Vari did not beat the vampire, which wasn't much of a surprise but still managed to sting him somewhat. He'd thought—perhaps hoped, was more accurate—that the sheer freshness of Krummer into his age of unlife would have offset the native power that his kind seemed inherently to have. It had not. Like fighting Herag, he thought. Thought for all of two seconds before the full strength of Krummer's limbs was brought to bear and sent Vari hurtling back across the room and hard into a stone pillar, cracking it and leaving him to drop amid a shower of dust and broken fractals.

He groaned, trying to take the breath back into his lungs where impact had squeezed it out. When Vari finally made it back up to his knees, he found himself surrounded by grinning, cheering people whose faces were almost hot with the energy of their smiles.

"Good show!" one of the more enthusiastic spectators declared, clapping louder still than the rest. Vari met their smiles with one of his own and finished standing, nodding his acknowledgement to the vampire Krummer.

"Didn't have a chance, did I?" He grinned, hoping the forced effort of it wasn't too obvious as the man grinned back.

"Maybe for a second or two," Krummer shrugged.

Vari took his leave shortly after, heading out of the stuffy room and followed by more applause and…the weight of it all. Only when he was alone, out in the fresh air and with no watching eyes to press down on him from all sides, did he finally allow himself a clear breath and a pause to think. It wasn't much, even then.

But it was something. Being in there somehow drained Vari more than the loss of his blood—which he had experienced more in the past month than in the entire rest of his life combined—ever had. There was a mental sapping to be found there that no physical torment could quite match, and he was tired of it. Tired of being tired, and too tired to find any amusement in having caught his own tautology.

Why was that? Strange, surely, that this of all things would hit him so deeply.

Ah, but he knew already. Vari didn't deserve any of it, not the praise, not the thanks, certainly not the awe. And he was getting it anyway. He was as out of place in that hall as he had ever been back home, perhaps moreso. He could stomach it, for brief windows at a time. But not forever. He needed a break.

Vari exhaled again, inhaled, cycled the air through himself and felt it calm him. Just a break every now and then, to let his mask slip away and clear his face to make do without it. Just a break before he got back to telling his lies.

It was nice, after all, to be everybody's hero. He could smile and enjoy it even. For brief windows at a time. Vari found his cheeks suddenly wet, and realised only after a moment of checking that he'd begun to cry. Odd that. What did he of all people have to be shedding tears about?

Everyone else back there were the ones getting duped, after all.

***

Emma was getting a lot of weird looks, but she was several drinks past caring at this point. Fornite dancing was fun, and it wasn't like anyone in this world knew enough about earth's pop culture to realise how awkward she was being. Maybe Emma herself would cringe in the morning, but that was a problem for that hungover bitch to moan about in her bed—not the fun one having the time of her life right here and now.

Aexilica joined in of course, and soon enough they seemed to infect a few other people too. It was hilarious. All these prim, well-dressed aristocrats looking like the cast of Downton Abbey and they were all moving in some of the dumber ways ever invented by humankind. Emma couldn't suppress a grin, and found herself deeply hoping that this led to some sort of permanent cultural shift in the nation.

But it didn't last forever of course, no good thing could ever last forever. Emma was halfway through her latest routine, watching Aexilica giggle as she half-drunkenly tried to emulate it, when she felt…something.

One day, she'd get tired of describing things as 'somethings', but for now it remained the best way she had of putting it into perspective. It was a something, and it was a nothing, and it was everything else to boot. Impossible to articulate beyond that, save that it felt big and imminent enough to sober Emma somewhat almost at once. She stiffened, and started for the door to one of their ballroom's balconies. If whatever was happening happened, she didn't want to be stuck inside and surrounded by flailing idiots when it did.

Then it did.

Emma had just stepped out into the fresh air when she felt that very same air contort, seeming to collapse in on itself at once.

This was nothing new of course. In fact, over the past few months Emma had become something of a scholar when it came to weird shit. As far as she could tell this was definitely weird, and probably magical. She backed away from the distortion quickly, readying mana for an attack and keeping her eyes straight on it.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

"Guys?" Emma called out, then cursed as she realised her voice wasn't carrying over the sounds of the party. "GUYS! Weird shit is happening! Get over here!" She backed away slowly, but didn't dare take her eyes off the distortion in case it suddenly blew her up or something.

It suddenly blew her up.

Well, not entirely. Emma's reflexes—or paranoia—were sharp enough these days that she had a hardlight wall up right before anything actually dangerous could reach her, mostly she was just washed over by loud noise and bright light. It did still knock her on her ass, but then a strong gust of wind could do that so it wasn't saying much.

