"It doesn't matter what a knight of Brinkmar would do," I said with maybe a bit too much frustration in my voice, "because there's no such thing. There are no more knights of Brinkmar. There's the plane named Brinkmar, but there's no government named Brinkmar that any knights might hypothetically be able to serve. Halenvar has the best claim to the throne from what I understand, but since we've already decided that we're not on their side the next best person would - I guess - be me. Y'know, considering my ability to open the portals and stuff.

"And you might be thinking, wait Calliope! That's a questionable claim since it's probably due to one of your Sahrger ancestors stealing the security clearance off of someone in a shady deal. And you'd be right, but it wouldn't change anything. There's nobody else. So why can't I just say I've found him guilty of being a dick and an enemy of the state and he's been sentenced to death? Hmm? It's kill him, let him go so he can get us and other people killed, or leave him tied up in one of these rooms until he starves to death - which seems meaner, if you ask me."

Errod looked uncomfortable. Twice the glove had moved to rest itself on the hilt of his sword before he slapped it away, so I knew the ghost brigade was on my side. Katrin refused to argue about it either way, but I was pretty sure she agreed with me too. Still, if she wasn't going to speak up and Errod wasn't going to give the glove a vote it was a stalemate. I couldn't just kill Jeort myself because it would piss him off, and I refused to try and drag him with us - hypothetically we could find Empire troops and turn him over to them, but the plan was to avoid literally everyone for now.

"I know you're right," he finally said, "but I... I don't feel comfortable sentencing him to death. I still don't like that we've been killing people at all, honestly, but I've been able to sort of... partition myself off. In battle, I mean. It's different when someone is already tied up; I don't want to be a judge or an executioner, I want to hand him over to someone - and I know, I know, we can't do that here. Like I said, on a logical level I can't find fault with what you're saying. It just doesn't feel right."

"Okay, so abstain from voting. Katrin already is. Then I win by default and I'll go do it myself. You don't have to do anything."

He stalked across the room, pulling at his hair. "No, no! That's not how it works. It's an ethical question, Calliope. You can't just pass them off on other people. And yes - I know that's what I just said I want to do, but... what I want is to pass it off to trusted experts. We don't have those, no offense, so sitting aside and not deciding for myself is just cowardice - especially when I know exactly what sitting aside will result in. If I don't like the idea of killing an unarmed prisoner, I need to either decide it's not okay and stand up for that or decide it is okay and do it myself."

I walked over to Errod and made him look at me. "Listen. I used to just do shit for no reason other than I could. I thought it was funny to trip people and act like it was an accident because I just never considered for a second that it might matter if they got hurt, or dropped something important, or got their lunch all over themselves. And the fact is, I do still think it's funny as hell when people fall down. I know, I know, it's bad. But like... I just memorized a bunch of rules over time, and I remind myself a hundred times a day to think about if I'm breaking them. It takes effort for me, but I do it because I really actually believe that the world is a better place when people aren't dicks to each other. And also I do feel bad sometimes, just usually not right away.

"My point is, I have rules and reasons. So please listen to me when I say that you don't have ethical standards. Your rules are vague and shitty. And that's - I think that's true of most people. So now you've got this situation you don't have a rule for, and you've never thought about any of it so you're confused. I argue with myself and try to find loopholes, and that's why I'm convincing you even though you don't actually agree with me. I'm good at it. I think what you need to do is -"

Errod held up a hand to stop me. "Calliope. Please. You're my sister and I love you, but you cannot be suggesting that I take lessons from you on ethics. You've been executing enemies after they were totally incapacitated, you've taken all sorts of actions that could harm bystanders, and you just got done copying someone's mind to interrogate them which... well, I know it was our best option but rather than acknowledging the somewhat disturbing implications of it you gleefully mentioned how upset he was when you told him he wasn't a 'real' person."

