead only served as a reminder of her fiery temper, something she could never temper.

Second, she was ill-prepared for what she DID want to do, which was healing. At every turn, what she tried to fix ended up broken. It was as though it was in her very nature to destroy, rather than build, which was depressing on so many levels.

Third, she lacked the maturity she needed to become a graduate—or, in the absence of maturity, even the mere self-confidence to strike off on her own. Even though Hebi had a part-time job, her own prior Batta still handled most of the day-to-day dealings of their home rental and important paperwork for her. She would be lost without Batta, as much as she had stressed the seriousness of these instructions on Drache over their time together.

Fourth—and this was what got to her the most—she hated to see Drache grow up.

It was strange how her attitude had changed from a mere nine days ago, when his childish antics were obnoxious and detrimental. The Brigade had forced the both of them to do things neither wanted to do, however, and it only made her feel worse the more adult they were required to be. To then ask him to chase after Arratoi to who knows where...

"Hebi," murmured a calm voice.

She didn't look up, not eager to hear what bad news the captains had to tell them was coming next. "What is it."

A warm hand laid on her shoulder. "I brought her back."

At once she realized this was not a voice she knew. Slowly, in shock, Hebi looked up to see someone familiar but not.

"It's me," the young man standing over her greeted, "Drache."

Her jaw dropped to see this person, like Drache but twice as old, standing before her with the expression of one who had weathered more sorrows than he could bear to tell. "What—" It was almost too much to conceive. "Drache?"

He smiled weakly. "You haven't sold my Rock Band, have you?"

Tears welled in her eyes, and she had no idea whether to be happy or sad. "What in the world happened to you?"

Drache turned to face a young woman standing behind him, red in embarrassment. "Arratoi and I were in another plane of existence, where time passed seven years in what was a day for you. We both did what we needed to do in order to return, but we could not get here any sooner. Or, we could have saved a little time, but Arratoi hates travelling with me when I run at top speed."

"Because the friction stings my eyes!" she complained, looking more disappointed than glad to be back.

The words were difficult for Hebi to form, as she was still trying to process this new information. "That's – okay," she coaxed, more to herself than Drache, as she took him in a warm embrace. "You're both back, and that's what matters. Have you told Cavall?" Here, she turned to see where Cavall had gone. "Cavall!"

"It's not what matters," Drache continued. "We're in danger here."

"Huh?" Hebi gave him a confused look. "What's wrong?"

"The way we travelled, planewalking, is Base-DK," he explained. "However, it is the intermediate base between all other bases and the base of the crown."

"...what is the base of the crown?"

"It is the base that whoever is to win the crown must know in order to achieve it. This is important because the person who has been kidnapping others is trying to find the key to this base."

"You know who's behind the kidnappings?"

Drache nodded. "His default is Aghvesi, but he was with the Brigade briefly as Sionnach."

Sionnach! "But – he seemed so nice..." She thought of how well-mannered he treated them when paired off in their final prior-sub match. "Why does he pose a threat to us? What are his plans?"

"He means to claim ultimate dominion over all of creation."

Hebi fell backwards, tumbling over her seat in astonishment at the concept, before Drache dashed forward and caught her. She felt the blood rush to her face for multiple reasons, but – just what had they gotten themselves into by joining the Brigade? "How is such power granted to the winner of a silly treasure hunt?!"

"It wasn't meant to be, but there is a loophole that he means to exploit." It was bizarre hearing such words from Drache, delivered with such seriousness. "We can't let him win!"

"But – how do we stop him?"

"There are only two ways: Defeat him, or be the first to the crown."

She wasn't sure about the first—Aghvesi was surely the top tier of the fighters at the retreat, possibly of the whole world. "How do we win the crown? The hunt has been called off."

Drache shook his head. "The prize is still there, whether we search for it or not."

"What must we do?"

Whatever answer he was going to give, Drache was interrupted by a tearing sound in the fabric of reality.

*VWORP*

Out of the ground emerged a small girl, not even as old as Drache was before his vanishing, riding a large quadrupedal beast that sort of resembled Zog but – primal. Hebi couldn't begin to comprehend what kind of creature it could be.

Before she could begin to comprehend who the girl was, all three of them froze in place, held fast by an indescribable force. She was barely conscious of a conversation taking place somewhere on the edge of her perception:

Let us go.

I really need you.

What do you want? We won't help you.

But I'm finally awake.

It doesn't matter. You can't do this.

I'll give to you if you'll give to me.

No, this won't work, I promise. I'll show you.

I'm tired of waiting.

I will take you where you want to go, but let them go.

I always want to hear what's on your mind.

Let them go, and I will take you there.

Forget me.

The last was to Hebi, and she felt awareness of the events vanish.

She looked up to see a young woman standing in front of her. Hebi started to see her—it was though she had appeared out of nowhere. "Where did you come from?"

The young woman seemed just as confused. "I – don't know."

"Who are you?"

"I'm Arratoi, duh."

"Arratoi!" Hebi cried, astonished. "Cavall's been looking for you! What happened? Where have you been all this time?"

She began to speak, stopping short as she did. Panic crossed her face as she realized something frightful. "I – don't know..."

"Well, come then," she insisted, leading the girl back into the hotel proper. "We'll try to get this sorted out."

"What happened to me?" Arratoi bawled, freaking out. "I don't remember anything!"

"What's going on?"

Cavall stomped up to them, looking just as overbearing as usual. "Arratoi's back," Hebi announced, since it wasn't obvious, "but – something's happened."

"Where is she, then?"

"HERE!"

Cavall glowered at them as though they were idiots, then it slowly started to dawn on her that the girl was indeed Arratoi. "What did you do?!" she shrieked. "How did you get SORAS?"

"I don't—"

"No, I see," she interrupted. "Orne was telling the truth. That other realm you entered is indeed disconnected in time from this one. How long were you there?"

Arratoi stared, not comprehending. "I – don't—"

"She's scared, Cavall," Hebi pointed out. "Something happened, and she doesn't remember."

"Nonsense," Cavall protested, looking over Arratoi as though taking a fine-toothed comb over her code.

CTRL-Z, step 1

"What happened to you?"

Arratoi looked around again, panicking anew. "Where am I? What's happening?"

CTRL-Z, step 10

Arratoi stopped panicking for a bit before starting again. "Eeek! Where am I?"

CTRL-Z, step 41

It was as though Arratoi was being squeezed into her smaller frame again, regressing years in the span of a min. "Huh? What's going on, Cavall?"

"What were you doing just now?"

She put her hands on her hips in protest. "You told me to go back to my room because we were going home. Why are we still—" At last Arratoi noticed the time of day. "Why is it not yet top-sun? And – Hebi, where's..." Her voice trailed off, as though she was expecting something but wasn't sure what, staring at Hebi as though something was missing.

CTRL-Y, step 52

The aged Arratoi reappeared as suddenly as she had vanished, looking just as disoriented and distraught as before.

"I will need a second opinion on the matter," Cavall concluded. "I'm not sure what has happened, but I will not permanently undo whatever she has experienced until we have divined its nature."

"That seems appropriate," Hebi noted.

Cavall stared at Hebi, also seeming to expect something that wasn't there. She furrowed her brow at being unable to discern what.

"What is it?"

"I thought..." She shook her head. "Nevermind. We'll take Arratoi to see Nutria and have her talk with Orne. Maybe their combined information will give us a clearer picture of what's happening."

Hebi nodded, but Arratoi seemed uncertain. "Don't worry," she coaxed, taking the girl by the shoulders, "we'll take care of you."

"It's like—" she began, shivering, "something's been taken from me, something dear to me, and I can't remember what."

Again, Hebi wanted to console her, but – she realized she felt the same way. What was missing?

They returned to the hospital wing where Orne was still recovering from his psychosis. "We've got another," Cavall announced.

Nutria looked up from his clipboard to examine Arratoi. "Ah," he greeted, "you as well? I admit I'm a little surprised."

"Sire, I'm afraid my amateur diagnosis was inconclusive," Cavall continued. "Could you check her code?"

"Of course." He beckoned Arratoi to sit down. "This will only take a bit and won't hurt in the least." She took a seat, gulping with nervousness all the same as the healer brought up her history. "Ah, Arratoi. I – see."

"What is it?"

"Rather – I don't see." He pointed to the cluster of pop-ups that represented the span of time of Arratoi's SORAS. "Something – or someone – has tampered with her history. Where I should be able to see a clear storyboard of events is rather indistinct. For instance, here—" He pointed to part of the timeline where she seemed to be talking excitedly to herself. "—this doesn't make any sense at all. Is she schizophrenic? Speaking to someone invisible?"

"What happened to you at this point in time?" Hebi prompted.

Arratoi stared at the scene in question. "When was this?"

"Her memory's been erased," Nutria deduced. "She remembers none of what happened to her in this other realm."

"Is this what happened to Orne?" Hebi asked, concerned.

"Not at all. Orne remembers everything, but it has overwhelmed him, pushing his mind to the brink of insanity. Arratoi's memory is simply – gone."

"Can you restore it?"

"Not directly. I would have to determine the signature of the person who erased it, besides the extent to which the erasure was done."

"How do we find out who did it?"

He scratched his chin. "I'm inclined to say we ask around, try to figure out what – or who – has been erased, but from the looks on your faces..." Here, he motioned Hebi forward. "Please, my dear, indulge me for a bit."

"Huh?"

Nutria brought up her history as well, skimming over the past few days. "I was afraid of that. It appears you've also been affected. Look here—" He indicated the first day of the retreat. "You're in a prior-sub match, but you're battling alone."

Hebi felt the blood drain from her body. "How..." A vast emptiness loomed where she hadn't known it was there. "What... Where did this whole part of me go?"

"I think this is where you start. Who was your sub? This is who was erased from all of your memories."

The three females exchanged worried glances, even Cavall. The mystery surrounding what was supposed to be a casual affair was growing darker at each turn.

