Despite my third eye making it feel like I was seeing some sort of underlying pattern in Nusos, we struggled to make progress. It took hours for us to get away from Earth rooms for some reason, and then even once we reached some more familiar territory there was a "greatest hits" assortment of monsters to deal with.

There was another fake person calling for help, almost but not quite the same as the one Errod and I had killed during our first visit to Nusos, and just like before it wasn't super hard to deal with as long as we didn't fall for its trap. Likewise, when we came across a very suspicious room that reminded me of the giant trap door spider thing that had almost killed Zoey we simply turned around and went a different way.

Others we had to actually fight, like the encounter with those stupid beetles we'd previously encountered on the way to Earth, but this time there weren't as many. I didn't really even help, Katrin zapped them all and Errod finished them off. The only notable monster we were missing was the tentacle juice thing, but that happily didn't make an appearance.

The biggest hurdle was actually Matlyn; sometimes Errod or I would fully carry her, but that wasn't practical to do all the time and when she was walking under her own power she got tired very quickly. That meant another night sleeping in Nusos again, which I didn't mind but stressed Errod out - he really wanted to get Matlyn to a healer.

She seemed okay with it, but Matlyn was so relentlessly positive that it wouldn't surprise me if she smiled and joked as she bled out from a missing limb. "This is nothing," she said, "anything you can survive can be healed. And just think of what a success this mission was! We'll still need you to export the templates you've made using our own device of course, but at that point... we have so many plants, and hundreds of them are ready to grow as-is! Tomatoes first, I think, and then limes, and cucumber. Oh, and cinnamon!"

She was only sad about not getting a live sample of a rubber tree, or something called "pando", or a few other specific plants she'd learned about. Almost everything had been available somewhere we'd been though. She'd even gotten her hands on several varieties of weed and even some psychedelic mushrooms - though I felt like the magically-engineered drugs were better and safer than Earth stuff anyway, and according to Matlyn she wasn't actually any good at mushrooms.

"People think they're plants," she'd said, "but they're not even close! They're neat, but I'd have an easier time modifying a rat."

I'd tapped into Biltagiretzae again to drop off even more stuff so we could travel light, and I'd pulled out rations from the first leg of the journey since it seemed like a shame to waste Earth food. That being said, I had already confirmed that in my memory palace I could perfectly recreate anything I'd templated. I had already been able to make things there just by imagining them properly, but there was something way more real about using the templates. I didn't remember all the flavors and textures right on my own.

I had nightmares, mostly involving Tony asking me why I didn't keep looking for him. Some had Bill in there too, and one even involved us returning to Earth to find Greg had murdered everyone, including people that wouldn't have been there like Sige, Mila, and even little Elba.

Unlike on Earth I was back to only sleeping with half my mind at a time though, and that made the dreams lose a lot of their punch; it was like some show that someone was watching in the next room. Cyne had warned against using divination abilities in Nusos, so I had my ghost actually floating over everyone while they slept, casting a faint light across the room. From that vantage point, I could tell the others weren't sleeping very well either.

Still, the next day we made better progress. We still had to stop a lot for Matlyn, but by lunchtime we were almost there and after a final break to get into a good mindset and review the pictures we popped out right where we wanted. There was an attendant who charged us an outrageous one hundred and sixty-two pins, but that also thankfully included transportation to Good Charl. The gate guards asked us a few questions, but once they knew we weren't there for Good Charl's permanent portal to the Warren or to pay for use of its Duminere it became clear most of the procedure wouldn't apply to us.

I already knew what part of town the healers and enhancers were in and led the others there, then split off to check on the airship and make sure the upgrades were done. It felt strange to be walking through the streets of a fantasyland city, especially one like Good Charl with its eclectic buildings and high percentage of foreigners and mercenaries. After spending about three weeks on Earth, returning was a strange mixture of feeling like I was back home and being struck with the wonder of being in a world of magic all over again. I found myself grinning from ear to ear as I approached the airship, looking around like a tourist at all the sights.

And then my mood got considerably worse when I saw some random guy standing on the deck of my airship wearing a fur coat, underwear, and a mustache. He was scratching himself, and gnawing on what appeared to be a huge tube of cured meat. He had the dark skin and narrow nose I associated with Twelve Towers, where Cyne was from, but he was lacking the strange dignified vibe I'd gotten from the others I'd met. He even sneered at me as I approached. "We're not interested," he said, "the airship doesn't fly, and wouldn't be taking jobs anyway. Fuck off."

"Well," I said, "it's my fucking airship so I don't think I'll be doing that. Who the hell are you, and where's Sige?"

The man snorted. "Asked me to watch the place for a few hours. That was three days ago, so I'm guessing he's stuck in the fighting pit trying to win enough matches to keep from having his mind stuck in a golem."

