In the holovids, they make stowing away look practically romantic.

Starship corridor lights pulse, jump-suited crew members stand at their stations, and there’s our hero, crouching dramatically in the foreground. She’s beautiful and savvy, her hair flowing and streaked neon as she avoids detection by a laser’s edge. She darts past enemies like a shooting star in the night, spiriting herself away in the ship’s cargo hold. She steals her ride as easy as if she’d harnessed a runaway enercycle. The plot moves on.

Except real life ain’t the holovids, and I’m no hero. My name is Rayuhl Rengott. Technically, I’m a thief. Also technically, I’m a murderer. That last one is patently false, but we’ll get to that later.

I’m not beautiful or savvy, either. I hiss when I talk—and I don’t even have hair. I’m as bald as the dead landscape of my beloved homeworld. Unlike most of my fellow Eoxians, though, I’m very much alive.

Yes, there are creatures on Eox other than just putrefied corpsefolk, skeletal bone troopers, and necrovite spellcasters. And we aren’t all Absalom Station’s most foolhardy traders or undead wannabes living in dystopian bubble cities.

Some of us are living, breathing elebrians. Those long-skulled, dead-eyed, shrivel-skinned monsters you think of when you hear the name “Eox”? They were once us, except now they’re among the most powerful walking dead. And we are at their mercy.

You seem confused. Fair enough. I’ll explain.

Long, long before the Gap, a handful of elebrians survived our kin’s annihilation of the world. As second-class citizens, we’ve lived on our destroyed planet for untold generations ever since, passing flesh-and-blood legacies to our descendants. We try to keep the ravenous undead at bay for a half-dozen decades or so before we expire. We live only where our undead overlords deign to create hospitable environments for us. We perform the jobs they graciously hand out—if we’re lucky, it’s hard labor. If we’re not, we fight to the death for their amusement and profit in sick events streamed galaxy-wide from the Halls of the Living.

Like I said, we’re at their mercy. For most of us, it’s the only way to stay alive.

Which brings me to my current predicament. I’m peering out of the open cargo bay of this starship I hopped from Absalom Station. All around me are desolate hills, fossilized trees, miasmic eddies—you know, typical Dead Planet stuff. This is Eox, all right, but it’s not my beloved home city of the Pyre. Instead, it’s some desiccated place nearby, with the Pyre’s power-generating tower off in the hazy distance.

And I’m staring right at the bone sage who issued my death-warrant—a destroy-on-sight, as I believe the Eoxian authorities call it—over high crimes of murder and theft from his personal palace.

Illustration by Weston T. Jones

Remember when I said I wasn’t savvy?

I thought I was stowing away on an AbadarCorp freighter bound for the loading docks of the Pyre. The plan was simple. I’d slip into the city, meet up with my old Redbloods crew, and help them pull a job big enough to buy a new life for all of us—one meant for the living!— on Absalom Station. They’d lined up the heist in the elite suites of the arcology, and I’d leveraged my Absalom connections. This job would buy me a whole new identity, and it would afford my friends enough credits to comfortably emigrate from this dead rock. Win-win.

Except for that planet-blasted bone sage Kalantrodoch. He calls himself the Unburning. I call him the Bum-squirming. He’s a rabid zombified squox-rat if there ever was one. He also happens to rule the Pyre. And he’s the reason I had to flee Eox three years ago.

Look, I was minding my own business—okay, okay, I had broken into Kalantrodoch’s sky-mansion. I planned to steal some ancient tech artifact the Redbloods had heard he’d smuggled in from Castrovel. I had the thing in my hot little hands, too. It looked like a small datapad, but it was made from a strange metal covered in Elven runes, and was meant to be strapped on the wrist or ankle.

Just as I was ducking out of that awful place, I heard footsteps coming into the vault. I hid behind some technosafes, and I heard Kalantrodoch himself chatting in his horrifically sibilant voice to some of his cronies.

“We’ll put it in the water,” the bone sage had said. “In a fortnight, our problem disa—”

Whatever that meant. I didn’t hear the rest, because Kalantrodoch happened to walk past that particular technosafe at that particular time, and the jig was up. He would have caught me and likely thrown me into prison for life had I not had a vial of rotdust on me. I threw it in his face and he breathed in ground-up undead skin. Corpses hate that—they find it disgusting, on par with cannibalism. Go figure.

Anyway, it was just the distraction I needed to duck out of the vault. From there, I slinked out of the sky-mansion, and I promptly pawned the Castrovellian tech on the Station.

That’s how I earned my death-warrant from Kalantrodoch the Unburning. Why he decided to tell the Pact that I murdered someone is beyond me. I guess he takes thefts from his personal home rather personally. Either way, it doesn’t matter, because ol’ Bum-squirming has made sure I can never safely return to Eox in my current identity. Hence the current plan. And my current predicament.

Because I can tell that the bone sage I’m seeing is Kalantrodoch by his eyes, which do burn like some sort of unholy Asmodean forges. Why he’s out here in the gods-forsaken wastelands outside the Pyre is beyond me. And why he’s meeting an apparently legitimate Abadaran merchant is also a mystery.

My best bet is to creep undetected around these cases of cargo—probably supplies for those monstrous necrovites in the arcology—and simply vanish. Then, I’ve just got to hope my environmental protections last long enough for me to hike the rest of the way to the Pyre. This job can still happen.

I have to get dangerously close to Kalantrodoch as I pick my way around the ship’s perimeter, though. I see he’s got two corpsefolk cronies with him. Ugh, at least I don’t have to smell the stench of rotting flesh no doubt wafting up from them. Thanks to the tympanal cluster implants in my ears, I can even hear what they’re whispering to each other while they’re waiting for the Abadaran to review the cargo manifest.

“That’s the crate,” Kalantrodoch says, nodding to one small, inconspicuous box. “Undetectable, and the scientists promised it’d work this time. They’ve learned much in three years.”

I stop cold, heart racing. What is he saying?

“We’re just weeks away from ten thousand fewer breathers.”

I stifle a shocked gasp. What I heard three years ago suddenly makes sense.

Our problem disappears. Ten thousand fewer breathers.

Kalantrodoch is planning to wipe out most of the living elebrian population in the Pyre. With some sort of undetectable poison? I can only imagine the horrors he means to visit on my kind. Our numbers are well known, and for years the bone sage has subtly complained to Orphys that his living workers are a drain on resources.

Looking around wildly, I assess the scene. There are stacks and stacks of crated goods—this is not a small shipment; Kalantrodoch is smuggling the highly illegal poison in with a vast array of legitimate goods. That’s probably why he’s meeting the Abadaran outside the city limits.

I do see a rack near me with a few high-octane enercycles. I could take one of them and flee to the city. But they’re noisy, and the walking corpses would blast me away before I could get too far. And I’ve got to get to the city without heat on my trail, because I have to warn my friends.

Desperately hoping to find anything that might help, I start quietly prying lids off crates. There’s one with a dozen second skin suits, one with assorted computer circuitry, and finally, one I can work with.

A crate full of grenades.

I’m going to have to time this perfectly if it’s going to work. Thinking quickly, I lash the open crate of grenades to the back of one of the bikes, then I grab another cycle. Standing between them like I’m leading two prize show shotalashus, I slowly walk the bikes around the perimeter of the site.

I position myself just out of sight of the bone sage and the Abadaran. I’ll set one bike off riderless to distract them, I think. Then, when chaos reigns, I’ll ride in the opposite direction—toward Pyre—and none of them will be the wiser. The crate of grenades is mine, just in case I need any weapons once I slink into the city.

It’s a great plan, I think, as I start up the enercycles’ engines as quietly as I can. Until I realize I’ve misjudged the bone sage and his cronies’ line of sight.

“A breather!” one of the corpsefolk shouts, pointing in my direction. Both zombies pull out massive arc rifles and level them in my direction.

Instinctively, I rev the boom-cycle’s engine. Yanking a grenade out, I pull the pin and drop it back into the crate. I let the boom-cycle fly toward the corpses and the Abadaran, and I hop on the other cycle, shooting toward the spire in the distance.

The blast wave from the ensuing explosion nearly knocks me off balance. I can hear the shrieks of Kalantrodoch and his minions. I hear nothing from the Abadaran, and I can only hope that they survived.

I did say I wasn’t a hero.

A few minutes pass as I zoom along the shriveled Eoxian landscape toward the spire. When I dare to look back, it seems my plan didn’t sideline ol’ Bum-squirming for as long as I’d hoped. He’s racing behind me on a scorched enercycle, minions nowhere to be found, his long canines dripping with acidic saliva and his horrific, fiery eyes screaming with rage.

“Rengott!” he shouts.

Great. He knows it’s me. I kick the enercycle, bobbing and weaving, hoping I’ll be able to lose him.

This could be an awkward homecoming. I’ve just got to make it to Pyre alive…

About the Author

Amanda Hamon is the Managing Developer for Starfinder, and you could say science-fantasy is her jam. Her game design, worldbuilding, and adventure writing have appeared in dozens of RPG products, including the Starfinder and Pathfinder roleplaying games. Mostly, she just likes doing stupid voices for characters at the table. You can find Amanda on Twitter at @amandahamon.

About Tales from the Drift

The Tales from the Drift series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into the setting of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Written by members of the Starfinder development team and some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, the Tales from the Drift series promises to explore the worlds, alien cultures, deities, history, and organizations of the Starfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

It’s barely light—just after dawn—and my heart is pounding, hammering in time with the pahtra war drum’s rhythm. The visceral stomp of heavily armored boots and the jagged crackle of automatic rifle fire roil around us all. The vesk move awkwardly, still clumsy and off-balance in gravity that’s far weaker than what they’re used to. They carry their laser weapons with pride, firing sleek lines of light through the trees, and I find myself baring my teeth in a disdainful snarl. The magnetic storms of Vesk-6 make laser weapons risky even at the best of times, but the azimuth laser rifle is the standard-issue armament for the Veskarium army, and so the vesk carry them. My hands tighten on my own rifle, adrenaline surging as the war drum urges us forward. I take to the shadows behind a trio of ancient trees, waiting for the right moment to leap into the fray.

Is this what my forebears felt, some 300 years ago, fighting against the vesk invaders intent on reconquering a world they knew they had once controlled? Or even longer ago, before the Gap, when the Veskarium first came to Pulonis and claimed it as Vesk-6, the newest part of their empire?

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

But this isn’t a war. We aren’t a guerilla team fending off an invasion—it’s a training exercise, and the vesk in the clearing are as much my teammates as the other pahtras in the trees around me. The largest and boldest vesk in our unit leads the way, with just over a half-dozen others not far behind her. One vesk for each pahtra in our unit. Usually we train side-by-side, learning from one another, but today we’ve been divided up, pahtras against vesk. My own vesk partner stands firmly in the center of his unit, holding his rifle steady and firing careful blasts. It’s a typical vesk tactic, all stoic and solid and focused on formation, while my half of the unit has split up, each of us blending into the trees and utilizing the tactics that work best for us.

It makes Major Koboratash furious, our disregard for formal strategies. It’s also how we’ve won the last six of these mock battles. I wonder what she’s trying to accomplish, dividing us up into Team Pahtra and Team Vesk when the high despot’s program has us training side by side in the first place. I know some of my teammates think the major is secretly training the vesk to fight some of the pahtra resistance cells active near Leapfang Bay. I hope they’re wrong.

I wait for my chance to leap into the fray, watching for an opening, a distraction, an opportunity. My gaze settles on Jaskenayo, a particularly stodgy vesk with dark green scales, and the fur down the back of my neck suddenly stiffens. A shiver runs down the length of my spine. Something here is... wrong. I can’t say what or why or even how I know, but something about him has me deeply unsettled. His movements aren’t quite in step with the others, the tracking of his beady eyes just a little jerky. Like he’s watching the skirmish and reacting just a nanosecond too slow to be real. I’ve never seen anything like it before, and the tension along my spine grows so tight it’s painful. Something here is deeply, terribly wrong.

I slip back into the shadows. Make my way around the simulated firefight, slinking along the underbrush, until I’m off to one side, almost opposite our war drummer. Slowly, careful not to draw attention to my movements, I dump the blanks from my rifle and swap in the magazine of live ammunition from my belt. We all carry it, as a precaution against the countless predators of Vesk-6, since you never know when a sky viper might turn a training exercise into a life-or-death fight. Somehow, even though I can’t say why, I know this is one of those times.

The headstrong scrapper of my unit gives me the opening I need, rushing in to take on the frontline vesk with her bare hands like the reckless brawler she is. I lift my rifle, take careful aim. Breathe out. Pull the trigger.

Jaskenayo goes down so easily. He hadn’t seen me, and I was so close my single shot punched right through his overplate. He falls with a strangled cry.

Chaos breaks out. Of course it does—these training exercises aren’t supposed to be lethal. Everyone is shouting, and eight standard-issue Veskarium laser rifles swing around to focus on me, sharp clicks ringing out as they, too, are switched to a lethal setting. The hammering rhythm of the war drum falters, and then ceases altogether. My pahtra teammates stare, aghast. I feel my vesk partner’s eyes on me, betrayed and furious.

My fear—that creeping sensation of wrongness—dissipates almost as soon as Jaskenayo’s body hits the ground. But it’s immediately replaced by a different kind of fear, less visceral and much more intellectual, as Major Koboratash’s outraged shouts resound through the jungle. Demanding to know what just happened. What I thought I was doing. And I realize, really realize, what I’ve done. I just killed my teammate. Our war drummer’s partner. My partner’s childhood friend.

The major stomps up to me, and I hand over my rifle. I try to explain myself, but I don’t have the words for it. I have no proof, no justification—I just knew something was wrong. She doesn’t believe me, of course. She sees a recruit killed by friendly fire. A personal vendetta turned lethal.

I can’t even pretend it was an accident. They’ll court-martial me, and I’ll be discharged, dishonorably, without the Soldier’s Due.

Then, behind the major, Jaskenayo’s body twitches. I flinch back, and the major spins around as the dead vesk body jerks and shudders. Then, horribly, his body seems to deflate as a slick, bulbous ooze slithers out from beneath his armor.

A hymothoa.

I understand, then. I hadn’t encountered one of the indigenous oozes before, but I knew about them. Like how they eat away at a host’s organs and replace them, puppeting them around in pursuit of goals no one has ever been able to understand. And that some pahtras have something of a sixth sense for hymothoas, when most other species have no way to detect them other than with extensive medical scanning—something almost impossible here given our planet’s unpredictable magnetic storms.

The major snaps out an order, and suddenly eight azimuth laser rifles are firing on the thing with lethal force. When I blink away the afterimage of eight laser beams, all that remains of the hymothoa is a damp patch on the leafy jungle floor beside Jaskenayo’s now-unmoving form. I begrudgingly admit to myself that the vesk weapons have some benefits after all—my own rifle would have been far less effective against an amorphous foe.

Major Koboratash looks back at me, scowling. “You knew?”

I nod and stammer, trying to put into words the gut feeling, the absolute certainty that things weren’t the way they should be. Childhood tales flit through my mind, warning of the bogeyman oozes, but I can’t use a ghost story as a justification. My heart is hammering louder than the war drums had before. She can still court-martial me. Have me discharged. Order the squad to turn their laser rifles on me and fire—the Army of the Veskarium certainly has no overabundance of mercy.

But she cuts me off with a snarl and a sharp gesture. “That was well done, Gunner Sehvet.”

I shut my mouth. The major looks between me and the unmoving corpse on the jungle floor. I wonder what the ooze had hoped to accomplish by parasitizing Jaskenayo. Probably nothing good—for all their inscrutability, the creatures seem to have as much resentment of the vesk occupation of our planet as the most deeply entrenched pahtra resistance cells.

The major barks new orders. She turns north and leads the way as if nothing unusual had happened. We all leap to comply, vesk and pahtra alike. Lines form as we pair up with our counterparts and begin the strict, regimented march back to Command 6. My vesk partner falls into place beside me, and I can feel his uneasy eyes watching me, but now isn’t the time for chatter. I don’t know what I’d say anyway, because I have a sinking feeling this is just the beginning.

About the Author

Lyz Liddell is a designer for Pathfinder Second Edition at Paizo. She writes adventures and rules for Pathfinder and Starfinder, plus an abundance of independent fantasy and science fiction in various stages of editing and querying. You can find Lyz and learn more about her innumerable hobbies on Twitter at @LyzMayTweet.

About Tales from the Drift

The Tales from the Drift series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into the setting of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Written by members of the Starfinder development team and some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, the Tales from the Drift series promises to explore the worlds, alien cultures, deities, history, and organizations of the Starfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

Zemir stepped around a fetid pool of… something… and tried to breathe shallowly. Intellectually he knew that either his mask was working or it wasn’t, and either way the worst he’d suffer was a strong sense of nausea if he did get a whiff of unfiltered air. But the horrid smell that penetrated the mask’s filters still made him want to avoid taking deep lungfuls of the stuff. Which made it difficult to keep up with Obozaya, as his vesk companion strode unfettered through the densely-packed market.

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru.

“I still do not understand you mammals!” Obozaya sounded more amused than perplexed. “If the atmosphere’s odor is so terrible it turns you into mewling monkeys, why not activate your environmental controls rather than just using the breather mask?”

Zemir ignored the “monkeys” jab. He was still relatively new to the crew of the Sunrise Maiden, hired for his power to search through and bring things from various iterations of reality. Obozaya was a respected, veteran member of the crew, and Zemir was better off humoring her. If he could earn Obozaya’s trust, the rest of the crew would quickly follow.

