“Wait, so you’re my familiar?” Ashinaro asked.

  It wasn’t uncommon for relics to grant golems, like the one the young troll in the Boneyard had been using, or the one he himself had with his flesh golem. But relics that granted true familiars were rare. And this thing inside him was no relic.

  At least, Ashinaro didn’t think so.

  The voice that had spoken from behind him had turned out to be the jester.

  Except, it hadn’t been from behind him, but from inside his head, for the jester had bound its scepter to Ashinaro’s battleform, and within that scepter was where the jester resided.

  Bound, not linked. Ashinaro didn’t know that was possible. Only relics could bind with your battleform, and the scepter was unlike any relic he’d ever heard of.

  Now, they stood in the circular entrance hall of Unar’s Tower, the jester’s mental image floating in the air in front of Ashinaro, lying on its back, hands behind its head.

  He could feel the two new relics inside of him he’d gotten as reward for completing the quest, waiting to be bound, but was too concerned with the jester binding itself to him to have looked at them yet, or to check what the next quest on his ostensibly self-assigned crusade would be.

  “I wouldn’t put it that way,” Zanas—what the jester said its name was—replied. “Think of me as a parasite, feeding off your power, readying to one day take over and consume your being. Just without the taking over and consuming part. So maybe more like a passenger than a parasite? Communicating with your language is inefficient.”

  “My language?” Ashinaro asked.

  “Oh, I know it’s utterly dreadful, isn’t it? But that’s hardly your fault.”

  “I’m confused,” Ashinaro said.

  “No surprise there. Pets are not known for their intelligence.”

  “I’m a drakken, not a pet. I’ve never even heard of a pet race.”

  “Oh! The races. Are the elves still around?”

  “Still around? They’ve come back recently along with the other races, but had been gone for a very long time. How old are you?”

  “Well, I don’t know when it is now, so I can’t very well say that, can I?”

  “And your master was Unar.”

  Zanas had given a very spotty description of what it was and what it had been doing in the tower, in that hidden room. According to it, it was some kind of assistant to Unar. Which, if true, meant it was very, very old.

  “Partner. My partner, not my master.”

  “Right. And now you’re my… partner. Because I picked up your scepter.”

  “Precisely.”

  Despite picking up both mask and scepter, the scepter was the only thing he could detect inside himself.

  He could even call it out like he could with a relic or divine scroll. And unlike the jester itself, it looked as expected to his beyondsight. Mostly.

  [A Trickster’s Deceit]

  Extend your reach.

  Affected by: [Staff Mastery] (50%)

  “Oh hey what’s that?”

  “It’s your scepter.”

  “Not that, the stuff.”

  “Stuff?”

  “Yeah, stuff just appeared in your head. Or your eyes. Or somewhere.”

  “You can see that?”

  “I’m stuck in here, aren’t I?”

  “It’s beyondsight. It allows you to see the truth of things. Do you not have it?”

  “Didn’t even know what it was till a year ago.”

  “A year ago?”

  “Or maybe a breath? Whenever it was you just told me.”

  Ashinaro wondered at the jester’s sanity, but returned his attention to the scepter.

  It didn’t have any effect other than being able to extend, but that could come in handy.

  And his staff mastery did partially apply to it.

  Another oddity was that it was neither cursed nor cleansed nor blessed, yet was able to be linked.

  Or, rather, bound. Which maybe explained it. Relics, after all, were none of those.

  It granted no boons, which made it like divine items, but it wasn’t that either, not according to his beyondsight.

  But if it was a relic, it wasn’t showing up as one.

  Ashinaro of Argalis

  Renown: Lesser Defender

  Traits

  ? Renewal 2

  ? Water Breathing 2

  ? Darkvision 2

  ? Resilience 2

  ? Strength 2

  ? Reflexes 2

  ? Senses 2

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  ? Persistent Renewal 1

  Links

  ? Fossilized Staff (Cursed)

  Boons

  ? Staff Mastery (Unholy)

  Relics

  ? Flesh’s Frenzy (Flawless)

  “So if I use this,” he asked, “I’m basically fighting with your body?”

