The tale that follows is not from the time line we know—but it might have been, had the dice fallen differently...
One Full Henderson ver0.5
1.0 Hendersons
A derailment significant enough to prevent the party from reaching the intended ending.
The principle holds everywhere, in every age: if you’re up to no good, a small group in private is the best place to be.
The scene was a remote mansion at the capital’s edge. In public record, a lower-caste aristocrat had wrung out his wallet to purchase this estate as a second home for the winter social season; in practice, the place served as the secret hideaway for a handful of nobles. Each concealed themselves with hoods either enchanted or blessed to obscure their identities to an extreme degree. Had they not exchanged talismans to know who was who beforehand, they could have stared straight into one another’s eyes and still forgotten they’d ever met as soon as they turned away—their caution knew no bounds.
The manor they were in belonged not to a member of their own faction, but one of a trivial subfaction of their group. Despite having practically nothing to do with their efforts, the owner had been compelled to let the shadowy group renovate it over the course of a few years, until it was eventually a spy-proof fortress.
Not content with donning anonymizing mantles, the participants had also arrived in a standard workman’s buggy. These nobles had forgone the comfort of a suspended carriage to be hauled in the back of a cargo-filled cart; the importance of this meeting hardly needed stating.
“That makes everyone.”
One man—presumably the ringleader—looked around the physically and magically isolated room and counted up the heads. Six people in total sat around a rectangular table; they nodded at his words, and each began to lay their own documents out for all to see.
“I’ve prepared everything according to plan. On the day of, every guard on duty will be one of our own. That is, except the captain...”
“That, too, is coming along. After pulling a few strings, I’ve made it so that his superior will invite him out for an audience that day, leaving only the vice-captain present.”
“Perfect. The vice-captain is a mere knight: a little pressure from above will be enough to keep him at bay.”
“On my end, I’ve pulled the port’s operational staff into our orbit. Our moles are just right: they’ll get the job done, but will be easy enough to cut loose at the end.”
“Recruiting magia has gone smoothly as well. Five of our compatriots have developed means to spoof the security hexes. Even if a bolt of lightning comes crashing down from the heavens, the College won’t detect a thing.”
One by one, the small crew made their reports. The files littering the tabletop were stamped with words like “Confidential,” “Transcription Prohibited,” and “Relocation Forbidden.” Sheets of protective arcane formulae had been pressure-bound into every page to prevent any alterations, copying, or unauthorized movement beyond its original location. That security systems this potent were still in place was proof of how secret these government documents were, but it mattered little when the thieves had as much money and influence as they did.
“How about the materials? We couldn’t get our hands on them last time.”
“Worry not. That nosy head accountant will be too busy heading home to inherit the family title—I’ve made sure of that. While I haven’t managed to pull the replacement into our bubble, I doubt he’ll pose any problem: he’s a simple numbers man. So long as our documents are in order, I imagine he’ll be content to simply fiddle with his abacus.”
“And what of the church? I recall we were having difficulties finding incentives that would work to pull at their strings.”
“I called upon some idle loafers to stir up trouble in their ranks. Last I heard, they’d resumed their pointless debates over which god ought to exert most control over the thing. With its debut on the horizon, that single spark has kept the clergy most busy.”
“Then all is well. Now, then...”
All of those present knew what was to come, and they turned toward the man directing the discussion. As was imperial custom, the leader sat alone along the short side of the table, and he scanned the others for a moment; after a dramatic pause, he produced a large sheet of paper from his pocket and laid it flat across the table.
“My word, so this is it...”
“Absolutely stunning. Why, this is a perfect recreation!”
“I always had faith in you, but this is simply incredible.”
A blueprint imbued with the highest degree of anticounterfeit technology sprawled out over the other papers. It depicted a ship: a leviathan of a craft, shaped like a flat, stretched-out arrowhead. Memos written by the original designers littered the page alongside hastily scribbled calculations—the latter no doubt in relation to the total load and stress the final product could bear. The document was as close to the real thing as a forgery could possibly get.
At the top was the title: Aerial Conquestship, Codename Theresea-class.
Twenty years ago, the initial concept of this project had marked a turning point in the Empire’s grandiose plans to build a flying armada—and here was the completed design. True, the final specifications included a handful of minor tweaks, but for almost all intents and purposes, this was the real deal.
The real things sat in a dry dock at the largest airfield in all of Rhine. Located in Kolnia, the capital of the Ubiorum county, talented engineers were currently working on the rigging in preparation for their first test flight due to come in half a year’s time.
“Beautiful... It astounds me that they managed to make something so massive so light.”
“But will six arcane furnaces truly suffice to lift a vessel of this mass? Look how much larger this design is compared to the first aeroship. I’m worried the thing will crumble apart as soon as the physical reinforcement enchantments wear off.”
“Ah, but see here: they’ve alchemically refined tankfuls of lighter-than-air gas with hedge magic to support the weight. This is no Alexandrine—it won’t need a drop of mana to hold itself together.”
