Written by: Amanda

The lull in the debriefing left Silvalinus time to study his team. A political mission never guaranteed a peaceful one.

Fnippith sat on the floor, adjusting the settings on her combat suit before switching to admiring the grenade launcher with a dozen new prototype mines from Farrah. Fnippith’s grin made Silvalinus certain of her happy trigger finger, which had a tendency to fly off at random times even without new technology to experiment with. 

The Terran performer, however, was nothing like his usual self. He’d locked himself firmly into his seat, piloting the ship while Silvalinus walked through the parameters of their mission. Where jabs at his captain’s severity would normally be, he held his tongue, staring out into deep space and the streams of light that lingered in the paths of the space lane they’d acquired permission to travel. 

“Are we all clear on the terms?” Silvalinus asked, piquing immediate attention from Fnippith who cocked the grenade launcher back over her shoulder, testing its balance with the new mines before flipping it forward into her other waiting hand. “Fnippith?” It always took a couple tries to get her reply. Farrah should have spoken by now.

“No weapons, no fighting—only talking and signing.” Clearly satisfied by her weapon, she finally set it aside. “Say we convince them to sign the treaty, does that mean we can take our ship anywhere we want once the space lane opens? There’s a planet south of Heldar by like…” Her voice lowered to a mumble, as if he wouldn’t hear her or consider the journey’s length, “…just a couple lightyears…and I heard from Asha—you know, the Qhurothi down by the city bazaar, with the remedies shop—anyway, she says there’s been talk of a transformative agent, like an accelerated variant of azothite that provides temporary effects at higher volume.” 

Her voice rose in pitch as she continued; it was amazing how long one person could talk, and the Otakke rivaled most. Silvalinus drew her attention back with a tap of his hand on the console stretched in front of him before switching the ship back to his control. 

From his right eye, he saw Farrah stiffen. The Terran drew a round object from his ACS, slowly coaxing it over his knuckles with a wave of his fingers, like it might have the power to explode and take them all with it. Not what Silvalinus wanted to see—restless energy never made for a smooth mission. They all knew that from experience. 

“The base on Heldar accepted the board’s request to be neutral ground for the negotiations,” Silvalinus said; if Farrah wanted to stew in silence over their orders, then he could. They had time, at least a span of half a day, before they would dock. “Show of good faith, no weapons once boots touch ground.”

Fnippith’s long ears twitched. She hid her annoyance well from those who didn’t know her.

“And the pirates? We’re trusting them to just hand their weapons over?” Farrah asked.

The pressure of a freefall into space, an immense emptiness beyond his combat suit, crept up in the back of Silvalinus’s mind. He forced a chuckle. “We trust they want the raw azothite New Carthage is offering.”

Lights in the pressurized cabin flickered. The ship’s hull shuddered as if struck, and Fnippith, still seated on the ground, shot a hand out to stop from slamming into the wall. A brief quiet followed. “Meteor debris?”

The question drowned in an onslaught of groans from the ship, like an animal in pain as the azothite woven through their ship activated. 

Of course. Silvalinus should have guessed. A neutral meeting place? It really had been too long since he’d been face-to-face with his former fleet admiral, and the reminder of who they were dealing with came with tightening along Silvalinus’s arms—the azothite in his ACS seizing. Whatever trick this was, it would run their ship into the next planet they passed. Janus had always had an affinity for strange inventions. 

From behind him, he heard Fnippith snatch the grenade launcher from where it began to float away. No artificial gravity. The weightlessness was right; it was freedom, and he pushed from his chair, long arms grabbing hold of the railings he’d hammered into the ship himself. They carried him past Farrah wrestling for control of the spiraling ship. 

Hullbreaker hung on the far wall. The alchemically enhanced laser could tear apart a ship. Janus would remember, and grimly, Silvalinus smiled as he broke the cabin’s pressure to leverage open the ship’s hatch, activating his ACS while ordering his team to do the same. 

He launched himself up, breaking into open space. The chaos inside the Brokerage-issued vessel disappeared. The galaxy stretched in all directions—endless, suffocating, and ignoring, ignoring, ignoring it all. His boots activated, the enhanced magnetic pull yanking him back to the ship. Anchored, he lifted Hullbreaker. 

