The Zombie Knight

Ugh. What a splitting headache. How long had it been since he’d felt one this bad? He thought he’d overcome this problem long ago, but now, here it was again. Old and familiar pain. The kind that brought back memories along with it.

That made it the very worst kind of pain, as far as Jercash was concerned.

He rolled over, only then realizing that he was on the ground. And cold.

Damn cold. It took a minute for his vision to clear. Where the hell was he? The mountains?

What had happened? He tried to recall.

The last thing he remembered...

Ah.

The battle. Right.

Well, shit. That fight had taken place in Kandra, the capital city of Kavia. So if he’d ended up all the way out here, then it must not have gone very well.

Hmm. He remembered a volcano. Specifically, a volcanic eruption, blanketing the horizon. And he remembered--ah.

Gohvis, that wild bastard. Where’d he go? Showing up out of the blue like that and suddenly pitching in with the battle? It had been so out-of-character that it had actually, somehow, made Jercash more concerned about his situation, not less.

Yeah. That was it. The real last thing he remembered. Thinking that if Gohvis was deciding to pitch in, then things must’ve been even worse than he’d thought.

And he’d thought they were pretty bad.

This entire warfront had been left in Jercash’s hands. And at first, it had been quite the endeavor. Jercash hadn’t felt such unquestioned authority at his fingertips in quite some time--hell, maybe ever. With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps that feeling had gotten a bit intoxicating and made him a tad... overzealous.

Especially after he and his boys managed to slay one of the Vanguardian marshals.

Carson. What a self-righteous prick that guy had been.

The celebration after that victory had been the stuff of legends. A party in the capital city, quite literally dancing on the bastard’s corpse, then parading it around the streets for all to see. The Kandran governor-general had not looked too pleased at the sight of Carson’s smote body lying there, but Jercash and his men had made sure to correct that attitude of his.

No frowning allowed during a celebration. That was the Abolish way.

Hmm.

Interesting.

Despite the apparent peril of this situation, dangling above an eternal pit of non-existence, Hector remained calm. Unmoved.

The emotions were not going to win. He would not allow it. In this place, they were separate from himself. Unruly creations spawning haphazardly out of his mind, trying to wrest control away from him. Ferocious and demanding.

But they still belonged to him. And he still had to acknowledge them, too. Accept them. As part of himself. Pleasant or not, they were all part of him.

So in order to bring them back under control, Hector didn’t want to “command” them--though he did feel that he could. He knew that he could, in fact. But that would be the wrong approach, he felt. Not true to himself--to both who he was and who he hoped to be.

The right move here... was to bring them closer. To let them in.

As much as they seemed to be scratching and gnawing at him--behaving not entirely unlike monsters born of chaos--Hector knew that they were still his. And that he was still in control. And that ultimately, they couldn’t hurt him, despite all appearances to the contrary.

In some sense, it was like giving every turbulent emotion a big, warm, welcoming hug. Until they found their proper place within his mind again. Until they realized that they were where they were supposed to be.

It took a long time. Forever, seemingly. He had to allow himself to feel each emotion more deeply than perhaps ever before. He had to give them all the attention they deserved, like children.

But it also got gradually easier, too. With each one being brought home, being integrated, he felt... invigorated. Even more in control.

Heh.

This endless darkness. It wasn’t so scary. But it also wasn’t where he needed to be, right now.

Before he knew it, the rope from which he dangled was no longer binding him. Instead, he had it in his hands. And with a firm grip, hand over hand, he was climbing his way back out, toward that distant glimmer of light above.

It felt like moving at a snail’s pace, at first. Like the light was not getting closer. Like it never would.

And he felt like he was being watched now, too. Watched and judged. From a million angles at once. A dark, invisible crowd all around him, rooting both for and against him.

But he didn’t balk. And soon, the progress was clear. That light was growing nearer.

This descent. This dark allure. Tempting him downward. Just keep going, it told him. See what you find. After all, if there truly was no bottom, then that also meant that this was an infinite space. Which meant it held infinite possibilities, too.

Infinite potential.

That was what this place was.

Potential.

An endless expanse. Limited, perhaps, only by one’s ability to perceive and comprehend it.

Right. In that respect, maybe everything he could ever want could be found here. If he just kept descending long enough, he could find it. Eventually.

Hence the temptation.

Hector understood. In part, at least.

The Void.

That thing he’d been hearing so much about. Learning so much about. The Candle knew of it, too. Intimately. And there were so many historical examples of men and women searching for it. Of them discovering it, even.

