Scene 1 – Street Taxes
Johnathon POV
"I'm sorry, sir. But we just can't afford the fees."
The shop owner's voice cracked on the last word.
I glanced over as we walked past, Teresa at my side. A cluster of C-rank Travelers crowded the storefront, weapons out, armor half-buckled like they'd just rolled out of a dungeon and decided extortion was a valid cooldown.
One of them dragged his blade across the counter, carving a groove into the wood. Another kicked over a display rack, glass shattering across the floor.
I put a hand on Teresa's shoulder and kept her moving.
"If you can't afford the fees," the lead C-rank drawled, "then why are you even running a losing business? That sounds like a you problem. My only concern is that we are expected to bring back enough money to buy the resources we need to keep protecting you leeches."
The owner flinched.
"If you can't run a business," the man went on, "maybe we should recommend you for a safety and compliance audit."
Teresa's face twisted, eyes wide.
She'd heard the rumors. Government inspectors showing up with smiles and clipboards… and then, suddenly, a Traveler-owned business "failed" a regulation and got shut down. A week later, an "approved partner" took over its contract.
Rumors to her.
Daily reality to anyone who'd worked out here long enough.
Those audits were a weapon dressed up as help. Special discounts. Exclusive contracts. Mutually beneficial cooperation. The Society's model, twisted feral.
Problem children always cropped up eventually. The kind of cities that imported the worst of the old world and stapled it onto the new one.
This place was one of them.
What she imagined were rumors had been known facts among veterans for years. If the government didn't try it first, these import cities did. They were the worst offenders when it came to abusing Travelers.
Even this shakedown had more layers than robbery. It was a message—to every outsider and every native who didn't agree with this system.
We own your life. You just rent it.
Teresa opened her mouth.
"Joh—"
"No," I said quietly. "We're almost there. If you do anything, you'll blow our one chance."
Her teeth clicked shut.
"If it hurts you," I added, "then understand that you're too weak to actually change anything here. Trust me, I want to do something too. But one squad of C-ranks isn't the real issue, and we can't fight the thing behind them."
I tilted my head toward the street.
"Look around. Look at their eyes."
Civilians looked away the instant my gaze brushed them. Some ducked back inside doorways. Others stared at the ground while the C-ranks laughed and knocked over more shelves.
"They're scared," I said. "They've already decided they won't stand up for themselves. Outsiders and weak bastards run their lives, and they'll take it as long as it means they don't have to choose."
I snorted.
"I'm SS-rank now and even I know it's pointless burning myself out here. Compared to you? An A-rank with growth ahead of her?" I shook my head. "This city isn't worth Tyr's attention. It sure as hell isn't worth ours."
We turned off the main road into a narrower street, away from the shouting.
"No combat is a successful mission today," I said.
She didn't answer. Just swallowed hard and followed.
We reached the place Baldur had arranged: one of the taverns Huginn and Ghost used for information trades. It used to be lively. Now it sat stripped bare after the first crackdowns targeting Traveler-owned businesses.
Even the astral grass that naturally grew around Explorer-level figures had been ripped up. My brother got petty when he felt disrespected.
Petty on a divine scale.
"Sit," I said once we stepped inside.
Teresa hovered near the door, eyes roaming the gutted room. Tables. Chairs. Nothing else.
"Is it really like this?" she asked.
I sat at a table and rested my hands on the scarred wood.
"Short answer?" I said. "It's worse than you think. Long answer? They're on their way out. Both the bottom-tier Travelers and the older generation in this city."
I jerked my chin toward the grimy windows.
"A majority of the C-ranks here are people from my generation. Any place you see their type in charge, they vote for 'sanity' while civilians and talented Travelers get bled dry. At first, we could ignore it. Now?"
I thought of Baldur's last call. The quiet rage behind his eyes.
"Now the line's drawn. With Baldur banning migrant Travelers from his guild or any under him, the mayors and politicians are crowding cities with low-tier talent they swear will reach S-rank."
I looked at Teresa. She shook her head immediately.
"They can't even reach A-rank without being taught the method," she said. "So they're just importing fresh Travelers from countries that already watched their Explorers leave for Olympus or the Zodiacs."
"Yup," I said. "Africa, the Middle East, India, South America, even Canada. Same story. These cities keep importing more problems and untalented Travelers. And even when someone is talented, they're shown all the reasons most of us ran away from those places."
I leaned back, rubbing the bridge of my nose.
"At this point, it's more gangland than city."
A presence brushed against my senses. Calm. Heavy. Centered.
Another A-rank. The real one in charge.
I glanced at the door.
"Get your head on straight," I told Teresa. "That'll be the local guild leader. We're not here to judge. We're here to extract the only guild still answering to the Society."
The latch turned.
Time to work.
Scene 2 – The Garden of Frozen Flowers
Lord of Endings POV
"Hello, Lord of Endings. I see you've completed your task of building the foundations."
The Moon Maiden's voice drifted across the garden like distant song.
Frozen flowers spread out around us in every direction, petals caught mid-bloom, each one holding a shard of reflected moonlight. I sat at a small table of black stone, a cup of tea cooling between my fingers.
Across from me, she sat in white robes. Her hair fell like liquid silver down her back. A white hare lay curled in her lap.
"Yes," I said, setting the cup down. "It took many attempts and many avatars to find stability over the cycles. Some mutated past their intended goals. Others never grazed the bottom line of survival."
I opened my hand, palm up, between us.