  “Oh no no no. That’s my house, not my body.”

  “And you don’t mind me hitting things with it?”

  “On the contrary, hit away. Hasn’t seen much use in quite a long time.”

  “How is it bound to me? Is it some kind of relic?” It didn’t look like one to his beyondsight, but then his beyondsight told him almost nothing about Zanas, so maybe he wasn’t seeing the full truth of this either.

  “I suppose you might say it’s a prototype. A precursor. A progenitor to the relics.”

  “So you were created by a god? Wait, was Unar some kind of old god? In the histories, he was just one of the fay.”

  Zanas laughed. “He was no god. And neither are your gods, if I had to guess by looking at this… thing…” It trailed off and said the last bit disgustedly.

  “You can see my relic?” Ashinaro could tell Zanas was looking inside him, because while its image floated in front of Ashinaro in the tower, its true self remained within him, inside the scepter.

  “Obviously. I’m shoved right up next to it. And there’s these other two just floating around. I think they’re chasing me.”

  “What do you mean about them not being gods? Of course they’re gods.”

  “I suppose that depends on your definition of what a god is. I can’t speak with any certainty, since it’s been a long time. But based on this relic that I see here, there’s nothing divine about them.”

  “And what would something divine look like?”

  There was a long pause.

  Zanas’s grinning mask shifted to the frowning side. “Well, I can’t say that I actually know what it would look like, but I know this isn’t it.”

  Ashinaro let out a sigh of relief.

  The jester was clearly insane.

  And now stuck inside him.

  He could blame any blasphemous thoughts on that.

  Maybe he could get cleansed by a priest.

  “So what adventure are we going on now?” Zanas asked from inside Ashinaro’s mind as he made his way across the Boneyard.

  “It’s called getting back home.”

  “Boring!”

  “Are you really going to be stuck with me?”

  “Hey, you were the one who picked me up. No one told you to do that.”

  “I picked up both items. What does the mask do?” He didn’t feel it bound to his battleform like he did with the scepter and couldn’t see it no matter how hard he looked within himself.

  “It helps me be more expressive.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Don’t knock expressiveness. Imagine going around without being able to show people your emotions.”

  “That actually seems pretty nice to me.”

  “Yes, because you’re a dragon.”

  “I’m not a dragon, I’m a drakken.”

  “Yes, yes, drakken, dragon, pet; it’s all the same.”

  “Not at all. And I’m not a pet either.”

  Ahead, a Gold bonechitterer emerged from the Boneyard dust and Ashinaro diverted course to avoid it.

  “If you’re going to be stuck with me, can you do anything useful like a relic can?”

  “Oh, I can manifest, of course.”

  Zanas popped into existence in front of him, jogging backwards, and this time he was physically there, his feet making faint imprints in the dusty soil of the Boneyard.

  “What renown are you?” Ashinaro was still stymied by the fact that his beyondsight didn’t reveal Zanas’s renown or race.

  “About the same as you.” Zanas tilted his head, then did a little pirouette all while continuing to run backward. He really was agile. “Actually, that’s a lie. I don’t know what that is, but I’m not liking admitting my flaws compared to a dumb pet.” He disappeared back within Ashinaro.

  “It’s,” Ashinaro began, but then stopped, trying to come up with a way to explain something so fundamental. “It’s how much, well, I don’t know, power you have, I suppose. How much divine favor you’ve gained, and also how much monster essence you’ve consumed.”

  “Oh, I’ve not eaten any monsters. Nasty creatures, those.”

  Ashinaro heard a mental sniff.

  “Kind of smells like them in here, now you bring it up.”

  “You can smell them?”

  “Intensely.”

  In the distance, the Boneyard ramp came into view.

  “I instilled two monster cores earlier. One is nothing but purified essence now, but the other is in my relic.”

  “Well, that’s just disgusting. Why would you do something like that?”

  “To get more powerful.”

  “Surely there are better ways of gaining power than eating innocent creatures. How would you like it if someone came along and ate you?”

  “Wait, the disgusting part is that I took their essence? And you’re sad for them?”