And then going mad.

Seduced by this very same allure.

But there was so much more to it than just that. Of course there was. This was the paradoxical infinity of non-existence. Imagination, distilled. Nothing about it was simple.

Because the allure wasn’t just some deception, some trick to capture the unprepared or unintelligent. No. If anything, those things might’ve made the problem worse.

Much, much worse.

Because the allure had merit. Hector knew that much.

This place was powerful. And knowledgeable. It really was... everything. And nothing. All at once.

He could grow stronger here. He didn’t yet know how, but he knew that he could. It was all but telling him so. And the truth, he could all but hold it in his hands. Or--maybe he could even do that, too.

Wow.

So many emotions were trying to seize hold of him now. Some more powerful than others. Fear. Ambition. Anger. Greed. Pity. Curiosity. Sadness. Wonder. Hatred.

Pain.

So compelling. So convincing. So legitimate.

But Hector was still. He remained. Still.

Seeing them all at once like this was... something else. A unique experience. Something to be... felt. But not indulged.

He took a step. Up.

It was time to head back, he decided.

But the stairs. They were no longer. His foot found nothing to push against, and abruptly, he was dangling. From a rope.

Well.

This was a problem.

The vast hole below him was now more prominent than ever. He could feel it even more ferociously than before. It had desires, too. It wanted to pull him in.

Or perhaps... that was just... every emotion manifesting itself against him at once. Their collective will rebelling against his own.

These feelings. This space. Hector didn’t know what to expect. There was a certain strangeness here, too. It felt at once like a place that was deeply personal to him and yet also entirely foreign.

A dread came over him. A desire to turn back. To stop searching.

He didn’t listen to it. Couldn’t. There was something here that he needed to find. But he couldn’t tell if it was even something about himself or not. Some long, lost memory. Some kind of suppressed terror.

Or something entirely different. Something outside of himself.

Something that wanted in.

That thought gave him pause.

On the staircase, he stopped. He still couldn’t see the bottom. Couldn’t feel it yet. Maybe it didn’t even have one. Maybe it would just continue down forever, until he drove himself mad.

Hmm.

That could be a danger, too, he supposed. Madness. It had been on his mind more and more, of late. With everything going on, everything messing with his thoughts, his memories, his sense of self.

Ah...

Wait a moment.

Yes. That was the real reason he’d been finding so much extra motivation to meditate, recently.

Madness. Or rather, his worry over it. His deepest, most horrified worry.

With all the new memories granted to him by the Forge, all the history that he had been able to bear witness to in such an immersive, intimate way--the problem of madness was now much more concerning to him than it ever was before. Certainly more than he’d ever let on.

More than he’d ever realized, even.

He stayed there on the staircase for a long while. He looked up and felt another surge of fear arrive as he still saw only darkness. The hole through which he had descended, it was gone.

No.

Not quite.

It was only just visible, he realized. The faintest glint of light remained up there. He had to strain to see it. To feel it. But it was still there.

Himself. Who he was.

Yes.

That was what this place was, he realized. There was indeed no bottom to this hole. To keep descending would be folly.

And yet, suddenly, as he began to feel so deeply that all of these things were the truth, there arrived something new. Despite so much oppressive fear, such overwhelming dread, there was now also... a certain... longing.

Curiosity.

A desire to learn more, in spite of everything.

A dark temptation.

And somehow... that feeling made Hector understand this place even better.

Agh. His thoughts were becoming too full again. Too present. Too self-aware, perhaps?

No. Questions were bad. Yes, exactly. He tried to move on. The next door. Where was it?

Agh. Again, wrong. Why was this so difficult? No!

Dammit.

He had to take a minute. Or several. Or many more than that, even. It took as long as it took, and being conscious of the time was counterproductive, he felt.

He found his center again. His clarity. And the doors. They were still there.

Everything was familiar, he realized. All the doors. They were all his. In various ways. Leading to different parts of himself. Even Rasalased and Garovel--they counted, too. They were part of him now.

It wasn’t a question. He could simply tell. That was the truth.

Huh.

And yet.

There was one more door. Not like the others. Quite different, in fact. Not immediately knowable to him. Mysterious, somehow.

Strange. Uncertain.

And those qualities were begging for questions out of him. Yeah. That was the issue he’d run into. Trying to focus on that particular door was way harder. Just perceiving it made him want to ask about it.

No. Not just that.