Arratoi stared at the empty space on Hebi's pop-up, reaching out to it with a sense of longing. "I've liked you for a thousand years," she murmured to it. "I can't wait until I see you." At first Hebi thought her actions strange, but – it felt familiar somehow. Yes, her sub was a young boy about Arratoi's age.

With this realization, Hebi felt as though she could almost pull his memory from within whatever oblivion it had been banished, but – she was always just at the brink of remembering. How could she just forget a whole person—a whole lifetime? Just what power was capable of doing this to ALL of them?

"We have to figure this out!" Hebi insisted, clutching her head in disbelief. "I can't—it's just..."

"It's okay, my dear," Nutria hushed, taking her hand in his. "This can all get sorted out, a piece at a time. It's impossible for one force acting alone to erase such a large influence completely. Just take it a few steps at a time. What was your sub like? What did he do? The pieces will take time to find, but that's how you must progress."

"Why is this happening, sire?" she pleaded. "I was just supposed – to graduate! It wasn't supposed to turn out this way!"

"Of course not. It never is."

From his bed, Orne stirred a little, muttering some gibberish. At this, Nutria returned to his side.

"What's the matter with him?" Hebi ventured, still not clear on the details of his affliction.

"From what I've been able to gather, Orne has gone through what Arratoi has, but on a grander scale. By comparison, she has gone on a light holiday where he has had to endure the worst of trials."

"Like what?"

He shuffled through the still-active pop-ups, pointing to a dark carnival full of hundreds of – what they could all best describe as some kind of monster, lunging at Orne as though out to eat him alive. "He spent an indeterminant amount of time avoiding these – THINGS at every turn. It wasn't simply the natives having severe territorial issues or fearing alien invasions—these 'nzambi' things literally hunted down anything that moved with the intent to destroy it. An entire plane populated with creatures out to consume all life."

"How horrible!" Hebi cried, clutching her hands to her face.

"Nevermind all that," Cavall barked. "You! Orne! What can you tell us about other planes? What happened to Arratoi?!"

Nutria moved to stop her, but – to their surprise – Orne met her eyes, a peculiar glassy look to them as he spoke. "She's a day tripper," he answered cryptically. "Got a good reason for taking the easy way out, now."

"How's that?"

"It took me so long to find out, but I found out."

"He's been like this for the past two days," Nutria continued. "There's something possessing him, bending his words to something almost like normal speech but not."

"Sounds like normal speech to me," Hebi noted.

"Here I mean normal in the sense that he's responsive in the way we would expect. Did he answer Cavall's questions? Yes, and no."

"Why can't we revert him—"

"NO!" Orne screamed, sitting up in hysterics.

Nutria motioned for him to relax. "No one's going to revert you, sire," he insisted. "It's fine. You're home, not in another nightmare realm. Everything's okay."

"Never – forget..."

Hebi wasn't convinced this was a good idea. "Never forget what?"

Despite his seeming agony, Orne appeared to struggle with the answer. "Have to... Boi..."

"Boi?" Cavall and Hebi exchanged glances. "What happened to Boi? Can you tell us?"

"He still has a disconnect between his thoughts and his memories." Nutria reverted farther in his history this time. "I found that he and Boi went to her home at fifth face, where they were ambushed by this man." He pointed to someone that looked like Sionnach. "This woman who was fighting must have been Boi's prior, and the—"

"What is that?" Hebi interrupted. "What is she doing that made half the building vanish like that?"

"I believe she is Base-DK, but I am not familiar with its work. Orne is also Base-DK now—I believe he had to learn in order to return from wherever they vanished."

"Boi, though! Where is she?"

"Hmm. THAT I can help you with."

Nutria_HU

Vidra shifted, closing his eyes and thinking of Boi once again. "No use," he mused, frowning as he shifted back. "She is hidden now. This is disturbing, since your shield for the hunt was also hidden from my tracking."

"Shield?"

"My sub. I've explained this before to Arratoi, but whoever is behind the disappearances might now have Boi as well. I'm afraid that Orne's mission may be in danger, as well."

"What mission?"

Nutria bit his tongue in thought. "Earlier, he said something about her prior being – gone. That must mean this man she fought and took with her and Orne must have brought her down. I hesitate to say what this means, other than the Brigade is in serious danger if he will not hesitate to kill those he views as a threat." He clapped his hands together in earnest. "I implore all of you to return home at once—it is not safe anymore, possibly anywhere."

"If that's the case, it's useless going home," Hebi protested. "We'd just be waiting to be captured – or even killed! I'd rather take my chances staying with allies!"

Arratoi cheered, "Me, too!" After some hesitation, Cavall nodded in agreement, glowering.

Nutria raised his eyebrows at them but conceded that he couldn't change their minds. "I guess I can't tell you what to do, but please speak with the captains about what your best course of action would be. They may even be able to help you find your sub, Hebi."

She gritted her teeth, still feeling a profound emptiness where she'd never—to her knowledge—known. "We will, sire."

"Do come back and visit if you have any new information that may help everyone," he added, waving goodbye to them.

"What do you think?" Hebi asked as they left the hospital, en route to the remnants of the last Brigade meeting grounds. "That man in the history—didn't that look like Sionnach?"

"It did," Cavall agreed. "I don't see why he would erase your sub from our memories, though."

Arratoi could only whimper her sadness, rather than being able to put it to words.

"Are they related?" Hebi wondered. "I mean, is there really only one villain in the world?"

"True. It might just happen that the erasure coincides with the information we discovered about Vepar/Orne."

"And that's not really coinciding. We just happened to find it out when we found ourselves where we were."

They looked at Arratoi, still mopey over her lost time with their mystery boy.

"Well," Hebi wondered, "can we work this out ourselves first?"

"What?"

"Arratoi, what do you like in boys?"

She looked at Hebi with a flush of embarrassment. "Well..."

"Please, it's to help us find out what he was like. Can you think of anything? What kind of fur, what base, what personality? That kind of thing?"

Arratoi bit her tongue in embarrassment, fingers clenched and tail between her legs. "Cute?"

"Not exactly helpful..." Hebi wondered, herself. What sort of trials had she endured being a prior to a Base-...? She closed her eyes, trying to picture what sort of—

—picture.

"Arratoi!" she blurted. "Do you have some kind of memento of him? Surely you'd have gotten some trinket of his!"

"Ummm...!" Chagrined, Arratoi tapped out the contents of her emblem: a strange seedy disc of some sort, a coin of unknown denomination (from the alternate plane?), a large book with the words 'Don't panic' on the cover, one and a half pounds of melty butter, a thin black notebook with odd illegible white text on it, a rolled-up photo of—

"That's it!" Hebi cried, grabbing the photo with greed.

"Hey!" Arratoi whined, snatching it back. "That's mine!"

"Of course it is, but just let us see!"

As the three of them looked at the photo in unison, it was like a spell had been lifted... "Drache!" they shouted at once.

Hebi felt a knot in her throat. Coerced or not, it filled her with an unbelievable guilt to have forgotten the little furball so completely.

"Let's take this back to Nutria," Cavall ordered, prodding Arratoi.

"Can he help us?" Hebi asked.

"Maybe he can track Drache, now that we know who to look for."

"But this is a job for the captains now."

"Do the captains have a tracker?"

Hebi frowned, trying to think of who among them was Base-HU.

"We'll bother him one last time, then we'll return to the captains, who will most likely send us home anyway."

How could she argue? "Okay."

As the three of them raced back to the hospital, the ground started to shake. A quake? Those weren't natural—this was the ground work for an IT or ID, for certain, but who?

Screams erupted from the hospital, and the trio continued their rush to get to Nutria. At that moment, two things happened:

And from the other side, can you still answer me?

I can.

Life's such a beautiful mistake.

Hebi felt a familiar presence—THAT was who erased her memory! That child... She started to make a move—

*VWORP*

*VWORP*

It was like slow-motion fireworks going off... From either side of her, beings emerged seemingly from out of thin air. Was the whole WORLD going mad? What was going on?

"Aghvesi!" cried an angry voice, bursting from one hole in the sky and landing with a crash.

The man in question ripped through the other hole, lighting the atmosphere on fire—

No. Plasma. He was turning the star in on itself.

Chapter 9, end.

"I REALLY don't want to go back there," she grumbled, but it was starting to look like their only option. At least Kogut already had a frame that could pass as a Terran native.

"So let's get on with it already." Kogut stared at the loose bit of portal like a starving person staring at food. "I can't stand another min in this hole."

"Wait."

Kogut threw an icy stare, which Okse deflected without a thought.

"Before you go charging up there, you need to understand the dangers of planewalking. First, many of the rules we know are changed. The plane to which that portal is tied is similar to ours, but the people know nothing of bases, shifting, or even spellbinding shortcuts. You can't just throw fire and expect not to be attacked."

"Tell me something I don't know," she snapped in even greater impatience, if that was possible. "I've been a spy much longer than you've been a rampaging lummox. I know how not to be noticed."

"...fine." The 'lummox' crack was getting old, but at least they were on the same page regarding evasion. "The next thing is there are six portals between this plane and that one, each tied to location. That is why I would rather not go back—I already know where it goes. However, they aren't tied by time, so it is not guaranteed that spending a day there means only a day has passed back here. In fact, only a bit may have passed – or aeons."

"Which means what for us?"

"It means every time we go through a portal, in whichever direction, risks the chance of moving forward in time by an unpredictable amount. It's NOT reversible—we can't go back if we've travelled too far."

Kogut did her best to follow along, but it was evident she was having some trouble. She stared down at the napping child who, as if expecting to be interrupted, opened an eye and looked up at them. "May I shift so I can better understand how to get us out of here and to somewhere more comfortable?"

If she understood the question, Bāgha didn't give any indication to her preference either way, yawning and curling back up.

"Hmph."

Kogut_TR

Without a word, Horoz glared back at Okse with a penetrating look, as though probing her very being. "I see," he stated after several mins in cogitation. "So the risk of planewalking is the possibility of becoming lost in time."

"What? No..."

