Changeling

(64): A Gleam of the Worlds

Nestra checked her helmet status. The air was technically breathable if one thought tear gas was an acceptable fragrance. By her side, Miu’s head was encased in a transparent bubble that made her look like a vintage cosmonaut. She slowed down as the tunnel she was in widened into a vast cavern.

The black volcanic rock of this world was covered in thick yellow slabs of sulfur. Surprisingly, half of the cave was submerged under a shallow layer of water, and plumes of yellow gas bubbled out of numerous pools with vulgar gurgles. The temperature would have been suffocating were it not for the Bellerophon armor’s current ice coating. Nestra’s mana reserves were massive for a mid D-class, and she was putting those to good use.

“Think there are more of them here?” Miu bleated.

She didn’t like giant, slime-covered worms. Go figure.

“I know there are more. Stand back. Let me get their attention.”

Nestra confidently stepped towards the water. It was close to boiling temperature and would flash-cook any baseline on contact, but she was a gleam. An ice gleam. She had this.

Nestra looked up before beginning. Through the cracks of the ceiling, she could see glimpses of a shockingly blue sky, not unlike Earth’s own.

Right. Enough of this. Wordlessly, Nestra activated her Zero Aura. It was getting faster and easier every time.

Water particles turned to floating ice around her. A wind pushed the toxic fumes away, dispersing them and clearing sight. Fingers of ice crept from the edges of the pools towards the center with quickening hunger. Nestra adopted a low guard. She’d been using that one very often recently.

Something jumped at her. It was part worm, and part disgusting mass of aberrant flesh encased in stone and slime, an abomination that wouldn’t have been out of place in some pre-Incursion horror flick. Nestra changed her guard with a tsk of annoyance.

Miu’s air blade collided with the thing’s body with a wet smack. Whitish blood sprayed Nestra’s armor, including the helmet, but that wasn’t something that would make someone of her experience panic. She sliced where she expected the worm’s head to be. Her electricity-infused strike bit deep, and then it bit through. The creature’s lifeless body collided with her chest. She pivoted to the side to push it away without losing her balance. A quick flash of ice mana crystallized the goop, then she brushed it away with her free hand.

“Left!” Miu screamed.

Nestra went low and struck sideways. Her blade smashed another horror down with an electric discharge. It was enough to prevent it from grabbing her with the weird grabby things emerging from the rock body. She plunged her infused blade in the fallen beast’s neck then pulled, tearing it apart. It hissed in agony.

Miu’s next air blade hit another attacker but it was still half submerged and it returned to the sulfuric muck. Nestra huffed. Couldn’t have that. She moved to the next pond and plunged her blade where the creature had submerged itself. More electricity crackled on the surface until something screeched and thrashed some distance away. It was in the middle of one of the hottest pools and Nestra could barely see it through the yellow fog, even with her Zero Aura moving the air around.

Well, why not. Focusing, she lifted a hand. There was some cold water at her feet. Pull it up, supercool it, shape it.

Throw.

With a sound like shattering glass, the horror was impaled, shards scoring deep gashes in its hybrid body. Pale ichor gushed into the water, disappearing under the sickly mist.

“That should be all of them, right?”

“Miu...”

“I know, I know. Sorry.”

Nestra shook her head. The girl was trying her best. She also didn’t have to come here.

“Nice air blades by the way,” Nestra added to soften the blow.

“I know! I landed them all!”

“Alright, I’m going to circle the pool. According to the report, it should be the last one before the Guardian. We can retrace our steps afterward.”

“Okay.”

In order to harvest the maximum amount of resources from a portal world, one had to employ harvesters. Those were trained gleams who preferred resource extraction to fighting but could still hold their own, just in case. Nothing prevented gleams from dragging machinery inside of a portal world, but they had to be able to carry it in themselves, and then they had to carry the harvested material out themselves as well. It was a well paid job though obviously raiders made more. One thing though, the raiders responsible for their safety had to make absolutely sure there was no danger or there would be severe penalties in case of attacks. Nestra moved throughout the cave and blasted pools with electricity until she was sure nothing alive remained. Only then did she join Miu on the shore so they could return to the entrance portal.

The other thing was that, in order to harvest, one had to keep the final guardian alive or the portal would destabilized and close before it could be fully harvested. Nestra would need to return later and finish the job. That was fine though. They had four days and she’d already emptied the world of foes.

“So, you said ten thousand credits per person?” Miu Miu asked.

“Estimated, yeah. After tax and the harvester fee. Could be as low as eight.”

“It’s still pretty good considering you did most of the work...”

Nestra patted Miu’s shoulder.

