"Lillyn. Lillyn!"

"What?"

Can't a void-trader nap in peace? Did I say nap? I meant to meditate. Yeah. Accelerate my research. All that inner peace and stuff.

Becky even dares to answer me. "Something is blinking in the cockpit. I think it is a communication request."

Oh, what is it this time? I already lost over three days because Lady Ashgan had to accuse me of stuff. We aren't even back to the pyramids yet. Close, but not quite.

I thought Besona and I had an understanding now. Ever since I started researching Automata, I don't get these random outcomes anymore. Those that leave me cursing the very earth beneath me. But now there was the detour to the void-trader guild headquarters and it looks like fate is about to throw me another monkey wrench in my path.

Maybe. Before I panic, I should make sure it is indeed urgent. Maybe it is Pasus calling in for a chat? It would be good timing. I have to thank him for talking me up to his grandma who came to my aid at the assembly. Or it could be Essie.

Time to find out.

And the project appearing in my Little Mule is-

Drum roll, please.

And-

Who is this dude? Older guy. Has a bit of gentleman in him. A little bit of Santa Clause too. Minus the big belly. White hair and beard. Both are neatly styled. His clothing looks business style.

"My name is Renbell Afton. The acting guild master of trade hub Demole in absence of mistress Iren."

"Hi, I am-"

"This is an urgent message to all void-traders in the area." Oh, so a recording. No wonder he is ignoring me. "Two days ago, the Western Empire made a surprise attack on the Fiefdom Of The Emerald Vale."

The projection is dabbing a handkerchief against his face. Damn, the dude is sweating like crazy.

"They didn't stop there. As of ten bells ago, they pushed into the Kingdom of Wexwood. I was informed that the Wexwood army is in retreat and the front might reach Demole in as little as a day."

Damn. That's my home town. Sort of. But it is Essie's and Iren's home. The void-trader hub where I started my career as a trader is located there.

"As by prior standing orders by mistress Iren, I ordered the evacuation of trade hub number five of the Wexwood Kingdom. I further urge every void-trader to stay away. From what our army contact says, the chance of a win is slim. Rumor is that warlord Bradford is heading the push personally. Please remember that the Western Empire kidnaps and incarcerates void-traders. Wexwood is lost. Stay away and stay safe."

And with those words, the projection of Renbell Afton is gone. Damn. Should I call Iren? Essie? Iren was on the way back to Demole and is probably busy now. Hopefully, Essie is evacuating. I mean the trade hub had some Little Mules parked in front. Hopefully, that is enough.

Demole is also the home of the Church Of The Otherworldly. Maybe I should call them. Make sure they don't do anything stupid.

Damn and double damn.

I don't have the contact information of the Little Swan they use. All I can do is fly on and hope they are still at the pyramids. How am I supposed to meditate while everything is fucked up? I Gotta try though.

---

"Curse them, they are gone."

My Little Mule is already maneuvering to bring us down. Not that this will do us any good. The church's Little Swan has already left.

"Look. There," Becky says to my right. Pointing through the cockpit window. "I think that is Bertoff."

Right. The owner of The Lonesome Tavern. For a welcome party, this was a little underwhelming. Part of me wants to lift off again immediately. To catch up with the church. But them flying to Demole is just a hunch. What if they flew somewhere else. To be honest, I hope they did.

"Let's see what he wants."

Scrambling outside, Bertoff is already shouting the obvious. "You missed them by a few bells. They waited as long as they could."

"Do you know where they went, Bertoff?"

"No. But they left this with me."

Is that a scroll? Like paper wrapped around a wooden rod? I'll never get used to it. On one hand, Besona has flying ships and skyscrapers. On the other it still has adventurers running around in medieval garb and they use freaking scrolls.

Alright. No time to curse Besona out, Lillyn. Let's see what they left behind for us.

###

Dear Lillyn,

we haven't heard from you in days.
Where were you?
We reached out to our contacts and know that you reached Maynard Mansion and left it again.
However, since then we can't locate you.
I hope you are well and returned here unharmed.

I do not know if you have heard, but the Western Empire is pushing for Demole.
Their goal is the original church of our order.
We can't let it fall into their hands.
I am afraid we have no time to spare for waiting.

If you are reading this and we haven't succeeded, then run, Lillyn.
Run for your life.
Don't let the empire get their hands on you.

Stay safe.

With love,
Myra.

Little Swan #1701

###

I knew it. They have left for Demole. But why is it so important? One old church or temple can't be it, right? Then again, the Western Empire seems to be heading right for it. Cutting their path right through kingdoms left and right.