"Isn't that what you said? The portals are tied to location, but not time, so it is possible to advance—"

Okse gritted her teeth in irritation. "I mean, THE risk? Hardly. I haven't even gotten into the possibility of the natives of other planes invading ours! What complicates things even more, which is why Base-DK is so protected, is every portal that is not sealed – or at least closed – will remain a potential breach between our plane and another. However, they are the only transfer points we can use—I don't know how to open new portals myself.

"This is only getting into the six portals I can sense that exist between this plane and the one that brought me here. There are infinite planes, and infinite transfer points—not being able to tell which is which is a fast way to never find one's way home again."

Horoz listened patiently, pondering each new piece of information like an archaeologist examining a precious find at a dig site. "How can we best be assured of finding the way back, if lost?"

"Our plane has a taint of plasma. It is exceedingly rare of the planes I have walked with my prior."

"Where is your prior now?"

Okse scrunched up her face in near-agony, not certain how long she would be able to override her grief in the name of focus on their goal. "Aghvesi brought her down in a far-distant system."

If there was any sympathy in Horoz's heart, it was as concealed as a self-declared master of concealment could make it. "Then that is of no help to us."

"Ya think?!" Okse wanted to stomp that cold face with all her might, but it would neither solve her problems nor abate the pain.

"But..." He pondered another moment anyway. "How did Aghvesi reach such a distant system?"

"He followed me to my home and engaged my prior in battle. She took him with her to planes unknown."

"Can he planewalk?"

"As far as I know, no. He is equally bound to the same constraints we are under, only he does not know what they are."

"That's our advantage!" Horoz clenched his fists in anticipation. "They are without a leader! It may not take planewalking at all!"

Okse couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You mean to break out of this cell?"

"It will take help, but yes—anti-spell barriers are only as strong as the implementor's reinforcements, and if Aghvesi is gone, the barriers will not have been refreshed!"

"Are you sure?" She was still dubious about his plan. "What about Kissa, or Paendeo—"

Undeterred, Horoz was already examining the walls for something unseen. "Kissa likes to show off, but she doesn't know a thing, and Paendeo knows even less. Aghvesi was the brains of the operation, to be certain."

"But they will still put up a fight when we try to break out."

"I doubt any of his henches know what they were truly after. Only Kissa MIGHT have the brains to pick up where he left off, and she isn't going to be able to handle ALL of us acting together. Hear that, Hunden?"

There was a voice barely audible from the next cell. "...whatever..."

"Fine, all of us EXCEPT THE LAZY PACIFIST acting together!"

"...eh..."

"Hold up," Okse demanded, "it's YOUR turn to explain. How are all of us prisoners working together?"

"Which cell were you?"

She gave him a look as though he was asking how many babies she ate for breakfast. "How would I know?! A cell's a cell."

Horoz shook his head in disappointment. "How you ever managed to get into the Brigade, I'll never know. Puzzle-solving, mum."

"I solved puzzles!" she protested. "But I was thrown in my cell when I was unconscious, and I didn't pay a lick of attention when Vepar was breaking me out! All I could see was one cell across the way and two cages in the middle."

"Exactly!" Horox drew a diagram on the floor consisting of boxes in an odd elongated arrangement of nine with two circles in the middle. "If you had TRIED to communicate with the others, you could have worked out a hat problem with what they responded. Here." He pointed to a box in the upper-left of the diagram. "This is where you were, then. Here is where we are." He pointed to the bottom-most box.

Okse stared at the diagram. "Is that..."

"I think it is. Aghvesi meant to arrange us in these cells according to how he thought our order should be to solve the hunt. However, he's WRONG. There are eleven cells, and only ten are used, but NOT in our current arrangement."

"Maybe he meant to move us later."

"Why? If we're already trapped, moving us only serves as a chance to make our escape."

"But if he doesn't know the proper arrangement, why think about where we go before he catches us? If I was doing this, I'd catch first and worry about whether the arrangement works after."

"Then he's an idiot. Solve the puzzle, then get the pieces. Saves valuable time."

"It certainly does."

The latter came from Kissa, staring over their shoulders. Okse and Horoz jumped up in astonishment, immediately taking defensive stances. Okse lashed out at her immediately with her foreleg, only to have it blocked by a steel shield shaped like Kissa.

"Not so swift, are you?" she purred from behind the bars. It was then Okse realized she had laid into a strategically-placed steel mannequin. "I'm not really sure how you got in, but I'll be sure to keep you from getting out. Thanks for the hint, though. Now I know what he was up to all this time. I see what you mean about the order, too."

"Tch!" Horoz cursed his failed perception check. "If you think you're going to reach the crown—"

"Oh, I don't know about that," Kissa teased. "Silly people pay good money to win contests. Maybe I'll just sell the answer and let them have their way with you."

It seemed like a not particularly horrible fate. Perhaps the buyer would be more – pliable than their current captors.

"We won't let that happen!" Horoz shouted, infuriated.

"Why not?" Okse muttered.

Horoz nearly fell flat on his face at her words. "You..." He picked his jaw up off the ground and turned on her. "Do you realize what can happen if the wrong person gets the crown?"

"In fact, I do." She turned on him. "And it WON'T HAPPEN. Only a worthy person will get ahold of it—someone I now realize doesn't exist."

"Nonsense! They wouldn't hold the hunt if it couldn't be won!"

"It's a teaching lesson, one with no winner. I've seen the result. In following the rules, no one wins – and that's supposed to show us that sometimes we need to change the rules."

He was still ready to lash out at her at any moment, clenching and unclenching his fists in fury.

"Idiot!" She kicked him in the shin. "Stop fighting it!" I thought you were perceptive!

The last she projected with all her might. To her astonishment, he seemed to relent. "Hmph," he snorted, turning his back to both of them. "I refuse to believe I ever joined an unwinnable quest!"

"So what's the solution, brainiac?" she taunted, playing along.

"I said I refuse to believe it! I didn't say it wasn't the case!"

Kissa yawned, swishing her tail in boredom. "Are you two done yet? You're the lamest fighters in all of creation. Even your drama is boring."

"You're free to leave, you know," Okse retorted. "We didn't exactly send you an engraved invitation, after all."

The three stood in silence, with Bāgha snoozing beneath them, seemingly oblivious to their talk. It was the most boring standstill in all of creation, each one waiting for the others to say the wrong thing, and the only sure way not to say the wrong thing being not to speak at all.

"Ugh," Kissa complained after what felt like three hours. "I've had it with your silent treatment. I don't know about you guys, but I'm hungry. Maybe Paendeo will be down with grub for you later, but no guarantees on that."

It worked! Now maybe once Kissa went away, Okse and Horoz could talk seriously about the—

"Are you REALLY going to leave both of us in the same cell together?" Horoz taunted, just as Kissa reached the exit.

Okse hissed, "You idiot—"

*SLAM*
*CREAK*
*SLAM*

Before either could react to her, Kissa sent a metal fist at Horoz, grabbing him and propelling him down the corridor into another cell—which, Okse couldn't see. "There you go, kids," Kissa said, dusting off her hands as though having done intensive labour, "no more co-ed cells for you!"

From farther down the prison, Okse could just make out the sound of Horoz groaning in pain—agony, even. His injuries must have been intense, something she couldn't readily identify with herself but she supposed must not be pleasant.

Speaking of not pleasant, at that moment Bāgha roused, starting to whimper when she realized Kogut wasn't there.

"Oh, is big sis not here anymore?" Kissa teased, pouting in a mock imitation of the child. "So sorry about that, but – I really don't care! Toodles, now!" At last, she blew a kiss, turning to leave the prison for good this time.

Bāgha was starting to wail loudly now. It was beyond irritating, and she could see why Horoz/Kogut had been so grumpy about it before. "Shut it," Okse growled, to no avail—the child was upset beyond belief.

"Ha!" came a weak voice from several cells down. "Now you know what I had to live with all this time!"

"I said shut it!"

It didn't matter how she yelled, Okse couldn't get the child to stop crying. Was there something else she was supposed to do? Like, pick her up or whatever? She leaned down and grabbed Bāgha by the scruff of her neck, but that didn't help.

"Hey," she muttered at last. "What do you want? What will get you to shut up?"

Though hanging limply, Bāgha still had tears streaming down her face, but it seemed as though she was reaching in the direction of – Horoz, of course!

"You want to get over there, don't you?"

Bāgha was still too young to vocalize her desires, but somehow Okse understood the jist of what she wanted. At the same time, an unusual sensation possessed her...

With a heave-ho, she lifted Bāgha up, as high as she could reach. The infant was nearly touching the ceiling at this point, clawing her way up the wall. "No—"

It was too late. By the time Okse realized what was happening, Bāgha made her way through the portal, her tiny body pushing it closed behind her—sealing it.

As the sensation passed, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach made Okse ill.

"...what's happening down there..." came Horoz's voice. "It sounds a bit quiet. TOO quiet."

"Bāgha's gone," she murmured.

"...what?"

"YOUR BRAT CLOSED THE PORTAL!" Okse screamed. "Now we're trapped for real!"

Silence again. Then, unabated laughter. Whatever, she didn't want to know.

What to do, though... It was clear that working alone would do her nothing. If they were to work together, would they really have a chance at getting out of there before someone could work out the correct list order?

Hmm. "Hey, Hunden, sire," Okse called, banging on the wall.

"Yes, my daughter?"

"Tell me how we're working together to get out of here. I'm ready to listen, for once in my life."

Chapter 9, cont.

She wondered what happened to Sjakal. How did she – go? Did she push it as good as Aghvesi but he just happened to get hit with a stroke of luck? What happened in Aghvesi's metal heart that he found the world is not enough, that he was STILL trying to return to ruin their happy home to finish what he'd started? As hard as she thought, Okse couldn't understand his wicked ways, nor how they all fit into his grand scheme.

Then she wondered about Vepar—Orne. How did he ever learn how to open his own transfer point? Or did he? It was possible—he was a default Base-RS learning from a default Base-DK. Drage hadn't learned because he was a taught Base-RS learning from a latent Base-DK...