The door itself had a desire. He could feel it. The questions weren’t just trying to emerge from within himself. They were stemming from the door, too. From beyond it.

It wanted to know about him.

Unsettling.

Very much so.

Enough to threaten his clarity. As it had done before.

But this time, at least, he held on. Held together.

Held true.

Yes.

That door wanted something.

And he didn’t know what that was.

Which meant... that the door... either didn’t belong to him like the others did... or... it led somewhere within himself that he was still not aware of, even in this place.

One. Or the other.

Ah.

Indeed.

That was not even a door, he realized. It was a staircase. Leading down.

Deeper. Deeper. Down and down.

Without even realizing it, he was already taking it. Down the steps. Winding, spiraling, circling down into a vast darkness.

There was fear here. Terror, even. He could already feel it. Growing stronger, becoming part of the very environment.

It was a struggle now. Maintaining clarity. Harder than ever before. Because this fear was familiar. An old friend, of sorts. The kind that knew all his sore spots. The kind that might not have ever really been a friend in the first place.

So many doors. All standing. Waiting.

That one there. It led to his own memories. Stuff from his own life. Stuff he liked. Loved, even. Warmth and fondness all but radiated from the cracks in its frame.

Not like the door next to it. That one was more neutral. It had stuff that he remembered blankly. Stuff that had just gotten stuck in his mind for whatever reason. Catchy songs that he didn’t even necessarily like. Information that he’d learned, sometimes through quite tedious means. Lots of school stuff in there, he felt.

Boring things. But not without their importance. A useful door to have, even if not a very fun one.

And then, there was the door next to that.

Oh, boy...

That door.

Yeah.

All the bad stuff was in there. Or most of it was, at the very least. Tough to believe that everything could’ve been in there. Maybe he was just being pessimistic, though. Overblowing his own past miseries.

Yeah, probably.

He did have a tendency of focusing on the negative. He always had. He might’ve liked to believe that he’d been able to turn that natural tendency into a useful tool, these days, but he didn’t really know if that was the truth or just an excuse so that he didn’t have to seriously contemplate trying to change it.

Even in this place, where he could be totally, brutally honest and blunt with himself, he didn’t know which way the wind was blowing on that particular subject.

Hmm.

Well, that was okay.

The point here wasn’t to come up with solutions to problems. It was to discover truths that, deep down, he already knew. If he genuinely didn’t know something, then that was that.

Interesting, nonetheless.

These other doors.

Ah.

That one led to Garovel. Heh. Wow. How neat. Impulsively, he wanted to go through it and strike up a conversation. He knew it would work. But no. He could do that whenever. It wasn’t necessary here.

The one next to it, though...

That was Rasalased.

Holy crap. It was just right there. A door to the Dry God. Easy as could be to just walk through and have a chat.

That seemed wrong, considering how much he’d struggled to talk to the guy in the past.

But then again, it had been getting easier over time. And now... huh.

He was truly tempted now. But there was yet more to become aware of in this space, Hector felt. He’d have to remember this for later, though.

Hector took his time and tried to observe the doors, though they seemed to resist that effort, too.

But then again, this was his own mind, so maybe he was the one resisting? Hmm. Perhaps the knowledge that these doors didn’t actually exist was to blame. It was like trying to study a dream in real-time. A bit of a fool’s errand, maybe.

So he changed tactics. He stopped trying to observe them with his eyes--or whatever it was that passed for eyes in this heady place--and instead, he started trying to clear his mind again.

If this was his own mind, then everything he might want to know about it was already here. Right? So maybe it was just a matter of opening himself up to that information. Allowing him to “see” it. Or to understand it, at least.

Heh. To hold truth?

Maybe so.

Man, this was something. He didn’t think he’d ever gone this deep into his meditation before. It certainly felt new enough. This place. These doors. What did he know of them?

No. That was wrong. He had to stop asking. Stop inquiring. Because he already had the answers. Hopefully.

Emptiness. Clarity. Peace.

Whoa. It felt like he was going yet deeper still.

But he wasn’t. He hadn’t gone anywhere. His body. His brain. His mind. The waterfall. The cold. The pressure. He could still feel it all. It wasn’t a matter of desensitization.

Rather, it all just felt... less important. Not a priority.

Yeah.

The doors. There they were. Just standing there. Existing. But also not.

Yep.

That one over there. That door was a thread. A background thought process. So right now, it didn’t lead anywhere, because he’d turned all those off. For clarity.

Yup.