Named after one of the Empire’s former rulers, three tentatively christened Theresea-class vessels had already entered production; yet their builds remained somewhat experimental in nature. Each fielded a slightly different arsenal in order to confirm the airworthiness of various constructions before moving into mass production. The skies were not yet mankind’s domain, and many were the issues that could only be discovered after a craft took off.
Even so, the new conquestships were exceedingly close to perfect.
By dividing the vessels into segments, each individual piece could be built on its own to make for rapid assembly; any damage could be repaired just as quickly by simply swapping out the broken bits. Though lift and control required immense amounts of mana, the craft was fitted to haul much more fuel than it needed. This slack in the system meant any future revisions would be child’s play: even if the rest of the world caught up, the ships could be easily remodeled and sent back to the front lines with a new suite of toys.
None could deny the sheer elegance of their design. The Theresea and her sisters were ladies of great rank, ready to shape the history of the century to come...
“Impressive. The Alexandrine’s destruction came when she was at port, during a maintenance mishap, and the ease of repair of this new model is a clever way around repeating the same mistakes. It truly is a shame.”
“That it is. If only this design had been ours.”
“If only. Then those upstarts would have stayed in their place.”
...but to those gathered tonight, they were no better than a gang of wicked witches.
The current state of imperial aeroship development saw the field dominated by sympathizers with the sitting Emperor: despite the incredible momentum of the industry, there were only a few key individuals actively pushing it forward.
Reworded, this meant the massive grants given out by the state were controlled by a small in-group. On top of that, they would be the only ones to be celebrated in the event of a success—something that would indirectly weaken the positions of many in adjacent fields.
Count Agrippina von Ubiorum, the preeminent figure in the aeronautics world, kept an extremely tight leash on the public funds entrusted to her, to great success. Not only did her scrutiny keep would-be spies at bay, but it had let her expedite development to the point that technologies once thought to have been a century away had been completed in twenty short years under her leadership. What she’d accomplished was already enough to guarantee that she’d forever be remembered as one of the most brilliant figures in all of Rhinian history.
Yet, as ever, the reactions of those outcompeted by history-defining heroes were as passionate as they were bitter.
The stakes were simply too high. To be left behind by the aeroship sector could spell doom: even now, the economic disparity between participants and nonparticipants was becoming unbridgeable.
Perhaps the absurdity of the situation was best told through an example. There had been a viscount who led a faction of middling size. But, in a twist of fate, his lands had been deemed the perfect spot for one of the few aeroship construction facilities in the Empire. That man was now a count, and one of the wealthiest individuals in the entire country.
Striking stories of success invariably spawned envy and interference. Though every imperial noble ultimately shared the table of the nation they called Rhine, many could not bear to see the cups of those they sat beside being filled with finer wines than their own.
As a matter of course, there emerged schemers hell-bent on sabotaging progress to trigger a reorganization of the status quo. Once positions opened up, they would swoop in to lay claim to a piece of the pie.
“But if these containers of gas they’re employing support a significant portion of the weight, then they’re also a point of weakness. Am I understanding that correctly?”
The ringleader directed his question toward one of his subordinates in particular, who nodded with full confidence. The hooded expert pulled out a different document and spread it out for all to see: it contained computations based on publicly announced specifications detailing how to ground the aeroship.
“That’s correct. My compatriots and I have calculated that destroying a third of the vessel’s tanks will surely cause it to crash. This method is far more reliable than trying to fiddle with the complex mystic systems aboard.”
“And if the Emperor is on the ship at the time, he’ll be forced to reexamine whom he entrusts these projects to going forward.”
A chorus of low, sinister chuckles echoed across the room.
The most effective and reliable way of ruining someone’s reputation was to have them be responsible for an inexcusable failure in view of both their supervisor and the general public. While the test flights would be held in secret, the ship’s maiden voyage would carry the Emperor himself. If they could sneak on and discreetly sabotage the air tanks a few days prior to that, the status quo of the field would have to change.
Although the project brought untold riches to those who succeeded, it necessitated equivalent punishment for those who failed: many would lose the privilege of involvement, and some could even be stripped of their lands. In the most extreme case, there was a real chance that the Emperor himself could be pulled off the throne and replaced with someone more sympathetic to the conspirators’ cause.
“Well, then. Everything is in place.”
“That it is. I leave the rest to you. Remember: guarantee failure, but not to the point of catastrophe. It would be such a shame to have to throw this design out entirely.”
“Ahh, soon the funds to reconstruct the ship will fall to us...”
“I wonder if there isn’t any way for us to claim the airport at Kolnia as well. I’d love to see the look on that haughty methuselah’s face when we snap that upturned nose—nay, those pointed ears—right off.”
“Hah. The count thaumapalatine is known to be oh so beautiful. I imagine her reaction would be a sight to behold.”