If it just hadn't been for that stupid greedy and paranoid void-trader family. Damn those Ashgans. Without them, I could have been back in time. Could have given Maryn a copy of the Automata body. And maybe I could have managed to get Myra to stay with me. To fly somewhere safe.

"They're flying to Demole," I say to Becky as I walk past her to the ship. "There is no time to spare."

I am nearly at my Little Mule when I turn back and see that Becky hasn't moved an inch.

"Becky? Are you coming?"

Slowly, she starts walking towards me. But just when I want to shout she should hurry up, she speaks up. "I am sorry, but I am not."

"You aren't?"

"I am an adventurer, Lillyn. Always have been. Always will be. Battlefields are the place for soldiers. I am afraid I can't follow you there."

Right. I see now. It was so easy to take Becky for granted. But I do not own her. Never did. Well, her body at some point, but not even that anymore. She is her own person. With her own interests.

"I understand," I say. Walking back to her. "You don't owe me anything. To be honest, I am surprised how far you have followed me."

"It is interesting and surprisingly fun to be around you. Doesn't really get boring. I would have liked to stay with you. To follow you into new terrain. I bet you have plenty of surprises still up your sleeve. But I can't. Though, if you get through this, I might show up on your doorstep again."

"I hope." But if Becky isn't coming with me- "There is one last favor I have to ask of you. I even pay for it."

Becky gives me a bemused shake of her head. "Of course. Name it."

Another blueprint library materializes in my hand. One I hoped never to pass on. It contains every blueprint I researched so far. "There is a void-trader far up in the northeast. Goes by the name of Pasus. He is of the Antesec family. Please find him and give this to him. Tell him that if I don't make it out alive, then it is his to keep."

"Shouldn't be too hard," Becky says as she takes it. Then it vanishes as she puts it into her inventory. "Stay safe out there."

"You too."

And with those words, our paths split. It is strange how far we have come in such a short time. By now, I can hardly see Becky as Nardare. The grumpy warrior that showed up on my ramp hoping to stash a friend's soul-crystal. Then the awakening as Becky. She really blossomed to life then. Telling me so many stories. Later backing me up in some dangerous situations.

But not this one. I have to do this on my own.

Alright.

Alright.

Sounds a bit more dramatic than it is. Just got to catch up to the church. Hand over an Automata body or two. Then skedaddle out of there. Hopefully with Myra in tow.

Easy peasy, right?

---

Alright. Autopilot is programmed and we are on the way. Time to get in touch with Myra and the church. Maybe I can get them to make a short stop. Give me time to catch up.

How am I gonna make contact you ask? Well, thankfully Myra included the serial number of the Little Swan. That should be enough.

Time to sit down and initialize!

Alright.

Might take a moment.

Come on.

Pick up.

Ah there! Yep, I am in the little reception room where the head priestess spoke with me the last few times. And she is here too. Of course, she is. However, Myra isn't there. Neither is Maryn.

"Void-trader Lillyn."

As welcomes go, this one isn't friendly. But it isn't as hostile anymore as it used to be. It is nearly - what is a fitting word - cordial.

"Head priestess."

"I know why you are calling. We waited as long as we could, but time is of the essence. Before you ask. We can not stop for you, just to give you time to catch up."

Well, that saves me the breath for a few words. Still, it doesn't sit right with me.

"I know the Western Empire is on the move. They want Demole for a reason. What is it? And why does Maryn have to be there?"

Moments pass as the head priestess is just staring at me. Finally, she opens her mouth again. "I can't tell you. Some details are confidential."

"Confidential? Really?" I have enough of this crap. Always staying on the sidelines. Never getting told what is really going on. Maybe if they had been open from the start I could have avoided some huddles. "Listen to me. I have something that can change the equation. To make Maryn immensely more powerful. And to give it to her, I have to follow you into a warzone. And you start with confidential? I want to know. Everything! Or else I turn my Little Mule around and then you are really fucked. Because we both know that Maryn isn't ready yet. Not on her own. And whatever prophecy is surrounding her won't matter a damn. So, what will it be? Come clean or we part ways. Right here. Right now."

Come on.

Don't call my bluff.

Just spill already.

"It is complicated."

Damn her. "Then uncomplicate it for me," I say as I cross my arms. Staring her down. Backing down not even an inch.

She stares back at me. Then to the side. Lost in thought I guess? Her face looks pained. As if she is remembering something bad. Just when I am about to lose my last pinch of patience, she starts talking. Not even looking at me.