“Hey you would have made the raid tolerable with an air bubble if I didn’t already have my fancy nepo armor. Don’t sell yourself short. Those air blades were also clean as hell. Those two creatures you hit were pretty much disabled.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re doing fantastic and remember, this is volunteer work. We’re fighting the good fight.”

“Thanks. Yeah. That makes it wired by default, right?”

“And it will also get us pizza.”

Miu paused as they reached another, smaller cavern. Two corpses bled on the shore of shallow pools. The short air mage used the opportunity to refresh her protective spell.

“So, sulfur is expensive?”

“Infused sulfur is, eh. It’s meh. As far as I understand, we sell to an independent farmers collective. They transform it into fertilizer for mana-rich wheat and potatoes.”

The thought of mana-rich fresh bread made her salivate. Aszhii Nestra stirred in her dimensional pocket. She was getting restless. It was like an itch at the back of human Nestra’s mind.

“Not the best,” she continued, “but there’s entire slabs here so it’s easy to extract it. And it’s very pure as well.”

“I see. Oh, we’ve arrived.”

Nestra’s phone rang the moment she was out, eliciting a curious glance from Miu Miu. Nobody used phones anymore, except fossils and people with secrets. It was clear which category Miu believed Nestra belonged to.

There was one missed call as well as a single message from Ragnarok. It read: call me ASAP. Nestra didn’t hesitate.

“Hello?”

“Are you near portal U-297?”

“We just cleared — “

“I need Crescent to do me a favor. In a hurry.”

“Explain,” Nestra replied, all business.

“I’m sending you coordinates. Are you familiar with the Three Widows?”

Nestra was because her parents had mentioned it several times.

“It’s a filter portal, a hope killer. One of the most dangerous repeating portals around.”

They were called hope killers because they took down ascending C-class gleams, the new generations to join Threshold’s prestigious B-class elites. There were a few like this around Threshold with famous Guardians. The Three Widows were infamous but there was also Old Stonehead who was subtly dangerous on account of how fast the portal repeated, the Chasm Dragon, and Steve. Fucking Steve.

“Yes. A junior team from Tiger Den entered it half an hour ago. Their sentinel near the gate had just come to report an emergency when I called you. You’re very close to the site. Can you go help?”

“I’m on my way.”

“Sending you the coordinates. Watch out for the widows.”

“No wukkas.”

Finally.

A good fucking raid.

“Is everything alright?” Miu asked. “I couldn’t hear the conversation, it was so weird.”

“The phone probably has some confidentiality thing. Anyway, I need to go. Can you call a taxi? Sorry. It’s urgent.”

“I mean, yeah, but what about killing the Guardian? What about the pizza?”

“It can wait until tomorrow. I should be done within an hour. If I’m not, then eat without me.”

What would Nestra not sacrifice for the city? She ought to get a medal or something.

***

Nestra was forced to park her roadster a few streets away, under a ramp, before jumping over roofs as Crescent. The roadster was still under her human identity. She approached the portal with great strides, grabbing for her ID as a man in a suit rushed her.

“Miss Crescent? Are you the rescue team?”

Huh.

“Did Ragnarok warn you?”

“No, but I could not think of any other reasons. The sentinel has gone to reinforce the assault team but we’ve lost contact. I have an additional bag of emergency supplies. Please note the infused epinephrine at the top?”

Wow. Nestra knew this was made by BaiHe and cost over fifty thousand creds a pop. She grabbed it quickly.

“Last we heard the team tank had gone into cardiac arrest. They should have a shot but it won’t be enough. Epinephrine first, anti-venom last.”

“Got it.”

“And Miss Crescent? Watch out for those stingers.”

“I will.”

She plunged into the portal world.

The quiet of the street was replaced by the loud croaks and calls of the jungle. Wet heat invaded Nestra’s lungs, chasing the cold air of Threshold’s late fall. A wall of green blocked her view. The ambient mana embraced her body, making her shiver with pleasure. This was a hunting ground. A rich, fun hunting ground.

“Oh I expected that much. Airborne justice is one of my favorites. Anyway, I had never seen anyone beat the widows that fast before.”

“They were almost dead,” Nestra grumbled. “Wish I could fight them at full strength.”

The Tiger Den guy gave her a long look.

“You know, we were going to have a senior team take care of it next week for our last rotation before the world goes for open bidding again. I can make a request to get you on the roster if you want a rematch.”

“Yessss. Absolutely. Here’s my number.”

“A secrecy phone, huh? I guess it comes with the mask status. Very well, I’ll let you know.”

Fuck yeah. Networking!

