The Path of Ascension

Quill walked up to the Tier 25 gardener after Fen left with his prize and asked, “So what's the gimmick this time around?”

The woman smirked right back at him. “Completing it is the gimmick, as you say. It's a rift three Tiers higher than you. The monsters in there are going to turn you into a chew toy.”

Quill laughed and made his mask wink. “While playing the chew toy can be good fun, we’re in the mood for a more of a stabby-stabby and burny-burny time. Though I wouldn’t say no to experimenting with some stabby-burny. Or mayhaps even a bit of burny-stabby. You need to change things up sometimes you know?”

The Tier 25 snorted at his quip and gestured to the side at the usual board displaying the rift’s current delve records. “I expect you’ll both come out well nibbled, but there actually is a specific challenge assigned to this rift, if you’re up to it. We know the general number of monsters spawned in each possible version of this rift’s instances. Extra points are awarded based on the percentage of them killed. Completing the rift nets you fifteen points, plus another point for every ten percent of monsters cleared. Be happy this isn't a swarm rift. The monsters here are a bit tougher than average, but there’s fewer of them to hunt down overall.”

She forestalled Quill’s next question with a raised hand. “For scoring purposes, we consider a ninety-eight percent as a full clear, so no reason to start prying up floor tiles looking for stragglers. If you explore properly and murder anything that moves, you’ll easily kill enough to count as a full clear. For the end of month rankings, ties among the full clears will be broken by completion speed divide.”

Having heard everything they needed, Torch moved up to stand next to him, and together, they entered the rend in reality.

For the second time that day, they found themselves in a nighttime rift with an oversized moon hanging in the sky. This time, the moon was less exaggerated, and was situated at a more normal distance in the false sky. The blue hue of the moonlight suggested that the planet orbited a blue supergiant star; a rare occurrence among populated solar systems in real life but common enough in a rift.

It still provided more than enough light to illuminate the sparse forest around them.

The rift kicked them out into a small clearing that seemed to have been cut recently, if the fresh stumps still weeping sap were any indication.

After probing the direction of the exit to get her bearings, Torch rose in the air high enough to see over the tree line and get a view of the surroundings.

From the ground, Quill watched on through their shared view from his AI.

The forest they were in extended behind them for quite some distance, with the trees growing denser and taller as they moved away from the rift's exit.

In the direction of the rift exit, there was what looked like a primitive city made of stone and wood construction, only a few miles away. That would have been unusual in a rift if it wasn't for its rundown condition, and the pattern of destruction that seemed to have been unleashed upon the town.

Beyond that, a clearly unnatural mist clung to the ground beyond the town, as a more mountainous area sprang out of nowhere.

Looking past the mist that clung to the foot of the mountains, a path was carved out of the cliff face that lead to a castle. It seemed like it had just recently survived a war, with holes covering its outer walls and two of the closest towers knocked down.

If his inspection was correct, the fort was guarding a pass that led deeper into the mountains, and eventually, the rift exit.

Dropping to the ground, Torch motioned to the area behind them, and Quill agreed.

Normally, backtracking was a waste of time, but as this was a Tier 13 rift, the extra essence would do them a world of good for their advancement. If they delved enough high Tier rifts, they might reach the twenty percent mark of progression through Tier 10 before the year was out. A feat which was only possible with the abundance of higher Tier rifts that they would have access to.

The days of blowing through a Tier in a year were long gone. To pass through Tier 10, they needed more than the normal ten times amount of essence, as it was one of the five and ten breakpoints in cultivation. At this Tier, they needed one hundred times the normal essence to advance.

Still, even slight advancement beyond the bottom of Tier 10 would give them a small increase in power, considering the massive amount of essence they would’ve accumulated to progress.

Even that small increase in power would help them when the Pather vs Pather fights started for real, in six months. The rift monsters were dangerous, but they were, in the end, mindless meat machines of rage that had a handful of skills at best, even at Tier 15.

Most cultivators were more dangerous than a monster at a similar Tier, just for the variety of skills they would possess. When they considered the fact that their opponents would be the best Tier 10s that the Empire had to offer, who could also jump Tiers and kill Tier 13 and 14 monsters, they wanted every advantage.

They were only a mile deeper into the forest when they discovered what the at Tier monster in the rift was.

A howl resonated in the night air, attempting to send Quill into a panic.

The skill was too weak to break through his Concept and spirit, but it alerted him and Torch that they had been spotted by the beasts first.

They didn’t have to wait long for the first lycanthrope to charge at them.