As the group’s quiet laughter began to rise into an outright cackle, one member noticed something strange. They turned to face the exit and raised one finger to bid their comrades to silence.
Voices could be heard off in the distance—shouts, even. The clamor was joined by the faraway sound of clashing metal to create the unmistakable cacophony of battle.
“It can’t be!”
“What’s going on?! Let us call for our guards to—”
“No, first we escape! This room has a secret hatch!”
“Th-That’s right! Hurry, grab the documents! The sellswords will buy us enough time as is!”
Despite their surprise at having been discovered, the schemers managed to scramble together their belongings and prepare to flee. They’d known that even the most cautious plan couldn’t be completely concealed, and had prepared an escape route in advance.
Furthermore, this estate had more guards than the owner’s peerage would lead one to believe. Better yet, they were all mercenaries and wandering swords for hire, content to work for anyone given the right price: their capture would lead to minimal information leakage.
“Where was the hatch, again?!”
“Over here!”
One of the plotters with relatively little to pack away asked about the escape route, and another deftly groped about a false cabinet. By manipulating the metal ornamentation on its edges in a specific order, a hidden exit would appear.
But a creeping doubt took hold of the man inputting the code. Why had his compatriot asked where the hatch was? This hideout had been developed by all of the members in tandem, and none of them were stupid enough to just forget.
Yet that was as far as he got before his train of thought vanished into the realm of the unconscious. The man who’d asked the question suddenly leapt over the table and brought his fist crashing down on the back of the answerer’s head.
“What?!”
“Have you gone mad?!”
“Wha—eep!”
An abrupt storm of violence engulfed the gloomy lair. The man at its center had initially been seated next to the entrance, and had clearly done something suspect, for the door meant only to unlock when approached with the right mystic token and physical key opened on its own; a giant shadow slithered in uninvited.
The two merciless tempests tore through the room in less time than it took for the first victim to slide to the floor, drawing a line of blood as his face skidded down the wall. Of all of them, only the ringleader managed to retain consciousness; yet even so, he found himself constricted in a gargantuan trunk that robbed him of mobility. Through his clothes, countless jagged legs pricked at him from the coil.
“Wh-What’s the meaning of this?! Why have you betrayed—”
“Betrayed? I was never on your side, Sir Lukas.”
Breaking the unwritten rule to not use one another’s real names, the traitor pulled off his hood. With a snap of his fingers, his face began to melt off like a wax statue subjected to heat. Though the scene was frightful enough to make anyone swallow their breath, what the oozing outer layer left behind was neither sinewy muscle nor gooey flesh.
Instead, it unveiled a thin face—one belonging to a man that the ringleader had never seen before. Though his features were too gentle to be called intimidating, there was a callous glint in his kitten-blue eyes, and his tightly wound blond hair gleamed more perilously than any blade.
“Wh-Wha—but—who are you?! What have you done to Baron Radomir?!”
“Oh, don’t worry. He’s perfectly safe—er, well, perfectly alive. I simply used a little cantrip to borrow the skin on his face.”
The man wiped away the bits clinging to his face with a handkerchief. Noticing a presence at the door—which had been slammed back shut amidst the chaos—he jumped back over the table and opened it. Upon doing so, he took a solemn knee and prepared to welcome whoever was to enter.
“Behave yourself. Lady Agrippina of the Ubiorum county and Sir Gundahar of the Donnersmarck marquisate have arrived.”
“Wha... What?!”
Accompanied by a crew of personal knights, a pair of methuselah dressed in lavish evening wear entered the room. The woman boasted a pair of conspicuous, heterochromic eyes and a perfectly set silver do; the man elegantly pulled off the recent trend of slim-fit clothes and flashed a saintly smile.
“How do you do, Count Wismar? I believe we last saw one another at the garden party, yes?”
“It has been some time, Lukas. Wit must thank you for your gift celebrating my cousin’s marriage. Has he penned you a letter of gratitude yet? As good a fellow as he is, he can be rather forgetful about these sorts of things.”
Both methuselah greeted the captive man as if they weren’t meeting in the least reputable conditions possible; Lukas von Wismar could feel their irony carving holes in his heart with every word.
He’d put every fiber of his being into this plot. Despite all the dependable vassals at his disposal, he’d gotten to work with his own two hands to keep as much information confidential as possible. The only ones to know anything had been his partners in crime, and they had only ever exchanged intelligence with the utmost care.
Above all else, he had done everything in his power to keep his targets in the dark. He’d spared no expense in making certain that not even an offhand rumor would reach the ears of the two highest authorities in aeroship design, the Emperor’s most trusted retainers.
Yet the heroine of the generation was here. The count thaumapalatine had embedded herself in the foundation of the Empire in twenty short years, and she paid absolutely no mind to the trembling mastermind as she began sifting through the papers on the table.
“Oh dear, oh my. Why, this is terrible! Won’t you take a look at this, Gundahar?”
