Randel woke up with a headache. Not unusual these days, especially after long nights of arguing with himself. He sat up and rubbed his temples. A mild headache wouldn’t stop him from functioning, but it hampered his ability to make unified decisions. He blinked a few times, trying to keep his bleary eyes open. He could have literally murdered someone for a cup of coffee.

The inside of the World Seed was quiet—and more importantly, safe. The first thing Randel had done after bonding with Soul Seeker was to move down here. Only Players were able to enter the World Seed, and every Player had their own pocket dimension. This was the highest security place he could get. No one was able to intrude on his dreams here, and no one was able to assassinate him in his sleep.

The place had gone through quite a few additions in the last couple of months. The pile of unclaimed gold coins still dominated the middle of the World Seed’s abyssal black floor, but now it was surrounded by all sorts of necessities and furniture. Randel had a small but serviceable bed, a dressing cabinet, a washbasin, and a standing mirror. He had lamps that used Light magic, bookshelves full of documents from his managers, and a crate full of rations. There were paid servants just outside the Seed to bring fresh water and food as well as change his chamberpot regularly. If Randel had decided not to leave the World Seed for a week, he could have more or less done it.

But as things currently stood, he didn’t spend more time here than necessary—though he had some inner conflicts about what was necessary. He got out of the bed and began to stretch. Taking care of his body’s basic necessities was important. Keeping his body fit and functioning was important. Keeping himself clean was—well, it was bothersome, but it contributed to his body’s health too. It also made him fit better into this society of humans. That was important too. Necessary. He walked to his mobile basin to wash his face.

The cold water woke him up and soothed his headache. He was much more aware of his other aches now; muscle cramps from his rigorous training. Strange, how troublesome that felt too. He rarely bothered to improve his body in the past, not when he could just find a better host anytime. That was no longer an option. He had one body, and he had to make sure to bring the most out of it. When he glanced at his mirror, the man who stared back was completely different from the one in his memories.

Gone were the unruly locks of dark hair; he had shaved it all off so that it wasn’t a liability in combat. In the past he would have described himself as thin, but now he was definitely in the lean category. The last few months of diet and training were already showing. His posture was a bit slouched, so he adjusted it. Fixing that was easy. Fixing the dark bags under his eyes was not. Nights after nights of restless sleep had done a number on him. It wasn’t just the quality of his sleep either; every waking moment felt as if his brain was pushed to its absolute limits. It was like taking an especially difficult math test in high school, except it was never over.

Looking at his bare chest in the mirror, Randel concluded that today it didn’t look too bad. He had two faintly visible scars forming an X shape over his heart, but there was no sign of glowing orange veins around it. Sometimes the mental stress could get so bad that the strange glowing fluid became visible under his skin, spreading from his chest, crawling up his neck, reaching for the corner of his eyes. Even with the combined knowledge of the shades, Randel wasn’t quite certain what the substance was. Whenever it spread through his veins, it seemed like an indication to stop what he was doing. Pushing on carried the risk of his body collapsing, which had happened twice so far; once in the past when he had first met Tengi’quinn, and once recently after an especially rigorous training session. He had to make sure that there wouldn’t be a third time.

Randel’s gaze traveled from his chest to his left leg, where his flesh ended and the black material of Soul Seeker began. It fit him perfectly. His mechanical leg had gotten scrapped in the fight against Ryder, and he never bothered to replace it with another one. There was no need to, when Soul Seeker was superior in just about every sense—well, almost every sense. Constantly reshaping it as he moved was second nature by now, but he had to wonder how much stress it put on his brain.

He had debated opening a wound on his stump and attaching the living weapon to his nervous system. It had worked with Soul Eater back when the Scarlet Hand tore his leg off; attaching it fully gave him even better control and shaping speed. However, if he fused Soul Seeker to himself he wouldn’t be able to use it for anything else. He would lose a valuable tool. There was no guarantee that such a bond would help his overburdened mind anyway—if anything, it could have made things worse.

“This worked so far, didn’t it?” Randel told his reflection. He could almost imagine it replying back, like in his dreams. His reflection reassured him that although he wasn’t all-knowing about how to take care of this mortal shell, he was on the right track. He might need to pick up some new habits though. Meditation, for example.

