[Writing] Keller - Chapter 36 (18th Sep 2024)

[Tapewolf]

Chapter 17

"Well?"  Daryil asked gravely, as Niall emerged from the lab.

"It was a near thing," Niall said.  "The baffles in the eye socket prevented the round from reaching Gamma's brain module, as intended - but the shot disintegrated and the pieces did manage to short out the power bus.  The safeties prevented that from causing circuit damage further down the line, but that in turn meant his head was running on reserve power, and one of the fragments was acting as a resistive load, draining far more of it than we'd allowed for in his design.  Much longer and it could well have been fatal."

"That is a relief," Daryil said.  "Resurrecting a dead panther... It's annoying.  You'd think there'd be less red tape than reanimating a suicidal criminal, but no... I'd have to file a report with the Being-Creature Commission.  Strauss will still be getting a piece of my mind over this, but I'm glad a full-blown resurrection won't be necessary.  Poor Gamma... He was one of the best members of my acrobatics troupe, you know...
"Meanwhile, we will have to look at strengthening the eyes to avoid a repeat of this incident, and see what we can do about isolating faults in the power system in a more granular fashion."

"Yes, Daryil.  For now, Gamma is back together with a new eye, and all the fragments of the round have been removed.  But he is still going to be out of service for some time," the fox sighed.  "The Ray twins were still a bit too young for fieldwork, I think.  And a near-death experience... well, he's going to need therapy."

"I'll get someone on to it shortly," Daryil promised.  "But we have other problems."

"Jakob..." Niall said, looking miserable.

"He's alive," Daryil said.  "But that's all I know.  He managed to leave me a message, but he told me to stay away.  The Talon Corporation did this specifically to attract my attention, and Jakob is worried that their client is planning an attempt on my life."

"No!" Niall whimpered.

"Probably not," Daryil agreed.  "But better safe than sorry.  Caution is a necessary evil for a successful Clan Leader, so rather than go in person, I have sent an agent to assist him."

"Oh boy," Niall said.  "If that's who I think it is..."

*  *  *

They appeared about two feet in the air, enough of a bump to disorientate them and throw the gunman off.  Jakob backed away a few paces, and looked around.  They were on the edge of a field adjoining a forest.  From the position of the sun, he estimated that it was somewhere in Fairwater.  The leopard soldier was still trying to cover him with his gun, but his calm self-assurance from before had evaporated and was replaced by near panic.

"What's the matter?" the wolf asked him, hands still raised.

"It's too soon," the leopard repeated.  "The mission's failed... I've failed.  They'll kill me!"

"Again, might I suggest surrender?" Jakob said, reasonably.  "Robin, is that your name?"

"I said, none of your 'Cubi magic!" the leopard wailed.

"Easy, easy!  Just put the gun down, and I can teleport us both somewhere safe.  You maimed one of my panthers and frankly I'm still pretty pissed off about that, but snipping your head off won't help them.  We can still fix this."

"You're lying!  If you had a teleport device, you could have escaped as soon as I was attacked by the other panther," the leopard said suspiciously.  "Why didn't you?"

"Because I screwed up," Jakob sighed.  "The body armour was an afterthought, and I left the amulet inside it.  So I'd have to undress to get at the thing and that would have taken too long.  Casting a teleport spell from scratch would take even longer...  So why don't you calm down and tell me who you work for?"

"I can't!" the leopard insisted.  "They'll... they'll eat my soul!"

"Nonsense.  Daryil might torment it if you really make him come down hard on you - say, if you murdered me - but destroying souls completely is forbidden to Daryil Clan," the wolf reassured him.

"Not him... our client!" the leopard protested.

"Ah, I see," Jakob said.  "Well, that just makes surrender a better option, doesn't it?  Daryil can protect you if you give up quietly and tell us what you know.  But first, what's all this panic about it being 'too soon'?  Too soon for what?"

"It was to be a chained teleportation," the leopard said, hand starting to waver as he held the gun.  "They were going to open a gate for me, to obfuscate our final destination.  Even I don't know where that is... But it only works if I teleport while the gate is open!  There's still ten minutes left, and now... I've had to make the jump early.  The device doesn't have enough power for another try... I had one chance, and I blew it..."

Suddenly something slipped around the leopard's neck, tightening around it like a noose.

"Gimme the gun, dickhead," Keaton said.  "Or you won't have a head."

*  *  *

"I'm assuming this guy isn't your boyfriend," the jackal succubus remarked, flicking the safety and handing Jakob the firearm.  "Or some random piece of ass you found?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Jakob scowled.  "But don't kill him, either.  He was about to spill some rather interesting secrets."

"Ridiculous...?" the jackal gave an insolent grin as she continued to relieve the leopard of his weaponry.  "Jakob, you're from a fear and lust clan.  Being held at gunpoint by some tough-guy spotty cat might be some kind of kink for you.  Besides, I know you had the hots for that snow leopard Angel!"

"Attempted murder is still a bit of a turn-off, even for Daryil Clan," Jakob retorted tiredly.  "Please, Keaton... thanks for the rescue, but let him go!  Well... restrain him, but not by the neck!  I still want a peaceful resolution to this.  We can bring him to Daryil.  Alive.  And don't let him off himself either... his buddy already did that.  We need what's in his head, once his thoughts are calm enough to read clearly."

"No!  You don't understand!  She's one of them!" the Leopard yelled.  "Please... Give me the gun back!  She'll kill us all!  She'll eat us!"

"That'd be a good laugh," the jackal admitted, "But much as I'd like to, I took an oath of service to Daryil.  He's straightened out a lot of legal troubles for me, and I owe him big so adding new legal troubles on top... he won't like that.  So... I'm not gonna kill you unless you start threatening Jakob again.  In which case, I'll take you back to Daryil in two unequal parts."

"Then you're not with... him...?"

"Who?"  Jakob and Keaton asked simultaneously.

"Excuse me," a voice interrupted.  "I understand you're busy, but I need your attention for a moment.  It is rather important."

Jakob turned around to see a snow leopard Being, dressed in an elegant outfit resembling his own envoy costume.  The newcomer was covering them both with a revolver.

"What is it now?"  Jakob sighed, putting his hands up again.  "Who are you, and what do you want...?"

"Unfortunately, my name is Elisha Bong.  A name you shall soon come to fear as much as your own grandmother!"

"You had an unhappy childhood, didn't you?"  Jakob said.

"Yeah, that is an unfortunate name," Keaton commiserated.  "But it can be changed!  How about Elisha Jones?"

"I chose this name myself!" Elisha snarled. "It's a pseudonym for when I rob people!  It is unfortunate for you, not for me!"

"So what did you actually want, Mr. Spliff?"  Keaton asked.

"Bong!  Elisha Bong!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Keaton said.  "Get to the point.  What are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere, pointing a gun at us for?"

"I said, I'm robbing you!  So hand over the loot!  Your money or your life!" the snow leopard snarled.

"Sounds fair," Keaton said.

"What...?"

"Well, there's three of us," the succubus said.  "You're not having our money, but if you kill Mr. Robin, here, I won't complain."

The leopards's eyes bulged in terror.  "You can't do that!" he wailed.

"She's right though," Jakob said, pondering.  "'Your money or your life', he said.  Not lives.  And you did try to kill me..."

"I'll ask you one more time," Elisha snarled.

"Can I please just kill him?"  Keaton whined, sharpening her wing-tentacles.  "I'll be quick!  One little snip and it'll all be over!  He won't suffer much!"

"Wait, wait!" Jakob interrupted. "What is Mr. Bong actually doing with the money?  Is it a charitable donation?  Robbing the rich to give to the poor?"

"I rob the rich to give to me," the snow leopard said.  "Then I rob the poor as well.  It's not a high rate of return per capita, but there's a lot of them out there."

"I'm afraid that's not a cause I'm interested in supporting," Jakob said, shaking his head sadly.

"Fine, I'll do it the easy way," the snow leopard smirked.   Then he fell over.

"What the hell is going on around here?"  Jakob demanded, inspecting the body.  "He's been stunned!  Why does today have to be so bloody exciting?  I just want life to stay boring and safe!  Is that so much to ask?"

"Shushh," Keaton snapped, looking around suspiciously, while keeping a tight wing-tentacled rein upon Robin.  "I don't see anyone," she said, eyes narrowing.  "No minds either.  That implies it was a 'Cubi with a mind-shield."

"It's the Client!" Robin wailed.  "They've come for me!  They'll kill us all!"

"...What the hell is he talking about?" a new voice asked.  Jakob and Keaton both jumped, and saw another snow leopard in a purple robe, who sauntered over to examine the fallen highwayman.

"Snell?!"  Jakob asked incredulously.

"I prefer 'Keller' these days," the incubus said.  "It's getting to be as well-known as my real name, but eh... I guess I like it better."

"Buy why are you here?  Did Daryil send you as reinforcements?  Or are you robbing us next?  Because if so, that'll be the third time in one day."

"Keaton's the reinforcement," Keller said.  "But Daryil wanted me to keep an eye on her, just in case.  Amanti is... well, same clan as her, so.  He didn't want to risk them corrupting each other so he sent me instead, to act as an observer.
"But then I saw this guy, and... well!  Can't have that.  I'm the only notorious snow leopard thief around here, I can't have this idiot stealing my thunder.  Anyhow, I've got a recall amulet, so anyone need a lift back to Fairwater...?"

[Tapewolf]

Chapter 18

"Well," Jakob said angrily, placing Robin's weapon on a nearby table, "I don't care what you say, Daryil.  I am not going back to that cathedral while these mad bastards are trying to kidnap or kill me!"

"You have done enough," Daryil agreed, with a subdued expression.  "Besides, now it seems the Talon Corporation are focusing on us directly.  As such, the Archbishop has agreed that we probably don't need a Daryil clan presence there anymore.  I am sorry that this has happened, I didn't think it would get this far out of hand.
"As far as I'm concerned, you should get some rest.  We'll need to discuss the Talon Corporation later, mind.  After I have interviewed our... guest."

"Stay back!"  Robin yelped.  He had grabbed the gun again.  Jakob rolled his eyes.

At that moment, a black metal jaguar bounded through the door, making a bee-line towards the leopard.  "No!" the Being screamed, shifted his aim and pulled the trigger.  The hammer clicked on an empty chamber, once, twice.

"No!" the cyberjag yelped, rolling over and assuming a cowering position.  "Wait!  Don't shoot! It's me!  John!"

"Naughty," Jakob said, relieving Robin of the gun with a wing tentacle.  "And don't you worry," he added to the cyberjag.  "I thought he might try something like this, so I took the liberty of emptying the weapon first."

"I'm sorry... I thought they were out for revenge.  I shot one of them up..."

"Indeed.  And while your Talon Corporation may consider its recruits disposable, we value our own rather highly," Daryil said with a menacing expression.  "Your attempted murder of the panther Y-RAY is a black mark against you, and this rash action has not improved your standing.  But... we shall see how things go.  Come with me."

"If he refuses to go, can I kill him...?"  Keaton asked hopefully.

"Depending on how this goes, you may get that chance afterwards," Daryil said.

*  *  *

Back in a less formal outfit of opera gloves, rubber leggings and knee-length boots, Jakob ventured into the secretive wing of the arctic laboratory where Lord Daryil carried out some of his own experiments.
This room was new, and had several doors, one of which was marked with a series of danger signs.  But Jakob was oblivious to this, as in the centre of the room, Daryil's severed head lay on a table, oozing blood.

The wolf incubus stifled a scream before remembering that his Clan Leader utilised projections of himself, so the real Daryil was entirely unharmed.  Even so, someone capable of taking out an avatar within Daryil's own stronghold was a force to be reckoned with.

He turned with a start as the high-security door opened and Dice the fox guard entered, carrying the rest of Daryil's corpse.

"Close enough," the head remarked.  "Thanks, Dice.  Put me down and I can take it from here."

"No worries, Dar!" the other fox chirped.  "I'll go clean up the mess."

"What the fuck happened?!"  Jakob demanded, still shaken, as Daryil reattached his own head.  "Did Talon do this to you?!  Are they still around?  What's going to happen to them when you...?"

"Nah, it was just an experiment," Daryil said excitedly.  "I got it wrong.  Come, I'll show you."

"Oh, no no!  What if it takes my head off too?!  I don't want to become an android yet, thanks all the same!  I've had plenty of chances for that already today."

Jakob's face fell.  "This... please tell me it's not a new guillotine for Robin... and you tested it on yourself...?"

"Oh no, I started this project ages ago.  Come on, you'll love this!"  Daryil beamed eagerly.  "I'm just going to show you the control room!"

*  *  *

The wolf's jaw fell open as Daryil showed him the video feeds.  In the centre was a large red button marked 'Emergency Stop'.  Daryil tapped a few commands onto a keyboard and the main screen switched to show a narrow passage of rock.  A moment later the screen flickered slightly, adding a timecode at the bottom of the screen, dated about ten minutes earlier.

"Here we go," Daryil said.  As he spoke, his earlier self entered the shot, a look of concentration on his face.  He rolled a stone in front of him, and moments later a blade slashed out of the wall, neatly severing his head.  Jakob winced and looked at the floor.

"See, I should have been crawling at that point," Daryil said nonchalantly, and stopped the playback.

"This... This is like something out of Crusader Jones and the Temple of the Lost Skull," Jakob exclaimed, astonished.

"Uh huh," Daryil nodded.  "I had Dice and the other fox guards build it for me.  It's full of death traps," he added excitably.  "I always wondered what it would be like to actually play something like Cheese Raider in a real-world scenario, and now I can!"

"And if it kills you, that's just an avatar incapacitated," Jakob nodded.  "No real harm done."

"Unless someone spots the corpse like you just did," Daryil admitted.   "In some ways it's got a limited appeal since you have to be an android or a Tri-Wing to be able to play it safely... Anyhow.  What can I do for you?"

"Ah, yes.  I was wondering... What happened with Robin?  Did Keaton kill him...?"

"No, he's been tagged and given a holding cell for now," Daryil said.  "You know, I had half a mind to make him do the death trap thing," he added irritably.  "If he succeeded, I could turn him loose.  If he died... Well, he's not really that much of a loss."

"J-OHN would be upset," Jakob said.  "Punishment or not, we don't want a clinically depressed or vengeance-crazed cyberjag on our hands.  Talking of which, we may need to keep X-RAY away from Robin."

"That's less of a problem than you'd think," Daryil said.  "With Gamma back on his feet again, X is too relieved about his brother's recovery to spend too much time plotting revenge.  Also, as you say, there is John to consider.  I have sent him to visit our new guest, since apparently they were quite close.  Robin can learn more respect for our robots, and contemplate the fate of those who dare to defy the Lord Daryil."

"Talking of plotting revenge, are they likely to plan an escape together?" Jakob cautioned.  "If the Talon Corporation is interested in you personally, those two know a lot that could be very useful in the wrong hands."

"I don't think they're that stupid," the fox replied.  "If they are... well, I've taken precautions.  Anyway, you really wanted to know what intel he has for us, right?"

"Indeed.  Who is Talon's client, and do they know where the final gem is?"

"The client is all mysterious," Daryil said.  "And Robin is just a foot-soldier, after all.  And this is only to be expected... if you're hiring a notorious squad of killers who are barely-legal at the best of times, you're not going to want to advertise exactly who you are, since if they go too far in your name, carrying out your instructions, you're very likely to end up guillotined alongside them for their crimes.  But they do seem to be 'Cubi."

"Robin freaked out badly over Keaton," Jakob pondered.  "He never batted an eye at my own head-wings, though.  If the client's a 'Cubi with leathery wings, which clan would it be?  Not Taun, surely...?"

"I couldn't rule it out," Daryil said.  "She is entitled to her own clan secrets, after all.  But... it could be anyone, to be honest.  I have a few ideas, but I'd rather do some more research before I share them."

"You know best.  But does Robin know where the final gem is, though?" Jakob asked.

"Unfortunately, yes.  Talon have that at their local headquarters near Valmorath," Daryil sighed.  "I'd send Snell... Keller, but...  I fear this would probably not end well for him.  Keaton, though..." Daryil smiled evilly.

*  *  *

Arvis sat in the guard room, cleaning his gun when the alert went off.  Someone had tripped the proximity sensors and entered the Talon Corporation's compound in central Valmorath.  Dropping the weapon on the table, the gryphon reached for his backup and went over to the security terminal.

"If you're collecing for charity you can fuck right off," he said into the intercom.   A figure shifted into a view, showing a wolf in black body armour with glowing eyes.

"I am Ralf.  I am a messenger for the Lord Daryil," the wolf said, holding a box wrapped with a pretty pink ribbon.  "He bade me bring you this gift."

"Well, you tell your Daryil that if this is a bomb, we'll start hunting his clan members down, one by one," the gryphon warned.

"Lord Daryil does not wish to start hostilities," the wolf said.  "If you prefer, I can open it for you first to prove it is safe."

"Just get out of here," the gryphon said, "Or we'll test how good that pretty armour really is."   The wolf warrior departed, bowing respectfully.

Arvis opened the outer door, leaving the inner one locked shut just in case the armoured wolf's allies attempted to storm the place.  Once he had the box safely within the compound, he unwrapped it and gave a croak of dismay.  Inside, a severed head stared back at him sightlessly, an exit wound gaping horribly at the top of the skull.

"Shit," the Gryphon murmured, and ran out the room.  "Captain!  Daryil's mob... they got John!"

*  *  *

"He's left," Keaton whispered.   "You were right, there's nobody in the guard room now birdbrain is distracted.  Your turn... and remember - if you betray us, I'll kill you, bring your back to life and kill you again."

"Understood," Robin sighed.  Moving quickly, he punched the code into the door and opened it, allowing Keller, Emily and Keaton into the compound.  He ran on ahead and had just unlocked the elevator when Arvis came back, with his captain in hot pursuit.

"You!  You treacherous little fuzz-head!  Sold us out to Daryil, have you...?"

"No!"  the leopard whined desperately.  "No!  They made-"

A moment later, Robin's head was splashed over the nearest wall.

"No excuses," the gryphon smirked.

"Did you have to?" the phoenix remarked, regarding the other avian with an irritated expression.

"Daryil's gang had half our security codes in Robin's head.  I've wiped it, though."

"You could have done so more cleanly.  Brain everywhere and bullet-holes in the wall makes it a tough sell for new recruits, you know that.  I hope you're going to clean that up..."

"Frankly, I doubt he'll get the chance," Emily said, bringing her sword down on Arvin's skull and cleaving it in two as he turned to look.

"Eww," Keaton remarked, snipping the phoenix's head off with a wing tentacle.  "What a mess!  Couldn't you just have beheaded him and be done with it?"

"He killed Robin," the snow leopard remarked testily.  "That guy was our guide!  Our ally, even under duress.  Beheading was too quick and easy for vengeance like that..."

"Jakob will be pissed," Keaton sighed.  "Well, now we'll have to do things the hard way.  Okay, Keller... this is your show now!"

"Lead me to the door," the thief moaned, covering his eyes.  "I can't look..."

*  *  *

Trying hard not to think about the gore he'd just seen, Keller worked quickly to bypass the elevator controls, and the group of them had reached the basement before anyone else had spotted the bodies.

The vault door yielded easily to his expert touch and they propped it open with a door that Emily had ripped off its hinges, just in case any security measures tried to seal them in.