“Well, well, well. This is terrible, indeed, Count Ubiorum. How could so many secret documents have been stolen away like this? Wit suppose the College’s counterintelligence committee isn’t what it used to be.”
“Oh, don’t be so harsh. ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way,’ as they say. To do anything one sets their mind to is the root of all sorcery. As lamentable as the goal has proven to be, this is the product of somebody’s blood, sweat, and tears.”
“If only that effort had been made in service of His Majesty—oh, what a tremendous waste. What a tragedy! Sad as it makes me to say, Wit have no other choice but to report you for high treason, Lukas.”
Their flamboyant act was a declaration that they were neither disappointed nor surprised. Lukas was made to realize that they had known.
They’d caught on somewhere. He didn’t know where, but somewhere, there had been a split in the seams. They’d tugged at the frayed edges, pulling the tear open to unearth the opportunity to strike back.
At this rate, the oligarchs’ grip would only grow stronger. He hadn’t strayed into the realm of assassination, but knowingly targeting the flight that the Emperor was to be a part of was absolutely treason. In fact, it was undeniably high treason. Both he and his lackeys would be put to death, their families stripped of any privileges and their wealth reclaimed as part of the national treasury.
Nothing would be left of them. Though every person in this room continued to draw breath, they were already dead and forgotten.
“You... You set me up!”
“My, how rude of you. Wouldn’t you agree, Gundahar?”
“But of course, Count Ubiorum. After all, the two of us simply happened upon an anonymous tip and rushed to combat a potential threat to national security.”
Don’t lie to me, you snooping devils! The man wanted to scream, but he was gagged before any more complaints could leave his mouth.
No matter how big the fish, there was no escape once the netting was in place; here, he had already been hauled helplessly onto deck. The dark reality that awaited him hit the would-be mastermind with the violence of an ocean swell, plunging him into despair.
[Tips] Though the Empire’s penal code tends to avoid punishments of association, the penalties for high treason are enough to effectively wipe out entire clans, whether they be noble or common.
I took a drag, inhaling smoke-filtered night air and the scent of conspiracy as the Mother Goddess watched overhead—I’d grown all too used to this familiar scene.
But then again, how could I have not? I was a middle-aged man who’d spent the last twenty years running around and playing spy, after all.
Keeping lookout from the rooftop, I watched my men and our allies below tie up the traitors into a single file line and carry away boxes full of sensitive documents. The two directors of this operation had dragged the man behind it all behind closed doors for the unsexiest bit of nighttime “fun” imaginable.
I pitied the fool. He was going to be toyed with by a bookworm more interested in stories than reality and a power fetishist who coveted authority not as a means, but as an end goal. Everything he’d built up over the course of his life was going to be reduced to dust at the hands of two demented freaks. Misguided as his ambitions may have been, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
Having information forcibly extracted from the innermost depths of one’s soul was excruciating, even in a sterilized training setting. Those two were surely going to be careful not to let him die, only extending his suffering. Figuring that the gods weren’t uncharitable enough to smite me for pitying a criminal—honestly, if those two psychopaths could walk around with their heads held high, then I was definitely in the clear—I offered up a futile prayer. As I did, a figure approached me from behind.
“Good evening. Tonight’s moon is as lovely as ever.”
“I suppose it is,” I answered.
Covered in deep navy wrappings that blended into the night, the giant shadow that had silently crept up behind me was the very same one that had joined me in wrecking the secret lair. Countless skittering legs lined her trunk, capped off by the two jagged appendages pointing out from the tail end. Of her two sets of arms, the lower pair was folded into her clothes, out of sight.
Speaking without so much as moving her mouth, the woman’s too-perfect features looked fake under the moonlight. She was pretty to the point of leaving no impression, forgettable despite being clearly unique. Looking back, my history with this red-haired beauty had been a long one.
“It would appear we are allies once again,” she said.
“And judging from how things are shaking out, this stint is looking like it’ll be an extended venture. More people have been implicated than I can count on my hands, and catching them all before they can pack up and flee will be a real undertaking. Our masters have thrown you and me both into a terrible mess.”
“Not at all. I’m quite enjoying myself, in fact.”
Nakeisha’s voice had a tinge of delight to it—though as ever, she expertly kept her expression from moving to match. She took a seat beside me and reached over with an open palm as if what came next was self-evident.
It was: I handed her the cigar I’d been smoking without a word, and she took it into her own mouth without a hint of suspicion.
Once upon a time, the two of us had been mortal enemies, ready to fight to the death. There was only one explanation as to why we could share a smoke now: for all their fighting, Lady Agrippina and Marquis Donnersmarck were the kinds of nutcases to see no problem with working together if their interests aligned.
Anyone who worked under these demented minds was forced to act all buddy-buddy with people that may very well have killed their bosses, subordinates, friends, or family. Governed by compromise and efficiency, this twisted cooperative relationship had been severed and retied over and over again like a toxic marriage. Trying to count up how many times we’d linked arms or crossed blades only to betray or be betrayed at the last moment was futile.
