"Dear Almighty," Ashtoreth said, hands clasped before her. "Please make sure I get a [Sacred] aspect in my upcoming advancements so that I can destroy infernals and protect myself from angels."

From where he hovered beside her, Dazel groaned. "That's not how that works, boss."

Ashtoreth briefly opened her eyes to shoot him a sidelong glare, then closed them again. "Clearly," she said. "You don't need anything. If you did, you'd just get it yourself." She smiled. "It's good to be king, am I right?"

Dazel groaned again. "I can almost feel Mother Theresa's spirit churning with jealousy as she witnesses your profound piousness."

"But I was thinking: since you probably want for nothing, maybe I could give you the one thing a rich man craves by giving a chance to be generous! So please give me a [Sacred] aspect even though I wont give you anything in exchange for it, and if there is something you want from me, maybe just communicate that. I'm kind of a really big deal right now, so I think it's not too much for me to ask you to eschew your usual mysterious ways and just open up a clear line of communication."

"...Are you asking their god to make you a prophet?" Dazel asked.

"And if none of that works," Ashtoreth said. "Let's consider that since you apparently put people in Hell to punish them for their sins, I think I'm owed some form of reparations for the fact that I was born there. Unless you think babies deserve it? That's kind of messed up if you do."

Her finely-honed senses easily made out the sounds of Dazel trying to suppress his laughter from where he floated beside her, and Ashtoreth had to work hard to hide a growing smile.

"But really," she continued, "the person you should be giving a little divine assistance is my familiar, Dazel."

"Please don't."

"He's been suffering in Hell way, way longer than I ever did. And he's almost always unhappy. And he's weak. Maybe throw the little guy a bone? Sincerely, Ashtoreth."

"Great. Good. Thanks, boss. Now if you're done playing around—"

"I'm talking to the Almighty, Dazel. You don't have to be here for it."

"Really? Because it sort of feels like it wouldn't be the same without me. And I hope you know that none of this has even the slightest chance of increasing your odds of hitting [Sacred], which is probably impossible anyway."

"Dear Almighty," Ashtoreth said, shutting her eyes again. "Wouldn't it be, like, crazy if I got a [Sacred] now that he's said all that? Dazel would look like a straight fool—but more importantly, you'd clearly come off as very powerful. I'd put in a good word with the humans, even—not that you need it. Have you heard about this Christ fellow? Because his dad's been breaking all the rules…."

"Stop it," Dazel said, unable to hide his laughter. "Just crack the cores and tell me your new aspect."

"You sure?" she asked, smiling at him. "Sometimes I think you've grown attached to my silliness."

"We'll just file that remark under 'my archfiend is crazy.'"

"You undervalue frivolity

"The nature of frivolity is that it's not valuable, boss. That's why it's frivolous."

"Um, actually," Ashtoreth said, raising a finger. "The nature of frivolity is that it's not serious. Think of silliness as a form of high-efficiency hedonism, one that values enjoyment and doesn't care how it comes about. We discard all logic, all seriousness, all our impulses toward purpose and profundity to seek pleasure and only pleasure in our arrangement of the meanings of the world."

"Sure, boss."

Ashtoreth sighed. Silliness was a recognition of the fact that just being happy for a moment was a worthwhile endeavor in and of itself.

Poor Dazel.

"Let's go talk to the others," she said, floating over to join Frost and Hunter where they stood at one corner of the pyramid. "I wonder why Kylie's not out, yet."

"Oh, you're done?" Frost asked as she approached. "Good. Matthews would like to see you back on the Welcome Mat."

She frowned. "How come he never calls me himself? He's got a ring."

"I think he thinks you'll be more compliant if I relay his commands for him."

"Okay," she said, putting a hand on a hip. "So that's… probably true. But why can't he come up here? We just conquered this place. Who doesn't want to hang out on top of the pyramid? The elites have the right idea."

She jerked her head toward where a group of soldiers had gathered across from them to look out at the world below them and the sky above.

The pyramid had clearly been ravaged by the fighting that had taken place. Between the golems ripping their way out of its outer cladding and leaving rubble-strewn holes in their wake, the enormously powerful spells that Morax Tol had been unleashing, and the damage caused by Ashtoreth and her allies, there was scarcely a square meter of the pyramid's once-buffed metal surface that wasn't covered in scorch marks, bullet holes, or warped beyond recognition.