“No time for that now.”

His words echoed oddly off the World Seed’s cloudy dome. He began to dress, starting with the vambraces that allowed him to swap between two sets of clothing. Part of him wanted those to be two sets of armor; it would have made him more versatile in battle. Unfortunately, his paint-stained shirt and slacks had become a rather iconic image of the Mad Painter; somehow he commanded more respect and fear when he wore casual clothes instead of coming fully armed. Still, at least the vambraces allowed him to switch to an alternative set of equipment at a moment’s notice.

The shirt and trousers were followed by a single boot on his right foot. It was his most recent purchase, a Player item called One-Legged Jumper that occupied the feet slot of his Equipment. There was no need for a left boot because he could just shape Soul Seeker to match his other leg. As for the final piece of his Player gear, he was already wearing it; a metal piercing in his left earlobe that counted as a head slot Equipment. Superior Earring of Toxin Resistance. The small and unassuming item had cost him most of his savings, but as long as Jack resided in Fortram, it was a necessity. Randel finished dressing by putting on his utility belt and pulling his shirt over it, and then there was just one last thing remaining: a necklace.

Randel picked it carefully up from the top of the dresser, holding it by its simple chain. At the end of the chain dangled an ivory fang—or so it looked like, but it wasn’t actually a fang. It was the severed end of a Sylven’s horn. It had no magical powers and no practical utility, but I chose to wear it anyway. If there was only one thing I chose every day, it was wearing this chain. Randel put it around his neck and tucked it beneath his shirt, ignoring the mild discomfort from the horn digging into his skin.

Today he had a training-free day, which meant that he would focus more on his connections. Politics and people management. He also had to figure out what to do with Yorg and his gang. There was going to be a council meeting in the evening where they discussed the next steps, but Randel might not wait for the decision made there. He had always done as he pleased, so this wouldn’t even be out of character for him.

There were two ways to access the World Seed: one through Fortram’s central square, and one through a tunnel below. Randel walked through the foggy wall of the dome while focusing on the latter option and arrived at a short corridor that opened up to a warehouse of sorts. Access to this place was limited to the most trusted members of the Painters, so there weren’t many people lingering around.

Randel headed straight for the portal station, paying no mind to the pair of human guards as they scrambled to salute him. He didn’t find such behavior necessary, but he wasn’t going to discourage any method of showing respect to him. The portal station consisted of five portal disks, four of which were empty and ready to draw symbols on. The fifth disk contained a permanent portal that Randel promptly walked through. He arrived at one of the Painters’ logistics centers, where he stood in line for another portal while a yellow-scaled Shrissten hauled some heavy bags through. Although traveling by portals was fast, they had the unfortunate side-effect of forming chokepoints like this one. The line wasn’t too long down here, but in the upper-city there were some really awful examples of how clogged the terminals could get during rush hours.

Some of the Painters recognized Randel, but he largely ignored the silly mortals as they greeted him with various degrees of reverence. He would have been content to wait out the line, and yet he soon found himself right behind the Shirssten worker—everyone else in the line had stood aside to let him through first.

The Shrissten worker, on the other hand, just hissed a greeting at him and continued tossing the bags through. She wasn’t afraid of making him wait, it seemed. The lizard-woman was an especially large member of her species; even hunched over as she stood, she towered over Randel. Young and healthy, and moderately wealthy, judging by the piercings in her head spikes. Like most of her species, she wore no clothes. The tattoo of a black dagger – Randel’s Mark of Replacement – was plain to see over the lighter scales on her chest. It showed that she was one of the original members of the Painters.

Being one of the founders was a station of pride among the Painters. After Fortram became part of the Dungeon, their organization went through a rapid expansion—and why wouldn’t it have, with cheap and spacious housing and free water? It was a chance to live a better life than the one in the slums. And so, all sorts of people flooded the lower-city, many of them wanting to join the Painters. Too many people to vet, too many people to properly organize. Randel could cast Mark of Replacement only four times in a row before his mana was depleted, so marking everyone who wanted to join was out of the question.