New Carthage needed this treaty. According to the magistrate. This treaty would die with a single trigger pull, and he would scrawl in an almost empty record log about his failures as captain. Perhaps the Cloak of Olaos would no longer be his future…but his team at least would have a future.

Now, all he needed was a target.

The ship quaked beneath Silvalinus. 

In the vacuum of space, a presence loomed at his right—gone, and then to his left. He turned, chasing shadows and pointless mirages until black swallowed their ship whole. This again. Always with the dramatic show, and now, Hullbreaker fell useless to his side. The engine propelling them along the space lane sputtered and cut without a sound. Everything out here was always curiously silent. 

Around them, the nothingness shifted, snapped with color and shook; his boots disengaged and he jumped to the void. Invisible ground stopped him; the stench of metal in the air burned like a memory. 

Not in space anymore, but he dreaded this more. Terran flies and the magistrate’s incessant prattling would be far better. 

“Captain,” a voice rumbled out of view. “Ah, and your team. Welcome, Silvalinus, Fnippith, and an entertainer!”

“Janus.”

“It’s Fleet Admiral,” the Aidlean admonished, not even a shadow in the black of his ship’s hull. “Welcome to the Iron Spectre.”

___

The small object lay useless in Farrah’s palm. A simple push at its edges could activate it. The potential drowned out the voice of the Aidlean taunting them from outside their own ship. He knew them all by name–well, Fnippith and Silvalinus, at least. Entertainer was all Farrah got, but he’d been called worse before.

This Aidlean? This fleet? Silvalinus had turned his back on them for a reason, hadn’t he? They couldn’t even follow the simple terms the board established.

“Let’s go!” Fnippith said, appearing at his shoulder, a hand latched onto the rail above the pilot’s seat. “…What’s that?”

Farrah’s hand closed over the coin before fitting it beneath the plating of his ACS. “Good luck charm.”

The Qhurothi said to activate it when any critical information might be shared, if he chose to right New Carthage’s path. Now wasn’t the time. His captain wouldn’t go through with this treaty. Silvalinus was an Aidlean, but he was no pirate, and he’d left this behind him. 

The mines manufactured with a preview of the Qhurothi’s money gave Farrah the confidence to climb the ship’s ladder up to the hatch. Fnippith raced ahead—to be perfectly dramatic, he’d kill for her confidence. Or was she just not aware they might be about to die? Yeah, that seemed more likely. She must have missed the black ship building impossible speed until it overtook them. A thing of metal could not disappear without a trace, and yet, it had shuttered from existence with a flash only to reappear far from its vanishing point. Close enough to open its own hatch and engulf their small vessel.

A ghost ship. Were all rumors true then?

“This wasn’t the agreement,” Silvalinus said, out of sight. “The board sanctioned Heldar as neutral ground.”

Fnippith still had the grenade launcher in hand, suddenly free floating in dead air. Her cloak fanned out, just long enough for Farrah to grab hold of the ship’s edge and snatch her back from wherever she might drift off toward. They hung against the hull. 

Down below lines of azothite-activated metal set off a dull glow. Silvalinus stood in the center. Angry or stoic. It was always hard to tell with him, but especially with his back turned, and the hulking weight of the ACS hiding his head almost entirely. The rest of the ship was shrouded in heavy black.

It was simple. End this insanity now. That was all Silvalinus had to do, and Farrah knew he would do it; Silvalinus believed in the Cloak, believed in unification, and even believed in Farrah’s research.

With no free hand to grab a mine and throw—and no gravity to ensure his projectile landed where he wanted—Farrah held back, his lungs tightening before he realized the oxygen regulators in his suit were failing, the rest of his ACS glitching to follow the pattern of the ghost ship’s walls.

Fnippith tapped against the side of his suit. It whirred back to life while the shaking of the ship beneath them finally stilled. The tinkering Otakke reappeared in his vision, flashing an OK with her fingers before gesturing down. Whatever she’d done to his suit, his lungs filled with renewed air, and he nodded. The mine he knew she wanted would help them see what they were up against in the dark belly of the ship, if nothing else.