“Tired, I take it?” Nakeisha said. “This is a rather potent stuffing.”
“Can you blame me? I’ve been wearing someone else’s face and living his life for months on end. Absorbing another person’s memories like a list of memos takes its toll.”
Slightly shorter now, the cigar returned to me, and I made the end glow once more. At some point, I’d succumbed to the need for efficiency; as classless as it was seen to be, I almost always elected to smoke snuff in paper wrappings unless I was exceptionally unbusy. That stuffing my pipe had become more of a chore than an elegant charm spoke to how cooked I was as a person. Though, in truth, the ease of swapping out mixtures for something that could conceal a catalyst made disposables much more convenient.
Down to an unusable stump, I reached into my pocket for a replacement. Annoyingly enough, I realized that I hadn’t grabbed one of my own cigars, but one matching the tastes of the man I’d been living as. I pushed down my irritation by handing the crude roll off to Nakeisha, and she stuck it into her mouth without a word.
Assuming a false identity was tough enough, and stealing someone’s face and memories was draining. I acknowledged that this was the most surefire way of infiltrating the enemy, but trampling over taboos by the dozens was hardly healthy for the mind and soul.
Honestly, how did I end up getting used to a life like this?
I’d long since given up on trying to uncover the truth; the factors that had led me here could fill a convoluted mystery novel several times over. Put to paper, it would be a winding series of thick tomes wherein each enigma would branch into several smaller ones, all to culminate in a final volume where the identity of the culprit would be left to the reader’s discretion. Thinking about it was a waste of time.
But whatever the details were, one thing was clear: I’d escaped servitude to head out on an adventure, but I hadn’t escaped Lady Agrippina’s machinations.
If I had to guess, I’d say that heeding the madam’s “advice” to begin working near the capital as opposed to the frontier had been the biggest factor. I’d given it a hesitant try to great success, and by the time I’d fetched my childhood partner to set up near Berylin, I was already ensnared in an inescapable trap.
And so, here I was, working as Lady Agrippina’s secret agent. My basic mastery of manners made me a handy pawn in high society, and on the surface, I remained an adventurer trusted by the upper-crust clientele of the city. Yet I could hardly say I’d realized my dreams when my main duties involved this sort of underhanded bloodshed.
The cigar flicked up and down in the corner of my vision: Nakeisha was asking for a flame. I knew she couldn’t use magic, but I doubted she actually lacked the means to light it herself.
Still, after pulling out another fresh stick of my own choosing and passing the flame from the smoldering butt, I leaned over toward her. The tips of our cigars pressed against each other, and the embers between them glowed redder than the flesh of intertwining tongues.
Locking eyes as we waited for the flame to pass, I flicked the used stump off the roof. The spell I’d cast when first lighting it shifted into its final phase, vaporizing what was left over before it could hit the ground. A used cigar was a vault of personal information waiting to be plundered; I wasn’t about to let a single cinder remain.
We exhaled. Two shades of smoke tangled together and wove around us like coiling centipedes.
“...This is awful. What kind of man were you impersonating?”
“The kind who was as bad as his taste in cigars.”
Clearly she didn’t appreciate my gift. I didn’t like the flavor either, but I’d put up with it because a sudden change was liable to draw suspicion; she was getting this cigar for free, so it was rude of her to complain.
Still, our relationship had come a long way since I’d first met her as Lady Agrippina’s retainer. It went without saying that our first battle had not been our last. I didn’t know whether to call him stubborn or daring, but Marquis Donnersmarck had continued to meddle in the madam’s affairs like clockwork, and as their hidden weapons, we’d been forced to follow suit.
No matter how minor the battle, Nakeisha had beelined straight for me whenever a skirmish broke out—probably as retribution for what I’d done to her arms. Fighting me must have given her a hefty load of experience points, because she’d developed new tricks and steadily improved to the point where I struggled to face her one-on-one.
Nowadays, we were so evenly matched that I figured we’d both end up dying in a fair fight.
“Oh, but by the way, Erich,” she said, “this mission happens to be the last on my itinerary.”
On one particular night, we had found ourselves locked in battle for the umpteenth time—a dispute over which region would host the second imperial airport had boiled over, if I recall. We’d each put up a fierce fight, but the circumstances had been dire; it had looked like we were both fated to deal the other a mortal blow.
Yet at the critical moment, she stopped swinging and I lowered my sword. We stood there, glaring at one another...until she offered a proposition. The marquis was positioning himself to cooperate with the count, she’d explained, so perhaps I might be interested in a truce.
And as an afterthought, she’d added, “Besides, I want you.”
For all the fiery bloodlust she’d directed at me, I’d never gotten the impression that there had been anything racy between us. How had it come to this, anyway?
“Are you free after this?” Nakeisha asked.
As if you don’t already know the answer. I nodded without a word.
[Tips] Noble affiliations are a malleable thing: he who poisoned your wine yesterday may offer a toast in your name come tomorrow.
