PreCursive

  I instinctually froze, pinned from the almost physical force of Honoka’s fury. I felt like a small animal trapped beh the gaze of an angry tiger, keeping still to try and escape their attention. I turned my head slightly to look at the door I had just e through and sidered just bolting for it.

  Honoka didn’t like that.

  The older woman snarled and lifted one fio point at said door. A bolt of white-hot fme shed out and impacted the bronze handle, instantly melting into an unmovable mass of molteal.

  Before I could even speak, Honoka crossed the distaween us in an eye blink. She grabbed the colr of my shirt and yanked me down to eye level with her own paratively shorter height, Tzo’s staff clutched tightly in her left hand.

  “Don’t even think about it,” She whispered in my face furiously. “First you fail to protect Sylvia, and now you think you get away from me? Think again. Now answer my question. Where. Did. You. Get. That. Staff?”

  I tehen, anger growing in me myself. I roughly shoved myself away from the woman, my core a bit surprised that I was allowed to by the much stronger woman. “I didn’t fail anything,” I spat at Honoka, stalking around the woman to get some distaween us. “There was more, much moing ohan anyone knew about. If you’re so fug angry about Sylvia, then where were you, Honoka?”

  Honoka s me. “Watch your tone, you little shit,” She warned me. “I was busy dealing with the rgest monster surge this p has ever seerusted you to look after Sylvia, and now look at her!” She flung one hand in the dire that Sylvia was lying atose on a bed, almost looking like she was sleeping peacefully. “She’s never been this hurt in her life! I don’t even know what to do to fix this! She’s not like you and me, and someone,” She said with a sharp gre. “Incorporated fn material into her form! You’d better hope Grey fix this, Hart. Or you’ll regret it.”

  I grit my teeth, my rage surging out of trol with the loss of my middle ring. I smmed one hand down on the surface of a nearby table, barely g when it splintered in half from the blow. Honoka didn’t even flinch from the crashing of the table onto the floor. “I did that to save her life, you old bitch!” I shouted at her, shaking in rage. I held up my pointer finger and thumb at Honoka, nearly pinched closed. “She was inches from death! I had to make a call on how to keep Sylvia alive because nobody else could! Grey wasn’t there! You weren’t there! I was! You’d think a goddamned Healer would uand he works, but apparently not!” I ched my hands into fists tightly enough that I felt my flesh knuckles pop from the strain. “I had to give my arm to do it, Honoka. My arm. You know, the ohat was already made from a dead Sculped in the first pce?!”

  That finally seemed to pierce Honoka’s rage, as I saw the older woman close her eyes and take a deep breath. She opehem and gave me a short, jerky nod. “Fine. Fine. We’ll…talk about what we do for Sylvia ter,” She said relutly, befring at me again. Her eyes lingered on my newer arm, almost looking puzzled for a moment, but she didn't ent on it. “But that doesn’t answer my inal question. Where did that staff e from? I know the Mana ing from it as well as I do Grey’s. But that man is dead.”

  I spent a few moments trying to calm down from the ued accusations that Honoka had levied my way. I almost wao weep in frustration at how much I missed my middle ring right about now. You truly never knew what you had, until it was taken away. “It was from a dead man,” I said wearily, already sientally and physically from the day. I swear, it felt like I might have caught something from the exertions over the st few days. “He called himself Tzo-” I mentally fumbled for a mirying to remember the full fake hat the Lich had given us those weeks ago. I eventually gave up and just went with the hat Anima had referred to him as. “But I think his real name was Rafael. At least, that’s what I heard a Spirit refer to him as. He was a Lich that had taken up residenderh Ttec.”

  Honoka defted then, in a way that I had never seen from the powerful woman. She staggered her way back over to the chair I had seen her sitting in wheered the room and flopped into it. She gently set the staff down on her legs and gazed down at it mournfully for a moment. “A Lich, then,” She whispered almost brokenly. Slowly, she brought her hands up to fad buried it into them, hiding it from sight. Her shoulders started to shake, but I heard nothing from her.

  I sighed, my own anger and rage evaporating away from Honoka’s obvious distress. Tiredly, I grabbed a nearby chair and dragged it to rest o the sitting woman, right in front of Sylvia’s bed. I slumped into it, making sure not to look at the softly weeping form of a woman magnitudes more powerful than I was. I stirred after a moment, wing from the roiling of my stomach. “He said he was an old ‘colleague’ of yours and Grey’s,” I said quietly. “But I’m guessing there’s moing on here.”