Fnippith’s eyes scrunched up, evidence of a grin hidden behind the scarf covering the lower half of her face. A tug at his belt told him she’d grabbed the shock mine. A dramatic name, but a simple tool. She didn’t find them fun enough to stock in her grenade launcher. 

A thunk followed a high-pitched whistle. The spinning mine soon erupted, and the Iron Spectre flooded with light. Aidleans hung from every side and crevice of the ship, as if nothing within had set direction. No up, no down, left or right. Only one oddity mixed among them, an Otakke with eyes gleaming and focused. He scuttled along toward the Cloak’s ship, scrambling for purchase, seemingly foreign to the gravity-less space. The rest of the crew turned to Silvalinus.

“And they ordered no weapons, yet here your team is.” The fleet admiral hung from the siding too, not standing like Farrah first thought, and neither was Silvalinus. The captain moved with ease through the strange ship, closer to the threat: Janus.

“Release our ship and let us dock, conduct this meeting peaceably.”

Fleet Admiral Janus. The name alone evoked a two-headed beast, and Farrah wondered if the imagery would be lost on a man who likely only cared for battle. Wasn’t that what the Aidlean fleets were? Warmongers. His skin crawled, and the open hatch down into their ship tempted him. They could blow a hole through the Iron Spectre and escape out of it. This treaty was doomed from the start.

“The entertainer can keep his toys, of course,” Janus said, waving one of his four hands to a member of his crew. “The rest, we’ll need.”

“Toys?” The outraged cry came from Fnippith now struggling to shove off from the ship and use the lack of gravity to her advantage. Farrah wrested her back, hissing for her silence, while she loudly protested. Reason upon reason were muttered under a bitter breath. “These are state-of-the art technology! Do they realize how rare it is to find development like this in something without azothite? Toys?!” 

“We will surrender our weapons to the denizens of Heldar,” Silvalinus said. It was almost admirable the unshakeable focus that refused to bend, not even to look at the member of his team stewing over a slight.

This was just a show, Farrah knew. The Aidleans wanted to prove they were in charge of this meeting and its terms. Intimidation, and a shoddy attempt…ignoring, of course, the slight shake of Farrah’s legs. He hoped no one noticed. It was Silvalinus’s show too, though. They didn’t realize the captain had no intention of agreeing to this treaty.

The chuckle from the fleet admiral set the hair on the back of Farrah’s neck on end. “It is good to see you, Silvalinus, and welcome an old traitor back into our ranks.”

Carelessly said, the word brought Farrah’s gaze sharply to his captain, just in time to see the surrounding crew of Aidleans closing in. They waited for their admiral’s orders, while the giant ship lurched and flashed with odd lights spiraling like veins through the metal. Farrah’s ACS gave an answering groan.

A hand reached out, approaching from behind their ship. Farrah flinched, already reaching for a mine until a small Otakke face peered up. Right, the oddity. He’d made it through the webs of Aidleans to cling to the edge of the Cloak’s vessel, eyes dark and pleading before darting around, as if ready for a large hand to yank him back. Janus droned on, nearly covering the Otakke’s whisper: “Please…find it before it destroys the planet…”

Farrah’s brow furrowed, pulling Fnippith back from the ominous words. This was a trap, no doubt, set by Janus. They couldn’t trust one of his crew.

Fnippith wriggled free and lunged for the small paper the Otakke held up. She floated for a second, perfectly content in knowing that Farrah would grab for her again and keep her from drifting off. He wouldn’t. Gah, of course he would. He grabbed hold and pulled her in, just in time to watch her unfold the small scrap of paper. Half the page of a scientific journal, it looked like. Even ripped on one edge, it was an unmistakable but unremarkable box, carvings along its sides with a gear set to the right corner. 

“My crew will see us down to Heldar,” Janus said. “Now surrender your weapons.”

The Otakke’s gleaming eyes flashed with alarm. “…like it already did to him.”

