Bel didn’t know what he’d expected from the boat, but he was disappointed. Not that it was bad, or ugly, or anything, it was just… boring. Simple wood frame, no sails, no oars, and a plain brown tarp covering. It was about thirty feet long and just as wide, which was a good size, but it was completely mundane, more of a floating platform with knee high walls than a boat. It didn’t escape him that without sails and oars it didn’t have any means of propulsion, but since no one else had said anything about it, he wasn’t going to, either. He really didn’t want to be the person who broke the heavy silence that hung over them all.

  Every time he looked at Julo, he felt it again, a raw hot iron ball of guilt situated somewhere between his heart and guts. The man had been quiet since it had happened. He’d just picked up his arm, walked it over to the pile of burned bodies in the square, threw it on the pyre, and then walked back past everyone and down to the boat dock. Bel wasn’t sure if he would have preferred the man say anything, but he knew he definitely didn’t like the silence, either.

  Meph stayed close to him, which Bel appreciated, and Julo didn’t seem to mind. Theori kept glancing sideways at him, probably waiting for the same thing Bel was—some outburst—but when nothing came, he seemed to do his best to pretend like nothing had changed. For all of them, it was Yillie that seemed to be the most affected.

  The older man walked with a subtle limp that Bel had never noticed before, relied more on his staff for balance, and his eyes looked as though they would drop back into his skull at any moment. Then there was the breathing. He’d calmed it pretty quickly, but Bel had noticed that it was fast and short, like he’d been hyperventilating. During the battle at the campsite, he’d been much more active, and used his healing magic a lot more, but Bel thought he always looked in control. Now, he looked frail and beaten. Bel didn’t have any proof, but he was betting it had to do with the Warring Dead spell. Maybe the spell didn’t require more energy than another, but the mental toll of it… Bel didn’t enjoy thinking about it.

  Now aboard the boat, the mood hadn’t changed. Each of them found a seat, some simple wooden chair. Bel watched Theori walk to the helm, where it was missing the wheel, and held a hand up to a small metal box. There was a slight lurch, and the boat moved silently on its own. He hadn’t been ready for it, and instinctively reached down to grab the seat, but it didn’t jerk again, so he let go cautiously.

  Julo looked at him and smirked, which caught Bel off guard.

  “Magic boat. Moves on its own to a predetermined port. This one will take us to Tolport, the closest city to the north on the main island.” The big man’s tone was so calm and even, it almost didn’t register to Bel. “You think I can borrow your cloak?”

  Bel stared at him. He heard the words, but they made little sense. It was so far off of what he’d expected—

  “Bel?” Julo interrupted his thoughts.

  Bel blinked and grabbed the cloak by the shoulder. “Oh, yeah. Sorry.” He twisted the clasp and released it, then stood up and walked it over to him.

  “Thanks.” He took the cloak and tossed it over his left shoulder, covering the stump where his arm had been. “I guess since you all are gonna stay quiet about it, I should say something.”

  Bel felt his mouth go dry.

  Julo put his hand on his leg and tightened it as he spoke. “Yeah. It fucking sucks. And yeah, it fucking hurts. And no, I’m not OK with it. But, I also don’t regret it. If that trap had gotten you, it would have taken your leg off without armor, and there wouldn’t have been anything we could have done to stop the bleeding. So, yeah, I don’t like it, but given the alternative, I’ll be alright.”

  Bel gasped a choked breath. “Julo, man—"

  Julo held up his hand. “Don’t. It’s all good. I’ve been coasting for a long time now. When I lost my forge, I just walked away. I didn’t even try to fight for it. Since then, I’ve been dying a little each day, and honestly, I was kinda just waiting for it to happen. As fucked as it is, I needed this.” He looked and met Bel’s eyes. “I needed you to come along. Someone had to kick the shit out of me, and it was you.” He laughed. “I mean, not physically, but you know…”

  Bel shook his head. “That’s not—"

  “Oh no, I know. I saw the look on your face when I called you ‘Your Highness.’”

  The ball of guilt in his stomach was twisting again.