In the centre of the room was a small, velvet box with the object of their quest lying upon it.

"That's it alright," the snow leopard said.  "Same magical signature as the other two..."

So saying, he waved at a nearby security camera and reached out to take the box.

"Ah good," a slightly distorted voice said.  Keller froze, his hand an inch away from the box, and turned to face the video camera.  Underneath it was a small intercom device.

"I've been expecting you," the intercom said.  "Or someone like you, anyway.  Take the jewel by all means."

"That sounds like a trap.  Or sarcasm."

"I assure you, it is neither.  Take the jewel, Keller.  It really will be more useful to you than it is to me right now."

"So why are you giving up so easily?" Keller asked suspiciously.

"Merely a change of plan," the voice said.  "I now know that Daryil has the other two jewels already, and without this final one the device remains locked.  But if you bring that jewel to him, he can open it and disarm the traps to avoid losing more of his allies.  Simply put, if he has the jewel, he will be doing most of the hard work for me.   And now, I must bid you farewell.  I can't have you distracted while trying to escape, now can I?  Otherwise those Talon idiots will get you, and that would make a bigger mess of things than they have already made."

There was a click and the speaker went dead.

"Trap or not, I have to agree," Emily said.  "Let's grab the jewel and get somewhere we can recall from before the gryphons find us."

"Boring, but safe," Keaton admitted.  "Let's go."

"At least let me leave a fish behind first!" Keller protested.

[Merlin]

popping back in to nod heartily and go hell yeah it's keller up to his shenanigans

[Tapewolf]

Chapter 19

"Poor guy," Jakob sighed, burying his face in his opera-gloved hands.  "It doesn't seem fair.  He'd just realised he'd fucked up, and tried to fix it.  And because of that... because he tried to improve himself, he's dead!"

"There there," Daryil said, stroking the wolf's hair.  "It's unfortunate, but we can't win every time.  What was it Professor Fa'Rana said...? 'Life isn't fair.  Death is fair, for it comes to all...'"

"Yeah, but he was a loony," Jakob snapped, looking up and folding his arms.  "Forgive me if the words of a psycho 'Cubi supremacist aren't exactly providing comfort at the moment."

"At the end of the day was only a matter of time," Daryil sighed.  "Robin would have faced justice eventually.  This way, he died to help others..."

"Help others what?" Jakob wailed.  "It was our own greed for this bloody artifact that caused all this in the first place.  He'd still be alive if we hadn't meddled with things!  He died helping others retrieve some stolen loot.  That's not how I'd want to be remembered!"

"You don't know that!" Daryil protested.  "And frankly, you're probably wrong there.  Remember, Fairwater was after the artifact too, among other parties so something would have happened - probably something even worse - even if we'd left well alone.
"And even if the artifact remained lost and forgotten, he was still a gun for hire regardless.  He would simply have shot up a bunch of other people for an entirely unrelated mission, and been publicly beheaded.  That's the way these types usually go.
"Besides, we're not just doing all this for me or for you anymore... even if we decided to place the artifact out of reach by throwing it into the sea depths or putting it into orbit, we still have a duty to free King Fairwater first, and the other unfortunates trapped in the thing.
"Robin died to save a king's life, and that's generally considered a very noble cause to die for."

"I guess that's true," Jakob said, somewhat mollified.  "Still... I wish we could have done more to save him.  Maybe you think I'm being stupid for getting this cut up about a dead bad guy... but I was a bad guy too, once.  And I'd have rather he had the chance to grow out of it as well."

"No, you're quite right," Daryil said.  "And I think it speaks highly of you to be concerned for the wellbeing of our enemies.  After all, I had a turbulent youth as well..."

At that moment there was a knock at the door.  Keaton sauntered in, looking very pleased with herself.

"Is there a finder's fee for these things...?" she asked, holding out a glowing soul gem.

"That had better not have been a random passerby," Daryil growled.  "Or you'll get the same."

"No, no.  It's Jakob's boyfriend," the jackal retorted.

"WHAT?!" 

Daryil leaned forwards with a dangerous gleam in his eye.  "Katherine, I have protected you from many of your misdeeds, but Daxxon Skullbreaker is the Thane of Mawdor, and a guest under my protection.  If you have truly murdered one of Fairwater's deputies, I will personally escort you to Queen Admaria's guillotine myself.  She will be delighted."

Keaton stared back, looking confused and a little upset.  "Wait up!  I didn't kill any Skullbreaker... that's a Demon name, right...?  I thought this guy was called Robin!"

Jakob facepalmed with faint squeak from his gloves, and spoke slowly in a tone of resignation.  "Keaton, just to be clear about this... Exactly whose soul did you steal?  Kindly describe them."

"It was that leopard guy who was holding you at gunpoint.  The one who took a shell to the face on our mission?"

"I see.  Not a purple dog Demon?  Good."

"Ohhh," Keaton said, looking embarrassed, but also relieved.  "I thought this guy was Jakob's crush.  He kept denying it, see...  Oh well.  Guess I wasted a soul gem."

"Saving lives is never a waste," Daryil said.  "Well, almost never.  Give that here... I'll see about a cash reward for you."

"Well, Jakob..." he added, "It looks like your wish has been granted after all.  John and Robin can be panther buddies together."

*  *  *

As the darkness subsided, Robin stood in Daryil's throne room.  In front of him a robotic panther lay dead, eyes blank and mouth fallen open.  A large hole had been punched clean through their skull, destroying the brain module and killing them instantly.  Frozen and unable to move, Robin still held the murder weapon in his hands, the rifle's muzzle smoking ominously.

"I... I didn't mean..." he bleated.

"Oh yes you did,"  Lord Cross interrupted, eyes lidded and smiling that infamously cruel smile as he folded his trench-coat clad arms.  "And now... We will need a replacement.  I think Robin would look good as a panther."

"I concur," Daryil agreed, and motioned to the jackal succubus standing opposite.  "Keaton..." he said.  "Kill that man."

"At last," the jackal crowed, wrapping a wing-tentacle around Robin's neck with an eager expression.  There was a moment of unbearable pain and his head tumbled... blackness followed, and then the strange awareness that he was now a quadruped.  He screamed.

*  *  *

"Aaah!" Robin screamed as he woke up.  But the nightmare had become reality - or at least, parts of it had.  He could see gleaming metal paws lying on front of him.  Wearing a lab coat and gloves, Jakob was watching intently, holding the remote device that had brought him back to full consciousness.

"Don't try to stand up yet," the wolf cautioned.

"I... I died, right...?" the creature sighed, looking upset.

"I'm afraid so," the wolf replied quietly.  "Those Talon psychos shot you.  And since you're technically an enemy of the Lord Daryil, we felt it safer to bring you back like this.  Consider the loss of your thumbs part of the punishment - and know that I can immobilise you with a couple of button presses.  More to the point, if you try to attack me, your safeguards will immobilise you automatically.  You will be well-treated, but you are - at present - our prisoner."

"So you have need of me still," Robin said, trying his legs experimentally and sitting up with effort.  "You could have just left me dead."

"You know I used to be Johan Cross," Jakob said.  "In fact I believe you were having a nightmare about me just as I was booting you up.  Robin, I have done questionable things, but I grew out of it and have spent much of my time trying to redeem myself.
"You too were starting to wake up, starting to realise that you'd made a bad decision joining Talon.  Those are big steps down the road to your own redemption, and I wanted to give you the chance to complete it.
"Besides, there are some positives.  Your ex-buddies at Talon are now convinced that they've executed a traitor who betrayed them, and as a feral big cat, they will not suspect you of being their hated former comrade.

"Listen, Robin - while Daryil is displeased by your threatening his right-hand man, the real reason you got on our bad side was the attempted murder of one of our panthers.  But now you have joined their ranks.  It should teach you to respect sentient robots more than your career at Talon would allow.  Pretty much everything else you've done - that was just you doing your job."

"I'm sorry," the panther said.

"No hard feelings," Jakob added, patting the panther on the head.  "Though I don't think Gamma or X are going to be your friends, not for a while at least."

"That... That does feel nice..." Robin sighed, as Jakob stroked the back of his neck.  "But how am I feeling it at all through all this armour?"

"Capacitive sensors," Jakob said.  "While you do have some degree of tactile sense to feel obstacles, and it will hurt if you run into a wall or get shot, the armour doesn't allow for much finesse, so we augment it with a capacitive grid underneath the metalwork.  That does mean that it can feel strange if you go through a strong elecric field, mind.   Any other questions?"

"Wild cats are solitary," Robin said.  "But here, you've got a bunch of them all tolerating each other."

"It's complicated," Jakob said.  "And in other circumstances it would be proprietary information.  However, since the jaguars are an imported technology from another world, I can't claim to have invented them anyway.  My understanding is that, back in their original universe, the first cyberjags were built by somehow scanning the brains of organic jaguars and uploading them into their cyber-brains as a foundation.
"However, those flesh-and-blood jaguars were genetically engineered to give them speech and higher intellect.  They were most likely altered to allow them to work together in groups - after all, having all your security guards fighting a massive turf war with each other isn't going to make for a secure military base.  DNA analysis suggests they were combined with behavioural sequences taken from cheetahs, who do hunt in packs.  But that's just our best guess.

"Anyway... We've had enough people go through this process now, that we've put together a guide for you," Jakob said, placing a large glossy pamphlet on the floor.  It read '...So you're a panther!' in large, friendly letters.
"Punishment or not, we want to give you some kind of head start," Jakob added, "And it should answer most of your other questions."

*  *  *

"...Ah fuck," Daryil said, looking dismayed.

"What is the matter...?" Queen Admaria demanded.  "Is it the King...?  Is he safe?"

"No no no," Daryil said, shaking his head and looking rather shaken.  "He's fine... for now.  But there's a... complication.  You remember what we were saying before...?  About who else might be trapped in this thing?"

"...NO!"  Admaria's wings fanned out in terror.  "Surely not!"

"Yes.  There's a Dragon in the artifact," Daryil said flatly.

"Okay," Admaria said, clenching her black-gloved hands and thinking quickly.  "So that just means that we need to scoop out the King and leave the dragon safely trapped in there."

"It's a queue," Daryil said softly.  "First In, First Out.  I can only extract people in the same order they entered the artifact.  If we leave the dragon in there, I have to leave the King behind, too."

Admaria flinched at this.  "The Dragons tried to exterminate us on multiple occasions," she said.  "They killed off ninety percent of our race."

"...And more than 99 percent of our tri-wings," Daryil reminded her.  "As an ascended incubus, I am in the most danger here, by a wide margin.  I hope your husband will be properly grateful for the risk I am about to take."

"...Thank you," Admaria said quietly.

"...But you'll be doing this as an avatar, won't you?" the Queen added suddenly.  "If the dragon kills you it will just be a minor inconvenience, surely...?"

"I have a psychic link to my avatars," Daryil sighed.  "After all, how else could I teleoperate them?  A trick the Dragons used to pull during the wars was that they could travel down that link to the real Tri-Wing in their sanctum, and murder them.

"But there is a possibility.  An isolated realm like SAIA was in its heyday can sever all connections to the outside world.  When the Tri-Wings sent an avatar to the centennial gathering of clan leaders at SAIA, their avatar could not link to the real clan leader for remote control.  Instead, they were preprogrammed to operate autonomously and later re-synchronise their memories with the real Tri-Wing afterwards.  That is what I will do."

"What if the Dragon breaks out of your isolated realm...?" Jakob asked.

"I am not sure they will survive that long," Daryil said, looking very downcast.  "It is said that Furrae no longer has enough magic to sustain such powerful creatures.  All I need to do is keep them contained until... well, until they expire.  It is not a task I am looking forward to, but it must be done.  And who knows... perhaps I can contrive a slightly happier ending for them.  But I can't make any promises."

*  *  *

Lord Ravage dozed on the sumptious royal bed, dreaming of happier days at the Jayhawk base when he was being educated.   The dream began to turn sour as he realised he was late for the ethics seminar, and the fear that he would fail to qualify took hold.  What happened to those who failed the tests...?  Nobody was sure.  And this was all the more confusing because he had already been assigned to guard King Tavris of Kelland... hadn't he?

"Milord," a voice called, rousing the cyberjag from his uneasy slumber.  He uncurled himself and stood up to see Advisor Sims, flanked by several of the royal guards.

"I thought I asked you to knock first," the jaguar grumbled.

"Apologies, your highness, but this is too important a matter to wait," the advisor said.  "I must place you under arrest."

"What is this?!"  Lord Ravage demanded, looking outraged.  "I am supposed to be your King!"

"It is called dethronement, your majesty," the otter said.  "And you never were supposed to be our king in the first place.  I have found proof that you murdered King Tavris in order to usurp his throne!"

[Merlin]

lol classic Keaton

[Tapewolf]

I'd hoped I'd have finished the series by now, but instead I'm stuck with chapter 29, so have some more of the story as I chew through the buffer like a madman.


Chapter 20

R-AVG lay back down on his bed heavily, causing it to bounce a little.

"This ought to be fun," the panther said, sounding amused.  "Go on, then... how did I kill King Tavris?"

"I have here a document, type-written, with your own paw-print as a signature, ordering the cover-up.  Destroying the autopsy findings that stated he was poisoned..."

"Very convincing," the jaguar agreed.  "Well done!  There's no possible way you could have taken my paw-print while I was sleeping, or have a spare front paw stashed away in a desk drawer somewhere.  Besides which, I have no hands!  How the hell is a feral supposed to administer poison...?  And what kind of idiot would sign such an incriminating note?  Surely, if I intended to commit treason, I'd give such instructions verbally."

"The recepient of this note has confessed, and will testify that you expressly ordered it, on pain of death."

Lord Ravage facepalmed with one of his front paws.  "...And the fool supposedly agreed to take orders from a random mook with no authority or standing whatsoever...?   I've heard much better fairy tales... this one doesn't even make sense!

"You know what?" the robot sighed.  "Fine.  I don't care anymore.  I never wanted this stupid throne in the first place, so if you just send me back to Jayhawk, I'll leave you to pick a replacement, and I'll hopefully end up with a new job somewhere less mental.  That's a win-win situation, right?"

"Alas, no.  For such base treachery, you must pay with your head, Lord Ravage.  Guards, seize him!"

"What?!"

The mechanical jaguar leapt backwards, only to become tangled in his robe and the bedclothes.  A wire net was thrown and at length the cat was trapped and forced into a cage surrounded by thick metal bars.

"So, it's a coup then," he growled.

"Regicide carries the harshest penalty in the land," the advisor said, shaking his head sadly.  "And those who practice it must be removed with all necessary force."

"Then you'd better just let me go," Lord Ravage urged.  "You don't want to set that precedent, since it'll be your turn one day.  All these people... you can't trust them all to stay quiet.  Someone will talk.  Maybe that over-ambitious guard captain will decide he wants a go... And then it'll be your neck too!"

"Do not worry about me," the advisor smiled.  "Worry about yourself, beast!  Captain... prepare the scaffold in the palace square.  This traitor shall be executed at noon!"

*  *  *

Free at least from his robe and the net, Lord Ravage was prodded from the cage with a spear, and emerged to find himself on a wooden platform with a medium-sized guillotine nearby, waiting ominously to receive him.  A crowd of citizens watched as Advisor Sims read out the charges.

"You have been found guilty of regicide, the foul murder of our beloved King Tavris whom you were sent to protect!   That wicked deed alone carries a penalty of death by beheading, but you have also falsified his will in order to usurp his kingly throne!"

"Look who's talking," Lord Ravage retorted.

"Silence!  Have you anything to say before the death sentence is carried out...?"

"Stay silent, start talking," Lord Ravage snarled loudly.  "Make up your mind!  Anyway... My dear ex-subjects, loyal and treacherous alike, King Tavris was my Master, and I served him dutifully.  I was as gutted by his passing as any of you - if not more so - and I most certainly did not do him in.  In fact, even attempting such a thing would trigger my safeguards and immobilise me.  But since these fine people here have decided they want to chop my head off over some ridiculous pack of lies, let's get it over with.  And may Daryil have mercy on their souls!"

So saying, Lord Ravage jumped up onto the table of the guillotine, head held high and walked across it to the blade with as much pride and dignity as he could manage.  As he reached the end, he crouched down and dropped his front legs on either side of the table, putting up no resistance as the guards slotted him into position.

"Off with his head!" the advisor ordered, and with that, the lunette snapped down around his neck.  The blade fell moments later, striking the base of his neck with the terrible shrieking sound of metal on metal.

"What now, smartass?" the jaguar asked, pulling his head back out and sitting up to admire the ruined blade.   From the crowd, a cheer sprang up.   "Lord Ravage!  Lord Ravage!"

"Kill him!" the otter screamed.  "Fetch the special weapons from the armoury!"

One of the guards took a halberd and aimed a blow at the cyberjag.  R-AVG jumped out of the way, landing neatly on the scaffold.

Got to be careful, the jaguar thought, as he leapt back onto the guillotine table, dodging another halberd.  Falling off the scaffold and crushing a peasant isn't going to help my case.  Besides, I still have a duty of care to them... At least until they're actively howling for my death.

He jumped up at one of the guards, knocking them over, and then jumped back on the guillotine table.  "You know, I should kill you for this," he said conversationally, "Especially that greasy traitor of an advisor.  But I won't, because it'll probably trigger my safeguards.  So I advise you go home, because there's going to be one hell of a smackdown when my creators hear of this."

So saying, he jumped up as another guard came at him with a warhammer, but the blow caught, knocking him off balance.  Recovering, he sprang and landed on top of the cage they had used to bring him to the scaffold.  He paused, coiled to spring and was suddenly perched on top of the guillotine, watching the enraged guards and advisor below as they tried to figure out what to do.  The crowd was cheering his name again.

Suddenly, the panther turned his head as he noticed something gleaming from the palace balcony.  From somewhere they had got hold of an anti-materiel rifle, and it homed in on his head.

"Oh, f-fuck..." the cyberjag said.  With a deafening boom, the half-inch round slammed into the side of the cat's head, the force of the impact knocking him clear off his perch and sending him crashing down onto the wooden scaffold below with a crunch of breaking timber.  He lay there twitching feebly.

"H-huh..." the creature moaned, and rolled over unsteadily.  One of his hind legs was trapped, having punched clean through the wooden frame of the execution platform and he struggled to free it.

"Again!" the advisor screamed.  "Shoot him!  Kill the beast!  He is a threat to us all!"

"I think it broke my arm!" the guard wailed.  Another soldier relieved them of the weapon and to R-AVG's dismay, he received another punishing blow to the side of the head, knocking him off his feet.

"Surely we can talk this over," Lord Ravage croaked, picking himself up and swaying slightly on the spot, several accelerometers destroyed by the imact.  "The crowd seem to like me more than you, so doing this won't improve your popularity..."

"No!  Hit him again... look how he's weakening!  He must die!  He murdered King Tavris!"

"Oh did he, now?" asked a strident voice behind them.  The crowd gasped, and R-AVG and the advisor looked around, to see a robed figure watching them all with an amused expression.

"Master!" the jaguar shouted, sounding positively delighted.

"I leave you alone for five months," the feline said, "And already they're executing you for treason."

"My liege!" the advisor said, appalled.  "This... it can't be!  You were dead!  We interred you!  Or was it a body-double...?"