Were all the other doors thought processes, too?

Agh. Wrong approach. Again. Stop asking.

He had to find his clarity again. The blank space.

There.

Mmhmm.

And the doors. They were still there. Still part of him. Still standing.

That one over there. That was Sto. Led straight to it. An enormous reservoir of ancient memories--or dreams--that didn’t even belong to him. Yeah. That was where he’d shoved all that stuff.

Huh.

A thought bubbled up. A question trying to be asked.

He didn’t let it, though. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. Not here, not now.

Right.

In this place, Hector was.

And there was nothing more to it.

He simply was.

And indeed, Haqq was still following him, even as he approached the roaring water.

He kept the Scarf of Amordiin on but took his shirt off, folded it, and set it on a nearby rock. Haqq did the same, which was somehow still surprising to Hector.

Before fully plunging himself into the water, however, a thought struck him, and he turned back to Haqq one last time. Now he had to shout in order to be heard. “If you find the water too disruptive, tap me on the shoulder, and I’ll make a dome for you!”

Haqq returned a look of dissatisfaction, but he did nod.

Then they entered the waterfall.

It was cold as fuck.

And heavy on the head and shoulders, of course. It felt almost like stepping into an entirely different world, where even the laws of physics might’ve been altered.

Hector pushed toward the center of the ledge and took his spot. He could sense Haqq still there next to him, even as he sat down and started focusing on his breathing.

Having a meditation partner here made this feel a bit different, especially knowing that Haqq was inexperienced. It was hard not to worry about the guy a little, considering the very obvious fact that waterfall meditation was not exactly a beginner technique. The entire point of using a waterfall was to make it way harder, after all.

The extreme noise, pressure, temperature--everything was meant to disturb and distract, to make it that much more difficult to keep one’s mind clear.

He couldn’t help wondering if Haqq would even be willing to ask him for help. The guy seemed pretty damn prideful, though that wasn’t exactly abnormal for a Sandlord.

Oh well, though.

He cleared his mind.

And the world fell away from him.

He loved this place. Indeed, the waterfall did make it much more challenging, but in a different way, it also allowed him to push even deeper into his own mind. Or rather, it forced him to, perhaps.

Tough to tell, really.

However, what he was able to discover this deep was not the perfect clarity that he was looking for. Or at least, not just that. Clarity was merely one of many pursuable options.

He felt as though he were standing in the middle of a great room with doors in all directions. Just how many were there? It seemed impossible to count them. Not because there were too many, necessarily. But because, perhaps, they didn’t want to be counted. They refused it.

“I’ve been thinking this would be a good place to host visitors,” said Hector, “but it’d need a lot more work, first. And maybe part of me is worried about losing it as a prime meditation spot if people are constantly coming and going from here.”

“Meditation, eh?” said Haqq. “Never much cared for that. Don’t have the temperament for it. Mind is always too busy. Trying to force the calm just makes me bored, and boredom is one thing that my brain simply cannot abide.”

Hector found that curious. “That doesn’t sound right. If you’re feeling bored, then you’re not clearing your mind properly. You shouldn’t be feeling anything at all. Except maybe... peaceful. Or contentment. Which is the real point of it, I think.”

Haqq returned a dubious look. “The point is contentment, you say? Not the growth of your power?”

“I mean, that’s what reapers will tell you, sure. And it’s obviously a nice bonus, if true, but plenty of non-servants meditate, too, and they find value in it.”

“Mm. Sazandara has indeed tried to get me into meditation many times over the years. I was never able to stick with it.”

Hector scratched his nose. “I think that, too, is probably the wrong way of looking at it. You don’t necessarily have to stick with it in order to still get some use out of it.”

“No? I can hardly see how doing it only once or twice could prove beneficial. Isn’t the habit supposed to be what builds ‘mental discipline’ or what have you?

“Well, yeah, there is that,” said Hector. “Building discipline would take time. But sometimes, I find that meditation is just... good for its own sake. To give yourself a bit of peace. Especially during times when... peace is otherwise difficult to come by. Know what I mean?”

Haqq met his gaze for a moment, then looked at the waterfall again. “Hmm.”

The man said nothing more as Hector moved closer to the waterfall and looked for a good spot. There were quite a few to choose from, as the rocks provided multiple ledges going up the full height of the cliff. Some were more eroded than others, though, so Hector had been trying to assess which ones would be easier or harder to meditate on, comparatively.

With Haqq looking like he was about to join him, Hector decided to go for the easiest he’d yet found.