Only one way to find out. The most recently-used transfer point other than the one Boi had used to arrive here was one nearly a li away. It always struck Okse as odd that crossings from the same plane weren't geographically similar, but perhaps this was for her benefit—it wouldn't have gotten her anywhere to have to travel the same distance but in a foreign land.

Her hindlegs hurt as she walked. It was tempting to fall back onto all fours, but she had discovered quickly her native body wasn't built for it—her forelegs were too short and/or hindlegs were too long, and her neck was disjointed such that it pained her to look for too long at the correct angle, following her spine. She stopped to take a break and chew on some foliage, as well, but while it still tasted good, it was like gum compared to before. "When I get ahold of that Arratoi again...!" she grumbled in disgust.

"Need a lift?"

A vehicle pulled to a slow near her, and the person behind the wheel beckoned her over. He appeared to be another lizard with greenish scales and a shock of a brown frill.

"Go away," Okse hissed, feeling her hindlegs ache with each step despite her strength.

"Not often a sweet li'l thing gets stranded on the highway, is it? Where's your car?"

She continued on her way without looking up. "I don't have one."

"So you're just walking along the highway? That's against the law, you know—pedestrians are prohibited."

Though her initial inclination was not to care, Okse had to admit it wasn't a good idea to break laws if she could help it. She'd done the prison thing and didn't look forward to going through that again. "So, what do I do, then?"

"Get in, and I'll take you where you want to go."

It seemed like a reasonable suggestion. "Fine," she conceded, waiting impatiently as he swung the door open for her. Okse took a seat inside, not quite certain what to do.

"You really DON'T have a car, do you?" he noted, reaching over her to pull the door closed, his arm brushing across her front.

"Hey," she barked, smacking his arm away. "Don't touch me."

"Ohhh," the man cooed, "a feisty one. I like you."

Though her instinct was still against trusting strangers—especially ones from a whole other realm of existence—Okse had to admit it seemed nice being complimented. She couldn't recall anyone other than Sjakal saying anything remotely nice to her.

"So, where are you headed?"

"About a li from here. I can point the way."

"Point? You can't tell me the address?"

"Nope." She might as well tell him as little as possible, including that she had no idea what he meant by address. At least he didn't ask her what a li was.

"What about where it is you're going? Can't you tell me anything about THAT?"

"Nope."

"Ha ha." He started the car moving again with a roar of the engine, accelerating so hard that Okse flew back against her seat. "Well, I've got a better idea, anyway."

"Jerk!" she cried, readjusting herself in her seat to account for their speed. "Why didn't you warn me about that?"

"I find it odd that you've been in the city this long without knowing how cars work. I mean, I figured even KIDS know to close the door and buckle your seatbelt, wouldn't you say?"

Okse didn't have a belt on her seat, nor did she want to argue with this guy. "Hey!" she snapped as he turned off in the opposite direction from where she was pointing. "You're not going the way I want to go!"

"Clever bird, aren't you?" he sneered with mischief. "No, I'm NOT going to take you where you wanted to go."

"Why not? And I'm not a bird!" This was getting to be more trouble than it was worth. "Let me out, I'll just walk!"

"Hey, I'm not stopping the car now. Anyway, why walk when we can get some other exercise, ya know?"

"What other—"

She flinched in disgust as the man put his right hand on her left hindleg. Claim to like her or no, even she wasn't so thick as not to realize he wasn't being sincere. It figured as much... Borrowing from Zmaj's technique, Okse shifted back just long enough to get the strength she needed—

*SMASH*

"AAAGH!" The man screamed in pain as his radius snapped—or maybe it was his ulna. Either way, he'd crossed the line. Speaking of, the car was starting to swerve across the lines on the stone river, causing other cars to make loud noises as they crossed paths. It looked like they might hit something...

Okse_PT

In the event the car didn't stop, Boi shifted completely, oblivious to any concern about the man at this point. They skidded across the stone river and into a ditch on the far side, causing Boi to fall out of her seat and onto the man's side. At least they'd stopped.

Grunting in disgust at the turn of events, she smashed the glass at the front of the car to let herself out, leaving the broken car and broken man to their fates. This was turning out to be a disaster! Even at her best, she ended up leaving a trail of destruction in her wake, it seemed.

Shifting back to Base-DK, Okse got a new heading on the transfer points home. There was one on the far side of the planet that had been recently used. That must be the one Drage and Arratoi took. Did she want to use the same? Doubtful—she didn't have the speed or teleportation to get there. No, she might as well try the nearest one again, now a li away.

This time, she refused any sort of contact with the natives. An hour of winding through the city trying to locate a path to her destination passed before she reached the transfer point, outside a run-down shop in a disgusting-looking part of the city. She could sense eyes watching her, but it didn't matter as long as she crossed successfully and closed the transfer—they wouldn't be able to follow.

...would they?

Okse cased the area for the better part of another hour in concern for the safety of her plane. 'Magic' or no, it wouldn't do having aliens from another plane invade, causing even more trouble they didn't need. One last scent—there were natives about, but none that she could detect as a threat. Good. With Sjakal in her mind, Okse squatted down and grabbed onto the transfer point, opening the portal just enough for her to climb through and closing it behind herself before she could be seen.

Or, that was the plan. Instead of closing the portal properly, Okse slipped through and pulled it shut by virtue of falling several paces downwards, only somewhat breaking her fall by having caught the bottom of the portal on her way down.

"OUCH!" she shouted as she impacted the floor, nevertheless scrambling to regain a battle stance in the event of necessity.

"Who's there?"

As if she was going to answer! Okse tucked herself into the shadows, trying her best not to be seen.

"...that's not going to work, you know."

What? She finally took a moment to examine her surroundings. Okse was in a strangely familiar location—barred door on one side of a small room opposite the corner she had tucked into, dishevelled prisoners huddled in the opposite corner...

Wait. "I'm back at Aghvesi's prison," she droned, mentally kicking herself in the head. "Of all the luck..."

"You know Aghvesi?" the prisoner growled, taking a defensive stance. "How?"

"Relax," Okse grumbled. "I was one, too, before Vepar—"

"You know VEPAR?!" The girl was flat-out incensed.

"He broke me OUT!"

The words seemed to snap the girl out of her rage. Somewhat. "Why? And why would you come back?"

"I bribed him," she admitted. Why not? "Anyway, it doesn't matter, 'cause I hear he got into a pinch, same as me. Neither of us are much better off for it. Look at me—that ditz Arratoi morphed me into some kind of weird alien thing."

Now she had the girl's attention. "Who are you, then? ...Arratoi? That stupid little Base-FR/B brat?"

"It's a VERY long story, but I'm Okse. My default is Boi."

It was hard to see her do it against the shadows filling the cell, but the girl nearly collapsed in astonishment. "BOI? Of Teimoso style?! There's no possible way!"

"Believe me, I don't believe it any more than you do. I hate this new body. It's disgusting and brought me nothing but trouble."

"Heh. I kinda know the feeling. I'm Kogut, default Horoz."

It was Okse's turn, though she was going to collapse into laughter. "You shift into a girl?!"

Miffed, Kogut crossed her arms in irritation. "I told you I know the feeling. Anyway, this is Bāgha." She indicated the infant girl at her feet. "And both of us would be much obliged if you could help us out somehow."

Okse frowned. "There's the problem—I don't know if I can."

"What? How did you get in here?"

"I shifted to Base-DK to planewalk," she explained, deciding to mince the details for brevity. "The problem is there's a limitation to how much one can planewalk between two specific planes without knowing how to form transfer points—which I don't. The transfer point I used is up there—" She indicated the flapping bit where the portal didn't quite seal. "—but it goes back to somewhere I'm certain isn't exactly safe."

"It HAS to be better than here," Kogut protested in disgust.

"Easy for you to say. You haven't been there."

"After going out of my mind from almost four days of captivity, I'd take anything. ANYTHING."

"Well, can't say I didn't warn you, then," Okse stated, wandering over to the bars. She shifted briefly, repeating her first break-out, but the bars refused to budge without her mirror match assist helping on the other side. "Ugh, still with the anti-spell barrier?!"

"Of course, idiot."

Chapter 9, cont.

Speaking of... "How likely are we to encounter natives? Should you morph us to blend in with them?"

Arratoi sighed. "I suppose..."

"Hey, I just think it's not a good idea to stand out as we do."

She glared at Boi then, for a moment, looked wistfully at Zmaj with what seemed to be disappointment. "Get down, Zmaj," Arratoi ordered, raising her hands to perform the incantation.

In response, he started humming an upbeat tune, jigging to the left and right as he remained sitting on Boi.

"I meant get off of Boi!"

"Okay." He did as he was told.

Another sigh, then both Boi and Zmaj changed shape. Boi felt uncomfortable as her center of gravity shifted as her body grew vertically, her neck craned forward at an awkward angle, and strange appendages sprouted from her hooves. "Gah!" she cried, trying to parse her new form.

"Must be strange standing on two legs," Arratoi noted, briefly taking the shape of a mirror. "Looks funny, too."

Boi stared at her reflection. She seemed to be a large red reptile with a sleek body that looked painfully fragile, covered in a dress that only vaguely resembled her old coat. When she tried walking in the shoes and stockings now covering her hindlegs, she did so without any coordination, feeling at any moment that she would fall forward onto her forelegs again. That probably wouldn't be so bad, she supposed—

"OW!" As she fell forward, her forelegs buckled from the impact, stinging in pain despite her strength. "What did you do—"

"You lummox!" Arratoi chided, waggling her finger as she morphed back to the form of a native, a flattened-faced version of her prior self but with full body covering. "You aren't as thick in native form as you are naturally! They don't walk around on all fours like that!"

"You could have warned me!"

"Yes," she retorted, looking way, "I could have..."

Boi scowled, wincing as she tried to heave herself up again. "What did I ever do to YOU? And how do I get up?"

No cutting remark this time, instead a glower fading to a frown of – embarrassment, maybe?

"You! Zmaj! Help me up."