As my hands brought blotches of red forth to the sea of olive pinned below, the alluring hue grew more provocative still. Her usual facade crumbled into a smile, its arc twisting up into a bluish-black patch on her right cheek and interrupted by the ceaseless streak of blood dribbling from her nose. Bright-red hand marks glowed on her neck, joined by more bruises on her stomach and under a right armpit.
I, too, was battered and bruised: all across my back was a vivid impression of the wall I’d been slammed into.
A droplet of crimson splattered onto her jaw and was whisked away into her mouth by a set of mandibles. Evidently, I was bleeding from my forehead as well.
The short of how I’d gotten myself in this sorry state was that the woman below had asked me for it; yet that would be to ignore how sepa as a whole were supposedly so inclined to violence that they treated fistfights as foreplay. It was less than enthusing to get the living dog shit beaten out of me every time we spent the night together. While we had a tacit agreement not to cross the line into breaking bones or tearing joints, that didn’t make the pain any less real.
Actually, looking back, I’d probably crossed the line when I let this whole arrangement arise in the first place.
On that fateful night when Nakeisha had offered a truce and invited me to bed, I’d gone home to seek advice from Margit. Since she’d been with me during our time as normal adventurers, I’d ended up dragging her into this disreputable line of work; she remained my partner both in the public eye and in the shadows.
Naturally, I’d gone to ask her how to turn the invitation down...but her response had been completely out of the bounds of what I’d expected.
“Don’t you think it would be cruel to reject such a passionate request?”
Confused by my companion’s indifference, I’d scooped her up and cooed that all I needed was her. Little had I known at the time that she had been the one fanning the flames, egging Nakeisha on to ever more radical means in the first place.
And would you look how that turned out!
I mean, I obviously wasn’t one to talk, considering how I was the one who’d ultimately taken advantage of the situation, but still. This current Ubiorum-Donnersmarck coalition was only going to last until the critical moment was on the horizon, at which point we’d inevitably scramble to pick one another off behind locked doors again. It was a wonder how anyone could get in the mood with that in mind—she and I both.
The resolve needed to cut down someone with whom you share an intimate relationship is difficult to put to words; that was certainly a failure on my part as a wet worker. Well, at least I knew that Lady Agrippina would factor that into her calculations when she sent me off to do her dirty work.
Our dance of cuts, bruises, and general fatigue lasted until the Night Goddess was nearly back in Her bedchamber. Naturally, we were exhausted and stopped to rest. Puffing on a cigar, I downed a cupful of juice diluted with water—my men were to have a report for me at sunup, and I couldn’t afford to drink wine.
Once we’d caught our breaths, I turned to the bed only to see a woman shamelessly flaunting the marks dotting her body.
“Her birthday is coming up soon, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes, she’s almost of age.” Nakeisha thought for a moment and added, “The years certainly do fly by.”
Um, well, you know...we were doing this sort of thing, so it was only natural it’d turn out this way. Back when the news broke, I’d thought my excuse of reporting that I’d put one of the enemy’s greatest assets out of commission for a few months had been foolproof; yet Lady Agrippina had only given me a half-hearted smirk, and the other multilegged woman in my life had smiled with unknowable intent lurking below.
“Here. It’s a present.”
I did my best to leave personal effects at home when on the job, but I’d seen tonight’s rendezvous coming from the schedule of the operation; besides, if I saw this as a means of gathering intelligence, it was plenty work-related. I hadn’t been allowed to name her, nor had I ever seen her face, but I’d prepared a gift to celebrate my daughter’s birthday.
“Hand it to her, will you?”
All I knew about my daughter was the general window she was born in and that she had my hair and eyes. I didn’t even know her name, much less anything like her favorite food; the most I could do was send her presents to the extent that it wouldn’t interfere with my job.
I figured sending her a weapon would be uncouth—the sepa around her would see that she’d have the best arms anyway—so I always chose something fit for a father to send to his daughter. Today, I’d brought a silver hairpiece. I’d heard she was growing out her hair, and something utilitarian felt perfect for her coming of age.
While I didn’t know whether she actually used any of what I sent her, all that mattered to me was that she knew her father wanted to celebrate that she was born.
That said, it had been a real shock to hear she’d gotten both my recessive traits. As far as I knew, the blood near the Southern Sea was far more likely to be passed along than ours up north.
“I will do just that,” Nakeisha said. “I’m sure she’ll be pleased.”
“You think?”
“Of course. She wears all of the things you’ve sent her so that you’ll know it’s her at first sight.”
Uh... Is that okay with you? I’d given our daughter a sizable number of gifts: rings, necklaces, hairpins, and more. If she was wearing all of them, she’d look gaud—uh, rather eye-catching. I knew money couldn’t buy love, but I’d sent her a lot of golds, silvers, and gems in the hope that she’d find them pretty.
As Nakeisha and I parted ways, she left me with words that shook me to my core: “And you know, she’ll be joining me in battle soon.”
