Three Months Ago: Rocsarte Royal Library.
"You good?" Simion said, turning a page without lifting his eyes from it. "Some woman made you heated again?"
"Haha, you could say that. You know Rocsarte has lots of hot mamas." Prince Phileo said.
A few seconds passed in comfortable silence.
"You know... Have you ever wondered what real happiness would actually look like? Is what her grandfather said really true?"
Simion's hand paused on the page.
He adjusted his glasses.
"No other way to find out but to look, is there?" He set the page down slowly. "I have to say though. The fact that her grandfather did not favor renouncing anything in the world, but rather framed worldly things as incomplete parts of real happiness rather than obstacles to it, is rather unconventional. Provocative even, depending on who is listening."
Phileo was quiet for a moment, watching him.
"Simion." His voice was gentle but direct. "What are you actually doing?"
Simion's face tightened almost imperceptibly. "What do you mean?"
Phileo did not look away. "My sister. You, me, and her." He paused, choosing his next words carefully. "We all wanted to be happy. But lately it feels like we are just trying to uncover real happiness out of guilt. Like the search itself is the penance." Another pause. "Are we even capable of finding it if we do not even act happy ourselves?"
The silence that followed was different from the comfortable one before.
Simion sat very still.
"And how about you?" His voice came out quieter than expected. "You sit here acting like you are simply waiting for your half brother to come and kill you without doing anything. Without moving. Without looking for what you actually have right now." He met Phileo's eyes directly. "Try that for once."
"Simion..."
He was already standing, gathering his notes into a deliberate stack.
"I am going to Tal-Jeorva." He tucked the notes under his arm. "There is a cult there with a current leader I intend to speak with regarding discrepancies in their records about the mysterious figure their doctrine is built around."
Phileo straightened slightly. "You mean B? Is she not the goddess of our ally Theolis?"
Simion paused at that. Turned back with a look that was almost but not quite exasperation.
"Not God." His tone was precise. "Theolis does not worship her. You cannot reasonably call someone a God if they behave even more ordinarily than most people. The records are consistent on that point regardless of which camp produced them."
Phileo absorbed this slowly.
"Ordinary..." he said quietly.
Simion held his gaze for one more moment, something unspoken passing between them, then turned and walked toward the door. The door opened, and then closed behind him.
The library settled back into its old silence.
"Ordinary..." Phileo ponders. "More ordinary than most..."
Present Moment - Livnaban Plains, Nighttime:
The plains were quiet except for the occasional shift of the fire and the sound of pages turning.
Simion sat with his forearms resting on his knees, watching the bonfire with the particular stillness of someone whose mind was somewhere else entirely. Across from him, Ruafosnya lay on her stomach with her feet in the air, holding one of his borrowed books at an angle that suggested she was reading it more for entertainment than scholarship.
"Oh wow!" she said, flipping a page with great interest. "Your prince really has a nice taste!"
Simion did not look up from the fire. "Does he?"
"Older. Mature looking. Tan complexion..." She turned another page, her expression one of profound academic discovery. "Very specific… Very committed!"
"Oh that's the prince alright." Simion's tone was completely flat, which somehow made it funnier. "To think meek guys like that can hide such beasts."
Ruafosnya gasped with theatrical delight, rolling onto her side to look at him directly. "But If he's hot that makes him even more attractive honestly! Wait, wait, wait." She sat up suddenly, clutching the book with both hands, eyes wide with the energy of someone who had just thought of something extremely important. "Does he have sensitive nipples!?"
Simion closed his eyes briefly in silence.
"You think so too huh?" he said. "People in Rocsarte have become more honest recently, Less rigid. Ever since allying with Theolis. Shut ins decreased in numbers too"
"Yeah!" Ruafosnya nodded enthusiastically "Those Theolis guys sure are good at making you feel compelled to just grope people!"
"Oh, shut up."
She giggled, flipping another page.
Simion watched the fire for a moment, then adjusted his glasses.
"You mentioned your name is Ruafosnya." He ponders "For some reason I feel like there is something about that name... Something I cannot quite place..."
"Well you cannot put your finger on a silly name," she said. "You need a girl for that!" Ruafosnya said.
Simon sigh looked at her.
"It seems I am going to have to endure talking to you all the way to Theolis," he said.
"Endure is a strong word!" She set the book down and stretched her arms above her head dramatically. "I am delightful!"
"What is your relationship with Theolis exactly? You mentioned being a merchant." Simion said.
"Just a merchant!" She nodded cheerfully. "I heard aphrodisiac products are extremely lucrative in that kingdom! Huge market apparently!"