Okay, ouch. "The oydirme won't even remember once the imprint fades away. And okay, yeah, I don't always follow my rules. I fuck up - especially since I merged, because the older part of me had a shitty time and got bitter and angry and thought that the memories of me deciding to be good were fake - but I think about it a lot. You want to live up to an order of knights you don't know jack shit about, not really, because you've just got some random war stories passed down from your great grandfather. So guess what? I hereby knight you. Prophesy fulfilled. You're a knight of Brinkmar."

He started to argue, and I shushed him. "Fine, fine. I'll do it right. By the sundered throne, by the name of the twelve kingdoms, I declare you a knight and protector of the plane of Brinkmar. Better? So now go write your own oaths or whatever, figure your shit out and decide what the rules of the new knights of Brinkmar are. Hell, give me the list when you have one and I'll try to follow them too so you don't feel like you're fucking up by hanging out with me. I can't promise until I see them, obviously, but I can tell you now that my main question for any I disagree with is just going to be 'why?' and if you have an actual answer I'll probably be on board."

Errod looked cranky still, and he clearly still felt I wasn't taking it seriously enough - which was fair, it was ridiculous to be the knight of a dead kingdom - but he didn't seem to want to argue about it either. "I don't know that it helps me right now of course, I can't think through a whole ethical system from scratch this second and we need to deal with our prisoner soon one way or another. I don't even know where to start; the only other order of knights from Brinkmar that's still around in some way are the Knights of the Storm, and I don't think they're anyone I want to emulate."

Katrin finally spoke up. "Once we're out of here you could talk to Mamma Carnage, I feel like she would at least be able to get you started."

Mama Carnage was the head of the mercenary guild that Sige, Cyne, and Aestrid had worked for. She'd made them all take oaths about... well, not being evil. "Yeah, nice one. I looked into her some before we hired anyone, and she's pretty serious about ethics and shit. And I was thinking about taking some odd jobs eventually anyway so who knows, maybe we'll sign on."

That seemed like a longshot. It was hard for me to believe I'd ever actually be free to just play adventurer - even if I got out of Brinkmar people would be looking for me, and sooner or later they'd lock me up to study my extra Dumines or make me teach them about Earth or whatever. Worrying about the future made me second guess trying to rush Errod; other than the whole curse thing we were in a pretty safe spot, since we'd confirmed to the best of our ability that the hall we were in was locked from both ends. It was as good a time as any to re-arrange my horribly bulky bags.

Our little hallway had basically nothing worth taking as a souvenir in any of the three rooms, but I already had a ton of stuff. I'd been hauling my personal bag and the big sack of magic stuff from the wagons when we got to Brinkmar, and then we'd split it into multiple bags after taking more from the Halenvar guys we killed right after arriving but had done a rush job. It was for sure past time to sort things out. Katrin grabbed the other backpacks and joined in, making nice neat piles as she went.

"Something is stuck in this bag," Katrin said, "and I can't even figure out how you got it in if it's bigger than the opening. It's... oh, Calliope. Why? Why are we still hauling around the diving helmet?"

"Because it's awesome? And it hardly takes up any space, since I shoved a bunch of other shit in it. Oh! I found the scarf I knit for you!"

"You knit me a scarf? Thank you! It's... a very interesting shape, for a scarf."

I smacked her in the arm. "I messed up at some point and added a little more to each row, and then when I tried to correct myself I kept going until it was too thin. It'll still work as a scarf."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"I love it, truly." She folded the scarf carefully, and then just sort of looked at me for a minute. "Callie... what was that thing you said to Errod? By the Sundered Throne...?"

"Oh, that. It's from the Jake Ross books. By the Sundered Throne, by the name of the twelve kingdoms, I bind my blood and yours that you... uh, that you may be my heir in the eyes of Kehennon itself." A foggy memory forced itself to the front of my mind. I was pretending that I wasn't crying, and Bill was trying to make me read a business card? It dissolved the more I tried to hold onto the details.

"It's strange, if it was from Brinkmar it shouldn't have referenced the twelve kingdoms or Kehennon."