Hector had a particular destination in mind for this next meditation session. He’d been experimenting with different spots lately, and his most recent one might’ve become his favorite yet. “No one is supposed to know you are here, remember?” said Hector. “And you’re quite famous in your own right, aren’t you?”

“So I’ll be discreet,” said Haqq. “A disguise and alias would be trivial to concoct.”

“Sounds like a pain in the ass,” said Hector, perhaps a little too bluntly.

“Ah, so you agree that purchasing the equipment for private use is the preferred way to go.”

The conversation continued for the full length of their walk, and no matter how flatly Hector stated his refusal, Haqq remained perpetually optimistic that Hector would help him out, one way or another. Optimistic? Or insistent? Hector couldn’t quite tell.

By the time they reached their destination, Hector wasn’t even annoyed, anymore. If anything, he was actually somewhat amused by Haqq’s persistence in playing dumb, like he somehow couldn’t grasp the concept that Hector wasn’t going to do what he wanted.

Thankfully, the sight of said destination provided another opportunity to change the subject.

It was Warrenhold's underground waterfall.

The noise here was something else. It was certainly loud, but surprisingly, not as loud as one might’ve expected. Even at this distance, they didn’t yet have to shout in order to hear each other.

Hector suspected that was because of the way the caves in this immediate area were interconnected. The waterfall had one great cavern of its own--almost as massive as the one that encompassed the castle’s main eight towers--but all around the waterfall were tunnels, even up on the ceiling. It seemed to him that they might’ve been funneling much of the sound away from the base of the waterfall, instead of simply creating one, big echo chamber like he’d originally expected.

Whatever the explanation, it had been a welcome surprise.

“Wow,” said Haqq, once the waterfall came into view. “That is quite something.”

“You haven’t been here yet?” said Hector.

“I have not.”

It was certainly a sight to behold, these days. Unlike when he’d initially found it, covered in total darkness, now the waterfall had large amber lamps lining it on both sides, bathing the entire massive chamber in warm light. And the waterfall itself rose to such a great height that it appeared almost like a vertical runway for aircraft to take off.

Or at least, it felt simple. With how strange this all was, he could only have so much confidence in his own perceptions.

“Are you alright?” said Haqq.

And Hector realized that he’d turned away from Haqq and was clutching his temple. “Yeah,” he said, trying not to sound too disoriented. “I’m fine.”

“Still feeling the aftermath of your battle the other day?”

Well, that wasn’t untrue, so Hector decided to lean into that excuse. “It was a rough one.”

Really, though, Haqq’s guess wasn’t entirely off the mark. There was one thing in particular that Hector couldn’t forget about his fight with Banda Toro, just before getting eaten--arguably the reason he’d gotten eaten.

He’d pushed his mind too far. Tried to force out more thought processes. And his brain had blanked out on him.

True, he’d been pretty desperate at the time, but that didn’t change the fact that it was a mistake that had nearly cost not only his own life but also the lives of everyone in Warrenhold.

And now there was this. Another worryingly weird thing happening with his mind.

The same mind that had been screwed with by two gods and a sentient super-tree.

Honestly, he’d been trying not to dwell on these facts too much, but it was becoming increasingly difficult.

What if his mind was becoming so twisted by all this crazy shit that it eventually just stopped functioning properly altogether? What if it just turned into a knotted mess of perpetual confusion?

When considering the long history of servants going mad, that was an especially troubling notion. And it was paired with another, which was perhaps equally troubling.

What if all this mind-tinkering was turning him into a completely different person? What if he ceased to be himself?

In some sense, that reminded him of what Malast had been trying to do. Offering him “godhood” at the expense of his identity. Maybe this was the same thing, just in a more roundabout way.

Obviously, though, he couldn’t voice any of those concerns to Haqq here.

He felt the sudden urge to go meditate again. To take some time and regather his thought. He tried to excuse himself, but Haqq just kept following him and started steering the conversation back towards heavy machinery.

“If you’re hellbent on frugality,” the man said, “then perhaps you could use your considerable influence in this country to earn me access to the tools I need, free of charge.”

Six, eh? Hector had a feeling that there were more than that, though he couldn’t be sure. The Candle seemed to have given him memories of many other Fusion Forges from over the eons, but without more time to sort through said memories and perhaps confirm their veracity, there was no telling which of those Forges might still exist in the modern day.

Apart from a few select ones, that was.