Simion chose not to engage with that particular detail.
"Have you heard anything about B? The figure their philosophical camps study?"
Ruafosnya paused.
It was a small pause, barely noticeable, the kind that would mean nothing to most people.
Then she began to speak in her usual bright tone, as though thinking aloud.
"Well.. I heard she is a girl in white from two thousand years ago? The one who became their central figure and then simply disappeared? Were guys really into white clothes back then? Is that what that was about?"
Despite himself, Simion felt the corner of his mouth move slightly.
"What interests me most," he said, his voice taking on the quality it got when genuine scholarly fascination overtook everything else, "is that they did not worship her... Did not spread her words. Did not build doctrine around her teachings. Each person who encountered her seems to have simply become..." He paused, searching for the precise word. "Enough. On their own. Even the most supreme high priest of any institution is not enough without a central figure to orbit. But she somehow produced the opposite effect entirely."
The bonfire crackled between them.
Then Simion noticed the flames had dropped considerably.
"I will take some rocks and convert them into firewood." He stood, brushing dust from his robes. "Nous Bartos is useful in moments like this at least."
"Oh!" Ruafosnya perked up immediately. "Can you make hot snacks while you are at it?"
Simion looked at her with an expression of patient disbelief. "You just consumed an entire handful of Livnaban mushrooms like someone with a bottomless stomach."
"But I want a little more!" She pressed her hands together with complete sincerity. "I love the taste! And the pungent smell is similar to that completely different kind of mushroom which is also very good!"
"...Fine. They are easy enough to prepare anyway."
He walked toward the treeline, his footsteps quiet against the grass.
*a memory of flashback memories*
Girl: "My grandfather often says that a genuine connection and interest in the world is enough for a person to become a truly responsible and strong human being!"
Young Phileo's voice beside him, puzzled and earnest.
"Connection to the world... but aren't we already connected to the world?"
*The girl laughed softly.*
"No, silly! Connecting to the world is not that easy. You have to be happy too!"
Simion: Does that mean rich people are happy?
Girl: "Is that really the case all the time? My grandfather told me possessions alone are like a substitute for real happiness most don't have."
Simion: "Real happiness huh…"
Phileo, quieter now, with that particular careful quality his voice got when something was actually landing.
"So… if you are happy. Can you make others connect to the world?" Phileo said.
Girl: "Yes! I want to make everyone happy by being happy!"
*another flashback*
Orange light. Heat from a distance. Smoke rising against a darkening sky. The three of them standing at the edge of a ridge watching something burn that could not be unburned.
Phileo's voice, barely above a whisper.
"Happiness... is that what is missing in the world...?"
*back to present*
Simion's jaw tightened.
"I will find what real happiness means…" The thought arrived not as comfort but as something closer to a vow renewed against its own weight. "I will find it.*
He later turned back toward the camp.
The bonfire was significantly larger than when he had left.
Ruafosnya was sitting exactly where he had left her, eating a Livnaban mushroom with great contentment, the fire burning cheerfully behind her at nearly twice its previous height.
Simion stopped walking.
He looked at the fire.
He looked at the rocks arranged neatly around it.
He looked at Ruafosnya.
"What took you so long?" she asked brightly, reaching for another mushroom.
"Where did you get those rocks?" His voice was very measured. "And how did you-" He stopped. He looked at the fire again. Something was working through his expression that was not quite suspicion and not quite awe but somewhere in the precise territory between the two. "You cannot alter the material structure of rocks into combustible wood without Nous Bartos. And Nous Bartos chose me specifically as its-"
"Who cares about details!" Ruafosnya waved a hand with cheerful dismissal. "The bonfire is lovely now! Did you get the mushrooms? Oh, we need water to wash them first! I can fetch some from the stream nearby!"
She was already halfway to her feet.
Simion watched her.
"You never run out of surprises…" he said quietly.
The mushrooms were washed and half prepared when the foliage at the edge of the clearing shifted.
Simion's hand moved toward Nous Bartos before the figure fully emerged.
A woman stepped into the firelight. Tall. Muscular. Dark skin and long disheveled black hair. She carried a massive metallic shield weapon with the ease of someone who had long since stopped noticing its weight, and she surveyed the camp with the calm economical attention of a professional assessing a situation rather than a threat announcing itself.
She looked at Simion. Then at Ruafosnya. Then back at Simion.
"Greetings," she said. "Do either of you know the location of the main base of the Bithos cult?"
Silence.
Ruafosnya had gone very still beside the fire with an expression of wide eyed alarm that was somehow simultaneously completely genuine and slightly too theatrical to be taken entirely at face value.
