Kaius grinned as he looked at the slack-jawed expressions on Bronwyn’s team’s faces. Even Arc, his features obscured by plated bone and his ever-stoic disposition, was visibly surprised and confused.

  He supposed that was fair, considering he had withheld mention of Honours until they would have maximum impact. The revelation that he and Porkchop, completed legacies or not, had managed to defeat a Guardian unclassed was one thing — but gaining something new from the system was almost too much for his audience to bear.

  Arc crossed his hands thoughtfully, “Mmh. Honours — this one would like to know of them too. They are the source of your great strength?”

  “A significant part of it, both directly and indirectly.” Porkchop answered for him.

  Dross, the crossbowman on Bronwyn’s team, tilted his head. “How so? What even are they?”

  This time, it was Ro who answered. “Accolades. A system of rewards for feats that only the desperate and suicidal would pursue. Each one has a variable passive bonus — like a highly specific and non-levelling skill. If that wasn’t enough, they also give a flat bonus to your stats and a percentage multiplier.”

  “Fuck,” Bronwyn said, sucking in a sharp breath between his teeth. “The two of you have been accruing them since you were unclassed? With scaling bonuses like that, you’d have to be tough as nails by now.”

  Arc’s brow furrowed slightly, visible only as a slight tension between thick bone plating. “You said that it is an indirect influence on your strength? I assume that, much like all feats, they impact the quality of your classes. How many of them did you manage?”

  “Nearly ten,” Kaius said. “One of which was a Grand Honour, larger than most. There are bonuses too — some for doing a feat solo, always for being the first in our realm to earn an Honour — that increase the rewards. We assume we were the first to discover unclassed Honours. Considering the risks, most people so weak in the Depths would never try, and most of ours were first bonuses. It was enough for the two of us to get heroic classes.”

  Silence cut through the group until Rieker broke it with a full-throated chuckle.

  “Oh, you should see the looks on your faces,” the Guildmaster said as Bronwyn, his team, and Arc looked at him questioningly: “I did tell you, didn’t I Bronwyn? Bloody little terrors. You haven’t even heard the half of it yet.”

  Ro gave Kaius a knowing smile. “That’s not the only thing about Honours you learned down there, is it?”

  He grinned. How could he forget becoming Observed? After all this time it felt almost like an afterthought compared to the wealth of Honours they’d gained.

  Rieker too seemed to light up with glee. “Oh, that’s right. Let me re-introduce them — this is the first group of Observed in millennia.”

  Yanira, the giantess vanguard, whistled, and Julis, their mage, went bug-eyed. “What? You’re telling me the source of the Observed’s strength was these Honours? But how? For there to have been so many, it must have been widespread knowledge. How could it all just disappear?”

  Ianmus shook his head. “That’s what has me so curious — even as one myself. One thing we’ve learned from the phase change is that some Honours come with being the first to do something. In our case, we’ve received Honours relating to that for our Aspects. When the system first arrived, they must have been everywhere. First to gain a skill. First to merge one. First to form a dynasty. First to get a class. First to reach the second tier. There would have been too many, too widely spread. Everyone must have known. But then, just like the Observed themselves, they vanished. It seems impossible considering many of these Honours are repeatable.”

  Kaius couldn’t help but agree. It was too odd — Honours were too conspicuous, and once known, too repeatable. Yes, they were difficult to achieve and rewarded only those who took risks. But in the early days of integration, the simple first bonuses would have spread far and wide. If word had gotten out, the incentive to pursue them early and quickly was too high.

  He nodded. “It’s likely knowledge of them was suppressed at some point in the past.”

  Arc grumbled, inclining his head. “This one assumes this is the knowledge you intend to spread more widely now?”

  “It is. That, and additional details we have learned in our travels about the functioning of Aspects.”

  Bronwyn shook his head. “Unbelievable. You really weren’t lying when you said they were terrifying.” He looked towards Rieker and Ro. “That means you already knew of these. How did the two of you meet them? Learn of these secrets?”

  Ro smiled, waving him off. “I won’t jump ahead in the story. We’ll reach that point soon enough.”

  Just like that, she had their attention again.

  “Will you be all right sharing it?” Porkchop asked privately. “I’m happy to tell this part if it makes you uncomfortable.”

  Kaius tapped his brother on the shoulder. “I’ll be all right.”

  Even if it was painful to remember when he first learned of Father’s death, time had blunted the wound.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “When Porkchop and I exited the Great Depths, we had just received our classes. Even with the additional stats from our Honours and our future potential, next to our rate of growth we were still weak in the grand scheme. Our first goal was to head to the village where I had people I knew, to see if they had heard of the bandits. Or seen any sign of my father. I knew if he had escaped, he would have gone there. Even crippled as he was, my father was strong. Unfortunately, they had not seen him. I was too late.”

  Arc frowned, and Yanira’s face softened in sympathy, while Bronwyn and the rest of his team grimaced knowingly.

  “It was there I learned Father and I had been in hiding because someone wanted our legacy. They crippled Father and shattered our holdings to get it. Perhaps not unsurprising, considering the value of a completed legacy. My father told the village elders before he passed that the tracker that found us was aligned with the Onyx. Faher left a warning: that I must grow strong. If I ever came into contact with them or searched after the killers of my dynasty, I would need that strength.”

