Lillene

Enjoy!

Ann trembled as she answered the call of the Memory of Light. It was in eagerness and anticipation, not fear; she couldn’t be afraid of her own sponsor! Everything the Memory of Light did was for the best, even stripping Ann of her title as a Valkyrie and removing her right to have guards. The guards took far too long to reach the Mound, but at least all six of her remaining guards did make it. They’d be fine after some remedial training to get them up to the skill level they should have had to begin with.

Not that she knew what happened to them. Both times she asked, she was told that they were no longer her business. Once they were returned to her, she’d make sure they were properly trained and disciplined.

Or maybe she’d get better guards when she was finally reinstated as a Valkyrie? Yes, her first mission went wrong, but it wasn’t her fault; that was obvious for anyone to see. After all, hadn’t she also been assigned as a secondary trainer, assisting the Mistress of Novices? Sure, she mostly trained guards and novices too new to have passed their First Test, but it was still a valued and valuable role. Even if it was one she didn’t particularly enjoy. She was good at fighting, but all the practice and forms work was just boring; sparring and real combat against an opponent trying to kill her were where Ann excelled. The rush of the fight was everything.

Ann hoped this call to the Court of Light meant that she would be placed back onto duty as a Valkyrie again. That was where she belonged, not stuck here doing makework!

When she reached the door to the Court, the guard nodded at her. The woman smirked as she told Ann they weren’t ready for her yet; she was to enter with the next group.

Why did she have to wait? Valkyries weren’t supposed to wait! They were welcome in the Court of Light at any time!

Ann brushed off the thought that she wasn’t a Valkyrie anymore and started to enter anyway. 

The guard stepped rudely into Ann’s path and gloated at the knowledge she had and Ann didn’t. “The Memory is seeing another petitioner. You should wait; she doesn’t like being interrupted. The rest of your group has been sent for and will arrive shortly.”

The rest of her group? Did that mean she’d be getting her guards back? She couldn’t wait! 

A Valkyrie Ann didn’t recognize and three male guards arrived while Ann waited impatiently outside the Court. When the guard finally waved at her to tell her it was time to enter, she sent that group in as well. Ann made certain to lead; the leader was the one who was in charge, after all, and Ann was always in charge.

The Memory of Light sat on her throne and waited as Ann and the group of four that trailed behind her made their way up the aisle. When they were the proper distance out, Ann stood proudly, as was any Valkyrie’s right in front of the Throne of Light. She didn’t look behind her to see what the others did, but she knew the other Valkyrie should be standing as well and the guards kneeling.

“I see you have forgotten your lesson already,” the Memory of Light started. “Kneel.”

The Memory’s aura crashed down on Ann. She staggered back a step and almost fell. Ann glanced around; who had roused the Memory’s ire? Which of the guards hadn’t knelt?

They all seemed to be kneeling. Then why was the Memory’s aura still pressing down on her? It seemed to be getting stronger, not weaker; the Memory wasn’t appeased.

It took Ann a long moment to realize that no one else seemed to be affected by the Memory’s aura. The evidence of control infuriated her; who set this up? It had to be deliberate; who wanted to humiliate her? The guard outside? This other Valkyrie? Sure, she might have formally lost her title but Ann was still a Valkyrie!

Only that didn’t seem to be true here in the Memory of Light’s opinion and it was clear that someone wanted to display Ann’s stumble in front of everyone. She could already hear the laughter happening behind closed doors, though the room was completely silent in the face of the Memory’s anger.

“Kneel, girl. Now.” The Memory of Light sounded almost bored as she forced Ann to one knee, then both, with the sheer weight of her aura. Ann glared at the Memory; why was she going along with this farce? She knew Ann was skilled! It was almost like she believed that nonsense about Ann’s failure! It kept coming up, no matter how often she smacked it out of any novice or guard she heard it from.

The Memory’s attention stayed on Ann for a long moment after she fell to her knees, then the pressure lessened. It didn’t disappear, but it became bearable as the Memory’s attention shifted to the still standing Valkyrie behind Ann. “Valkyrie Ida. You are called to action, as a warrior of the Mimir. More, you are called to the Hunt. You will travel with a contingent blessed by the Throne of Blood. They will find those whose threads must end and you will reap their lives. You have not yet assembled your full contingent of guards, so I am sending you with one of my choice. She is insubordinate and over-proud, lazy and insufferable, but she is also blessed with a Valkyrie’s weapon and the ability to use it. Her Sight Skill helps her in the moments of a fight. She is your attack dog; do not allow her to direct your guards or skimp on her training.”

Ann shifted her glare from the Memory of Light to this child of a Valkyrie who was clearly her punishment. Was she supposed to train the girl or simply put up with her? Surely Ann couldn’t be expected to actually follow her commands?