Written by: Amanda

“This was not your mission, not your orders!” The raised voice echoes from the walls, a judgement from above in a chamber empty save for a lone table and the platform beside it. The Brokerage Board hovers like gnarled trees that have little function but to block the light. It leaves Silvalinus in the shadow beneath them. “Was it not clear that your job, as captain, is to ensure that death does not occur on your watch unless we order it? And so many…”

The chair only barely large enough to accommodate his frame, it groans beneath him when he shifts. “Necessity,” Silvalinus answers, for the thousandth time, his eyes straying from the back to the cracked door along the wall where a tiny face gleams. Fnippith, always listening where she shouldn’t. Her best trait.

A board member coughs in the following silence. 

“Inadequate,” another asserts. “It’s time you elaborated, Captain. What happened on Heldar?”

Their words irritate like Terran flies. No one ever warns newcomers about the flies.

A story seems no more adequate than simple truth, but waiting eyes suggest it’s the only way for this wretched meeting to end—the best reason he can find to carve out the patience for more politics: “New Carthage’s magistrate came to me two weeks ago.”

The small Terran often moved rather like a bird that had forgotten it had wings or the capability of flight. A waddle that forced a path with swinging, awkward steps to make up for his threadbare frame. Odd…and wildly unthreatening.

Silvalinus refrained from a sigh at the sight of the city’s highest elected official, always here for another favor. He’d learned forcing a smile to placate the mood of Terrans often had the opposite effect between his four eyes and larger teeth. Instead, he greeted the magistrate with a nod. It was enough to launch the small man into his rambling speech.

“Ah, Captain, Captain, I’ve had a wonderful thought.” His little hand patted Silvalinus’s forearm, earning a slow glance down from the Aidlean. “Already spoken with the Board, and they’re thrilled.” The magistrate waited, earned no response, and continued to wait—admirable patience.

“How can I help New Carthage, Magistrate?” 

“This is exactly why we elected you, Captain, always so eager to help the city.” The magistrate beamed, gesturing for Silvalinus to walk with him through the broad streets, like a tour guide waiting at the docking stations to introduce new arrivals to the city.

With pressure from the Terran gravity forced on his limbs, Silvalinus dragged himself onward as the small man continued. 

“We’ve decided to extend a hand of peace to your people.” The magistrate nimbly stepped over a break in the cobblestone path, oblivious to Silvalinus’s struggle to keep pace. 

“New Carthaginians are my people.”

“Of course, of course, but your other people. You’re a practical man, Captain. Ah, Aidlean, I mean. You must understand the tactical advantage in making strides toward an arrangement with Aidlean forces.”

The weight on his chest too much to speak and walk, Silvalinus stopped. “A trade agreement? I’m afraid you may be overestimating their interest in—”

“A space lane, Captain!” the magistrate interrupted. “One created and controlled by New Carthage.” Gleeful eyes narrowed as he stepped in closer, lowering his voice but raising up on his toes to cast the whisper up to waiting ears. “You don’t have to tell me the Neo-European Empire and others would immediately invade. No respect for anyone else, really. But we have the azothite stores to create the lane…and the Aidleans…” He trailed off and exaggerated brows raised.

Silvalinus blinked, the action almost painfully slow, before it occurred to him the man wanted him to guess at the intention. For dramatic reasons, Silvalinus could only assume. “You’d like the Aidlean fleet to defend the lane.”

“Of course they will. They’ve got considerable fighting power in their ships.” He smiled. “It would be an unheard of achievement, Captain—a considerable notch in your belt. We would be the first truly Terran city to be a hub of intergalactic trade. Think of it…direct access to us, not being routed through gods only know where only for someone else to take a cut of our profits.”

“But to use raw azothite as a bargaining chip… The fleets of Aidlean ships operate under a different code, Magistrate.” Pirates, some called them… Silvalinus knew more than most, and the thought of New Carthage signing on for an alliance with an Aidlean fleet made his teeth grind. “They’ll create your lane and a thousand others to take them across—”

Again, the small man couldn’t contain his words long enough to listen: “Captain, I hear your concerns, but we have the perfect partner in sealing this deal.” Again, the small hand entered his space and rested on his arm. Silvalinus braced himself. “You are Aidlean,” the magistrate said, as if this was earth-shattering information. Again, missing the point. As always. “Maybe others would have trouble with this deal, but you, Captain, it will be simple for you to get them to agree to our terms. Purely a political mission. We can’t have anyone saying New Carthage attacks its would-be allies. We are the city of peace and unification.” He brandished his smile once more. “And soon, intergalactic trade.”