  Bronwyn took a long look at his team. It was obvious he had made some connection between that and Old Yon. Perhaps most surprising to Kaius was that Old Yon’s interest had merely been down to bad luck and carelessness in showing how capable they were when they were low-level.

  “After that, Porkchop and I knew we had to work on our strength and gain backing. The Guild was the obvious choice, as was Deadacre with how close it was. On our journey there, we stumbled across a mage in need of help, chased by terror birds.”

  Kaius turned and shot Ianmus a grin, who rolled his eyes.

  “He was alone, still in his college robes. Barely level twenty, while we were half that. Saving him required revealing our strength, if not all our secrets. So we stuck together. Reaching Deadacre, we parted ways for a time — until Ro informed me not even the smallest job required fewer than three members. She, of course, spotted what Porkchop was immediately, gave us a thorough tongue-lashing, and investigated our background. We obliged. We found Ianmus again and joined forces. We all but bullied him into taking a job we thought likely to result in an Honour, binding us all to secrecy through shared strength.”

  Bronwyn raised an eyebrow. “And you let them get away with that? Taking a job that over-levelled? From the sounds of it, they must have been Bronze at most.”

  Ro waved him off. “It was barely over a month into the phase change. An early request that had sat because it was remote. They surmised correctly. The timing meant the beast would be far stronger.”

  “And you, mage?” Dross asked. “You went along with this without knowing of Honours?”

  Ianmus smiled. “I didn’t know of Honours, but I knew they were strong. I did protest when the spider first appeared, but their plan seemed sound. And, well — Honours nearly doubling our level made it worth it.”

  “That seems a mite conspicuous, you know,” Yanira said, shaking her head.

  Kaius gave an awkward smile. “In hindsight, it was. Likely what got us into this mess in the first place.”

  Ro shook her head at him. “You should have seen the tongue-lashing I gave them. They acted like idiots back then. Still are, really — just strong ones.”

  Rolling his eyes at Ro’s joke, Kaius continued with his tale.

  “After that, Ro and Rieker took us under their wing, and we shared what we knew about Honours and Aspects. We grew strong under their guidance. But, I suspect — at least from what we pressed out of Old Yon — that some noble playing at criminal caught wind of our early exploits, and sold us out.”

  Ro and Rieker shared a look. “Aye,” Rieker said. “We’d heard of that. We captured the bastard, but ran into problems of a political nature. The man’s minder shared Old Yon’s location in return for his own release. There’s no promise he’ll face consequences, but to me it seemed like a case of a scion who proved more trouble than he was worth. I doubt we’ll be hearing from Rondal again. Even if we do, he’d have to be even more of a fool than he already was to try anything now that you’ve reached Silver.”

  “A damn shame,” Porkchop growled. “I prefer my loose ends tidied up clean.”

  Kaius couldn’t help but agree, but he understood the difficulty of Rieker and Ro’s position. Noble dynasties were not something to be tangled with lightly, even the smaller ones. Not only did they possess strength far out of reach, most were politically connected enough to make life very difficult for guilders from a backwater like Deadacre. Considering the new information had led to discovery of the true threat, he could see why they made the decision they did.

  He snorted. “Regardless, after one of our last missions, we were ambushed by a team of Silvers. Low and relatively fresh, but they hit us with second-tier sedatives. They didn’t expect Porkchop and I to be able to fight through it. We slew two before we succumbed, but in the end they captured us. When we woke, we were in cells with no clear way out. They had suppression wards and everything.”

  Arc grumbled. “Were the measures flawed? This one sees you standing before him, so your escape is self-evident.”

  “In a sense,” Kaius said. He tapped his temple, highlighting the glyph inscribed there, plainly visible to all. “My magic is of a different kind, one my father helped pioneer. Mana is bound into these inscriptions, pre-charged.”

  “Of course!” Julis exclaimed. “If your spells were already prepared, your mana pool being locked wouldn’t matter.”

  “Exactly,” Kaius said. “One of my spells let me slip through the bars. We just had to wait for the right moment. It was there we met Kenva, in one of the cells alongside us. She’d been captured in the wilds, a little too open with her strength early in her people’s ritual journey.”

  Ro shook her head sadly. “Not an uncommon foible among our people.”

  Kenva only blushed, scratching behind one ear.

  “Regardless, we bided our time, waiting over a month for the perfect moment. It came as a siege. Beasts hit the compound in a wave — it was a maddening rush; chaotic. Dozens of different species working together in ways they never should have. They were being controlled — I’m sure of it. Regardless, it gave us what we needed to make our escape and break for the Depths.”

  Bronwyn shared a concerned look with Rieker. “A siege? You’re sure they were controlled?”

  “It was certainly artificial,” Kenva said. “In all my years I’ve never seen anything like it. They were acting utterly against their instincts. I suspect it lines up with this absence of beasts you mentioned. The compound’s to the southeast. I can mark it on a map if you want to investigate. From there the wave continued in an unending tide roughly to the south-east.”

  “An army of beasts.” Arc inclined his head. “This one thinks the threat might be even more pressing than we thought.”

  Kaius agreed — even Deadacre would struggle if besieged by a force like that.

  “We can discuss this more later, when we’re back in the city. Kaius, you said you escaped into the Depths. Will you tell us more?”

  Kaius nodded. Inwardly he felt glee at the prospect of their surprise at all they had experienced down there.

  work.

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