Many years ago, when he was a young man and fresh from the training field, he’d falter like anyone else when a battle was going poorly enough that he’d thought he might die. But, as a Knight of Dorchester, he’d seen more than his share of combat and had learned to push past those feelings and keep fighting. Battles could turn in a moment, and as long as he kept his head, there was always a chance for things to turn in their favor.

  Perhaps Battle Leader Averett was right and their new lord would pull off another miracle. Yet, he had to admit, hearing her happily confess that she had no idea where Lord Walker currently was didn’t fill him with an abundance of confidence in that happening.

  That being said, when the portal didn’t snap closed but instead vanished as if it had never been there at all, and when the kobalds began dying in droves from spellfire, he couldn’t help but think Lord Walker had something to do with it. The only logical conclusion he could come to was that the mysterious and enigmatic young lord that he’d sworn his life to had once again done the impossible and saved them all from annihilation.

  But then he’d noticed that the dwarves arrived.

  They swept the battlefield clear of kobalds like an avalanche. Never in his life had he seen such levels of casual destruction being wielded by so few. Sure, he’d seen war wizards working together to burn towering mutated ant mounds out of the ground while their carapaces popped and hissed like kernels of corn over a fire. Several times he’d gotten to see scores of soldiers overrun by stampeding war horses wrapped in enough force essence to rip soldiers apart like tree branches caught in a hurricane. He’d once even witnessed Grandmaster Lancel fighting another city's champion during a formal border dispute with another city. But what the dwarves did was proof that there were some beings in this world that were too powerful for him to comprehend.

  And while he had no idea how they’d done it, it made sense that they were capable of simply waving their hand and dismissing the portal as if it were nothing. Existences like them were like forces of nature, and closing a simple portal was to be expected of them. That did, of course, beg the question of where Lord Walker had disappeared to if he hadn’t been the one responsible for their salvation.

  Seeing that Battle Leader Averett had already run off again, he and the front liners were left to deal with the mop-up of the remaining kobalds on his own. Or at least he’d thought that’s what would have happened. Instead, he watched in stunned silence as the kobalds around him simply keeled over all at once, having been sent to whatever hell they feared by the dwarven runic mage floating above them.

  The battle was over… finished… done. It had all happened so quickly that it left him feeling hollow.

  Looking around, he could see that he wasn’t the only one feeling caught off guard by how the battle had concluded. It was the most anti-climatic ending any of them could have conceived to what had been one of the most terrifying fights any of them had ever been in. He could see it in his soldier’s eyes, none of them felt like they’d won. None of them felt like cheering.

  He watched in silence as the healers raced to see to the casualties while the mages set down their weapons and attempted to help where they could, leaving him along with the other warriors and front liners like him to stand around in confusion.

  Seeing the dwarves confront Battle Leader Averett, he and many others watched in confusion as they pressed her for answers like she was some kind of criminal caught at the scene of a crime. Harold wanted to support her, but he felt so off balance all he could do was watch on in silence. He couldn’t understand what was going on. Less than a few minutes ago, he’d been in the thick of battle thinking he was going to die gloriously for the sake of humanity.

  Nothing he heard or saw made sense. The dwarves hadn’t been the ones to close the portal? Is that a Populator? What were they doing here? When did they get here? How did they get here? What in the infinite hells below was going on?

  Then, when that young Rose girl showed up out of nowhere proclaiming that Lord Walker had disappeared, Harold felt himself gasping along with everyone else who’d been listening. He felt himself following along with the rest of the soldiers as they trailed behind the procession toward where Rose had last seen him. He listened closely to the conversation as best he could when Battle Leader Averett tried to mediate between the two absurdly powerful groups of warriors.

  Then he saw it. Lord Walker coming back from the dead. It was clear that it wasn’t teleportation or any other sort of magic he’d ever heard of. He saw Lord Walker’s body being rebuilt bone by bone and organ by organ out of the very essence around them. His lord blazed like a raging inferno in the ether like a signal fire. It was like seeing a tale that would no doubt become a legend playing out right in front of him.