"Okay." Native-Zmaj, similarly flattened-faced and covered, took ahold of Boi's foreleg and helped her onto her hindlegs again, keeping ahold of her hand while she tried to keep her balance. She was determined to learn this time, rather than fall victim to the idiot whims of that immature brat again.

It was so foreign to her, however, that she couldn't make any sort of headway until she thought of Sjakal—and Vepar—and how their returning to their own plane depended on being able to navigate this one. She imagined being Sjakal, walking with the same gait, swinging her tail at the same tempo, pausing and turning to glare at the others with the same mannerisms. "Let's go," she snapped, getting into the role as though becoming Sjakal would be the key to finding her.

"Where?" asked Arratoi, the tone in her voice betraying more than a hint of skepticism about Boi's ability to find her way where they had been trapped for seven years.

"This point," she noted, indicating the spot where they entered, "is the nearest transfer point between our plane and this one. However, it's tied to location, so if we return through it, we will emerge at the same place but a later time. I'm NOT taking the shuttle again, so we need to find the point where it crosses at the retreat." AND they needed to find Sjakal.

"How do we find our transfer point, then?"

Boi didn't want to admit that she didn't quite know. Arratoi was already aggravating enough without being justified. "We go with the flow."

"What—"

Not the least bit interested in hearing Arratoi argue, Boi continued in the direction she was headed, scenting the ebb and flow of the cosmos. There were definitely multiple points where the planes intersected—six, in fact. She hoped that one of the six was still the point where Vepar emerged, and that it hadn't advanced TOO far. "This way," she ordered, walking as best she could over the grassy buffet she kept eyeing in greed. If the three of them got stuck here forever, at least Boi would die happy, eating her life away.

"How far?" Arratoi complained, crossing her arms.

So impatient! "Have to follow to see."

"If it's far, do you seriously expect us to walk the whole way?"

SO impatient. "YES."

"Hmph!" Native-Arratoi shifted, taking a different hue despite retaining her shape—at least that much was the same.

Arratoi_FI

Rotta focused her energy on the ground before them, pulling raw materials from the ground and forming a two-seater motorbike with sidecar. She shifted back and regained her prior hue, indicating the bike in expectation. "Do you object?"

Boi raised what passed for an eyebrow at her. "To your rampant disregard for a foreign land and dismissive use of mana? Maybe."

"This is faster!" she protested, turning to Zmaj. "Get on."

"Okay," he agreed in blind obedience. Didn't that moron think for himself at all?

"Hmph," Boi grumbled, starting to take the seat behind Zmaj.

"That's mine!" Arratoi fussed, rushing over and hefting herself onto it, grabbing Zmaj from behind. "You get the sidecar."

Was it worth arguing? Shaking her head, Boi clambered into the sidecar, feeling strange leaning back as she did. Once the three were seated, Zmaj revved the engine, ready to take off. "Lead the way!" he cheered.

Boi scented the flow again. "I will point in the direction you need to go," she explained, figuring the roar of the engine would drown out hers once they were in motion.

"Okay."

She pointed along a line of code that wavered through the valleys and hills. Zmaj followed obediently – until they arrived at an odd set of stone rivers, driving the bike onto one and following it instead of taking the direct path. "Where are you going?" she cried, distressed that he would disobey her direction so suddenly.

"Rules of this plane," Arratoi shouted over the rush of the wind. "We have to travel on these roads where they exist! We only drove over the grass because we had to do so in order to get here!"

It made sense, Boi supposed. Why tear up perfectly good food? "But we need to follow the flow, or we might emerge in a different time frame!"

"Then we'll follow it back until we find the one we want!"

"You don't understand the transfer protocol," Boi protested with a growl. "Crossings may be plentiful, but the chance of finding the ONE we want out of the infinite that exist is astronomically low. Furthermore, all planes travel in one direction, so if we pass our transfer point, it will stick and we can't go back—we'll be stuck ten, fifteen, maybe even a THOUSAND years in the future from what we know."

Arratoi was quiet for a moment. "...so?"

"So I prefer the devil I know to the devil I don't—even if this world has some truly gourmet nosh. Or, if we go back at all, I'd sooner go back to when the people I know are still around."

Arratoi had a look as though she didn't care, but there was still a twinge of what Boi hoped was guilt. "Just tell us where we need to go," she said in as emotionally-neutral a tone as possible.

"White light!" Zmaj shouted out of nowhere, staring into the mirror on his handlebars. Boi looked behind her and saw a vehicle with flashing blue and white lights.

"Pull over, then," Arratoi ordered. "See what they want."

"Alcohol, alcohol, alcohol, white light!" Zmaj blurted as he stopped the motorbike by the right side of the stone river.

"What's happening?" Boi asked, blinded by the light.

"Those are the bobbies of this plane," Arratoi explained, glowering yet again. "They make sure we drive at the correct speed on the road and obey all these other arbitrary rules – so let's see which one we broke now."

"Okay," Zmaj agreed on cue.

"Do you always do what everyone tells you?" Boi argued, becoming rather annoyed by his perpetual agreeableness.

He had a chagrined look. "...mostly."

Boi was tempted to say something, but by then the bobby arrived. "Good morning, y'all," she greeted, lifting her cap as she stood to the right of Boi's sidecar.

"'Allo, mum," Zmaj replied in his most polite voice.

"Y'all are aware of the helmet laws in Cross-Two, aren't ya?"

"Oh, is THAT all!" Arratoi exclaimed, starting to wave her hands.

"Arratoi," Boi warned under her breath. "Don't be stupid."

"Stupid?" the bobby asked, suspicious. "Y'all up to no good?"

"Nooo," Zmaj whined, clutching his head. "I don't break rules!"

"Well, that's not 'xactly true," the bobby noted. "As I mentioned, we got helmet laws here. Y'all are supposed to wear 'em for safety."

"I din't know!" he blurted again, to Boi's irritation.

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse, young 'un – and, if I do say so myself, ya do look kinda on the young side. Now, might I be able to see yer license and registration?"

"Zmaj," Arratoi prodded, "tell her we don't need to show those things while I – go get us some helmets."

Boi glanced over at Zmaj, startled to see a subtle shift in his hue—not the noticeable degree to which base shifting normally occurred. "We don't need to show those things," he said, seemingly oblivious to how odd this sounded, as Arratoi disembarked and skipped off the stone river and behind a tree.

The bobby blinked at him but seemed convinced. "Aight, y'all," she noted, "everything seems to be in order."

"Huh?" Boi blurted, glancing back the way Arratoi headed then back at Zmaj. Something had happened, but she wasn't sure what.

As if on cue, Arratoi returned with three sets of helmets. "I'm sorry about that, mum," she apologized in a totally fake tone. "We'll be sure to wear them at all times. We don't mean to cause any trouble. Tell her, Zmaj."

"Yeah," he echoed, "we don't mean to cause any trouble."

Boi frowned, flinching in reflex as Arratoi slapped one of the helmets on her head without warning. "Hey!"

"Well, I'll just let y'all off with a warning, then," the bobby replied, tipping her cap again. "I'm doing this for y'all's safety, ya know."

"Of course, mum," Arratoi cheered in a sickeningly sweet voice, plopping Zmaj's helmet on his head before slipping on hers and sliding back onto her seat.

With a wave, the bobby returned to her vehicle, allowing the trio to continue unhindered. Zmaj started the motorbike again and headed in the direction of the flow to the best of his ability.

"Just what was that?" Boi shouted over the engine's roar. "Did you shift? Because that didn't look like a shift."

"I don't need to shift all the way," Zmaj answered, somehow never losing his focus as he drove, kept an eye on Boi, and answered her all at the same time.

"So you know Base-MY, too?"

"I used Base-IN—but yes, I know Base-MY, too."

Boi had to admit she was impressed with his demonstration of skill. "...you've taken 'idiot savant' to a completely new level. I didn't think it was possible to self-teach so many bases."

"'Necessity is the mother of invention.'"

"Huh?"

"It's a saying here," Arratoi interrupted, seemingly annoyed that Zmaj was so open with Boi. "Desperate people have to learn quickly in order to survive."

"And Drache is the quickest!" Zmaj cheered, proud of his default.

"So why do you stay in Base-RS?" Boi asked, trying to understand.

"It's the fastest junction between bases. I can be fast in my default base, but it is faster to use the universal synch base hub to pull directly from another base."

So maybe it WAS possible for him to learn Base-DK if he could pull from the latent knowledge Boi had... "Stop here."

Zmaj looked for an opening, then pulled the motorbike to the side of the stone river again. "Are we there yet?"

She stared at him in earnest. "I'm serious this time—learn Base-DK from what you can pull from me."

"Okay," he answered without hesitation, staring back.

Zmaj_MY

Naga plumbed Boi's history, causing her to wince as he sifted through every memory of Sjakal, Aghvesi – Vepar – plastic jungle sans soleil – in search of black & blue cult logic...

...burial song for no one...

"I change shapes just to hide in this place, but I'm still—"

Boi felt a wave of shock overcome her at the realization as her history flew before her eyes.

"—I'm still an animal."

"What was that?" Arratoi asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

She lowered her head in shame as the memories pieced together, forming a picture of herself she had never seen before. "I'm this thick, rampaging beast with no concept of how people interact with each other. That's why nobody likes me."

"And?"

Boi gave her an incensed look. "Have you never been treated as an outcast for who you are, not having a clue you were supposed to be someone else? Been sheltered from the truth by a well-intentioned prior who thought she was just keeping you from being discouraged by the slightest negative idea?"

Arratoi crossed her arms in dismissal, looking away. "Nope!"

She narrowed her eyes. "Disliked by someone you liked because you have such an abrasive personality that HE has to be ORDERED to help you?"

"...I don't know what you're talking about."

"In your eyes, I see the eyes of somebody who could be strong."

No response.

"Tell me if I'm wrong."

"Naga, are you done yet?" she snapped, trying to change the subject.

"I know kung-fu," he responded without thinking.

"Do you know Base-DK or not?"