I prayed to every god I could think of that I would be spared the fate of becoming the next Hound of Culain...
[Tips] Children born from mensch-like parents tend to exhibit similar patterns of inheritance to the humans of Earth, perhaps because of their similar builds.
The sepa straightened herself out, healed her wounds with mystic ointments, and slunk away from the morning sun toward her closest base.
But then, she felt a premonition of death.
Considering whom she served, this was an ordinary affair. The presence was close: enough so that the only logical explanation was that the troops she’d posted near Erich’s hideout had already been dealt with. As such, Nakeisha walked along as though she was totally unaware—only to whip her trunk behind her when the enemy pounced.
Yet all the sepa’s tremendous kick caught was the crisp air of dawn.
That was bait?! Covering her neck, she whirled back around, but the sheen of metal was already in her face.
However, the shimmer did not belong to a blade ready to end her life; it was a simple silver chalice. Following the arm holding it out to her, the sepa’s gaze came to rest on an impish, upside-down grin.
Though they were well past thirty, the arachne hanging in the air showed no signs of aging; she, like the golden-haired spy, was one of Nakeisha’s greatest rivals.
“You’re free to enjoy yourself as you please, but aren’t you being a bit careless?”
“It appears I am. Thank you for the warning.”
Truth be told, these battles Nakeisha engaged in under the sheets took a greater toll on her body than the vast majority in the field, but she didn’t work in an industry where that sort of excuse would hold water. In fact, taking a life in the middle of the act was standard practice; she herself agreed that exhaustion was a pitiful excuse.
The sepa knew she’d lived today because of dumb luck: their current alliance meant that the arachne couldn’t see through her hit without causing her employer’s plan to crumble. Otherwise, that cup in her hand would have certainly been a dagger.
Owing to her skill set, Margit most often worked separately from Erich to gather information. Yet she was strong enough that when the two linked up on the battlefield, Nakeisha could no longer hold her own; this had truly, truly been a stroke of good fortune.
Dangling from a single thread attached to a nearby roof, the arachne spy cut her lifeline and landed without a sound. Raising the bottle in her other hand, she asked, “Care for another drink? Erich may have business to attend to, but you still have time, don’t you?”
“...That doesn’t sound bad at all. I have a base nearby, if you’d like to come.”
The sepa agent felt like refusing here would be no different from running with her tail tucked; she accepted. It wouldn’t take long for her next rotation of lookouts to come across their fallen friends and realize something was off; in which case, she could leave their care to them and do her best to draw intel out of someone she knew would one day be an enemy. And so, the centipede accepted the spider’s invitation.
Nakeisha led Margit to a location she wasn’t afraid of disclosing—the arachne probably already knew of it anyway—and decided on a cheap inn. She had a permanent room here, borrowed under a false name.
The pair sat across from one another, clinking together their glasses without so much as a snack to chew on. One bore her trademark smile that never faded; the other donned her unchanging poker face.
“This operation certainly has been dreadful,” Margit said. “Poor Erich seemed awfully tired from the long undercover mission and all the psychosorcery.”
“I’m not too familiar with the technical details, but injecting foreign memories does seem much more distressing than reading a written account.”
“It really is. He’s experienced enough to retain his sense of self, but it’s an arduous process to do away with any lingering effects on his psyche. I suppose I’ll have to help him through it again. But for the near future, he’ll be spending an hour or two staring into the mirror, I’m sure.”
The arachne’s amused giggle stood in stark contrast to the sepa’s inconcealable jealousy.
On her ear was an old seashell that occasionally clinked against its metal fittings; her neck was hugged tight by a choker and her third finger fitted with a ring, both enchanted with some spell or another. They were a physical pledge of love, given by the man Nakeisha had been pressing her body against just a short while ago.
Meanwhile, the sepa wore nothing of note. Accessories only introduced more weaknesses to exploit—she knew that, but it was enough to feel a breeze run across her skin. She was clad in the same work clothes from last night, wrapped from head to toe and equipped with her trusty chained polearms; yet she felt utterly naked.
The gifts that Erich gave her were always perishable. Whether they were confections from a famous baker or wine made from the juiciest of grapes, he always brought goods to suit her palate and—despite the fact that they were both all but immune to poison—displayed his sincerity by taking the first taste. In all honesty, she couldn’t deny that these gifts made her happy.
Yet at times, seeing Margit covered in jewelry that announced “This one is mine” drove her to envy beyond her wit’s end.
Earrings were just a hold to rip one’s ear off. Necklaces were just a hold to be strangled with. Rings got in the way of handling weapons, and they could get caught on an opponent’s clothes in close-quarters combat.
Nakeisha knew this. She knew, but she couldn’t help but want all that she could see. At her lowest, she had even caught herself contemplating taking one of her daughter’s presents for her own.