  He and the rest of House Walker’s soldiers listened closely as it was revealed that it HAD been Lord Walker who’d closed the portal, having given his life for them. But he’d come back. Nobody had been around to resuscitate him, so he’d just done it himself, letting not even soul death stop him from returning to them.

  His lord even laughed in the face of the absurdly powerful dwarves trying to kill him. And when it was revealed that they were Battleborns, dwarven heroes of legend, Harold didn’t know what to feel. While Battleborns were champions to the dwarves, they weren’t human, and it filled him with confidence to see them so scared of a human like Lord Walker.

  Harold could feel it in the ether that he wasn’t the only one to be caught up in what he was witnessing. Even the archmage arrived to prove how momentous what was happening was.

  Lord Walker, their lord, confronted the most powerful archmage in the kingdom, chastising him for having stolen his body and leaving him to drift across the planes without a way back. While he along with everyone else felt their very souls being suppressed by the presence of the great mage, with even the Populators and Battleborns being forced to silence, their lord stood tall and demanded answers of his own. It shouldn’t have been possible, but they were all witnessing it happen right in front of them.

  Harold had seen many things… but nothing ever like this.

  Then, when it was all over, and the dwarves were gone along with the Populators and their Lord, he and the rest of House Walker’s forces were left alone behind enemy lines to wonder if all that they had witnessed had actually happened. And if it weren’t for the sound of Battle Leader Averett’s voice snapping them out of it and ordering them all to begin fortifying their position, Harold wondered if they might still be standing there staring at the pile of kobald bodies which served as the sight of their Lord’s impossible victory.

  —--

  Tipping his head back and audibly groaning like a toddler begging the ceiling for help, Nero made his feelings clear about how he felt this examination was going.

  He should have known that Archmage Jennings would have ended up being a pain in the ass about him building himself a new body. Or maybe this was all due to how poorly he’d handled his explanation of coming back from the dead. Either way, shortly after Nero had accused the archmage of stealing his body, the man had teleported them both away from the battle, forcing Nero into a testing chamber without bothering to ask him for permission.

  It hadn’t been like Nero hadn’t tried to stop him. There just simply hadn’t been anything he could do. The archmage had taken control of the ether so completely, that Nero wanted to call ‘Hax’ and contact the local administrator for a ruling. Even Nero’s center hadn’t been safe from the man’s control. And the singular time he’d tried to carve a spell, he’d felt like he’d had part of his soul cut off. So, Nero ‘allowed’ himself to be captured while holding out hope that someone would eventually care enough to rescue him.

  Watching the lights flash and move all around him, Nero griped, “You can’t just abduct me! It’s not legal. And besides that… it’s wrong… and rude… and bullshit. For God’s sake dude, you work for the government! Do you really think you’re going to get away with this?”

  Across the lab, Archmage Jennings’ focus remained entirely on the display in front of him, thoroughly ignoring anything Nero was saying.

  Groaning again in annoyance at the man’s persistence, Nero crossed his arms, and not for the first time, muttered under his breath, “Asshole.”

  Apparently not caring about how unhappy Nero was with the situation, the archmage’s cool and calm voice asked, “So, you claim to have reconstituted your body using your center as the template? Explain to me again how you were able to stay conscious during the process.”

  Frowning at the archmage, Nero replied, “I told you! I have no idea. How am I supposed to know that none of this is normal? You people bring people back from the dead all the time! And I’ve seen you and plenty of other people build stuff out of nothing before. What I did is just a logical extension of that. I don’t understand what about this has you so worked up.”

  Struggling in the straps that held him in place, Nero tried and failed to rub his chin in thought while saying, “Well, I guess I can see you being a little surprised that I survived incorporating all that essence from the other plane. That seems like something you all haven’t figured out yet. But that’s just because you still think all that soul stuff is actual souls, which I’ve told you all repeatedly that it isn’t. That parts on you. You should probably look into that. Do some experiments or something. But leave me out of it. I’ve got too much other shit to deal with.”