***

Nestra had her car’s AI drive her back home while she meditated in human form. Meditation after a raid was the best way to reliably improve one’s core in humans. Ashzii didn’t have to do that which was blatantly unfair but then, Aszhii were blatantly unfair to the fucking marrow. And so were gleams. So there. The pizza was cold and Albert had left by the time she arrived. Helena was there though, watching vids on the couch. She was pungent.

Nestra sighed. It was time for her to act as the big sister.

“So, how did it go?” she asked.

“Oh, we talked to the cat woman. She was marginally less batshit than the photo made it seem. She has a shelter for wild cats — do you know that some of them are awakening? I didn’t.”

“I, uh, I think I read an article about it a while ago. It’s slow, right?”

“Right. Humans are adapting the fastest, somehow. Apparently scientists are not sure why because there is no correlation between intellect and animal awakening rate. Anyway! We placed those cameras and Albert cooked up some program to monitor suspicious movement using the city AI’s framework as support. Apparently it’s a monthly subscription fee. Nothing weird so far. He said he’d text me if something came up.”

Helena blushed at this moment. It was absolutely obvious because she was so damn pale and now her ears were the color of tulips.

“Look,” Nestra said, “you did more than just place the cameras, right? And something else went up, right?”

“Dammit. The asexual woman is making innuendos.”

“I’m sorry to make it awkward, sister dear...”

“Ok, we made out. Like, a lot.”

“Yeah, I just wanted to give you a heads up since the adults are raiding. I mean, the older adults. Yeah, you smell like arousal.”

“... oh.”

It was awkward as fuck but it had to be done.

“I was spared this but if you want to avoid heavy looks and veiled questions... Look, mom and dad are nice but, you know, just be aware they can tell.”

Helena slapped her forehead. She was embarrassed as hell, and even if embarrassing Helena was pretty much Nestra’s sworn duty, she still felt bad about it.

“Life’s hell for gleam teens. Riel.”

“I’m sorry. I thought it would be better if I warned you, you know.”

“Ugh. Shower time, I guess. What about you?”

“I still need to return to the sulfur portal to finish off the Guardian. I’m busy tomorrow so I thought I’d get it out of the way.”

“I thought you insisted we go two by two for safety’s sake?”

“For your safeties,” Nestra explained. “You guys are still school kids. I’m an adult, and I have my secret weapon.”

“Ah, yeah. Well, I’m not going. My nose has had enough for today.”

So did Nestra’s but she wisely decided to keep it to herself.

***

The guardian turned out to be a larger version of the worm/fleshballs/mudballs hybrids and since it wasn’t very mobile, Nestra just turned it into an icicle-ravaged ice cube before moving it for the decapitation. The final reward turned out to be a small slab of lapis-lazuli, a pleasant surprise that would sell well with the city’s makeup industry. It was apparently a rare reward for this repeating world. She meditated more on her way home. By that time, it was already past ten and human Nestra was completely beat.

Aszhii Nestra still raided until 4 AM in a low C-class world. It was a more dangerous version of the fae wars with a plethora of low level spellcasters that kept spamming attack spells. They improved her mana regen, which tended to lag behind. She still felt like she needed something more dangerous to really progress, but the most challenging worlds were locked behind contracts or were guild properties. She needed options, or she needed crime. Her shadow manipulation was steadily improving. Maybe it was time to put it to good use...

Or maybe she could raid outside of the walls. That would be interesting.

***

It was a dangerous hellscape hidden behind cavernous walls, a world with its own rules, where prey didn’t exist yet predators abounded. It was one of the most dangerous locations of Threshold where fortunes had been made and lost, hearts had been broken, and mercy was but an amusing concept. Nestra should never have come here, yet duty pushed her forward in the frigid temperatures anyway. Girding her loins and her courage she boldly stepped forward into the bowels of the beast while promising herself a nice slice of eighteen months old comte cheese on toasted full bread with a glass of Pinot Gris on the side later to make up for the ignominy.

“Good evening, and welcome to the Guild Association charity gala! May I see your invitation?”

Nestra sent the polite aug her virtual ticket. Her parents were raiding with aunt Claire while Ulysses had some kind of private evening with his girlfriend so it fell to her, the eldest daughter, to defend the honor of the family. The fucking fuckers had to have planned it on purpose Riel dammit.

“Enjoy your evening, ma’am.”

“Thank you.”