“The Golden Hour,” said Hector, blurting out the words without even thinking, “the Lantern of Doma, the Artisan’s Anvil, the Clown Pit, the Red Rift, the Pool of Trenoy, the Silent Serpent.”

Haqq just looked at him.

Hector had to blink a couple times as he tried to process everything that had just come out of his own mouth.

“...Some of those names, I am familiar with,” said Haqq. “Others, not. The Clown Pit? That cannot truly be the name of a Fusion Forge, can it?”

Hector needed another moment to think about his response. Did he have actual details about that in his head? Where had all those names even come from, exactly? “I... think that is the name of Morgunov’s Forge.”

Haqq’s head reared back a little. “I suppose that would make sense. It sounds foolish enough to belong to him. But... how in the world did you discover that? I’ve not met anyone who could even confirm the existence of Morgunov’s new Forge, let alone tell me its name.”

Ah.

Hmm.

Yeah, that probably wasn’t the kind of information that Morgunov went spreading around, was it? Even a maniac like him probably wanted to keep any and all details of his Forge a secret.

So how had the Candle learned of it, then? Hell, how had it learned of any of the other Forges at all? It wasn’t like it had traveled the world and visited them.

...Right?

Ugh. Hector was feeling a little woozy all of a sudden. It felt like his head had just been flooded with a little too much information at once, like a crack in a dam had formed.

He had to stop and concentrate before it worsened. Patch it up. Get it back under control.

Whew. Yeah. Sto. It was Sto. He could feel where it had started to fail. In fact, the visualization of a cracked dam seemed to be exactly right for assessing the problem. And thankfully, it was just as simple to fix it.

Haqq gave a sideways nod. “Perhaps. But I do not wish to interrupt Abbas’ work with it.”

Hmm. That was thoughtful of him, Hector supposed. And bringing up Abbas made him abruptly curious about something else, too, so he took the opportunity to try to change the subject. “You’ve gotten the chance to study the Forge a bit, haven’t you?”

“I have.”

“What’s your opinion of its capabilities?” said Hector.

“It’s a Fusion Forge. Obviously, it’s extremely powerful.”

“Lord Abbas mentioned something about it having a ‘gentle disposition.’”

“I wouldn’t be able to confirm or deny that,” said Haqq. “Your Candle is the first Forge I’ve had the opportunity of even examining, let alone working with. Where such vague ideas as ‘disposition’ are concerned, you will have to defer to the Sunsmith’s expertise.”

Hector had to hold back a chortle. Somehow, this man still managed to sound slightly arrogant even when admitting that he didn’t know something. “What do you know of other Fusion Forges in the world?”

“A dangerous subject, that. Are you sure you wish me to tell you? Learning more about them could be something you come to regret.”

“Hmm. You mean because the people who guard them are so aggressive in preventing the spread of relevant information?”

“...Yes. I suppose I should have expected you to already be aware of that.” And he paused, eyeing Hector a moment. “In fact... why are you even asking me about this? To test my knowledge? I find that rather insulting, if so.”

Hector didn’t balk, though. It felt like he might finally be getting accustomed to people thinking he was far older and more knowledgeable about the world than he really was.

And admittedly, it did help to have all those historical memories from the Candle stewing around in his brain.

“Every person is an entire world of information, all on their own,” said Hector. “No matter how old I get, I hope I never forget that. If I ever start treating other people like they have nothing to teach me, then... learning new things will become a lot more difficult. And rare. Don’t you think?”

Haqq merely stared at him blankly.

Shit, maybe that had sounded dumb. Agh. Hector just tried to keep his composure as he waited for a response. It took a while to arrive.

“...I know of only six Fusion Forges in the entire world,” said Haqq.

And indeed, Hector’s suspicions were thus far proving true. Despite how much Haqq Najir had been examining the different pieces of armor that Hector materialized for him, the man had not been able to tell him much.

“This metal defies explanation,” said Haqq. “In many ways, it mimics the properties of your iron. Weight. Density. Electric and thermal conductivity. All almost identical. And yet its tensile strength seems to match, or even surpass, that of the metal that Abbas and I synthesized for the Amir-9 prototype.”

“Surpass?” said Hector, doubtful. “What makes you think that?”

“I did say ‘seems to,’” added Haqq. “That particular property is quite difficult to fully test. I would need more equipment to know that for certain.”

“Okay, but what makes you think that could even be possible?” said Hector. “There’s no reason to think that this armor could be any stronger than the Amir-9, is there?”

