“Dying often enough… decays the blood contract,” Archer said. “Specifically… dying close to a beast, room, or artifact that infests or corrupts the mind and soul.”

  The Admiral choked, recalling that Archer died far too often recently. She thought him a careless idiot…

  "We found vulnerabilities," the holographic Archer narrated calmly as if reciting a shopping list rather than a confession of treason. "The blood contract binds the conscious will. It prevents direct action against a Master. So, we attacked our own consciousness. Some of us sought out specific dungeon artifacts. Like the Mirrors of Desire that pull and tear identity on level 28th of the Labyrinth. We stared into them until we didn't know who we were anymore, until our very souls started to tear.”

  Evelithria's grip on the table tightened, making the metal groan.

  "Then there was poison," Archer went on. "Neurotoxins from the Alchemy labs. Just enough to degrade the synaptic pathways, to burn away sensation. Without active nerves, there can be no pain of disobedience."

  "What else have you done?"

  “We sabotaged our owners' private Void-blood pools with microscopic mana-eating dust scraped from the null-room of the dungeon, weakening ourselves and our dragons.”

  Evelithria snarled at the betrayal. It was no wonder that she felt so exhausted and dizzy even after the six hour Void-whale bath!

  “What else?” the interrogator demanded.

  "We smuggled larvae from Entertainment Deck. Parasites. Things that eat the mind and soul from the inside out. We let them nest in us. We let them chew away the parts of our souls that loved life, that feared pain, that honored the contract. We gradually hollowed ourselves out until we were twisted husks, sheared souls devoted to a single mission. We captured metal Elementals and high level metal-type, mind control bugs that would mark us as dungeon sentinels… waiting for the right time to strike."

  “What was the ‘right’ time?”

  "Any opportunity… A mistake big enough made by the fleet High Command or the Admiral. Nothing specific, maybe encountering a memetic that brings down the network long enough for us to strike. Maybe a dungeon. Maybe a god-tier entity. Maybe… a world dangerous or dastardly enough to crack the fa?ade of Frontenachii invincibility so badly that we could strike while the fleet was reeling." The smile widened. "The Emperor of Earth gave us the opportunity. And we took it."

  “Tell me the names of all your collaborators!” the inquisitor demanded.

  “I do not know their names,” the cheetah answered. “We wore dungeon-monster skulls and rotting robes that hid our features. We distorted our voices with Nightariaum grass when we met inside the Entertainment Deck to plan the rebellion.”

  The recording ended, holographic Archer and the interrogator winking away.

  Evelithria glared at the real Archer Silvertail, standing quietly in the Keeper’s embrace. He looked healthy. Whole. He wasn't a total blank, wasn't confused or drooling and radiated pure hatred her way.

  “How’s he… so coherent?” Evelithria asked.

  “I spent two hours restoring his mind and soul for the purposes of this interrogation,” Keeper Morrígann stated. “It wasn’t easy. Both were incredibly damaged. It took a lot of searching in the Astral for all of the lost pieces.”

  “Blasted idiot, you let..." she hissed. "You let dungeon parasites eat your minds?”

  "We did it to stop you," Archer replied. "And it worked."

  "It worked," Ixthia agreed with a barely concealed smirk. "The rebellion was successful. Too successful, if you ask me."

  "Because of incompetence!" Evelithria slammed her fist onto the table. "My security chief—"

  "Is dead," Obliss cut in. "Murdered by her own pet male. As were far too many of our officers today. This wasn't a security failure, Evelithria. This was a systemic collapse of the doctrine you championed."

  "I champion the Frontenachii way!"

  "Your decisions were proven… deficient," Ixthia corrected.

  "Deficient?!" Evelithria spat the word like it was poison, slamming her palms against the celesteel table. "The Fear Doctrine has sustained the Frontenachii Dominion perfectly thus far! It is the engine of our expansion! Without fear, the lesser races have no incentive to obey! Without pain, there is no discipline!"

  "And yet," Ixthia purred, languidly stretching her arm across the table to stroke the face of the bandaged up male wolf kobold who emerged from a nearby alcove with a crystalline cup of Ambrosia. "Your engine just exploded, and your discipline just murdered half your command staff."

  "It was a localized failure!” Evelithia barked. “An anomaly caused by—"

  "It was inevitable," Ixthia cut her off, voice dripping with a sickly sweet condescension. She looked like a gourmet chef critiquing a burnt meal. "You treat fear as a blunt instrument, Evely. You assume that if you flay a ‘bold hard enough, they break into submission."

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Ixthia’s claws gently grazed the wolf’s throat. The wolf shuddered, his eyes dilating with a glazed, desperate adoration. He leaned into the lethal touch, his breathing hitching.

  “Do take a moment to observe Bradberry Pimm," Ixthia stated, gesturing to the shivering wolf. "Does my little Brad fear me? Absolutely. He knows I could peel his skin off in sheets right here on this table. But look closer, Evelithria. Look at the dilation of the pupils. Taste his… desire for me, his want for my company. Witness his dreams of the future where he will have a mansion and a collection of pretty human servants at his call!"

  She ran a nail down the wolf's chest, drawing a thin line of blood. The wolf didn't pull away, letting out a whimper-moan.

  "You drown your ‘bolds in fear until they have nothing left to lose," Ixthia lectured, "I drown them in fear, yes... but then I pull them up and fill them with pleasure and promises of hope. I give them a bliss so intense, so shattering, that the pain becomes a necessary price of admission. I make them addicts to my gifts, Evely. I promise them all… their own little, lovely pets to play with, a perfect heaven to retire on when they get too worn out or too old to serve me."