Ashtoreth doubted that any of this interfered with the sense of wonder that the group of soldiers toward one edge of the pyramid's flat top were experiencing as they looked out at a star-strewn planar boundary from atop the otherworldly palace they'd just conquered. Most of them had never left Earth, let alone seen a spellcasting dragon.

"Don't Matthews and Gao want to lord over their new territory?" She crossed her arms. "Humans do that. I know they do. That's not just for fiends and dragons—that's a good time for anybody."

"Should I let him know you might be a while?" Matthews asked.

"I guess I should go see him, then," she said. Then she frowned. "I'd level first, but my next level is a new aspect. I should probably try more to make sure it's what I want."

Dazel groaned. "That doesn't work," he said.

Stolen novel; please report.

"Speaking of," said Frost, ignoring him. "I got a class upgrade."

Ashtoreth's face broke into a grin. "Great!" she said. "Honestly, that's a little later than I expected."

Frost shrugged. "I'm more surprised that Hunter didn't get one."

"You didn't?" Ashtoreth asked, turning to the characteristically silent assassin. "But you've killed so many infernals already!"

Hunter shrugged. "It'll come when it comes."

At that moment, Kylie rose up through the steel of the pyramid, solidified, then joined them.

"What took you so long?" asked Frost.

"Mm?" Kylie asked. "I was processing some of the enemies. Tollmax had some more mutated drakes down there, and I wanted to get in first so that I could convert them to ashes before any of the bossmen decide they need them for anything."

"O-kay," said Frost. "Glad I asked."

"You did a great job, Kylie!" Ashtoreth said. "I can't imagine Morax Tol made it easy to run interference on his invincibility."

"Yeah, I did," said Kylie. "There was a phantom dragon thing that I had to fight, but it didn't count as undead and I couldn't actually kill it. The hardest part, though, was finding the thing—it was a big lump of black glass that I couldn't sense normally. I kind of sussed it out by finding the most highly-defended point. Also, I tried to place the charges stealthily so that Tollmax wouldn't know it was about to blow even if he had eyes on the chamber."

Ashtoreth beamed. As someone who was often underestimated herself, she had always adored how much competence Kylie's apathy seemed to hide.

"Anyway, those guys outlevelled us," said Kylie. "So the cores are actually useful. How are we going to do this? Stack on Ashtoreth, right?"

"Works for me," said Hunter.

Soon enough, Ashtoreth had taken all of their cores, though she held off of spending them just yet. "Be back soon," she said, rising into the air. Another thought occurred to her. "Oh—and make sure nobody messes around with my gigantic dragon corpse."

She jerked her head toward the mangled body of Morax Tol where it lay in a pool of blood. She'd left the heart inside because it was possible for someone like Frost to steal some of the dragon's memories and skills before she ate the heart, but not afterward. Essentially, they could get more use of the dead dragon's blood if they did things in the right order.

She flew along the kilometers-long Promenade toward their entry point.

A huge crew of people in uniforms were haphazardly construction what Ashtoreth took to be a warp conduit out of parts they'd stripped from captured bastions.

She found Matthews standing amidst a bunch of his minions, then landed next to him.

"Say, Sir Matthews—your explosives are fantastic!" Ashtorethh said. "Honestly, I think the thing that impresses me the most about them is how fast they are."

"I'm glad you appreciate them," said Matthews. "I'm told you did very good work with the dragon. Thank you."

"Uh-huh! So what's the plan now that we've got this place squared away? Same as before?"

Matthews nodded. "You know what they say," said Matthews. "The reward for doing a good job is more work."

"Great! Next stop: Primeval Karaz. Where we touching down?"

"You're not," said Matthews. "We want you to stay here while High Command figures out what to do with this realm's settings. I take it right now, they're the same as Earth's?"

"Uh-huh! Minimum level is higher because we're further in, though. How come you don't want me fighting infernals and dinosaurs in the jungle? Me and my people have the practical experience." She tried to make the question sound friendly, but the way he'd worded things had sort of implied that they hadn't done good work.