Painters who wore a Mark became distinguished. Officers were made from their numbers and were put in charge of the others. Since the Mark always came out in the image of Soul Eater, Randel created tiers by shaping Soul Eater with various levels of intricacy before casting the Mark on someone. The common officers had ornamented dagger tattoos, while the highest-ranking officers had spoons … or something equally original.

People tried to copy the tattoos, of course, so it wasn’t a flawless system. There were also nonsense rumors that accepting a Mark meant handing one’s soul over to the Mad Painter. There were also less-nonsense rumors about the Mad Painter being able to switch places with anyone with the Mark, but those rumors were not as common. Randel tried to avoid triggering his Marks as much as possible. It gave him some measure of satisfaction that he was using the Ability in a completely different way than the Inspectors had intended.

Randel blinked. He realized that the Shrissten worker was gone and the way through was clear. His head hurt. How long had he been standing there? He stepped through the portal, moving purposefully to another portal disk. Fortram was a jumbled mess of interconnected portals, but he had this route memorized already. Two jumps later he arrived at the information center.

Calling the rectangular chamber an information center was perhaps an overstatement, considering how few people visited this place … but the idea was that one day it would become a hub for all sorts of information trading purposes. The architecture was more elaborate compared to the other copy-paste chambers of the Dungeon, with rows of offices carved into the stone walls on either side. Tora and his listeners had their headquarters situated here and Randel also had an office at the very back, which he was currently heading toward.

There were two things that distinguished Randel’s office from the rest: an ornate archway that drew the eyes to the entrance, and the goleton-mounted guard stationed in front of it. The goleton itself was a large bipedal creature – Imaya had likened it to a metal troll – that had a saddle on its hunched back. Barumm’s finest work. The saddle was wide enough for a human to sit on, but it was currently occupied by a snoozing, sleeping Thardos guard.

Randel frowned, reaching out mentally. The guard wore a Mark of Replacement. A custom one. Part of Randel remembered that the furry mortal was called Tazuka. Once Maa’s children, now a newly fledged adult. A sleeping guard. Randel reached for his belt and drew Soul Eater.

It had been a while since he last fed, he lamented while flipping the dagger over in his hand. Merging with his mortal shell together required a constant supply of mana that he could absorb only via his demonic weapons. He had a fair amount of dead bodies behind him, so he wasn’t in immediate danger of running out—but why wouldn’t he take the chance to feed, if he had it?

Because he wasn’t a complete sociopath. He shook his head, then gave Soul Eater a gentle toss upward and triggered Tazuka’s Mark to swap places with him. As soon as he found himself in the saddle, he teleported himself to Soul Eater just as it began to fall. The sudden change of posture jolted Tazuka awake and he hit the ground with a yelp. Randel stomped his left leg on the furry mortal’s chest, pinning him down.

“You slept while on duty.”

Tazuka’s entire body went rigid, save for his wildly twitching whiskers.

“I—uh, I’m so—”

“Shut up. I don’t need to hear your excuses. I’ve removed your Mark and your presence is no longer required here. Report to your superior officer and tell them to find me. They’ll be punished too.”

Tazuka nodded shakily. Randel lifted his foot off, noting with disgust that the furry mortal had soiled himself in fear. He turned aside without another word, walked past the goleton, and entered his office. He let out a weary sigh as the door closed behind him. Was this really what I had become—a bully? Damn, but I would have hated to have a boss like myself! Be that as it may, Randel had better things to do than thinking about how to discipline incompetent subordinates.

His office was spacious. It had no windows, but there were plenty of Light magic lamps to keep the place bright and a magic-aided ventilation system that kept the air fresh. Randel walked to his desk and waited. His eyes rowed over the large pinboard on the wall, filled with pieces of paper connected together. They showcased his rivals and adversaries. It wasn’t anything special or top-secret – this office wasn’t secure enough for such purposes, as evidenced recently – but the pinned papers were good reminders of who to keep an eye on. They put things into proper perspective.

On the top of the board were the Inspectors. There wasn’t much he could do about them right now, but there were plenty that he could do for them. The gods of Nerilia were pulling all sorts of strings to keep their world in motion, but they left their puppets with some measure of freedom. Randel could exploit that. As long as he kept himself in motion, so long he didn’t give his Inspector reasons to yank on his strings too hard, he could further his goals without having to bother with the gods. I found that notion strange, considering that the end-goal was to take a swing at the gods, but—oh, well. Stranger things had already happened.