“Magistrate, I really must caution you.“

“Certainly,” the man said, “but the Brokerage Board has already connected us to the perfect Aidlean fleet.”

In his patience, a silence of almost a minute passed until Silvalinus relented in a murmur, “Who?”

“Fleet Admiral Janus.”

No expression crossed his face; Silvalinus stared, unblinking, and nearly without breathing. A ship encroached like a shadow in his own mind, black as the surrounding sky closing in on him. Air gasped as the hangar lock disengaged. It fell back into empty space…and he fell with it.

“Captain?” a voice echoed from beside him. “Do you remember your old fleet admiral?”

A face locked in a sneer fades from his mind, and Silvalinus levies a stare at the hovering Board. The way they wait, as if ready to devour him for a wrong word said, sets a twitch to his trigger finger. Of course, his weapon was confiscated on entry. 

“I did what was necessary for New Carthage.”

In the echoing silence, he doubts they care.

___

Do they think they intimidate him? Farrah stands, refusing the offered seat. When he entered, they tried to insist, but now they brood grumpily on their own chairs—albeit they’re sitting pretty on a stage, neatly spotlighted with a ring of candles that hang from the wall behind them, a backlight that shadows their faces. Really, back in his performance days, he would’ve hired the architect of this disaster on the spot. They want to make him feel small. 

He straightens his shoulders and meets the stares he can’t see with an easy grin. “Lovely as ever, Your Honors. Really, the lights are a brilliant touch. New robes?” The worst kind of audience: a bored one. “Well, if there’s no questions, I suppose I’ll just begin…or is the silence meant to be a lesson?”

They haven’t spoken in minutes, but this was his captain’s orders, and for the sake of the past, perhaps Silvalinus is owed this. Talk to the Brokerage Board. Gods, Farrah would sooner talk to a wall. At least walls can be useful. All the board can do is hand out orders and play at being impartial, as if they don’t double deal in the dark and sell their services like everyone else.

This is their fault. Don’t they realize? He could make them burn for it, them and the magistrate…but it would mean burning his captain too. His shoulders stiffen on the spot. The Qhurothi had been right before, and perhaps this is it: the hard choice.

He clears his throat, and it bounces from the ceiling like a thrown voice; if they were trying for intimidation, they should have picked someone easily cowed. “Then from the start—“

“Lieutenant,” a board member says, “we think it best you submit your report in writing.”

“Ah, and Fnippith too?”

“Send the Otakke in after you.”

His lips tighten, fighting to find a humorless grin, while running a small device over his knuckles—no larger than a coin but intricately woven with metal, simple at first glance but something so much more. Poison is child’s play. This is true danger, and he finds it fitting to brandish it in plain sight, as if the act is rebellion when he can’t even decide if he should use what it contains. “Explain to me the difference between my account and hers.” He tilts his head and adds a jaded, “Your honors. No, no, of course, I understand, she’s brilliant.”

The device catches the candlelight. It lands evenly in his palm, and his hand cinches into a fist. The Brokerage Board has no interest in this. Oh, they would if they knew what it contained, but that is between Farrah and the waiting Qhurothi stranger. He’d met her only weeks ago.

The crowded hall fluttered with loose banners, muted golds and silvers, as if metal didn’t run every other piece of their life that it bore featuring in their decorations too. Farrah moved between small clusters of visiting dignitaries, brokers, and promoters, most of them giving casual words, asking after his team’s latest mission. 

Had he heard the song written? He came off rather well. Heroic, some might say. Oh, no, no, he’d never heard it. He certainly wasn’t the one who wrote it. 

He worked through the room, casually directing conversations around to the latest feats performed on the battlefield—only possible because of his own inventions: his mines. Interest was a funny flame to try and light, especially when asking for funding, but it went well enough in crowds like these. He baited a few possible donors before a Qhurothi stepped in his path.

“Apologies, miss, I must’ve gotten in your way.”