"We know," said Matthews. "And we want you on standby. But we aren't taking the monarchy of Primeval Karaz, so there's no one specific fight that we need to win. Same goes for Fallen Harana. As such, risking you makes very little sense." He paused, working his mouth for a moment before seeming to come to a decision and adding, "Plus, there are still elements within High Command that don't trust you."

Ashtoreth grinned. "Well, at least it's nice that you're being honest. Are you sure you don't want me for Fallen Harana?"

"Like I said, we'll want you at the ready. We'll want to consult you. But… I can almost guarantee that we won't call on you. The simple fact is that our assault on Fallen Harana is supposed to look like a loss to our enemies. We don't need you to make it happen. And if any part of the plan goes disastrously, that's still part of the larger plan. Risking you to save any of our troops is a bad value proposition."

Ashtoreth pursed her lips, then nodded. Everything he said made perfect sense. "Long-term, I'm going to need some way to farm cores," she said. "Earth's level limit is only going to go up and up. I have to stay ahead of potential invaders. And I'm guessing you don't want me farming on Primeval Karaz."

"It's of too much strategic importance," said Matthews. "Ideally, our people there will operate without a fuss. Realistically, Hell will maintain a presence there and give us constant trouble. It would be the perfect place to ambush you."

"Yeah, I guess…" she said. "But you know, I'm a lot better at killing armies than invincible dragons."

"We'll think of something," Matthews said. "We may just want to have our soldiers bring you cores, if we can. At least until we can secure any realms that provide cores and aren't guaranteed to become battlegrounds." He paused, then added, "There's something else. Why I wanted to talk to you. One of your sisters."

Ashtoreth felt a spike of interest. "Which one?" she asked. "What did she do? Where was she?"

"Our oracles tracked her with some blood and hair that we picked up from a scene she made in Delhi," said Matthews. "She's not on Earth anymore. Best they could tell, she hopped to one of the bastions we'd cleared, then hopped somewhere else. She's gone. As for which one it was, I'm afraid we don't know."

"Hair color?" Ashtoreth asked.

"Red."

"Apollo," she said, thinking to herself. "Once she realized what I'd done, she probably turned on some of the bastions herself. Farmed Hell's soldiers for cores. I don't know how she could get to the outer bastions once we'd taken out the second nexus after the election, but she's creative—she must have thought of something."

"Apollo," Matthews repeated. "Greek guy. Sun god. Just curious, but why do you do that?"

Ashtoreth shrugged. "Father wanted the eventual Monarch of Earth to bear the name of one of its ancient gods, I guess. Maybe to mock your religions, maybe just to confuse the religious among you."

"Could your sister be bringing useful intelligence of any kind back to Hell?"

Ashtoresh shook her head, but slowly, uncertainly. "Unless she ate someone you told about the plan to attack Fallen Harana, then no, not really," she said. "Hell will already know about me because Set will have told them."

"And this leaves one sister remaining, yes?"

"Haddad," said Ashtoreth. "Though honestly, I'm really surprised we haven't found her yet. She's not subtle."

"I see."

"Apollo was probably just fleeing the planet with the hope that she'll get some grace from our father. Once I became the monarch, there was nothing more for her to accomplish here unless she killed me. And while she might be ambitious, her ambition never overcomes her cautiousness."

"All right," said Matthews. "I may have more questions for you later, but if you want to go level, now's your chance. I just wanted to be sure of the risk posed by your sister."

"Sure thing, Sir Matthews," she said, looking past him at the work crews. "You look busy!" She rose into the air and flew back toward her allies, thinking. Matthews didn't much come off as someone who played stupid power games, but he did just make her fly forty kilometers to have a thirty-second conversation.

Not that it took her a long time to fly forty kilometers, anymore.

"So what's the deal?" Kylie asked as she landed. "Any change in plans?"

"Uh, honestly? I think we're done for a while."

"What about the other two realms?" asked Frost. "Primeval Karaz and Fallen Harana?"

"They want us around, but we're probably not getting called in. They really don't want to risk me when they don't have to—this was a special case because they needed someone to fight the dragon."

"Well, I can't say I'm disappointed," said Frost. "The three of you deserve a break, and I deserve a break from worrying about you."

"D'aww," said Ashtoreth. "You're so sweet, Sir Frost. Anyway, let's get through these advancements—then we can start planning our trip."

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