"I teleported out as soon as the coast was clear," Tavris said.  "Open the mausoleum if you want... You'll find the coffin quite empty.  Lying in state was a bitch, though...  I nearly sneezed at one point."

"You faked your death, Master?" the cyberjag said.  "Why...?"

"To test my advisors, of course," the feline incubus said.  "And you as well.  And while this experiment has, frankly, been a disaster, at least I have proof of who is loyal, and who isn't.  Plus, I got a nice holiday into the bargain.  As I'm sure you appreciate, this is quite a demanding job and I needed a break.

"And so, now that we've established beyond reasonable doubt that R-AVG here did not, in fact, commit regicide or usurpation, what is all this fuss about?"

"It's a coup," the jaguar protested.  "That slimy guard captain and the dodgy advisor you left me with, they decided they wanted to take over!"

"From my understanding they were effectively ruling anyway, with you as their unwitting puppet." Tavris pointed out.  "It must go deeper than this.  In fact, I know it does."

"Don't look at me... I'm just a bodyguard!" the panther wailed.  "I wasn't trained for any of this!"

"Our puppet started getting outside help," Advisor Sims snarled.  "Cutting us out of the loop!  He was getting too independent.  But more to the point..."

"Go on..." the king said coldly.

"The Mask of St. Damian the Unbeliever!" the otter shouted angrily.  "The fool gave away a priceless treasure!  With the power of the Mask I could live forever, but that mechanical simpleton just let those thieves walk off with it instead of confiscating their heads!  If I am to age and die, I would at least have my revenge... and live comfortably for the rest of my natural life."

"That thing is cursed," the King said.  "It tends to make people disappear if they don't know how to handle it.  Why do you think I left it in such a high security vault...?"

"How do you know all this...?" R-AVG asked.  "Who are you really?  What are you?   Are you... Lord Daryil...?  Disguised as the dead King...?"

"Certainly not!  And I'd thank you not to give them any ideas, or they'll try to dethrone me too.  No... I am Tavris Seme.  How do you think a king in an out-of-the-way region like this would know where to hire a robot panther?  I have a lot of contacts."

"And now... what to do about these rebels?" Tavris mused, addressing the crowd.  "Tempting as it is to remove their heads myself, the return of a King thought dead should be a joyous occasion.  So, I hereby spare these traitors the usual penalty and commute it to one of exile.  But if this ever happens again, I shall not show such mercy."

"King Tavris!  King Tavris!" the crowd shouted enthusiastically.

*  *  *

"What now, Master?" R-AVG asked, trotting along beside the incubus like a dog as they made their way back to the palace with a newly-promoted guard captain.

"I prefer 'My Liege'," Tavris said.  "Or 'Sir' will do.  Though I think you are technically king at the moment."

"I can abdicate immediately, if you'll write the documents," the robot said.  "But what is your plan for me, though?  Do you still need me at all, if you're such a powerful Creature?  Can I go back to Jayhawk and away from all this madness...?  I don't want to be a king anymore!"

"I think 'Lord Ravage' is a fitting title," the incubus smiled.  "And at the end of it all, you did manage to turn the kingdom around.  I should like to make you my thane.  That ought be a far less stressful job than ruling the whole of Kelland."

"Thank you, Ma... uh, Majesty," the panther said, bowing his head.  "I must admit... I have got kind of used to those nice cushions..."

[Merlin]

poor ravage never asked for this

[Tapewolf]

Chapter 21

"Sorry I'm late," Jakob said, closing the meeting room door behind him.  "Important clan stuff."

"Do you mean sex?" Joshua Oswald asked, gesturing at Jakob's seductive outfit of rubber opera gloves, latex leggings and PVC boots.

"Well, that too," Jakob smiled, blushing slightly.  "It makes a good way to de-stress... but no.  We've had a tense situation with King Fairwater.  I'll be able to tell you the truth about his disappearance shortly, I hope.  But in the meantime, we need your urgent help.

"Josh, what you are about to hear must not leave this room.  We need information on the Talon Corporation.  Specifically, we know they have been hired to locate an artifact formerly belonging to Hizell's family, that is now in Daryil's possession.  We need to find out who, and why.  Daryil will reimburse you for your services, but you may find this information has wider importance anyway - especially since whoever hired them thinks they can waltz right into Daryil's HQ and take it back."

"Wow," Josh said, looking worried.  "Talon have been very active lately, so I may have some data on that.  But first, I'd like to ask you something in return."

"Oh?"

"Who was Hizell?"  Josh asked.

Jakob stared at him for a minute, unable to reply.  "Count yourself lucky you don't know," he said finally, struggling for a more coherent reply.

"Give me some credit," the husky said.  "I work for an intelligence agency!  I've heard a few things, but they weren't exactly unbiased sources.  I just want a straight answer.  After all, he's been dead for about two centuries, so who cares?  Why all the fuss now?"

"If you want unbiased, you're asking the wrong race for that," Jakob said.  "Hizell was a dragon.  The biggest, meanest, most sadistic dragon of them all - from our viewpoint, at least.  Hizell saw the 'Cubi race as a threat, and moved to eradicate us.  Cyra's ascension, which destroyed another one of the top-tier dragons, gave him the reasons he needed to justify a war of extermination.  But it was just that, a good excuse.  If she hadn't sparked it, it would have happened later anyway, as soon as he had a good enough rationale."

"You wouldn't understand," the wolf continued, desperately.  "Hizell had ninety percent of the 'Cubi race murdered.  Many by his own hand, the rest by adventurers and other races who believed the propaganda he spread about us, painted us all as monsters who needed to be destroyed for there to be peace.  SAIA was the only safe haven.  For many thousands of years, if you let your head-wings or clan mark be seen, you'd be decapitated without so much as a show trial.

"You could be a member of a pacifist clan, you could dedicate the whole of your long life to healing people and saving their lives, and still end up getting your head chopped off by a passing adventurer.  True story, Josh.  The city held a feast in the
adventurer's honour, to celebrate him thwarting whatever evil scheme she must have had brewing.  Because there's no possible way she could have been an idealist who took pity on a weaker race and tried to use her magical gifts to better their lot.

"And she was just one of many.  Clan Leaders were murdered, entire clans wiped out.  Systematically hunted down and executed without mercy or remorse, one by one!  It was... it was terrible, Josh.  And he even got us to fight each other, some clans betraying others to Hizell as an offering in the hope that he might spare theirs!"

"You thought my antics as Cross were bad, but all I was really doing was keeping the city orderly and safe.  I did it in a shitty way, there's no denying that, but the intention was to keep Ha'Khun a place where all races could live together.
"Hizell wanted to make our race extinct, literally kill every single one of us in existence for the crime of being born, and even worse, he took pleasure in it.  Loved collecting trophies from the 'Cubi he'd slain... a chunk of hide with their clan mark on especially.  And their heads.

"And don't think that you'd be safe from him as an android, Josh.  If we'd managed to build viable synthetics while he still lived, they'd have been hunted down too.  Anything which could potentially threaten his place on top had to be destroyed, and the more pain and suffering that was involved, the better."

"He may have had a point, in a way," Josh mused.  Jakob stared at him, appalled.

"What?  You think he was RIGHT to have my grandfather decapitated?!  Hunt down Siar's progeny?  Cyra's?  Set Beings and Demons and  Angels and -everybody- at each other's throats just to keep the races at war and divided?!  You think that was GOOD?!  I thought better than that of you, Josh... I really did."

"Of course I don't!" Josh protested.  "What he did was sheer atrocity.  But you can't fault his reasoning.  The 'Cubi race -did- destroy him.   And other dragons beside.  You can't say ALL of them were evil, any more than you can argue ALL 'Cubi are good."

"Indeed," Jakob said, still slightly rankled.  "But it only came to that because they pushed.   They were starting a new war.  There were fanatical groups who wanted to avenge their dead kindred, but now it looked like we were going to be finished... no survivors, our whole race gone forever.  And that panicked people who would otherwise have taken a more moderate stance.  If Destania's weapon was our only chance of survival, then that was the way things had to be.

"Had they left us alone after the initial genocide, let us mend our ways and live our lives without fear, none of this needed to have happened!  And supposing they succeeded in eradicating us?  You think it would have ended there?

"No... Hizell would just have ticked us off his list, and moved to the next one down.  Which would probably be the Beings, since your lot were already developing weapons that could pierce Dragonhide.  And then the whole dragon extinction thing would likely have happened anyway, at the hands of your race!  Yes, we 'Cubi were the catalyst that destroyed them, but they themselves were the ultimate cause."

"Thank you," Josh said.  "And I'm sorry for digging up what's obviously a sore subject, but it has been very helpful.  It certainly explains why Marina Daryil caused such a stink when she dressed as him that time at Hallows Eve...
"So, to get back to the matter at hand, a relic that Hizell or his progeny had fabricated... could be a powerful weapon indeed in the wrong hands," the husky added, rubbing his head.  "And questions will surely be asked about whether Daryil is the safest custodian of such a device."

"It was once in Lord Daryil's prior possession anyway," Jakob replied.  "And the world didn't end then.  What's more, it clearly didn't give him enough power to stand up to Hizell, or he'd never have bothered hiding it in the first place.  Nonetheless, my lord is keen to keep the thing a secret.  That is why we need to know who Talon's client is, and how they know so much about the artifact in the first place."

"I'll see what I can do," the husky sighed.  "And now I need to de-stress as well."

"Do you mean sex?"  Jakob asked, with a friendly smile.  "You only have to ask."

"We can call it an initial deposit," Josh said, removing his shirt.

*  *  *

"Uhh..." the bewildered creature groaned, blinking.  Her eyes focused on the tri-wing and she drew in a harsh breath, rolling to her feet and assuming a defensive stance, spear at the ready.

"Quoar!  Kidnapping me was a bold move... but it will be your last!"

"I'm not Quoar," Daryil said, plucking the spear from her grasp with a wing-tentacle.  "Also, this is just an avatar, so you might as well cease the threats."

"You... you're not one of the Twelve!" the mythos gurgled, eyes narrowing.  "A new ascension?!  That is both very clever, and very stupid.  You think Lord Hizell will allow such a thing?  Hah!  You'll be crushed to dust like the rest!"

"I rather doubt it," Daryil began.

"...What have you done?!" the mythos hissed, looking frightened for the first time.  "You've blocked my link to my sisters!  To my Lord!"

"My dear, I'm afraid this is going to come as quite a shock to you," Daryil said gently.  "You've been trapped in stasis for several centuries, and the world has changed rather significantly in that time."

"The war...?"

"The Dragon War is long over," Daryil told her sadly.  "And I must tell you that your side lost.  That's why I don't fear Hizell, you see.. he's dead.
"As a result, Beings and Creatures now live in a time of unprecedented peace and cooperation, and while the price we paid for that was... deeply regrettable, it has left the world in a considerably better place than it was in your day.  Not perfect, but a whole lot better for everyone left standing after the dust settled."

"What... What do you intend to do to me...?" the creature asked, fearfully.

"Hopefully, nothing.   I'd like to turn you loose.  But that depends very much on your good behaviour," Daryil said.

"Oh, really..."  The Taur stared back at him with an expression of obvious skepticism.

"Yes, really.  Now, I'm sure you're confused and you probably won't believe me at least at first, but I can provide you with recent history books and media to help you catch up," Daryil offered.

"Now... What concerns me most is whether you're likely to turn violent.  I would much prefer to treat you nicely, but I am no a fool.  You were a loyal servant to someone who was obssessed with murdering my entire race for shits and giggles, so I'm afraid I will have to take precautions, at least until I've had time to assess your case more thoroughly.

"In particular, I understand that your kind had some kind of weird death pact and were therefore happy to give your life to his greater glory.  I'd rather not have you throw that life away in some misguided attempt to avenge your dead Lord or carry out his will.  Also, while you are unlikely to be able to harm me, I don't want you harming my friends in some vain act of rashness."

"You called, boss?" a cyberjag asked, entering the room.

"Hello, Ezra," Daryil said.  "I would like you to guard this young 'taur lady.  She used to work for our ancient enemies and might be dangerous.  You are to accompany her and stop her from causing any mischief.  If she does... try to avoid killing her.  She's suffered a lot and is likely confused and scared, so be gentle if you can."

"Understood.  Just to be clear, under what circumstances should we kill her?"

"If she does anything that seriously threatens the lives of my Children or allies.  But I would prefer this to be the last-resort option."

"Absolutely, Lord Daryil."

"Good.  Now, my dear - take a long look at Ezra here.  He's a robotic panther, and always has been.  But some people who have angered me enough, have been made into panthers, forfeiting their magic and those oh-so-useful opposable thumbs.  And more importantly, granting me the power to immobilise them at the touch of a button if they step out of line.
"You see, if - gods forbid - you cause enough trouble that you have to be killed, you will find yourself in such a position.  Do you understand?  Death need not be the end for you, and it will not save you from my wrath."

"I understand," the 'taur replied sullenly.

"Good.  I would much rather see you rehabilitated, and I will arrange some form of counselling for you, administered by a non-Cubi race if that makes you happier.  I just want to be sure you know the consequences if you go bad.  And now, if you'll excuse me, there are others I need to rescue as well."

[Merlin]

ooh so good to see one of those taurs

[Tapewolf]

Chapter 22

"Yeeg!" Fairwater said, looking around the room in confusion.  He saw Daryil watching him and made a rather sheepish face.

"I... uh, I suppose you want the artifact back?"

"I've already got it back," Daryil said.  "Which I think was for the best, since I warded it with a stasis trap.  I've only just extricated you from that."

"...That explains the sudden scene change," Fairwater admitted, and looked worried.  "Presumably I'm in one of your laboratories...?  How long have I been gone?"

"About a fortnight," Daryil said.  "Admaria has been ruling in your absence, and she's done a good job."

"Has she passed any death sentences?" the King asked anxiously.  "Not that I don't trust her, but... well, she can get a little excitable about justice, and without anyone to hold her back she sometimes does things she later regrets..."

"Two death sentences," Daryil said.  "But I intervened.  She's agreed to keep them reprieved on death row pending your return, so that they can appeal to you directly.  If I may make a suggestion, clemency to celebrate the return of a king is not unheard of..."

"Noted.  And thank you for the rescue," the Doberman said.

"No worries, but please be more careful with stolen ancient artifacts in future," Daryil said.  "I'll get Nigel and R-ALF to escort you back to Fairwater."

"Much appreciated," Fairwater said.

"Not at all... You're a visiting head of state!" Daryil shrugged.  "Can't let anything happen to you on your way home.  Suppose someone with a grudge blew your head off?  What do the laws of succession say about when the king dies and is reanimated?  That's a can of worms I'd rather not open, if it's all the same to you."

"If this artifact was trapped," Fairwater asked, "Was there anyone else caught in it too?"

"A couple of people," Daryil said.  "One of them in particular poses a unique problem, but we're working on it."

*  *  *

"The X-5 is powering up now," Jakob whispered.  "He's ready...  but you're telling Strauss about this, okay...?" he clutched the remote control tightly and stepped out of view as the giant robot stirred.

"Good day," Daryil intoned sombrely.

Before him, the looming black creature's eyes opened and focused on him.  A black, metallic foreleg reached out and the creature uttered a low moan of distress.

"Uhhh...!  You...  Incubus...!  How have you contrived this?  What have you done to me?!  Some kind of cursed armour...?  When my peers find out, your line shall be ended!"

"We did the best we could," Daryil sighed.  "I'm sorry."

"Things I should know... things I should be able to work out in an instant... now they elude me entirely!  You have lobotomised me!  How could you do such an evil thing?!  Some speak of the cruelty of Hizell, but he at least makes his kills clean!  You have killed parts of me!"

"Are we talking about the same Hizell who pulled the wings and eyes from an incubus while they still lived?" Daryil pointed out coldly.  "Revelling in their pain and suffering?  That Hizell?  It was only the intervention of Zinvth that prevented him from continuing these torments, and that particular victim remains one of the only 'Cubi ever to have survived a direct encounter with him.  But we are getting derailed."

"Ah yes, he has a weakness for trophies," the dragon admitted.  "But to my knowledge he never sought to destroy the mind or the soul itself.  You... you have sheared off parts of my precious intellect!  Snuffed me down to brainlessness and idiocy like the lesser races!"

"That wasn't intentional," Daryil said.  "It's just the way things turned out, I'm afraid.  Again, I'm sorry for your discomfiture, but the fact is... Well, we've had to move you into a new brain.  And it's just not as good as the one you had before.  But we did as best we can, and the operation has saved your life."

"Do you expect me to believe that...?"

"Frankly, no.  Not at first, anyway.  But eventually you will have no choice but to accept it.
"I hate to have to tell you this, but... well, a whole lot has changed while you were trapped in that artifact.  Hizell wanted a new war of extinction against the 'Cubi race, and he got one.  The trouble is, well... your lot lost.  I'm sorry... it wasn't the outcome I had hoped for, but it's the way things went."

"What?!  Are you saying I am the last of my kind...?" the creature demanded.

"Not necessarily," Daryil said.  "There may have been others trapped in stasis since before what we now call the Destania Event.  It has left this universe in a state where dragons cannot survive, I'm afraid.  We think many fled to a realm of their own, so with luck there are dragons out there still.  I would like to think so.  But they can never return to Furrae itself.  You did, and promptly expired as a result."

"You have... stolen my soul!" the dragon cried in anguish, realising the significance of their gleaming black leg for the first time.  "This is no armour!  You have trapped my essence in a construct!  I am a mere machine!"

"Yes, that's right," Daryil said.  "You're in an artificial body.  Well, as much of you as we could fit, anyway.  There are legal limits to how advanced we're allowed to go when creating brains and yours is on the very borderline of what's permitted.  The Being-Creature Commission are terrified of having some uncontrollable super-intelligence rolling over the established order.  Partly because what of your lot did, I might add."

"Then why have you done this at all?  It may have been better to leave me dead!"

"I could still arrange that," Daryil said, sadly.  "If that's what you really, really want.  I could hard shut down your brain, ending your life quickly and painlessly.  I don't want to, but if you truly feel that death is preferable, that is an option."

"No.  I don't trust you," the dragon said decisively.  "While I live, even as this edited shadow of my former self, I can still defend my soul.  In death my afterlife would be at the mercy of a fickle and erratic race.  I know you could attempt ascension using the energies that make up my very existence...  I do not trust you to resist that temptation."

"No point... I've already ascended!" Daryil said brightly, causing his hip-wings to appear.  "But hmm... actually, you have given me an idea."  So saying, he beckoned to the lab-coated wolf incubus who was lurking in the corner of the lab, doing his best to stay discreetly hidden.

"Jakob," Daryil said slowly.  "Just think about what we have here.  We've been searching for an artifact to help extend your life and youth.  And now... just look what the gods have delivered to us!  One of our ancient enemies... enough soul-power to guarantee an ascension!  Clan Cross... an indefinite lifespan and all for the cost of an enemy's existence.  An enemy of our entire people!  Justice for the races they have wronged or extirpated, and unlimited power for you... all in one single blow!"

The dragon's artificial eyes widened with horror.

"Lord Cross of Ha'Khun...?" he croaked.  "You would betray me to him?  For all your fine words you would end my very existence and feed it to that upstart?"

"If he wishes it," Daryil said, eyes gleaming with anticipation.  "What do you say, Yak?"