This variant leaned more towards wolf than man, with a distinctive wolf's head, and fur covering its entire body. But it seamlessly moved from running on all fours to running at them on two digitigrade hind legs.

As the monster rushed at them, its claws glowed with the power of a skill. Quill readied himself as Torch stepped forward and prepared to take the attack head-on.

First encounters were always the most dangerous, as they had yet to learn exactly what the rift had created.

When the monster was fifty feet away, it lunged. It was an impossible distance, even for a Tier 13 to cover, but it jumped a second time, using all four of its limbs to propel itself faster and farther.

Seeing [Puddle Jump] used by a rift monster was a surprise, but one Torch was ready for. She sidestepped and sent a lance of fire at the descending monster.

As the beast saw the flames, it tried to jump in the air for a third time, but the spell still smote it in the chest, sending it tumbling to the ground.

Giving up on its acrobatics, the monster tore into the forest floor as it got the purchase to throw itself at Torch.

Quill turned from that fight as he noticed a second werewolf approaching them from the woods, slightly to the right of where the last one came from.

He immediately threw out a talisman while slapping a second on himself.

That second talisman was a fake to cover the fact he was using [Mage’s Retreat] to help him battle the higher Tier monster on a more even footing.

But the first talisman that he threw out wasn't for show. A [Fire Bolt] carved a stream of light through the night air and punched through the tree that the wolf tried to use as cover.

The tree still slowed the bolt enough for it to miss the monster.

As the wolf launched itself at Quill with glowing teeth and claws, he rolled under the attack and used a [Wind Blade] talisman at the exposed belly of the beast.

The attack cut through the bone of the monster, and its guts rained down in a gory mess. But by the time Quill hopped back to his feet, the monster already had large chunks of its flesh pulling back together at a rapid pace.

Cursing mentally, he changed his attacks. Some rare lycanthropes had increased regeneration that rivaled a troll's, which meant that only attacks from silver weapons, or attacks that cauterized the inflicted wounds would be effective.

Even cauterized wounds would heal, but at least they took longer. Only wounds inflicted by silver wouldn’t heal at all.

Quill mentally paused for a second as he corrected himself. Technically, inflicting enough damage to drain the monster's mana pool would also stop the regeneration, and poisons would slow the healing. But those were less than ideal methods for dealing with this type of lycanthrope.

Essentially, this rift would be an absolute pain in the ass, as it removed more than three-quarters of his arsenal. Though, Torch would fare better with her fire-based fighting style.

Cursing the gardener who mentioned them getting chewed on, he cast [Jolt] at the monster while throwing out a second [Fire Bolt] talisman.

Both spells impacted with small explosions, and he was glad to see that those wounds were taking far longer to heal than the [Wind Blade] wound that had already closed.

As the monster lunged a second time, a larger, mana constructed version of its maw appeared and extended out nearly five feet, slamming down with a crack.

Quill backpedaled, tossed out a [Fireball] talisman, and cast a second [Jolt].

The [Fireball] would cause explosion damage that was only moderately effective against the monster type, but he had far, far more of those talismans than the Tier 14 [Firebolt]s.

Before the monster could heal its burned eyes, Quill moved in for the kill.

Throwing out two [Wind Blade] talismans, he cut the monster's muscular rear legs off, and despite the rapid regeneration, he knew that he had already won. He just needed to stop the monster from jumping around for a second.

His follow up [Fire Bolt] talisman punched right through the monster's head and burned out its brain, putting an end to the wolf monster. He felt the rush of essence course into his spirit as proof.

Quill looked over to see that Torch had her monster pinned to the ground, and was already testing the regeneration capabilities of the werewolf.

They kept slitting the monster's vocal cords to prevent it from crying for help while they tested its ability to heal.

The results were worse than feared.

The wolf continually healed from any non-cauterized wounds for over an hour, before it finally ran out of mana and died.

It had sustained itself through an hour of severed limbs and being eviscerated over and over again.

After they felt the rush of essence, Torch kicked the monster and spat. “Troll levels of regeneration and a mana pool way above average for a Tier 13 monster. Great. Just great.”

Quill agreed. This was a less than ideal rift. Nonetheless, they weren't hard countered here, and completing the rift would greatly boost their status.

Most Tier 10 teams enter a Tier 13 rift with more than one team, and only while choosing rifts where they had the advantage over the monsters.

With neither of those advantages, they would look all the better for completing this rift.

It was worth them pushing through, despite the rift being a slog.

The revelation of the monster type also explained why there was no speedrun of this rift. No Tier 10 team would be completing this rift in anything less than a full day.