  Nero wanted this to be over. Even though they’d only been at this for less than an hour, it felt to him like much longer. So when the door to the lab opened to admit a horde of Populators and dwarves marching into the room like they owned the place, Nero practically cheered.

  Greeting them with a smile, he shouted, “Thank God. Get me out of here. I’ve been abducted by a crazy scientist hellbent on probing me. I demand that you get him to unseal my link so I can contact my Vera… I mean my lawyer.”

  Both the dwarves and the Populators ignored him, merely offering him a quick glance to note that he was sufficiently strapped into the testing chamber and unable to free himself.

  The Populator in charge walked up to Jennings and said, “Archmage, I’d appreciate it in the future if you alerted us to where you’d taken the subject of our investigation. Leaving so abruptly was an unnecessary complication that was poorly received by our guests.”

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  In response, the dwarf in charge shouted, “We’re not yer ‘guests’!” before turning to Jennings and asking, “So, what have ye figured out mage? What is it?”

  Nero grumbled, “I’m right here. I can hear you. And you’re being dicks.”

  Once again ignoring him, The archmage replied to both the dwarf and the Populator without turning away from the hologram he was studying, “I needed to figure out what we’re dealing with, there wasn’t time for pleasantries. And as for what I’ve found out, the short answer is both ‘a lot’ and ‘I don’t know’.”

  Frowning in anger while clenching his fist, the dwarf replied, “Speak plainly mage?”

  Looking up from the hologram for the first time, the archmage stepped away from the monitoring station while gesturing over at Nero who was still strapped into the machine. “Well, for one thing, I can tell you that this is beyond a shadow of a doubt Lord Nero Walker. Somehow, he made himself another body. His soul signature and essence profile are identical to everything we have on record for him. But, the body he is using isn’t actually a body. It’s a perpetuating essence construct.”

  One of the Populators near the rear of the group asked, “Like a monster?”

  Turning to point at the Populator in the back, the archmage replied, “Absolutely correct. Exactly like a monster.”

  The Populator in charge asked, “How is that possible?”

  The archmage dropped his hands to his sides and replied, “I have no idea. I don’t understand what I’m seeing at all. It shouldn’t be possible. I’ve even located an essence crystal in his abdomen right behind his navel. If it weren’t for his soul signature, I’d have been sure that this was just some extraplanar entity wearing his form and mimicking his behavior.”

  While Nero listened on in interest, he did his best to stare down at his belly button to see if he could sense the essence crystal they were talking about. Considering how tightly strapped he was to the table, he couldn’t see much.

  The archmage walked over to Nero, ignoring the lights that were floating around all over the place, and reached out with a hand to grip Nero’s hand. With a flicker of a finger on his other hand, he cleanly severed Nero’s hand like he was trimming a bush. A fountain of blood poured out before he waved his hand again replacing it. The pain and healing had been so quick that Nero was barely able to understand what had just happened.

  Struggling to flex his new hand, Nero shouted, “Did you just cut off my fucking hand? What the hell, man?!?”

  Ignoring him, Jennings walked back over to the Populators and the dwarves, holding up Nero’s severed hand like it was a specimen they should be paying attention to.

  “If you watch, I expect…” he said before Nero’s hand began dissolving into essence like a monster fading back into the ether. “Ah, yes. Just as I thought. You see. He hasn’t been part of the world long enough to become intrinsically linked to the area. While ‘he’ is from here, the body he is using is being considered an invader.”

  Before the conversation could continue, the doors to the lab opened again to admit Vera god-damned Salvatore-Verena leading a group of well-dressed people along with Nick trailing along behind her. And judging by her face, what she was seeing hadn’t caught her off guard at all!

  “VERA!” Nero shouted in glee.

  If there was anyone who could get him out of this, it was her. While he was sure every dwarf and Populator in the room could whip the tar out of her in a fight, he was also sure that he wouldn’t bet against her against of hundred of them in a battle of wits.