The shadebound Players were pinned just below the Inspectors. They were a blunt but effective tool; the most unsubtle move that the gods had made so far. Randel had fixed a rough map of the Terran Empire onto the board to keep a better track of what the other pawns were doing. He turned on his collar and opened the Quests tab to check on his opponents.

Shades of the Moon
Description: Seven shadebound Players arose and Nerilia has become a world much too small for them. The time has come to prove their worth. Only one may be left standing beneath the Moon!
Objective: Be the only shadebound alive.
Reward: A conversation with your Inspector and a small favor.

Shadebound Players remaining:
Amelie
Kadir
Olga
Randel, the Mad Painter
Location: Fortram
Ryder
Tanaka
Location: Skyward
Victor, the Monster
Location: north from Deep Lake

No update since the last time. It was to be expected; there weren’t many moving pieces left. Only three shadebound Players, and Randel was one of them. He remembered that both Tanaka and Kadir had been in Skyward before Kadir’s name was crossed out, so it wasn’t difficult to figure out what happened there. Tanaka resided in Skyward ever since. Randel couldn’t blame her; he was doing the same in Fortram, consolidating his power instead of hunting down the others.

Victor was different, though: he was constantly on the move. Randel had tracked his journey as he hunted Amelie down. He might have had a hand in the death of the seventh shadebound too, though Randel found it unlikely. Olga had perished in the Southern Deserts, which was much too far from Victor or any other shadebound. But Randel hadn’t been watching his quest entry at the time, so he couldn’t rule out the possibility that Victor had somehow made a quick detour.

Much like the Mad Painter, Victor also had a title; the Monster. He had done something that made him infamous, something that made people recognize and distinguish him as a monster. What a cliché. The title of Mad Painter didn’t even sound so bad anymore! And while Randel’s instincts told him that Victor was the more dangerous of his two opponents, he didn’t dismiss the threat that Tanaka represented either. No rumors had reached Fortram about her, so she was either operating from the shadows or she had a very tight grip over what got out of her city. The scouts Randel had sent to Skyward had yet to return with their findings.

“Scouts and spies,” he muttered. It felt so surreal sometimes, how far he could reach with just a little bit of money and influence. What I found even stranger was my mentality behind all of this. I was no longer running away from my problems and making them someone else’s. I was no longer going with the flow while hoping that everything would turn out well. I was no longer reacting to emergencies when it was already too late. No, what I—what Randel was doing felt much more purposeful. He had the mental fortitude to tackle his problems one by one. He acted in the best interest of his future.

Randel blinked. Where had he been? Ah, scouts and spies. His mild headache from earlier had gotten worse—a dull throb just behind his eyeballs. Scouts and spies. They were necessary inside and outside of Fortram. Randel needed better methods to keep an eye on Tanaka; his main concern was the distance between them. With an airship, Skyward was only about a day of flight from Fortram. Randel checked his collar every day, because he couldn’t rule out the possibility that Tanaka would eventually go on the offensive. Victor was still far away, but if he ever arrived he would reach Skyward first. Perhaps Tanaka would find it wiser to face Randel before that happened.

Shadebound Players weren’t the only pieces on Randel’s board, of course. There were many others. Too many, in his opinion. Yorg and the Black Moon, Fortram’s largest underground gang. Jack and the Rangers of Fortram, the largest Covenant of Players in the area. Tengi’quinn and House Quinn, a minority group that nevertheless were packing considerable power. The Factory, whose monopoly was threatened by Randel’s new dungeon-city. A Governor, who was desperate to save face and to reassume some measure of control over Fortram. There was no way Randel would be able to face them all.

Not unless he turned them against each other.

It wouldn’t be easy. These parties had been here for a while now—it was the Mad Painter who intruded on their territories and upended the status quo. All eyes were on him. But even so, these parties were no friends of each other; they barely tolerated one another. If Randel prodded them the right way, they might just tear each other’s throat out and save him the work. The Rangers of Fortram would jump at any obvious threat against Fortram’s citizens. House Quinn would jump at any obvious threat to Devi’s safety. The Factory would jump at any opportunity that mitigated its losses. The Governor would jump at anything that lent him a grip on this city. The Black Moon … well, they were a problem.