“There are two reasons.” Zemir sidestepped a group of haggling kasathas and picked up his pace to walk next to the vesk. “The first is that I’m not sure how much I trust this filter to pull the actual toxins out of the air, given how much of the rotting-fish-and-eggs odor it lets in. Since we’re here to get surplus air filters and pressurized tents so the rest of our crew can operate on this planet long-term—longer than our armor’s environmental seals will last—I’d like to test this model in the field. I don’t fully trust AbadarCorp’s marketing claims.”

Obozaya nodded, her teeth flashing briefly in what Zemir had come to believe was an expression of appreciation. Vesk might be one of a dozen species immune to the toxins in this planet’s air, but she was pragmatic enough that she certainly wouldn’t want her teammates hampered by nausea and weakness if their mission ran more than a few days.

“Secondly... are we being followed?”

Zemir did not change the tone of his voice at all, and to her credit Obozaya did not spin to look around. Instead she simply angled her path to skirt a denser part of the crowded market’s patrons. Zemir fell in behind her, moving through the wake she made in the throng. Creatures of half a dozen species cursed and stepped in behind them, shaking fists and raising their chins in angry postures. Which meant it was easy for Zemir to spot the group following them as they plowed into the already-agitated crowd, shoving sapients out of their way while remaining quiet and taking on hunched postures, trying to keep their profiles below the general level of the market’s customers.

There were three of them, short and broad humanoids in heavy armor. Zemir guessed they were lashuntas... or dwarves, though he had much less experience with dwarves. Their equipment was worn and patched, but looked functional enough. All three had laser rifles of some kind slung over their shoulders, and holstered sidearms. Their armors’ environmental seals were active, protecting them from the extreme discomfort of the atmosphere, and making their faces harder to discern.

But their facial tattoos were clear enough. He shifted his view, searching through nearby iterations of his own reality, and saw the three figures following someone on this street, at this time, in most alternate realities. Their presence here was not random.

Obozaya took a sharp turn onto another major road and stepped to the side, allowing Zemir to pass her. She shot him a glance with a raised brow ridge.

“Three of them, definitely following us. Short, maybe korasha. Facial tattoos.”

“Golden League?” Obozaya asked.

Zemir shrugged. “I don’t know the local families well enough to hazard a guess. Would Golden League assassins be likely to want you dead?”

Obozaya shook her head once, firmly, while unclipping the safety strap from her stellar cannon. Zemir bit his lower lip, though his mask concealed the expression. If they weren’t Xun assassins, then they were most likely just robbers, possibly drawn by his own obvious good taste in equipment. In that was the case, Obozaya and he could likely deal with them if it came to a fight, but likely not without getting ejected from the market for getting flechette holes in nearby shops. And even if he could talk their way out of expulsion, the shop they were headed to for supplies might close for the day if there was talk of a brawl in the street

Of course if they were robbers, their main motivation would be to make a quick credit in a shakedown.

Zemir put a hand on Obozaya’s arm. “Follow my lead.”

Her brow ridge went up even higher, but she nodded. Just as the three tattooed pursuers rounded the corner, Zemir stepped into the street and turned to face Obozaya.

“NOW you want your back pay?”

Obozaya was clearly surprised, but covered it quickly enough, especially since all eyes were on Zemir. She growled at him, which he hoped was just her way of playing along.

“I’m mortgaged to the hilt!” Zemir let exasperation leak into his voice. “I’ve even been reduced to wearing cheap knock-off fashion. Not a thing on me is worth a tenth its appearance. And since the family disowned me, I can’t turn to them for support!”

At first the squat ruffians simply stood in shock and stared at Zemir complaining to his apparent bodyguard, but as he continued to describe the dire straits of his finances, and lack of extended family, their expressions went from shock to sour. About the time he claimed he could pay Obozaya in a week, when his next loan came through, the lashuntas—he’d seen at least one antenna, so they must be lashuntas—turned as a group and trundled back the way they’d come.

Once Zemir was sure they were out of earshot, he stopped whining.

Obozaya chuckled. “Not how I’d have handled it, but effective. But aren’t you worried word will get out that you‘re broke, and merchants will refuse to talk to you?”

Zemir shrugged. “If we needed high-end or custom goods that you can only buy with an appointment, maybe. All we need are more filter masks. When we show the paramilitary surplus dealer our credits, he won’t care about rumors.”

Obozaya seemed satisfied, and began making her way toward the surplus shop again. “That taken care of... what was the second reason you’re not using your environmental seals?”

Zemir’s mask kept his predatory grin from being obvious, but his eyes did sparkle.

“I want to know this miasma well enough that I can grab a cloud of it from another iteration of reality. If I ever need to flood a room with it, anyone unfamiliar with the stench is in for quite the shock.”

---

About the Author

Owen K.C. Stephens is a veteran of the tabletop RPG industry with more than 20 years of experience, including being on staff at Green Ronin, Paizo, and Wizards of the Coast and being the publisher of RogueGeniusGames.com. He has worked on numerous RPG lines, including being co-author of the Star Wars Saga Edition RPG and Design Lead for the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. You can support his writing and free content production at Patreon, and follow him at his blog, on Facebook and on Twitter.

About Iconic Encounters

Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

Rock rained near New Valor.

With a twist of the wheel, Zurkrishu maneuvered the hover tank out of the largest boulder’s path before drifting back onto their collision course with the colossal kyokor as Renz kept firing the main autocannon. “Stay with me, Renz,” Zurkrishu admonished over her shoulder as Renz’s tracer rounds veered off target. “We only got this one chance, yeah? Let’s do it for Daimalko!” Still hundreds of feet off, the kyokor lunged toward another vehicle, snatching and crumpling it in a single motion as its occupants rained haplessly back to the ground. As Renz’s explosive shells hit home, the kyokor hurled the wreckage at their hover tank, striking it straight on and flipping it end over end.

Time slowed. Zurkrishu went flying, her hand outstretched toward Renz as she cried out “Captain!”

Captain? In that frozen moment, Renz looked down at their sleeve. No, they were a sergeant, weren’t they?

“Captain!”

Something wasn’t right. The kyokor’s roar was fading into dull static as Renz tumbled through the air.

“Captain?”

Renz blinked awake. Their sheets were tangled like so much wreckage, and the only light came from an unblinking featureless face projected on their wall monitor.

“Captain, there’s an incident,” Stilchee announced patiently. The embri’s mask hid her emotions admirably, yet Renz could detect a hint of silent judgment. “You’re needed on the bridge.”

“An incident?” Renz quipped while rolling off their bed in a vain search for trousers. “If they’re fighting again, just break ’em up.”

“I assure you, Flowers and Esh are on their best behavior. I respect your non-Pact Standard sleep cycle enough not to disturb you unless it’s important.” Stilchee paused before adding, “We have unexpected company.”

Renz swore quietly all the way to the bridge, idly rubbing the Daimalkan military insignia on their jacket. For decades, the Veskarium had subjugated the planet Landahl and its peaceful illyr inhabitants, provoking a guerrilla war that the illyrs were slowly losing. Not wanting to provoke another Silent War, the Pact Worlds had stayed out of the unjust annexation, but sympathizers with deep pockets still supplied the illyrs where they could. It was just such a smuggling run that Renz had accepted, sneaking ordnance to the rebels.

As Renz arrived, Esh reflexively stood and saluted, the hobgoblin’s military upbringing taking over before he sheepishly returned to his seat. The ghoran behind him smirked before Esh chidingly swatted them, ruffling the ghoran’s fern-top undercut. “All right, business time. What’s happening?” Renz demanded.

Stilchee maintained eye contact as she turned on the main viewscreen, displaying a fleet of Veskarium warships.

Illustration by Rodrigo Gonzalez Toledo

“What the Hell’s with this welcoming party?” Renz demanded. “All reports described light patrols, not a blockade!”

“Kinda wish we were being paid more for the run, huh Renz?” quipped Flowers, their sarcasm belied by their nervously gripping the starship’s controls.

“Hey, it’s a good cause, alright?” Renz shot back before looking to his embri science officer. “Stilchee, our cover’s still in order, right?”

“Aye, captain.” The alien mollusk bobbed her mask as her claws tapped away. “Our hold remains shielded, and our documentation still insists we’re shipping scientific instruments and other supplies to the Obedurn Associates research colony, a neutral entity. I worry more that their flagship has begun scanning us aggressively.”

“Your countermeasures holding up, though? Good.” Renz shook out their shoulders, checked their mutton chops, and ran a hand through their hair. “Patch me through to our new friends, and I’ll clear up this misunderstanding before they dig too deep.”

Stilchee tapped away diligently as Flowers mockingly mouthed “nu-nu-friends” and pantomimed a dancing skittermander to Esh in an attempt at levity. The ghoran snapped back to the controls when the screen suddenly displayed a massive Veskarian starship’s bridge filled with dozens of vesk officers. Before them loomed their leader, a vesk in overplate armor, her fuchsia-and-green scales bristling with confidence. “Attend, and identify yourself,” she boomed, her vesk second-in-command stepping into view at her side.

“Glory to you.” Renz inclined their head slightly in respect. “I am Renz, captain of the Zurkrishin. We’re bound for Landahl carrying food, clothing, and scientific instruments for Obedurn Associates. What earns us this welcome?”

“You stand before Wing Commander Tolskamash of the Army of the Veskarium, Thrice-Tested Conqueror of Persam-6 and commanding officer of the Scorchrazor. I trust you understand commerce to Landahl is tightly restricted?”

“Absolutely, wing commander.” Renz briefly glanced to Stilchee, who pointed insistently to her station’s display, indicating multiple ships were now scanning the Zurkrishin.

“Yet even so, you traffic in the name of rebel sympathizers?”

Renz stared back in disbelief. “Sympathizers, wing commander?”

The vesk’s first officer responded. “Sympathizers,” he intoned grimly. “They recently declared their support for the illyr resistance. Those who serve them are in violation of Veskarium law. Violators are to be eliminated with prejudice,” he added with a hungry grin.

“The Veskarium’s justice is not so cruel, sub-commander,” Tolskamash remarked calmly to her second without breaking her predatory menace.

“Then no doubt the captain would welcome a boarding party to search his starship,” amended the first officer.

“They/them, thank you!” snapped Flowers from the pilot’s chair, interrupting the vesk’s interrogation.

“They/Th—?” Wing Commander Tolskamash blinked, quirked her head, and studied Renz before straightening and raking three claws over her breastplate in display of the god Damoritosh’s doshko blade, nudging her second to do the same. “My subordinate and I were mistaken and meant no disrespect,” she apologized while struggling to regain her earlier momentum. “The captain, ah, they would certainly—"

“It’s an honest mistake, please,” Renz interrupted with a casual wave before adding, “But I believe it’s not the only honest mistake at hand—we’re simple teamsters given bad information. My crew will send you our manifest imminently, and we can forget about these misunderstandings. Hold, please.” Stilchee cut the transmission as the off-balance vesk struggled to respond.

Renz furiously scratched their mutton chops before Flowers began another round of gallows humor. “Hey, hey!” Renz snapped. “News doesn’t travel any faster through the Drift than we do, okay? It’s just bad timing. We can talk our way out.”

“We don’t have long to talk, captain,” Stilchee reported, pointing to her screens. Alerts silently popped up every few seconds, signaling that each of the vesk ships was scanning them. Their cover was slipping as surely as Stilchee’s masked emotions, and Renz could hear the restrained fear building in her voice as she more quietly counseled: “Just because you named the ship after a colossus hunter doesn’t mean it can take on that many goliaths.”

“That, ah, might not be true,” countered Esh, pantomiming finger-guns to emphasize his point. “At this rate, they won’t just find our illyr shipments.”

Renz scowled. “And why would our starship’s basic armaments upset the vesk?”

“What are a few lasers between friends?” The hobgoblin flicked at his own screens and added, “But when we were doing maintenance last, I gave our systems a little, ah, upgrade that might spook their sensors.”

“Like what?”

Esh’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Little something we called ‘Gideron Gold’ back in the home system.”

“Gider—" Flowers visibly wilted. “We’re packing nukes?!?”

“Hey, you de-stress with spa days, I de-stress by knowing we’re packing real heat!”

“Damn, you Authority types don’t mess around.” Flowers cracked their knuckles. “That changes the odds just a little.”

Esh gave the ghoran a playful shove, “Well look who bloomed and grew some stamens!”

“Irrelevant!” Stilchee chided while furiously reconfiguring their starship’s signatures to foil the vesk scanners. “Captain, we have perhaps a few minutes before they see through our cover. We need a plan.”

Renz quickly reviewed the armament specs before responding. “Typically vesk. This isn’t a patrol fleet, but one designed to make an example, just like they’re doing to the illyrs. Whether we let them on board or just wait long enough for them to scan us, they’re going to learn just how much ordnance we’re packing.” They glowered out the window while idly rubbing their jacket’s insignia. “But when it comes to dealing with colossi, I like to think there’s an Option 3.”

The embri deflated slightly. “By your tone, captain, I’m sensing that last option is not ‘retreat?’”

“You can bet your best mask it ain’t,” Renz declared dangerously. “Didn’t you hear me earlier? I promised the good wing commander a full inventory—and that means declaring every rocket, bullet, and beam we’re packing.”

Esh cackled and rubbed his hands in anticipation before turning to the starship’s targeting computers. “Permission to send those scaleys the first line item?”

Renz nodded. “Shields up, Stilchee. Flowers, take the first opening through this blockade. Esh, light ’em up with whatever you’ve been bragging about. We’ve only got this one shot, yeah?” they encouraged, tapping the Daimalkan insignia once more, their face briefly lit by the saffron glow of Esh’s torpedoes silently screaming toward their targets. “This time, we do it for Landahl.”

About the Author

John Compton is the Starfinder Senior Developer at Paizo, Inc., having recently joined the team from years creating organized play adventure content. He has written extensively for Pathfinder and Starfinder, including adventures, setting content, and rule books, and before working for Paizo, he was a teacher, practicing archaeologist, and archaeometallurgist. You can find John on Twitter and Paizo-facing Discord servers @Archaeotagh.

About Tales from the Drift

The Tales from the Drift series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into the setting of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Written by members of the Starfinder development team and some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, the Tales from the Drift series promises to explore the worlds, alien cultures, deities, history, and organizations of the Starfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

It never failed to amaze Devi, coming out of Drift. The sensation, visual and mental, of time and space returning to their normal flow, of planets, stars, and the black expanding to their normal size. The tiny feeling of relief that he’d made it through.

Devi’s route through the Drift had taken just under three days. Even though it was quite rare for Drift voyages that short to encounter disaster, ships traveling in Near Space still occasionally disappeared. Triune’s miraculous space highway had done wonders for the Pact Worlds, opening new planets and cultures for all, but using it wasn’t without risk. During his trip, he’d seen swirling black holes, ancient debris from long-wrecked spaceships, and the far-off silhouettes of creatures with more eyes and tentacles than he could count, but nothing directly threatened his ship and making it safely still felt especially good.

He piloted a heavily modified Ringworks Wanderer he’d gotten for an amazing deal at an underground auction in an off-the-grid port in Akiton. Devi had asked no questions and the ysoki auction runner had named no names. Devi liked to think there was honor among the same species, but even so, he’d personally gone over the ship to make sure there were no problems and after installing a custom Drift engine and new pilot controls to fit his height, the Winding Jaunt was fit for interstellar travel. She could hold a crew of three—her ideal crew size—but Devi could never seem to hold onto crewmates. That’s probably why he hadn’t yet risen high in the Starfinder Society. After life in an overstuffed warren under the eyes of innumerable relatives, he liked traveling alone. It was better that way, out in the black with nothing but his thoughts and the far-off stars.

The Winding Jaunt drew closer to her destination, the orange and purple-tinged planet growing larger on the front display screen. An unexplored planet around a yellow sun, one of the few that could support organic life. One of countless worlds on the edges of Near Space, just outside the unknown edges of the Vast. Devi had listened to a crusty vesk spacer talking about its coordinates while he’d been in port buying supplies to send back to the warren weeks ago.

Devi was glad he’d followed up on the pirate’s drunken boasts. There the planet was, sure as daylight. And if the readings Devi was getting were any indication, this world was filled with all kinds of biodiverse lifeforms. Large bodies of water. Breathable atmosphere, too, at least with the right adjustments to his suit. Some heavy thaumic surges, but an overall stable reality field. This could be his ticket to promotion in the Starfinder Society, crew or not.

As the Jaunt entered atmo, Devi initiated the ship’s landing sequence and set the computer scanners to find a suitable landing zone—a clear field near a forest, but with enough sightlines that he’d see anything overtly dangerous approaching his ship and have enough time to respond. After reviewing scans of several possibilities, Devi chose an open clearing near a lightly wooded area, just a couple of clicks from one of the planet’s oceans.

The Jaunt descended, adjusting its pressure, wards, and shielding so the vessel wouldn’t burn up as it let gravity do some of the ship’s work. Devi used the next hour to review his own supplies. Enough food and water for a few weeks. His weapons and armor were primed and charged, his AI ocular implant set to record and catalog all new forms of life he came across. He even had some trinkets, coins, and other useful items should he come across any sapient species looking to trade. Though that seemed unlikely. So far, the ship’s scanners had detected no trace of technology or sentient-made shelters. With a final push from its thrusters, the ship landed in its chosen clearing and made a scan of the perimeter.

“So far, so good,” Devi murmured to himself and his AI. This was one of his favorite parts. The moment before stepping outside into the unknown. A chance to learn new things, discover key mysteries of the universe. It was like a fine wine or cheese, to be savored for as long as possible.

Illustration by Rodrigo Gonzalez Toledo

Devi lowered himself from the ships platform and took a step out into a whole new world. It was more wonderous than he’d allowed himself to imagine. Purple and orange light filled a lush, open forest, covered with vegetation that—at least according to his AI—were not catalogued in the Society’s archives. He could hear far off grunts and screeches, reminding him of birdsong or mammalian apes. The ground felt solid. The atmosphere, with a few minor adjustments, tasted sweet.