  “You’re a good man, Bel. I mean, I barely know you, but that’s the feeling I get. You keep your shit together, and you don’t fuck around. I can appreciate that. I’m not sure what’s gonna happen once we hit the big island, but if I were a betting man, I’d put my money on you.”

  Bel laughed, “I fucking wouldn’t.”

  “Yeah, and that’s why we’re all here with you. I don’t want to speak for Theori and the doc, but I think we’re all on the same page. You don’t want it. It’s yours, all the power anyone could ask for. It’s in your hands. And you don’t want it. That makes you better than most of the other ones sitting on thrones right now.”

  Theori walked back to the small sitting area under the tarp with the rest of them. The boat was moving at full clip now, but it was remarkably steady on the open water.

  He reached over and clapped a hand on both Bel and Julo’s shoulders. “Guild life is where people go when they don’t have a future. It’s what I’ve been doing because I had nowhere else to go. It was comfortable. Just follow someone else's’ orders and get paid. I was ready to die doing it. But, like Julo said, you came along, and that changed things.”

  Bel looked over at Yillie, who was nodding. There was some life returning to the old man. Meph had taken up residence across his lap, and the doctor ran a hand over the snake’s scales.

  Bel raised an eyebrow at the group. “Why the fuck are you all giving the pep talk? Julo’s the one who just lost his arm!”

  That got a chuckle out of the group, and the tension on the boat eased significantly.

  “Alright. Well, I guess I need to figure out what the fuck I’m walking into. So, let’s start with some info.”

  Bel reached into the pocket of his vest and pulled out his phone. The other three leaned in.

  “So, this is my phone. Where I’m from, we used it for communication and what we called Now, though, I’m not sure what the hell it is, but it’s called GASPAR now.”

  Yillie set Meph down on the floor of the boat and walked over to Bel. He leaned over and looked at the phone. “It’s your assistant. I’ve never seen one up close, but that’s what it is. It's something that higher tier cultures have, and typically the first thing a Sovereign will get when they inherit their kingdom. They don’t always look like that. As a matter of fact, most of them aren’t handheld at all.”

  Bel looked up at him.

  “There is a species, a sentient machine culture called Spirare, that typically fills the role. They can fill a lot of roles in a world, but they have found a niche in Extinction Worlds as assistants for the Sovereign, because of their perfect, and instant, recall. The current king has one, though his is different. I’ve never seen it, but his is actually a host machine for another species, the Miasmaris, which is a cloud of sentient poison.”

  Bel turned his head on its side. “Robots and living poison? You know what, why not?”

  Yillie nodded. “There are many species in the universe. As many as there are stars. Most share common traits, and are classified together, the same as us Humanoids.”

  Bel understood, and it made sense, but that didn’t make him feel better about it.

  “Anyway,” Yillie continued, “what you have, your , is the same thing, I think.”

  “Ok. I get it, I think. When I try to do certain things with it, it tells me that function will be restored when I take the throne.”

  “Exactly what I thought, then. And that means if you don’t have access to it, neither does the King. Granted, he had access before, but now he’s flying blind, so to speak, and he’ll definitely know you are near.”

  Bel sighed. “So, no chance of sneaking up on him while he’s asleep and killing him in his own bed?”

  “That seems unlikely.”

  Theori spoke up. “That wasn’t actually your plan, was it?”

  Bel smirked and looked at him. “It’s adorable that you think I even have that much of a plan.”

  Julo chimed in next. “Alright, so what do you have access to, then? We can start there, and if there is anything we can fill in, we will.”

  Bel held up the screen for them, showing them the few icons it held. “Start Here, which is just the intro message I got. Then there is the map, stats, inventory, and encyclopedia. The map shows the entire world, but the only details it gives are areas I’ve been to. Inventory just tells me everything I have. The stats show my tiers and let me set my equipment to a stat, and the encyclopedia lets me read entries for people and places.”

  Julo whistled. “Yeah, that’s pretty damned useful.”

  Bel nodded. “Sure, but I don’t know what I can and can’t do with it. It gives me snippets of text for most things that I look up, like stats and even something on Nim Lakakahn, but then sometimes it doesn’t give me anything, like when I tried to look up whatever the hell a ‘Vulgare’ is. And, actually, do any of you know?”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  All three of them shook their heads, but Yillie spoke up. “What is it regarding?”