  “Yes, of course. What did you think I meant?”

  “I don’t know, you were sniffing around, so I thought you meant they stank.”

  “Oh, well, they absolutely do stink. Terribly, terribly so. But that’s all the more reason not to eat them. Or to eat them. I’m not sure.”

  “I didn’t eat them, I just… instilled their cores.”

  “After you ate them?”

  “No, not after I ate them. And they’re not innocent. They try to kill us first.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  Though, that had never been quite true for Ashinaro. For some reason, monsters were less aggressive toward him than toward others.

  They were still aggressive, and he had been attacked first many times, just less than most.

  “Yes, I see your confusion. I see your debate. Good. It’s delicious. You yourself have some of what you would call a monster inside here.”

  “The unholy boon? It’s from my staff, not me.” Because it wasn’t cleansed by a priest, it retained the monster’s essence which it had come from.

  “Well, I don’t know about that. There’s something in here that smells a lot like a monster. Other than the core.”

  “It’s because the staff is linked to my battleform. See.” He unlinked it and felt its boon vanish from him.

  “Hm, well, the smell lingers.”

  He relinked the staff. “How can you smell inside me, anyway?”

  “I have very delicate senses.”

  Up ahead in the Boneyard, Ashinaro spotted several whelps training.

  “We’re getting close. You need to stay hidden.”

  “What? Why? I exist to display my splendor.”

  “Because I don’t need that kind of attention, and I don’t know how to explain you. And if the priests find out about my crusade, the least of what I’ll lose is my freedom.”

  Zanas huffed. “Fine, but you better not keep me locked away in here forever. I’m coming out the moment we’re alone.”

  Ashinaro stumbled and nearly fell over, disoriented from the sudden communication. Zanas had spoken all that into his head as before, but this time it had happened in under a breath. Before, it had been like hearing someone speak in his mind. This was like… well, he didn’t know what. A dream maybe. It happened so fast, yet he was able to understand it perfectly.

  “What was that?”

  “We’re connected, if you’re going to keep me locked away in here, I can at least speed up our communication. Might have gone too fast there. I’m slowing this down. It’s about, oh, eight times faster than you could speak.”

  This time Ashinaro didn’t get so disoriented, though barely a breath passed while Zanas was speaking.

  “Can I speak faster as well?”

  “You can try. Don’t blame me if you fail. I won’t be held accountable for your lack of talent.”

  Ashinaro mentally sang the godsworn oath as he counted his breaths.

  It was hard to rush through it mentally, his lips wanting to mouth the words.

  “It’s probably easier if you just let me read your thoughts. Which I’m already doing, so, hurray.”

  Hornblade hadn’t been able to bring himself to search Unar’s Tower again. Not until he had a proper meal.

  And this bloody heat was killing him. He was a Champion, he shouldn’t be bothered by something as mundane as climate. But this heat was of a kind he’d never before experienced. It was a wonder anything managed to survive.

  So he made his way back to Argalis. He wasn’t familiar with the area, and had woken far from the road, so if it hadn’t been for his Wind Stride relic that let him ride the wind and gain a higher vantage, he would have gone in entirely the wrong direction.

  He was prepared to flee when he reached the gates, but while the guards glared daggers at him, they made no attempt to prevent his entrance. He’d half expected to have been kicked out of the city. That didn’t seem to be the case, so he remained at a loss as to how he’d ended up in the wilds.

  Decent food was unexpectedly easy to find. Whatever the drakken’s flaws, they knew how to cook.

  After his meal, he decided to explore the city. He’d seen very little of it the night before, and remembered even less.

  But as he strolled through the streets, his disappointment grew. Food aside, he’d expected more. When he’d left Fairwind and paid the trolls’ exorbitant price for a ticket on the Divide Crosser, his hopes had been high. A brand-new continent would have brand-new experiences.

  He was discovering it was simply more of the same.

  On his way to the market district to see if they might have some exotic relics for sale, he spotted something familiar.

  He squinted at the item, then opened his beyondsight to confirm his suspicion.

  Checking to make sure no one was paying him any mind, he faded into the shadows, and followed.