"It all started about fifty-five to sixty years ago. Your time scale. That of Earth. Far in the west are the jungles of Ickban. It always was scarcely settled. Mostly tribes. Very traditional. I think that was their downfall. A hardened space formed. At first, hardly anyone noticed. But it spread and at a rate no one could foresee. Within a few years, it nearly swallowed up a third of the country."

I was just about to ask what this has to do with anything when the head priestess fixes on me with her gaze.

"And this is where James Bradford comes in. The biggest mistake the Church Of The Otherworldly ever had made. There are so many other worlds one could summon heroes from, but no, fate gave us someone from Earth. We had summoned heroes now and then. But he was the first we ever got from Earth."

I still don't see the connection. Do you? Then again, there must be a connection. Bradford. I heard that name before. In the emergency message. He was named as a warlord and is closely tied to the Western Empire. But, why?

"Why him? There must be a reason Besona chose him, right?"

"The jungles of Ickban are covered densely in giant fern. Their stems resemble something you have on Earth called Bamboo. Fighting within this environment is tricky. We needed someone who could deal with it. Worse, we needed someone to deal with a whole nation plunged into madness as the hardened space swallowed them up. That's what we ask of Besona and that's what we got."

The last words of her are spat out with vengeance but also regret. Right now, she looks older. As if the weight of the world has rested on her shoulders for a long time.

"Bradford. We celebrated him as a hero," she continues. "He told us that he just came back from a war. That he knew how to fight. To shape adventurers scared to even enter the expanding hardened space into an army."

"Doesn't sound like it worked out."

"It did. Frighteningly so. I was just a handful of summers old when I joined the church. He was praised at every corner from every mouth. Bradford reclaimed half the country of Ickban by that time. Casualties were down to an all-time low. We were winning. But it wasn't enough for him. He ordered the church to get guns from Earth. At that time the weapon was unknown to us and we complied. With those - learned and distributed by void-traders - Bradford claimed victory after victory. But to him, it was too slow. So, he asked us to summon a new weapon from Earth. Something called a hydrogen bomb."

"A nuclear weapon?" Holy shit. Has he lost his marbles? Well, he probably did. Judging by the outcome. Atomic bombs would be absolute overkill on Besona. He could tear through the countries with ease. Yet, he hasn't. Why? Oh. "It wouldn't work. Not on Besona. There are no atoms to split."

"At that time, we didn't know that. Bradford didn't either. He promised us to wipe away the hardened space in one strike. It didn't. Despite having no atoms, the bomb worked. In a way."

"Because the concept worked?" I guess aloud. Truly disturbed I might add. "A hydrogen bomb is one with a large blast radius. Besona translated the concept and spat out an equivalent?"

"Thankfully, Besona didn't translate the concept one to one. The explosion was large. But not on the scale you call megatons. Bradford was furious. He demanded explanations. And even worse, that some void-trader should fix it. That was the wake-up call the church needed. But only a few heard it. My mentor did. A few others."

"What you see here," the head priestess continues while waving at the interior of the Little Swan. "The Church Of The Otherworldly you know is but a fraction. A splinter of the whole. The traditionalists remembered that our church was supposed to protect Besona from outside influences. Not plunge it into them. We acted in desperation. Assassinated some key void-traders - those with the worst blueprint already learned - and fell back to Demole. Where we claimed the first temple and kept it safe since then."

"Why is that temple so important? Its value can't be that high for you to risk Maryn when she isn't even ready yet."

"To the contrary, the temple is the single most important building in Besona. A fortress against outside influences. Besona used to be unprotected. It was like a sponge. Sucking up anything floating around the multiverse that was close enough. Then the church was formed. The first and most important prophecy we ever created limited what can enter Besona. We couldn't cut it off for good, but we could bottle Besona. Create a single entrance."

"The temple." Where not only I arrived, but Maryn too.

"Without the temple, a priestess can - at most - summon handheld items. Everything larger has to come through the portal in the first temple."

"That's why the Empire wants the temple. To summon larger stuff. If the main body of the Church Of The Otherworldly is with the Western Empire, why aren't they undoing the prophecy? Or shift the entrance to a territory they control?"

"They can't." The head priestess gives me a wry smile. "The Church Of The Prophet - as they renamed themselves - are probably trying. But this prophecy was strengthened all the way back from the conception to today. Generations worked to reinforce it and now they will need generations to undo it. Even altering it slightly will take some time."

So, the church created a bottleneck a long time ago. A single entrance to Besona. Then made it hard to undo. The flipside is that the church can't just move the entrance. Else they would have shifted it as far east as they could manage. Now it is clear why Bradford and his empire want to take the temple. But is it worth risking everything?

