Nathan leaned back in his office chair. They’d switched it out for a more comfortable one at some point, which he was pretty happy about. They needed to find a way to get more light in here, though.

  “Lord Nathan? Did you hear what I said?” a voice said.

  Yeah, Nathan would definitely like a new light source. The issue was that he wanted it to be natural light. The way that it was set up now meant that there was a substantial period of time where there wasn’t any light, as there was only one window behind him.

  “My lord, are you not concerned?”

  Nathan mechanically tilted his head toward Anand.

  “I heard, I was just trying to distract myself.” Nathan rubbed his fingers against his temples. “Okay, so Fenrir wants me dead. How’d that happen?”

  “According to our sources, it happened after Bjorn spoke to him in private. The exact words aren’t known. What we do know is that immediately after that, Dither was on fire due to a massive bounty.”

  “What even are they trading for my death? It’s not like money is a thing anymore.”

  “Yes, my lord, but barter still remains. They managed to get their hands on multiple Pandora 2.0s. They’re offering all of them to the person who can kill you.”

  “So I can expect multiple assassination attempts for the duration of the circle.”

  “Yes, my lord. In fact, I intercepted a poisoned cup of tea that was on its way to you earlier.”

  “Wait, how long ago was this about to be put out?”

  “Twenty minutes, my lord.”

  “And in twenty minutes, I’ve already had one assassination attempt.”

  “Three, actually.”

  Nathan’s expression screwed up in confusion. “What? When?”

  “There was a man who was planning to plant a bomb in the bushes behind you. Oh, and there was a young lady who’d wanted to seduce you, then kill you in your sleep.”

  “How did you even find out about that last one?”

  “When she started practicing her seduction techniques in the bathroom mirror, it raised some concerns. And then when she followed that up with a knife hidden underneath her dress and a stabbing motion toward the person she was snoozing… it was pretty easy to put together the pieces from there.”

  “…great. Just great. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about before.”

  Nathan pinched the bridge of his nose and thought about his next move.

  “We need someone on our side from the orc people," he said. "I still haven’t given up on Bjorn. I think he was just giving Fenrir information—I really doubt that he had intended for things to escalate so quickly. I don’t think anybody could’ve expected Fenrir deciding to put a hand on my head.”

  “Very well. Do you have a method of contacting him, or would you like us to arrange something?”

  “I have his account on Dither. I’ll try to talk to him.” Nathan tapped his index finger against his desk. “But in a bit. I need to get more information about a certain problem.”

  “Yes, my lord. If you have no further orders, I’ll be taking my leave.”

  Anand turned around and moved to step out when there was a sudden explosion in the distance.

  Anand straightened up and tensed like a cocked gun.

  “I’ll investigate immediately—”

  Nathan held up a hand. “I already know what that was.”

  Anand furled his eyebrows together. “How?”

  “Emi, Lily, and Mara are having a girls’ day out.”

  With each name, Anand’s face grew more and more constipated. At the final name, he looked down at the ground, then back at Nathan.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Why did you allow that?” he asked.

  Good question.

  “Lily needs friends and to play with girls her own age.”

  “Lily only existed six months ago.”

  “Yes.”

  Anand squinted his eyes. The two stared at each other for what felt like a whole minute.

  “I'll go make sure everything’s okay,” Anand said.

  Nathan stood up. “Yeah, I’ll go with you.”

  It turned out that someone had constructed an indoor target range inside of Nathan’s town. Mara had heard about it through the grapevine and had taken both Emi and Lily out to practice shooting firearms.

  Questionable choice of location aside, the three were apparently having a surprisingly good time until Mara brought out a bazooka to “test the building’s integrity.”

  At that point, it was all over.

  After stopping a lawsuit, Nathan took Emi to the side for a private conversation. He was on his way to her soulbound town in order to get further information on how exactly they managed to get out of the Nine Circles.

  He stepped through the portal and was transported to the other side. The familiar gleaming white walls of the elven capital stretched up above him.

  “How exactly does a plant use a gun?” Nathan whispered.