She stood in the swirling chaos of laughter, unaffected by those stumbling into them, like she existed somewhere else entirely. In fact, she smiled. The scars on her face gave him pause; what exactly did someone have to do to acquire scars like those? “One of the Cloak. I’m quite lucky.”

“Oh? You’ve heard songs recently, I take it?”

“Not quite. A proposal of yours crossed my desk. Unfortunately, it was a cast-off from the magistrate’s office.”

His eyes narrowed before he could smooth away his irritation. “Well, not everyone sees the value of technology that doesn’t require azothite…or any weapon that’s sole purpose isn’t to kill.” 

“It’s a shame. I would like to see New Carthage living up to its ideals.”

“Exactly!” The words broke like a drizzle turned into downpour. Around them, the bustle continued, and the Qhurothi’s smile never wavered. “I just mean, it’s a day I look forward to: New Carthage setting aside traditional combat for something more in line with who we are. The Cloak of Olaos should be a call to something better than the rest of the mercenary teams.”

With a low hum, she fixed the ends of her sleeves, drawing them down over more scarred skin. “That would take a magistrate who believes in unification.”

The brazen words struck Farrah silent. 

“Anyone could see his choices lack direction…and sense. He’s a simple man, and combat is a direct path. Smarter choices, sounder choices that will bring our city success aren’t always so clear…or easy.”

Her words were an echo of a thousand rants he’d forced Fnippith to listen to while she waited to have her turn to ramble about something he didn’t care about next. 

“Choices like…”

“Preventing a mistake that could ruin us,” she said. “The magistrate wants to partner with an Aidlean fleet, even giving them the power to create space lanes. Accelerating destruction, if you ask me, giving a fleet the power to travel swiftly wherever they like.” 

Farrah’s mouth opened. Twice, three times before he found his voice and laughed. “Even the magistrate would never make a deal with an Aidlean fleet. They’d sooner take over than partner with anyone.” He turned from her, the rest of the room waiting with coin purses ready to be opened for donation to his project. That was what mattered, not her. Really, he meant to leave, but he couldn’t resist a grin back over his shoulder. “I thought you were rational, but rumors? That’s what concerns you? I also heard rumors that a ghost ship is haunting the lanes just past New Carthaginian skies. Would you like me to find a priest and order an exorcism of the heavens?”

With a slow smile, the Qhurothi reached out, placing a steel and copper bonded coin in his hand. “It’s rudimentary, new technology, and totally devoid of azothite. I believe there is value in research like ours, Farrah, and I would be interested in funding yours.”

He should have realized sooner: she was a promoter. “But first, you want something.” The coin pinched between his index finger and thumb, he studied it from every angle. Fnippith would be sent into frenzied excitement at the thought of breaking this open and learning its secrets. “What does it do?”

“It captures a voice inside. I want you to use it to save New Carthage.” 

___

“And then he came to the left, right here, but at an angle so it made it hard to take him out at the knees—plus if he fell right then, he might’ve squashed necessary people.” The chair sits too tall, leaving the Otakke’s feet swinging while she talks, not bothering to even glance in the direction of the Brokerage Board. Half hidden by the assorted findings she liberated from the building that no longer needed it, Fnippith scrawls a near-perfect map across the wooden tabletop. 

A board member interrupts with a stuttering, “Fnippith, ah, that is—perhaps paper could be found—“ while another insists something about “Starting from the beginning.”

“Then everything shakes,” Fnippith continues, “like an earthquake focused only on one building.” Her hands clasp the table’s edge to give it a hard rattle. “Of course, mines start exploding, but then a flash!”

“Fnippith!” It’s a chorus of voices.

She stops, lifting her head finally. Hm. Way up there, they look less scary than how Farrah always makes them sound—just little bugs, talking at her with a hivemind voice: “The beginning.”

“Oh. Why didn’t you say so before?” So much wasted time, and now she has to talk about the boring part. With her palm, she taps the table, speaking slowly since they apparently can’t pay attention. “So, we were at Heldar with the Iron Spectre’s crew–”

“Further back,” a board member interrupts. “The smallest details may be the most important. Your captain’s logs were unclear about a number of things that went wrong.”