By the time Emma had recovered enough to look at the source of the weird light, she found that it had transformed into a hot woman. She rubbed her eyes, tried to remember making a really big wish upon a shooting star and found that she'd done no such thing. Awesome. The woman was more than just a little bit attractive, too. Black hair, straight and long. Pale skin, green eyes. She was dressed all in blacks and greens, too, and looked to Emma like…What was her name? Thor's sister from that one movie, the one who she kept getting distracted staring at during all the heavy dialogue scenes.

Shit, she was getting distracted all over again.

"You," the woman glared at Emma, "you're the one who killed my avatars I take it?"

"Yes. What? Uh, what?" Emma actually hadn't caught the second sentence, she was just now realising how ridiculous the woman's curves were. They looked like something from an anime. She'd say unnatural but…Well, that had negative connotations and this was…not a negative.

"Stop staring at me like that," the woman snapped.

"No," Emma replied, and kept staring right up until the strange lady started moving towards her. That made self-preservation slightly more urgent than continuing the ogling, but only just, and she started backing up right until she felt a wall behind her.

"Listen here—" the woman was cut off only by a new arrival, and Emma felt herself feel an upsetting level of reassurance as Kruger walked out onto the balcony, Larry under one arm while his other remained poised to manifest another weapon. He was, Emma had finally been forced to admit, not a nazi. Probably. And god damn was he good to have in a fight.

"What is this?" Kruger's voice cut out like he was barking orders on the parade ground, and even Emma found her back straightening reflexively as he shot piercing eyes out to skewer everything within sight. Larry, though, was what caught her eye, because his face seemed to bulge like something was trying to burst out from underneath it.

Not as much as the woman's face bulged, though hers seemed to be with an altogether different emotion. Emma recognised it just a moment before the woman burst out laughing, practically shaking the entire balcony with the sheer volume of it.

"Oh my…Larry?! LARRY!" The woman was practically shrieking out her amusement, while Larry, for his part, appeared to grow more angry by the word.

Emma was lost now, looking from the woman to Larry and back again, frowning, blinking. It was only seeing her confusion mirrored in Kruger that kept her from feeling like she was missing something obvious.

"What the hell is this?" she growled, deciding to see where belligerent anger got her, "how do you two know each other?"

It was a mistake, Emma thought, because no sooner had she said that than the woman's eyes fell on her with all the crushing weight of a collapsed building. It was all Emma could do not to back off from that impaling gaze, and if she was honest with herself a large part of that came from the brick wall physically stopping her from backing off any farther.

"Don't—" whatever Larry was about to say was smothered by the woman's words.

"My name is Suzanne," she grinned, "and I am a Cognitive Spirit."

Emma could only stare. The pieces were there, assembling themselves, but shock was making her mind work slowly and clumsily. It took long seconds, long enough for the woman to feel like elaborating, before she had anything close to the full picture assembled.

"Yes, the same order of being as Larry. Except we were on different sides of the same conflict, weren't we now?"

Larry said nothing, just glared, and the woman continued.

"Oh, I suppose I should say we were the same order of being. Larry seems somewhat…diminished now. This explains why it's been so easy for me to send more idiots into this land at least."

That, at last, drew an answer from Larry, if a confused one.

"That doesn't line up. What you sent those vampires right? Right, yeah, don't try to deny it. So that was you, and you sent three cause of how easy it is for you now. But they've been here for months—longer than this idiot here," he eyebrow-nodded towards Emma as he said that, but she was too transfixed by the conversation to protest, "so something ain't adding up here."

The woman just started laughing, actually belly-laughing as if Larry had just said the funniest thing she'd ever heard. It was, Emma realised, the same laugh Larry gave when he saw someone being horribly injured or killed.

"Oh this is just sad," the woman sighed, "so being stuck in this plane has mangled your perception of time into that of a lower being as well as everything else? Maybe I should just put you down here and now, it'd be a mercy-killing at this point."

"Emma, you should kill her. The hot vampire bitch will come back to life if you do." So help her, Larry's words actually left Emma somewhat excited for a second, somewhat tempted as her mind sharpened to alertness and readied its mana, but…

"You just made that up," she accused. Larry did an 'eyebrow shrug'.

"Worth a shot," he grumbled.

"Kill me?" The woman eyed Emma at that, thinking for a moment, "hm…You. You're different. Wrong…Oh!" Her eyes lit up like a sun had ignited behind them, and Emma found herself suddenly rather pleased to be speaking with such a hot lady of clearly excellent taste. "You're Untethered!"

Emma grinned at that, stuck her chin out. "And getting less tethered by the day, now who are you to be getting in my face smirking and trying to distract me with your tits?"

For some reason, everybody stared at Emma as she said that. She wasn't left to dwell on it however.

"I'm someone who could make use of you."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.