The planet was beautiful. Pristine and untouched. He must do his best to keep it so during his exploration. He began to walk toward the trees. It wasn’t long before he encountered his first new species. His AI ran through its database and could find no matches. It bore some similarities to various types of gecko, but it carried its young in a pouch, an adaptation usually reserved for mammalian life.

He watched in fascination as the lizard-like creature pulled a bulbous-looking fruit from a nearby branch and fed it to the young one in its front pouch. Though Devi had taken care to stay upwind from the creature, it must have heard his quiet footfalls in the grass, for the creature quickly turned to face him.

Fleshy pink antennae extended from either side of the creature’s head behind its large eyes and pointed themselves at him. Devi felt a presence in his mind. Although he had never experienced it before, it seemed similar to what he had learned about how telepathy and psychic magic worked. The message in his mind was primal, instinctual.

Prey / notprey?
Hunger / nothunger?
I-not-food. No-food-me. Look-other-place.

The last bit was accompanied by a gentle push on his mind. Devi had not been thinking of the fascinating creature as food, but felt sure that if he had been considering eating it, the influence from the creature may have convinced him, or at least a creature of lesser intelligence, to leave it alone.

“Instinctual telepathy,” muttered Devi to himself. Perhaps his own mind, or his AI, had translated the mental push into words. “Remarkable.”

The creature grew alarmed at his continued presence. Both antennae expanded.

Stepback.
Stepback
Stepback.

Without meaning to, Devi almost took a step back, only stopping himself mid-gesture as he realized the creature had pushed him to do so. Now the creature and its brood looked terrified. Devi tried to calm the creature with his own thoughts, but it only shifted its face quizzically

No-sky-thinker, Devi heard back in his mind. After pondering this a moment, he realized sky meant above, higher-up, that the creature couldn’t parse his… words? He’d need to use something other than words to reassure it.

Devi was no xenodruid, who drew power and magic from the cycles of the natural world, though he’d heard stories of them while still a youngling in the warren. Kasathas debating philosophy with the animals of the forest. Elves disappearing into living trees and emerging from different trees half a world away. Nature priests living for a thousand years or more in an ongoing cycle of rebirth. What would they do, in this moment?

Closing his eyes, Devi tried to think in pictures. He thought of himself eating plants, of gently petting the creature. He thought of his den mothers in the warren, of safety, comfort, and a warm thermal blanket. When he opened his eyes, he saw that the creature had drawn closer to him, the muscles in its body less tense, the ridges on its back no longer standing erect.

Not-prey-not-death, the creature emoted to its child in what felt like a happy croon. Safe-friend.

Devi nodded. The creature’s antennae retracted into the sides of its head and it wandered off, though not before brushing against Devi’s leg in friendship.

Overhead, several winged creatures zipped through the air, moving almost too fast for Devi to see them. Luckily, his AI recorded them through his ocular implant, so he could review the footage later at his leisure. Right now, Devi was more interested in the giant megafauna he saw sipping water from a nearby stream.

Fascinated, he stealthily approached the herd, continuing to record footage through his ocular implant. Their thick hides were dark blue and green, with long tentacles slowly undulating out from their maws and necks. The large creatures took slow gentle sips from the lake they’d gathered around, some pausing to munch on the green grass at their feet. Slow, calm, not too bright. They seemed like peaceable herbivores, so Devi sent a command to his AI to scan them more thoroughly and record all the data. It was something of a surprise when the herd all raised their tentacles, the air about them rippled like water, and the creatures vanished before his eyes.

Devi studied the edges of the lake for some trace of the creatures. It wasn’t until he heard ground-shaking footsteps behind him that he looked over his shoulder. There the megafauna stood, regarding him with strange, solemn eyes. Devi backed away slowly, keeping his eyes on them, but his arms spread wide to show he was no threat.

Had they teleported? There was no sign of such magic. But… he checked his AI’s chronometer to find it was acting strangely. He looked at the ground where the creatures had stood. No foot prints. No recently eaten bare patches in the tall grass.

Had they… but that was… Devi almost thought impossible, but then he remembered all the wonders he’d heard about when joining the Starfinders. Nothing out near the Vast was impossible. Only undiscovered.

If these readings were right, then it hadn’t been his imagination. The creatures had apparently traveled back in time, just several seconds, in only their individual timelines, to the point before they’d reached the lake, just so they could see if he was a threat. Perhaps their tentacles were somehow able to unravel the quantum threads of localized time…

Instinctive, short-range time travel as a natural defense. The Society wouldn’t believe this. The possibilities were staggering. He wondered how far back their range went. Seconds? Minutes? If technomancers were able to synthesize how the creatures could achieve this affect…

The sun began to set beyond the far-off amber sea by the time he finished noting all he could about the creatures. Daylight passed quickly on this world, it seemed. Devi knew it was time to get back to the Jaunt. Two giant moons began to glow in the lavender twilight above. Devi would have to take notes and study just how they affected the sea’s tides, or if they pulled at the planet’s natural magical and life forces.

Back in his ship, Devi powered up the defensive shields and settled into his bunk. He thought about all he’d seen today. His findings would get him several accommodations. This planet was a wonder—and still in Near Space for all that! And its native life! These creatures had adapted to escape and survive in such astounding ways. Instinctual telepathy and short-range temporal travel. It just showed how amazing evolution was.

Only as he started to drowse off to the night-sounds outside the ship did the question occur.

Just what had they evolved to escape from?

For the first time since leaving the warren, Devi found himself wishing he had a crew. Wide awake now, he didn’t think he’d get much sleep tonight. Outside, the sun sank beneath the purple sea and darkness covered the planet. The wilderness grew quiet, as if waiting for something to emerge.

About the Author

Patrick Hurley has had fiction published in Galaxy’s Edge, Cosmic Roots & Eldritch Shores, Abyss & Apex, New Myths, Arcanist, Aurealis, Frozen Wavelets, The Overcast, and The Drabblecast. He is a 2017 graduate of the Taos Toolbox Writer's Workshop. In 2018, he was a finalist for the Baen Fantasy Award. Patrick lives in Seattle and is a member of SFWA and the Dreamcrashers. He still can’t quite believe he has the good fortune to also be an editor at Paizo.

About Tales from the Drift

The Tales from the Drift series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into the setting of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Written by members of the Starfinder development team and some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, the Tales from the Drift series promises to explore the worlds, alien cultures, deities, history, and organizations of the Starfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

A bearded man clad in blue armor raced through the side corridors of Absalom Station, his gold-trimmed capelet flapping behind him. His eyes wild, he threw glances over his shoulder as he careened around corners and nearly toppled precariously stacked piles of empty crates and garbage. He came to a skidding halt in front of an unmarked door to a nondescript structure and quickly tapped an eight-digit code in the nearby keypad, muttering, “Hurry, hurry” to himself. The multiple locks disengaged with a series of electronic clicks and the man threw open the door with a sharp exhalation. The light beyond spilled into the alleyway.

---

The bright light enveloped Reyard Maldun as he dozed fitfully on the couch in his office. He had sat down for just a moment to rest his eyes after a long day of filing reports, thinking he would soon grab a bite for dinner at the noodle stand just outside the base, but clearly more than a few minutes had passed. To Reyard’s ears, it sounded like the rest of the office was empty. He tried to move his arm to block the light from his face but found that he couldn’t. He was paralyzed. All he could do was breathe and wait.

Seconds later, he felt himself being lifted up, weightless in the beam of light. He began to float gently toward the window. He could see his face—a mask of terror—reflected in the glass as he seemed to phase quietly through it and into the night sky beyond.

---

Illustration by Nathaniel James

Looking at himself in the mirror, Reyard ran his fingers through his matted brown hair. How long had it been since he had it cut? How long since he had taken a shower? Eaten a good meal? Gotten a full night’s sleep?

No matter. Such trivialities were for those not being hunted.

He stepped out of the small bathroom, added to the converted storefront almost as an afterthought. When he realized he might be spending hours, perhaps days, here, he had brought in a canvas cot and had the toilet and sink installed. He had paid the plumber extra to quietly hook into the neighborhood’s water main without alerting the neighbors. The building wasn’t zoned for residential use.

Not that Reyard was living here, exactly. This was merely his command center, his base of operations. A place where he could perform his “unsanctioned” investigations in privacy… Hopefully.

Most of the space was occupied by a large wooden desk, a small server tower, several plastic storage bins, and a pair of free-standing holomarker boards. The bins were empty, their contents spread across the floor: printouts of infosphere pages, cheap datapads displaying a series of blurry photographs, and random pieces of other technology in various states of disassembly. Paper notebooks cluttered the desk, each open to pages filled with dense walls of text and hasty sketches. The tidiest portion of the desk’s surface held an array of electronic tools in neat row. Reyard reached for one.

---

The alien reached for the laser scalpel with long, slender fingers, selecting the instrument from one of others lined up precisely on a tray of shiny, silver metal. Reyard lay on a table of similar material, restrained by several bands of glowing energy. He tried to cry out, but his mouth was frozen shut, his tongue a useless lump of meat. The alien turned back to face him. Though it was no more than three feet tall, it loomed over Reyard as it peered unblinking at his helpless form. It ignited the scalpel and the blackness of its large eyes seemed to swallow him whole.

---

The dark monitors on his desk flared to life, and the computer prompted Reyard to enter a series of passwords and to finally press his eye to a retinal scanner before presenting him with his home desktop. Like the room, the computer was a mess of files and programs, arranged in no particular order.

Reyard connected the computer to the infosphere, entering another password that bypassed the security to prevent such a thing from happening by accident. He initiated a program of his own design that would upload the contents of the server—months and months of his painstaking research—to multiple infosphere sites simultaneously. Using various aliases, he had compared notes with other truth seekers on these sites, some more in touch with reality than others. He knew his pursuers would quickly find and erase all instances of his uploads before the night was over, but he hoped that in doing so, they wouldn’t look for the notebooks he stashed around the station. Reyard looked over at the door. He whispered, “Come on, you bastards. Where are you?”

---

“Where is your head, Maldun? I remember when you were one of my top agents.” Chief Inspector Theovos was a stout korasha lashunta woman with truncated antennae. She sat behind her imposing desk in her Stewards armor and waited for Reyard to respond. He simply stared at his boots and muttered an apology.

“Several months ago,” Theovos said, pulling up a file on a datapad, “You reported that you had been abducted from your office in the dead of night. Building security found no signs of intrusion. And though you claimed to have been operated on, medical can’t detect a thing wrong with you. A psych eval determined you were disturbed by a particularly vivid dream, but you have refused further counseling. Since then, you’ve been pursuing these ‘little gray men’ to the detriment of your other work, dredging up only a mass of ridiculous conspiracy theories and turning yourself into the laughingstock of the base.”

Reyard opened his mouth to speak, but Theovos cut him off. “No. Don’t bother. I’m transferring you to Absalom Station for desk duty until you at least agree to seek help for these delusions.” Her eyes softened a bit. “Reyard, there’s still time.”

---

It would still take several moments until the uploads were complete. Reyard hoped there would be enough time. He peered up at the ceiling. With any luck, he had installed the electronic trip sensors correctly.

The door behind him dematerialized with a flash. A small figure with gray skin and bulbous head stood silhouetted in the entrance.

“Try to take me again if you want, but the moment you step inside this room, a force field will block your exit and half a dozen vidcams will stream your ugly mug all across the infosphere.” The alien didn’t move. A chime from the computer indicated the uploads were finished. Reyard smiled. “That’s the sound of the whole system learning the truth. Hide all you want. Someone will always shine a light in the dark corners of the universe.”

A single word pierced his thoughts.

Incorrect.

Suddenly, the power to the building was cut. The room was plunged into darkness.

About the Author

Jason Keeley is a Developer at Paizo, working primarily on the Starfinder Adventure Path line. His work has appeared in all sorts of products, from adventures to supplements to short stories written for Paizo and many other RPG companies. You can find him (and pictures of his dog) on Twitter at @herzwesten, and also watch him as Professor Nikodemus Thorne on the Oblivion Oath stream every Thursday!

About The Threefold Conspiracy

Launching in February, 2020, with Starfinder Adventure Path #25: The Chimera Mystery, The Threefold Conspiracy is the 6th Starfinder Adventure Path from Paizo, Inc. In The Threefold Conspiracy, what begins as a normal trip through the Drift back to the Pact Worlds turns into a mind-bending whodunit as a crewmember goes missing. The heroes must unravel an intricate web of motives and opportunities before they discover the seeming truth behind the disappearance. However, this only leads the PCs down a twisting path of strange conspiracies and devious machinations that could reach into the very heart of the Pact Worlds' government! How deep are the heroes willing to go to uncover the truth?

She heard them before she saw them.

“...Bones be cracked, flesh be stewed"

“We be goblins! You be food!”

Shalelu’s lip curled in a half-conscious snarl at the song. She crept closer, slipping from the forest to a knot of gnarled old pear trees that the farmer, or more likely the farmer’s great-grandparents, had planted by the house. Under the tangled branches, heavy with ripe fall fruit, she peered at the singing goblins.

The barn was already burning. Judging by the height of the flames leaping from its blackened roof, the farmers must have brought in the fall hay, and it was now blazing merrily behind a ring of dancing goblins. At least there weren’t any screams. Any animals in the barn either had escaped, or were already dead.

The fire’s grip was closing around the farmhouse, too. Burning arrows studded the roof. The eaves were smoldering, the wooden shingles beginning to glow from beneath like a red dragon’s scales—and even as Shalelu tried to assess how much longer the house had, she saw the curtains twitch before an upstairs window. The brief round shape of a face peeked out through the glass. It vanished almost as soon as it appeared, but it was enough to tell Shalelu that someone was inside.

Well, that tore it. Not that she needed much of a push where goblins were concerned.

Smoothly, with the ease of long practice, Shalelu broke from the trees and shot the first goblin. Even before her first arrow hit, she had another flying. Two goblins fell, one clutching at an arrow in his red-gurgling throat, the other with a feathered shaft sprouting from her eye.

She shot a third before the rest reacted. As the third goblin fell, his screech cut off by the arrow bisecting his windpipe, the survivors spotted the elf. A frozen instant passed between them. Shalelu felt a flashed hope that the goblins’ cowardice might drive them to flee, even though she stood alone—but no. Their wavering morale caught and steadied as the biggest goblin leaped toward her, brandishing a rickety but sharp-edged dogslicer.

“Brave, brave warriors! Warriors of the Mosswood! Kill this elf! Kill her!” the big goblin howled. As a battlefield speech, Shalelu felt it was uninspired, but whatever it lacked in creativity, it made up in volume. Certainly the goblins seemed to think it did the trick, because they all came rushing at her in a shrieking, knee-high mob of red eyes, needle teeth, and swinging dogslicers, simultaneously absurd and deadly earnest.

The shouting champion at the head of the mob was the most ridiculous of them all. She wore a decapitated toy horse’s head impaled on her spiked helm, with puffs of woolly stuffing flapping around her enormous ears. Her cloak was as green and moldy as any other Mosswood goblin’s, but she’d trimmed it with dogs’ tails: poodles’ dirt-stained pompoms, curly blond spaniels’ plumes, a mastiff’s grizzled stub. Another tail hung from the pommel of her dogslicer.

It would have been a mistake to dismiss the goblin as a joke, though. People died for such mistakes. That toy horse’s neck was smeared with real blood; those tails had been collected from real dogs, and some of them looked like they’d been big and fierce. The grisly kneecaps that served as the goblin’s pauldrons were real flesh and bone, and from their ragged edges had probably been chewed off human legs. Maybe live ones.

That was the danger with goblins, Shalelu thought. You laughed at them, thinking they were stupid and big-headed and preposterous, and then they slashed your ankles and pulled you down and cut your throat before you realized that they were, actually, serious as murder.

Art by Michele Giorgi

She wondered whether someone had made that mistake with these goblins. They’d been in a fight recently. Several were limping or favoring wounded sides and limbs. One looked like he’d narrowly dodged a spell; a burn scar streaked black across his forehead. But the goblins had survived, which meant maybe whoever they’d fought hadn’t.

A small mystery. If she survived, maybe she’d try to solve it.

First she had to survive.

Shalelu aimed past the charging champion and shot two more goblins, wounding the first and felling the second. Then the champion was on her, and Shalelu had to skitter back, slinging her bow behind a shoulder and drawing her shortsword. She feinted and retreated back toward the farmhouse. The fire was spreading, and she didn’t have long to save whoever was in there.

“Uruvuu Kneebiter will wear your head!” the big goblin crooned at Shalelu, sweeping her dogslicer low.

“Uru-who?” Shalelu snorted, straining to sound nonchalant. That goblin was faster than she liked. “Do you fancy yourself one of the big heroes? Should Vorka and Ripnugget cower and whine at your name?”

“They will!” Uruvuu hissed, and leaped.

The elf kicked at the goblin, but to her astonishment, Uruvuu jumped over the kick, grabbed her leg, and bit her, sinking her filthy teeth into Shalelu’s leg just above the knee.

“Get off!” Shalelu slashed down at the goblin, hacking one of Uruvuu’s grisly pauldrons in two and cutting a deep gash into the champion’s shoulder. Uruvuu just lifted her head and grinned up horribly, her teeth dripping red.

“I’ll eat you,” the goblin snarled, and bit Shalelu again.