  Her tone utterly devoid of emotion, she asked, “What is the meaning of this? Has Lord Walker been taken into the custody of the Populators?”

  Before the archmage could say anything, the Populator in charge replied, “Yes. If this is, in fact, Lord Walker. Which is what we’re here to determine.”

  Vera, not intimidated in the least by the presence of such powerful people, turned to Nick and nodded as if she were permitting him to play his part.

  Nick, with a mad grin on his face, hopped forward toward the monitoring station like a kid seeing a Christmas tree filled with presents and began waving his hands all over the place.

  While Archmage Jennings frowned, the dwarf in charge of his group stepped forward, “What’s he doin’? Who’re these humans?”

  The Populator in charge turned his head to the dwarf and replied, “Judging by their robes and sigils, this is House Walker’s seneschal and several law binders. Although the armored ones seem to be representatives of the local Tower of Law.” Gesturing over at Nick, he added, “Logically, this man is some sort of researcher, likely Lord Salvatore-Verena if I were to guess.”

  The dwarf, unhappy with what he considered a non-answer to his question, replied, “Well, ain’t ya going to stop them?”

  The Populator cocked their head to the side as if the question confused them. “Stop them from doing what? As the local representatives of the party in question, they’re perfectly within their rights to observe what we’re doing. They have no power to interfere with us, so why would I bother?”

  Nero, having had enough of just listening to them all ignoring him, shouted, “Hey, Vera. These toolbags pulled me away from the battle after I closed the portal. They just left them all Wackos there though. You need to contact the military or somebody and organize a rescue mission. There are still a ton of kobalds in the upper city, and I’m betting they aren’t too happy with our people right now. I’m sure Cathleen can handle it, but I don’t like the idea of all of them being stuck up there having to beat back hordes of kobalds without any support.”

  Vera looked across the room over at Nero and gave him a small but understanding smile. “Don’t worry, I’ve spoken with Cathleen over a communication orb and am aware of the situation. The relevant people have been notified and it's being handled. For now, I’m more concerned about the fact that the Populators along with the head of the mage council have evidently decided to abduct the kingdom’s newest unique without cause.”

  Interjecting, Archmage Jennings replied angrily, “It’s not without cause. We had every reason to believe that this wasn’t Lord Walker.”

  Raising a singular eyebrow as if she were surprised at his tone, Vera replied, “But he is. You know he is.” Turning to Nick, she asked, “Isn’t that correct, dear?”

  Nick, still playing with the command council while grinning like an idiot, replied, “Yes, absolutely. They’ve already confirmed his soul signature along with his essence profile. They know it's him.”

  Turning her calm stare back to the archmage, she continued, “So, you see why I am concerned. On what grounds are you holding him?”

  The Populator in charge replied, “We’ve confirmed Lord Walker’s body’s soul death. If you’d like proof, we still have the corpse. We were planning to return it to House Walker after we’d finished our investigation. And until such time as we determine who this imposter is, they will remain in our custody.”

  Nodding in understanding, Vera replied, “As an agent of the crown, that is your right. However, the nobility of Oglivarch has rights of their own. I’d respectfully like to see the paperwork you filed concerning recent events so that my people can review them. After all, if our lord is truly dead, then there are matters which we need to address.”

  Nero, not liking where this was going, said, “Hey, Vera. This isn’t like some kind of unexpected third-act betrayal or something, is it? You’re going to get me out of here, right?”

  Glancing over at Nero, she offered him a smirk before ignoring him.

  Archmage Jennings, who’d been watching closely, turned to the Populator in charge and warned, “I’d be very careful with what you say and do next. I’ve been in Dorchester for a while now, and this woman isn’t to be underestimated.”

  The Populator in charge’s blank silver face mask seemed to look at the archmage as if they couldn’t believe what the man had just said. “Thank you for your concern, but we have it handled.”

  Turning back to Vera, the Populator said, “I’ve forwarded a copy of the relevant facts in our after-action report to House Walker and filed the requisite paperwork with the Local Tower of Law for our being here. Everything is in order. You can have your people review them at your leisure. However, for now, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. The matter of the extra-planar traveler we have in custody no longer has anything to do with your house, or this city for that matter. I’d suggest you see to recovering your people who are still up in the mountain.”