I shrugged. "Honestly I don't even know what those are."

"The legends say that long, long before the Clockmaker the Twelve Families of Enimondoa - families of spirits - had corresponding kingdoms on another plane and..."

"Oh! Oh, I know this one kinda! There were twelve of them, but now there's like five left. Sort of. I read about them some, but it didn't really talk about the kingdoms much. It did say they had been way more important in the past, and that city Cyne was from - Twelve Towers - dates all the way back to when they were still in charge of everything that wasn't on the prime plane. I don't really remember reading about Kehennon, whatever that is."

Katrin got the annoyed look that meant she didn't know the answer either. "It's a name for one of the gods I think, but specific to that old kingdom. Or maybe it's a big important spirit, or... I'm not completely sure. Regardless, the Old Empire didn't reference anything like that; they certainly wouldn't talk about the twelve kingdoms. Also... are you sure it's 'name' and not 'names'?"

"What? Oh, right. No, it's singular. By the name of the twelve kingdoms. Or it was in the book, anyway - there's a bunch that it got wrong, plus it was translated into English, so who knows? The reference to the throne might have been tacked on too, to go with the plot of the book. I guess all it really means is that whoever really wrote those books knew about the twelve kingdoms."

We spent a few more minutes organizing the bags, although Katrin quickly took over because she clearly didn't like how I was doing it. She had a system, fine. I shifted to just handing her things while my other mind thought about what we needed to do next. I was already feeling itchy, and we were already almost out of food. We needed to head all the way to Pumurom if we wanted to find an active evacuation portal, and that was back the way we'd come. There were probably others, but it was a risk since we didn't know where they were.

"I don't know that we can afford to keep any of this," Katrin said, examining Jeort's smashed device. "Parts of it are probably valuable, in terms of materials, but it's heavy and it's not like we can use it with so much damage. Nor would I want to, considering how much damage it can do." She pried a cover plate off the side of the backpack part, and removed a metal rod the length and width of my forearm. "I don't even know what some of this is; the gears are clear enough, but parts like this one are completely -"

The world flared into light, and my divination failed as Katrin screamed.

I was able to restart my view almost immediately, though I could feel that my actual eyes were still blind. Katrin was panting, clutching the rod tightly around the top - it looked like she had maybe popped the cover open at that end for a moment. Errod was already moving, and quickly grabbed one of my arms and one of Katrin's.

"It's cool," I said, "or at least we're not under attack. Katrin, did you open that thing? I feel okay, are you okay?"

She nodded, and then seemed to doubt if we could see her and answered verbally. "Yes. I'm blinded - temporarily, I'm sure - and I'm... sore, magically speaking."

I looked at her a little closer, and got a surprise. "Oh, shit. You've got something on you. Just... some dust, but it's glowing a little I think. Is this dangerous?"

She grinned. "We probably shouldn't inhale too much of it, but it will dissipate in a moment. It's... it's crystalized mana. Very tiny bits of it."

Well that was strange. This was one of the many things I'd educated myself on; mana crystals formed when the ambient mana was super high, mainly as a result of the deliberate manipulation of it. You'd shape the mana into a vortex and concentrate it, and if you managed to get crystals to form you could inscribe runes on them that would keep them from decaying. If you didn't, they'd begin to break down as soon as they were somewhere with a lower concentration of mana. But if the tube was full of powder, what would you use that for? You couldn't make runes small enough, and by definition the dust wouldn't provide much mana as it sublimated since the crystals would have been bigger by the time you got them to a decent grade.

I explained my question to Katrin, and she giggled while hugging the rod. "The dust didn't spill out, it spontaneously formed. This is a mana battery - not just a mana battery, but an unimaginably powerful one. I wouldn't have even thought it possible!"

Well, shit. "Uh. Are we in danger? The time mana fucking obliterated me and Telen when it went off. I know that shit was extra volatile, but anything that can make a dusting of mana crystals just from being open for a second has got to be scary. Didn't you say that too much random mana made Calnon into a wasteland?"