Haqq’s nose twitched. “I took one of the many spare prototypes from your armory in order to compare and contrast it with these armor pieces. And by that, I mean I have been bashing them against one another for hours on end, among other crude tests. And while it was difficult to be certain, I thought I spotted the occasional scratch on the shield but not the armor.”

That was news to Hector. He didn’t know if he believed it, though. “Are you sure about that?”

“No,” said Haqq. “That is my point. More extreme testing methods are needed.”

“...Extreme in what way, exactly?”

“I will require a hydraulic press,” said Haqq. “And a hydraulic drill. And a plasma drill. And a laser cutter.” He paused. “And an ECM machine.”

“ECM?”

“Yes.”

“...What does ECM mean?”

“Electrochemical machining.”

“I...” Hector suddenly had a feeling that he knew where this was going. “And how much would one of these ECM machines cost, exactly?”

“In your Atreyan troas? I’m not sure.”

“And in your Sairi escaltos?” said Hector.

Haqq stared at him a moment. “...Can anyone truly put a price on science?”

Hector's expression flattened. “I don’t think I’m that curious to know just how ‘mathematically’ tough my new armor is.”

“My heart weeps at your lack of academic curiosity, Lord Goffe.”

“From the sound of it, if your heart isn’t doing the weeping, then my bank account will be. Can you not use the Candle for these sorts of tests?”

His meditations, therefore, had begun to feel a bit different. While he still wanted to keep to the core principle of clearing his mind, freeing himself of all distraction, Hector was also starting to feel himself... wandering a bit, in some sense.

He didn’t know how else to describe it, exactly. If the purpose of his meditations was to create a vast, empty expanse within his mind, then it now felt like he was floating through the empty vastness. Exploring it, perhaps.

In search of something? Maybe so. But to what end? By design, there was nothing to discover. The point of the exercise was to make sure it stayed empty. So what point could there be in exploration?

That was an odd question. Why did there have to be a point in it? Couldn’t the exploration itself just be... enjoyable on its own? The sensation of floating through his own mind was certainly... something. In fact, it might’ve been making it even easier to free himself of distractions.

It was like a new level of relaxation. So much so, in fact, that he sometimes had trouble telling if he was meditating or simply asleep.

And weirder still, he found himself feeling extra refreshed after such deep meditations. Almost like waking up from a full night’s rest, despite only an hour or two having passed.

He read about some people being able to forego sleep almost entirely, in favor of deep meditation. It had seemed an exaggeration to him before, but maybe there was something to it, after all. If only a little. Even if his mind felt refreshed, he highly doubted that the rest of his body wouldn’t still be dead tired after a heavy day of fighting or training, for example.

But hell, maybe this, too, could be considered one of those altered states of consciousness. A hyper resting state. Or something.

Eh, he was just making shit up at this point. Would’ve been neat, though. What might he call such a thing?

Re-Sto?

Ha. Probably not.

Aside from his meditations, there was also the matter of this new armor at his disposal. Haqq Najir had been following him around in order to study it and report back to Abbas, who was still in Lorent, working on the Candle.

Needless to say, Hector was quite curious what conclusions Haqq would arrive at; and yet at the same time, he also wasn’t holding his breath. But not because he thought Haqq’s skill was lacking.

Rather, there was just something... well, otherwordly about that armor. And he felt, in some strange way, that it might resist analysis.

The more he’d learned of meditation--both from personal experience and from reading up about the subject online--the more he’d come to think that it wasn’t just this thing that he needed to do for the sake of improving his materialization ability.

It was important for the stillness that it could provide. The calm.

The world was so busy. So noisy and constantly moving. Constantly demanding his attention in some form or another. And his own mind, that was plenty busy, too. More than ever, as of late.

So it seemed to him that trying to multitask during his meditations was somewhat missing the point. And potentially counterproductive, even. After all, he’d never actually been able to feel whether or not the meditation was improving his skill with materialization.

Garovel said it did, and he trusted the reaper’s word on that, of course, but the progression was only ever detectable after the fact, not during. And most of the time, even that was questionable, because what was really causing the increase in skill level? The meditation? Or the actual training that he was doing all the time?

And then there were these “altered states of consciousness” that Emiliana Elroy had told him about. They intrigued him quite a bit. When she taught him about “Sto,” a so-called storage state of consciousness, he hadn’t been able to come up with a good use for it, which made sense, since it seemed to be mainly designed for mutation users like her.