Shalelu swore furiously. She couldn’t get Uruvuu off her leg. If it had just been the one goblin, Shalelu could have made short work of her — but there were far too many of them, almost a dozen, and not just Mosswood, either. She spotted warty Licktoad goblins and tattooed, reed-wearing Brinestumps, and wondered: what are they all doing together? The tribes did not easily ally.

But the question seemed to float far away, untethered to the violence on the ground. Shalelu was losing too much blood, maybe going into shock. She slashed at a leering goblin and ripped his abdomen open, spilling his guts wetly into the barn’s blowing ashes, but still there were too many, and still Uruvuu was gnawing at her knee. Is this how it ends?

Overhead, the farmhouse window slammed open. Strange pale leaves floated down. No, not leaves, Shalelu realized, even as she cut another goblin’s throat so savagely that its head flopped backwards, limply, over the gouting stump of its neck. They were pages. She recognized the illustrations.

Pages from Erastil’s Book of Common Prayer, ripped out by the handful. Someone had drawn crude goblin faces in thick, sweeping strokes over each one. The ink was still wet enough that the faces stuck lightly together when they kissed.

But they drifted apart, falling, and when they came down over the fight, the goblins broke apart in total pandemonium. “The words! Words! Stolen out of our heads! You see them! Take them back! The cursed words! Burn them!”

Frantically the goblins grabbed at the ink-smeared pages, thrusting them into the barn’s blaze. They forgot about Shalelu entirely, each one vying to grab and burn pages of precious, stolen words. Even Uruvuu shrieked in terror, blood bubbling through her teeth as she elbowed her kin aside to snatch up her own pages.

Shalelu cut down another two goblins in the confusion. Then the rest, realizing that they were outnumbered—or, at least, were now facing Shalelu with odds no better than six to one, which seemed to count as “outnumbered” to them—fled, screaming, from the bloodied elf and the still-falling rain of pages around her.

“Thanks,” Shalelu called up to whoever was in the farmhouse. Her leg felt like murder. She pressed a wooden wand against the wound, gritting her teeth until the magic flowed forth to heal her. Then, testing her weight gingerly, she looked up to the window. Already she could hear the goblins shouting and arguing as they tried to regroup in the wood, and see the red reach of flames spreading across the roof. “You’d better come out. We need to get to Sandpoint before they come back.”

More than safety, Shalelu wanted answers. This attack was unusual. Fractious rival tribes allied and attacking humans far outside their normal territory. Champions striving to make new legends for themselves. She’d been hunting the local goblins for years, and she’d never seen them cooperate like this.

Something strange was afoot. And whatever it was, this was just the beginning.

About the Author

Liane Merciel is the author of novels including Pathfinder Tales: Nightglass and Hellknight, Dragon Age: Last Flight, and others. She has written for Pathfinder, Dungeons & Dragons, and Warhammer: Age of Sigmar. At present she is trying to find a way to shoehorn a(nother) carnival of face-eating ghosts into a story.

About Rise of the Runelords

Rise of the Runelords was the very first Pathfinder Adventure Path, and its legacy—be it the cruel comedy of goblins and ogres, the iconic seaside town of Sandpoint, or the sinister presence of the Runelords themselves—can be felt to this very day. Rise of the Runelords was the first Pathfinder Adventure Path to be compiled into a single hardcover volume, and later this year it will be the first Adventure Path to join the ranks of the Pathfinder pocket editions! Rise of the Runelords has never been more affordable!

“So I had three planets in my hand, and this crankshaft plays one to the field! I couldn’t have signaled it stronger, so I threw my cards down and drew my—"

Indra flipped the ship’s comm unit off with an exasperated sigh. Most miners he had flown with over the years were tolerable, even companionable in their own right. But this low-rent job buzzing asteroids for starmetal bits had somehow attracted all the boisterous lowlifes that gave miners a bad name. Indra ignored the uneasy feeling of turning off coms, normally a dangerous proposition even this close to a Star Citadel’s protection. Communication was the real lifeline out here, not the sputtering patrol ship assigned to escort, with its half-functioning gyrolaser turret and a pilot who was barely out of flight school. And certainly not his ship’s mining laser, which took a while just to cut through unmoving asteroid rock.

Illustration by Leonardo Borazio.

But Indra loved the special quiet of a coms-dead ship in space, especially when compared to the current alternative, and he leaned back in his seat to drink it in for a moment. Best not to linger, though; there were plenty of dark, mineral-rich pockets in these rocks that a nest of kaions, dangerous magnetic space squids, would love to call home. Indra pulsed his ship’s thrusters and careened around the nearest asteroid’s rocky surface, eyes sharp for the telltale glint of any of several starmetals.

Soon enough, a dull pulsing crackle began to issue from the ship’s ore-detection system, increasing in intensity as he strafed the skyscraper-sized space rock. “What’d we find, B1? More thasteron dregs?” Indra had noticed he’d started talking to himself more and more lately on these uneventful jobs, maybe a bit too much. So he’d taken to talking to his onboard AI instead, which he’d named after all that was left of its worn serial code. Of course, it couldn’t understand anything beyond basic commands, or even respond—it was, at best, a glorified metal detector—but it made him feel better just the same.

“Oh, my—is that…” Indra trailed off as his scanners confirmed what he could plainly see, a dust-dulled hunk of pale-green crystal. It was a sizable chunk of noqual, and Indra quickly set to work flipping switches and toggles to begin extraction. He expertly guided his ship’s mining laser to carefully etch a frame around the embedded starmetal. Periodically, Indra turned off alarms meant to alert him to nearby magnetic disturbances that might signal the presence of a kaion pod—but that were just as likely to be false positives from the aging ship’s own engines.

A few tense minutes of precise cutting later, the ship shuddered and rattled as its extraction arm ratcheted out, snaking among the recently cut debris toward its prize. This particular deposit was shaped perfectly for the arm’s triple-pronged gripping mechanism, and as the noqual wrenched free, dust bloomed from the pocket, the remaining rock looking somehow even more barren and forlorn.

Just as the hunk of noqual ore reached the deposit basket at the rear of his ship, the asteroid in front of Indra began to glow a dull red, bathed by pulsing emergency lights. Confused, Indra tapped his console—had he accidentally turned them on? Then a cold realization struck him in the stomach and he slammed the comms back on.

“—PIRATES! Turn on your comms, you damned fool!”

Indra wrenched the flight stick, the sudden motion disorienting him and causing the ship to groan and shake, to see their escort fighter dead in space, its emergency lights flashing bright red and its slight frame a tangle of shredded hull and transparent aluminum. The other miners were already halfway back to the Star Citadel, and two sleek and deadly Free Captain ships arced around lazily to face Indra’s virtually defenseless vessel, much closer to him than he was to safety.

Thinking quickly, Indra scanned the pitted surface of the asteroid. There, near a shallow-looking cave, were piles of floating scales, shed from at least a pod of kaions—odds were at least even that they were still in there.

“Well, B1, we don’t have to fly faster than the squids…” A few careful shots from his mining laser into the cavern had the desired effect, setting off a flurry of activity as the tentacled creatures began to silently spew forth from their resting place. “…just faster than those pirates.”

About the Author

Joe Pasini is the Starfinder Lead Designer at Paizo. He is steadfast in his belief that gaming is for absolutely everyone, and he’d love to play a game with you sometime! You can find him on Twitter at @joeadultman. His most recent passion project, the Starfinder Deck of Many Worlds, is out now.

About Tales from the Drift

The Tales from the Drift series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into the setting of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Written by members of the Starfinder development team and some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, the Tales from the Drift series promises to explore the worlds, alien cultures, deities, history, and organizations of the Starfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

Tynea Halix Gi Satultir sat in a private booth with a one-way window that overlooked the busy high street of Paradise Village and read the latest electronic dispatch from the captain. It was nothing new: an agricultural report stating crop yields were high, an editorial on how the latest Pact Council decision would affect Idari citizens, and an empty promise to crack down on crime in the Red Corridors. Tynea stretched his two upper arms and stirred his drink.

A shadow suddenly loomed over him. Tynea quickly reached for a bandana to cover his mouth but stopped when he heard the voice.

“You know, tradition doesn’t mean you have to visit the same café every single day.”

“I just so happen to like their coffee,” Tynea replied, demurely taking a sip.

The figure took the chair across from him. He was a tall and fit kasatha, his skin a powder blue with dark gray markings running up the side of his head. His black eyes shone with mischief. He ceremoniously removed his fashionable face mask and placed it next to Tynea’s bandana. He tapped a few times on the table’s ordering system, and within moments a server drone brought in a piece of crownberry pie with a dollop of fresh cream.

And though it had been almost a year since Tynea saw him last, Rudim Jinska Viaz Marodi hadn’t changed one bit.

“You’re back,” Tynea said.

“I’m back.”

“For how long?”

“For now.”

Tynea felt his cheeks grow hot. “Until the Starfinder Society needs you again, I suppose. And then you’ll disappear for months on end without a single communication, while we—your friends, your family, me—worry ourselves sick.” He downed the rest of his coffee, the nearly scalding liquid a distraction from the lump forming in his throat.

Rudim looked up from his plate. “Don’t be like this, Tiny. I’m sorr—”

“Don’t call me that!” Tynea pushed away from the table, snatched up his purple bandana, stood up, and marched out into the crowd.

Illustration by Leonardo Borazio.

Minutes later, Rudim caught up with him outside of an antique shop, traditional Kasath blades displayed in the window against a velvet backdrop. They caught each other’s glances in the reflection of the transparent aluminum, as Rudim gently placed a hand on Tynea’s shoulder.

“You have every right to be mad at me, Tynea. In fact, if you want to take a swing at me with one of those, you should.” Rudim gestured at a long, serrated sword.

“I’d just as likely cut off one of my own arms,” Tynea mumbled.

Rudim chuckled and squeezed softly. “I’ve missed you. So much. And I’m sorry for what I’ve put you through.” He reached into one of his pockets and extracted a pair of shining plastic cards embossed with holography. “I know this couldn’t begin to make it up to you, but what are you doing tonight?”

Tynea turned around. “Are those…?”

"Yup, two tickets to tonight’s Culinarium banquet, the exclusive thrice-annual event where the Idari’s finest experimental chefs showcase their latest recipes!” Rudim puffed out his chest.

“But how? They always sell out in minutes.”

Rudim winked. “Being a member of the Starfinder Society has its occasional perks.”

Tynea’s shoulders fell. “Rudim, be honest. Is this part of some mission?”

“No! Well… not completely. I just have to ask one of the chefs a few questions about some rumors that she’s been acting a little strangely, and that’s it. The rest of the night will be just for us.”

Tynea sighed. “Promise?”

“I promise.”

---

“Damn it, Rudim, this is not the night I was expecting!”

The machine—a 2-foot cube of metal plates, wires, and crystals—shuddered with arcane energy, as Tynea stood before it, panic and confusion in his eyes. Behind him, Rudim struggled against a kasatha chef, grabbing at her apron, which promptly slipped off.

“Hurry!” Rudim shouted. A bolt of magic arced from the machine and struck a row of kitchen knives attached to two long magnets on the wall, turning them into rock candy. They fell onto the counter and shattered.

“I don’t know the first thing about magic!” Tynea yelled back.

“Then just hit it with a frying pan or something!”

“No!” the chef bellowed. Her form then began to melt like ice cream on a hot day. Surprised, Rudim let go and stepped back. The chef’s arms and legs elongated, becoming starfish-like appendages with a single eye on each joint. Her face softened and disappeared, and her voice gurgled from an orifice in her chest. “My masterpiece!”

Tynea had found a large cast iron skillet and raised it over his head. Another shaft of energy lanced out from the device, and Tynea brought the utensil down with a grunt. Pieces of pan-shaped chocolate scattered across the floor. “Damn,” he muttered.

Meanwhile, Rudim redoubled his efforts to capture the shapeshifting chef. While she was distracted by Tynea, he swept his leg out in a practiced move and sent her tumbling to the floor. Using all four arms, he pinned down most of her tentacles. “Ok, astrazoan, what is this thing? And what did you do with the real Chef Gou?”

A wet laugh bubbled up from the astrazoan. “There never was a real Gou, you fool. She was always me. And I’ve spent the past decade being overlooked by my so-called betters! But no longer! They’ll see my genius, right before my molecular comestiblizer turns them into piles of pastries! And then I’ll have my sweet revenge!”

Rudim knocked the astrazoan out with a single punch and stood up. Without looking away from the cabinet he was searching, Tynea said, “I swear, if you say something about ‘just desserts’ right now, I will find another skillet to brain you with.”

“Why are you taking the fun out of this?”

“Fun?!” Tynea yelled as an arc of energy transformed a portion of the ceiling into dripping jelly. “You think this is fun?! Aha!” He pulled a roll of shiny foil from the cabinet. “Never mind. Don’t answer that. I have an idea.” Tynea cautiously approached the sputtering cube, and moments later had it wrapped in the material. The device shook one last time and then was quiet. Tynea carefully peeled away a portion of the covering to reveal an elaborately decorated layer cake.

Rudim chortled. “Reflective foil! Genius!” He warmly embraced Tynea, who finally relaxed.

“I suppose… that was a little thrilling.” Tynea looked up into Rudim’s eyes. “Perhaps you could teach me that leg sweep?”

Rudim reached behind Tynea, swiped a finger of icing from the cake, and smeared it onto Tynea’s forehead. “Does that mean you want to do this again?”

“Maybe,” Tynea said coyly. Wiping the icing from his face, he licked it from his hand and then gagged. “But first let’s get a drink. That might be a cake but it still tastes like metal.”

About the Author

Jason Keeley is a Developer at Paizo, working primarily on the Starfinder Adventure Path line. His work has appeared in all sorts of products, from adventures to supplements to short stories written for Paizo and many other RPG companies. You can find him (and pictures of his dog) on Twitter at @herzwesten, and also watch him as Professor Nikodemus Thorne on the Oblivion Oath stream every Thursday!

About Tales from the Drift

The Tales from the Drift series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into the setting of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Written by members of the Starfinder development team and some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, the Tales from the Drift series promises to explore the worlds, alien cultures, deities, history, and organizations of the Starfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

Axel wasn’t his real name. He’d wanted a name that echoed in the big top, and something that sounded good in front of “Amazing Aviary.” So now he was Axel, of Axel’s Amazing Aviary, and no one knew who he’d been before he came to the Circus of Wayward Wonders. He was certain his new name would lead to his first real, actual performance.

Except it hadn’t.

The ringmaster and circus manager went by the name “Thunder” and, like his namesake, he could silence the largest crowd, rolling over them as they hung on his every word. He was like that in person as well, pronouncing all his words deliberately and forcefully. Axel thought the Thunder was the most intense, serious, forthright person he’d ever met. This made it especially frustrating that Axel hadn’t been able to get a straight answer from the man in five days. Would Axel be able to perform on opening night? Could he practice in one of the three rings beneath the big top? Could he see the order of the acts, to find out where his bird act would best fit?

Yes, but also no, and also perhaps yes.

Soon.

Axel left every discussion feeling that he’d finally received the ringmaster’s answers, but as soon as the Thunder had moved on to talk to someone else, Axel realized he hadn’t gotten any answers at all.

With little else to do, Axel turned back to his doves. He’d set up a lightweight stand in a corner of the darkened big top, out of the way of the genuine performers practicing their circus tricks. He gave a low whistle, and one of the doves darted from its perch to take a wrapped pebble from his hand, swooping around Axel’s head with it.

Illustration by Nathanael James.

“Is that candy?”

Axel turned at the question, following the bird with his gaze as it swooped to drop the pebble into the outstretched hand of a young girl wearing a tight white leotard. She was no older than twelve—not much younger than Axel himself—but she held herself with the confidence of one with two, three times that many years behind her.

“No, sorry. It’s just a rock,” said Axel quickly. Then, as if the warning were necessary, he added, “Please don’t eat it.” He quickly glanced over her shoulder where her parents and two older siblings practiced their high-wire acrobatics routine. They didn’t seem to notice him or his young friend.

The girl—Odvi Kanbali, Axel remembered—looked curiously at the prize that the dove had delivered. “Why would you wrap a rock up to look like candy?”

“It’ll be actual candy during a performance, but candy’s expensive to use during training,” Axel explained. “I taught the doves to give them to children in the audience.”

“I’m not in the audience,” Odvi huffed, “and I’m not a child. I’m a performer. One of the Flying Kanbalis…although that was our name back in Escadar. We’re the Feather-Fall Five now. Papa says it’s because we won’t have to risk a hard fall ever again.”

“You were in Escadar?” Axel asked enthusiastically, wholly forgetting to maintain his facade of jaded professionalism. He saw Odvi’s face twist in a grimace and regretted sounding excited about it. “Then you worked for… her,” Axel finished flatly.

“Mistress Dusklight,” Odvi said slowly, nodding. The rest of her words came in a rush, as though they’d been bottled up for a long time. “She’s beautiful and graceful, and she knows more about the circus than even Professor K does, and he’s ancient. But she’s really a monster! Her circus isn’t ‘The Delights of the Heavens,’ it’s a prison. Or worse, an executioner’s block. Nobody in the audience realizes she doesn’t care if her performers are hurt or worse, so long as she keeps up the sparkly illusion she’s selling her crowds. I hated it. I hated her. Papa always said we’d get away, and when a bunch of us decided to leave Dusklight’s circus, we came here to start up our own. Wayward wonders, all of us. Now my family never has to perform without a safety net. I think it’s very exciting—there are lots of new people joining, too, and it feels like…I don’t know. Like the start of something really important.”

Axel stepped toward her to collect his bird and his wrapped pebble, wincing as his weight fell awkwardly on his left foot.

Odvi frowned. “You’re hurt.”

“I bumped my leg last night. I’m fine.”

“It’s a stake bite.”

