A short while later, the cavern swarmed with ridiculous people. Several necromancers dressed like Rüdiger, black-armored skeletons, and Liora as well. Rüdiger, Liora, and Adarin stood in front of the blood-coated pillar. Adarin could barely hold himself back, his body shaken by the pulses emitted from it as he grew ever faster and stronger. The pearl in Rüdiger’s hand kept flashing bursts of light. He had not stepped forward to touch the pillar. Instead, he studied the patterns written in blood at its feet, murmuring to himself as he walked around the pillar.

  Frustration began to overwhelm Adarin.

  “You... you are Adarin, the—” Liora swallowed, looking for the correct words, “thing that was in my head.”

  Adarin wanted to respond with a snide remark. He groaned. I have no mouth, but I want to quip. Fuck this.

  He studied her. And you are the body, the ghost of whomever my old understudy became wants to take over. She called me her husband, but…

  He fought down rising irritation. I miss the emotion regulators.

  The core problem is... I don't know what is true. Fuck. I can't trust any of them. I can't talk about what's going on. Though…

  He glanced at Rüdiger without turning. He knows more than he's telling me.

  Rüdiger cleared his throat. “Well,” he drew the word out. “It appears they were doing sacrificial priming.”

  He looked at Adarin. “I have no idea what they were doing with you, but they are Blacktree, so maybe they thought you were a relic related to the World Tree.” He tilted his lips. “Oh yes. Blacktree—a goblin faction obsessed with reviving the World Tree. That monster once swallowed this region whole. If they’re priming rituals here, they mean to wake it in some fashion.”

  Rüdiger smiled sadly as Liora nodded along and murmured a quick prayer to her goddess, Mother Ishna.

  Adarin shrugged in his mental space. Yeah, so what? What does it mean?

  He raised a leg and spun it in a go-on gesture.

  Rüdiger chuckled. “Impatient as always. Well, time is wasting, and we need to figure out what happened on the surface. But first, let us take advantage of what has happened to the pillar.” He turned to Liora. “My dear temporary disciple. Would you give me your opinion on the nature of this ritual?”

  Liora froze, stared at Rüdiger wide-eyed. “I…”

  Then she tensed, gathered herself, and looked at the blood.

  Rüdiger observed her while she knelt and stared helplessly at several runes. Adarin scanned them, too, committing the signs to memory. It seemed like utter nonsense, like a script made from circuit diagrams—but the circuits made no sense. That was his conclusion after running several analysis protocols in his mind.

  Liora stood back up and shrugged. “It is a ritual of dark magic,” she ventured, looking at Rüdiger like a schoolgirl trying to please her teacher.

  Rüdiger angrily murmured something, then pushed his spectacles up his nose and let out a long exhale. “Very well. You were not taught any analysis spells. Pay attention, soldier,” he looked at Adarin. “This is a technique you will be using often.”

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  Rüdiger began pacing up and down, taking on the posture of a lecturer—despite the bustle of necromancers raiding the dead goblins and the ominous black skeletons standing in a semi-circle, staring into nothingness.

  The ridiculousness of it all made Adarin smile. This man. He lost so much of his power, if I understand what happened correctly. But he just doesn't seem fazed. I don't get it. Does he think the System will give it back?

  Rüdiger began talking.

  “Liora, as you have aptly demonstrated to the both of you—” he nodded at Adarin “—one does not need a skill or spell, however you want to call it, to make use of a core.” He smiled broadly. “Liora, how do you use magic?”

  This time, Liora took the question better. “I just focus on my heart, feel what is there in front of me, and then I let a connection flow up my arm to the heart.” She traced the line on her body.

  Adarin listened, biting back a laugh. Rapt attention, sure—like a prisoner staring at his warden’s PowerPoint. Meanwhile his Thousand Eyes kept vigil.

  Liora continued, hesitating for a second, and only continuing when Rüdiger nodded to her encouragingly. “Then I just focus and let it out the way I want.”

  Rüdiger clapped his hands. “Close enough. We’ll work with that. This can be done with all your cores—eight normally, ten if you’ve augmented. At their most basic, cores let you cast cantrips.”

  He nodded and stroked his goatee.

  “So—the heart of Analyze is simple. Curiosity sharpened into a blade.” He gestured to Adarin. “Follow along with my instructions. Focus with all your senses on the ritual.”

  Rüdiger tilted his head. “Which senses do you actually have?” He tipped his chin and shrugged as Adarin remained still. “Well, no matter.”

  He turned back to Liora. “Focus on the runes. The stink of blood. The pulse beneath it.”

  Adarin focused and his attention narrowed to the circuit-like carvings in blood. The drying blood coating. The glimmering crystal. The constant pulses of light.

  Now, Rüdiger’s voice washed toward the shores of his mind from a distant place.

  “Draw it into your head, towards the divination core.”

  Adarin frowned. How do I…?

  He tried a simple visualization technique. It worked. The attention seemed to fold in on itself.

  Then Rüdiger spoke again—his voice more distant than ever.

  “Now, focus your intention of knowing on the core, and the attention and the awareness. And then let it out like a breath. But keep the focus.”

  Adarin attempted it. Then he froze.

  What do I want to know?

  His mind flipped into old protocols of analysis: danger, opportunity, utility.

  Distantly, he noticed how Liora let out a shuddering breath beside him.

  Then, his digital avatar exhaled and his questions came back.

  He got a sense of instability from his question of danger. A sense of potential power from opportunity. A sense of urgency from utility.

  Interesting.

  Immersing himself in the sensation, he only noticed the movement when it had already happened.

  Rüdiger had drawn a knife and stepped toward Liora, his kind smile at odds with the rapid gesture.

  “Now, now. It is time for both of you to—well, for one of you to bleed. For the other to be connected, I guess.”

  He chuckled. “Ja, plugged in. That would be the word.”

  His eyes grew distant and he murmured, “A long time since I’ve used that word…”

  Then he snapped out of it and held his hands out to Liora.

  She hesitantly extended her wrist.

  Rüdiger smiled.

  Then, with surgical precision, he opened her wrist. Blood welled bright and hot as he pressed her arm against the crystal spire.

  Adarin flinched inside his shell. No regulators to blunt it—just raw disgust crawling down his mind like acid.

  The spire drank greedily. Pulses quickened, each throb rattling Adarin’s core like war drums.

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