  “When I look at Meph’s stats, it gives a breakdown of his genetic line. It says he’s Serpent, Bestial, and less than one percent Vulgare.”

  Yillie looked at the page as Bel held up his phone. “I’ve never heard of Vulgare before. Probably some kind of beast-like species.”

  Bel shrugged, “I guess. But, anyway, that’s what I’ve got. Any idea on where I should start?”

  The three men looked at each other, and then all started at once, but stopped when Theori spoke over them. “Start with the Sovereignty Games. Learn about the history, and what it takes to compete. They aren’t typical games with rules and events. They are called that because the wealthy view it like a sport, and they wager on the winners. Get to know what you are up against. I know you’ve barely had time to take this all in, but things will not slow down once we hit Tolport, and you’re going to have to think fast and act faster. Also, look at the Guilds. Every kingdom is aligned with one, like Mythra for Leigh.”

  Bel held up a hand. “Actually, on that subject, we need to talk. It’s about Mythra.”

  The three men looked at him silently.

  “They are the ones that destroyed my planet. From what I’ve gathered, they were strip mining it for Aether, and went too hard, too fast. So, yeah, I’ve got a history with them. They can go fuck themselves.”

  Julo let out a sharp breath through his nose.

  Bel continued, “I know that you all are employed by them, or were, or whatever, but if we are going to go through this together, I’d really like to not be associated with them, and if I ever get the chance, I’ll jump at the opportunity to fuck up their bottom line.”

  Julo smiled. “Most people don’t like the Guilds, but they are the necessary evil that rules the galaxy. If you want to tell Mythra to fuck off, I’m with you, but it won’t be easy. Even if you side with another Guild instead, it’s not like they will be any different. Maybe they didn’t destroy your world, but they definitely did it to someone else's. There are no clean hands. But, like I said, I’m with you. Just make sure you understand what it means.”

  Bel nodded and looked at Theori and Yillie. Both of them nodded as well. He turned back down to his phone. “Alright, I’m gonna start going through this shit. Is there anything else I should keep an eye out for?”

  Yillie spoke up again, “Nothing to look up, but you should think of a new name. You can’t go around calling yourself the name of the king.”

  Bel sighed and let his head fall back against the headrest of his seat. “Fuck. Right. Ok, I’ll think of something.” He looked back down at his phone and felt the knot in his stomach tighten. Meph slid silently from Yillie’s lap and slithered to Bel, then crawled up onto him while he tapped the Wiki app.

  The next several hours passed without event as Bel worked through a seemingly endless supply of Wiki pages. Starting with the Sovereignty Games long history, the First Victors, and the more modern takes on the ancient game. The more he read, the more he got the feeling it was all curated. Not so much that it was curated for him specifically, but more that it had been censored to give a very positive spin on an overwhelmingly brutal story.

  He’d been reading through a detailed entry for Aether production and concentrations when Theori called from the back of the boat. Bel turned and looked back to the small deck the large, iron clad man stood on.

  “We’ve got company.”

  Bel jerked his head back to the front of the boat and squinted towards the horizon. Sure enough, there was a ship headed their way, and not a small one like they were on. Something meant for real seafaring.

  Yillie and Julo dashed to the front of the boat as Bel stood from his chair, bringing Meph up around his neck. He stood behind them and looked over the shorter shoulders of Yillie.

  “Shit,” the old man muttered.

  “You recognize it?” Bel asked.

  Julo was the one to answer. “Don’t need to. King’s colors on the mast. It ain’t no fishing vessel.”

  Bel squinted again and saw them. Gold and deep blue flapping in the cool ocean wind.

  Yillie turned, and Bel noticed something different in his eyes, something he hadn’t even seen when they’d been fighting the King’s men. It was a deep fear.

  “Have you thought of a new name?”

  Bel was still looking at the ship and didn’t answer immediately, being too busy trying to gauge the distance between them. Yillie grabbed his shoulders and shook him.