Quill looked to Torch and ran their odds with his AI.

The predictions actually looked decent.

The lycanthropes had massive regeneration, but they paid the price for that absurd healing with slightly weaker bodies for their Tier. Additionally, the whole group had only displayed four skills the entire fight.

Five, if he counted the howl.

Theoretically, they could mop up this rift in a little under nine hours, if they really pushed themselves.

After sharing his findings with Torch, the two of them began clearing out the back edge of the rift. To their surprise, the deep forest didn't have a sub-boss, just a small den of werewolves that tried to overwhelm them with numbers.

Quill pulled out a dozen [Fire Bolt] talismans and cast them in an arc, which slowed down their attack enough for Torch to move through them. She lashed out at the wolves with a potion and talisman assisted flurry of attacks.

Now that they knew the monsters' weaknesses, they were more confident to press their advantages.

Between the two of them and their liberal use of fire and lightning spells, they quickly had the dozen monsters slain.

After that, they moved onward to the city, where they encountered their second and third monster types of the rift.

Giant bats and skeletons.

The two seemed to work in unison as they defended their destroyed town from the two delvers.

Quill mostly fought the skeletons, while Torch took care of the aerial opponents with her greater range and fire attacks.

While she dealt with them, Quill used a variety of earth talismans to batter the animated skeletons to powder.

He had quickly learned that the skeletons would piece themselves back together and reform if their heads were not thoroughly shattered.

As they advanced, he fell into a rhythm of killing them by self casting [Earth Spear]s to knock the monsters apart, and then smashing their skulls with his boots or the butt of his staff.

He attempted to overwhelm the monsters with various elemental attacks, but they seemed immune to anything but good old fashioned skull-crushing. Even then, they had been knocked down separated into pieces first.

That made clearing the surprisingly large amount of enemies a slow and arduous process, but they persisted until they found the town center. There, the skeletons were burning a pile of werewolves at the behest of a giant skeleton equipped with arms and armor.

The fifteen-foot-tall sub-boss almost immediately noticed them, despite the fact that they were hiding behind a building two blocks away.

Unlike its slow and easier-to-kill brethren, this skeleton raced at them and crashed directly through the buildings like a wrecking ball.

“I'll take the boss, you take the rest of the skeletons!”

The boss wasn't alone in its greater armament. Those thirty, normal-sized skeletons were also equipped with combat gear.

With his ability to batter the thing with talismans, Quill knew that he was better suited to solo the boss. Meanwhile, Torch could dance through the lesser monsters' greater numbers with ease.

Casting an [Earth Spear] and running in the opposite direction of his partner, Quill led the monster away and deeper into the city.

Not willing to take to the air, where the bats might still be flying around in the darkness, he flew fast and low along the city streets as the giant skeleton raced after him.

Seeing that it couldn't get close to him, the monster started to grab and throw pieces of stone from the building with worrying about accuracy. After it nearly clipped him for a second time, Quill turned to face the sub boss. They were away from the city center, and here, his attacks shouldn’t affect Torch.

Tossing out three talismans, he peppered the monster with ice attacks. While they didn't effect the skeletons as his earth spells had, he was more focused on setting up the battlefield.

Dodging the boss’ club strike was easier said than done. It seemingly had unlimited stamina to swing around its oversized mace. Each missed attack cracked the cobblestone street, and created new hazards for Quill to navigate. But with [Mage’s Retreat] and a general physical boosting talisman, he was quick footed enough to evade everything the giant skeleton threw at him.

After littering the battlefield with ice attacks, Quill pulled out five [Create Water] talismans and cast them in a pentagon around the battlefield.

A small lake’s worth of water flooded into the street, but the giant skeleton remained largely unaffected by the water as it passed through its boney figure.

Throwing out a talisman that stuck to the boss, Quill hovered slightly as he quickly pulled out a five-talisman array. He slotted and connected the talismans in under a second, even while avoiding the boss's attacks.

Waiting for the delayed activation of the talisman he stuck to the boss forced him to dodge another five flurries of attacks. But as all the water started to rush to the boss, he pulsed power through the talisman array connected to his staff.

As the water gathered around the boss, a pulse of cold mana exploded from Quill, forming a sphere that flash froze everything in almost a two hundred foot radius.

The stones and buildings were suddenly covered in frost, and a few waterlogged bricks had exploded. The real sight to behold was what remained of the giant skeleton, encased in a frozen obelisk.

Still, immobilized as it was, the boney bastard wasn't dead yet.