  That seemed to snap Honoka out of her misery, as I heard the woman snort into her palms and then raise her snot-covered face. Wordlessly, I grabbed a nearby rag from a bedside table filled with various medical supplies and ha to her. She took it without a word of thanks and scrubbed furiously at her face, and when she was done, just tossed it into the nearby firepce. “Colleagues my bony ass,” She finally said, bitterness heavy in her voice. “That man was our rade for turies. Myself, Grey, Rafael, and a Gnoll by the name of Arlock. Arlock died some years ago from Core Colpse, and Rafael…” She was quiet for a moment, befetting up from her chair and starting to pace. The staff that had instigated this whole thing was sent cttering to the floor, as Honoka grit her teeth. “I was there when he died, gods dammnit. How is he back?”

  I eyed Honoka as she tried to wear a hole in the singed floorboards of the room. “How did he die?”

  Honoka cut her reddened eyes my way but didn’t stop her pag. “It was an expedition that went wrong into the high Aether zones of Indiqua,” She said shortly. “This was ba the days that our little band was still chasing Paragon. But we got in over our heads, and Rafael paid the price for it. We…tried to retreat, but he succumbed to his wounds despite my best efforts. It just gets so hard to Heal someone in our level range. We’re barely flesh and blood anymore.” She started to breathe heavily. “I don’t…uand how he be a Lich right now. Unless…” Honoka went still then, ing to a stop. In fact, she was pletely motionless, not even looking to be breathing.

  I waited a moment and then spoke up when it looked like she wasn’t. “Unless…?”

  Honoka stirred then but didn’t look at me. “Unless he had already decided to bee a Lich back then,” She said quietly. “He just…wasn’t the same, after the death of our daughter.”

  I lurched forward at that, incredibly startled. I nearly fell out of my chair. “Wait, what?” I said in shock. “Your daughter?!”

  Honoka finally turo face me then. She had a mirthless smile across her thin lips. The older woman gave me a short, sharp nod. “Oh yes,” She said, old, old grief evident in her voice. “I don’t expect you to know, but…Rafael was my husband. For a long, long time.”

  I gaped at Honoka for a moment, fetting myself in my shock. “But…but, you and Grey…” I said in fusion, before abruptly shutting up when Honoka actually started ughing at me.

  She shook her head then, her chuckles dying off. “You and everyone else thinks that these days, but it never happened. Well, not seriously,” She amended. “There was a shirl-hood fling that happened before you were a sparkle in yreat-grandfather’s eye. It never went anywhere, once he became enamored with the moon. Instead…it became about me and Rafael. I won’t bore you with the details, plus it’s none of your damned business,” She said with a sharp look. I held up my hands in surrender before Honoka tinued. “But yes, I was married for…a long time. We had our problems, but more importantly, we had our daughter to hold us together.”

  “I’ve never heard anything about this,” I said quietly. “Honoka…I’m sorry, I had no idea.”

  Honoka rolled her eyes at me, softening. “Of course you don’t. You’re not even from this p, Hart. Let me tell you something. If you’re ied in starting a family one day, you’d better do it when you’re young and weak. It bees a ft-out impossibility once you get up there in levels. The ans you o do it….well. Let’s just say they stop w, the more powerful you get. Because of that, Rafael and I…we only had the one. Our little miracle child. And then we lost her.” She finished bitterly, walking back over and slumping into her chair o me. “She was…wonderful. She was being a real mover and shaker, a true csser. She wasly young when we lost her, you know. She was well into her third tury at the time and then…gone. She got cocky and wandered into the wro and that was it. The fate of a true csser. Lost to dumb mistakes.”

  The bitterness in her voice was deep enough to curdle milk.

  Well, if there had been any in the room with us.

  I was tempted to y a hand on her shoulder in fort, but then I remembered how she had accused me of failing Sylvia. I…uood now, intellectually, that there had been more about that than she was letting on. But I was still a bit bitter about it.

  I stayed my hand.

  I wasn’t perfect.