Axel looked over where Mistress Elizia, the snake charmer, was poking around in the mouth of her enormous anaconda. “A snakebite?”

Odvi giggled. “No, a stake bite. Circus talk. It comes from old stakes. We had to make do with parts we could scavenge, and that meant used tent stakes. When stakes get pounded into the dirt again and again, their tops eventually split. If you don’t step carefully when outside the tent at night, their frayed tops can cut your leg. Newcomers get stake bites all the time. Take off your shoe and I’ll wrap your ankle. I learned a lot about wrapping injuries in Mistress Dusklight’s circus.” The girl unwound one of her chalk-dusted handwraps to use as a makeshift bandage.

As Axel bent to roll up his trouser leg, Odvi glanced at his doves, clustered together on their perch. “Your bird rack is empty in the middle.”

“That’s where I go,” explained Axel. “The harness doesn’t stand on the ground like that during a performance. It goes over my shoulders, and under my cloak. That’s how I hide the birds before unveiling them for their tricks.”

“Your wire’s too thick,” interjected a flat-faced, simple-looking boy walking by with a metal spar over one shoulder.

“Hod can…talk?” gasped Odvi, surprised.

The boy scowled. “Don’t talk a lot. Doesn’t mean I don’t talk.”

Odvi leaned in to Axel, whispering. “Hod’s the assistant to the magician.”

Axel nodded. “I’ve seen her around. Mordaine the Magician, right? Apparently, she’s really, really good.”

The acrobat rolled her eyes. “Mordaine says that Mordaine is really good. And that we’re lucky to have her. And that she should be the big number in the center ring on opening night. And so on. The Thunder isn’t so sure.”

While Axel and Odvi spoke among themselves of his mistress, Hod set down his spar and picked up Axel’s cloak. He turned it inside out with a careful motion and pointed to several small tears. “Wire’s wrecking your lining. After a show or two, it’ll tear and spoil the illusion. Use thinner wire. And loop the ends.”

“Thanks, Hod,” Axel replied, genuinely grateful for the boy’s advice. “I’m lucky you stopped by.” He paused, unsure whether to speak his next thought aloud. “Is Mordaine all that she says?”

Hod considered, his brow furrowing. Then his face split into a smile. “At least she has a good assistant.”

Odvi laughed, slipping Axel’s shoe back on and helping him to his feet. Hod’s face grew suddenly solemn and he picked up his spar. “She told the Thunder that we already have a magician, and we already have animal acts, so there’s no place for you.”

Axel was torn between shock and outrage. “No place? How is it even her decision? She’s as new to this circus as I am! I thought the Thunder ran this show.”

Hod grinned again, “That’s what the Thunder told her. Said he was already considering a place for you.”

“Oh, that’s good news,” interjected Odvi, “I’d heard he was going to say no, because of how obvious it was that you’d never performed in front of a crowd before. But I think you’ll fit in well. We were all novices once. Except me. I’ve been on the high wire since before I can remember.”

“I’d better get back to training, then.” Axel said, preparing to run through his trick again. “I feel like this opening night is going to be the beginning of something wonderful.”

“Yes,” the children said in unison before returning to their own duties.

Hod turned back, smiling over his spar and looking intently at Axel’s outstretched hand. “Is that candy?”

About the Author

Ron Lundeen lives in the rural hinterlands outside of Seattle, Washington, where he finds the climate a pleasant change from his native Illinois. After a career as a corporate attorney, Ron took a full-time position with Paizo, Inc. as a developer, working with freelancers to create fabulous worlds and monstrous threats for the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games. He also designs games in his free time, creating a dizzying variety of perils, plots, and legends. Ron’s favorite RPG design work is adventure writing, to help others share exciting stories with their friends. Although his first game design credit came back in 1993, Ron has recently written for Paizo, Wizards of the Coast, Ulisses Spiele, and many others. Ron also runs a gaming company and RPG writer advice blog, which you can visit at www.runamokgames.com.

About Extinction Curse

Kicking off in January, 2020 with Pathfinder Adventure Path #151: The Show Must Go On, Extinction Curse is the 26th Pathfinder Adventure Path from Paizo, Inc. and the second designed for use with the second edition of the bestselling Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. In Extinction Curse, the players take on the role of humble circus performers who uncover a sinister plot to exterminate life from the Starstone Isle. The dead god Aroden may be gone, but his legacy lives on, as do his old enemies who would destroy the wonders he raised from the sea. Spectacle meets savagery as the heroes strive to stop the Extinction Curse!

In the Trophy Room of Shyka the Many, among the infinite treasures that the Eldest has plucked from time, there sits a plinth of banded bone and gold.

Upon this plinth is a stone of red agate veined with spreading black. It resembles a large baroque pearl, but it is more precious than any oyster’s prize, for this is the heartstone of the lich-king Darocath.

It sits on the plinth by Darocath’s own will, and it commemorates how Shyka the Many defeated the lich without striking a single blow.

This is how it was done:

Illustration by Igor Grechanyi. For more information on Shyka and the Eldest, Lost Omens: Gods & Magic!

Long, long ago, in a small and forgotten corner of the Immortal Principality of Ustalav, there lived a girl named Krisalla. She was a child of uncommon patience, and this drew Shyka to her, for the Eldest knew the value of a mortal who could let time unspool properly.

One evening, as the brief summer moths were flying thick through the twilight, the Eldest appeared before the child. “Do you wish to touch your hand to destiny?” they asked.

Krisalla looked up at the blue-gowned figure, who appeared to her an ageless woman with light brown skin and a silver-capped braid, at once human and unearthly. “How?”

“You will lay low a sorcerer of terrible power, an unliving monstrosity who will come to grip all Ulcazar in his bony fist. You will end his reign of cruelty and will become a hero to those who survive to remember your name. But this will not come without cost.”

“What cost?” Krisalla asked, for she was a child of Ustalav and knew the grim ways of its curses.

“One life,” Shyka answered. “Not yours.”

“I accept,” Krisalla said.

From a hidden sheath in their sleeve, Shyka drew out a scroll bound by a white ribbon figured with cracked hourglasses. This scroll came from Shyka’s Archives, where the records of the future were penned in the past. They held it out to Krisalla, and as the girl took it from Shyka’s slender fingers, the Eldest flickered and shifted to an androgynous youth in the same garb, but now with a different symbol at the neck.

Krisalla showed no surprise at this, for why should one be surprised by the transformations of a god? “What shall I do with the scroll?”

“Read it if you like,” Shyka said, “though most mortals are happier without knowing their futures. Otherwise, hold it safe. When the time to do more comes, you will know.”

Then the Eldest was gone, and Krisalla was alone.

Decades passed. The girl became a woman, married, had three daughters of her own. Her husband fell ill and died; her children became mothers in turn.

And in this time, at first from afar, a cold and withered shadow began to stretch across Ulcazar. Bones and wraiths rose up from the dark places in the mountains, and they gathered into an army of the hateful dead. Rumors of the lich-king at their head grew ever closer and more urgent, until finally Krisalla, now an old woman, knew that the day for Shyka’s gift had come.

She opened the scroll. With fearful eyes and trembling hands, she read what Shyka had written, long ago or long before. Then she rolled it up again, and closed her eyes over her tears, and sent for her youngest daughter.

“You must flee Ulcazar at once,” Krisalla told her daughter, “or it will mean your life. The sorcerer-lich Darocath is coming, and it is written by a god that he will kill you in Ulcazar. Therefore, you must go to Amaans with all haste, because if you stay here, you will surely die.”

“Yes, mother,” her daughter said, and fled.

But neither mother nor daughter knew that Darocath had already come to Ulcazar. The lich’s armies held the border village of Borsov, and there they caught Krisalla’s daughter. Darocath’s creatures killed her, but not before their master heard of the woman who had tried to flee Ulcazar to escape a god’s prophecy.

Struck by curiosity, Darocath ordered his forces to Krisalla’s village, where they seized the old woman. From her he took the story and the scroll, and then he left her weeping with her family as he swept off to study the Eldest’s message. He scanned impatiently past the tale of Krisalla’s life, and he saw the words written for him:

“You will come to the House of Eternity,” it said, “and you will die.”

Darocath laughed, amused as he had not been in centuries, as he read the instructions Shyka had given him for finding his way in. “I am dead,” the lich said to his lieutenants, “and I do not fear time’s watcher.”

Indeed, for years piled upon years, Darocath had sought a way into the House of Eternity, for it was the manipulation of time and the mysteries of the future that had intrigued the lich beyond his mortal span. Now all those secrets had been given to him freely, and he would not be intimidated away from using that key.

Abandoning his army, Darocath ventured through a breach into the First World, and then followed the tangled and treacherous path that Shyka had set for him to the House of Eternity.

The Eldest met him there. “Lich.”

“Many.” Darocath studied Shyka with the same half-forgotten savor of curiosity. The lich had trained his sight to see across a certain span of time, and so he saw Shyka as a figure blurred across multiple faces and heights. “You invited me here.”

“To die,” Shyka agreed. “Would you like to visit the Archives?”

“What will you allow me to read?” Darocath asked. He had no intention of obeying the Eldest’s restrictions, but he was curious.

“Everything,” Shyka said. “I will let you walk the Archives as I do.”

Suspicious but intrigued, the lich climbed the mountain stairs after the Eldest, circling around the castle’s crumbling base until they came at last to the gaping maw of its entrance, pitted with rusting spikes and shards of age-discolored wood. Inside, the House of Eternity was in equal disrepair, all dust and cobwebs and stale gray gloom.

Yet though the Archives’s books sagged on shelves of mold-spotted wood and its scrolls were brittle and yellowed by time, its grandeur awed Darocath. The lich scarcely glanced at the scholars’ books; it was Shyka’s writings he had come for. “You will let me read these?”

“Yes,” the Eldest said.

So Darocath went into the Archives.

For a year and a day he absorbed himself in the Eldest’s journals of the future, while in the world outside, his army collapsed from neglect and infighting, and the spell-wards of his tower crumbled for want of tending. The lich forgot his own experiments into manipulating the strands of time, for why should he labor so arduously to uncover the secrets that were already laid out for him?

All that the lich wanted to know was his. Any question he could conceive of was answered and had been answered before ever he imagined it. In the Archives of Shyka the Many, he saw the map of time laid bare of its mysteries, and so Darocath came to realize a terrible thing.

To live this way, in all moments at once, was to exist without curiosity. It was to realize that all his efforts at mastering his own fate came to a nullity, and that the illusions of choice and control were just that, and that even he, a creature of unfathomable brilliance and magic, could not escape the slow snares of fate.

All was known, and all was written, and nothing was left to wonder.

The lich sat with this truth in silence and turned it over in his mind for a day and a night. Darocath could see no flaw in his conclusion. The answers were written in the Archives; the outcome was foreordained.

And so he plucked out the stone that held his unliving heart, and placed it on a plinth in surrender, and let himself collapse into dust and despair.

And in a dusty corner of the Archives, on a page buried in an unremarkable book that the mighty lich had never thought to open, the lettering changed minutely. But only minutely. Because, in Darocath’s story, the ending did not change.

About the Author

Liane Merciel is the author of the Pathfinder Tales novels Nightglass, Nightblade, and Hellknight, and a contributor to other books including Nidal: Land of Shadows, Faiths of Golarion, and the Lost Omens World Guide. She has also written for Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, and Bioware’s Dragon Age franchise. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, two dogs, and an adventure toddler who is extremely into Spider-Man.

About the Windsong Testaments

On the northern reaches of Varisia’s Lost Coast stands Windsong Abbey, a forum for interfaith discussion tended by priests of nearly twenty faiths and led by a legacy of Masked Abbesses. At the dawn of the Age of Lost Omens, Windsong Abbey suffered as its faithful fought and fled, but today it has begun to recover. A new Masked Abbess guides a new flock within, and the Windsong Testaments—parables about the gods themselves—are once again being recorded within the abbey’s walls. Some of these Testaments are presented here as Golarion’s myths and fables. Some parts may be true. Other parts are certainly false. Which ones are which is left to the faithful to decide.

Seelah took a moment to run a mental checklist before leaving the last place of cover. The sun was high, brightly keeping shadows at bay and ensuring she had clear lines of sight. It also ensured that as soon as she stepped into the courtyard, she would be spotted. Stealth was not her area of expertise in any case. She would need different tactics to overcome her foes, and she hoped she had planned well enough. If she had not, the consequences would be dire.

There were two of them pacing in the rubble, hulking things of fur, horn, and claw. Their mere appearance was not so much different from beasts or giants, but even if she had not recognized them from her studies—ceustodaemons, extraplanar guardians set to keep any from reclaiming this place—the malevolent sensation that churned her stomach would have told her they were not of the material world.

Her eyes scanned the broken courtyard one last time. This had been a training ground once, before icons of death and despair had been carved into the rocks and the walls had been painted with obscenities. Once, nearby common folk would have come here for basic instruction in defense and young warriors of Iomedae would have tested themselves to see if they were ready to carry her ideals into a dangerous world.

Now, Seelah would face a very different kind of test.

Illustration by Igor Grechanyi.
For new faith-based tools you can use in battling the forces of evil, check out Lost Omens: Gods & Magic!

After a quick prayer for guidance, she strode toward the two monstrosities, shield up, sword drawn. They saw her immediately, of course. She had not planned to strike from surprise, nor to attack without giving them an opportunity to avoid conflict. She couldn’t imagine a circumstance that would make these creatures anything but her implacable enemies, but she still could not simply slay them without confirming they posed a threat.

“You are on once consecrated ground.” Her voice was firm, even. “And I shall see it consecrated again!”

The twin daemons turned and focused cruel attention upon her. She felt supernatural malice hammer her mind like invisible sling stones, trying to turn her limbs leaden, but she focused her thoughts through the immobilizing magic. Seeing her still moving and uncowed, the daemons responded with angry roars and headlong rushes toward her. She was hard pressed for a long second as they raged, clawed, and bit. Her armor weathered their blows, her shield taking some of the impact as well. Seelah had prepared for this and sensed no hint of the unexpected. She could bring her full force against them. Literal avatars of violent death, there was no chance they would ask for quarter.

Seelah moved to keep them from flanking her, flicking her eyes quickly from her targets to her environment. It pained her to see what had been done to the once beautiful columns and walls of the ruined temple, but she did not turn her face from any corner where another foe might hide. The sacrilege that had been carried out here was methodical, total, and nauseatingly creative. She did not believe these daemons to be any more than guardians left behind to ensure the vile vandalism was not undone. Some other intelligence had brought the temple low.

Suddenly a well-placed blow dropped one daemon sooner than she had expected, and the other leaped back from Seelah. She moved toward it cautiously but at a quick stride.

“Perhaps we should negotiate.” The creature’s voice was deep and gruff, as though mortal words hurt its throat, and its tone betrayed any intention of diplomacy. The false overture was scarcely out of its mouth when a gout of fire followed it. As the flames danced off her magically warded armor, Seelah surged forward and drove her blade deep into the daemon’s chest. The steel cut, the holy forces coursing through it cutting deeper still. With a gurgling cry, the remaining daemon staggered back and fell, ichor dripping from the wound.

“This wins you nothing!” The fiend’s growl was more petulant than defiant. “You cannot hold this place. That which bound us here shall see you begin to rebuild. Your dreamed-of monument to your lackluster mortal of a godling will fall again before you finish gilding it. No accolades will this win you from your light-thrall masters, no wealth or power will you collect!”

Seeleh paused a moment, her enemy’s tar-like blood boiling off her glowing blade. She disliked striking a fallen foe but there was, of course, no chance of turning this thing from its path of evil.

“This place,” Seelah indicated the open court with a jab of her chin, keeping eyes, sword, and shield carefully oriented against any desperate last strike the monstrosity might make, “is just a place. When my order lost it, we grieved, but more for the loss of those within than for toppled stone. We rebuilt elsewhere. We still train the willing, temper the faithful, and sharpen the keenest of Iomedae’s blades. If we can rebuild this place after it is cleansed, we will. But that is not why I am here.”

The daemon laughed once, a hard, humorless noise.

“Then you risk your life and rouse my anger of that which bound me for even less than I thought. It has done this to a hundred places and will do it to a hundred more. Vanquish us, and it shall return to do the same to you!”

At the last word the daemon lunged, claws slashing for Seelah’s armored belly. Unsurprised, she caught the blow on her shield, felt the impact crack its boards and bruise her arm. She smoothly thrust her longsword down and forward, channeling the divine power her patron granted her through the blessed metal, and felt it cut her foe’s fiendish malevolence as much as its hide and flesh. It collapsed, stretched out on the ground, it’s black blood seeping into the stone.

Seelah crouched, peering into its eyes. Was there some dim light still there? Some glimmer of its daemonic spirit still clinging to its useless physical form? If so, perhaps it could still hear her for a few moments more.

“I did not come here because that which conjured you did this to us. I came because, as you say, it may yet do the same to others. And when it comes here to seek vengeance upon me?” The spark was definitely gone from the daemon’s lifeless eyes. Seelah stood and looked at the hours of toil that would be needed to make this an even vaguely defensible place once again.

She smiled.

“When it comes? I will be ready.”

---

About the Author

Owen K.C. Stephens is a veteran of the tabletop RPG industry with more than 20 years of experience, including being on staff at Green Ronin, Paizo, and Wizards of the Coast and being the publisher of RogueGeniusGames.com. He has worked on numerous RPG lines, including being co-author of the Star Wars Saga Edition RPG and Design Lead for the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. You can support his writing and free content production at Patreon, and follow him at his blog, on Facebook and on Twitter.

About Iconic Encounters

Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

The ritual continued. Gifne sat in place as she had for the past day, eyes closed, silently repeating the mantra in her mind, communing with the Green, with the Will of the World, with nature itself. Finally, to her satisfaction, she felt nature respond.