  “It was pretty simple, all things considered.” His shoulder twitched. “I just used my roots and formed a hand. It wasn’t particularly precise, but it got the job done.”

  “…And you really had fun?”

  He really didn’t need another violent, gun-toting sociopath on his team. One Mara was enough.

  “Yes—”

  His heart sunk.

  “—Though it wasn’t because of the guns.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Then why?”

  She muttered something, low and quiet.

  “What was that?” Nathan asked.

  They approached the gate, and Nathan nodded at the guard. The guard nodded back, and the gate rolled upward into an alcove in the ceiling.

  Lily said something, still too low for Nathan to hear. If she were actually making noise, he probably would’ve heard, due to his enhanced senses. But she wasn’t actually saying words—she was doing some kind of weird mental projection thing that made Nathan’s head spin.

  “I still can’t hear you,” Nathan said.

  “I said it was because they were nice!”

  Nathan smirked.

  “I mean, don’t get me wrong,” Lily continued. “I still prefer to hang out with you rather than those crazy people, but…”

  “But?”

  “But I guess I wouldn’t be opposed to talking with them more, once in a while.”

  That was as much of a ringing endorsement as Nathan would ever hear from the little lady.

  Good for her. Although he would prefer if she made friends with people a little bit less insane—though he supposed Emi wasn’t that bad—it was nice to see her socializing with people.

  After a few more minutes of walking, they eventually came to the castle at the center. Nathan had never been here before, but Emi had said someone at the front would take him into the royal library.

  As she said, there was someone waiting.

  The elf man spotted him and waved. Nathan awkwardly lifted his hand back and waved as well.

  “Lord Nathan, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” The elf held out his hand. “I’m the royal archivist. I was told to give you access to all of our hidden texts related to our first journey through the Nine Circles.”

  “Yeah, it felt relevant, given the situation.”

  The royal archivist opened his mouth to respond, then shut it. A small frown appeared on his face.

  “I must admit that there was a reason why these were locked away,” he finally said. “There are several warnings attributed to those who read the texts in years prior. They claim that reading these books drives them mad. They started hearing things, seeing things. Their minds slowly deteriorated until their bodies shut down.”

  Nathan thought about what that was for a second before it hit him with all the subtlety of a brick to the head.

  It was the Mother System.

  The books probably mentioned the Mother System. Either the elves who read about her became aware of her presence in the cracks beneath reality, or, even worse, they attracted her attention and she decided to explode their minds for the hell of it.

  No wonder the elves hadn’t taken advantage of their prior knowledge. They were all afraid of losing their minds like their forbearers.

  He needed a way to read the books in peace—

  He could’ve slapped himself.

  “I think I’ll be fine,” Nathan said.

  The royal archivist looked doubtful of that. “If you say so. Follow me.”

  The two descended into the castle depths. Unlike the rest of the city, the area where the archivist had taken him was barely maintained. The air was humid and stuffy, almost like a sauna.

  Eventually, they reached the locked door at the end of a long, long hallway.

  The archivist pulled the key from his pocket and inserted it into the lock. He turned it, and the lock clicked with an echo that Nathan was sure could be heard on the other end of the hallway.

  He pulled the door open.

  It was a small room, barely three paces apart in length. At the back, a book lay atop a podium.

  “You guys really don’t care about preservation, do you?” Nathan muttered.

  “There are spells on it that render the decomposition process nonexistent,” the royal archivist said, apparently not taking offense to Nathan’s comment. “Our ancestors knew that these texts might end up being the key to our survival.”

  The royal archivist had a few drops of sweat on his forehead. Nathan could guess what the issue was.

  “You can go, I can handle it from here,” Nathan said.

  The archivist slumped over in relief. He rubbed the sweat off his forehead.

  “Thanks. Good luck,” he said.

  He turned around and speed-walked to the back of the hallway. Within a minute, he turned a corner and vanished from sight.

  Nathan looked back at the book. The cover was plain, a black binding and nothing else—no title nor ornaments.

  Nathan reached into his inventory and poured out the funky golden water onto the ground, just enough to make a portal.

  He picked the book off the podium, then stepped backward into the portal.