"Fuck," I said, "that shit sucking motherfucking... here, take... however much this is and take your shit. I'll deal with Sige." I tossed a hexagon of mixed yellow and green coins to him, and finished climbing the ramp. Shitheel saw me and hissed angrily, clearly trying to complain about being cooped up for too long. There was a burlap sack of moskar feed laying there ripped open, as if someone had just tossed a full bag at him; I assumed he'd been in a mood and they had been afraid to get closer. There was moskar shit on the deck that needed to be cleaned up, but at least the heater seemed to be working - Moskar didn't love the cold and it was getting pretty chilly at night.

"I don't know what you mean by 'deal with Sige'," the man said as he pulled on pants and shoved some items into a backpack, "but I don't think he's getting out this time. Don't get me wrong, I love that idiot, but they take a little more from him each time. And if you get in too deep, well, there's just no way out. Flutter GeVecee drains people dry and then turns them into slaves. He doesn't let his toys go."

"Sorry, that's very dark and fucked up, but did you say his name is 'Flutter'?"

The man laughed as he shouldered his bag. "Maybe a bit silly of a name, but he probably prefers it that way. Why would he want people to take him seriously? Better to have them let their guard down, think they can win."

With that he headed off, and I went belowdecks to check things out. My good mood immediately returned. Holy shit. The furniture and magic doodads were all there. The comfy beds, the climate control, the plumbing, the oven. And it was gorgeous - all beautifully crafted. There was another tube of cured meat sitting there leaking grease onto my nice new countertop, but other than that it all looked great. I dropped my bag, took the meat, and headed up to saddle Shitheel. "Shitheel... you want some mystery meat? Sure you do! Let me saddle you without any biting, and I'll give you the meat nicely instead of hitting you in the face with it."

He was not remotely nice, but somehow ended up with the meat anyway.

I got to Mama Carnage's Ethical Mercenaries without Shitheel causing any problems and tied him up in the attached stable. When I went inside, Mama Carnage herself was there and waved me over with a trademark cackle. "You're alive! That's nice."

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I sat down at her desk, sighing. "Was there ever a doubt?"

A fountain pen appeared in her hand, and she signed some documents before making them and the pen vanish. "Let's see, you went on a blind job to an undisclosed location they thought they might not be able to return from until the Grand Alignment. So... yes."

That was fair. "Well, the job is mostly over. We just need to fabricate some things for the client, and then it's all over. Are you going to need a report? I can't talk about most of it."

"They made me agree to that ahead of time," she said, peeling a fruit that hadn't been there a moment ago, "but I'd appreciate a quick rundown on any complications."

"Let's see... an external contractor the client hired tried to murder me and I killed him in self defense, but she was fine with that. The general scope of the job kinda got out of control and we all almost died a few times. The client got hurt more than once but we healed her, though the last time the battlefield healing spell we used left some organ damage; it's pretty good at skin and muscle and stuff, but even then it leaves scars and can have some lingering issues. I'm not surprised it didn't fix her organs. She's at a healer now, Errod will probably insist on paying - oh, I think they're a couple now. Uh... yeah, overall it was fine though. The client got what she wanted, and is going to be stinking rich."

Mama Carnage looked at me with her strange vertical-slit snake eyes. "Well that last bit will probably make up for the rest, but it sounds like a shit show."

"I guess. I can promise they're not going to complain, and they're glad it was us that took the job. Hey, do you know about Sige?"

She made the little model wagon she was painting vanish, and leaned back. "I do. I'm tempted to burn that whole place to the ground, but unfortunately it wouldn't be worth the trouble it would bring me. If you're considering doing something, you should know you can't beat them in a fair fight, because they'll never agree to have one in the first place. Any fight with them is always unfair, in their favor. You're not powerful or influential enough to destroy them all, and if you try to talk or bargain your way through they'll bend things around to trap you. I don't think you can do this one; you're trying to rescue a drowning man, but if you reach out your hand he's going to pull you in and take you with him."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I get it. Well, listen... I need to officially close out this job and then talk to one of the gods about something, but then I'm going to come back and get Sige out of there so he can help me wrangle a giant spirit whale thing. I also have to meet with the Primarch of Erathik about some stuff, and find a way to kill Tindelus, and save the world. Also, someone maybe wants to cut my head off? The point is, my schedule is pretty booked right now and the Sige thing might cross the line into 'deeply illegal' so if you need to take me off the books I get it."

Mama Carnage grinned. "For a while, maybe. Let me know when it's all over and I'll reinstate you. Speaking of Tindelus, though, have you heard the news? Teleportation networks are all down, everyone is having to travel through the planes or take the long way. Markonti is on lockdown as if it's a disease they're quarantining from, and the Endless Empire has been fully taken over along with Halenvar and the Patic Empire. But it's not making any moves against Erathik, the Free States, the Coastal Alliance, Romatna, the Yannan Islands, Tahikk... can you guess why?"

I'd read - well, skimmed - the books Harmid had gathered for me, and picked up a few things on my own, but I had never been one for politics. What did the Endless Empire, Markonti, Halenvar, and the Patic Empire have in common? "Wait... are they all the nations that claim to be a continuation of the Clockmaker's empire?"