All about her the world became green, lush, filled with light. The sandy ground grew dark with moisture, became thick loam, from which sprouted grass, brush, and bramble. Under the half-elf druid’s encouragement, desert plants sprung from the ground around a newly pooling oasis, their leaves reaching toward the diamond-blue sky.

Gifne opened her glowing green eyes and was pleased with what she saw. Where once there was only dry dunes now stood a lush grove surrounding an oasis vital to her employers, the nation of Rahadoum. The potential for life in this place had always been here. All it needed was a little push so it could flower and grow.

She closed her eyes and thanked the Green for its bounty. This was another successful day in a series of successes. If her work continued unimpeded, Rahadoum would have many years before it had to worry about encroachment from the desert once more.

Illustration by Igor Grechanyi.
For more information on the philosophies of the Age of Lost Omens, including both the Green Faith and the Laws of Mortality, check out Lost Omens: Gods & Magic!

With her eyes still closed, Gifne folded her hands and began a new ritual, communing with nature, casting her mind from her body, seeking the next location to continue her work, to re-channel the desert, keep it flowing and healthy, yet maintaining a balance with its human neighbors.

“Are you… you’re not praying, are you?”

Gifne opened her eyes but didn’t get up from her cross-legged position. Jhelana Mandu, captain of the Pure Legion, had been assigned as her bodyguard and guide when she’d first arrived in Rahadoum’s capital, Azir, the Godless Port. The woman was tough, curious, and charming. Over the past few months they’d each saved one another a score of times, changing what was once a professional relationship into a friendship forged in fire and steel. Yet Jhelana’s question represented the rot in the garden.

“Not praying,” the half-elf answered, struggling to keep sarcasm from her voice. Luckily her friend’s Rahadoumi accent was different enough from her Taldan tones to hide the nuance. “I was communing.”

“Communing?” Jhelana asked, eyebrow raised. “With what?”

“Why ask questions to which you already know the answer?” said Gifne, no longer bothering to hide her exasperated sigh. “With nature, with the Green. With life itself, as I’ve told you before.”

“Sounds an awful lot like a deity,” said Jhelana, patting her sword. “Which I’m sworn to put a stop to.”

Gifne laughed to hide her annoyance. She pointed at where the green grass now poked up through the sand at Jhelana’s feet. “Are those blades of grass a god? Is that palm tree? That spit-lizard on the rocks or those flowers by the pool? No. That’s life itself and it’s never wrong to worship life.”

Jhelana moved her hand away from her sword. Gifne had seen her wield it several times since they’d begun travelling together and didn’t envy any who found themselves facing the Legionnaire. “You shouldn’t worship anything,” Jhelana said. “The Pure Legion believes in people. In ideas, as the Laws of Mortality dictate. Not in powers who rule from some golden castle in the clouds.”

Gifne shook her head. How could she explain to the Legionnaire, dear friend though she was, about the will of the green world, the very life force of Golarion? It shone through them all: rock, tree, and water. Even Jhelana Mandu; her more brightly than most.

“I used nature’s magic to heal your wounds when we were set upon by those gnoll reavers last month,” Gifne said.

“You didn’t question where it came from then.”

“I was barely conscious,” said Jhelana. “Plus I trusted you when you said your healing came from no god.”

Gifne raised an eyebrow. “So now you don’t trust me?”

Jhelana shrugged, looking uncertain—very unlike her usual self-assured demeanor. “A troubling thought occurred as I watched you work on this latest encroachment of the desert.”

The sun still shone bright in the sky, its heat bringing dappled sweat to Gifne’s brow. “And that is?”

After departing Azir, Gifne and the captain had traveled east alongside the Winding Way river, making their way through most of central Rahadoum. Gifne could use its vibrant waters to aid her ritual and also, the pair never need worry about dying of thirst. Far off along the eastern horizon, Gifne could see the tall peaks of the Napsune Mountains where stood the fabled Shepherd’s Rock, citadel of the Pure Legion.

Jhelana stared at where the desert had once been, where the lush oasis now stood. “You commune with nature, but what if it’s nature’s will that the desert consume Rahadoum? Would you abandon us, leave my country to choke and die, a forgotten ruin in the desert?”

The wind blew around them, causing newly sprouted leaves to rustle gently, making a susurrus of the long grass. Jhelana’s question pierced through Gifne’s defenses as easily as the captain pierced an opponent with her blade. Was she doing the right thing, here? Or was she upsetting the balance? Gifne looked at the life around her. She stared at the desert, its dunes now several hundred yards away.

“It’s hard to know what nature wants,” said Gifne slowly. “These are things you will need to accept. Balance is never easy, but it’s worth it. I cannot believe the desert would destroy your nation. Elsewise, my rituals wouldn’t work. A balance can be achieved between your people and the desert. I have to believe that.”

“When I was a child, this didn’t happen!” Jhelana said. “The desert might grow slightly in the dry season, a few hundred yards at most, but when the rains came, the grasses retook it. The movement was slow, there was balance. Only now…”

Gifne stared at her friend in shock. The Legionnaire never spoke of her childhood, never told much of herself at all, really. “What’s happening now?”

“The desert is like a glutton who can never be sated,” said Jhelana, and Gifne heard the fear in her voice. “The rains slow its progress, but it keeps growing by miles every season. Nothing about this is natural. Nothing!”

Gifne refrained from telling her friend that trying to determine what was natural on Golarion was often a futile exercise. In its earliest days her own faith, druids of four factions had warred over whose philosophy best represented nature. Only by intercession of nature itself did they learn to work in balance together as the Green Faith. Even now there were schisms and disagreements, but at least none could claim to be the only true path.

“I believe you, my friend,” the druid said. “And I promise two things. You will never have to compromise your beliefs with me. I worship nature.”

Jhelana nodded. “Your second promise?”

“This I swear, Jhelana Mandu,” said Gifne, slicing open a palm with a clawed thumb and letting it bleed on the thick brown soil. “If the source of the growing desert is unnatural, we will put a stop to it, you and I.”

Jhelana stared at Gifne’s bleeding hand in surprise. Then, quicker than thought, she too cut her sword-calloused palm with a dagger and grasped the druid’s hand. Gifne smiled.

“We must keep to the Winding Way, for now, but soon we will come to this Eternal Oasis. I would very much like to see that, if we’re able.”

“Why?” Jhelana asked. “It’s said those who go in don’t come out. Besides, it’s one of the few places in Rahadoum that doesn’t need your help.”

“That’s just it,” said Gifne. “If there is indeed an unbalance, something strange happening in Rahadoum, it may be we can find the answers in this Eternal Oasis.”

Gifne watched the uncertainty in Jhelana’s face give way to determination. The captain nodded and the two began to make their way back to the Winding Way to find the next place to push back the desert.

All around them, as the wind blew through the new grass and rippled the oasis pond, the desert waited.

About the Author

Patrick Hurley has had fiction published in Galaxy’s Edge, Cosmic Roots & Eldritch Shores, Abyss & Apex, New Myths, Arcanist, Aurealis, Frozen Wavelets, The Overcast, and The Drabblecast. He is a 2017 graduate of the Taos Toolbox Writer's Workshop. In 2018, he was a finalist for the Baen Fantasy Award. Patrick lives in Seattle and is a member of SFWA and the Dreamcrashers. He still can’t quite believe he has to good fortune to also be an editor at Paizo.

About the Tales of Lost Omens

The Tales of Lost Omens series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into Pathfinder’s Age of Lost Omens setting. Written by some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, including Paizo’s Pathfinder Tales line of novels and short fiction, the Tales of Lost Omens series promises to explore the characters, deities, history, locations, and organizations of the Pathfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

It took less than a day for the first seven worlds to end.

Before these seven planetary deaths, before the Material Plane began its storied journey through the Ages, the gods had not conceived that one of their own would wreak such ruin. The mortal realm, after all, was intended to be a place for the faithful of all divinities to learn and grow. Why, then, would a deity seek to destroy what was meant to be for all? In those early times before days were days, it could be said that even the gods were naive.

The glories and horrors of the outer sphere had long since coalesced into the nine outer planes after Pharasma’s First Walk. The Inner Sphere remained empty of mortal life for some time, a blank slate that increasingly drew the curiosity of countless divine imaginations. The raising of the First World was a wise choice, for it allowed the gods to practice the complexities of creation, to rework and rewrite, and to finally settle on a method for the crafting of the Myriad on the Material Plane.

When they turned to the dark universe at the heart of the Inner Sphere, there were already inhabitants—entities left over from other realities, but they were few and far between and seemed content to slumber. The gods kept them in mind as they turned their attention to the Work and were ready to react should these Outer Gods take note of their creations.

The Speakers of the Depths could hardly be concerned with aiding the work, but neither did they oppose the act of bringing order from chaos within the Inner Sphere, and in such act, they provided what aid they could. Desna lit the stars, so that their light could reach the skies of the Myriad. Sarenrae gave life to the suns of those countless worlds where creation would begin. Ihys and Asmodeus, not yet bickering brothers, set to work creating the first mortal frames. Achaekek stood sentinel at the edge of the Spire, an impartial arbiter to oversee reality’s spread. And the Bound Prince waited in the darkest place to welcome mortal death into the world.

And when all was set in place, Pharasma touched the source of the River of Souls and began the flow of mortal life into all worlds. Rovagug, the Rough Beast, who had busied himself with the eternal task of burrowing through the Outer Rifts, took note. He crawled from the rifts, scaled the Spire, and leapt from its edge to hurtle across the Silver Sea. He cracked the Elemental Shell and invaded the Material Plane and gloried in the banquet before him. He consumed seven worlds before they saw their first sunsets but found the food flavorless. Worlds without names... worlds without histories... worlds without anything to lose were unsatisfying to the Rough Beast, and he did not fight hard when the gods, aghast at the destructive assault, drove him back to the Outer Rifts. Desna raised Sevenfold Cynosure as a memorial to the first seven worlds destroyed, and the gods vowed upon its steps that, should the Rough Beast return, so too would they return to face him again.

Much took place during that first age—the Age of Creation. New gods like Calistria and Dou-Bral, Torag and Gorum, or Dahak and Apsu rose and began the creation of their own domains. Life grew and evolved within the Material Plane, and in time, so did sapience. At first, the most intelligent of life consisted either of intrusions from elsewhere, such as the visitations of the xiomorns upon many worlds, or the spread of alghollthu through the darkened seas they had always ruled. But in time, mortals themselves discovered faith and free will, and sapience became the spark that would burn the Age of Creation to ash.

It was this spark that compelled Asmodeus to betray his brother Ihys, who had encouraged the flow of free will through these hungry mortal minds. War spread as the rift between Asmoedus and Ihys grew, and the first true conflict amid the gods saw death and devastation on a scale the Great Beyond had never endured. Asmodeus’s murder of Ihys would bring the war to an end, but not in a way any could predict, for that final act would have repercussions. It was this betrayal that drew Rovagug’s attention back to reality as well. As the Great Beyond reeled from war, Rovagug slipped unseen back into the Material Plane and fed upon the world upon which Asmodeus had first lured and then slain Ihys. The Rough Beast reveled in the flavor of a planet that died screaming, its inhabitants agonizing at their apocalypse, and so from world to world did Rovagug move, feeding and destroying with impunity.

illustration by Igor Grechanyi

In these final eons of the Age of Creation, the gods suffered. Groetus rose above the Boneyard for the first time. Achaekek went mad and consumed his own impartiality to become little more than a mindless beast for many eons to follow. The Bound Prince gnawed upon the despairing souls from those planetary apocalypses and became the First Horseman. And Rovagug continued to feed, slouching from world to world and leaving cataclysms in his wake. As world after world died, devastation undid what the gods had wrought. It was Sarenrae who finally took note, who called upon the gods to honor their ancient vow, who begged them to join her again on the steps of Sevenfold Cynosure. Many, but not all, responded, but at the final moment, even Asmodeus returned, perhaps hopeful to make amends for his act, or perhaps seeing yet another opportunity for personal gain.

A new alliance was born that day as Rovagug turned his attention toward three different worlds—Androffa, Golarion, Earth—and as his actions began devastations therein, the gods began the work that would end the Age of Creation. Wily Calistria distracted Rovagug from his feast, sparing the three worlds and focusing his gaze around the least of them—Golarion, a younger world than its two imperiled sisters. Torag and Gorum toiled together under Pharasma’s guidance within Golarion to craft the Dead Vault, a demiplane metaphysically nested within that could hold the Rough Beast. Abadar provided the perfect key and lock to hold the prison shut, a key so cunning in construction that only Asmodeus could turn it. Dou-Bral placed the Star Towers around Golarion and poised to strike when the time was right. And when the Dead Vault was complete, Calistria lured Rovagug into the trap. There, he was ambushed by Sarenrae and Desna, Apsu and Dahak, Erastil and Gozreh, and many more who would fall in battle to Rovagug’s jaws and be forgotten forever. But as Rovagug stepped fully into the trap, Sarenrae cut open the world and dealt Rovagug a crippling blow, sending the Rough Beast hurtling into the Dead Vault. Dou-Bral woke the Star Towers, and they lanced into the world, stitching Golarion shut and piercing Rovagug within, stunning the rough beast long enough for Asmodeus to turn the key in the lock.

And with that, the young world of Golarion became the Cage. The Age of Creation ended, and the Ages that Followed began. And as long as the Cage continues to spin, as long as the Rough Beast remains within, may those Ages never again falter and die.

About the Author

James Jacobs is the Creative Director for Pathfinder. While he was there at the beginning of Golarion’s creation, many of the deities worshiped by that world’s heroes and villains had already existed for decades before. Goddesses and gods like Desna and Rovagug, Sarenrae and Abadar, Achaekek and Zon-Kuthon first established their faithful among PCs and NPCs alike in James’s home campaign in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Sharing them with the world as deities of the Pathfinder setting, seeing players and creators come to love and hate them (and in some cases cosplay as them), has been a career highlight.

About the Windsong Testaments

On the northern reaches of Varisia’s Lost Coast stands Windsong Abbey, a forum for interfaith discussion tended by priests of nearly twenty faiths and led by a legacy of Masked Abbesses. At the dawn of the Age of Lost Omens, Windsong Abbey suffered as its faithful fought and fled, but today it has begun to recover. A new Masked Abbess guides a new flock within, and the Windsong Testaments—parables about the gods themselves—are once again being recorded within the abbey’s walls. Some of these Testaments are presented here as Golarion’s myths and fables. Some parts may be true. Other parts are certainly false. Which ones are which is left to the faithful to decide.

The Tempering: a time of travel for any kasatha reaching maturity, when the young adult seeks out new experiences, and in doing so, discovers himself. Some accept exciting internships, and others join crews to travel beyond the stars—proud, noble, traditional stuff. It was lost within this wistful self-reflection that Tahja gradually regained consciousness following his accidental dive off a skybridge, his fall unceremoniously broken by a dumpster. In his dawning lucidity, he gazed about and wondered.

“How did you end up here?”

Tahja reflexively jumped, or tried to, instead slipping on a lumpy trash bag below. The question mirrored his own thoughts, yet it wasn’t his own. In his scramble for stability, he looked up and locked eyes with a shocked shirren, her compound eyes bulging slightly in alarm at his sudden movements.

“Whoa, hey, hang on, calm down! Too much telepathy? Fine, hey—unarmed, see?” She raised her two main arms, splaying her three fingers and rattling her neck barbules in alarm. After a few tense seconds, she continued with her reedy voice. “That was quite a fall. You okay? Need an ambulance?”

“No. No authorities,” Tahja gasped, using his lower arms to sit up while his uppers straightened his mouth scarf. “I need somewhere to hide.” With a glance upward toward the twisting, towering skyscraper cast in late afternoon light, he added, “Just for a few hours, until sundown.”

The shirren’s antennae bobbed with amusement. “Oh wow, you really hit your head. Sundown? You know you’re on Verces, right? Tidally locked? Always the same time of day?” She cocked a claw toward the nearby skyscraper as Tahja’s eyes widened in confusion. “Hell, this is Building 5 for the Nabokon Broadcasting Network.” She punctuated the announcement by tapping the sewn patch on her coveralls. “It’s been late afternoon here since the Gap—perfect hour for filming drama.”

Verces. Nabokon. Tahja tried to remember his cultural training. That put him somewhere in the nation Kashak, known for its cybernetics research and heavily augmented populace. That also put him a long way from Absalom Station. The last he remembered, he’d been early in his Tempering on the station, short on credits, and several pages deep into the contracts for a short pharmaceutical testing gig. He figured he would get a few shots, earn some money, and then depart for new adventures. Instead he’d woken up from surgery less than an hour ago, his body no longer entirely his own. He dimly remembered doctors trying to calm and sedate him before he panicked, broke free, and started to run. His fall had just been his latest gamble in escaping his pursuers.

Verces — illustration by Mark Molnar

The shirren eyed him sadly. “C’mon, you’re clearly not doing well. I’m just coming off duty and can put you up for a bit. Name’s Estrik.” She reached up and clasped his hand, pulling him up and out.

“Tahja Maur of Clan Estu, House Truyark, Essence of Ipu—and thank you,” he responded while twisting his leg free from where it had punched through the dumpster lid. “But I’m being chased by dangerous people.” With that, he extracted his left leg, a cybernetic limb of hex-plated skin covering powerful joints and pistons.

Estrik’s barbules quivered with admiration as she inspected the limb with interest. “No kidding! Dermasteel weave?” She flicked the knee. “Is that adamantine? I bet it’s the debt collectors after you, with this thing’s price tag. Weird that it doesn’t even have a maker’s mark, though.” The shirren’s antennae suddenly twitched and she straightened with fear before pushing Tahja behind cover and pathing a silent warning into his mind. “We have company!”