A spark of pale-black flame appeared there, humming softly. A divine seed of Death.
"Don't worry," I said. "It won't rewrite you. As a fellow Forgotten, I know how important our identities are."
Her hand stilled on the hare's fur. She watched the spark with wary eyes.
"Give up half your moon essence," I continued. "This will reshape what's left."
It was almost funny. Our original deal, back at the start of this mess, had been for her to forsake her name entirely. Chang'e, Moon Maiden, widow of the nine suns—erased.
Cycles had taught me better.
"Chang'e the Moon Maiden and widow of the nine suns is gone," I said softly. "She's been gone for many cycles. It's time to hand humanity their key back. But I won't forsake you like our original plan demanded."
I let a small smile touch my lips.
"Become Chang'e, Death Maiden of Earth. Your mission will continue in the Death Court."
Shock finally cracked her calm. Slowly, she placed her free hand over her abdomen.
A pale silver core emerged, glowing softly. Her moon essence, condensed into form.
She set the half-core gently on the table, then reached forward and plucked the death spark from my palm.
The hare straightened, eyes sharp.
"Take it," I told it. "He's waited long enough."
I tossed the silver core to the hare. It caught it smoothly and tucked it into its bag.
Chang'e shrank the death spark to a pinprick, then tipped her head back and swallowed it in one bite.
The garden trembled.
Frost crawled up the frozen flowers, turning their captured moonlight dull, then dark, until each petal held the faint shadow of a skull. The air grew heavy with the scent of night and endings.
"Lovely," the hare said, stretching as reality warped gently around us. "It's been eons since I've seen my favorite Crow."
I snorted quietly. Memories surfaced: an envoy and a golden idiot, breaking my tower using stolen divine energy.
They escaped.
I got left to fix the ruins.
Again.
The hare looked at me expectantly.
"Go," I said. "Take the core to him. He'll need it for what's coming."
It bowed once, then tore a hole in reality with a flick of its paw and vanished. The garden shuddered as the path reopened.
I turned back to Chang'e.
She was different now. The silver in her eyes had deepened, threaded with thin black rings. Her presence no longer clung just to the moon; it sank into the distant pull of graves and ghosts that refused to disperse.
"Welcome to my Court," I said.
She smiled faintly, grief and resolve braided together.
"Then let's get to work, my lord," she answered. "There are too many souls on Earth clinging to broken promises."
Scene 3 – Lines in the Sand
Baldur POV
"They got Bo and his legion out. I'll assign him and his group a slot under us since he's still A-rank. Teresa also kept herself under control for the whole mission."
I nodded as Johnathon delivered the report, posture relaxed, eyes still carrying the edge of the city he'd just left.
"At least some people can follow orders," I muttered.
He smirked, gave a lazy salute, and slipped out of my office with the rest of his paperwork.
"Crystal," I called. "Come take this before I head to D.C. and remind them we're not under them."
She stepped away from her own desk in the corner of my office—she insisted on working here when things got bad—and took the stack of papers I held out.
"What are they demanding now?" she asked, skimming the top page.
"More foreign recruitment," I said, lighting a cigar. Smoke curled upward in slow spirals. "Even after Artemis' little conversation with Jim. They're still insisting that importing 'their people' is the best way to catch up to the Zodiacs."
I snorted.
"But they think I'm dumb enough to ignore the cultures they're pulling from. They want power without paying the cost of training it."
"At least Bo agreed with the American lifestyle long before any of this started," Crystal said. "If we're going to take a risk, that's the kind we take. Someone who chose this place."
"Exactly." I leaned back. "He's a Romanian migrant, but his head is on straight. I'll take that gamble, even if he's A-rank."
My gaze dropped back to the papers.
"Those pathetic C-ranks our age?" I scoffed. "They're never stepping foot in my guild. And the cowards from the Second Generation who should've gone to Olympus or the Zodiacs because of geography but ran here instead?" I shook my head. "They're not touching my flag."
The idea of grinding my cigar into that stack of requests crossed my mind.
Crystal solved it for me.
"If that's their main issue," she said calmly, "then it's pointless to even read this trash."
A spark of astral energy flickered at her fingertip. The papers caught fire, burned cleanly to ash before they hit the trash.
"Don't stress yourself out," she added. "If they refuse to accept our help on our terms, it's not our job to play with our lives for cowards. Either they go home before Tyr snaps, or the civil war really breaks out."
I watched the last ember fade, then glanced at her.
"You really think that was Tyr Nicole saw?" I asked quietly.
Sadness flashed through her eyes. She buried it fast, but not fast enough for me to miss it.
"She's emotional," Crystal said. "Until we see for ourselves, we're in the dark. Her official report called it 'Explorer-class presence,' same phrasing she uses when Agni visits."
I rubbed my beard, mind drifting back to Tiamat House and the first incident. To the silence since.
"We'll just have to wait for him to resurface," I said. "As long as Tasey is running around with a free pass, it's only a matter of time before oil finds fire."
Crystal huffed a quiet laugh.
"You're the one who signed off on that," she pointed out.
"I'm allowed to regret my genius," I said dryly.
I crossed to the small bar in the corner and poured us both a drink. She joined me on the sofa, taking the glass without comment.
"To lines in the sand," I said, raising mine.
"To the idiots who keep pretending they don't exist," she replied, clinking her glass against mine.
We drank.
Outside, the old world kept trying to drag us back into its patterns.
Inside Olympus' reach, the next era was already being carved.