Naga_DK

Drage shifted, though the blank look on his face didn't immediately betray any indication of comprehension. Boi worried for a moment that he might have suffered a function overload—one of the dangers of learning unprepared.

"I see our transfer point," he declared at last.

"It connects to the retreat site?"

"I don't want to go back there!" Arratoi protested.

"We have to go back!" Boi countered. "We don't belong here!"

"I don't care!"

"We're going back," Drage continued, an ominous look in his eye as his gaze met theirs in turn. "That is my order."

Arratoi pouted, stomping her foot in protest. "But I don't want to go back there! STAY HERE, I'm ordering you!"

"WE ARE GOING BACK, ARRATOI."

The shock of his seemingly going against a direct order stunned both Arratoi and Boi. "But..."

"My loyalty is to Hebi," Drage growled, expression turning dark. "What orders of yours I followed, I did so to fulfill hers—to go after you and bring you back."

It surprised Boi to see him mature so quickly, relatively speaking, but she could hardly protest the idea of going home at last. Maybe even... "Oh," she blurted, "can you see Sjakal's trail? Since you read my history, you know what she looks like—"

"Sjakal is defeated," Drage declared bluntly, the blood draining from his face. "Aghvesi brought down a network four thousand systems removed from here."

Boi couldn't understand his words. "Sjakal—"

"—was in the system crash."

She frowned at him. Was she just thick all around? "But she—"

"—IS GONE."

Boi stared at him, feeling a disconnect between her brain and her body. The words were cold and unfamiliar, though she knew them. She knew that she knew them. Her mind just didn't know how to process them.

Drage softened his expression, the gravity of his words emphasized in his manner. "I'm sorry."

The grief that welled in Boi's heart was crushed by the anger that swelled from her blood boiling. "AGHVESI!" she screeched, slamming her forelegs on the sidecar's rims. "WHERE IS HE?!"

"Trapped, but trying to find a way back to our plane."

"Find him, so I can KILL HIM."

"No."

"FIND HIM!"

Drage glared at her with the same stern disapproval he gave Arratoi earlier. "I have my orders," he barked, starting the motorbike again. "We are going back."

Boi slammed again, hefting herself up and clambering out of the sidecar. "I'm not going back there until I have Aghvesi's head on a silver platter!"

"Then stay here, but I am taking Arratoi back."

As much as she didn't care for these two, Boi still had to admit she was unprepared to strike off on her own. "Wait."

Twitching his ear, Drage gave her one last expectant look, as though to ascertain whether he would be able to carry out her order without further conflict of interest.

"Somehow, you pieced together the holes in my understanding." Boi crossed her arms in determination. "Teach me what I need to know in order to find him myself."

He stared at her as though she had turned into a one-winged angel. "You already know."

"Wha—hey!"

It was no use. Drage sped away without another word, focused on his mission. Boi choked back the impulse to cry – or throw up, she wasn't sure which, since they were both unfamiliar feelings.

Now what. At least—she hoped—if Drage was confident enough in his comprehension of Base-DK to leave without her, then he also understood the importance of not screwing up the transfer, so she wasn't too worried about returning too far into the future if she ever got back to her home plane, much less the retreat and its ongoings. However, she had still never planewalked before without Sjakal's guidance, much less alone, and she had no idea where to start.

No. There was one obvious place to start.

Boi_DK

Okse was astonished that that worked. Perhaps the foundation had been there all along, and she had been too thick to realize it was there at all. Drage/Naga might have put the pieces in place in her mind and simply copied her own knowledge, as well, but the fact remained that she had learned a new base. It filled her with mixed feelings, that what should have been her finest moment was tinged with such deep regret. Now that made two people whose lives she had ruined...

Well, no point living in the past. Okse had to do what she could to undo as much as she could of the damage she'd accidentally created. She scented the ebb and flow, reading its code for the information she needed. It would take a greater understanding than she had to create her own ports the way Sjakal could, but at least she could divine the ones that already existed.

As she started to walk toward the next transfer point, Okse realized she was still in native form. It was awkward—she could tell her teeth were different, not suitable for eating the lush vegetation here, besides the whole walking-on-two-legs thing. What a pain!

...but learning Base-FR/B just to change back to her proper form would be more trouble than it was worth, at least for now. Sighing, Okse traipsed along the side of the stone river wondering what to do, other than not get hit by the other vehicles travelling on it.

Chapter 9: Boi Teimoso

Taking the automatic public shuttle this distance was draining, in all respects. Unfortunately, Sjakal didn't answer any of Boi's summons anymore, which was worrisome to say the least. She wondered what became of the three of them, even that jerk Aghvesi who got them all into this mess in the first place.

Vepar, though—he wasn't prepared for planewalking. It was one thing to have the ability to emulate others. It was another entirely to get thrown into another plane of existence where all the rules were changed. Of the three, he was the least likely to come back...

And it was her fault, sort of. Yes, Aghvesi was ultimately at fault, but she dragged Vepar into the battle with Sjakal. It was difficult to overcome the feeling of responsibility. Maybe if she had been taken along with them, she could have helped, rather than be stuck here feeling stranded and alone.

"Now arriving at fourth face port 20,59. Last stop for this line, all disembark. Please see a ticketmaster for transfer options. Thank you for choosing Automatic for the People."

The automated recording shut off abruptly as Boi disembarked. She glanced around the unfamiliar port, not certain where to go and really starting to regret not learning at least some of Sjakal's base. However, even learning basic shortcuts proved to be irritating—how difficult would it have been to learn what was arguably the most complicated base in existence?

"Hoy," she called to an agent, ambling toward the nearest booth and thumping her hooves on the counter. "How do I get to the Zither-Ay Reefs Retreat grounds?"

The agent made the same face everyone made when she ambled up, which would have gotten old long ago if she hadn't had thick skin. "Off the counter, please!"

"I don't have hands. This is how I have to see you."

"Well, your hooves are dirty. Please take them off the counter."

"Then how am I supposed to talk to you? I can't see you from all the way down there."

"You can back up a bit to where I can see you."

Boi grumbled but did as she was instructed. "So?"

"Destination?"

"I told you!" she snarled. "Zither-Ay Reefs Retreat grounds!"

"What face is that?"

"You're the agent. You're supposed to know this."

"Perhaps, but it's not one of our stops."

"Just Google it."

"We are not authorized to use—" The agent stared at her dark and menacing glare for a bit, finally shaking his head in defeat. "Fine." He looked up the location from the global online optical grid list engine and cross-checked it with the shuttle directory. "Okay. You want to take the XYZ shuttle to fourth face port 21,53 and transfer at third face port 3,8. From there, it's one more transfer to second face port 9,3. I hope you know the way from there, because I can't help you after that."

"Thanks," Boi grumbled, turning around so quickly that she whacked a big notch in the booth.

"Hey!" the agent shouted, but Boi didn't care anymore. She needed to keep her skin thick for the dull trip still ahead of her. Grumbling, she searched the port for XYZ shuttle with considerable difficulty, since few of the signs were readable at her four-legged height.

As it happened, Boi was getting bored enough that she was starting to wish Vepar had never broken her out. At least then she had an excuse for not getting anywhere, instead of being lost in Yonkers. Furthermore, everyone was treating her like a stupid beast—she couldn't recall being treated like such an outcast before Sjakal lost contact. Did her prior really serve as such a thick buffer between Boi and other people? If so, that was just one more thing she should have already learned that she would have to learn to do on her own. It had just never been enough of a priority for her to be independent, something the retreat made clear, which must have been why she was sent in the first place...

As she was thinking it would be terribly convenient if a sort of deus ex machina would help her find her way back to the Brigade, Boi happened to scent the flow again. Or, 'scent' was the closest sense to how she could detect the crossings of planes, but she could feel it growing stronger again. "Sjakal?" she cried in excitement, trotting in the direction of the flow. She jabbed her snout into the heart of the crossing, waiting in anticipation. "Sjakal!"

A grubby hand latched onto her horn, and Boi pulled back in reflex, startled. It felt completely unlike Sjakal, which meant it could be anything or anyone... As she withdrew from the flow, Boi dragged a sweaty young man through the rift, one with four ears and wearing a mud-caked poncho. "Eek!" cried a young woman holding fast to his back, wearing wings and a sparkling headband.

"Who are you?" Boi demanded, ready to throw them back through the rift at the first sign of trouble. "Where's Sjakal?"

The young man stood, brushing himself off. "I am Zmaj of Odani style!" he blurted, as ordered. "I do not know a Sjakal person!"

The young woman was somewhat less obliging. "Who are YOU?" she demanded, glaring at her in suspicion, turning to the young man in dismay. "I wish you wouldn't tell everyone we meet who you are, Zmaj!"

"But she asked me, Arratoi!"

"Arratoi?" Boi stared at them more closely. The young woman bore a close resemblance to that undisciplined girl with Cavall, and the young man resembled that insipid boy with Hebi. "Were you two part of the Brigade?"

They stared at her in surprise for a bit, exchanging glances as they seemed to recall long-distant memories. "Are you – Boi?" Arratoi asked, lowering her guard.

Boi was astonished beyond comprehension, nearly falling over save that this was a harder task for a four-leg to accomplish. "How did YOU two planewalk?"

There was a moment when the two staggered in synch, feeling the effects of lag. The feeling passed as quickly as it began, however—if they were, in fact, the two Boi thought they were, they had been young and resilient enough to learn the pitfalls of planewalking without suffering from any permanent side effects. "Orne came through a tear, and we went through it," Zmaj answered at last.

"Orne?" She parsed the root, eyes widening as she did. "Vepar?!"

"You remember that?" Arratoi seemed surprised, scratching her chin in thought. "It was so long ago..."

"How long has it been?" Boi probed, trying to ascertain the extent of their journey. Due to the infinite scope of planes, it was unlikely that they stumbled upon Sjakal, but the chances improved the longer they had been away—relatively speaking.

"I was Grade 6 when we entered the tear!" Zmaj answered without hesitation. "I am now Grade 13!"