There was no rush of essence, but Quill had not expected that trick to actually finish it.

No, he expected the next talisman to do that.

With a casual, accentuated flick of his wrist for the viewing drone, a single talisman landed on the towering pillar of ice.

After a two-second delay where he used an [Earth Barrier] talisman, the pillar shattered, demolishing the ice-encased boss with it.

The rush of Tier 13 essence hit Quill like a bull as the massive monster splintered into pieces no larger than his fist.

By the time he returned to the city center, Torch was finishing up with the final skeleton soldiers. They quickly exited the city after confirming that they had eliminated most of the monsters.

In the misty field leading to the mountain path, they encountered over four hundred werewolves in groups ranging from two to as large as nine.

The monsters seemed to have no issue seeing and hearing in the magical mist, and always called for reinforcements before they died.

Hours passed before they finished killing the hordes of monsters because of their crazy regeneration. The pair also needed to take breaks, so they allocated their essence gains while pretending to be recovering their mana.

Five hours into the delve, they started ascending the mountain path. They trekked a mere twenty feet up the stairs when bats appeared and began bombarding them. Faced with a constant barrage, they decided to forgo the walking, and flew directly into the air to engage the bats.

That tactic only earned a more intense series of attacks, but by keeping their backs close to the cliff wall, they burned through every one of the bats that engaged them.

They culled the winged monsters for half an hour before the stream of aerial attackers finally let up.

With clear skies, they were free to fly directly to the fort, where they found another pack of werewolves. They had seemingly taken the fort over from the animated skeletons, if the scattered remains were any indication.

With that, and the skeletons burning the werewolf corpses in the town, the rift’s storyline was obvious. It was a war between werewolves and skeletons, which he suspected symbolized sapient beasts and humans. The bats were seemingly neutral to both parties.

Regardless, it was irrelevant. All that mattered was their objective to kill everything.

After they cleared the fort of every monster, a task that took another grueling two hours, they discovered a narrow stone bridge with no rails spanning a half-mile chasm. To add insult to injury, the bats were back, infesting the chasm in even greater numbers than before. They almost seemed to be daring them to try their luck flying across the divide.

This should have been one of the most difficult portions of the rift, but Torch and Quill simply took to the air and cast their largest area of effect spells, blasting through all the flying enemies that tried to swarm them.

Eventually, as the bats died out, Torch tracked them back where they came from, a cave set deep into the chasm wall.

Inside, they found a bat breeding ground that they proceeded to incinerate from a distance.

Not trusting that alone, they tossed half a dozen [Create Fire] talismans about, and sealed the entrance with a few stone talismans, letting any remaining monsters suffocate with the entrance closed off and the breathable air burning away.

They lazed on the ledge as the rush of essence informed them of each monster's death.

It made their dinner almost entertaining.

After the bursts of essence halted, they moved to the rift exit, where they were met by a goliath werewolf at the bottom-middle of Tier 13. It was a good bit stronger than the fresh Tier 13 monsters they had faced so far.

Together, the two of them gradually battered it down with fire attacks, followed by strategic removal of its limbs with overcharged wind talismans.

With little fanfare, the boss collapsed dead, and they collected their reward. Thirty-seven Tier 13 mana stones.

They were tired and worn out, but happy to see that they had actually cleared ninety-nine percent of the rift monsters in just nine and a half hours.

The gardener shot them a look of respect as they entered the teleporter back to the safe side of the planet.

They needed to rest before they were going to pick more fights with monsters above their Tier. If they lost a fight, they would lose the thirty nine points they had gathered so far.

It was better to leave with the cost of their next entrance covered, and come back for an extended stay later.

***

As the pair of them exited the teleporter to return to the safe half of the planet, they were quickly beset by a pair of news reporters.

Under the Quill mask and persona, Matt frowned.

Luna had prepared them for this situation, but a part of that training had been showing him exactly how easily a news channel could twist anything you said, and ruin your life.

Neither he nor Liz wanted anything to do with the pair, but from the director and oversized drone following them, he knew that if they refused to play ball, they would be ambushed by reporters.

The greatest advantage for them was the fact that this was an Empire-run event, and the news anchors were invite-only by the grace of a Tier 47. At least they were assured that none of the reporters would treat them too harshly.

The man was fair-skinned and haired, though his five o'clock shadow was noticeably darker. But as the man was over Tier 15, that could have been a personal choice of aesthetic, rather than genetics.