Pushing back her hood with a sigh, Fnippith eyes the shadowed figures. One, three…seven—and one she knows instantly. He’s off to the side, like he doesn’t want to be mistaken as a friend of anyone else, and even though he’s half-hidden by the glare of the lights behind them, it’d be hard to forget the peculiar cut of his clothes. They’re colorful, and he had refused to tell her where he got them, which was just rude.

“Broker Dereon came to me with the mission.”

“To you?” The woman closest to Dereon looks to him, a small shift in her posture changing the way the light falls and the only reason Fnippith can tell she’s moved at all. “That breaks standard procedure.”

The light dances over the table as all the board members turn. Dereon clears his throat, uneasy and not hiding it well. Poor Dereon. Wait, no…rude non-sharers get no sympathy. He has good taste in clothes, though.

“He asked me to get the board something on the mission,” Fnippith says, now doodling again on the table, the only empty space left on the upper right corner. Definitely worth standing in her chair to reach the space. It’s too long, still, so she stretches while talking. “Tech that multiplies objects when they’re exposed to it. He said it got stolen from you, and that it…” Her voice deepens while mimicking him, “‘Puts us all at risk.’”

Whispers break out among the board. Fnippith raises up higher, trying to catch a word or two. Useless, but the board grows louder the more they argue. 

“We agreed on the performer!”

“You said he wouldn’t manage it.”

“I said if it went badly, we wouldn’t answer to New Carthage over his dea—“

An abrupt quiet swallows up the room, as if the entire board remembers suddenly that Fnippith is seated in the room, staring up at them with a smile.

Dereon clears his throat again, as Terrans do when uncomfortable. She’d learned that ages ago. “And after you received this mission…?”

Fnippith’s hands tent out in an invisible explosion before she slashes an x on the map. “That happened,” she says, as if every question is now answered.

After an unexpected hiatus, we’re back with more art.

You know Murphy; you start planning some huge release and suddenly everything that you thought was chugging along fine is on fire–not blazing, mind you; little fires. Campfires, really. You still have to deal with them, however. The end result is a bunch of progress, feelings of success, and not burning down the forest–I’ll call that a win.

Packaging Art!

• 

• 

It’s real! It’s really real. That logo just pops so nicely, don’t you think?

The ‘squad’ boxes will come with these lovely beauties slapped on the front. They will be available at Adepticon, as well as on our affiliate’s webstore: metaloakcastingstudios.com

We collectively had another “… we’re actually doing this?” moment, staring at the long list of pre-convention needs along side these. I have an ever-increasing appreciation for the sheer hours of work it takes to organize publication and printing. It’s not my first rodeo, but it is the first time my stake was so personal, you know? I’m simultaneously beaming with parental pride and screaming in fear of what I am undertaking and creating.

Character Art!

Farrah Saygh, Cloak of Olaos Lieutenant

Do you think he has enough mines?

I don’t.

Of course, these are just his patented shock mines. Farrah tends not to bring around his other toys when on assignment with Fnippith–it’s just safer that way.

This officially rounds out the character concept pieces for all of the Squad 1 designs! Next week, we’ll have some Squad 2 characters to show you.

Everyone’s Favorite Murder-Monster

Doesn’t she look friendly?

A couple people have asked how could she possibly still have hearing after firing those badboys once or twice. Answer: she’s an alchemically-altered supersoldier from the Argent Palisades, and they have access to some of the best doctors and alchemists in the Neo-European Empire–you think they can’t compensate for a little bit of tinnitus?

Actual answer: space magic.

I’m such a fan of her expression. “A Mercenary is coming to help us! I bet she’s friendly. Oh, she just–ooh, ohh. Hey, that’s a bit–oof, I’m pretty sure he needed those limbs…Not anymore.” Not very friendly, no.

Wrapping Up

This week, we’ll be posting Part 1 of a long-form story written by Amanda. She’s dived headfirst into a complicated mission undertaken by the Cloak of Olaos–Silvalinus, Farrah, and Fnippith (collectively called the Sword of Carthage, *winkwink nudgenudge*). Choices are made, explosions occur, and cuteness ensues.

Check back tomorrow for the first section!