Although technically both the Rangers of Fortram and the Governor stood against crime, Randel had quickly learned that Yorg’s gang was a convenient blind spot for both parties. As long as the Black Moon didn’t do something publicly outrageous, they could operate freely. Had Yorg been content with what he already had, it wouldn’t have been so bad … but his eyes were clearly set higher. The Painters were constantly in conflict with the Black Moon, and worse yet, they were on the losing side. Randel’s newly formed organization was simply no match for the years of experience and influence that Yorg’s gang had.

There were other aspects to consider too. Randel was well aware that even if he took the Black Moon out of the picture, crime wouldn’t cease to exist. In regards to Fortram’s stability, having crime in an organized manner was more preferable than otherwise. Randel wasn’t some delusional justice warrior sworn to eradicate evil. If he truly wanted to control the city, he needed to control its underworld too. Destroying the Black Moon wasn’t the optimal outcome here. Taking it over was.

Easier said than done, of course. Randel was already toeing the line of the law, hungry eyes watching him closely for any misstep. If it got out that he had taken over the underworld, the semblance of the cordiality that he currently had with the government would be gone.

Behind Randel, the office’s door opened but he kept his eyes on the board. So much. There was so much to consider. Metal rattled, wheels creaked, and he smelled fresh bread. His stomach growled.

“Good morning, Randel.”

“Good morning,” Randel replied, turning to face the woman who had addressed him. Erika wore her usual office clothes, her graying hair tied up in a bun. She had a golemantic exoskeleton over her jaw and the side of her neck that supposedly helped her heal. It had been a while now, and Erika still needed its assistance. The one thing that certainly wasn’t going to heal was her left arm, which the surgeon had claimed was beyond saving—and so it had been amputated and replaced with a golemantic construct. That was what went for healing in the great Terran Empire, apparently. Natives of this world possessed powerful magic to reanimate their bones, and so they resorted to amputation much more often. As someone who had also lost a limb, Randel found that mindset infuriating.

“You’re staring again.”

Randel looked up from Erika’s prosthetic hand to meet her eyes.

“Yes. Is that a problem?”

“Only insofar as it unnerves people,” she said, pushing her glasses higher up her nose. “I’m used to it, so it doesn’t matter to me, but it doesn’t reflect well on your image.”

Randel grunted. “You and your never-ending ethics lessons.”

“They aren’t lessons, just sound advice,” Erika said, unfazed by his tone. “Anyway, I brought some breakfast. I presume you haven’t eaten yet?”

“It slipped my mind,” Randel admitted. He glanced at the cart of food. Pastries, fruit, juice, and tea. More than enough for the two of them. “Thanks.”

He lifted a cluster of grape-like fruit off the cart and turned back to his board. His seven biggest opponents took up most of the space, but he had pinned lots of other names up around them. People to be mindful of. People who weren’t opponents now, but could potentially turn into one. Heda, Jessie, Imaya. Stanley. Devi.

“Ah, the board,” Erika said as she poured herself a cup of tea. “Is my name up there still?”

“Of course.”

It wasn’t about not trusting anyone. Such notions were foolish. Randel trusted his mortal companions—just not blindly. He trusted them to behave according to their frail nature. This entailed the possibility of betrayal, of course, but Randel trusted them to do it with a reason. These people all had their own goals and motivations and if betrayal came, it would come from those places.

In a certain sense, Erika was Randel’s greatest liability. She controlled his finances and managed his companies. She needed less and less funding from Randel’s Player allowance as the Dungeon-built homes began to return enormous profits. Randel knew that Erika did not strictly need him anymore. She could take the majority of his assets for herself and he wouldn’t be able to do a single thing about it—legally.

But Erika wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t greedy either, but that was beside the point. Randel trusted her to not do anything stupid. She wouldn’t spit in the face of a Reaper. Knowing this reassured Randel and allowed him to focus on more important things. His partnership with Erika was both efficient and cordial.