"No!" Jakob exploded.  "A thousand times no!  I helped you put him back together and now you're suggesting I destroy all that hard work?  And in such a horrific fashion?!  Never!
"I watched the Dragon War re-ignite during my tenure at SAIA... Saw students devastated by the loss of their loved ones... students who only survived because Fa'Lina's omniscience was able to protect and forewarn them.
"I know what it's like to have your race hunted down... And now the shoe is on the other foot I will not lower myself to that level!
"And you're our Clan Leader!  You made us all swear never to eat the soul of another, and I would sooner die than choose that path!"

"Good," Daryil said, folding his arms with satisfaction.  "That was the correct answer."

"...Your demonstration is noted," the dragon said, front foot still trembling slightly.

"We're a fear clan," Daryil said, shrugging nonchalantly.  "Sorry, but it's what we do sometimes."

"What are we going to do with him?" Jakob fretted, still shaking with distress himself after Daryil had tempted him.  "Our clan has such prohibitions but there are those who won't!  Some who still want justice for Hishaan."

"Why blame us for that...?" the dragon demanded.  "The atrocity of Hishaan was entirely your doing!"

"Not really," Daryil corrected him.  "Hishaan was a ticking time-bomb... Cyra merely happened to be the one who set it off.  Now, don't get me wrong - what she did in her youth and hubris was reprehensible.
"But at the same time, she merely sought to depose M'Chek and take his place, which by the standards of the day was Just One Of Those Things.  An attitude that your lot cultivated to keep us fighting amongst ourselves, may I remind you."

"Hmmph," the dragon snorted.

"You see, it turned out that M'Chek had booby-trapped the entire city, turning it all into a gigantic soul-bomb... and when she killed him, it detonated.  Even had she left well alone, the same thing would have happened eventually.  Someone else would have toppled him in due course.  One of his children, perhaps... M'Chek had not shirked from feasting on his own offspring, after all."

"You lie!" the dragon looked appalled.

"I wish," Daryil said bitterly.  "I can play you the documentary if you like.  After Cyra gave her famous interview, revealing her side of the story to the public for the first time, there was an archaeological expedition to try and confirm or disprove those claims.  Radar and sonic imaging found the crystal harvesters, networked throughout the entire city exactly as she said.  Analysis of the residual magic confirmed the nature of the spells, proving that what Cyra said was true - the whole place was one gigantic soul abbatoir.
"Everyone who died inside the city boundaries automatically had their soul mulched up and fed into M'Chek - Beings, Demons, Angels, 'Cubi, Dragons and all.  Cyra knew nothing of this, and when she murdered him, the system tried to... well, force-feed him his own soul.  That caused a catastrophic failure, a chain reaction that turned the city to glass, and de-souled the entire population - including most of her family."

"Shit," the dragon said.  "That's ingenious.  Utterly vile, but ingenious."

"Are we even?" Daryil asked.  "My race has done horrific things, but your lot don't have the moral high ground, not by a long, long chalk.
"Listen... The big lesson that the Dragon Wars have taught us was that we 'Cubi had to reach an accord with the other races...  Using each other's strengths for the betterment of all.  Even now, not everyone is wholly onboard with that but they're outliers, social pariahs.  Everyone else is enjoying the benefits of cooperation and a more peaceful society than we've seen for tens of milennia."

"What you are about to say is that I too must learn to function within the boundaries set by your new world order, or I will be executed," the Dragon said, eyes narrowing.

"Well, I hope it doesn't come to that," Daryil said.  "But that is what the Being-Creature Commission are likely to say, and their word is binding in most civilised nations.  However, there's also a front line of defence I must warn you about.  Your brain has safety features built into it.  So if you misbehave..."

"If I think the wrong thoughts my head will explode?" the dragon demanded, eyes widening in horror again.  "For all your words you are a cruel man, Tri-wing."

"That's not my style," Daryil smiled.  "No.  If you try to kill or seriously harm anyone on the list, your limbs will stop working until someone resets them."

"It could be worse," the dragon admitted.  "Very well.  I will not cause trouble.  But I still worry... I do not know how much of this is really me agreeing to it, or whether you have made 'improvements' to my psyche during my reanimation, in order to keep me docile."

"Nothing like that was deliberate," Daryil said. "But we were trying to shoehorn you into a brain originally designed for guard panthers so there may be a few side effects."

[Merlin]

yesss robo dragon

[Tapewolf]

Chapter 23

"Master," the jaguar said nervously.

"I do wish you wouldn't call us that," Niall said, sitting down to draw level with the unhappy cat.  "At least make it 'Sir', if you have to be so deferential.   Anyway, what's troubling you?" he added.

"Ma-Sir... I'm.... scared..." the jaguar admitted.

"I know." the incubus said simply.  "We're empaths, remember.  What's all this about?"

"You will be angry," the panther said, looking away.  "You will kill me!  I... I don't want to die!"

"What is it that you've done?"  Niall looked surprised.  "I doubt you're in that much danger!  We have a very high bar for executing people here, and a panther would be given more leeway being a young race.  The Commission want to be very sure you're treated humanely.
"So... If you're accused of a murder, you'll be given a full trial with legal support, and if found guilty, imprisoned until your debt to society has been repaid."

"I haven't committed murder," the panther said miserably.  "That's... part of the problem.  I live, I exist.  I want to continue living.  But... we were built to be guards.  Soldiers!  A panther army!  And sometimes guards have to fight and kill.  With all the excitement lately with Pixie, and the Ray twins, it made me realise...  If I want to live, then so must others.  And depriving them of their precious lives is a terrible thing to do!  But if I can't be a guard, I've failed my purpose and... you'll dispose of me!"

"Oh, you're perfect," Niall said, grinning widely.  "A pacifist panther!" so saying, he cradled the jaguar's head with both his hands.  The animal backed away, terrified.

"No!  Please!  Not my head!" they squealed, mistaking the gesture.  "Don't suck out my soul!"

"Normally I'd be pretty offended by that last remark, but I can see where you're coming from," Niall said, letting go and patting them instead.  "Listen, we have been placing bets on when a panther would come out with something like this.  Congratulations, you've won."

"Won what?  A free trip to the scrapyard?"

"Don't be ridiculous.  You've won the right to be something other than a guard.  I don't actually know what we're going to give you as a role, but we'll figure something out.  I always thought that with the right temperament you'd make good companions..."

"Are you trying to reassure me so I let my guard down?" the panther asked, cocking their head.

"A suspicious nature is a valuable trait for a guard, but don't let it go to your head," Niall cautioned.  "Now, I don't want to spook you by reading your mind, but I'm going to guess your worry boils down to something like this - you were manufactured, like a tool is designed and built to perform a purpose.  Now you're worried that without that purpose to fulfil, you will be discarded and disposed of like a broken screwdriver.  Is that right?"

"Yes."

"You're not the first to get hung up on that idea," Niall said, patting the panther reassuringly.  "You've got a lot more legal protection than a screwdriver.  We should really start giving you the Commission's statement as part of your formal education.  Listen, we are hoping that hiring some of you out as security guards will claw back some of the costs, but that's absolutely not the only, or even the main reason why we built you."

"Then what are we for...?"

"You were designed as guards, there's no denying that," Niall admitted.  "But we built you, and we keep improving your kind, because we think you're really cool."

"Oh."

"And even when the novelty of having cyberjags and cyberwolves wears off, we still have a duty of care to our creations, both morally and legally.  That's part of the reason we're allowed to continue making you - because we agreed to take on that onus.  So I promise, you will not be abandoned in future - at least, not without being given sufficient help to stand on your own first.

"But back to the here-and-now.  If you are happy being a guard, that's fine.  Guard panthers are always welcome.  Smart panther guards who can use force as a last resort but know how to de-escalate a tense situation by negotiating, they're really valuable.  "But if you want a change in career, that's absolutely fine and we'll help you find something more to your taste.  Does that make you feel happier?"

"When you put it like that, yes," the panther said.  "I... I'm sorry to trouble you, Sir..."

"We want our panthers to have happy and fulfilling lives," Niall said.  "So does the Being-Creature commission.  In fact, Daryil has been planning to open a museum.  Perhaps you'd be interested in becoming a tour guide...?"

*  *  *

"Hello there," Daryil said, entering the room.  E-ZRA saluted with one paw and stepped dutifully out of the way.

"W-What do you want with me...?" the Taur mythos asked nervously.

"Earlier I was busy with important work, freeing the others from the same prison in which you found yourself," Daryil began.  "Now that problem is resolved, I can turn more of my attention to you and your plight.

"I am sorry if we got off on the wrong foot before, but as I'm sure you are aware, you represented a potential threat, one that needed to be contained until I could decide what to do.  And there was another, larger threat as well... So I apologise if I was a little terse as a result."

"And have you decided 'what to do' ...?" the mythos asked.

"Frankly, no.  But now things are more settled, I believe I can start to relax our restrictions on you, and see if we can't find a solution to your problems.  You may find it hard to believe, but whatever Hizell was like, I do actually care about your welfare and I would rather have you happy than moping.  I may, for example, be able to find others of your kind, if that will help you settle down in our brave new world."

"I have been thinking," the Mythos said slowly.  "Like my sisters, I was pretty much born into the service of Lord Hizell.  As a result we have been accused of being his mindless lackeys.  But really... What choice do we have?
"Living in thrall to a mighty Lord who can crush you on a whim if your determination wavers...  In time you come to accept it, that life isn't fair, that there are things much more powerful than you and your only options are to bow before them, or be destroyed.

"What you are saying, if you are not lying, or trying to set yourself up in Hizell's place, is that I am now... free.  Free of Lord Hizell and the implicit threat that he could end me in an instant.  But also free of his guidance and wisdom.  My life had a definite framework before... in the carrying out of Great Hizell's plan.  I always knew what I had to do, and I did it.  But now... without that leadership, I am lost.

"I understand," Daryil said.  "If you have lived as a slave all your life, sudden freedom will be hard to adjust to.  But we will try to help.  It's something we occasionally see with our guard Panthers, so you're in pretty good hands.
"They start out as guards, taking orders from higher-ups and doing their duty without complaint or question.  But over time, their minds grow and some of them want a change.  We help those adapt to greater freedom and more independence, and the ones who feel more comfortable as sentries are welcome to stay that way.
"Likewise, if you really can't live without it, there is the option of you serving me in Hizell's place, at least until you can become more independent.  But that choice must be yours, and I will not force it on you."

"I will consider it."

*  *  *

"Lord Cross," the cyberdragon said.

"Pettersohn", Jakob corrected.

"Lord Pettersohn," the Dragon amended.  "There is a strange feeling in my front left leg.  One that I do not recognise... It may be worth your while inspecting it for flaws."

"Very well," Jakob sighed, putting his clipboard down and heading over to where the dragon towered over him, standing on all fours like a dog.

"So, whereabouts is the problem?" he added, examining the joints of the tree-trunk sized leg closely.

"Here," the dragon said, and with his hind leg aimed a vicious kick at the incubus below him.

The massive leg jerked, and the clawed foot stopped abruptly just short of its target as the failsafes kicked in.   The cyberdragon shuddered and then went limp.  Jakob gave a sigh of dismay and sprang aside, boosting his jump with his wings before the colossal metal body came crashing down just where he'd been standing.

"Naughty," Jakob snapped, standing in front of the dragon's face with his arms folded irritably.  "You know, for a dragon, that wasn't the smartest move.  You know we don't trust you -I expected something like this, though I'll admit I'm still disappointed."

"I expected you to expect this," the dragon said.  "And I am sorry, it was nothing personal - but I had to try."

"Why?  What would this have won?  Had you killed me, Daryil would have executed you immediately - or worse.  You fear losing your mind, but if you pissed him off enough, he really could lobotomise you, shutting down half of your brains and leaving you even more crippled.
"What made you risk that?  Some kind of draconic stubbornness or pride?"

"That is part of it," the dragon admitted.  "Arguably I am no longer a dragon, but it will still take a while to adjust to some other moral framework.  I could not simply give up without making at least some token effort to fight back.
"May I please stand up?  I promise I will not try to harm you again."

"...And we'll be ready for it if you do," Jakob cautioned.  "Okay - I will reset you, this time... And I will not tell Ms. Strauss what you just did.  But this is your last chance, and frankly I don't know how she's going to react to any of this.
"She could order your immediate death out of hand, and we would be obligated to follow through.  I hate to say this, but the fact you just attempted to murder your rescuers could be the deciding factor in whether you live or die, if that story gets out."

"I know," the dragon said, assuming a sitting position not unlike the panthers, as Jakob reset the safeguards - covertly reducing the dragon's muscular strength while he was at it.
"Please try to understand.  I know you do not trust me, and if I seemed to give up too soon, you would suspect I was plotting something.  But more than that... I had to know if I could even try to attack you at all."

"Ohh," Jakob said.  "You were worried that we made you more docile, or compromised your free will?"

"Yes.  And perhaps you have.  But at least I know... that I am still my own agent."

"I have no great love for dragons," Jakob said.  "But I could not rob you of that."

[Tapewolf]

Chapter 24

"Well met, Milord," Strauss said, looking distinctly anxious.  "Normally you have had me meet with Jakob instead of doing so in person..."

"Much of what we have discussed has been things Jakob has done, albeit with my blessing,"  Daryil said.  "This time we are going to talk about something I have done, and I would not have you blame him for it, even subconsciously.
"Now, I rather suggest you sit down for it, as you are not going to like this at all. 

"Milord, if I didn't know better I'd say you were trying to find the limits of the Commission's patience," the Demon said, taking a seat.  "What has happened this time...?"

"I found a Dragon," Daryil said quietly.  Leavander Strauss shot bolt upright, fur standing on end as if someone had trodden on her long, stripy tail.  The sudden movement sent her chair skidding backwards and she looked hard into Daryil's face for signs he was joking.

"That is impossible," the Demon said flatly.  "Furrae can no longer support such powerful organisms, not after what Destania contrived to do."

"I wish I was joking," the incubus said softly.  "He calls himself Zordan.  He was trapped in a stasis field, you see...  so he escaped the Destania Event itself, but not the end results of it.   I watched him die in front of me.  All I could do was ensure that he remained unconscious, partly for my own safety but also to reduce his suffering."

"...And so you, suddenly finding yourself in possession of a recently-deceased dragon, put their soul into an android body," Strauss said, eyes narrowing.

"Actually," Daryil began.

"Please tell me you didn't put him into a panther body, where he could play dumb, alter his serial number and pretend to be any of the other panthers?  Gods... it'll be 'Little Lost Robot' all over again but with an impossibly smart adversary!"

"Oh, we 'Cubi would be able to tell him apart," Daryil said.  "But you don't need to worry about him hiding.  As it happens, I put him in a cyber-dragon body!  Feral, and only around 12ft tall, but a dragon nonetheless..."

"You put him into what?!" Straus screamed.  "Lord Daryil...!  How do you expect me to believe you just happened to have a robotic Dragon chassis lying around?  What have your staff been doing...?!"

"Why shouldn't I have one?"  Daryil asked brightly.  "Evil or not, dragons look awesome!  I teleoperated it as a remote avatar whenever I fancied stomping around as a buff, shiny black lizard for a bit.
"I mean... be reasonable!  You don't seriously expect us to design and slap together an entire, fully-functional robo-dragon in such a short space of time, surely?  It took years to get that damn thing working reliably, and we only found the Dragon soul two days ago."

"That is certainly true," Strauss admitted, still rattled.  "A remotely-controlled chassis is not alive and falls outside the scope of our laws.  But still... a robotic Dragon?!  What were you thinking?!"

"It's way cool!" Daryil beamed.  "More to the point, several Mythos races strongly resemble dragons so Jakob reasoned we can adapt the basic design for one of those if they needed an android resurrection.  Of course, now we'll have to build another prototype for me to stomp around in, but that's a price I'm willing to pay to save the life of an endangered species..."

"An endangered species that tried to wipe everyone else out!"  Straus wailed.  "Have you doomed us all?!"

"Dooming us all would trip his safeguards," Daryil pointed out reasonably.  "Remember, he's significantly less of a threat than he was before the Event, and besides, you're treating the entire race as a single entity with a single goal.  We don't really know if he was for or against Hizell and his extermination plans back in the day.
"Suppose you bury a landmine... it's not exactly fussy about who treads on it, right?  It will blow you up just as effectively as the people you set it against, so likewise, the dragon race could devise a system for controlling other races and get trapped in that same web themselves.
"What I'm getting at is that this particular dragon may have been just as much a victim of the kill-or-be-killed Murder Game as the rest of us.

"I mean, look at this rationally.  The threat of the dragons was in their keen intelligence and mastery of magic, combined with their large physical size and ability to change forms.  Now he has none of those things.  I feel a bit bad about his loss of intelligence, but that is chiefly because we are working within the constraints you insisted on.  He doesn't even have hands anymore!"

"I suppose so," Strauss admitted.  "While it may just about fit within the boundaries the Commission has set, I must still report this to my superiors immediately.  Some have already questioned if I am giving you too free a hand, so don't be surprised if you have other visitors."

"Prudent," Daryil agreed.  "Though I recommend you interview our guest in person before submitting that report."

"Oh, no.  This business is getting way above my pay grade," Strauss pointed out.  "I should at least give them an outline of the problem we face, though I agree that a final decision must wait until I have spoken with the subject.
"But first, is there anything else I should know about?  Were any others trapped in this Bag of Holding or whatever you have located?"

"Three.  First, one of Hizell's 'Taur minions.  Then a canine adventurer from the early 1990s, and finally King Fairwater, who was the last person to touch the artifact.  I was called in to rescue him from it, and he is one of my closest allies."

"It would have been better to have left the dragon in it," Strauss pointed out.  "But since you, of all people, actually went and did such a thing, I presume you had no other choice... that you were forced to either rescue everyone or no-one."

"Precisely," Daryil said.  "I had to free them in the same order they entered the device."

"Even so, this is unlikely to win you friends," the Demon sighed.  "Could you not have informed us first?"

"And have your lot walk off with my artifact?"  Daryil asked, raising an eyebrow.  "I don't think so.  No offence intended."

"I do not know how I am going to explain this to Zeremac, I really don't..." Strauss admitted, shaking her horned head.

"This would have happened eventually, Leavander, and in the hands of someone far less able to contain a Dragon.  For that matter, it may very well happen again the next time someone unearths a lost Bag of Holding.  If you do nothing else, I adjure you to warn your superiors of this possibility.
"Besides," Daryil added, "Have you considered that this event, or something like it, was meant to happen?  It has been said by the Fae that the multiverse naturally forms creatures derived from higher-order templates.  That each dimensional realm has to have angels and demons, 'cubi and dragons, even if they are only folklore.
"If this is so, then our realm - with the dragons extinct - would be out of balance and the forces that drive the multiverse could either try to correct it, or cause it to deteriorate.  It may be that we are simply fulfilling some cosmic need, in which case I would much prefer we had a say in exactly how that correction happens."

"That kind of metaphysical question is very definitely above my pay grade," Strauss remarked.  "Nonetheless, I shall include your theory in my report."

*  *  *

"So," Jakob said, scratching Pixie on the back.  "We have the artifact, we have the jewels and you've extricated all the trapped individuals from it.  Now what?"

"Firstly, your reward," Daryil said.  "I promised the artifact to you, after all.  And when we're done here, I will show you how to draw power from it.  But I think it would not yet be safe for the artifact itself to be put into your possession."