  Ixthia grabbed the wolf’s chin, forcing him to look at her. "My Bradberry doesn't simply serve me because he's afraid. He serves me because he's terrified of living without the high I provide. He loves me. Sickly, desperately, brokenly... he loves me. And a slave who loves his Lady will tear his own heart out before he lets a dungeon artifact harm her."

  She released the wolf, who looked bereft at the loss of contact, practically slumping against the table leg. “Isn’t that right, Bradberry, darling? You’ve protected me today against some very mean, confused ‘bolds, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, my Lady!” Brad barked. “I tore the traitors apart for you!”

  Evelithria opened and closed her mouth, struggling to produce a rebuttal. All of this felt like a setup, a horrible play which she had no hope of derailing.

  “Bradberry and Archie came from the same world,” Ixthia pointed out. “Born of the same stock, children of a doomed Earth dominated by us in nineteen eighty eight when… what was it… Ah, yes, the Denver dungeon nearly consumed their planet. Both from… which town was it, darling?”

  “Ferguson,” the wolf kobold answered devotedly.

  “Ferguson,” Archer stated coldly and glared at the wolf whose tail was wagging happily in Ixthia’s presence.

  “That’s it,” Ixthia purred. “Ferguson. Bradberry and Archie signed their blood contracts to become property of the Frontenachii Omnicorp and were assigned to the Entertainment Deck work at about the same time. They’re about the same age. The only vital exception was that… I only played with Archie once… when he got himself sliced in half by a metal sentinel and Bradberry is someone I enjoy quite often. I believe it’s you who rents Archer out most often, isn’t that right, Evely? Datamancer Kipriss?”

  “That is correct, my Lady.” Kipriss manifested a chart, traitorously flashing numbers at the Admiral and the other Legates. “Lady Ixthia’s kobolds overwhelmed the traitors, defending her against the few rebellious ones. Thus, Legate Ixthia lived while... Legate Evelithria died.”

  "You see? You create dangerous victims, Evely," Ixthia finished, sipping her wine. "I create devotees. That is the deficiency. You are a butcher; I am a goddess they learn to cherish."

  "Disgusting weakness," Evelithria sneered, looking at the panting, desire-radiating wolf with revulsion. "You... You're playing nursemaid to the livestock. Corrupting them with softness!"

  "It is enduring," Obliss interjected, "Endurance is the only metric the Empress cares about. You relied on a brittle approach. It shattered. And now, thanks to your rigid adherence to such path, we have lost a Leviathan-class capital ship, our primary hoard, and nearly our foothold in this dimension!"

  Evelithria felt the room shrinking around her.

  "I will get a new capital ship," she insisted, "we will glass this disobedient planet! We will punish—"

  "You will do nothing of the sort." Ixthia shook her head. “The Master Builders cannot produce a new capital ship quickly enough due the... inconvenient actions of our wayward Princess. This entire planet is to be turned into my Pleasure World, where our lovely ‘bolds will be permitted to frolic as much as they desire! As long as our prads are nice and cooperative, they’ll be allowed to buy or rent their own estates and human pets to play with!”

  “I will contact the Empress and—” Evelithria hissed.

  “Go ahead.” Ixthia shrugged. “The Empress already knows of your failure. She is exceptionally displeased with you. The transmission reached Omnithornia and through it, our lovely Empress herself.”

  What transmission? Evelithria’s heart hammered. They had all turned against her! Leviathan's tits!

  "The Empress expects results, not craters on the moon," Obliss added. "We have already sent her the situation report and requested immediate reinforcements to stabilize the situation."

  "Reinforcement?" Evelithria felt a cold pit open in her stomach. "Who? Second Fleet?"

  "No. The Second Fleet is preoccupied with the Onyxdarr conquest campaign. We called in the Sixth Fleet." Ixthia’s eyes danced with amusement. "They are already in orbit. Soon they will be helping us weed out the traitors."

  Evelithria recoiled as if slapped. "The Greens? You called the Gardeners?! To an… unconquered zone? Those pathetic, annoying…"

  “We haven’t gotten results,” Ixthia stated. “So we’re switching tactics. We will offer the humans of this world the strawberry and a raised sword. Given your catastrophic failure, the Third Fleet Legate Council majority agreed that a... Biological, soft, more… Seductive, gradual approach is required."

  Evelithria stood trembling, her entire world fracturing.

  Her hooks felt it from every side: She was being mentally mocked by her peers from every direction!

  “But,” she let out, grasping for ideas. “We… we need to know how the capital ship was destroyed!”

  "The network went down and became overwhelmed by released memetics. We don’t know how exactly it was taken. Our Seers and Scruts weren't able to properly penetrate the data-void of the crash site," the Datamancer stated. "The entropy cascade is too dense. We have no logs from the bridge, no black box of the ship Overmind to consult. No visuals of the interior. Only... the single System-wide external broadcast. The Emperor's speech."

  “The… what?” Evelithria asked. “What speech?!”

  "Datamancer Kipriss," Ixthia commanded. "Do play the recording. Let our former Admiral see exactly to whom she lost her ship."

  Kipriss snapped her fingers. A holographic projection bloomed in the center of the table.

  It was the view from the Captain’s deck. The audio was distorted, crackling with static, but the voice... The voice was undeniable. It was the voice of the man Evelithria ordered executed today. Her niece’s human kobold Administrator.

  "This is the Emperor of Earth, speaking from the bridge of the Frontenachii Third Fleet capital ship Slayer's Sword..."