“That’s because it’s stolen,” remarked the alley wall as a hidden figure’s skin dropped its camouflaged pattern. Eight feet tall with bulging all-black eyes and pale, chameleon-like skin, he was a verthani, the planet’s native humanoid species. His mostly nude frame had allowed his chromatophores to hide his approach, but it did little to hide the artificial muscle fibers and untold other augmentations that bulged under his skin. “This is NextStep business. Move away from the subject, bug. This doesn’t concern you.”

“Rude!” Estrik wailed before telepathically gushing to Tahja “You’re a criminal? Wanted by a real bounty hunter?” Her eyes developed an admiring sheen. “It’s just like in the stories—like Astral Eternities or Galaxy in your Eye? I’m such a fan! So. Cool.” She paused in hearing his wordless response before adding “Oh yeah, I know another way out of here, why?” His response came in the form of a swift kick that sent the dumpster careening across the alley, powered by his leg’s mechanical strength. It slammed into the verthani and threw him against the nearby wall, stunning him.

“The escape?” Tahja insisted. Estrik goggled at the dumpster for a second before whipping out a keycard, running to the far end of the alley, and swiping open a service door. The two slipped inside before slamming it closed. “Where to from here?”

“Zakol, one of the camera operators,” Estrik wheezed through her flaring facial spiracles. “He has a bunch of family near Darkside. It’s a trek, but maybe they could get you out of here?” The shirren mentally conveyed a vague map interspersed with halfhearted assurances and excited squealing. The chatter ceased as the door shuddered from a gunshot outside and the blaze of a plasma torch punched through the lock. “New plan: we run.”

By the time the outside door clattered open, Tahja had already bounded down the service hall, up two flights of stairs, through a cluster of interns, and into a studio—all while Estrik apologetically struggled to keep up with the kasatha’s cybernetically enhanced strides. They caught their breath for a moment before Estrik telepathically buzzed, “No, no, we can’t stay here.” Tahja stared back blankly, prompting the shirren to continue. “Hear that? They’re filming Galaxy in Your Eye, only the premier verthani serial romantic drama. You know, the star-crossed lovers forbidden to marry by caste, all set during the Gap? Thing’s practically a religion for some folks. Like, I’m not even allowed to clean within a floor of this place!”

“No other choice I see,” Tahja muttered, looking for a concealed means of crossing the occupied set being watched by a live studio audience. He tiptoed toward the ongoing scene featuring fantastically beautiful actors.

“Zfezar,” demanded the Augmented verthani woman, her steely arm and reinforced spine belying the melodramatic intensity in her voice as she wilted in her partners arms. “Were our families to find us so, what would they say?”

“To hell with families, traditions, and castes, Apsoria!” responded her masculine counterpart, his chest emblazoned with Ibra’s divine constellation, marking him as a God-Chosen. “Too long have we danced to their wishes yet denied the duet sung by our hearts alone! Here, just the two of us, nothing can stand in our way.”

The stage door shuddered, signaling the bounty hunter’s arrival. As Estrik worriedly looked back, Tahja pushed forward onto the set, wasting no more time. The actors, interrupted on the cusp of embrace looked up with shock, the director off-screen seemed ready to shout, and the hundred-strong audience gazed hungrily at this new development with an audible gasp. Tahja took to one knee, showing his cybernetics openly. “My lady, I come with dire news. Your family has learned of your actions.”

“Ha, they dare not intervene!” laughed Apsoria, improvising, though her narrowing eyes conveyed how suspicious she was of the kasatha’s sudden appearance.

“More dramatic!” Estrik mentally insisted from her hiding spot.

“And...they have sent assassins, my lady!” Tahja added quickly. “By slaying your love, ah—“

“His Occult Eminence Zfezar”

“—his Occult Eminence Zfezar,” Tahja continued, silently thanking Estrik for the prompt, “you will be bound to honor your arranged marriage!”

The audience’s gratifying gasps mollified the director, who sat back to observe this strange turn, and the actors adapted flawlessly to the changing script. “Villains!” growled Zfezar with a flourish of his cape.

Just then, the stage door fell open, and the bounty hunter stepped into the lights, at first with menace but then with quizzical uncertainty. As Apsoria and Zfefar berated the supposed assassin, the bounty hunter struggled to push past them, shouting. “Brightside blind you all, stand aside!” His throat swelled as his head tilted back before he spewed a bolt of electricity from his biotech dragon gland. Tahja’s cybernetic leg kicked into action—literally—flinging him out of danger’s path.

The audience shrieked with delight as Zfezar attempted a stage punch that the bounty hunter easily dodged before hurling the actor aside. He was just beginning spit another attack when Apsoria struck in earnest, hitting him in the throat as his dragon gland built up charge. The hostile verthani’s eyes went wide as the gland fired prematurely, shocking him and sending coruscating lightning ringlets dancing over his body. Smoking slightly, he dropped to the ground.

Without hesitation, the two actors took each other in their arms. “My family has spoken its peace, and I have delivered my answer, Zfezar. No matter what lies ahead, we will face it...”

“...together,” he finished.

“And scene!” cried the director, punctuated by the audience’s applause. She hopped off her chair and snagged Tahja by an arm. “You know that there weren’t kasathas in this system during the Gap, right? And that makes what just happened more than a little anachronistic?”

“Um, yes? About that?” stuttered the young kasatha.

“Ha! Soesn’t matter! The show’s set in the Gap for a reason: can’t historically disprove anything we film! And now this is just what we need to shake up the story: aliens! I’ll get those damn writers to revise whatever sorry script they had in store. Let’s talk numbers—got an agent?”

Tahja desperately looked around for any help in salvaging this awkward moment, but he saw only Estrik. Her arms were quivering with excitement as she pathed emphatically to him one more time: “So! Cool!”

About the Author

John Compton is the Starfinder Senior Developer at Paizo, Inc., having recently joined the team from years creating organized play adventure content. He has written extensively for Pathfinder and Starfinder, including adventures, setting content, and rule books, and before working for Paizo, he was a teacher, practicing archaeologist, and archaeometallurgist. You can find John on Twitter and Paizo-facing Discord servers @Archaeotagh.

About Tales from the Drift

The Tales from the Drift series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into the setting of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Written by members of the Starfinder development team and some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, the Tales from the Drift series promises to explore the worlds, alien cultures, deities, history, and organizations of the Starfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

It was a cold, still night in Arl, and from the thasteron-stained alleys of the Old Quarter to the shimmering stadiums of the Vitaritech Coliseum, the people cried out for blood.

Except for Vaereji.

The damaya lashunta stood among the screaming throng of the Crimson Forum, oldest arena on the desert planet of Akiton, and for a professional lounge singer, he was strangely silent. With his pale skin and long antennae slicked down against his dark blue hair, he ought to have stood out among the towering, four-armed shobhads and furtive, rat-like ysoki natives, a handsome figure in his tailored black tuxedo. But tonight, all eyes were fixed on the blood sport.

It might as well have been an execution.

The rabble watched, enraptured, as a reptilian vesk lifted his opponent—a grizzled, white-furred ysoki with a mechanical arm—into the air, ripped off the prosthetic appendage, and, with a mighty hiss, tossed the dying mammal onto the reddened ground.

Yells of violent delight erupted at the totality of the kill, but Vaereji’s gasp was one of horror…not merely because the ysoki was his friend—a friend he’d bet most of his credits on—but because the fight was supposed to be a sure thing.

The barrel of the arc pistol pressed against his back certainly didn’t help.

“Better come with me, snazzy,” growled a voice at his ear. “You’ve got singing to do.”

Akiton — illustration by Leon Tukker

They’d called him an adept back on Castrovel, and it was true, but Vaereji had only used his phrenic abilities to help with his music. To push his telepathic abilities beyond those of other lashuntas. To feel the emotional swell of the audience between songs, hear the anticipatory desires in their thoughts—even send them telepathic messages, if they lined up with his lyrics. His abilities helped him put on a better show, and that was all Vaereji really wanted to use them for.

It had been the ysoki’s idea to use them to cheat.

The grizzled little fighter—who went by “Rusty” in the arenas—was a regular at the Forum district clubs where Vaereji liked to perform. One night the two had wound up sharing a drink, and then another, and just like that, a friendship was born. Nothing more to it, until…

“Why do they stick up sometimes?” Rusty had asked, pointing a worn metal finger at the lashunta’s antennae.

Vaereji, then drunk, had embarrassedly slicked them back down and mumbled, “They do that sometimes, when I use my abilities.”

“Abilities?”

The lounge singer didn’t get halfway through his explanation before noticing a conspiratorial glint in Rusty’s eye, but he’d been too drunk to care. He even bragged a little, about how sometimes he could manage clairvoyance, or a true mind probe—not that he bothered with that stuff most of the time. He just wanted to put on a good show!

With a grin, Rusty assured him that he could indeed put on a good show and make a few credits on the side, if he wanted. With the right moves, he could even make enough to open up his own club! Maybe even get out of Arl—or off Akiton altogether—and set up shop somewhere classy.

“What do you have in mind?” Vaereji asked cautiously.

“Nothing dangerous…”

All he had to do was perform at clubs where Rusty’s opponents (or their managers) were drinking. Sing the right leading songs—combat anthems, usually—mixed with the right leading set banter—“who in here’s got a fight this week?”—and even the fighters’ surface thoughts and feelings were full of intel. Occasionally, the ysoki convinced him to probe someone deeper, or use a mix of song and telepathic messages to demoralize them. With the right tips and drunken secret thoughts from his opponents, veteran fighter Rusty was able to take on all comers. He started to climb the ranks, and Vaereji started to bet on him a little more freely. They picked a mark, planned the fight, and, without fail, Rusty emerged from the bout victorious.

Until tonight.

Their intel on the vesk hadn’t been enough, it seemed, and now Rusty was dead, leaving Vaereji friendless, in debt, with a pistol at his back. Did they expect him to pay out everything tonight?

His assailant—a hulking android in dark estex—urged him on. They moved past the clinking credit tables of the bookies, beyond the red-tiled smoking rooms filled with celebrating shobhad gamblers, their eyes wide from transdimensional pesh and the thrill of the fight.

After another few minutes, the hall ended in a reinforced security door; the door slid open, and the android shoved Vaereji inside.

It was a luxury box, with vidfeeds on every wall showing looped scenes from past and current bouts. Plush chairs and low tables sat around the chamber, while recessed yellow lights made a pleasant diversion from the rusty red of the rest of the Forum. There were several androids in the room, dressed in cheap suits or hoods like the one behind him, and all of them were armed with arc pistols and nasty blades.

Except, that is, for the woman behind the large wooden desk at the back of the room.

“Hello, Mr. Vaereji,” she said. Her tone was polite, but it made the singer’s breath catch nonetheless. She had more mechanics visible than most androids, the joints of her synthetic skin lined with soft red light. Her eyes glowed the same red, and when she smiled, they shimmered. “Sorry for your loss this evening.”

“Who…who are you?” Vaereji asked. He’d been expecting to be threatened by debt collectors, not a gang of well-armed androids. He was starting to think this wasn’t just about the credits he now owed the Forum. But if not that…

“I’m the person who decides who fights who,” she said. “And until very recently, I was very good at predicting the winners.”

Who fights who? Vaereji stepped backward, eyes widening with realization.

“Stars above,” he cursed quietly. “You’re Kell-3.”

The android’s silence was confirmation enough.

“Kell-3. A crimelord working the Forum…I thought you were an urban legend.”

Kell-3 smiled, flashing more of that red glimmer.

“So did your friend, Rusty,” she said, and the lounge singer gulped.

“He thought the syndicates didn’t care about this arena. He thought that Kell-3, the most feared android on Akiton, didn’t bother with Arl anymore. He thought he knew this city better than one of its own legends.”

The secret gangster of the Crimson Forum was real, Vaereji had been ripping her off, and she knew.

“He thought wrong,” Kell-3 said.

She let the words hang in the air, until the lashunta choked out the inevitable question.

“Are you going to kill me?”

Even shaky with fear, the singer’s voice was melodious, soothing. His words hung in the air, and the room grew quiet for a moment, only the dim sounds of the final spectators above leaving the Crimson Forum in satisfaction.

Then, Kell-3’s smile returned.

“Of course not,” she said. “You misunderstand. I’m a fan.”

Vaereji was at loss for words as she stepped toward him.

“People have used their psychic abilities to fix arena matches before, of course,” the android said. “But they’re usually thinking too big—mindbreakers trying to sow doubt, powerful technomancers shorting out the implants of combatants they bet against, that sort of thing. They always got caught. But you…”

His antennae popped up again, their position beyond his ability to control, especially when under pressure. Only just now, as he resisted the nervous compulsion to smooth them back against his hair lest movement be mistaken as a threat by the room full of armed toughs, did he realize that Kell-3 was wearing a glittering green evening gown. Tight-fitting and studded with gems, it looked almost as absurd and out of place here as his tuxedo did.

“You have a very subtle approach, and I’d like to see more of it.”

Kell-3 stood, inches from him, eyes like the bright red sands of Akiton itself. He understood now why he wasn’t getting his legs broken by goons, why he wasn’t dead like Rusty. She wanted him to work for her. He had never wanted anything like this.

“I just wanted to put on a good show,” he choked out.

But it was clear enough that she’d get her way. The singer was hers now. Defeated, Vaereji met the android’s gaze, and she laughed, a high static titter.

“You heard that crowd—could you ask for a better audience? Poor Rusty was sure he’d win, thanks to you, and that confidence led to the best bout I’ve seen in months. If every match was that brutal—that dramatic—this would be the busiest arena on the planet. With your help, it will be.”

She ran her hand up Vaereji’s face, and he flinched, but her fingers only rose to press up against his antennae. He blinked as Kell-3 slicked them back with surprising gentleness.

“I just wanted to sing.” His voice was low, almost a whisper.

When she spoke, her voice, too, was soft—but full of the same violence as the screaming crowd. “And as long as you can learn to take requests, you still will. With all of Arl as your audience. This city sings for blood, Vaereji...”

Now, the arenas were empty and silent. From the thasteron-stained alleys of the Old Quarter to the shimmering stadiums of the Vitaritech Coliseum, the city was sated, but in a dark room beneath the bloodied sands of the Crimson Forum, Vaereji’s latest performance was just beginning.

“Isn’t it time you sang along?”

About the Author

Ryan Cady writes comics and horror fiction - with credits from Marvel and DC and everywhere in between. His critically acclaimed space horror series, Infinite Dark, recently concluded a two-volume run at Image Comics, and you can read his latest webcomic, Wolfsbane, for free on LINE Webtoon. Find him on twitter @rycady, where he rants about Star Wars, food, and TTRPGs.

About Tales from the Drift

The Tales from the Drift series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into the setting of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Written by members of the Starfinder development team and some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, the Tales from the Drift series promises to explore the worlds, alien cultures, deities, history, and organizations of the Starfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

The bite of the usqui, a blood-loving fly native to the rainforests of Naleobaseq, delivers a parasite that renders victims psychically mute and deaf. Its effects on telepathic races are quite profound. The resulting silence, a cold psionic exile from kith and kin, so shocks the infected that they’ve been found in fetal curls, talking to themselves to keep from feeling so utterly alone.
—Entomological Survey of the Vast, Vol. 131.7

To kill time during the stakeout, Shaeon composed psychic poetry for her beloved, Kiress. Not far away, vermilliath flowers whorled in scarlet murmurations above the city’s defensive walls, and sometimes, when the wind shifted, she heard the rush-water sound of fluttering blossoms. Enthralled by the shivers it gave her, Shaeon grafted it synesthetically to the sibilant where Kiress’s name appeared in the poem, along with petrichor scent of the promenade

By the time Mataras kissed the horizon, the sky blushing in reply, most of the basement shops fronting the curved street below had closed. Some laborers trudging home past the fortune teller’s place bore the telltale circular welts of animute infection, unaware a black-market cure beyond their finances waited behind the door with the great eye sigil. Shaeon felt a fleeting temptation to let them know, to watch them batter down that door. But, since they weren’t receiving anymore, she’d have to yell the news down to them with lungs and lips, with a tongue that always found speaking uncomfortable. Such things, made for air and food and water, felt clumsy and inadequate for real communion.

Whatever Oryniri did with his stakeout time, tucked into the shadows on the other side of the pedestrian bridge, he wasn't sharing. Taking this to mean he might be bored, Shaeon telepathically sent him the newest line of her poem.

He pathed back with a terse nice, and they spent the next few minutes in psionic silence.

Illustration by Mark Molnar

With twilight there arrived two yaruks, which reared into the sky to feast on the flying blossoms like whale through krill.

The first telepathic alarms were rippling across the populace when one of the mighty beasts came down hard with its forelegs to crack the surge wall, then clambered onto the crumbling fortification, horned head darting from new heights to chase a river of petals.

Guards raced from streets and minor walls to defend the surge line. The steeple-high creatures weren’t carnivorous and feasted on neither bone nor blood. But they got such a narcotic buzz from vermilliath petals that most adults of the species were thoroughly addicted. Enough that they’d cheerfully endure bullets and lasers to gorge on gardens of the stuff, careless of what they trampled under their massive hooves.

Think our thief will capitalize on this distraction? Shaeon pathed.

Probably, Ory answered.

They stayed put, stayed quiet.

As the yaruk on the wall charged bellowing through a phalanx of defenders, a young lashunta urchin scurried past the fortune teller's storefront. Though the Face wasn’t a telepath, she employed a few. Two days earlier, they’d marked this girl as one of her messengers.