“My name up on that board,” Erika said, sipping her tea. “You know, I think that I find it comforting.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. Strange, isn’t it? Perhaps I ought to feel offended, but truthfully, I don’t mind. It seems like you’re prepared for complications, which makes me feel like you know what you’re doing.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“That isn’t the impression I got in the past. You’ve grown a lot recently.”

“Are you patronizing me?”

“Not at all. It’s simply an honest observation.”

“Sure it is,” Randel said, looking back at the board. He could tolerate this much. Erika was someone much younger than he was, but her observations and advice were usually worth listening to. Randel could learn from her—which was an odd notion for an eternal being, but he had come to accept it long ago. The correct term was re-learn, actually. He reckoned that he had known everything at one point of his existence or the other, but his mind wasn’t infinite, and his memories weren’t infallible. The lives he lived several millennia ago blended into oblivion. Such was the curse of the shades, to learn and forget over and over again.

“Speaking of shades,” Randel muttered, looking at a single word at the edge of the board. Shade. A small map was hung underneath, one that he had long ago marked with all kinds of Quest entries about disappearing people. These cases got swept under the rug after the sweller invasion – which resulted in many more missing or dead citizens – but the fact remained that something had been wrong even before the entire city was turned upside down.

Whether there was a shade or not, it was impossible to tell. Randel had no solid proof, just a hunch. He was meant to test Soul Eater and Soul Seeker against shades. The Inspectors facilitated his encounter with Tamie, and it stood to reason that they had a backup plan in case the two of them never faced each other. Letting a shade loose in Fortram was a believable alternative.

Randel chewed on the fruit as he regarded the board. Erika asked something, but he ignored her for now. There was another piece on the board that he had pinned close to the shade, one that had almost become forgotten. The Scarlet Hand. The Emperor’s hitman, the Player who had torn Randel’s left leg off. He had come to the city’s aid when the giant swellers attacked with excellent timing. Why was he in Fortram at the time? Had he known that a Dungeon would crawl close to the city? But if so, why didn’t he stop it before the invasion happened?

No, the Scarlet Hand had been here for something else. There weren’t enough of the Emperor’s Hands to station one in every city, so it was a reasonable assumption that he was following an important lead. Did anything important happen recently? Well, yes, but most of those were caused by Randel. The Scarlet Hand must have been searching for something even before Randel got here.

“Erika, I have a question.”

“Yes?”

Randel tore his eyes off the board and walked to the cart to pour some water. His hands were shaking, he realized. How could he have missed such an important clue?

“The Scarlet Hands,” he said. “Are they all equipped to handle a shade anytime?”

“A shade, you say?” Erika asked, frowning over her cup of tea. “I’m not sure. But there are records of what the Hands are usually equipped with. I can have someone look into this.”

“That’s fine, just give me a guess now. If a shade suddenly appeared, would a Scarlet Hand who is stationed nearby have the means to capture it? He was using some kind of dimensional seal. A circle of magic runes drawn on the ground.”

“I’ve never heard about anything like it,” Erika said. “Maybe it was his Ability?”

Randel chewed on his lip, thinking, his minds struggling to remember. His body had been in so much pain back then…

“No,” he said. “I think the Hand was holding something as he drew those runes. It must have been a relic.”

Erika shrugged.

“Well, all I can tell you is that shades are very rare. This dimensional magic you’re talking about sounds rather peculiar too—and peculiar relics like that are expensive. I don’t think it’s feasible to equip every Hand with them. If I were the Emperor, I’d have only a select few specialists that can be dispatched to capture shades.”

“Right. But the Scarlet Hand I met was equipped for it anyway.”

“You said that the previous Dungeon Master was a shade. He probably came for that one.”

“I doubt it,” Randel said. “If that was true, he wouldn’t have let the sweller invasion happen. He could have stopped it much sooner.”

“Maybe he didn’t know its precise location and—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Randel cut her off. “Yes, I know that this is just speculation and that I might be wrong. It doesn’t matter though, because I already know what to do next.”

Erika sighed. “Let me guess, you want to find this Scarlet Hand.”

“I don’t just want to,” Randel said. “I am going to find him. I’ll personally visit the Emperor if I have to.”