Considering the man looked like he spent every waking moment in the gym, with his rippling muscles obvious through his skin tight shirt, he very well might. But once again, being over Tier 15, the man could have just morphed his body to achieve the look.

He was only slightly shorter than Matt, at around six feet in height.

His co reporter was shorter than Liz, and as dark-skinned as she was busty. Considering the fact that she looked like her shirt was one deep breath away from popping open, he expected that she had done as much work to her appearance as her co-anchor had.

The reporters made for an attractive pair with their contrasting light and dark effect, though. Even Matt couldn't deny that.

The woman briskly asked, “Quill! Torch! Would you two be willing to give us an interview?”

Knowing what he had to do, Matt slipped back into the Quill persona. “Of course we are.”

He paired that with an exaggerated wink from his mask.

The man who was directing the drone herded them off to the side, in a clear area where the active teleporter gave them a compelling backdrop to their conversation.

That was actually a good sign that they wouldn't be trying to edit the video to rearrange their words, but Quill still had a small dot appear on his mask, and had it start moving counterclockwise.

Cutting the video's timing around was fair game for the news station, but editing someone’s appearance was strictly against the law. This tactic was used in some form or another by anyone who felt the news channel would be less than fair in an interview.

Torch did the same as they were moved into the proper locations for the interview.

It ended up with the woman standing next to Quill, who was next to Torch, who was bracketed by the larger man.

A third person appeared from seemingly nowhere, and took all of thirty seconds to pat some makeup on the two news reporter's foreheads before vanishing just as fast as they arrived.

Quill noticed that the already low-cut dress shirt the woman was wearing had lowered its cut a fraction, while the once X-cut opening flattened at the base into a square cut.

The man's dress shirt also experienced a similar change, though his was just to tighten the shirt until it clung to him like a second skin.

The man controlling the drone started counting down out loud while lowering his fingers at the same time.

“We are live in... Five. Four. Three...”

For two and one, he only lowered his fingers before pointing at them.

The woman was the first to speak. “This is Page Woodrow with Diego Heart coming at you live from the Tier 10 Pather ‘Breakout’ Tournament, with the first interview from the hottest duo, Quill and Torch.”

She then shined a megawatt smile at Quill. “Were you aware that the video of you killing the Tier 14 region boss has already hit the top of the charts for most-watched clips?”

A short video played at high speed of Torch standing in a rain of fireballs, then guiding the giant fireball into the snake's coiled-up body.

The man, Diego, asked Torch, “Is that your ultimate move? Are the two of you worried that you’ve given away too much information too early?”

Torch, with her aflame mask, turned her face up slightly to look the man in the eyes, before veering to the camera and delivering only three words.

“No. And no.”

Quill let his mask smirk as he elaborated, “My esteemed colleague, Torch, isn't the chattiest person around. But as she so efficiently answered, no and no. That’s hardly our ultimate move. Nor are we remotely worried that others might figure out a way to counter it, or that we used it too early.”

Seeing that Quill would be the main source of words from the duo, Page leaned in. “So you have greater destructive forces in your repertoire?”

Quill laughed, “Was that not clearly implied?”

The smile Page gave him and the camera caused him to clench his jaw so hard, his teeth hurt, but he kept the rest of his body language neutral.

Page dived into her next topic with lighting speed. “I supposed it was. Also, we saw you come to the aid of that other Pather, despite having no prior relation to them. As far as we can tell at least.”

That wasn’t a question, so Quill didn’t respond, forcing her to add, “Most expected you to attack the competition viciously after your scathing comments in the endless rift plaza. What made you change your approach? Do your real identities have a connection with Fen?”

Now knowing where she was trying to lead them, Quill let a small smile creep onto his mask as he spoke. “Nothing so fun or scandalous as you’re probably hoping for. We had no such prior relationship with Fen and his menagerie, but we didn’t need one. This tournament isn't about stepping on the necks of our competitors to get ahead. While we’ll come to blows at the end of the year, we hold no ill will towards our competition. Torch and I may play on the Wild Side, but we won’t be ambushing any other teams. Even my comments at the endless rift were simply honest, well-earned critiques that I stand by.”

As his smile reached inhuman proportions, he added while wiping it off his mask, “That doesn't mean we’re pushovers though. If anyone decides to test us, we’ll pay back their intentions a millionfold. I’d also like to remind everyone that killing an attacker in self defense isn’t legally murder. If the guards aren't fast enough—”

Page smiled like he had just made a new year's celebration come early. “A bold statement. We’re all eager to see if you can back it up when push comes to shove.”