But later on, he’d found it to be quite useful indeed as a means of helping him compartmentalize all of the information that the Candle had poured into his head. Without the benefit of Sto, Hector felt like his mind would be an even more chaotic place than it already was, these days.

It was just such a curious concept. Altered states of consciousness. He wanted to ask Emiliana more about it and perhaps see if she’d learned a new one yet, but he also didn’t want to bother her until the Rainlords returned. Then he could give her good news, too. Hopefully.

Maybe he’d ask Hanton or Pauline about it, instead. A sparrow’s perspective might be interesting.

Here and now, though, he was content to simply indulge in the confines of his own meditative exercises. Increasingly, he was feeling like there was more yet to be discovered therein. About himself, perhaps. And beyond? Hard to say. What would that even mean, really?

Hector certainly had confidence in their abilities, but he hoped they weren’t being overly optimistic with that prediction. Their opponents in that battle were the combined forces of the Vantalayan Military Police and Abolish. That didn’t exactly seem like a trivial fight, unless he was missing something.

Which, maybe he was. The report had been relatively brief, all things considered. He would’ve liked more details, such as any casualties or if any big name Abolishers had shown up.

He wondered if perhaps they had left that stuff out because they didn’t want him jumping on a plane and flying to their aid. Knowing how proud they all were, that seemed like something they might do.

He figured not, though. Most likely, they were just busy, and things were fine.

If, however, a more detailed report didn’t arrive in the next twenty-four hours, he was going to be pressing those reapers for more information. The last thing he wanted to do, right now, was leave Warrenhold, but if the Rainlords needed help, he was damn sure going to provide it.

In the meantime, though, he was almost not sure what to do with himself. How long had it been since he’d had any actual downtime like this? With so many Rainlords abroad, Warrenhold was so quiet. He’d apparently gotten accustomed to all the hustle and bustle of their presence without realizing it.

Not that he was entirely without matters to attend to, of course. There was always something he could be working on, if he really wanted to. He could check in on the bank or the Gaolanets or the Candle or the crazy world news going around.

But none of that was so immediately pressing that it demanded his attention at all costs, which was a nice change of pace.

He decided to take some time for himself to meditate. He felt like he’d been neglecting that lately, despite the fact that it might now be more necessary than ever.

All this stuff going on his head. The blessing of Focus. The sea of now-questionable information from the Candle. Not to mention his own, deeply flawed psyche. Whatever else was happening in there, that shaky foundation probably wasn’t helping much.

Yeah. Meditation was much needed, he felt.

It was strange, though, because with his multiple thought processes, he was actually able to meditate with one or even two processes, while still thinking about things. Which might’ve been a bad strategy. He wasn’t yet sure how he felt about that.

If all of that was true, then why had Graves asked how they found out about the captives being transferred? If that was part of his plan from the beginning, then shouldn’t he have already known that? Unless he’d been playing dumb. Or deployed multiple attempts to inform them without knowing which had succeeded?

Why had he brought up Gema, though? Zeff had gotten completely distracted by the mere mention of her name.

Perhaps that had been the point.

Agh.

Zeff didn’t like this suspicion filling his mind, right now.

Maybe none of these questions mattered. Maybe Graves had simply found out about them via some leak in the RPMP. Maybe Zeff should’ve just been focusing on getting everyone out of this godforsaken place, already. Maybe he should stop worrying so much about tangential factors. The only real concern here was the preservation of his kin, after all.

And yet...

In the ensuing few moments, one new question did involuntarily crystallize into his mind.

“When, exactly, was it that you replaced Thaddeus Croll?”

That was the question. Was it possible that Graves had, in truth, been the one fighting the Rainlords at Miro? None of the Rainlords who’d fought Croll had ever done so before, so none of them would have noticed any suspicious changes--and even if they had, there would have been any number of other rationalizations to help explain such differences away.

Not to mention, it might better explain how Thaddeus Croll had been able to stand up to the likes of Leo, Darktide, Evangelina, and more with minimal backup of his own.

But Zeff held his tongue. Here and now, he decided to keep that question to himself.

Because what was there to be gained from asking it? At best, a reassuring explanation that assuaged Zeff’s suspicions. At worst, a suddenly hostile field marshal who would either kill or capture everyone here.

That risk was most certainly not worth the reward.

And with that in mind, looking back on the rest of this conversation and the fight that preceded it, Zeff Elroy came to the abrupt conclusion that he should probably stop tempting fate today and just accept the easy victory that had presented itself.

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