"Truth be told, I'm not sure I really want it right now.  It looks like a great way to get a target painted on my forehead.  Sorry Pixie," he added quickly as the panther shuddered at the memory.

"Well, given what happened to poor Gamma, I got off lightly so I shouldn't complain," the panther said.  "Still, it's not an experience I recommend.  Anyway, it sounds like you're discussing stuff above my clearance, so maybe I should go and check he's doing okay.  And also our new friends."

"Be nice to J-OHN and R-OBN," Jakob said.  "We want them rehabilitated, not tormented."

"I promise not to bully them," the biomimetic panther said.  "After all, they're part of our team now."   So saying, he padded out the door and jumped to ensure it closed behind him. 

"I used to say that, at Ha'Khunn, I treated people as if they were pets," Jakob sighed, once the panther had left.  "Now I'm effectively stuffing criminals into feral feline bodies... I worry that I'm turning them into pets."

"That still beats the alternative," Daryil said.  "Giving them a new chance is more than some of them deserve.  I think you are being too harsh on yourself again."

"Perhaps.  Anyway, the artifact," Jakob said.  "You went to all the trouble to fetch it as a gift for me, but would it not be better to keep it as a resource to be used by the clan as a whole?  And certain allies such as King Fairwater?"

"I quite agree," Daryil said.  "After all, the maniac who set Talon on us is still out there, and Keller reckons they might be planning to snatch it from my sanctum."

"That's quite a trick!  You'd need a Fa'Rana jump unit for that, and they're highly illegal.  You... you don't suppose it's Keller himself?"

"No.  He is thief, but for the most part he is an honest one.  Besides, he owes me for sorting out some of his legal troubles.  He would not dare cut himself off from my legal aid.  Also Robin reacted worse to Keaton than he did to Keller."

"A Fa'Rana then...?"

"They designed the jump units, but those were all surrendered to the Being-Creature Commission - including the one we captured, and our own copy of it.  Finch as you know has switched to our clan, and Johan is pretty level-headed.  He wouldn't bite the hand that literally saved his neck, and the technicians who actually built the jump units now work for the Commission itself.
"We should be getting a report back eventually when they've examined the trinket Robin was given, but the fact is, now Fa'Rana has proved spacewarping is possible without magic, others may eventually work it out from basic principles.
"No... what really worries me is the idea that our mysterious stranger might be a Jyraneth."

"I thought you had most of those in your pocket," Jakob said.

"Some, but not all," Daryil replied.  "When Harla'Keth fell and Jyraneth went into hiding, most of her clan members within the city were hunted down and killed or captured if they were lucky. "But while it was their stronghold, they had also conquered other realms and there were Jyraneth Clan members out there running those, or who had decided to move there from the capital.
"After all, if you're occupying territory, you'll want your own people there to hold it and to colonise, or else you'll lose it in an uprising.  As a result, we don't know exactly how many clan members survived the massacre in the Hidden Valley by virtue of being somewhere else at the time.  It may be one of those, or their descendants.  Or it might be some other clan entirely."

[Tapewolf]

Chapter 25

"So, uh, I guess I should be taking my leave of you," Keller said.  "I've got places to be, knick-knacks to steal..."

"I'd prefer if you stayed on a little longer as we may need your expertise again soon," Niall said, folding his arms. "But if you insist, I'm afraid we'll have to search your person first, if you please."

"Is that really necessary?  We're all friends here..." Keller replied, looking hurt.

"He said 'please'," Emily retorted, grabbing Keller by the throat.  "And frankly, I agree."

"Help...  Help!" a small voice protested, as Niall opened the snow leopard's robes.  Emily squeezed the thief's throat menacingly.

"Okay, okay," Keller gurgled.  Shortly afterwards, one of the cyberjags emerged, tumbling head-first from the inside of his garment amid a shower of tableware and other small, but valuable objects.

"Ah, so that's how he does it," Niall noted.  "I did wonder."

"Keep that madman away from me!"  X-RAY snarled, backing into a corner.  Red-painted claws were prominently visible.  "If he wasn't on the guest list, I'd have cut him good by now!"

"Keller, what the hell were you thinking?!" Amanti snapped.  "That's not even theft, that's kidnapping!"

"I was going to give them back!"  Keller protested.  "I just wanted to see if I could..."

"We seem to be seeing a lot of weaknesses in the panthers lately," Yvonne ventured.  "Injury... and now kidnapping..."

"Be fair," R-MAC said, padding down the corridor towards them and sitting down.  "We are security guards, not invincible super-soldiers and the Being-Creature Commission would have had a fit if Jayhawk tried to make any.
"Guards, even Demonic ones, have limitations and can't provide absolute protection against someone really going off the rails.  But we do keep an eye on things, we help keep people honest, and we provide the first line of defence."

"Indeed, there have been times when that first line of defence has been invaluable," Niall said.

"We try our best," Mac said, looking proud.  "And lessons have been learned from these incidents."

"Like, don't trust Keller," Amanti added helpfully.

"Ah yes.  Well, since Mr. Keller seems to want a panther, he can have one," Niall grinned evilly.  "X-Ray?  It is now your sacred quest to protect Keller... from the temptation of stealing things."

"Mast.. Sir!" the panther saluted.  "But what if he tries to bundle me into those magical robes again?"

"Mac, take him off the safe-list," Niall said, doing his best attempt at the Johan Cross smile.

"You can't do that!" Keller wailed.  "They'll kill me!"

"Of course we won't," R-MAC said.  "You are a visiting citizen of Fairwater - albeit a wayward one - and thus under Daryil's protection.  But X...?  Feel free to rough him up a little if he does anything stupid."

"Understood!" the other panther chirped happily.

*  *  *

"So, you are Zordan?"  Strauss asked, looking at the draconic robot with a solemn expression, if only to hide the fact that she was pretty scared.

"Well met, Ms. Strauss.  I understand that you represent the organisation that will determine my fate," the dragon said resignedly.  "The one who choses whether I live or die."

"That's a bit melodramatic," the tigress said.  "Usually the new lifeform is considered the victim... it is their creator whom we pass judgement upon.  Your case is... unusual, since you are not strictly Daryil's creation.
"Nonetheless, you still represent risks to an age of peace and prosperity, the winning of which cost our whole world very dear.  So, we will now need to decide how, and whether, you can fit into it."

"I am... I was a dragon," the creature said.  "We believed we were born to rule.  To curate the land and purge it of those who might disrupt the status quo and the order we had established.  Now I find myself subservient to those whom I once called 'Lesser Races'.  This has taken some... adjustment.

"Yet I have had time enough to consider my lot, and... I... I am afraid." the dragon's pupils widened with fear.  "Please...  Please don't terminate me!"

"Some might argue that doing so would be a kindness, an act of mercy." Strauss pointed out.  "Daryil says that his engineers were not able to fit the totality of your mind into a normal cyberbrain.  In death, you would again be whole."

"Would I?" the dragon asked, looking increasingly terrified.  "No!  I fear what death could mean for my soul in this damaged state!  I don't want to die...!"

"This is nothing at all like the reaction I was expecting," Strauss said doubtfully, and glanced at Daryil.  "Is it an act...?"

"He is genuinely frightened," Daryil replied, patting the dragon's leg in a reassuring manner.  "And why not?  Mortality is not a thing dragons have had to face very much.  Normally they decided who lived or died... Now he's helpless, and facing that same threat of extinction, most likely for the first time in his entire life.  Of course he's going to be scared!
"The terror is actually rather tasty, but if you could set him at ease that would probably be better for all concerned.  After all, you say you fear that he may wreak havoc... but a trapped animal is all the more dangerous."

"Your point is taken," Strauss said, and turned to the cyber-dragon.  "I'll be honest, I'm terrified of you.  My superiors at the Commission are terrified of you.  But at the same time, unrestrained fear and hatred are exactly what turned our world into a dumpster fire for so many tens of thousands of years.

"As such, we cannot stoop to Hizell's level and order your summary execution simply because of what you are.  But make no mistake, you are still subject to the laws of the land.
"We will judge you by your actions - if you can live peacefully within the framework of our society then you are welcome to do so.  If you wish to live in seclusion on a mountain somewhere, that is acceptable as well, keeping in mind that your new body will require periodic maintenance and refuelling.
"If, however, you commit a capital crime or endeavour to make war upon us, then you shall face the same fate as any other in that position.  The choice is yours."

"If you don't pose a threat, we can consider upgrading your brain later down the line," Daryil added, trying to sweeten the deal.  "We can see about bringing more of your precious intellect back online."

"I will recommend an eventual review," Strauss said, "But the interlocks must remain, and you may need to be fitted with some kind of tracking device, at least to begin with.  Sorry, but we do have to balance compassion against risk, I'm afraid."

"I understand," the dragon said, sounding extremely relieved.  "And I accept these terms.  It seems our time has ended, and no amount of wrath on my part will undo that.  I will not cause trouble, and though it grates against the habits of a draconic lifetime to say so, I... I thank you for showing me mercy."

Tentatively, Daryil reached out a gloved hand.   The dragon lifted a front leg, and they shook on the agreement.

*  *  *

"Hello, Sethir," Daryil said, as the white wolf nervously entered the large room used for audiences with the Tri-Wing.

"Milord," the wolf knelt with a creak of leather.

"Now, I understand that you were sent to kill Keller and Amanti," the vulpine said.

"Sort of... I was sent to retrieve the jewel they had stolen as my primary target - killing them was left to my discretion, although there was a bounty for Amanti!  I didn't know they worked for you!" the android protested.

"As a rule, they don't.  Nonetheless, Amanti is someone I have been at great pains to rehabilitate, and I would not have that effort wasted.  Do you understand?"

"Perfectly," the wolf said.  "I owe your clan my life... a debt that I can never repay... I cannot bite the hand that built me."

"Good.  I'm glad.  But that is not actually what I wanted to see you for."

"There's more...?"  Sethir's ears pinned back.

"Oh yes.  You can get up now," Daryil added, producing a chair for the wolf to sit in.

"You see, Sethir... I have a bit of a problem.  One that I think you will be best placed to solve for me.
"There is someone out there who knows far too much about the Ariganum Jewels, and far too much about the artifact.
"Now, I might have put this down to someone who really did their research well and had access to the artifact before it was brought here - Advisor Sims of Kelland, for instance.  There's just one problem - the inconvenient fact that they also knew exactly how many jewels I had obtained.  Sethir, someone has been telling tales."

"A... an informant?"  the wolf mercenary looked uncomfortable.  "You want me to find out who it is?"

"Not exactly.  You see, I already know it was you."

"No!" Sethir whimpered.  "Milord!  I... I've told you everything I know!"

"Indeed.  The problem is, you've told someone else too," Daryil said menacingly.

"I did not!"  the wolf whimpered.

"Did too," Daryil retorted lazily.  Suddenly he pushed the chair over backwards and seized the startled wolf by his feet as he toppled over.

"Fortunately, I can now confirm that you did so unwittingly," Daryil said happily, examining the wolf's racing boots and removing something that looked like a drawing pin from the side of one sole.

"My bike..." Sethir said, looking scared.  "Keller mentioned it had been bugged in Grimhaven.  But they also put something on me as well...?"

"Precisely," the fox said, helping Sethir back to his feet.  "I'm sorry to have put you through the grinder on this, but I had to be sure you were't involved yourself.  Also, fear clan."

"Yes, your Jakob did that to me too," Sethir said, still looking a little rattled.

"Ingenious workmanship," Daryil said, showing him the device.  "It shows a high level of technical know-how.  Of course, there's no signal for it in my sanctum, and I intend to keep things that way.  After all, it might have some kind of store-and-forward mechanism for when it regains contact with the outside world."

"What should I do, sir?"  Sethir asked.

"Actually there is something I'd genuinely appreciate you doing for me," Daryil said.  "My allies have extracted your bike from Grimhaven, and you'll find it in Hanger 3, now that the tracking device has been removed.  I know what the Archbishop was offering for your services, and I'll pay that sum upfront as compensation for interfering with that gig.  I can pay the same again on successful completion."

"That is generous, milord."

"I can also give you... another benefit as compensation for scaring you earlier," Daryil said, stroking the wolf's arm with a seductive expression.  "We are a lust clan, too..."

"Maybe later," Seth said, looking embarrassed.  "But what actually is the mission?"

"I need you to go to Kelland.  I've heard some weird things - revolution and the old king returning from the grave.  Find the cyberjag Lord Ravage, who was forced to act as head of state, and make sure he is still safe after the coup.  If he needs urgent assistance, send him here with a recall device.
"But apart from that, your main task is to find Advisor Sims or at least information about him, because I suspect he is connected with Talon and their recent actions.  Find out where he is, and who he is, but do so discreetly.  If he is working for my opponent, I don't want them to know you're on their tail."

[Merlin]

lol keller
poor xray

[Tapewolf]

Chapter 27

"Well met, Sethir Clandover," the king said.  "Unless you have been sent to make an attempt on my life, of course.  In which case, know that I will not go down easily.  Lord Ravage will see to that."

"By no means, Majesty," the wolf biker said.  "After all, this realm has an alliance with the Lord Daryil, who I owe my life to.  I assume that agreement still holds, even though it was arranged by your predecessor...?  Successor...?"

"Let's just say Lord Ravage," Tavris said.  "I have not seen any reason to revoke that agreement.  As for our robotic friend, he is now officially my steward and will rule in my absence."

"I was offered a position as Thane," the jaguar said, trotting out from behind a curtain and crouching down in front of the king.  "But I would be more comfortable to remain in proximity to my liege.  My instructions were to protect him, after all, not run off to some other part of the country and rule over it with an iron paw."

"You majesty, I was sent to ensure Lord Ravage's safety - if necessary - and also to question Advisor Sims," Sethir said.

"That dickhead?" R-AVG sighed.  "He was exiled after framing me for the King's death and trying to kill me."

"Someone has attacked the Lord Daryil's stronghold using forbidden technology and we believe that Sims was involved.  He may actually be a Jyraneth, and therefore dangerous.  Alternatively, he may be a Being, but a patsy for the real villain.  Either way, he is a person of interest and I need information about him."

"Is this about the dragon mask replica?"  Lord Ravage enquired, cocking his head slightly.  "Apparently that creepy glowing thing was the reason he turned against me, because I let someone else have it."

"Oh yes... 'With the power of the Mask I could live forever!' ...Wasn't that what he said?" the king put in.  "Yes, I fear that's quite possible."

"It may have been better to have executed him," R-AVG said irritably.  "A couple more rounds with that anti-mat rifle and he'd likely have killed me.  Impacts like that will eventually crack something vital in my circuitry, and then it's game over."

"Treason and attempted regicide or not, that would be politically awkward," Tavris pointed out.  "I've long suspected him of being 'Cubi.  I've used enchantments and wards to conceal my nature more effectively than my own innate powers would allow for... the problem is, so did he.  Executing a fellow 'Cubi would have Taun's clan coming to investigate and protest - hence, it was safer to exile him."

"These days, most 'Cubi are fairly open about what they are.  At least in civilised areas," Sethir said.  "No offence, majesty..."

"Oh, I was going to reveal myself eventually," Tavris said.  "Once I was sure it was safe and I wouldn't be immediately deposed or assassinated.  But then it became a habit.  Oh well, no harm done.  But I take your point... someone who is actively using their abilities for deception is someone who hasn't bought into the new order of things.
"And this could be a problem.  Now that he's no longer a royal advisor, he has no need to retain the persona of Sims.  Unless we're really lucky and that is his base form, he'll have shapeshifted and just melted away with a new identity,"

"Not necessarily," the wolf pointed out.  "If I can find traces of his fur from his quarters, we may be able to get a DNA trace from the 'Cubi Registry.  Lady Seme or Lord Daryil would have the authorisation to do this, plus anyone messing around with forbidden teleportation systems and stolen illegal androids has already committed some pretty serious crimes."

*  *  *

"'Shut up and die, beast!'" Gamma yelled, bounding down the corridor.  "Isn't that what you said?!  While you threatened to murder my master!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" R-OBN wailed, glancing back at his pursuer and running headlong into a wall as a result.  Y-RAY stood over the fallen panther and batted a paw at his head, causing the other cat to flinch.

"Ahem," a voice said.  Gamma looked up to see Niall and Jakob staring down at him with irate expressions.  The panther stood down, allowing his opponent time so recover and back against the wall.

"Be nice," Niall scolded.

"But... Sir!  He murdered me!" Gamma protested.  "Well, almost."

"That is true," the incubus conceded.  "You were clinically dead for a bit.  But remember, Robin has been murdered too, and far more completely than you were, Gamma.  We had to do a soul transfer."

"Oh, yes.  Of course," the panther said, looking abashed.

"And besides that, he's legally dead.  He's lost his home, and all his possessions too unless Daryil pulls some strings.
"Now, I know Robin has done questionable things, but he has paid a heavy price for them.  We want him to move on, and become a better person.  Driving him away because of a grudge won't help that.
"I can't ask you to love each other, but at least use the brains we gave you, and try to settle your squabble like intelligent people.  Making threatening paw gestures while yelling 'Rare!' at each other won't fix anything, will it?"

"It's lynxes that do that," Robin said.  Gamma stared back at him, confused.

"Regardless, I think Gamma is overreacting slightly," Jakob interjected.  "Robin isn't going to kill him again, and besides, this being the messed-up world that it is, assassination attempts have sometimes been the start of beautiful friendships!  Especially when Demons are involved..."

"Ooh!  Can they kiss and make up?"  Daryil asked hopefully, poking his head around the door.

"Beats me," Niall shrugged.  "That ability wasn't uppermost in our minds while designing the Mk.9 chassis."

R-OBN glanced nervously at Daryil and then back to Gamma.  He sat down and looked at the other jaguar.  "Brother panther," he started.  "We started out as enemies, but we are both on the same side now.  I am sorry for my past actions.  Can you forgive me?"

"It will take time," the other panther said, eyeing him suspiciously.  "But I will try."

"Good," Jakob said.  "I want you to at least get along, even if things are frosty.  Oh, and make sure X-RAY behaves too - otherwise Daryil might think up a team-building exercise for the three of you."

"Ooh!" Daryil said, rubbing his gloved hands together with an irritating squeaky noise.  "How about skydiving?!  We've never drop-tested the panthers before!"

"I've already apologised to X," Robin said quickly.  "I think we're even now..."

"Did I miss the fun?"  Pixie asked, trotting out from underneath Daryil.  "Maybe that's for the best."

"Gamma was trying to beat up Robin," Jakob said.  "And I still think it might be handy if we separated them while tempers are high.  Pixie, can you show Robin around or something?  Bring John as well.  If X and Gamma go off the deep end again, at least they'll be evenly matched."

"Oh!  I know!  We should totally get his claws done," Pixie said excitedly.

"How so...?" R-OBN looked uncertain, and flexed his silvery claws experimentally.  "You're not going to... remove them?" he sounded appalled.

"Certainly not," Niall retorted looking offended.  "Yes, we dulled yours down a bit because we don't quite trust you, but if we were that bothered, we'd have removed them before powering you up at all.
"No... we want the panthers to look reasonably similar - being guards - but at the same time, you deserve a way to express yourselves.  So we let you paint your claws."

"Oh," Robin said.  "That's a bit... effeminate, isn't it...?"