"Zmaj!" Arratoi complained, scowling at him. It was clear she still didn't trust others, even of her own plane.

This time, Boi parsed Zmaj's root. "So you learned his base," she deduced. "Base-RS—how did you manage it?"

"Base-DE is the fastest default base!" he shouted, just as blunt in his obedience as when he was a pup.

"I mean, who taught you?"

"No one taught me!"

Bold declarations, indeed! To learn a complex base in the time to advance only seven grades? "How did you learn?"

"Hebi told me to go after Arratoi and bring her back! I did what I needed to do!"

"Amazing," Boi mused. "You're some kind of idiot savant. So if I told you to learn Base-DK, you would?"

Zmaj shrugged. "I'unno."

"How did you open the rift?"

"I saw your horn and knew it was from a plasma plane. Arratoi told me that that was the way to find the way home again, to look for a plasma plane, so I grabbed ahold."

Really? That meant... "Can you go back?"

Zmaj turned around, reaching out to the spot where the rift had been moments before. "Where?"

So it wasn't his own ability alone. Then... "Get on, both of you."

"What?" Arratoi snapped, obstinant. "No way!"

"Get on, unless you WANT to hang around fourth face port 20,59."

She glared at Boi, looking around the port. As she did, her face fell, that expression of a lost child in an unfamiliar place displacing her haughtiness. "...fine," she mumbled. "Let's get on, Zmaj."

He did as he was told, taking a seat behind Boi's shoulders. Arratoi sat down behind him, grabbing him tightly around his waist. "Now emulate me," Boi instructed.

As she poked her snout back into the flow, Boi felt Zmaj amplifying the strength of her latent Base-DK ability. It took some rifling around in planarspace to find a hold, but she did, hefting herself and her passengers forward into another plane of existence.

What she saw – was beautiful.

The earth was lush, with verdant fields unlike the golden but crisp, dry grasses on the star. Even the hills were green, not rocky or the equivalent of large mounds of dirt scattered about the landscape. The air had a hint of something she couldn't quite place when she scented it, but the atmosphere itself was cool and pleasing, vs. hot and desolate. Boi bent her head down and munched on one of the flowers at her feet—it was like eating a piece of heaven.

"Welcome to Terra Firma," Arratoi announced. "Zmaj and I have lived here for – seven years, is it?"

"Sjakal!" Boi cried, her heart racing at the idea of her prior being nearby. "Where are you?"

"I don't think she can hear you, whoever she is. Terra Firma is large and doesn't have quite the same rules."

"What are the differences?" Boi turned her head as best she could to see Arratoi out of one eye. "How do bases work here?"

"The same, we think, but they blanketly call what we do magic. It's been difficult trying to get along here—they aren't at all familiar with what we can do and treat us as monsters or something. I had to teach Zmaj and myself Base-ES/C to help us deal with the natives when we couldn't avoid being seen."

"CTRL-Z!" Zmaj shouted, not truly performing the incantation.

"What are they like?" Boi asked, curious—but not curious enough to engage one of them to find out for herself. "What do they look like? What do they do? What do they wear?"

"They look kind of like us," Arratoi explained, thinking of all the various people they had encountered. "The pups don't have legs like ours before we come of age, though, and most have weird flattened snouts. They wear clothes all of the time, covering most of their bodies, I think because all of them have very thin fur – like they're bald except on their heads. None of them use their bases or really ANY kinds of spells except rudimentary ones, and those by using the raw ingredients directly, such as actual eggs and flour and putting them over a fire for 35 mins when conjuring a cake. Simply reciting the components and performing the ritual doesn't work."

Such a strange realm! "How did you survive here for so long? I mean, the vegetation is divine, yes—"

"I finally mastered Base-FR/B. It took some effort, but I can shift our forms to appear to be like the natives." She disembarked to allow Boi the ability to witness her mastery. "Like this."

Boi flinched to see Arratoi morph into a bushy-haired girl with a strange dress and frizzy striped tail. She had the legs of an adult, with tiny feet compared to her pup form's, and she had sleek skin that was hairless like Boi's, but not scaly like Boi's.

"This is the shape of a girl I observed, by the name of Aitne."

"Name?" Boi cocked her head at the concept. "What is that?"

Aitne-Arratoi bit her tongue to think about how to compose her answer. "It's – a strange piece of code, seemingly unrelated to anything about the person, used to identify the person. Apparently there are only about eight distinct roots on this planet, so no one uses them to identify each other. This girl is a root ursine, sub-routine cacomistle—I think."

"Are the males different?"

Arratoi morphed again, this time taking the form of a small boy with a thin tail, wearing some kind of uniform and hard shoes. "This is the one I've seen hanging around Aitne sometimes, by name of Darian—root jird, sub-routine vole. I've even talked to him once in Aitne's form, to see if I could fool him. He wasn't convinced, though, and he managed to talk me into revealing my secrets. I was able to revert him, though."

"Is that wise?" Boi scolded. "Who knows how the natives might react to things that aren't natural for them? Don't you know what happens when nonindigenous things are introduced to a habitat that doesn't know how to handle them?"

She morphed back to her default state. "It's FINE," she insisted, haughty again. "I watch closely to make sure nothing happens to change them permanently."

Boi had a difficult time believing this, but she wasn't the one who lived here for years, surviving on her wits.

Chapter 8, end.

After retrieving the shield from the golem, Vidra shifted back to Loutre, teleporting back to the hospital with Arratoi, where he shifted back to Nutria. Both walked straight back to Orne's room, though it was difficult to say which was more put off by their newfound knowledge.

"Are you rested, sire?" he asked, forcing a smile that looked painful.

As though sensing his consciousness was required, Orne stirred at the words. "I will tell you what I can," was all he would say.

"What did you do with Hunden." It was not a question as much as a demand. "Tell me where he is."

He struggled to think. "Vepar's memories are slow to recall. Many are lost in other planes. I'm overcoming gravity. It's easy when you're sad to be. It's easy when you're sad, sad like me."

"Please. His safety depends on what you can remember."

"I like pleasure spiked with pain, and music is my aeroplane..."

If Nutria was upset at having gibberish spouted at him, he didn't let on just yet.

"It's my aeroplane..."

"How many planes have you experienced?"

Orne was almost chanting now. "The earth, the air, the fire, the water. Return, return, return, return."

"Music is – air?" Arratoi asked, confused.

Nutria stared blankly for a moment. "You may have something there, my dear!" he muttered, recalling Orne's history again. "Look, here—" He pointed to a random pop-up, depicting a floating island. "This land must be ruled by the sky, aeroplane. Another—" This one depicted a massive waterworld. "Hydroplane. Ours must be an earth plane?"

"Plasma."

This was Orne interrupting, a snippet of sanity breaking through.

"The star is plasma. A rarity—how to find the way home again. How will I find what is near? Don't question. I'm not alone. Somehow, I'll find my way home."

"So the plane's determinant is not the ground beneath us – but our world's uniqueness?"

"You must find..." Orne was starting to cringe again, as though in pain. "Boi—your prior is gone."

"Boi?" Nutria prompted.

"I know her!" Arratoi volunteered, leaping at her chance to prove useful. "She's on the Brigade, too!" Her smile vanished nearly as quickly as it came. "Or – she was."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "ANOTHER vanishing?"

"I think. I haven't seen her since almost the start of the hunt."

"Hmm." Vidra shifted, closing his eyes. "She's returning from fifth face. Highly unusual that she would be there, but I don't see any indication that she's in trouble or being pursued." When he opened his eyes again, he had a determined expression. "I'm going to contact the captains about this. The hunt should be stopped at once to prevent further disappearances."

"But—" Arratoi protested. How could she already have outlived her usefulness?

"Furthermore, I insist that you return to your prior—and please do, because I will be tracking you to make sure you go. Thank you for all your help, but Orne will be fine here."

Her lip trembled in aggravation and disappointment. No way did she want to go back, now that she was starting to get an idea of what true freedom was like! Cavall may know more than she did, but Arratoi couldn't stand the idea of going back to that kind of life. Yet, she couldn't think of a good reason to disobey Vidra's orders. "Okay," she mumbled, feeling the lowest she had felt in her entire life.

When Vidra—as Nutria once again—returned to Orne's caretaking, Arratoi could find no excuse to stick around, nothing to do but loiter, and that was boring. With a heavy heart and heavier feet, she trudged out of the hospital, waving goodbye to the receptionist, ambling with baby steps back to the hotel to start to get some idea of how to find the others...

"ARRATOI."

Jolting out of her stupor, she jumped to nearly her full height in astonishment at being addressed. It was Cavall, glaring angrily at her from the hotel lawn, where—

Oh. She had STILL not picked up her rod. And Cavall was viewing its history again.

Arguing seemed futile, but it was still expected—hence her surprise at Cavall's failure to initiate it. Only when they were in punching distance did Cavall speak again. "What happened."

Arratoi gulped, too nervous to speak. "I – was—"

"That looked like Vepar on your rod's history. When I interrogated them, the captains finally confessed to keeping a tally of missing persons. WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM."

She was almost too stunned to answer. "He's – in the hospital behind the building," she stammered, pointing.

"Are the others there."

"N-no, they aren't." This was strange behaviour even for Cavall. "I only saw Orne."

"Orne?"

She choked on her answer, wondering if she said something wrong. "H-he's learned Base-DK."

Still staring, Cavall did not speak again for an uncomfortable length of time, which put Arratoi ill at ease. Why wouldn't she do or say something that she normally said or did?

"Cavall!" Hebi rushed up, followed obediently by Drache. At least that much was going for her. "You found Arratoi, good. I heard there was talk about cancelling the hunt?"

Cavall pointed out the history pop-ups on Arratoi's rod. "Look. This is Vepar, I think. Arratoi says he's been taken to the hospital behind the hotel, but none of the other missing persons are there. We're going to talk with him once he's recovered to try to find out what happened to the others."

"'Allo, Drache," Arratoi greeted, trying to salvage some of her day. He still wouldn't have any part of being around her, though.