“And the next step of the plan isn’t any better,” Margit sighed. “The details are coming along, and it seems like it’ll all be outside the county, yet again. Worse still, some of our targets have gone off to the satellites... I suppose we’ll be on the road once more.”
“Very inconvenient,” Nakeisha agreed. “Especially so, I imagine, with your daughter so young.”
“Honestly!”
On the surface, Nakeisha diligently tried to dig for useful intel; behind her closed lips, however, she gritted her teeth and chittered her mandibles at the thought that she’d lost as a woman.
That the man who had captured her heart—the man she deemed worth killing—wasn’t hers frustrated her like nothing else. She’d both failed to woo him and to cradle his lifeless head; all she could do was watch on as he wandered happily into the spider’s nest of his own accord.
On the other hand, the smiling arachne was hardly any better.
Margit knew that she occupied the superior position. She also knew better than anyone else that it had been her own immoral games that had led to this state of affairs to begin with.
It had all arisen from the arachne urge to boast to the world that she had gotten the best catch: to say that the man she loved, the man who loved her, was coveted by all others to the point where they would throw away title and rank just to cling to his feet. The impulses bubbling up within her had been as destructive as they were competitive, and she had failed to hold them back.
Had she not taken this path of blood and instead lived out her days as the huntsman of a countryside canton, she no doubt would have gone a lifetime without becoming so twisted.
Alas, Margit had jumped headfirst into the realm of darkness to stay with her chosen partner—not begrudgingly, but with full enthusiasm. Not wanting to entangle anyone else, Erich continued to lie to his sister that he was a mere adventurer; the same went for his magus and priestess friends. But he had chosen her and her alone to die by his side when the end came, and the choice to accept had been all too easy to make.
But now, he was slowly being taken from her.
Whether the sepa had managed it on purpose or not, it was undeniable that she’d created a sliver in Erich’s heart that no longer belonged solely to Margit. Small as it was, the slice was home to a daughter he didn’t know and would one day face in battle, and to the woman who had borne her.
They hadn’t taken a whole leg; at most, they’d gotten a finger or two. But the arachne hadn’t known how much spite she would have for the scavengers picking at her prey until it was too late. What was once a sinful, enjoyable game to her had become burning jealousy.
It was even worse in battle. Setting aside the bliss of being completely and utterly trusted, Margit loathed how fixed Erich’s gaze was upon the sepa when they fought. Despite understanding that he only saw her as an enemy to be slain, the passion in his gaze was palpable. Bloodlust was too narrow a term for the raw emotion he showered her with, and at some point along the way, the arachne found herself terribly displeased with it.
If only, Margit thought, it was something I could share.
Take the oikodomurge professor: had she shared Erich with them as someone to support together, she would have been happy to welcome the tivisco as a sibling-in-arms.
Or consider the vampire nun: the way she watched her mortal companions was not unlike the gaze Margit cast upon her own child. She was sure she could’ve let it slide.
And how could she forget his spoiled baby sister? To this day, the arachne could watch her clinging with total composure, because she understood the love that fueled it.
But bloodlust—the urge to kill that Erich showed Nakeisha... That, Margit had never felt. There should have been no reason for her to ever want it, but here she was, envying the sepa with her whole being.
To wish that her beloved would want to kill her was anything but normal, but the thought was sweet music to Margit’s ears. Not once had she ever wanted to kill him, but for reasons she couldn’t explain, to be killed by him sounded enticing.
Part of her chalked it up to the bits of her brain that wanted to be a fairy-tale princess, desired first and foremost in every way by her knight in shining armor. Yet another part of her suspected that there was something more visceral driving her.
In the end, emotions are yours to feel but not yours to control. Where this axiom had once been the source of her fun, it now served to drive the wedge of regret deep in the arachne’s mind—an anguish she hid under a pleasant smile.
Just as Nakeisha envied Margit, so too did Margit envy Nakeisha. The two feral women chatted over drinks for a while longer to squeeze out any intel they could, but ultimately came to the same conclusion.
“Well, then,” Margit said, “may we get along again for the foreseeable future.”
“Yes,” Nakeisha said. “As we always do.”
Although the two of them had only spoken about trivial topics in roundabout terms, their long tenures as secret agents meant they could glean a few things from instinct alone.
Like, say, when the other was planning to turn coat.
While it was always a given that both sides were looking for a chance to stab the other in the back, it seemed the collapse of their partnership was near. With the first and biggest bust having just finished, only a smattering of guaranteed victories remained. The question from here would be who could execute them with greater glory and bigger margins.
Or, perhaps, one side would claim everything for themselves. With that in mind, the two women shook hands.
“I hope to meet again soon.” The arachne was all smiles.
“And may you be healthy until then.” The sepa was totally deadpan.
The world was a complicated place, and these were two complicated souls. Fated to cross paths again and again until one of them drew their final breath, they donned opposite expressions, but each swore the same oath.
Next time, you’re dead.
[Tips] Arthropodal demihumans sometimes exhibit behavior that is utterly irrational by mensch standards.
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