  “Belmont! Your name!”

  Yillie’s eyes were hard, but trembled at the corners, mirroring the sides of his mouth.

  “Uh, yeah. I’ve got one.”

  “Good. What is it?”

  Bel shook his head and blinked a few times. “Faust. Call me Faust.”

  It was only for a moment, but Yillie’s eyes softened.

  “Ok, so, what do we do now?” Bel looked over his shoulder at the water that rushed by the edge of the boat.

  Theori walked over and spoke up. “If you are thinking of jumping in, don’t. You can’t swim with all that gear on. Maybe for a while, but not all the way to shore, and even if you managed to tread water, they’d just scoop you up.”

  Bel let out a frustrated, “Fuck!”

  Julo shook his head. “We knew this was coming. We hadn’t talked about it yet, but there was no way we were gonna make it into Tolport without someone fucking with us. Seven got out ahead of us, and there was nothing to do about it.”

  “So, what then?”

  “We aren’t going to get lucky twice. Those grunts we fought on the island were guild made—just barely trained enough to hold each other’s cocks while they piss. The men on this boat will be different. They aren’t going to take chances.”

  “Well, that doesn’t fucking help. What are we supposed to do, then?”

  Theori said it all in one word. “Nothing.”

  Bel looked sideways at him. “Nothing?”

  “There isn’t anything we can do. We’ve been outplayed—not that we had many moves to start with. We have to do this on their terms. They’ll probably take us into port and ship us to Tothers in the morning. We’ll just sit tight and wait for a chance to make our move. There is a lot of island between Tolport and Tothers. We’ll find a way out of it, but fighting here on the boat will just end up with us injured, or worse.”

  Belmont loosened the grip on his dagger without realizing he’d even had his hand on it. “Goddamnit. Fine.” There was a pause for a moment. “Wait. Shit. What about Meph? I can change my name all I want, but how many people are walking around with fucking snakes?”

  Theori chuckled. “There was nothing that could be done about it. This was all a matter of time. I’d hoped they’d wait till we got to shore, but—"

  Bel cut him off. “Wait, how long have you all known this? The entire time?”

  Julo nodded. “We talked about it last night after you went to sleep.”

  Bel’s eyes widened, and he threw his arms wide. “And what, you weren’t going to tell me? Seems like a pretty big fucking deal.”

  “The world doesn’t revolve around you, Bel!” Julo pushed a hard finger into Bel’s chest. “We all have our own lives to think about, and while I wish we could bring everything to your attention, we can’t. You want to know why? Because we barely fucking know you. We have no idea how you are going to react.” He pointed down to Bel’s hand, still resting on the dagger pommel. “Even now, you are ready to fight. Admirable. Fucking suicidal, but admirable. Well, we aren’t so suicidal. Sometimes the way out isn’t through. Sometimes you gotta take your lumps.”

  Theori reached over and put a hand on Bel’s arm, but Bel shrugged him off. “No, I got it. It’s fine.” He turned and walked towards the back of the boat. “I’ll do it like you want.”

  Yillie kept a calm tone. “They do not know who you are yet. All they have is what Seven told them. Don’t tell them anything, and—"

  The boat lurched underneath Bel and he stumbled forward before turning. The approaching ship was only a few hundred yards away now, and Bel figured they’d had some way to slow their smaller boat. He closed his eyes and ran a hand across Meph’s scales. The snake was tense, and Bel let his mind ease around the emotions that flooded him, bringing him back into his bond with his familiar.

  The larger ship came across the starboard side and stopped. It was wooden, with three masts, like an older sailing ship, with no hint of modern technology. The thought of it played in Bel’s mind for a moment, but he let it slip away as a man climbed down a rope ladder, followed by four more.

  They were wearing heavier armor, not as heavy as Theori’s, but more than leather and a breastplate. Each of them bore a sword scabbard and pauldron decorated in the king’s deep blue and gold. At first, Bel wouldn’t have thought much of their appearance, but something struck him as odd. Each of the men had blond hair. Bright blond.

  blond. Their skin was crisp pale white and their eyes a brilliant electric blue. They looked like what people that have never been to Scandinavia imagined all Scandinavian people to look like. No, not Scandenavian, Bel corrected himself. They looked like goddamned Aryans.