  Vera, not having broken eye contact with the Populator’s silver helmet, replied, “Oh, but it does. As you no doubt know, your own tests have proven the identity of the extra-planar entity you claim is not Lord Walker. In fact, their identity has been verified by testing done personally by the head of the mage council in Hennings… our kingdom’s capital. Which, if I recall correctly, is where your order is based.”

  Gesturing over toward Nick, she added, “My dear husband has been kind enough to forward those tests to the Local Tower of Law while we’ve been talking. Any minute now, you’ll be receiving a formal request for adjudication through the Tower of Law in the capital for your illegal actions against a formally recognized unique who was using his gifts in the service of a quest for one of our kingdom’s cities. You see, your own report states that Lord Walker somehow closed an anchored invasion portal, saving the city and the region at the cost of his own life. While you should have been congratulating him for finding a way back from the outer planes, you’ve instead strapped him to a chair and begun examining him to determine how he’d done it. As a unique, his gifts are protected by Royal decree, and the fact that you’ve chosen to ignore that fact merits investigation by the very order in which you claim to serve.”

  Groaning in annoyance, Archmage Jennings muttered under his breath, “This woman. She’s called for the first file.”

  The lead dwarf stepped forward and hissed at the Populator, “Ye said we’d be able to interrogate the lad about how he’d closed the portal. This doesn’t sound like it’ll be as easy as ye’d claimed it te be. What’s this unique business she’s going on about?”

  Vera, being the helpful person that she is, chose to answer for the Populator. “A unique is a category of citizenship within the kingdom awarded to those few exceptional people who have talents and gifts that are unable to be understood due to their incomprehensible nature. To keep them out of the power structure of the government, they are allowed to travel the kingdom under the auspices of citizenship by the capital, founding subhouses wherever they go while never holding power directly. Even though they no doubt have a great deal of power themselves, they give up their right to hold office to acquire the protection of the crown. By ignoring his discovered identity and keeping him in custody, you’ve violated the accords regarding how uniques are to be treated. Likely, you’ll have even caused this matter to be taken directly to the king.”

  While the head Populator’s silver mask lacked a face, it still stared unblinkingly at Vera while the dwarf asked, “What’s that mean… exactly?”

  Archmage Jennings replied, “It means, that instead of the interrogation you seem to have been promised, at best, you’ll have the opportunity to interview Lord Walker… if and when he agrees to it.”

  Vera, not letting off the proverbial gas, continued, “You can continue to keep in custody, as you are a Populator, and no one here will stop you. But, know that by doing so, you’ll most likely end up executed. The Leadership Council of Hennings and the King would have no choice. If you weren’t, I doubt very much that there wouldn’t be reprisals to the entire kingdom by the uniques who eventually learned of how you treated the newest addition to their number.”

  The dwarf, now irate, began to speak, “Now wait just a minute… This shiny human said -”

  The normally calm and collected head Populator’s presence filled the room like a smoke bomb, causing nearly everyone to step back and wince.

  “ENOUGH!” the Populator shouted, before half-turning back toward Nero and waving their hand, causing the straps restraining Nero to release him.

  Turning to stare directly at the dwarf, they said, “We’ll discuss this while I escort you and your fellow Battleborn from the city. We’re done here. Let it rest, for now.”

  To Nero’s surprise, the dwarf backed down. While based on their twitching beard along with their pronounced frown they didn’t look happy, they at least seemed somewhat mollified.

  Without another word, The Populators and dwarves filed out of the room. But, before the doors could close behind them, the head Populator left them all with a warning. “You should expect to hear from the Royal Academy soon. Do not leave the city.”

  Nero, rubbing his wrists with a massive grin on his face, looked over at Vera like she was the greatest thing he’d ever seen, and that included the one time he’d walked in on his best friend’s older sister showering back when he was in middle school.