The gala would take place in the titanic receiving room of the Town Hall, the only part of the Trinity she almost never visited. While the Beacon focused on gleam affairs and the Guardian housed the city’s military, the Town Hall was the den of the government and, as one of its lower cogs, Nestra had never been invited. This was the mayor’s seat, where that great apparatus kept the industry running, the trade flourishing, and guilds from getting out of hand. Her steps carried her up marble stairs and past elected officials, celebrities, and guild representatives to the monumental gates of Threshold’s beating heart. It looked really nice and she couldn’t miss the sealed domes of concealed turrets on the ceiling. Inside, she was directed to her table by a fussy man with an impressive hairstyle and the ability to make visitors feel like they were a pushy friend they’d always known or something. Nestra retreated behind her freshly forged Ice Princess persona. Since she looked cold, had power, and muscles, and also because she was conventionally attractive, then it was fitting to remain quiet and pretend she entertained profound thoughts. The alternative was to stuff her face with canapes while avoiding eye contact. As tempting as it was, she was here as a Palladian. She would not let her parents down out of spite. Or hunger.

A massive gathering of tables awaited in front of a large platform covered by a thick red curtain, the only gaudy concession to a building that otherwise favored Art Deco. The representative of the Century Guild greeted Nestra warmly as she arrived on her own, a favor she returned. There were a few other distantly aligned guilds sitting nearby, so Nestra found herself greeting old family friends who seemed genuinely pleased to see her here.

“Ah, your parents were so worried, little one. It makes me pleased to see you here all grown up. And with such good mana control right after your awakening! I am eager to see how you will progress.”

Nestra smiled and nodded. Those old men and women hidden under the timeless appearance of C-class gleams formed the social fabric that held the city together, oiling the hinges of bureaucracy, diplomacy, and trade so the raiders could focus on killing. She had a surprisingly pleasant time getting acquainted with House Palladian’s network of acquaintances — perhaps because they kept praising her, until a sudden cry made her raise her head.

“Nes? It really is you!”

Nestra found herself nose to nose with a tall, lanky woman with pale skin and very dark irises. She recognized an extremely rare obsidian affinity from the sharp and unyielding mana. The woman was high D-class but her aura was too smooth and fragile to be one of a raider. There was nothing familiar about her.

“Hmm, sorry I can’t place you.”

The woman was trailed by a slightly shorter man with broad shoulders and a worried look. Even being a gleam, he had a receding hairline of thin dark hair. Like his partner, he was not a raider. Her own ice reacted with his water by attempting to freeze it which forced Nestra to consciously hold herself back.

“I’m Sysy!” the tall woman said excitedly.

Nestra blinked. She gasped, her mind dragged to a sudden trip down memory lane.

“Wait Sylvia? You’re all grown up!”

“Hahaha, yes! You too. Obviously.”

She blushed, readjusting long brown hair. Her dress was nice but not too nice. Similarly, the man’s suit lacked the high end polish of custom works.

“It has been a very long time. How are you holding up?”

“Oh, Larry and I are on the cusp of some major improvements with high tensile strength... but that’s not important, haha. We’re researchers with the Threshold branch of Aegis Inc. And you, I’d heard from Luna that you’d recovered! She follows raider news. I don’t. Ah, but I always wanted to say... I’m so sorry I didn’t reach out after you dropped out of school, and after we were such good friends in the preparatory class too. I betrayed your trust.”

“It’s fine,” Nestra replied as she remembered all those severed friendships in the wake of the disastrous discovery. “I don’t think I was ready to face any of you. It was a... difficult moment. We were all teenagers.”

“Still, I can’t help but feel like I let you down.”

“No you did not, Sylvie,” Nestra said with confidence. “There is nothing you could have said to regrow my core. By the way, this is...”

The man gave her a friendly nod though he stayed a step behind his partner in a display of low confidence.

“Larry, my husband. Don’t be shy!”

“Good evening.”

“Larry and I have been married for three years. Oh, we have a little one at home but we left her with her grandma so we could finally have a night out. We must sound so boring, haha.”

Nestra considered her old friend’s words.

A year before, Nestra had been waiting to see if her body gave out or if a monster finally killed her as she fought off chronic mana starvation with the stoic strength of despair.

“Actually it sounds like you have your shit together, pardon the expression.”

It apparently meant a lot to them.

“So you are a raider now, right?” Larry asked, to which Nestra nodded.

She was more or less sticking to her icy persona but with her friends in front of her, she allowed a slight smile to express her pleasure. It was weird meeting Sylvie after so long. It felt a bit like reconnecting with the lost years.

“Oh you HAVE to come with us one floor up. They have those dueling arenas with novelty plastic weapons for people to fight!”

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More like a spot for rivals to politely beat the shit out of each other without spilled blood.

“Sure. Come find me after all the talking.”

“Will do! Oh, it’s starting already?”

The light was dimming, the stage was opening. It was time for all the bigwigs to make speeches in preparation for the impending mayoral vote. Nestra reached for the cocktail menu.

It was going to be a long night.