She blinked rapidly, and looked around for a moment before finally focusing on me. "Yes, but that's due to aligned mana - it already wants to be doing something, to the extent that mana can want anything. But this... it felt like pure, unaligned mana. It could still be dangerous, but it's not inherently any worse than the normal ambient mana in an area. Calliope, it's so strong. I could do anything with this."

Errod and I both started to talk over each other, and Katrin shushed us. "Not anything. Not without killing myself in the process. That's why he had to build it into a device, you need something to regulate the flow of mana. I'm a little scared of even using it to just refill our personal mana, but with a little experimentation I should be able to do it safely. Still, the sheer potential is amazing. Possibly too amazing? I... don't have anything to compare it with, but this seems like too much. The mana batteries from Brinkmar were the best, yes, but this is so far beyond anything I would have pictured."

"Well, we could always ask Jeort about it. We could get him to build us something... no, that wouldn't be safe. But we could see if we could get some information out of him so we could use it safely or whatever. I mean it's worth a shot."

Errod sighed. "I suppose we should, but I feel strange about milking him for information over and over if we're just going to kill him. I know we need to, but at some point it feels like an animal toying with its prey. It's fine. I know. I won't make this into a big argument."

While Katrin made sure the mana battery was secure and very carefully packed it into one of the bags, I headed to the room we'd left Jeort in while thinking about how I was going to do this. Making another oydirme copy was a huge pain, and it was possible he'd be able to discuss general tips without the oath getting in the way. Might as well give it a shot. I pulled the door open, and nearly tripped over Jeort - well, his head anyway. His body was still where I'd left it on the other side of the room. I very quietly backed out of the room and signalled to the others - Errod saw it right away and readied his sword, which alerted Katrin.

Divination was showing me nothing but an empty room. I'd already rewound and checked to confirm it had been out of my divination range from where I'd been sitting to help Katrin with the bags so that wouldn't help, but I went a bit further back to when I'd walked closer and could just barely peek inside. Jeort had been alive at that point, and I didn't see anyone else in there with him. I dropped my ghost into my body and we all burst in, but of course the room continued to be empty.

Suddenly, Errod pulled a cabinet aside - one that I had been certain was built into the wall - and revealed a narrow passage leading into darkness. Footprints in the dust indicated where someone had recently tread, but right away we saw the problem. The footprints were going the wrong way. "Wait, fuck. If he left through here, how did he come in?"

We checked the other rooms for similar secret passages and found nothing even with me using divination to cheat, leaving only one option - the door we'd come in through. It hadn't opened though, right? I was bad at speeding up divination, but I could fuck with the flow of time to keep too much from happening in the real world while I reviewed the footage. I started at the last point where I'd been close enough to peek in on Jeort directly, and watched the door as the argument about executing our prisoner played out again behind me. If only we'd known it didn't matter.

Finally, as the mana battery was opened something happened. I'd lost divination for a moment there as well as being blinded, but this time the mana wasn't hitting my actual body and I was able to keep watching. Someone swiftly darted in through the door - a door I had been sure only I could open - and ducked into the room with Jeort. Huh. I needed to update the others, but while one mind did that the other tried to reach out to get more information.

"What do you want," the real Calliope Smith asked. "I was sleeping. I should have you follow through on your promise to change our link and silence it, so you cannot pester me so."

"If you're done with the life skills training, sure. But listen... you know that bodyguard guy that Harmid and you were traveling with when you went to see the guru? They were here in Brinkmar with me somehow. Who the fuck is he?"

She shrugged, unconcerned. "I have no idea. He vanished after we met with that fraud, and when I asked if he had been paid Harmid said he thought I was the one that hired him."

"Cool. Great. This would have been really good for me to know. Thanks, fuck off." I switched my focus to my body and turned to break the news. "So listen, we're going to just figure this shit out on our own. But in the meantime, I think we need to get the fuck out of here."

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