"...And you are?" Simion said.
"My apologies for not introducing myself first." Her tone was not apologetic exactly but it was direct without being hostile. "My name is Gusarme Kzargildund. I am a hired mercenary contracted to exterminate the Bithos cult and eliminate their current leader, Jubal Sabiorma. The contract was issued by Deorvinci Grand Paladin Eostele Gaminades."
"Heek!" Ruafosnya grabbed Simion's sleeve with both hands, her eyes enormous. "She kills hot guys for money!?"
Gusarme blinked once. "That is not how I would characterize the-"
"I am afraid that is not possible." Simion's voice had shifted entirely, the warmth of the camp conversation gone, replaced by something quiet and precisely measured. "We are currently traveling to report the events at Tal-Jeorva to the appropriate parties. Jubal Sabiorma is alive. I cannot permit you to approach him."
"Something happened at Tal-Jeorva?" Gusarme said.
Simion remembered how Ruafosnya effortlessly defeated him. The scene makes Simion felt little unease.
"That… is not your concern." Simion said.
Gusarme's eyes moved to his robes. Settled on the crest at his chest.
Something shifted in her expression. Not surprised. Recalibration.
"That crest." She looked at him steadily. "You are from Rocsarte."
"I am." Simion said.
"Then I am afraid I have orders to escort any Rocsarte nationals encountered in this region back to Deorvinci for questioning." Her gaze moved to Ruafosnya. "If she is traveling with you, that includes her as well."
Ruafosnya immediately ducked behind Simion with a sound of pure distress.
"Heek! She wants your unwashed mushrooms!"
"I… did not say that," Gusarme said, with the expression of someone making a genuine effort to remain professional in circumstances that were not cooperating.
Simion reached down and set the bag of Livnaban mushrooms on the ground beside him with a deliberate quiet movement.
"You cannot reasonably expect compliance without resistance." Nous Bartos began to glow along its edges, the light steady and cold against the warmer fire behind him.
Gusarme looked at the artifact. Then at him.
"No," she said simply. "I suppose I cannot."
Her massive shield weapon unfolded.
The fight was fast and without ceremony.
Gusarme fought the way she moved, economically, without wasted motion, each transformation of the Tuzimat Orbo arriving at precisely the moment it was needed.
The pole axe carved through Simion's first stone barrier like it was vapor.
He didn't waste time being surprised. His hands moved in sharp gestures. "Rizon Telva!"
The ground rippled. Stone pillars erupted in a staggered formation, each one hardened to diamond density as it rose.
Gusarme's weapon shifted mid-swing. The pole axe folded inward, mechanisms clicking with precise efficiency, and extended into the massive ballista form, Heimcir Buwa.
She fired.
The bolt punched through three pillars before Simion could liquify the fourth, the impact sending shockwaves that cracked the ground beneath his feet. He rolled sideways as a second bolt screamed past his shoulder, close enough that he felt the displacement of air against his face.
"Hard mind Seventh Strata!" Simion slammed both palms down.
The earth answered. Waves of liquefied stone rolled toward Gusarme, then solidified mid-motion into overlapping barriers of interlocking diamond spikes, each one aimed to force her into a defensive position.
She didn't defend.
Gusarme planted the ballista's base and fired three bolts in rapid succession, not at the barriers, but at the ground beneath them. The structures collapsed inward, their foundations shattered, and she was already moving through the gap before the dust settled.
The ballista folded. The long chain whip scythe, Sardax Buwa, unfurled with a sound like tearing metal.
Simion created a wall. Steel density. Three feet thick.
The chain scythe wrapped around it, constricted, and the wall shattered into fragments.
He was already gesturing. "Long face Horoxon!"
Dozens of blade-shaped stone formations erupted from the ground in a spreading wave, each one hardened beyond normal material limits, rising like shark fins cutting through water as they rushed toward her position.
Gusarme's expression didn't change.
The whip scythe became a blur. She spun once, twice, the chain extending to its full impossible length, and every single blade that reached her was intercepted mid-rise. Stone shattered against dimensional cutting force. The Asir Orbo's seven-dimensional penetration treated his three-dimensional constructs like they were made of morning mist.
The fragments hadn't even hit the ground when Simion's next move activated.
Behind her. Directly behind her, where the destroyed blade-wave had created a blind spot.
The golem rose.
Not one of his standard constructs. This one was massive, fifteen feet tall, its body formed from compressed stone with a density approaching the theoretical limits of what Nous Bartos could achieve. Diamond threading through a steel-hard matrix. Each movement would carry the weight of a collapsing building.