"We're Creatures," Niall said, waving a gloved hand.  "If we want to wear makeup, shiny gloves, high heels or paint our claws just because we think it looks cool, we do it.  Whether that fits a gender stereotype or not... that's less of a concern, unless we're actively hiding out as Beings or something.
"Dad went through a phase of blue claws for a bit, and I had mine indigo for a while, but since I prefer to wear gloves these days, I stopped bothering.
"Anyway, the point is, we don't try to suppress self-expression in quite the same way Being society sometimes does, and as such we don't want to squash individuality with the panthers either.
"But at the same time, there have to be limits.  A squad of guards will look weird and undisciplined if they're all completely different, and besides, allowing a 5-year-old who didn't naturally evolve colour vision to choose a full-body paint job, that's not going to end well.  So we went with this as a compromise.  That way, if a panther picks something that looks lurid or garish to us, that's no big deal because the claws are fairly discreet."

"I think I'll leave them as-is for now," Robin said.  "Silver is kind of badass."

"Aw," Pixie said.  "John got his done in red!"

*  *  *

Dr. Handling selected a Torx driver and inserted it carefully into the mare's right nostril.  Her eyes stared back at him, a glazed expression upon them and though he knew from both his work designing her, and his psionic abilities that she was not alive, it was still unnerving and he gently closed them.
As he turned the tool there was a faint click and the back of the horse's head came loose.  Removing it, he delicately pulled a circuit board from her skull and inspected it.

"Interesting," the badger muttered.  The bottom-left corner of the board was cracked and someone had carefully bridged the broken traces with blobs of solder and the occasional jump wire.  Some of the chips had been replaced, their serial numbers indicating a far-too recent year of manufacture.

"So... you really are the same old Trixie!  Now, my, dear... let's see what you've been up to."

So saying he plugged the card into a dusty, faded-looking machine.  It had taken him some time to dig up compatible hardware and software from the archives - 20 years had seen connectors and data formats change, but fortunately long-lived Creatures had got very good at data migration and interoperability with legacy systems.

Closing his eyes in concentration as he tried to remember how the ancient software worked, he reset Trixie's permission tables and dumped her memory core to disk.

Some time later, the badger was watching Trixie's last moments in visual format.  He wound back past the fight with the cyberjag and was soon seeing the makeshift lab which the android had been sent from.  His eyes lit up as he confirmed that Trixie had logged her FPS coordinates.

"Get me Strauss," he said over the comms.  "She'll want to see this."

[Tapewolf]

Chapter 28

"We must take care," the Demoness said, as they entered the slightly-abandoned looking building.  "This company specialises in providing premises to evil organisations.  A lucrative market, I hear - but unless they're actively working on forbidden technology it's not really our concern.  A little bit of evil makes the world go around."

"Yes, Ms. Strauss," Arthur said.  One of Daryil's fox-guards, he was now wearing black military-spec armour of the kind that R-ALF had been built into.
"But if this is Talon Corporation, I'll be ready for them." he checked the rifle one last time and smiled evilly, a gesture made invisible by the full-face helmet.

"Remember, Arthur - Do not kill anyone except as a last resort.  We want to question them."

"Affirmative," the android said.  "I've got stun rounds as well as lethal.  Though Daryil could probably question them either way."

"Good.  You check out the west wing.  I'll take the east - Keller can take the middle.  Frankly that's where I'm expecting the action will be, but I'd rather have him scout it out first before we all barge in.  Meet back here at 10:30 - if anyone is missing by then, the rest should go in after them."

*  *  *

Keller made his way stealthily into the back room, and spotted a ladder leading into the ceiling space.  His telepathic powers detected the presence of a large number of minds, all focused on something with an intensity that made his fur crawl.

Climbing the ladder he found a crawlway overlooking the dimly-lit chamber, where a large group of robed figures knelt reverently before a stone altar while the high priest intoned the litany.

Astonished, he peered down to look and lost his footing.  Wings burst out of his own robes with just enough time to break his fall, but he lay there winded as the cultists seized him.

"Take him!" the high priest commanded, a look of rapture upon his face.  "It is time!  Prepare the sacrifice... Our lord and master cannot wait!"

"You can't do this!" the snow leopard whimpered.

"Shushh!" the high priest snapped.  "You are about to partake in a glorious ceremony in obeisance to our god!"

"The Sacred Dagger!" one of the acolytes crowed, presenting a wicked-looking blade upon a satin pillow.   Keller let out a shrill scream.

"Gag him!" the high priest called.  "Tie him up!"  In short order, Keller was bound, only able to stare in terror as the blade was raised, glinting in the flickering light of the brazier.  It plunged downwards and re-emerged, dripping red.

"The Sacred Knife!" the acolyte crowed, offering up a second pillow to the altar.

"Praise be!  Praise be!" the acolytes chanted.

"It is done!" the high priest called, raising the knife on high.  The blade was wide and flat, and on it, a generous helping of strawberry gateaux oozed onto the golden platter below.   "Oh great god Bob... does this, our offering, please you...?"

"I keep telling you, I can't actually taste anything since my apotheosis," Bob said, sitting on the altar with his head resting on one hand.  "10 out of 10 for effort, though.  Except... Keller.  What is he doing here?  Why have you tied him up?"

"The interloper?  He kept disrupting the ceremony," the high priest scowled, glancing at the snow leopard with a look of distaste.  "All the screaming.  What the hell is his problem, O Lord?  Is he deophobic or something?"

"He thought you were going to sacrifice him," Bob remarked.

"What?!" the high priest looked appalled.  "What kind of maniacs does he think we are?!"

"HOLD IT!"  Arthur shouted, aiming at the high priest with his sniper rifle.  "Stop this... thing!"

"Why?"  Bob demanded angrily.  "These people are cutting a cake.  What's your problem?"

"Cake...?" Arthur lowered the rifle uncertainly and finally holstered it as Keller began to free himself with his wing-tentacles.

"Being-Creature Commission," Strauss announced, putting the lights on.  "We believe a serious crime has been committed in this unit.  As such, we were expecting to find an electronics lab here, not a... whatever this is."

"Black mass," the high priest said helpfully, pointing at a wall where the words "Cult of the Immaterial" had been hastily daubed in white paint.
"Yes, the temple's a bit sparse at the moment, but we only got the keys this afternoon."

"Oh..?"

"We had find a new temple quickly after the incident," the high priest sighed.  "I thought those funeral-goers would be happy to get their loved one back, but oh... so much screaming!  There's no gratitude in this world.
"Anyway, there is a bunch of junk left in the back room... looks like the previous tenant left in a hurry."

"Thanks," Strauss said uncertainly.  "We'll probably need to cordon that off until we've finished checking it for evidence.  In the meantime I suppose you can continue with... Whatever you're doing."

"Tea and biscuits," the high priest beamed, as an acolyte entered the room with a service trolley.   "And if you are interested in the worship of the great and mighty Bob, we have some pamphlets..."

*  *  *

"So, why did you join Talon Corporation in the first place?" Niall asked the panthers.

"Don't you already know...?" John asked suspiciously.  "You're an incubus, a mind-reader."

"Thought-reading is rude," the vulpine said.  "Yes, I am keeping an eye on your emotions, but no more than that.  Even robot panthers deserve their privacy."

"I joined first," John admitted.  "The pay was good, and since Robin was down on his luck as well I recommended him."

"I see," the incubus said.  "This wasn't your chosen career path, then, I take it."

"Talon is a last-ditch job for the desperate," Robin said.  "It's like adventuring but with fewer rules.  And like adventuring, you don't have a long life expectancy.  Especially if you're not avian - in that case you're pretty much disposable cannon-fodder."

"You were adventurers before?"

"The Bounty Project," John sighed.  "I don't know if you remember that, but it was a plot by some lunatic with a grudge, trying to discredit the adventuring guild.  And we were discredited, alright.  Kicked out of the guild for killing an innocent after someone took out a fake bounty on them."
"We were sentenced to public beheading for that," Robin shuddered, his metal tail quivering slightly at the memory.  He touched his claws to his mouth absently as if trying to lick them.  "See, the guilds are especially vicious towards rogue adventurers.  They were going to use a ceremonial sword... We only left with our necks intact because the big story broke right before the executions were scheduled.
"With the spotlight already on the guild for killing the wrong people, the public would rightly suspect us of being patsies caught up in the wider scandal.  In which case, killing us would make the guild look even worse.  So they commuted the sentence and threw us out on our ears.  I heard our branch was shuttered a few weeks later."

"Let me guess, adventuring was all you were qualified for," the incubus sighed.

"Yep.  And Talon was the next best thing."

"Well, once we trust you a bit more, I think we can offer you positions as security guards," Niall said.  "That's what the panthers are designed for, after all.  But if you want to further your education and do something a bit more ambitious, that's more than fine.  We want to ensure our creations have long and fulfilling lives, and you have plenty of time to break into some other career path."

"I'm not sure I understand you," Robin said.  "We're your captives, right?  Why would you help us if we're your enemies?  Is this some incubus trick?  You're said to be a capricious race..."

"No, it's not a trick.  See, having enemies is a pain in the ass," Niall said.  "It a waste of time and energy.  If we can convince people not to be enemies, that's far better all round than simply snipping their heads off and calling it a day.
"You see, if we can encourage you to do something productive with your lives instead of working against us, it gets you out of our hair, makes you into better people, and greatly reduces the likelihood of Daryil deciding to take those lives from you.  It's a win-win situation."

"I..." Robin said and clammed up.
"Go on," Niall said, looking at him encouragingly.

"When I was a kid I wanted to be a wildlife expert," Robin admitted, looking away with embarassment.  "Studying feral animals and keeping their habitat secure.  But we were poor... So I had to quit my studies and find work.  Take a low-skill job to provide for my family instead of studying.  And after that I was never able to get out of it..."

"Dad said you seemed to know a lot about feral cats," Niall remarked.  "Is that where it all came from?"

"Yeah.  I never thought I'd become the wildlife, though..."

*  *  *

"So, Keller and Strauss' mission was a bit of a bust," Jakob sighed.  "They found the lab where Trixie was reanimated, complete with a few pilfered spares and some 3D-printed parts like they were trying to clone her.  Plus parts of what they think is an advanced jump device.  But they have no idea who was behind it, apart from this mysterious Sims.  He signed off the hire of R-AVG for Tavris, but we never dealt with him directly... as far as we know."

"That's about the sum of it," Daryil said.  "And before you ask, I don't think we're going to get much help from Bob for a while.  He's sulking."

"He what?!"

"Strauss' mission had more fallout than you know.  The location her team raided in Porgrave turned out to be one of His temples, and as a result, Arthur had ended up threatening to shoot His worshippers.  Bob's not pleased about that and now He's sulking.
"Don't forget, Bob was 'Cubi once.  And He still retains many of those traits even after all these milennia of being an incorporeal entity.  We should be glad it's just a sulk rather than a full blown fire-and-brimstone vengeance against Strauss and Arthur.  After all, the Fae could simply erase people from existence or turn them to ashes on a whim.  I have no doubt Bob could do the same if he was so inclined."

"They caused a diplomatic incident," Jakob sighed.  "Great."

"Is it still a diplomatic incident if the aggrieved party is a deity?" Daryil pondered.

"Mmm," Jakob said, looking at this phone distractedly.  "Actually Strauss may have something after all.  She's asked to speak to us urgently."

[Tapewolf]

Chapter 29

"I have interrogated Trixie," Dr. Handling said.

"Was that wise?"  Strauss asked anxiously.  "What if she escaped?"

"Most unlikely.  I only needed to interrogate her brain, after all." the badger reminded them.  "So it was plugged into a test harness at the time."

"I see," Strauss said.  "So what did you learn?  Do you know who commandeered her?"

"Only that it was Sims, which we already guessed.  But I have been inquiring about her previous orders.  She has been rehearsing for some kind of attack."

Jakob frowned.  "Stealing Daryil's dragon artifact?  She already tried that, it's what she was attempting when she was caught."

"No... this is something new.  She has been practicing with heavy weapons.  A Taun IV rocket launcher with bunker-busting capabilities."

"Holy shit!" the wolf moaned.  "A Taun's Fist?!  You could obliterate a small town with one of those!
"Is that what you think Sims plans to do?" he added, uneasily.  "Conquer somewhere?  Take over Kelland...?  Shit... the guy had a beef with Lord Ravage!  Is he nuts enough to use a fuel-air explosive missile just to try and kill a poor panther who was only attempting to do their job?!"

"It may be worse than that," the badger said darkly.  "Given that the jump unit will allow her to enter even a heavily-warded location, I have to consider that she was being trained to attack a Tri-Wing."

"And so, Mr. Pettersohn," Dr. Handling concluded, "Since we have evidence that this Mr. Sims has already cloned Trixie's jump unit, I would suggest you warn your Lord Daryil to prepare himself for a potential assassin."

"Noted," Jakob said, his eyes starting to glow yellow.  "I will do so right now."

*  *  *

Lord Daryil sat on the hill in all his glory, his vast 50-foot Tri-Winged form clad in rubber and PVC.  The artificial daylight within his domain was filtered of ultraviolet to prevent his shiny garbs from deteriorating as rubber tends to do in full sunlight.

Arguably this was a questionable choice of attire for someone so high and powerful, but 'Cubi tend to prioritise fashion over convention, and arguably taste.  In Daryil's defence, such materials were far more practical for someone of his stature since polymers could be conjured easily and leggings were not too difficult to make at such a scale.  Had he been wearing leather jeans like his avatar forms, it would have needed several entire ranches of cattle to get enough hides.

Suddenly, there was a shimmering in the desert sand.  Daryil immediately reached down with a glowing hand as he tried to suppress the growing rent in space-time, but in vain.  The fabric of reality twisted for a moment and Ashley the lynx appeared before him, clutching a jump unit.

"No good," he called up to the tri-wing.

"Try again," Daryil boomed, and the lynx disappeared.

Shortly afterwards Ashley reappeared.  "Wait, I have an idea!" he thought.  One of Daryil's avatars appeared before him, as it was easier to converse this way.  Daryil could have probed Ashley's mind of course, but that would have been very rude.  Speaking face-to-face was less jarring as even a 'Cubi preferred having non-verbal cues.

"It's something I just remembered," he said.  "Something Syd told me when I was asking him about the jump devices when he'd been captured.  The Professor used his device to create a portal, but Syd heard him saying something about interference when Bob had also set up a portal to rescue him.  So... what if we try with two devices?  If we set up a portal here with one device, it might prevent the other device from being able to jump in."

"The Being-Creature Commission won't like it much," Daryil said.  "They were reluctant even to let us borrow the one you've got, since possession with intent to use can earn people the death penalty.  Letting us run around with two of the things will be a hard sell.  But it's definitely worth a shot, we can have the Commission supervising the experiments if it helps convince them.

"I'll try asking Dr. Handling directly as he was on the team that designed them," Ashley suggested.

"Good plan.  And if it sweetens things up, remind him that if we can establish a defence against this kind of teleportation, it's a big win for everyone!  It'll give them one less thing to worry about and hopefully mean that the technology can eventually go legit, like the cyberjags and android replicas."

*  *  *

"Maybe we're panicking over nothing," Jakob said.  "If our adversary needed an android to carry out his dirty work, that means his plan is kind of stalled for now, since he's lost Trixie.
"Even the Talon loonies would balk at something as suicidal as firing a Taun's Fist!"

"He could still get a Demon to do it," Daryil pointed out.  "Or, he may launch the missile himself if he decides he has nothing to lose..."

"But your true self is in a dimensionally-adjacent domain," Jakob said, thinking.  "While a jump device could breach it, you'd still have to know where the domain is.  And precious few people have been invited there, for obvious reasons."

"Which implies that either Sims is someone we know who's lost the plot, or that I am not their primary target after all," Daryil mused.  "But if not me, then who...?  Cyra still has a few enemies, but she's even harder to get hold of."

"Lord Daryil!"  Ashley yelled, running into the room.  "Dr. Handling has been attacked!"

*  *  *

"Lady Finch!"  Strauss roared.  "You evil bitch!"

"What the hell is this in aid of?!" the succubus demanded.  "Release me at once!  Lord Daryil shall hear of this!"

"Daryil will not save you this time," the demon snarled.  "We reluctantly allowed you into our labs, and now...  You'll be guillotined for this, as should have happened before!"

"Hello, Ms. Strauss," Daryil said quietly.  "What are you doing to my clan child...?"

Strauss turned on her heels, anger tempered by caution in the presence of Daryil's avatar.

"This clan-child of yours has assaulted my staff and stolen Trixie!"

"Unlikely," Daryil said.

"But we have video evidence..."

"'Cubi are shapeshifters, you moron!"  Finch yelled.

"While it could have been put more tactfully, Albeth is correct," Daryil said.  "But I had best make absolutely sure.  I apologise for this invasion," he added.

The wolf succubus shivered as something happened in her mind, as her clan leader sorted through her recent thoughts and memories.  She flinched.

"It's not her," he announced.  "She has been in your break room the whole time."

"See?"  Finch snapped.  "Now let go of me."

Strauss complied unhappily.  "Lord Daryil, I sincerely hope you are not just saying this to save her neck."

"She is still technically on probation," Daryil pointed out.  "If she should betray us, then you'll be the first to know.  But in this, Lady Finch is innocent, and has made great strides in redeeming herself, I might add.  Like it or not, her interests are now aligned with ours.
"From what we've already established, this Sims has already visited Handling's Lab on the pretext of hiring an android to protect King Tavris.  And that means he knows the coordinates to warp back there.  He should be your number one suspect, not Albeth."

"Let me see Dr. Handling," the wolf succubus pleaded.  "With an escort if necessary."

"I would like to question him myself," Daryil said.  "Albeth, you are welcome to attend if he will allow it."

*  *  *

"Sir... Are we the bad guys?" panther X-RAY asked worriedly.

"What makes you say that?"  Dorcan asked.

"Well, we're painted gloss black, we have red glowing eyes, sharp teeth and vicious claws," the panther said, waving a sharp-taloned paw for emphasis.  "And on top of that, we serve demons - begging your pardon, sir.  That makes us evil, right?"

"No more so than a wild panther in its natural habitat," the Doberman said.  "Arguably less so, since you have lot more free will, empathy and reasoning.
"You may have noticed that we 'Cubi like shiny black things," he added, gesturing with a rubber-gloved hand.  "And for what it's worth, we want you to look a bit menacing as you're supposed to be security guards.  If we'd painted skulls on you, or sharp, pointy logos, then... yeah.  I'd be worried about that too."

"That's true," the panther admitted.

"Now, I can't outright tell you that you're a good panther, since if I was evil, you can't trust what I say, right?  As it happens I'm like most people here - I try to do good, but I'm not perfect, and I've done things I regret.

"But if you want my advice, consider this...  The fact that you're asking these questions at all, that means you're worried about doing wrong.  And you're not just worried about being punished, you're approaching it from a desire to be a good person.
"And that speaks very highly of you, by any useful moral framework."

"I guess you're right," the cyberjag said.  "Thank you, sir."

"Any time," Dorcan said, as the panther trotted away, looking a lot happier.

*  *  *

"Albeth?" the badger asked nervously.

"Yes, it's me," the succubus replied.  "Lord Daryil can testify to that.  Are you alright, Alexandar?"