Valkyrie Ida bowed deeply towards the Memory of Light. “As you command. I shall Seek and those who stand in the way of Eternus shall be destroyed.”

The Memory of Light nodded at Ida, then shifted her attention and back to Ann. The weight of her aura came with it. “Child, you have failed in ways you do not understand. You are to watch, learn, and kill when you are told. You may spar but you are not not permitted to give orders. Is that understood?”

There was only one acceptable answer, however unfair it was. Ann knew that from her training as a novice and the Memory’s words brought that training back all too clearly. She bowed forward, folded on herself until her head nearly touched the floor. “Yes, Memory.”

“Good. Now begone, and hurry; while the scent has been found, the trail is faint. You must reach your destination before your prey moves on.”

-----------------

Serenity slept through whatever it was that Lord Cymryn had to do to get access to a room situated in a nexus in Themrys City. By the time Serenity woke, nearly ten hours after they landed, it was all arranged.

To Serenity, Themrys City looked like a relatively standard Imperial city. It clearly showed that it was the result of Imperial settlement rather than conquest; there was only one building style and the entire city was laid out in the sort of systematized, planned manner that said it had been planned from the beginning.

In a lot of ways, that part reminded Serenity of many American cities. 

There were some buildings outside the city wall made of wood, but the wall was clearly stone-reinforced earth. The outer layer was stone, but any competent mage would be able to tell the center was stabilized dirt. For Serenity, the easiest way to tell was the death inside the wall; it varied in age and was mostly small sources, weak and hard to notice if you weren’t looking unless you were the Incarnate of Death. 

The death in the earth of the wall should have been far more difficult to detect than it was. Normally, the enchantments on a city wall would wash out anything fine like minor mana affinities, but while the wall technically was enchanted, none of the enchantments were powered. That was unusual, but not unprecedented in Serenity’s experience; some places didn’t find it worthwhile to power the wall enchantments unless they were under assault. Human guards were generally cheaper.

Despite the lack of enchantments, this wall was unguarded. Serenity considered that a bad sign for the planet; while there were no hostile sapient groups, there also weren’t enough people on the planet to fully control the dungeons. They might be handled by animals and monsters, but Serenity doubted it. Not guarding the walls of a city meant that the walls only stopped things that couldn’t climb them, fly over them, or dig beneath them. The fact that the gate was open meant that other things weren’t stopped either.

Inside the wall, the buildings were stone with slate roofs; that was clearly a fire prevention measure. It also said that stone and slate were very available in the area; Serenity’s guess was that their presence was probably a requirement for the city’s location. With an entire planet to choose from, the Empire could put their capitol in a very good location.

Beyond the availability of stone, the smooth roads and monolithic building construction made it clear the Empire had stone mages available to perform a lot of the building tasks. The outer parts of the city looked almost like modern concrete construction, except that the material was clearly natural stone instead of the ground-up mix that made concrete. It would have been a fairly nice appearance if it were in better repair.

The outer part of the city was abandoned. Serenity half wanted to call it the slums, and it probably was, but more than that there simply weren’t many people present and the buildings were both overgrown and damaged by time. It was impossible to tell how long it had been; the plant growth was spotty and it looked like there were periodic ineffective attempts to control it. If he had to guess, the area had probably been mostly abandoned for decades, which meant the abandonment predated the World Eaters’ arrival.

The overgrowth rather defeated the point of building in stone. Serenity wondered if that was why it seemed to be periodically cut back or if there was another reason. Perhaps the city had reclaimed part of the area at some point?

Lord Cymryn had them hurry past the abandoned area. Serenity heard fighting in the distance but nothing tried to jump out at the pair of flyers headed deeper into the city. Under other circumstances, Serenity would have wanted to go find what the fighting was about, but right now he wanted to resolve the questions about the World Eaters and Themrys as quickly as possible so that he could leave the painful planet.

Several minutes after the noises started in the distance, they fell silent again. Serenity assumed it was probably a group of humans hunting monsters, but it could have been anything. Serenity went over the short recording, but since it was only sound he could only guess what happened. The only thing he could be certain of was that it didn’t sound like a fight between two human groups; there were definitely some bestial roars in the mix and there was no sound of metal hitting metal at speed.

Serenity shelved his review when they reached a second wall. Unlike the first, this one was in good repair and patrolled; it also seemed to be a far simpler enchanted stone wall. It had clearly been built by hand and mortared together, rather than made by stone mages. It was obvious that more than one thing had changed in the time since the outer wall was first built.

Lillene

Ah, Ann. So inclined to see the negative in everyone … except for herself.