Its palm reached for her, fingers spread wide enough to engulf her entire body.
Gusarme's head turned fractionally.
The Tuzimat Orbo shifted. Chain whip to shield to cannon in one fluid motion, Odin Buwa in its true form.
She fired.
The blast caught the golem's arm at the elbow. The limb disintegrated, stone and diamond matrix scattering like sand, the massive hand still reaching forward on pure momentum before it crashed into the ground three feet from where she'd been standing.
She fired again.
The golem's shoulder exploded. Its torso lurched, balance failing, the massive construct tipping sideways.
Again.
The chest cavity erupted outward, the core structure compromised, and the entire fifteen-foot giant came apart in segments, each piece hitting the ground with impacts that shook the earth.
Simion created two more golems. Smaller. Faster. They came at her from opposite angles, their fists hardened to the absolute limit of what three-dimensional reinforcement could sustain.
Gusarme's cannon fired twice more in quick succession.
Both golems detonated mid-charge, their cores pierced before they could close the distance.
She transformed the weapon again. Back to pole axe. Closed the distance.
Simion raised a barrier. Then another. Then a third, layered and overlapping, each one harder than the last.
The pole axe cut through all three without slowing.
He liquefied the ground beneath her feet.
She leaped, used a fragment of destroyed golem as a stepping stone, and came down on his position with the axe already swinging.
Simion caught it.
Not with a barrier. With his bare hands on Nous Bartos itself, the artifact flaring to life, and for one impossible moment he held the seven-dimensional cutting edge at bay through sheer force of will channeled through the artifact's power.
Then she shifted her weight and he was forced to release, rolling backward as the axe cratered the ground where he'd been standing.
He was breathing hard. Sweating. His robes had tears from near-misses he hadn't even registered consciously.
She looked fine. Barely winded. Professional calm is still intact.
He raised more constructs. She destroyed them. He tried pincer attacks, flanking maneuvers, feints and traps and desperate improvisation.
For several minutes the exchange was entirely one-sided in her favor. His constructs held for moments before the Asir Orbo's penetration rendered them irrelevant. His golems lasted seconds before being dismantled with calm efficiency.
She was better.
And she wasn't even trying particularly hard.
Then something changed.
It arrived without warning and without obvious cause. Nous Bartos flared suddenly, the glow shifting from cold white to something deeper, gold threading through blue, warm instead of clinical.
The next barrier Simion raised did not shatter.
Gusarme's pole axe struck it and *stopped*.
Completely.
No crack. No give. The blade met the barrier and the impact rang out like a bell, pure and clear, but the construct held.
She pressed harder.
The barrier held.
She pulled back, eyes narrowing fractionally, and transformed the weapon. Full cannon. Brought the complete penetrative force of the Asir Orbo to bear, the power that could demolish anything across seven conceptual universes.
Fired point-blank.
The barrier absorbed it completely.
The blast dispersed across the surface like water hitting stone, spreading and dissipating, and when the light cleared the construct was still there, unmarked, undiminished.
Gusarme stepped back.
For the first time in the entire exchange, her expression changed.
Not fear. Something more precise than fear.
The specific attention of a professional encountering something that does not fit any established parameter.
She stepped back.
For the first time in the exchange her expression changed. Not fear. Something more precise than fear. The specific attention of a professional encountering something that does not fit any established parameter.
"Tch." Her eyes moved across him with rapid assessment. "This could be a problem..."
"Will you yield?" Simion's voice was even. He was breathing harder than he would have liked.
A pause.
"Fine." The Tuzimat Orbo folded back into its shield form with a series of quiet mechanical sounds. She regarded him for a moment with that same precise attention.
Then: "Before I leave. A question."
Simion said nothing.
"What does being strong mean to you?"
The fire crackled behind him.
*A flashback of memories*
Girl: "A genuine connection and interest in the world is enough for a person to become a truly responsible and strong human being."
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
He said nothing.
The silence stretched.
Gusarme studied his face for a moment longer. Whatever she was looking for, she either found it or concluded it was not there.
"It seems you do not have an answer yet," she said quietly. There was nothing mocking in it. If anything it sounded almost like recognition.
"Farewell."
She turned and walked back into the treeline without looking back. The foliage closed behind her as though she had never been there.
A long moment passed.
Ruafosnya's head emerged from behind a nearby tree, peering carefully in the direction Gusarme had gone.
"Is the scary hot lady gone?"
"For now."
She emerged fully, dusting herself off and immediately locating the bag of mushrooms with evident relief.
"Whew! The mushrooms are completely undamaged!"