  The last one down the ladder spoke up with a voice that sounded like he’d done everything he could to suppress an accent, but couldn’t quite get there.

  “In the name of King Graham, this vessel is commandeered. State your names for the imperial records.”

  “Yillie Horun.” The man’s voice was as calm as ever, and he took a step forward.

  “Julo Thulo.” Julo took a step next to Yillie.

  “Theori Jasp Kilonnarin.” When Theori stepped up, Bel noticed the man put some weight into each move, causing the boat to rock slightly under his feet.

  Bel swallowed hard. “Johann Faust.” He took a step up next to Theori.

  The man looked between all of them, and then to the other men beside him. “Take those three. Leave the one with the snake.”

  Bel felt Meph tighten on his shoulders, and saw Theori move slightly, but then withdraw. The four men walked over brandishing iron manacles. Bel could smell the Aether coming from the cold metal. Each of the others freely offered their arms outward and were in turn shackled. With only one arm, Julo was shackled around his remaining wrist, and the other expanded magically to fit around his neck, where it was clamped shut. Bel shuddered at the mechanical clang.

  Within moments, they were led back up the rope by the three men, leaving Bel with the two remaining. The one that had spoken before walked up, calmly—arrogantly. “Johann Faust, you say.”

  Bel swallowed, but made no reply.

  “I do not know what your crime is, only that I am to bring you in alive.” The man’s golden hair hung loosely over his shoulders. He leaned in, letting it sway towards Bel’s face. “That is so boring, isn’t it?”

  Bel didn’t make a sound.

  “The other three, two are guild men, and the third is a slave to the king. I cannot touch them.” He leaned back and smiled. “Bor,” he turned to the man behind him. “You saw this one attack me, didn’t you?”

  The man nodded and put his hand on his sword. “Yes, sir.”

  Bel’s mind raced, but he didn’t react quick enough. The gauntleted hand of the king’s man rammed into his guts, and Bel doubled over.

  He wouldn’t ever know if the man had thought the ten-foot python around his neck was just for show, or what, but the blond dickhead certainly hadn’t expected the next few moments to go as they did.

  Meph was off of Bel’s shoulders before his knees hit the ground. The snake coiled up and around the man’s unprotected neck in an instant. Bel saw his boots step backwards a pace, but then reposition as he fought. It was all over, though. He came down on his side, dropping like a sack of wet cow shit onto the deck, Meph still coiled around his broken neck. The man’s lips turning blue as the heat drained from his pale skin. Bel looked up in time to see the other man make a move, but it wasn’t fast enough. Bel pushed off the ground with every bit of strength he had, and barreled into the man only three steps away. The force wasn’t measured, though, and Bel put too much into it. The king’s man stumbled backwards in the tackle, and his legs hit the side of the boat. He grabbed onto Bel as he went over the edge.

  The cold water rushed up around him in a foam of white bubbles and rays of sunlight through the blue, and he went under, held fast by the armored man. He struggled to free himself, but between the weight of his own gear and the man who’d wrapped himself around, he was sinking faster than he could escape.

  He saw Meph next to him in the water, striking at the man as well, but having no effect. Bel pushed and pulled, twisted and yanked, but nothing would ease the grip of the struggling armored anchor that wound around him. Finally, he grabbed the dagger from his belt. He thrust it up and into the man’s neck, flooding the cold water with warm red blood. The man let out a gurgled moan, and Bel felt the grip on him loosen. He watched the man slowly descend into the deep blue below, sending up a long stream of ever-diluting blood like a red scarf in the wind.

  He turned and looked back to the surface. Rays of sun broke through a distant ceiling of tessellated waves. It was distant. He flailed his arms to push himself upwards, but he made no progress. Then, he tried to push Meph away—push him back to the surface—but the snake only moved along in the water beside him. He tried again to swim upwards, but even with all of his effort, it was in vain. The rays of the sun slowly faded, and he knew there was nothing that could be done, and so he resigned himself to the deep current.

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