"I understand the importance of the temple, but maybe it would still make sense to fall back. Maryn isn't ready yet. A delay of a few bells might not make much of a difference."

"Wouldn't it?" the head priestess asks with steel in her voice. "Before we could retake it they could summon things larger than handheld that they still need. Machine guns. Rocket launchers. Flamethrowers. And any number of other things. You Earthers have become very proficient in killing each other. Every item they can get their hands on will be given over to void-traders who research it and then mass-distribute it to their army. And what if we can't take it back? Larger war machines could be summoned in parts and then assembled here. I know of tanks, artillery, and bombers. Each method of destruction they extract will multiply the strength of the Western Empire. Of Bradford."

Shit. She has a point. Individual adventurers might grow strong. Superhuman even. But even they would be near useless against machines of war. A rather bleak outlook for the future. That begs the question, how can one person change everything?

"What about Maryn? How can she take on a whole empire? This isn't some story tale. Even if she gets to Bradford and kills him, it wouldn't undo the empire."

"No. Maybe not. But it would give us a chance." Before I can say anything, she holds up a hand. "I told you that the Church Of The Prophet couldn't summon more than handheld items. But that only counts for prophecies for summoning. They could still influence Besona with prophecies that act here. Directly. It is harder to do, but they have the numbers and dedication."

"They have a prophecy about Maryn?"

"No. They have a prophecy running about Bradford." A deep sigh escapes her. "We couldn't stop it. Counteract it. The details are hazy to make out. But we know this. Bradford can only be defeated by a hero originating from Earth."

I nod. That's why Maryn is here. It probably also explains the animosity I got from the head priestess. An Earther came and started to wreck stuff. That probably makes her hate Earth and everyone from it quite a lot. There is a certain irony. In order to defeat Bradford, she has to entrust all her hopes to another person from Earth.

"Sounds like Maryn can't lose."

"She can. The prophecy says that Bradford can only be defeated by a hero coming from Earth. It doesn't mean Maryn is the one. She isn't our first attempt. Three heroes came before her. They all failed. She has to succeed. If she doesn't, we will lose the temple and with it the ability to summon new heroes from Earth. Then, Bradford will be invincible. And with him, his army. Because to Besona, the army under his command is part of him. He beat impossible odds before. Once, he was outnumbered by twenty to one. Still, he claimed victory."

Now I get it. The church can't back down. The temple is their last line of defense. Without it, everything is lost. Sending in Maryn now is a suicide run. But withdrawing would give Bradford the means to equip his army with even deadlier weapons. Then, Maryn would have an even worse task ahead of her. That doesn't sound like a scenario she can win.

"Does Maryn know any of this? That you are sending her on a suicide mission."

"As of yesterday evening." Tired, the priestess pinches the bridge of her nose. "She chose to go now, instead of later. After explaining everything, we asked her what she wanted to do. Because you are right. It is suicide. The odds of her winning are slim. We brainstormed different strategies, but it came down to the fact that we couldn't let Bradford get control of the temple. With stronger weapons, the empire will continue to expand. In the same bloody way as before. Hundreds of thousands will die. Probably even in the millions."

"I understand." I do. And that's what sucks. I have something in my possession that could change the tide. Give Maryn a fighting chance. If that summons from the void-trader guild hadn't been-

I have a decision to make. One that is similar to Maryn's. Flee or charge headfirst right in.

Part of me wants to run. I don't owe the church anything. Maryn isn't really my sister. We just look like it. I have no responsibility. No obligation.

But Myra-

She was there for me from the first steps I took on Besona. Through her I got compassion. A purpose even. She showed me that my stats weren't complete junk. That I had a promising future as a void-trader.

I owe her everything. And maybe most surprising, I owe her my heart. I didn't come to Besona to fall in love. Didn't expect to. But now, I can't imagine a life without her.

If Myra is standing by Maryn's side, then so will I.

"I'll be in Demole as fast as I can."

"You are a worthy ally, Lillyn. One I failed to recognize in time. For what it is worth, I apologize."

Well, that was unexpected. How should I react to it? Make a big deal out of it? Goat her a little?

Nah.

I give her a nod. One she returns.

And with that, I cut the connection.

There is nothing I can do now. Except maybe research another upgrade to the Automata body. Could be close, but I think there might be enough time left for it.

That means I have to meditate the shit out of that research.

It means I can't spare my attention to you. I know you probably have a million questions right now. Your heads are full of information and worries. So is mine.

Gotta push that down.

Alright. Talk to you all later.

I got shit to research.