"Got it in one! Seems like maybe Tindelus has beef with the Clockmaker specifically. But that means the other nations aren't as motivated to help, especially when they all have other things to worry about with the Grand Alignment approaching. Reports out of the Patic Empire say someone managed to sneak into the Duminere and found it disabled, but no word on what that actually means."

That was certainly interesting. "Hey wait, why would all teleportation be down, and not just to those places?"

"They're not down for the government or people with enough influence," she said, "but the extra security means general travel needs to be limited. Planar portals to Heregie or wherever have secure terminals on the other side where people can wait and be cleared, but for teleports the security has to happen once they've already arrived. It's easiest to just shut them down, and only open them for pre-planned teleports. Cases where you know who's about to appear, and can turn the runes off right after."

It was kind of a shame that I had so much shit to do, because this was a great time to have an airship for hire.

Errod, Katrin, and Matlyn made it back to the airship not long after I did, and Matlyn already looked better. Katrin had collected correspondence from a service she'd signed up for before we left, and it turned out Matlyn's brother Orick was in Erathik finalizing a contract with the Primarch's people. That made the choice of destination easy, so early the next morning - after getting the best sleep I'd ever had - we made sure the mana battery was properly installed and lifted off.

Matlyn studied her notes, Errod sat with her, I took the helm, Katrin hid belowdecks so she could pretend we weren't flying, and Shitheel did the Titanic pose on the bow. We took three days to get to Erathik, which wasn't bad at all really, and when we got there a parking spot was waiting for us. I then spent an agonizing four days carefully transferring templates of all the plants into Orick's device, helping them label everything, and making sure nothing had been missed. It ended up making an enormous stack of little metal plates, each worth a fortune.

Katrin spent that time making a conversion chart for Earth measurements, using thing she'd bought on Earth to figure out how much everything from pounds to meters to teaspoons were in local metrics. This dovetailed with Matlyn's project, since I was also helping her document ideal growing conditions for each plant and the Earth temperatures didn't mean anything here. I was also supposed to be working on my own project, namely documenting everything I could from the Grand Alignment task force to make sure all those threats were dealt with, but that was difficult and tedious and I made very little progress. I knew that it would be needed sooner rather than later, but I was a little burned out.

Errod's project was fully doomed. He was trying to talk to anyone who would listen about mounting another expedition into Brinkmar, this time prepared to kill Tindelus. Nobody was interested. The Primarch even did him a favor and arranged to let him present it to a gathering of military representatives from various nations that were already there for some big important meeting, and his pitch was derailed by one of them saying that they simply didn't trust that they could do it; the Clockmaker had sealed this thing away, so far as we could tell, and while it was possible he'd contained it rather than destroying it so he could study it later the more likely answer - given that the timing lined up with the fall of the Old Empire - was that the Clockmaker himself couldn't fully defeat it.

Since it was only going after nations that claimed to be descended from the Old Empire, the obvious solution was to let those Empires fall and then found new ones in their place and see if Tindelus lost interest. If it was some programmed thing, that might be enough. Errod kept his cool fairly well, but I think everyone could tell he was furious. I went up to him afterwards and he was scowling so hard that people were hugging the far wall of the hallway as they passed, but when I approached he just looked at me and said, "I'm just going to have to do it myself" before storming away.

On the 36th of the 11th, right when everything else was finished, we were invited to another dinner with the Primarch. I checked if Hugh was going to be there and was told he was taking some time with family in another city, so instead I bailed. I told Katrin and Errod, of course, but otherwise I just lifted off and headed away. That night I parked in a field and let Shitheel run around, confident that he'd return for the heater and his food - it was getting really cold out, and as we got further from Erathik it would just get worse.

The Observatory of Jenkutierra, where I would potentially be able to talk to a god, was still another two days away. In the meantime, I had something else I needed to do. I went into my memory palace, and found the shelf with the boxes from the Queen of Candles. Box number one, "open when you get back from this job". The box itself was solid, but I could tell it was a template. I concentrated and felt it unfolding, and then -

"Things are going fine," I said into a mirror, "but I need you to look into that green metal. The stuff that interacts with fate? Have someone study it, but keep yourself from learning any more than you need to. Just get it all written down, or something. No changes to the plan other than that, though. Have fun talking to a god."

- the door closed behind me and vanished. Wait. Had I just left the Queen of Candles' domain? Why had I gone in there? Why had she allowed it, if she normally only let people in once? What had happened in there? I popped back into my memory palace, and while box #1 was still gone, there were now two more occupied shelves. I checked my bag and found the journal there, with corresponding notes:

#6. Open in Brinkmar. #7. Open if the captured items' fate threads attach to you.

I hated losing time, but just like with my previous interaction with the Queen of Candles I felt good. Relaxed, refreshed, even kinda chipper. I suspected I could recover some of the memories I'd just lost - if nothing else, the time between me unpacking the box and entering the Queen of Candles' domain - but for whatever reason I was certain this was my idea. I made sure Shitheel was on board, and lifted off again.

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