"Arratoi," Hebi ordered, "you and Drache go back to your rooms in the hotel. We're staying the night again, then we're packing up for home first thing at starting-sun."

"But—!" Though the words didn't come from Cavall, it was evident that she had a part in the decision. It looked like her adventure was over. "Aww..."

In disappointment, she threw her head back to wail at the sky – only to realize the – SOMETHING was still there, flapping lightly in the evening breeze.

"Escape," she thought, mustering all her strength from their hidden reserves. "To the freedom!"

With a mighty leap, Arratoi bounded higher than she'd ever leapt before, touching the – SOMETHING with her hand. "Arratoi!" Hebi shrieked, grabbing for her.

No! Recalling Loutre's spells, Arratoi summoned every iota of teleportation power she was capable of casting into keeping herself aloft long enough to grab onto the tear in reality.

"ARRATOI!" Cavall barked, starting another spell to call her back, but it was too late. Arratoi slipped through the tear in reality into another plane of existence.

Hebi stared at the tear, partially sealed after Arratoi's passage through, then down at her rod, then at Drache. "Follow her," she ordered, gritting her teeth as she did.

Drache looked up at her with a pitiful expression, making it clear he wanted no part of it.

"Neither of us can do it! Please, go after her and bring her back!"

Whimpering as Hebi lifted him up to throw him towards the tear, Drache nevertheless made a mighty leap—not as far as Arratoi could, but far enough that he could grab on and pull his way through. As he did, the tear sealed itself, vanishing into thin air.

Chapter 8, cont.

"The question NOW is," Nutria continued, "what do you want to do? First is, obviously, come to terms with your current reality. If you don't want a reversion, then you have to accept your advanced age now. I don't believe we have any specialists who know the best way to help you manage the shock—"

"The enumerations," Orne interrupted.

"...come again?"

"Is it still tenth day?"

"...yes. What do you mean—"

Orne closed his eyes again, looking as though he intended to fall back asleep. He was silent thereafter.

"Sire?" Nutria prompted, but he was not answered. "Well, we shall allow you to rest, then, and we can pick up where we left off later."

Arratoi frowned at the idea of waiting even more. She wanted answers NOW!

"Now, about you, my dear," he continued, clapping his hands in expectation. "Have you brunched?"

"Oh—no, sire," she responded in politeness. It didn't do to be rude to the one bringing a free meal!

"Luckily, we do not have many patients today—rare for us during a hunt, you know."

"Really?" Arratoi thought about how many people must get hurt here fighting all the time.

"Let's head down to the canteen for a bite, shall we?"

She grinned in pleasure. So far, she was doing quite well on her own, thank you very much!

They walked down the hall and around the bend to a closet of a canteen, with barely even a single counter to serve people. Nutria waved to the server with a big grin on his face. "Just the #5 today," he ordered.

"#5 coming up!" He touched some buttons on the register. "On your tab?"

"Yeah, I'll wire you the money at the end of the week, as per usual."

"Always a pleasure, doc."

Despite the cozy size of the canteen, the server conjured a large tray of food in the blink of an eye. "Thanks a lot, Dachs," he cheered, turning to Arratoi. "Here you go, sweetie."

"For me?" she asked, startled by how much there was.

"We can share some of it, if you like. It's a small price to pay for some company."

"Thank you," she replied, starting to feel her thanking muscles get worn out.

They exited the canteen and took a seat outside at a table under a large shade tree. Arratoi tucked in with a voracious appetite while Nutria watched on, paying little mind to the meal. "Are you on the hunt, then?" he asked, after giving some time for her to eat.

Arratoi nodded, albeit with some hesitance. "I – was."

"You don't mean to say you're giving it up just to be with Orne?"

"Not that!" she blurted, "...but – we got separated."

"Well, that shouldn't stop an enterprising young woman like yourself. You can track, can't you?"

"...sort of?"

"It's easy! Let me show you."

Nutria_HU

Vidra shifted before her eyes. It was the first time Arratoi had seen someone do it up close. "Wow," she droned, not certain how to feel. Once again, other people could do things she couldn't...

"Now, then—tell me the root of one of the others in the Brigade," he instructed, eager to demonstrate.

Cavall was the most obvious choice, but Arratoi hardly wanted to find her just yet. "Drache," she declared.

Vidra closed his eyes. "I see him just off fifth face."

"So far!" she whined. As tempting as it was to conjure Drache to her, the spell only seemed to work on the weak—baby Zog or sleeping Orne, for instance.

"He's turning around again, heading back to fourth. Hmm. I guess he's trying to see how fast he can cover each face of the star."

"How fast?"

Nutria opened his eyes again and smiled at her. "I'm not interested in watching anyone for that long. It feels like spying."

At first, she was disappointed, but then Arratoi felt miffed that he was keeping something from her. "Then why did you learn to shift to Base-HU?"

"Couldn't help it. It's my default. I even joined a monastery for a while to come to terms with my spying, but then I decided to study healing—sometimes tracking comes in handy trying to find the injured in the battlefield."

It made sense, but she was still disappointed.

"Speaking of, Orne mentioned the enumerations, which means he is—or WAS—on the hunt as well. Has the Brigade already found their shield?"

"The what?"

"Glory."

Arratoi thought for a bit. "I'unno—no one told me." It didn't help that they didn't have nightly meetings for the Brigade members to share who had found what.

"I'd have to assume no... Were you really not successful in getting into the monastery?"

She vaguely recalled a suggestion of that as an activity. "My prior and I went to the school."

"Hmm." Vidra closed his eyes again, thinking. His cheerful grin turned to a frown as his brow furrowed. "I don't see where your shield has gone."

"How do you mean?"

He opened his eyes, staring straight into hers. "In order to complete the hunt, you will need a default Base-SE. Hunden, my sub, was to assist you in this quest, after defeating his golem. However – I cannot track him."

Arratoi had a difficult time following what he was saying.

"Let me put it this way: There are only two reasons that come to mind why I would not be able to track someone. The first—which I hope is not the case—is that the person I'm tracking has passed on. The second is that he has been put behind a strong anti-spell barrier, though that's not much better because it suggests – interference."

"So," she tried to deduce, "...someone is trying to stop us?"

"Yes, and not as a part of the exercise."

"Isn't it – training? Why would anyone want to do that?"

"I don't know, my dear..." Vidra had a curious look in his eye. "I'm tempted to go on the hunt myself, to find my missing sub."

"But—" Arratoi stopped, unable to voice her objections. If he went to join the Brigade, who would watch Orne?

"I know," he decided. "I'll just pop over to the monastery for a bit and check things out. You're free to come with me, if you like."

What could she say? "Okay."

He grinned at her.

Vidra_FR

Loutre shifted into being, which made Arratoi even more upset, as much as she tried to hide it. How could anyone possibly know so much?! "Take my hand," he told her. "It's easier to keep together this way."

Nodding, she did so.

CTRL-A
CTRL-C
CTRL-F > "Brook Shield"
CTRL-V

Teleporting was a jarring sensation, like being lifted up and out of reality and being dropped back in at the appropriate location. No wonder Hebi had been so mad at her about Zog! "We're here," Loutre noted, shifting back to Vidra.

The monastery was somewhat familiar, now that Arratoi knew which one he meant. She looked around for signs of the Brigade.

"They were definitely here," Vidra commented, pointing at the basilica doors. "The reversion job isn't very good. I can still see cracks from a golem-sized mass hitting it. At least they cleaned up a little this time."

"Where's – Hunden?" She had to think about that a moment.

"Let's see." He pushed open the doors with caution, since under normal circumstances they would already be that way. "Ah, there's his shield."

There was a dented old shield with a coat of arms on the front. It seemed to be hanging in mid-air.

"How is it doing that?" she asked, staring.

"It's being carried by a defensive golem Hunden made for the Brigade to battle. Hmm."

CTRL-U

Vidra cast another spell, bringing up the code for the golem. "I see he designed it to understand who was a threat. Very nice touch! Nullification, though... that may be part of why the reversion didn't take properly."

"Huh?"

He smiled at her again, despite the turn of events. "You will learn all of this some day soon. If you don't, come see me again."

"But I want to know NOW!"

"Hmm." He scratched his chin in thought. "There are two schools of thought—you can learn by reading books about things, or you can learn by being thrust into the thick of it. The latter is just part of what the Brigade is about, but it's also what got your friend Orne where he is now."

"In the hospital?"

"...that, too, yes." Vidra walked down a side hall to the kitchen. "'Allo!" he called, listening carefully for signs of life. Nothing.

"It feels very empty in here," Arratoi noted.

"That it is, my dear." He returned to the antechamber, where the shield continued to hang in mid-air. "Golem!" he called, addressing the invisible thing.

There was no evident answer. Arratoi listened closely but could not detect any sound other than themselves, watched closely but could not see any significant motion.

"I am your implementor's prior. What happened to him?"

There was a flicker as a hologram appeared before them, detailing the history of the day Hunden vanished from the point of view of the golem: Hunden implementing the code then hanging his shield on the golem for what reason, his heading to the kitchen, Furetto leaving the kitchen, Vepar entering the basilica and—

"That's Vepar!" Arratoi shouted in excitement, and the hologram paused, sensing the need.

"Very good observation," Vidra noted, somewhat impatient at the interruption. "Please resume the playback."

—Vepar entering the basilica and heading to the kitchen, then dragging Hunden out on what seemed to be a cushion of air...

End of playback.

"Why didn't you attack?" Vidra asked, annoyed that the golem disobeyed its code.

It popped up an infographic of Vepar as being part of the Brigade and displayed a frame of the playback showing him not having done anything to harm Hunden. In fact, Vepar was using a forcefield to protect him.

Vidra seemed even more dismayed now. "I don't know if this is an oversight on Hunden's part or a deeper conspiracy..." He turned to Arratoi. "We need to find where Hunden went, not just for the sake of the hunt."

"Yes, sire!" she cheered, happy to be recognized as a capable person in her own respect.