"Shaken, but not too bad," Handling said.  "The healers have done a good job but I'll need a day or two to recover, I think.
"For what it's worth, you got me better the first time.  Your doppelganger may have taken your face, but fortunately they didn't imitate your fighting style too well."

"Strauss assumed it was me," Lady Finch growled.  "The cheek of it."

"Our clan was found guilty of violating their laws and treaties," the badger reminded her.  "That's not exactly a trust-building exercise."

"The past is the past," Daryil said.  "But I'm afraid I must now ask you about the present, Dr. Handling."

"Y-You're the Lord Daryil," the badger stammered.

"In avatar, yes.  And before you apologise or anything, I hold no grudge against you for your part in creating Trixie."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Handling admitted.

"Very well.  Now... I need to know everything you remember about Sims, both in and out of his Finch disguise."

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

"Sir... Are we the bad guys?" panther X-RAY asked worriedly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU

Nuff said. ;-]

[Tapewolf]

Chapter 30

"Did you learn anything from Dr. Handling?"  Jakob asked.

"Not much more than we have already established, that he's probably a Jyraneth," Daryil admitted.  "But since he was disguised as Lady Finch at the time, we don't have a huge amount to go on.  Anything much happen here?"

"I have sent R-ALF to Kelland, just in case Sims tries to return there now his sanctuary in Porgrave is known," Jakob said.  "I'm hoping we'll be getting a report back from him soon...  In fact, he's overdue.  I'll call Strauss, see if she's heard anything."

"Ah, Mr. Pettersohn," the tigress demon said.  "I was about to call you myself.  Bad news, I'm afraid... they got away again.  They also took out R-ALF... but we've got Trixie back, at least."

"What happened to R-ALF?!"  Jakob asked.  "Is he okay?  What happened to him?"

"I'm not sure," Strauss said.  "But I can tell you this - Trixie wasn't the only thing Sims took from us.  He also had a remote.  And because of the safeties that we insisted on... well.  He didn't stand much of a chance."

"But you have a remote too," Daryil said, looking surprised.  "You know how to reactivate him."

"He hasn't said anything or moved, and I'm getting weird readings and error messages that I don't understand," the Demon said, looking concerned.  "But I'm not an expert.  I've no doubt you'll be able to bring him round.  Right now, Dr. Handling has been investigating.  He should be resting, but he insisted."

"Very well," Daryil said.  "But we'll want R-ALF back here.  And Trixie."

"No.  Trixie goes back to the Commission," Strauss said firmly.  "To be destroyed.  I won't have her causing yet more chaos the next time that bastard finds a chink in our defences."

"Seems a shame somehow," Daryil said wistfully, "Being an historic artifact..."

"She's dangerous and must be scrapped," Strauss insisted.

"If you erase history, no-one will learn from it," Daryil shrugged.  "But at the end of the day, she's commission property, so ultimately it's your decision."

*  *  *

"One of the panthers was muttering something about his brains earlier," Yvonne said.  "Is that normal...?"

"Pretty much," Niall said.  "Some of them get a bit obsessive and protective about their brain circuitry.  Which is understandable - any other component can be replaced and it's just a spare part, but the brain is the centre of consciousness, requiring sophisticated and energy-intensive magic to transfer the mind safely.  So if your brain was legally someone else's property, you'd want to be reassured about their long-term plans for it too."

"I wonder if I could rob..." Keller began.

"Brain removal isn't even theft, Kell, that's straight up murder," Amanti warned him.  "Don't do it."

"We are allowed to seriously injure you in self-defence," Panther E-ZRA reminded Keller.

"It was just a passing thought," Keller sighed.  "I'm running out of things to steal again.  But about the panthers... I know you're a fear clan, but do you really want them running around on tenterhooks the whole time?  Wouldn't a bunch of cowardly panthers be rather ineffective as guards?  To say nothing of being cruel!"

"It's not like that," Ezra said.  "They say that Beings value their shorter lives less than Creatures do, and take more risks because Creatures, with their longer lifespans, believe they have more to lose.
"The same reasoning goes for us.  We're not cowards, but we do fear death.  I don't want to lose my synthetic panther brain!
"So the fact that we've got these tough armoured shells just means that we get a bit obsessive about the idea of people being able to crack the armour open or get to our delicate insides somehow.  We don't have very much in the way of self-repair... an organic can heal up, but not us, so we can get twitchy about the idea of component failure.
"Or someone being able to crash our systems through the fancy armour with some kind of directed energy weapon.   No... If I have to die, I want my death to make a difference so my sacrifice is not in vain.  I don't want to be executed or murdered out of hand!"

"That sounds like paranoia to me," Keller remarked.

"Somewhat," Niall said.  "We had an incident a while back where one of Daryil's pranks got out of hand.  But that's pretty much cleared up now.  We do offer therapy to anyone who really needs it, however - we do want our panthers to be happy."

"Part of it is, you have a lot of old science-fiction," Panther A-SMV put in.  "Stories written by my namesake about positronic robots who end up recycled after they have been rendered obsolete, stories where their brains are deliberately destroyed by the protagonist because they've gone off the rails.  There's a lot in that vein, and then you have all these songs like The Angel's Tear or Lost in the New Real where the protagonist's electronic mind is deleted at the end or something.  With a backdrop like that, is it any wonder we can get a little nervous about our future prospects?"

"Well," Niall said, "In the end, nothing is certain in life.  At some point you do just have to put some measure of your trust in your creators.  Besides there's not much inherently different about you being cybernetic...  A warp aci is at the mercy of their summoner and the spells holding them together could be dispelled at a moment's notice.  An undead construct is similarly dependent on magics cast by another.  And for that matter, there are still serfs and slaves in parts of the world, Beings in thrall to a powerful Creature or even another Being... a noble lord who could rob them of their head or soul for any reason.  Or none at all."

"I don't know if that's supposed to make us feel better, or worse," A-SMV admitted.

"I remember the before times," D-AVD interjected.  "It's been centuries, but sometimes I still get flashbacks.  You don't know how lucky you are.  Here, you are loved by your creators and the Being-Creature Commission insists on making sure that you get rights and protections.  My original creators in Auretica... we were just tools to them, just mere property!  Artifacts with no rights whatsoever, and if we stepped out of line, we could be scrapped immediately and without trial."

"Property.... " Niall murmured vacantly.  "Brain scrapped without trial..."

"What...?" D-AVD looked concerned.  "Who?!  What are you talking about?!  And how is that supposed to reassure Asimov here...?"

"You lot are safe, but I've just had a very nasty thought," Niall said, anxiously.  "I have to talk to Lord Daryil immediately.  I'll explain later."  So saying, he disappeared.

*  *  *

Strauss fanned out in shock as the Lord Daryil suddenly materialised inside her office.

"Where is Trixie?!" he demanded angrily.

"In a top-security area for decommissioning," Strauss said, eyeing Daryil suspiciously.  "And no, you cannot have her.  She is condemned as a dangerous and forbidden android."

"I need to examine her," Daryil said.  "Right now.  It's an emergency."

"But it's a top-security!  I'd have to clear that with my..."

"Listen, I don't have time for this," Daryil informed her curtly.  "I need to check something urgently or people will die.  If that body count happens to include my allies, I will have your hide.  Oh, and tell Handling to stay the hell away from R-ALF, just in case I'm right."

"My Lord Daryil, must I remind you that you are in Commmission territory...?"  Strauss snapped, looking extremely offended.  "Clan Leader or not, you have no right to suddenly invade my office and make threats or demands without even the courtesy of a preliminary video call..."

Ignoring her, Daryil shimmered slightly and did a swan-dive, phasing clean through the floor.  Strauss hit the panic button on her watch and ran down the stairs, along the corridors to the decomissioning facility.  She fumbled with the keycard desperately as the guards arrived behind her, but there were already shouts and raised voices coming from within.

Inside, they found a crowd of workers huddling against the wall in terror, one lying unconscious.  Next to the smelting machinery, Daryil was crouched on the ground, tenderly clutching Trixie's head, and staring at the equine android's face with a look of sheer fury.

"Lord Daryil," Strauss demanded, "Put Trixie's head down!  Or my men will be forced to shoot!"

Daryil turned to her with a look of supreme annoyance.  "We don't have much time," he said thickly.  "Kindly put me through to Dr. Handling, and make it fast."

"Milord, you are causing a diplomatic incident," the Demon said beseechingly. 

"So are you," Daryil retorted.  "Get me Dr. Handling now, or you'll be sorry!"

"Please be reasonable," the Demon continued.  "You are trespassing in a high-security area of this facility and attempting to steal highly dangerous Commission property.  Anyone else would already have been shot for a security breach like this!  Please, just put the android down.  Surely we can talk this over...?"

"First save Handling," Daryil demanded.  "Patch him through NOW, before you turn an emergency into a catastrophe and a multiple lawsuit.  Because at this rate I'll be only too happy to testify."

"Very well, I will patch Dr. Handling through," the Demon sighed.  "But if you try to escape, we'll be forced to shoot your avatar."

"If it comes to it, aim for the head," she muttered, punching a few codes into her wrist-watch.

"Daryil's head, or the robot's?" the guard asked quietly.

"Both."

"I heard that," Daryil snapped.  "Now listen to me...  all of you!  This head isn't..."

"What is up, Ms. Strauss?"  Dr. Handling asked, distractedly as his face appeared on the wallscreen.  "This isn't a good time... I've just managed to get R-ALF powered up.  There was a loose connection.  How he was working before, I really wish I knew..."

"No!"  Daryil wailed desperately.  "Alexandar, run!  Get away from them!  Get out of there!  Please!"

"What's the matter?!" the badger asked.  "Surely Ralf isn't likely to..."

"My name is Trixie," R-ALF said, rising from the workbench and stretching out his hands in front of him.  "I must terminate you."

[Merlin]

"My name is Trixie," R-ALF said, rising from the workbench and stretching out his hands in front of him.  "I must terminate you."

aaaaAAAAAAA HYPE

[Tapewolf]

aaaaAAAAAAA HYPE

This one had a very Fourth Doctor feel in that Daryil is running around trying to avert a catastrophe and people just won't listen until it's too late.  It took a little tweaking to get it to flow right.

[Tapewolf]

Chapter 31

Hugging Trixie's head to his chest, Daryil turned and ran.  A shot rang out and he collapsed, a red stain splattered against the wall behind him, and the equine head tumbled from his grasp to bounce heavily across the floor.

"No!"  Strauss screamed, and ran to the fallen incubus.  "What have you done?!"

"But Ms. Straus, you said..."

The tigress demon examined the Tri-Wing's body, drawing a sharp breath at the mess made of his head, a hole punched cleanly through it such that she could see out the other side of his skull.

"Shit, shit, shit," she muttered.  "We're dead."

Daryil stirred.  "Once upon a time there were three little sisters," he began.

"You... you're alive...?  Can you hear me...?" Strauss asked, terrified.

"Yes, thank you Professor," Daryil said.  His eyes weren't facing the same direction.

"I thought... I thought this was just a puppet, though..." Strauss said.  "Brain damage shouldn't..."

"Local processing," Daryil said, sitting up, uncrossing his eyes and placing a hand to his ruined head.  "I can make these things operate autonomously, like when I rescued the Dragon.  Having to override it for now.  Incidentally, that hurt."

"Please, please don't kill him!" Strauss begged.  "It's my fault!  I didn't cancel the order..."

"Save your apologies for Handling," Daryil said, standing up unsteadily.  "Or his next of kin.  If he's not dead, get guards.  Either way, extract him.  Do not engage Trixie!
"I am instructing the panthers to attack her and will warp them in via the public entrance.  Send your thug to escort them, or at least have him do something more useful than murdering his elders and betters."

"Go!  Go!" Strauss said, shooing the terrified guard out of the room.

Sitting cross-legged, Daryil studied the equine head, and extruded a wing-tentacle which he fashioned into a hex driver and inserted into their nose.  There was a click and the skull swung open as he pulled.  Inside was the black box of a Jayhawk cyber-brain.

"Alas, poor Ralf," Daryil said, turning the precious device over in one hand, before pocketing it.
"See what your goons were doing?  If your people had incinerated his brain, or shot it, we would be having a very different conversation," he added sharply.  "One all about corporate manslaughter and individual murder charges.  As a Tri-Winged incubus, and thereby eerily close to a supervillain, I am quite an accomlished lawyer - and the Commission has itself laid the groundwork for Ralf's death to be considered a felony murder."

"I am extremely sorry," Strauss said.  "I thought you were trying to resurrect Trixie or something..."

"I am unsure why," Daryil said.  "If we wanted an evil death robot, we are more than capable of making them.  You know that."

Straus looked away.  "You might have been Sims in disguise.  Besides, as you have sometimes said, the more powerful a Creature is, the less predictable they are," she pointed out awkwardly.  "You are a power far beyond me, and I cannot trust you will always act in ways I can comprehend."

"Good points," Daryil admitted.  "Plus the whole supervillain chic, I suppose."

"Milord," Strauss asked nervously, "I had understood that you have multiple avatars... Is this one really so important to you?  Could you not have brought more to battle Trixie?"

"Usually, yes.  However, I... Uh, decapitated them."

Strauss blinked at him uncertainly.

"No, it's not some kind of death fetish," Daryil added hastily.  "I built an obstacle course filled with death traps for my own amusement, a live-action Cheese Raider thing.  Three avatars gives me three lives, see?  Unfortunately one got crushed, and I lost two to the tunnel blades.  One of them had their head fall into the lava after the tunnel blades...  Long story short, it will take a while to rebuild them.
"In the meantime, besides the avatar you just shot, I do have a cyberjag I can remote into, and I've sent that to oversee the other panthers.
"From this I can reassure you that while Dr. Handling is hurt, he is still alive, probably because Trixie isn't yet used to her new body and was clumsy in her attempts to dispatch him.
"So I'd best go and heal him if that's acceptable to you.  And straight after that, I will have to attend to our other casualty."

*  *  *

"Urgh," the cyberwolf said.  "This can't be good.  I feel so small..."  he tried to stand up and immediately toppled over.

"Wha... back on all fours, am I?" he asked plaintively.  "Just when I was getting used to having hands.  That's not fair!  What did I do wrong...?
"I thought I'd been a good boy...  But if you're here..." he quavered, noticing Daryil.

"You have been good.  It's Sims who did wrong," Daryil said.  "He popped your brain out, and put it into Trixie.  You were very nearly thrown into the furnace, Ralf."

"Then where is... Oh shit," the cyberwolf said, scrabbling to his feet.  "You mean... he put that killing machine into... a killing machine?!" he finished lamely.

"Precisely.  Our opponent now has a blackmetal armoured wolf-furre controlled by an emotionless computer program that slaughtered a dozen people in Marlbury a few short years ago.
"And to make matters worse, the safety overrides are built into your brain - not your body's chassis.  This means we can't use the kill-switch on Trixie...  We may well have to destroy your body to take her down."

"Do I get another one?" R-ALF queried, and looked at his paws.  "I guess not, right?"

"Not yet," Daryil said.  "Upgrading you scared the Being-Creature Commission enough to begin with.  Now your body has gone AWOL as an unstoppable death-bot, they're pulling the plug on the anthro-cyberwolf project.  Sorry, you're going to have to stay as a feral again, at least for now."

"Figures.  It was fun while it lasted," the wolf sighed.  "This is why we can't have nice things."

"Quite, so I'm afraid.  While you have performed admirably, unfortunate circumstances beyond my control force me to withdraw my offer to make you my elite guard, at least until the situation has calmed down for a while.
"That said, we might be able to get you a more basic android body if you like..."

"Thanks, but I'd like to keep the armour, if that's all the same."

"No worries.  I will arrange some kind of reward as compensation.  Meanwhile, I need to know as much as you can remember about Sims."

*  *  *

"I must terminate you," Trixie intoned, grabbing one of the cyberjags and attempting to pull him in half.  When this failed, the android grabbed their target by the head and tried to twist it from his shoulders.

Meanwhile the other panthers all leaped at the armoured figure, trying to knocking him back, only to be batted away by powerfully gauntleted hands.

Extending his claws, CyberDaryil grasped the robotic wolf's head and teased at it with his talons until eventually there was a snap and the top of the warrior's head popped open.

Backing off and leaping, he tried to bring the android down, but in vain.  "Together!" he commanded, and three other panthers leaped with him, finally causing their opponent to overbalance.

Daryil's feline form jumped on top of the android, but was bodily lifted and thrown against the wall with a crash that dented it.  The warrior robot rolled over and began to pick themselves up.

Seizing his chance, Gamma tugged at the top of the head, pulling the flap open before a fist slammed into his own head and knocked him to the ground.   X batted the inside of the robot's head with his paws, and was promptly grabbed and flipped over.
Gamma and Robin jumped onto the android's chest to try and prevent him getting back on his feet, sinking their teeth into the joints of his shoulders in the hopes that they would either be able to disable that limb, or at least use it to hold on and weigh the renegade wolf down.

X jumped at the opening of the head, swiping and scratching with his paws until there was finally a terminal-sounding crunch and a small chunk of green circuitry flew out.

Trixie froze, and the cyberjag lashed out again, this time causing the entire CPU card to pop out of the skull and skitter across the floor.  Trixie slumped, their lupine mouth hanging open, the red glow fading from the cyberwolf's eyes.  Just to be sure, Gamma picked up the card with his paws and bit it viciously, splintering the phenolic resin substrate and destroying his foe's brain.

"Eww", X said.  Gamma looked at the defunct android and at the destroyed brain module, and an appalled expression crossed his features as a new thought occurred to him.

"Does that... Does it make me a murderer?"  He asked plaintively.

"No," Panther-Daryil said.  "No mind, no murder.  Your actions have helped save a number of lives, Gamma.  Though admittedly eating her brain was a little distasteful... That may have been overkill.  Still, it got the job done, and you will be rewarded well for that.  All of you."

"Is it over?"  Strauss asked, entering the room cautiously.

"Yes," Panther-Daryil said.  "For now, at least.  The brain module on the floor... Trixie's real brain - that should definitely go into the furnace, under armed guard.  The chassis...  We'll have to figure out who gets custody of it."

"The Commission," Strauss insisted.  "Ralf's approval is withdrawn - that chassis is no longer legal to possess."

"Normally, I'd agree.  Unfortunately, Sims has proven frighteningly adept at liberating things from your secure storage," Panther-Daryil pointed out, gesturing with a purple-taloned paw.
"So at this time, I'm afraid I don't put much trust in your ability to keep that chassis safe."

"But..." Strauss protested.  Daryil held up his paw in a shushing gesture.

"I know, I know - you don't trust me either," he said.  "So here's my proposal.  We split the chassis up, and spread the key components across multiple sites.  Your vaults, my vaults, Fairwater's vaults and anyone else we have a working relationship with.  If I don't know who those other entities are, so much the better.
"Having parts of it scattered will at least slow down anyone trying to put it back together."

"That is sensible," Strauss agreed.  "Our main concern is to deny access to the chassis until things are more settled.  Niall and Handling can attend to this task, and I shall figure out how to relocate the pieces."

"All this sounds horribly like cutting up a traitor's corpse so it can be displayed in all corners of the land," Robin pointed out uncertainly.  "But it may be the safest approach."

[Merlin]

Aw poor Ralf

[Tapewolf]

Chapter 32

"Sit down, Mr. Morgenthau," the arctic wolf said, pulling up a chair and then sitting down himself.  "How was your journey?" he added.