  I don’t think she noticed as she tialking, staring off into space. “She died some hundred and fifteen years ago,” She said, almost absentmindedly. I’m not sure she was even talking to me anymore, more than herself. “It…broke Raffy. It broke us, really. We weren’t the same after that, and the both of us threw ourselves into our work in respo was Grey and Arlock that tried to keep us together more than we did, which is where the expedition came in,” She finally remembered I existed, looking at me from the er of one e eye. “If you’re right, and your ‘Tzo’ is what remains of my husband…then maybe he nning to die on that expeditioalked about the meics of it, you know. Years before losing our daughter, he told me that he knew how to transform himself into a Lich. He just wasn’t ied…at the time.” She sighed then, picked up the staff she had sent cttering to the ground. She rolled the wood of the staff around in her hands, gazing into the amber crystal. When she spoke again, her voice was crag from long-suppressed grief. “That bastard…how dare he leave me alone like that…”

  The room fell into silence again. I didn’t want to break it, but I did feel an obligation to tinue my story. I cleared my throat unfortably. “Well…he was dispersed by Rhazal-The Camity,” I corrected myself, doubting she khat asshole’s name. “I…briefly spoke to him in the cord through that staff, and he said he’d be ba a few years. So…he’s not really gone. Just…sort-of.”

  Honoka looked up at me, startled out of her grief. She had an incredibly fused look on her face. “The cord? What the hell were you doing in there? How were you in there?” She asked me, baffled. She abruptly shook her head. “Oh, whatever. You’d better start from the beginning, Hart. Fill me in.”

  And that’s what I did.

  For the half an hour, I talked endlessly.

  About how the campaign in Elderwyck had been doing.

  About the assault on the warehouse HQ by Longstripe.

  About Nerexxa, and Rhazal.

  And how they’d been killed.

  I tried to include every detail about T-Rafael that I could, but there wasn’t much I could say. The Lich hadly been talkative about himself.

  “…I kind of think his phyctery isn’t here in Elderwyck,” I finished, voig a suspi that had been lurking in the bay mind. “He never said anything about ing back here, while I was in the cord. It makes sehat he would have stored it somewhere safe away from where he could have been in danger. Even if he had a tract with the Empire, better to be safe than sorry for an immortal bone man.”

  Honoka sighed but nodded. “Yes…that sounds like him,” She said tiredly. “I have…suspis about where he could have stored the damn thing. But, they’ll have to wait until he mas once again. And I’m going to have questions for that bastard,” She said, gl down at the amber head of the staff. It might just be my imagination, but I swear I saw a brief green glow in the core of it. Honoka snorted in disgust, before abruptly shoving the staff into my chest. I instinctually took it before looking up at her in startlement. She smiled slightly at my fusion and shook her head. “I don’t want the damn thing. If Raffy entrusted it to you, then you keep it.”

  I blinked. “Uh…he didly say I could keep the staff, you know,” I pointed out.

  Honoka scowled off into space. “Well, I’m the man’s wife, and I say you . If that asshole has anything to say about it, then he damn well speak up about it.”

  The both of us looked at the staff for a moment, almost expeg the Liche’s dry voie eg out of the crystal.

  Nothing.

  Well, alright then.

  Neon acquired, I suppose.

  Honoka sighed then, and then looked at me closely for a moment. I resisted the urge to fidget under her assessing gaze. “Well, one good thing happened from this shitshow, at the very least,” She finally said. “If I’m not mistaken, you’re more than ready to break past the first barrier. You’re definitely at least level one hundred.”

  I sat bolt upright in my chair at that, having pletely fotten about even cheg my gains with…everything.

  Honoka cracked a small smile. “Don’t tell me you’re surprised,” She said, almost teasingly. “You killed a damned Camity after all. That’s worth more than a few levels. Go on. Go ahead and check.”

  I smiled back at her. “Ah…yeah, sure. Just give me a sed.” I said, leaning my aff against the bed Sylvia was resting on.

  I then focused on Hidden Amidst the Spheres, pulling up my Status. Somethi…off for a moment, but the mental blue box popped up all the same.

  You have gained 31 levels! You are now level 100 (122)-That was as far as I was able to read before something welled up inside of me.

  I abruptly stood up from my chair, my eyes widening as I hunched over, clutg my stoma pain. My breaths started to e in short, sharp gasps as I tried to process what I was feeling.

  It was like the ey of my being was suddenly on fire. A greasy, smoky feeling was threading its way through something intrinsie. The siess and queasiness which had been lingering since I had woken up in Renauld’s ic had reached a fring peak, and now I couldn’t focus on anything else. Dimly I was aware that Honoka was trying to say something to me, but I couldn’t even parse the words.

  I slumped to my knees, letting out a short, weak scream of agony as I did so.

  It was too much.

  And thehing...

  Broke.