Diego tried once again to get Torch to give a bit and asked, “What do you intend to do to anyone who does attack your team, Torch?”

Matt just knew Liz was grinning like a loon under the mask as she replied, “Burn them.”

Diego walked into the next question like an amateur, “And if that doesn't work?”

“Stab them.” Torch’s answer was short and sweet, and Quill let a smile slip back onto his mask.

Diego, not willing to give up, prodded, “And if neither work?”

“Burn and stab them.”

Page, seeing her co-anchor get nowhere, turned back to Quill. “We’re just getting video of your delve of a Tier 13 rift, and our analysts are already claiming that you’re some of the best delvers of the past three tournaments. High praise from them. Are you worried that you’ll be unable to live up to the hype already surrounding you? Will your prodigious combat power fall apart when probed by someone who isn't a mindless rift monster?”

Quill looked directly at the shorter woman as he said, “As you and your viewers are well aware, we are rather high on the Mask ranking, which means we’ve fought and won numerous duels against some of the strongest teams here. We welcome anyone to challenge us to the dueling arena, or try and attack us in the Jungle. That’s the point of the Wild Side, is it not?”

Page cocked her head as she apparently received new information, and her megawatt smile somehow increased in brightness.

“We just got a report that you two were just rated by a poll done on East Flower. You’ve been rated the most likely contenders to become the next Light and Shadow. How do you feel about being compared to such legends? Do you believe that you can crush the competition like they did?”

Quill laughed while Torch snorted slightly. This was a question they expected and had prepared for.

Without hesitating, he said, “We are more than honored to have the general populous’ favor, but that is a title that everyone here this year wants. None of us are weak, and while we have every confidence in our chances to win both the solo and team tournaments, we aren't so arrogant to believe that our competitors will simply crumble before us. They’ll make sure we sweat and bleed for our inevitable victories.”

Page turned back to the camera drone, “You heard it here first, folks. Quill and Torch intend to win the entire tournament and take home the rewards for first place. A feat not pulled off since Light and Shadow swept their own breakout Tier 10 Tournament. Will the upstarts see themselves burn out early, despite a bright first showing? Or will they reduce their competition to ash, and find themselves the final victors? Watch the highlights of Torch and Quill's Tier 13 single team delve after a short word from our sponsors.”

In a coordinated move, both Page and Diego recited, “This is Page and Diego with One Two Three News coming at you with exclusive interviews from the Tier 10 Pathers tournament. And remember, folks, getting the fastest and most current updates is as easy as one, two, three.”

Everyone held their positions until the director lowered his hand, and the drone flew to his shoulder, where it perched like a mechanical hawk.

Page turned to Quill and Torch and shook both their hands as she said, “If you do as well as you think you will, we’ll be seeing more of you. Good luck, kids. We’d love to stick around, but some crazy woman cut a Tier 13 boss in half with a single swing of her sword, and the video is trending something fierce.”

With that, she spun and soared off into the distance.

Diego quickly shook their hands with a short few words of encouragement as he flew off to catch up with his team.

Quill shouted after him, “Oh, and say ‘hi’ to Queen for us!”

Turning back to his own partner, Torch met his eyes for only a second before they jointly moved off to the teleporter formations that would lead them to their rooms.

They expected to be able to relax and unwind, but the Emperor was sitting in their room and immediately prompted, “Are you two up to meeting the other Royals?”

Liz ripped off both layers of masks and groused, “Does it have to be now? We’ve had a long, busy day.”

The Emperor shrugged. “It can wait if you want, but I’m going to be leaving in a few days. I figured you'd want as much support in your corner as you could get. Also, you two put on too good of a show. Between that and your parents’ constant bragging, the Royals not ‘in the know’ are waiting with eager anticipation to get the full debriefing. I can't do that without your approval, since it pertains to your Talents.”

Matt reached up and rubbed his still masked face as he glanced between Liz and Emmanuel. “They’re getting the full truth? I half expected you to keep them in the dark.”

Emmanuel snorted, “Despite our disagreements on the exact direction the Empire should move in, I chose them as my Kings and Queens because I do trust them. They want what’s best for the Empire as much as I do. To best act on that, they need to be kept apprised of important events and developments across said Empire. A part of that is them getting read into any potential ascenders. Usually, that takes place in the last few months of the tournament, when we’re assigning team managers. But seeing as you already have a manager, there’s nothing stopping us from doing that early.”

Mat and Liz shared a glance. It wasn’t going to get any easier, but at least they had the Emperor as their mediator now. But before that…

“Can we at least take a shower first?”