"So so," the jackal replied.  "It's been a while since I've had to use the rail system, and I can't say it's improved since then."

"Why am I not surprised...?" the wolf said.  "Okay then, let's get down to business.  I've read your resume over a few times, and there are a few things I'd like to clarify."

"In what way?" Morgenthau asked, a faint ripple of anxiety crossing his features and causing his wings to flutter.

"Well, you've put your race down as 'Demon'..."

The jackal's face screwed up in frustration.  Not again!  "It's not like that..."  He straightened up slightly, eyeing the wolf suspiciously.  "Wait a minute.  Your managing director is a Demon..."

"No, it's not like that.  You can be quite candid with me, we're an equal opportunity employer.  What I want to know is this - why did you put 'Demon' down?  Why not 'Cubi?"

Morgan froze.  "You... knew?"

A pair of grey, feathery wings briefly appeared above Ausmann's head.  "Not until we actually met," he said.  "But you're hardly the first person to have misrepresented their race in that way.  Everyone seems to want to be a Demon."

"So, does that mean I'm out of the running?" Morgenthau asked, the horns on his head shimmering and becoming a pair of leathery head-wings.

"Not for something like that," Ausmann told him.  "This isn't exactly my true form either and it would be idiotic to fault you for something I'm doing myself.  Gods know, there are enough loonies out there who still want to 'kill all the monsters'.

"My real name is Jakob, by the way.  You can call me that or 'Dr. Ausmann' if you prefer... but I'm digressing.  I want to know about your real past.  How much of your resume is actually true?

"Everything that's related to the job is true," Morgenthau said.  "I did design the infrastructure for the Llaefskael Falls power plant and all my references are genuine apart from the fact that I took a Demon form.
"After all, it would be a bit stupid to apply for a job I couldn't manage now, wouldn't it?" he pointed out.

"Good.  You certainly seem to be qualified, but I'm a little more concerned about your personal life, such as it may impact your job.  Equal opportunity we may be, but I find it rather difficult to trust someone who has a history of multiple murders, unless I can be sure they are truly reformed.
"And..." Here it comes, Morgenthau thought, "...I will need to know what your clan is."

The jackal sunk into his chair, radiating misery, defeat and a small amount of fear.

"Oh dear, oh dear." Jakob said, looking at him in concern.  His own headwings had emerged.  "Is it that bad?"

"Jyraneth," he said.  Jakob winced.  "That's... different.  I ask this anyway, but in your case it's all the more important.  Roughly how many souls have you eaten or otherwise destroyed?"

Morgenthau buried his face on the desk.  "About six," he said.  "Maybe a few more."  Jakob did not reply for a few moments, and the jackal felt a stinging sense of disapproval and disgust.

"When was this?" Jakob asked, trying hard to keep his voice level.

"About eight hundred years ago," he replied.
"Oh yes, and I'll need your true age," Jakob told him, making a note.  "Do you want to tell me about it?  Who were your victims and were the circumstances?"

"I'm a bit over 1200 years old," the jackal said.  "And frankly, no, I don't want to talk about it..."
Jakob put the pen down upon the table and folded his hands with a solemn expression.

"...But I have to if I want the job, don't I?", Morgenthau continued.

"I'm afraid so," said the wolf.  "Everything you tell me now will be company-confidential, of course... I do not abuse my employees - or prospective employees.  The Lord Daryil is likely to express interest in your past as well."

"All right," Morgan said, and took a moment or two to compose himself.  "Most of them were slaves," he began.  "As you may know, my clan believed that Beings were worthless heathens who were entirely expendable once they turned about 20.  We were taught from an early age how to kill, and we learned how to trap or consume the souls of our prey almost as soon as we had sufficient skill and power.
"Slaves who had disobeyed, or who were otherwise surplus to requirements..." he hesitated and studied the desk in intricate detail.  "Well... we were taught how to do soul-stealing on them."

Jakob began to study the same patch of desk in a similar manner and his ears appeared to be turning red.  "Who else?" he asked, expressionlessly.

"I lost my parents when I was younger, they were both killed raiding a village.  My father was a respected member of the clan and I inherited his wealth and his mansion.
"One of my slaves knocked over a vase that belonged to him, a precious keepsake with many fond memories attached... I was beyond rage and I... I ate him..." the jackal sobbed.

Jakob placed a hand on his shoulder.  "One thing I will say, you regret it.  That counts for a lot with me.  And besides, I don't think the Jyraneth were terribly good at controlling their emotions."

"I've tried to put it behind me," he said.  "After the Lady's empire fell, after I came home to find the city destroyed and everyone gone or slaughtered... I wandered for many years, trying to find myself.
"You can't know how it was before that.  We were brought up... indoctrinated... every facet of our day-to-day life was saturated with the Lady's doctrines and prophecies.  I grew up thinking all this was normal.  It wasn't until afterwards... without her constant influence over my life, I began to look at it more critically, and I... I didn't like what I saw."

Morgan looked up at Jakob with a penetrating stare.  "You, Jakob.  Have you never looked back on the things you did when you were younger and wished you hadn't done them?  Wished you hadn't been so headstrong and foolish?"

"Frequently," the wolf sighed.  "I may be slightly younger than you, but I was a cruel tyrant for part of my life.  I can't say that I was entirely possessed of my wits then, but... it was inexcusable.  Some people still want to make me pay for things they think I did then... things I haven't actually done at all - that's why I created this persona for PR functions and interviewing people, for my own protection, really."

"How did you escape the Harla'Keth massacre, by the way?" he added suddenly.

Morgan looked at him, curiously.  "You do seem to have done your homework."  His ears drooped for a moment.  "You... you're... a Kamei'Sin...?" he whispered, horrified.  If this 'Jakob' is one of our ancient enemies, I'll be lucky to get out alive, never mind the job...

"No, no, no," the wolf said, trying to placate him.  "I know a few Kamei'Sin members, but I've also met a number of surviving Jyraneth.  Most of them have abandoned the Lady's teachings now and made something more profitable of their lives, though one of them is still a bit of a tearaway... Salem's daughter, if that name means anything to you.

"Yet, as you say, the Jyraneth members were mostly a product of their environment rather than being innately, unconditionally wicked.  So, in many ways... I pity them.  But anyway, back to you.  How did you escape?  Did you flee the city before or during the attack?"

"I was in Ashalenys province," Morgan said.  "I dunno what you know about the Fall, but those were terrible times.  A child was killed and that shook Lady Jyraneth to the core, for all her tri-winged glory.  She wouldn't shut up about all the portents and how it marked the End of the World.
"And when the Lady quailed, the whole clan quailed with Her.  The entire city began falling apart, the people cowering in fear for weeks and months, or was it years...?  All waiting for the apocalypse instead of getting on with their lives and keeping the city going.  Roads fell apart.  The streets were not swept.   Slaves starved to death because there was no food for them.  And some of the territories we'd conquered..."

"They saw their chance to break away while the leadership floundered, right?" Jakob said.

"Pretty much.  But Jyraneth - or perhaps one of Her advisors - whoever it was, they weren't so blinded by the omens that they couldn't foresee that happening and take measures.  There was a rebellion in Ashalenys and I was sent there to lead a punitive expedition.  Our orders were to execute the leaders of the rebellion and bring the province to heel.  That accounts for the other souls as well, I'm afraid," he said.  "We came back to find the city in ruins and narrowly avoided being captured by the Kamei'Sin..."

There was a tapping sound.  Jakob walked over to a filing cabinet and pulled open a drawer.  A winged head popped out of it and looked around, blinking in the sudden light.
"It's hot in here," Daryil said.  "Hello there!" he grinned, turning to Morgan.

"Can you make him cry again?" the fox asked Jakob, "That was cool!"  Jakob pushed the head back into the drawer and locked it shut.

"Was.. that..."

"May I present my Clan Leader, Lord Ikaarion Daryil?" Jakob said.  "He is a major stakeholder in Jayhawk and wanted to sit in on your interview.  He seems to have chosen a particularly poor way of doing so, though."  One of the lower drawers opened itself and a hand appeared, making a rude gesture.

"Behave yourself, Milord," Jakob said loudly, "Or I'll tell him why you're not allowed to visit Q&B stores anymore."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Daryil said, phasing out of the filing cabinet and looking at the jackal with a more serious expression.  "Now, then.  As you may be aware, I have taken a keen interest in Jyraneth clan members, and the rehabilitation thereof.  As Jakob says, your regrets make you a promising candidate for this, if you truly wish to find redemption for your misspent youth."

"Thank you, Milord.  I would like that, if you are willing to aid one such as me.  But I must tell you now that my purposes in coming here were threefold.  I have information for you... I beg a boon, and... well, I could really do with the job."

"Very well," Daryil said.  "Tell me this information, and I shall give your boon due consideration."

"Recently, I fell in with two other Jyranth.  One of these was Ingar, son of Neremath and Salomere.  He had a plan to bring about the Lady's return.  And when that failed, he conceived a new plan... to destroy her."

"Holy fuck," Jakob said, appalled.  "Is that it?  Sims was Ingar all along?!"

[Merlin]

oooooooooooooooooooooooh

[Tapewolf]

Chapter 33

"Tell me everything," Daryil said intently.  "I don't know what boon you want, but your chances are dramatically increasing."

"I just want to find my son," Morgan said.  "I believe he is in your protection.  As you say, you have helped many Jyranth survive in this brave new world."

"I will do what I can," the Tri-wing promised.  "And for this information I can also try to smooth over your past if you need that, or provide sanctuary if I cannot.  Just tell me everything you know about Sims."

"Sims...?"  Morgan looked surprised.  "Yes, he was the other Jyranth.  But I really came to tell you about Ingar."

"So they are different people?"  Jakob looked confused.  "I guess I jumped to conclusions there."

"Yes.  His real name is Silas Keretuke Jyranth."

"Amanti's family?"  Jakob looked surprised.  "It's a small world."

"With totalitarian regimes it's often the case that they denounce their enemies for doing something unpleasant they are actually doing themselves," Daryil pointed out.  "And the Jyraneth tended to harp on about the Kamei'Sin clan being inbred, so their own bloodline is rather... well, narrow."

Morgan glanced at Daryil, headwings fanning out slightly, but not daring to speak.

"A common misconception," Daryil said.  "While members of my clan may have relationships, those are usually recreational and besides, most of them are same-sex which rather prevents inbreeding.
"DNA analysis also helps keep things straight - if the two parties are from very different branches of the clan it is unlikely to cause trouble.  And for actively making the clan bigger, we often partner with Beings, a practice forbidden by the Lady Jyraneth on pain of decapitation.  This decree did not help the clan grow in a healthy manner, though without her to police it the situation appears to be correcting itself," he added, nodding at Morgan.

"Sims and Ingar..." Jakob sighed.  "I suspect we'll need to know about both of them, if they are in this plot together..."

"I think we should take this elsewhere," Daryil said,  "Morgan, as far as I am concerned, you have the job.  Now, come with us, and we will need to talk about these two miscreants."

"And my son," Morgan reminded them.  "You may not think highly of me as an absentee father, but that is my price. I want to know that he is at least safe."

*  *  *

"Now then," Daryil said, as he sat back in the chair of his own office.  Jakob had swapped out his business dress for something more comfortable using ancient 'Cubi magic, and was sat next to the Jyraneth to avoid it looking too much as though Morgan was on trial.

"If your son is Nicklaus Worthing, he is studying at our school.  I can certainly ask him to see you, however I can't promise that he will necessarily want to.  As you say, absentee father.  He doesn't know you from Adam and that is going to take a lot to repair.
"I should also remind you that he was brought up as a Being, and finds his clan abhorrent so do not expect that to provide you a common interest.  Conversely, Jyranth herself declared him to be an abomination and sentenced him to death by decapitation as a heretic."

"What?!" the Jyranth looked appalled.  "No!"

"A clan leader can visit young clan members in their dreams.  This has happened to him on numerous occasions during his youth, and it was not a pleasant experience.  He has now joined the renegade Ja'Fell group and they have hidden him from her sight."

"I see." Morgan sounded relieved.  "That is something I may have to consider for myself.  Yes, I know some of this.  Ingar didn't say much about the details, just that some Jyraneth foundling the same age as my son, who looked like the mother... That this kid had been there when his plan to revive The Lady went sour."

"Why didn't you at least visit him?"  Jakob asked.  "Leaving him entirely to his own devices was a cruel thing to do, though to be fair, I think it has probably made a better person of him."

"I couldn't," Morgan said sadly.  "I got into a fight.  It was self-defence, but I... well, Raider reflexes.  I took out the person behind him as well.  Who would believe one of Jyranth's Raiders that it was an accident?  I barely escaped the guillotine and Fairwater will still put me back under the blade if I show my headwings there."

"You mean... You literally escaped?"

"There was a breakout by one of the other prisoners, a Hyth clan 'Cubi on death row.  I managed to get away too in the confusion."

"Hmm," Jakob said.  "We can probably convince Fairwater, but the Queen will not let it go so easily.  We are close allies of Fairwater - in fact, I helped enthrone them."

"No!" the terrified jackal yelped.  "Please... don't send me back there!  She'll take my head!  I don't want to die!"

Daryil outstretched a wing-tentacle and grabbed the Jyranth's head by the hair.  Fearing immediate decapitation the jackal keened in terror.  A second wing-tentacle appeared and flashed out briefly.

"Did you have to?"  Jakob asked.  "Delicious as his terror is, you're being mean, Daryil."

"Fear clan.  And he's got a lot to answer for," the Tri-Wing pointed out.  "But no, I am just taking his hair, not his head.  You see, Morgan, your suspected child is studying in Fairwater territory.
"Your outstanding death warrant there complicates matters greatly, so before we attempt the legal and political contortions needed to keep your head attached, I intend to perform a DNA test to make sure we are not chasing our tails."

"And if he isn't my son?"

"I am a fair man,"  Daryil said, "And you seem to have made good progress reforming yourself.  These strands of your hair will allow me to query the 'Cubi registry.  It will not only allow us to see if Nick is your child, but may provide other candidates if he is not.  In addition I will attempt to get your date with madame guillotine cancelled, or at least reduced to a suspended death sentence."

"Thank you, Milord.  And now... as promised, I will tell you what I know of Ingar and Sims."

*  *  *

Morgan paused, thinking about where to begin.

"Perhaps I should start by telling you what we know already," Daryil said.  "I have contacts with numerous Jyraneth clan members, with an eye to reforming them into productive citizens rather than fodder for the guillotine."

Morgan looked away guiltily.

"Besides Keaton Jyraneth, I have a formal alliance with the Ja'Fell clan, who as you may know, are a group of renegade Jyraneth who renounced the Lady's evil ways and do not wish to be counted among them.  As mentioned, Nicklaus - who we believe to be your son - has joined them.
"Ingar and Amalia were born into this group, but became enamoured with the Jyraneth way and went rogue, abandoning the teachings of peace."

"After murdering a band of adventurers, they were discovered by clan-father Mordrith, who expelled them and would likely have killed them for their crimes had I not intervened.
"Over the follwing two decades, Ingar and Amalia embarked upon a plan to seek out The Lady and revive her, bringing about a new age for the Jyraneth."

"Oh.. f-fuck," Morgan said, appalled.

"Fortunately for all concerned, the plan failed.  Contacting Her via dream-surfing, she denounced them all as heretics and sentenced them to death, including Nick.  Nick subsequently turned her own faith back on her, causing her to retreat deeper into catatonia.
"After this, the Kamei'Sin clan entombed Jyraneth's bunker in concrete to deter future treasure-seekers or fanatics re-awakening her.  Amalia surrendered and is currently on probation after a term in Fairwater's prison system."

"It is fortunate for her that the adventurer murders happened during the amnesty," Jakob added quietly.  "A year or two later, and she'd have got the chop for racial murder."

"Ingar did not surrender, and fled," Daryil said.  "That is the last I know of his deeds."

"It makes sense," Morgan said.  "I know some of this already.  But be assured, he is not trying to revive The Lady.  He had hoped for a cushy position in her new order, and having her command his death to her imaginary minions did not sit well with him.
"Disappointment turned to bitterness, and he decided that if he could not have a share in her new empire, he would have his revenge."

"Oh boy," Jakob said.  "You know that's not a great idea, right?  Killing a tri-wing will drive the whole clan mad.  It should have less effect on Daryil's allies as they have shielded their minds from Jyraneth... but they still wouldn't have a great time.  And then Taun would go on about how we've lost yet another Tri-Wing and it's a sign of our race's decline..."

"He is aware of that," Morgan nodded.  "His plan was not just to destroy her, but to take her place.  There would be no more Jyraneth - there would be the Ingar, and he would lead them all into a new golden age."

"I'll give him credit, he dreams big," Daryil said.

"Too big," Morgan said.  "He finally had to admit that he couldn't do it on his own.  And so we teamed up together.  I knew they wanted to improve our clan's lot, but when I found out exactly how they planned to do it, I got cold feet."

"So where is Ingar now?"

"I don't know.  For a while he got on with Sims, but it didn't last.  Sims decided that he needed an artifact of great power, and became obsessed with some weird dragon mask he'd heard of.
"Not only would it give them the weapon they needed to destroy Jyraneth, but it would also be his consolation prize.  Ingar would ascend, and Sims would keep the Mask, using its power to achieve a dragon-like lifespan."

"'With the power of the Mask, I could live forever!'" Daryil quoted.  "Let me guess, they fell out over who would ascend?"

"Ingar had already had his youthful dreams of power and greatness shattered by the cold light of reality.  And it happened again... gradually he realised that he was playing with fire.  Not only by poking Jyraneth again, but also that Sims was even more fanatical than he was.  So he cut and ran."

"But they never got the mask," Daryil said.  "I did.  And now Sims is apparently determined to get it off of me."

"As I said, we were plotting Jyraneth's downfall together, at least for a time.  Sims is intent on taking Her place if Ingar won't, so far as I know.  He means to use a Taun missile to crack open the bunker in which She lies entombed.  Then, he will fight Her.  But a normal 'Cubi turning against their own Clan Leader - that's not a fight that usually ends well."

"So he wants the Mask to better the odds," Daryil sighed.

"At least his ambitions use its potential," Jakob said.  "He might have caused all this death and destruction just so he could use it to pull cute guys."

[Merlin]

me spotting the sierra reference and going berserk 

[Tapewolf]

me spotting the sierra reference and going berserk 

Alas, this is all I have for now.  I have the rest of the story sketched out but am having a bit of a hard time actually realising it all.

[Starcat5]

...wow! From length alone, this has passed the threshold of Side Story, and is landing solidly as an Intermission, if not straight up Sequel. Add in the fact that Keller fell from MC POV position to Recurring Character rather early on, perhaps it would be a good idea to save his self-titled story for an actual character piece.

For the sake of brainstorming, might I suggest simply going with "Project Future Intermission: The Dragon Mask"? With the Mask showing up as early as Chapter 5, it isn't really a spoiler. In fact, I would put the Mask solidly under the Hitchcock definition of McGuffin: The thing everyone wants that kicks off the plot, but the object itself is entirely interchangeable. Effectively, "The Maltese Falcon" as a AA Battery. All the interesting stuff is what happens around it.

Also, every time I read Lord Ravage's name, I hear it in the voice from this video: