Preparations
Standing dockside beside Xian’s skiff, Jane watched as the pirate and two crewmates hauled crates and barrels aboard. Sea air tugged at her clothes, and the breeze carried the sharp tang of salt and fish. She could hardly keep still—her thoughts were already jumping ahead to the valley, to Melindra, to the map and the potential of using the dwarven tunnels.
“You sure I can’t convince you to come with us?” Xian asked, pausing to wipe her brow. “If you truly want to reach the Dirthians, heading south to Dahl by boat is the fastest way. From there, it’s just a few days on foot inland. No Mandalas. No warzones.”
Jane shook her head. “No thanks. I’ve had… let’s just say I’ve had unpleasant experiences with the sea.” She tried to keep her tone light, but the memory of dissolving in acidic stomach fluid and the terrifying ascent to the surface made her skin prickle.
Xian gave her a long, squinting look. “Right… you lost your bag in the ocean.” Then she shrugged. “Well, if you do decide to go through a Mandala, here’s a tip—attune your thoughts on whatever the name implies. Power. Beauty. Honor. That sort of thing. Otherwise you’ll end up discordant.”
“Discordant?”
“Hard to describe,” Xian said, shaking her head. “But it’s the worst headache of your life. It’ll make you puke if you’re not used to it.”
“Ah, okay—thanks.” Jane made a mental note to ask her Infiltrators about it when she returned.
Xian knelt and rummaged near a crate, pulling up a small brown sack. She tossed it underhand, and Jane caught it on reflex. “Here. Not much—just some dried meat and vegetables. I wasn’t expecting this grimy little port to cough up someone as interesting as you. Consider it payment for lightening my spirits.”
Jane blinked. “Oh—thank you.”
Xian gave her a lazy two-finger salute. “Good luck, Jane King. Maybe we’ll cross paths again. Just try not to get yourself enslaved.”
With a kick of her boot, she pushed the skiff away from the dock and hopped aboard, grabbing the tiller while her men took up the oars. The vessel drifted out into the swells, sails not yet unfurled.
Jane watched until they rounded the bend, her thoughts momentarily calm. For once since arriving in this soggy little town, she felt a flicker of genuine warmth. She was nice…
Then, abruptly, the pragmatist in her frowned.
I suppose I probably should have tossed her into the Gray Inquisition and wrung her for everything she knew about the Mandalas, the Dirthians, the Traders—
She shook her head. No. She’d gotten what she came for. Even if it hadn’t exactly been what she expected.
Turning away from the dock, she followed the shoreline. Waves lapped at the sand, a peaceful rhythm echoing behind her.
A sudden blast of sand erupted nearby.
Jane spun as Taltorius burst from the beach like an excited landshark, spraying damp grit everywhere and leaving a waterlogged crater behind.
“THE SURFACE IS MOST MALLEABLE ON THIS WORLD,” he announced, thoroughly pleased with himself.
Jane stared at him for a beat, then sighed and kept walking. “Come on, buddy. We’re heading back. Maybe the others have news.”
The northern shoreline was no different from the south—flat sands that abruptly ended at grassy rises, gull cries overhead, and that looming, dark sea to the east. Jane shivered just at the sight of it now. She glanced sidelong at the floating orb of smug demonic power beside her.
She had only seen three of his skills so far: the swarm of Pazui, his mini lightning clouds, and that horrifying child-sized abomination he summoned, which even now she hoped she would never see again.
From what I read in the Great Library, she recalled, class rarity determines skill potential both in the number of skills and whether or when they evolve. Common classes usually have one or two, and the higher rarity your class, the more you get.
And Legendary?
She opened her System and checked her own stats.
Jane King (Level 137)
Human
Class: Judicator (Legendary)
Strength: 272
Agility: 271
Constitution: 272
Intelligence: 271
Wisdom: 657
Luck: 632
Health: 2680/2680
Mana: 6570/6570
Skills
Piercing Gaze (Rare)
Gavel of Repentance (Epic)
Lashings of Penance (Epic)
Mantle of Retribution (Epic)
Minor Law (Epic)
Pinpoint Judgment (Epic)
The Drawn Veil (Epic
The Gray Inquisition (Epic)
Tithe of Mana (Epic)
Tribunal Sentinels (Epic)
Voice of Truth (Epic)
Executioner (Legendary)
Mandate of the Celestial Court (Legendary)
Temporary Skills
Place Birthing Pit (x9)
Place Unboreal Citadel (x1)
So, Jane thought, scanning the System display floating in her vision, thirteen skills total. Not counting the temporary ones. And that’s at level 137.
She closed the panel with a flick of her will.
How many does Lord Melkit have at nearly level one thousand? A pit formed in her stomach. Taltorius likely had more still—he was Mythic, not just Legendary. That kind of rarity had to come with even more. The only question was how many of his skills were still practically usable in his reduced, pocket-sized form.
Not like he’s giving up any info.
Taltorius had a remarkable ability to dance around the restrictions of the Soul Binding. Any time she tried to get concrete answers, he’d sidestep her logic with grand pronouncements, cryptic quips, or long-winded diatribes that were designed to delay any usable answer.
Still… she glanced over.
He could’ve left me to die in the ocean.
If she had drowned—or been swallowed by another monster, dragged into the depths—he would’ve been free of her. But he didn’t. Somehow, he’d propelled her out of the water. Another skill, maybe?
Part of her wanted to thank him.
The other part? Apprehensive that showing any gratitude might register as weakness.
Now I’m even thinking like a demon.
She let her gaze linger. Taltorius hovered calmly beside her, watching a pair of beach crabs dart into their holes. His one eye tracked them like a hawk watching mice, neither cruel nor kind—just watchful.
Curiosity, she realized. That was it. For now, that was his focus. Everything he’d done so far on Alur pointed to a singular motivation: to see, to explore, to understand.
I suppose I can’t really judge him—not after being trapped in the Netherrealm for eons, with no hope of escape. What else was there to do but gather power, one level at a time? If she never appeared, and he’d eventually gained a portal skill on his own, would the countless demons he consumed be justified?
But she had judged him.
Her cheeks warmed at the memory. Was binding him—and the entire demon race—to her will through the Soul Binding really any better? She knew her guilty verdict against Taltorius wasn’t as impartial as she’d wanted to believe. It had served her own motives more than it had served actual justice.
No use revisiting it now. What’s done is done. For the both of us.
The wind picked up slightly. Jane turned back. The coastal village was no longer in view. Closing her eyes, she spun a few times, her thoughts squarely on finding Melindra. Stamping down, she had her direction, not that she really needed to be precise at this point.
“Alright. Heading up now,” she announced, more to herself than her companion.
Triggering The Drawn Veil, she surged skyward, the world below falling away into a haze of silver and shadow.
Above the treetops, she steadied her flight, eyes locked on the rolling green carpet of mountains stretching to the west. She needed to return to the valley. To her army.
And very likely—to war.
But for now, her thoughts remained tangled in the quiet wreckage of choices made… and the far heavier ones still to come.
***
Buildings laced with blackened metal and steaming vents loomed overhead, their crooked angles casting long shadows across the smoke-choked streets. The air stank of coal and smog, laced with sweat and iron filings. Beneath the soot-dark sky, Crakkis, cloaked in the flesh of his human form, Roderick Penningham, walked with measured confidence through the heart of the city the locals called Garontal.
Jane King had sent the Infiltrators south, tasked with gathering intelligence about this new land. Where the others had ended up, he didn’t know—and frankly didn’t care. They were not here. He was.
As the highest-leveled among them, his travel through the forested mountains had been efficient, shadow-to-shadow, swift as a whisper through leaves. Now, those mountains lay far behind, and this city stood before him like a living thing. A beast of fire and iron. Compared to this, Jaridume felt like a corpse. A monument to stagnation.
Two broad-shouldered men blocked the path ahead, bickering over some minor grievance. Crakkis didn’t slow his pace. “Move, you lot!” he snapped, his voice sharp and guttural. “Block the path again and I’ll crack your skulls in half.”
The men turned, hands drifting toward their blades—but then they met his gaze. Just a flicker of his eyes, nothing more. They stepped aside without a word.
It was effortless. Posture. Tone. A glance. The dance of social violence came naturally with his human disguise. He barely registered what he said—his instincts did the work. So this is what it means to be an Infiltrator. Once, changing forms had been a novelty. A curious trick. But now the skill's true potential was fully revealed to him.
He adjusted the strap on the bag slung across his shoulder. Inside: dried rations, a white dragonkin robe, and the golden mask Jane King had entrusted to him.
This is the Mandala of Power, he had overheard from whispered lips and drunken slurs. And at its center stood a jagged metal tower, spiked and twisted, stabbing the sky like a broken spearhead. It dwarfed the other buildings, a monument to dominance, power, and fear. That is where the master of this city resides.
So far, he’d seen no signs of dragonkin. Not on the surface at least.
But the robed ones? They were everywhere—golden masks gleaming in the haze, their presence enforced by phalanxes of armored soldiers. Just then, one passed by. Crakkis paused, melting slightly into the crowd, eyes narrowing as the procession strode past. Two files of warriors marched in sync beside a masked figure, their armor scorched black and trimmed with weathered steel.
No one spoke. No one looked directly at them.
And neither did Crakkis. He inspected the robed figure as he passed.
Tisrath (Level 76)
No racial indicator—just like all the others. Crakkis had checked them all. It wasn’t difficult to guess what lay behind the masks.
As the procession passed, something… shifted. A sudden, serene rightness washed over him, as if he’d stepped into alignment with some greater truth. It pulsed through his frame like warm gravity.
Then it faded.
The column turned down a side street, the bizarre sensation broken. Crakkis narrowed his eyes, filing the experience away for later. A trick of the dragonkin? A passive skill? He wasn’t sure. But one thing was certain—the golden-masked figures radiated influence beyond mere status.
His gaze returned to the steel tower at the city’s heart. The dragonkin are hiding their presence, he thought. Why?
He hadn’t seen a single scaled face. Only masked ones moving with unnatural grace, their dark gray robes trimmed with deep crimson. The robe he carried was white—a different rank? A different faction? A different truth?
Too many questions.
And the humans? Useless. Their minds were consumed with talk of border wars—skirmishes to the east, massing forces to the south. None spoke of the tower. None spoke of who ruled within it. They looked at the golden masks like a demon looks at a storm on the horizon—distant, dangerous, and not to be questioned.
Crakkis moved.
Sliding into a narrow alley, cluttered with rusted gutters and sooty chimneys, he shed his human form in a ripple of shadow and took on the guise of a dragonkin: tall, angular, and scaled. Then, he donned the robe and mask. They fit perfectly—concealing any evidence of his transformed race.
Time to test the worth of this robe.
He stepped into the main thoroughfare, his stride measured, his presence deliberate. The gate ahead was tall and barred with riveted iron, guarded by two burly humans in half-plate mail, faces stern, halberds grounded.
Crakkis had watched all day—counted the comings and goings. Only those with masks were allowed through, if they had human escorts they were forced to wait outside.
He stopped in front of the guards, the steel spire rising behind them like a megalithic blade. His voice dropped into the low, confident register he’d heard used a dozen times that day.
“I seek an audience.”