Simion looked at the space where Gusarme had disappeared for a moment longer than necessary. Then he picked up his notes from where they had fallen during the fight and began gathering them without particular urgency.
"We eat and leave by sunrise," he said. "Theolis will not be far after that."
Ruafosnya was already examining a mushroom with great satisfaction.
"Finally! I am absolutely starving."
Simion looked at her.
"You ate four of them twenty minutes ago."
"That was twenty minutes ago, Simion."
He sat back down beside the fire.
For the first time since Tal-Jeorva, something almost like the beginning of a smile crossed his face before he successfully suppressed it.
Theolis Main Square - The Following Morning:
The fountain square was doing what it always did, which was to say it was full of people living their lives with the particular unself-conscious ease that still caught Trudy slightly off guard even after several weeks in Theolis.
Velos stood near the eastern entrance, her black outfit catching the morning light, the crucifix on her back casting a long shadow across the cobblestones. She was speaking with a young woman in torn nun's robes who held herself with the particular stiffness of someone still learning that no one here was going to punish her for existing.
Gisole spotted them first, tugging Trudy's sleeve with unhurried warmth.
"There they are. Come on, I will introduce you properly."
She moved through the crowd with the ease of someone genuinely pleased to see people, Trudy following slightly behind.
"Velos!" Gisole called out. "I brought that visitor I mentioned."
Velos turned. Her expression held its usual quality of already knowing several things about the situation that she was not going to share immediately.
"Ah, Gisole. And this must be the one who has been walking around with her notebook, cataloguing us like a strange species."
"T-That is not-" Trudy began.
Gisole grinned, stepping aside to gesture between them. "Trudy, this is Velos Proculia Alveron. Archmage of the Autarnu camp. My superior, unfortunately." She added the last word with theatrical suffering.
"Your sleeping habits are your own responsibility," Velos said mildly. "I merely observe the consequences."
"And Velos," Gisole continued, "this is Trudy. Recently arrived from far away with questions like why we don't have churches."
Trudy opened her to say something then closed it.
Velos's smile was warm. "Welcome to Theolis. We are not as strange as we seem. Well." She glanced at Gisole. "Some of us are."
She turned slightly, drawing the young woman beside her forward. "And this is Adelle. Adelle Viorgogne. She arrived three days ago. From Deorvinci."
Adelle managed a small nod. Her hands were clasped in front of her in a posture that looked like it had been trained into her rather than chosen.
"Nice to meet you," she said quietly.
Gisole immediately looped her arm through Adelle's with the easy familiarity of someone who had decided they were already friends. "Adelle has been learning that no one here is going to arrest her for existing. It is a process."
"I am processing," Adelle said, with a flicker of something that might become humor.
Gisole turned back to Velos with a knowing look. "So. Trudy here has been asking about the visiting scholars who pass through. Specifically the ones with unusual combat capabilities."
Trudy's face did something complicated. "I was just curious about the academic culture. The exchange of-! "
"She wanted to know if any of them were muscular," Gisole told Velos with serene helpfulness.
Trudy: "I did not say muscular specifically-"
Gisole: "You used the word 'built' four times."
Trudy: "Look who is talking! You introduced yourself to me by mentioning hot dudes within the first three sentences!"
"You know," Velos said, "what a coincidence. This nun too! I think she is more into slim feminine guys with no facial hair. Maybe she prefers they are hairless down there too?"
"P-Please don't tell them!" she said, the words coming out slightly strangled.
"Interesting taste," Gisole said.
Adelle: "Eek!"
"Smooth," Gisole clarified. "Like a polished stone."
"Please enough about me!" Adelle said.
Trudy turned to Velos with an expression of exhaustion. "Are people in Theolis always like this?"
Velos smiled pleasantly. "You could say that!"
Behind them, the fountain caught the morning light, scattering it across the cobblestones in shifting patterns. Around them the square continued its ordinary business, people talking and moving and existing with the unguarded ease of a place that had decided a long time ago that life was better without the weight of constant judgment pressing down on it.
Then one of the younger mages from the Ellogenes hall came running across the square, her expression shifting the entire register of the morning.
She reached Gisole first, slightly out of breath.
"Elite Mage Isschar!" Her voice had dropped to something urgent and controlled. "We have just received a report. A village on the Theolis border under joint Rocsarte protection,has come under attack by Deorvinci forces. They moved in before dawn."
Velos's expression had not moved at all. It never did when things became serious. But her eyes had taken on a quality that was different from their usual warmth, something older and considerably less forgiving.
Gisole looked at her.
Velos looked back.
"Well," Velos said quietly.
"Perhaps other visitors needs some enlightenment"