Any second

Inside, the Face crouched to peer through the window of her shop, adjusted her mask (which today resembled an impressionistic insect), and then passed through her door, hunching so her head wouldn’t scrape the doorframe. From the middle of the street, she watched the wall battle for several seconds before a passing man bumped into her.

The bumper—a korasha lashunta, stocky and scarred—paid the scene on the wall little heed and instead hurried into a narrow cut-through that zagged up to Expatriate Highway.

Handoff, Ory pathed. I've got the tail.

On relay, Shaeon answered, and darted across the crushed-shell blocks of the Gyre.

She was rounding the Gyre’s south bend when Oryniri’s mind blurted in alarm, then went silent.

Gods be still. No, dammit, no.

Feet a blur, Shaeon took the broad slabs of the Thirty-Four Steps two at a time. She brushed past a stubbled, thimble-hat tourist gaping at the yaruk brawl and reached the spot where the cut-through, the Steps, and highway met at odd angles.

Oryniri’s crumpled form lay in the cut-through, blood seeping into porous stone. A touch from her mind told her it was just fluids now, soul already departed.

On the other side of Expatriate Highway, a stocky shadow slipped into an opposing alley. Shaeon sprinted after him, arc pistol drawn. The shrouded alley bent among buildings like a branch seeking sunlight before opening into a cloistered courtyard.

There, a man waited, backdropped by—

—the glittering tower of a lashunta corporation, reflections of the fight on the wall playing out across its silvered surface. Each flash of laser and cannon flare limned the tower's angles and protrusions, giving an impression of—

Shaeon shook her head.

A gun pressed to her neck.

“On my wrist is a telepathic scanner,” said a voice by her ear. “If you so much as bleat telepathically, it’ll show, and I’ll remove your head at the neck."

Shaeon’s mind cleared. Someone had diverted her with that tower imagery. Nice job, too. She guessed whoever did it was lashunta, like herself. Lashuntas practiced diverting as children, squaring off like gunslingers. Fastest mind wins. Slowest comes to in the middle of the quad, pants around his ankles. She wasn’t used to being the slow one.

Across the courtyard, the korasha raised one hand, pacifying, the other hovering near a gun on his belt. “Come on, man. We don’t do this.”

“I do,” said the man behind her, voice human, accent from off-world—Akiton, maybe. The tourist from the Steps, she realized. “Already did her partner. Now drop the weapon.”

Shaeon dropped her pistol before realizing the human might have been talking to his partner.

“She was diverted,” the korasha said, his hand unmoving. “I could have escaped.”

“Yeah? And what was she gonna do when she recovered?”

“I’m fast.”

“You ain’t faster than thought. You’d be surrounded in no time. Come on, Romalo, you’re the telepath.” Romalo winced at the disclosure of his name. Shaeon realized her chances of survival just dropped. “What the hell were you thinking, going back to the fortune-teller?”

“One of the flies bit my cousin,” Romalo said, peacemaking hand extended, two fingers and thumb loosely curled. “I had to do something.”

“No you didn’t. You put all of us at risk, you monumental fool.”

Fair critique. An alien disease, animute was hard to diagnose. After the first symptom, a victim had maybe six hours to take labat before the affliction became permanent. All of which meant anyone responding quickly to an animute infection was probably in-the-know. After learning the Face obtained labat days before the heist, and guessing she must have supplied the team, Ory and Shaeon had monitored the Face in case the outbreak forced her customer back. Clearly the human was the sensible one—but also the one immune to the disease’s worst symptom, telepathic isolation.

“Someone’s gonna see us,” the human continued. “We need to kill her. Now.”

All of us, the human had said. Implying more than two operatives on the heist. How many in this alley?

Romalo’s hand caught her eye. Two fingers fully extended.

Shaeon had always been fast at diverting, but she’d never tried to beat a mechanical sensor before. She counted down with her left hand against her leg, one two—Romalo’s eyes twitched—three.

She hit the human with her psychic poem.

Romalo drew, fired, and the human slumped against her, tumbled to the ground, pushing Shaeon down with his dead weight.

Then Romalo tried to flee. But, as he reached the mouth of an alley, Shaeon pathed an image of her sighting his back with her recovered arc pistol.

He stopped.

My cousin needs me, he begged.

Your fault, she thought, getting to her feet. You brought the usqui flies. Released them.

He slumped. They were never supposed to spread, just disable the guards’ telepathic alarms.

But they did spread. In the smugglers’ defense, they’d sterilized the queen that they used to whip up the usqui swarm. But it died, and they apparently had no idea that some warrior usqui mutate in the absence of queen pheromones. Into queens. Now Qabarat had an invasive species and Shaeon had a case to close.

I know. But my cousin—

She shot him.

It was an arc. He’d recover. In a cell.

---

Quiet reigned in the villa, all its bustling servants gone.

Shaeon frowned at the unwonted stillness.

In the reading room, Kiress's parents faced each other, tear-streaked, locked in silent argument. Kiress was outside, staring at the courtyard wall, back to the door.

Everything o—? Shaeon started, and then recoiled.

Where Kiress’s mind should have been, she’d found nothing.

As she drew close, Kiress looked up and the cause was revealed. Shaeon traced the telltale bumps on her neck.

“How long?” she asked.

“Five hours.”

“Five?”

“It’s okay,” Kiress answered. “He’ll be back soon.”

A shiver settled into Shaeon’s spine.

“Pardon?”

“You haven’t met him, but my cousin’s back on Castrovel now, and he’s gone to fetch a cure,” Kiress said, waving a hand at the wall. “Sit with me and wait.”

Mind numb, unable to speak, Shaeon sat.

“Any minute now,” Kiress continued. “You’ll see. He’s never let me down.”

About the Author

A product of California, Graham Robert Scott now resides in north Texas; a born scofflaw, he owns neither surfboard nor cowboy hat. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Nature, Barrelhouse Online, X-R-A-Y, and Pulp Literature. He tweets semi-regularly at @graythebruce and maintains a blog at hemicyon.wordpress.com.

About Tales from the Drift

The Tales from the Drift series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into the setting of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Written by members of the Starfinder development team and some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, the Tales from the Drift series promises to explore the worlds, alien cultures, deities, history, and organizations of the Starfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

An electric glow bathes the artificial landscape around me, assaulting my senses with a kaleidoscope of neon blues, greens and pinks. The sound of moving mechanical lifeforms and low-altitude vehicles creates a cacophony that somehow manages to generate an odd harmony with one another. Hundreds of beings, both organic and mechanical alike, maneuver the wide open streets of the megaplex city with guided purpose.

Aballon, the so-called Forge of this system and where I now stand, is something I’d never experienced in my long-life: a world inhabited by self-upgrading machines. Not confined to one form, these machines—anacites as they collectively refer to themselves—have spread across the small world closest to the Pact Worlds’ sun, gradually converting the world into something wondrous. Yet, even for a species who could so easily disconnect themselves from organic concerns, they’ve built their great cities to accommodate those around them.

Illustration by Leon Tukker

I came here to study the Pact Worlds, to walk its many worlds and meet its many people in hopes of learning their cultures. One of my siblings had spent much of their time in this place and had come to respect the Pact Worlds’ people. Another sibling, now deceased, had sought to one day venture to this star system, although their intentions were far less academic than my own. As for my final sibling, I couldn’t be sure if they even know this place exists.

An elevated vidcast monitor several hundred feet wide displays a white-furred rat woman snacking on an apple while partaking in an interview. Vendors of all backgrounds shout out to passersby about the quality of their wares, each making shop in alcoves at the base of massive structures, their presence something clearly intended by this place’s inscrutable designers. Even the walkways that I find myself on are designed to facilitate both organic and robotic beings alike. Hidden lines, invisible to those without augmented sight, direct the settlement’s robotic inhabitants in their maneuvering. Meanwhile, the unaugmented organic lifeforms disrupt the transit with chaotic movements that routinely cause minor fluctuations in the otherwise perfect transit lanes. A controlled chaos of sorts.

Taking this all in over the course of a few seconds, I compile my first impressions on this world.

Something pushes against me; the slightest force against my leg.

“Greetings visitor,” a synthetic voice speaks in the Pact Worlds’ common tongue, emitted from a blocky, rectangular robotic lifeform less than half my height. Its vocal tone is clearly intended to mask any type of association with other species, yet it is fashioned to be appealing to all listeners. “Apologies for this unit’s unintended interaction. This unit had not properly processed your presence in this area, possibly due to a scanning malfunction.”

I smile because that’s what others would expect of me. “No apology is necessary. It was my mistake not to properly respect this world’s traffic laws. Though, if I may make another imposition, may I ask you a question?”

The small anacite rolls back on its tiny automated wheels before adjusting the position of a small telescopic appendage to view my full body, scanning me to resolve its prior error. “This unit does not serve a critical function. This unit will respond as best it is able.”

“You’re a mechanical being, as are most on this world. Why are most the vast settlements of this planet designed with the lives of organics in mind?” I ask the question as I’ve yet to truly discern the answer—a rare occurrence for me.

“This unit understands your query. Answer: Aballon and its many megaplex settlements, such as this megaplex of Endeavor, were designed in respect for Those Who Wait.”

“Those who wait?”

A mechanical whirr of sound comes from the blocky anacite’s telescope as it adjusts a viewing setting. The other robotic beings around us change their ordered line to curve around the conversation. Far above, I see the ysoki woman on the vidscreen take another contented bite from her apple. The small anacite in front of me makes a final calibration before recalling its telescope into its interior, having completed its scan.

“Some anacite units designate themselves as Those Who Wait. Such anacite units conclude that our creators, the First Ones, will one day return to Aballon and as a result our world must be made amenable to them.” The small unit continues its response as a new line of anacites forms a second queue around us, curving in the opposite direction of the existing stream. “Other anacite units designate themselves as Those Who Become. Such anacite units conclude that they must take on the role of the First Ones and seed the galaxy with new anacite lifeforms.”

I maintain my smile and nod my head in appreciation of the explanation. The vidcast screen in the background has shifted to an advertisement led by a skeletal figure that is more of an assault on visual senses than anything near as succinct as my recent exchange.

“What of you, do you belong to Those Who Wait or Those Who Become?”

“This unit does not possess sufficient importance to hold such a belief. This unit exists to assist in the stability of Endeavor’s traffic flow, a task in which this unit is currently failing.”

I look down at the small anacite, taking in all of its simple boxy form and the elegance in its design save for the aesthetic displeasure most other beings would see in it. As the small anacite’s vocal emitters finish its statement, I can’t help but feel my siblings mocking me from the past. I stifle my annoyance by suppressing my smile.

“That seems a shame. Perhaps I can offer a more important existence? Would you be willing to act as my guide on this planet? I have credits.” I offer my hand down to the anacite.

“Acceptable. Assisting newcomers is of higher importance than my current designation.” An aperture opens on the anacite’s frame, releasing a metallic rod that ends near my hand. I clasp the appendage.

Together with my new guide, I step through the break in the curving line of anacites. The remaining robots adjust their movements to form two perfect lines of traffic. Perfection without words.

About the Author

Thurston Hillman is the Starfinder Society Organized Play Campaign Developer. He lives in the frigid ice deserts of Canada, where he's written and developed several products for both Starfinder and Pathfinder. Prior to working at Paizo, Thurston worked in the aviation and technology fields where he travelled the world for several years. You can find Thurston on Twitter at @OnCallGM.

About Tales from the Drift

The Tales from the Drift series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into the setting of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Written by members of the Starfinder development team and some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, the Tales from the Drift series promises to explore the worlds, alien cultures, deities, history, and organizations of the Starfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

I was two-thirds of the way through a hybrid power converter and already feeling the buzz when a knock on the door caught me off guard. In itself, that shouldn’t have been strange; I’m a private detective, after all. But I’d turned the sign off a week ago. Sentient Robotic Investigations—the only SRO detective agency in the Burning Archipelago—was closed. Figuring someone’d gotten lost, I opened the door to send them away. Instead I found a korasha lashunta waiting, her features as symmetrical as anyone could ask for, wearing an annoyed scowl that brought with it a surge of memories of the old days.

“Chief Maneon,” I said, waving her in and tipping the power converter in her direction. “I’d buy you a charge, but I think I already spent it.” She didn’t laugh. I’m not very funny.

She’d come to tell me about a stiff—a ysoki, washed up in the canal in Bulwarks Plaza. Eventually I realized she was offering me a job. “Last time I checked,” I said dryly, “you were in charge of a bunch of cops.”

“We’re slammed,” she said. “Too many cases, not enough hands. You remember things at Laubu Station.” I did, but I was also thinking of how I was going to refill my drained power converter.

“Rate’s two hundred a day, plus expenses.”

She accepted without hesitation. That’s when I should have known better. “A person’s dead,” she said on her way out the door. “All I want to know is, what are you going to do about it?”

I tossed the spent battery on the table. “As little as possible.”

I tried the canal, but it was a bust. Holo-tape marked off the scene where they’d dragged the poor rat—a guy named Bey—out of the water, but there was nothing to see. The locals along the green promenade didn’t seem to notice in any case. Not far off, a small crowd gathered around local doomsayer Jenaelyn, whose ravings about a pending armageddon were far more interesting than anything I had going on.

Illustration by Mark Molnar

Bey managed an apartment building in Clearlight and I headed in that direction. It was a hike, and by the time I got there my circuits were throbbing. I was not in a good mood. Of course, the door was locked, so I jimmied it. I couldn’t exactly ask the landlord to let me in.

Inside was a warren. Typical ysoki. I wove a path between boxes of cheap electronics and used drone parts. There was a whole rack filled with nothing but obsolete datapads, and a handful of credsticks by the bed. His union certification was framed on the wall. I liked him. But there was a weird signal coming from behind the desk; it was wired. Crawling under there, I saw a security panel. I tried his union member number, and a panel in the wall slid open. I went in.

It was a small little space, cozy even for a ysoki. He’d hung monitors all over the walls, and half of them were still running. On the screens, people—mostly lashuntas in black—sat huddled together in molded plastic seats, checking their comms or talking quietly to each other. A few people stood nearby, holding onto brass poles that led from floor to ceiling. It was the inside of a linecrawler. Bey had bugged the linecrawlers. What the hell for?

All the camera feeds were recorded. There were hundreds of hours. My headache was telling me I didn’t want to watch them all, but it turned out I didn’t have to. Fifteen minutes were missing from a recording three days old. Bey had erased it. I locked up as I left. But I took the credsticks.

Half of the credsticks bore the logo of the Last Laugh—a local comedy club—so that’s where I went. Tonight, the batteries were on Bey. Chaz Bilgart, the club’s most celebrated act, was on stage, making a finger pistol with one hand. “‘Didn’t you hear me,’” he snarled, imitating a mugger in a cheap holonovel. “‘Hand over the credits or I blow your damn brains out!’ And I told him, ‘Gimme a second, okay? I’m thinking!’” I didn’t get the joke, but everyone else laughed.

I saw a lot of off-duty cops in the room, but I rolled in anyway and ordered a battery from a waiter dressed like a mourner. Bey’s sticks had plenty of credits. I didn’t know if I could drink my way through all of them, but I was ready to try. I was halfway through my second when Chaz dropped onto the chair next to me. “J4K3, you look like crap.” I couldn’t disagree, so I showed him a picture on my comm without a word. “That’s Bey,” he said. “Nice guy. Tips good. Is he in trouble?”

“Not anymore.” I told him about the canal.

Chaz told me Bey had been in three nights ago, pretty upset. Had too many. A local took him home. When I asked who, he pointed across the room to a table where a bunch of big palookas sat around a less boorish, far more handsome local. “Zeylan,” he said.

“Bey talk to anyone else?”

“One of the waiters, Lin,” he said. “But Lin didn’t show for his shift today.”

I didn’t like my odds against the palookas, so I waited for Zeylan to leave and I followed him. Chaz insisted on tagging along. We ended up at a storage facility which Zeylan entered. I got Maneon on the comm and told her everything. She was there in ten minutes.

“Killer is in there?” she said.

“And probably another dead guy,” I told her.

I was ready to bust the door down but she just knocked. “Sir,” she said through the door. “It’s Chief Maneon.”

After a short pause, the door opened a crack. Zeylan had a pistol pointed at the floor. “Shavri,” he said. nonchalantly. “Who are your friends?”

Maneon didn’t acknowledge Zeylan’s familiar address and ignored the question. “You need to go, sir. Is there a body in there?”

Zeylan shrugged. “I’m afraid so.”

“Leave it. I’ll take it to the crematorium. With all due respect sir, if you’d let me take care of the first one, none of this would have happened.”

A numb feeling had been spreading through my circuits, but I finally lost it when I realized the chief wasn’t calling Zeylan “sir” as a formality, but rather as a sign of deference. I lifted my arc pistol, but Chaz held me back, giving Zeylan the chance to slip out the door and bolt. And just like that I was watching his back as he ran for the linecrawler station.

Maneon looked at me like she’d just swallowed a bug. “Holy hell, J4K3, put that thing away before you hurt someone!”

“You knew the whole damn time!”

“I didn’t know how the ysoki overheard what he did. But now we’ll destroy the rest of those recordings. This is your fault. You should have done what you promised you’d do.”

As little as possible, I’d told her.

She turned away to see to the corpse waiting in the storage unit. As the door closed, I made a last lunge to hold it open, but Chaz was stronger than he looked.

“Forget it, J4K3,” he hissed in my ear. “It’s Asanatown.”

About the Author

Jason Tondro develops Starfinder Adventure Paths. A former college professor, he taught literature, writing, film, and comics & graphic novels before joining Paizo as an editor in March 2018. He is the author of the Arthur Lives! RPG; look for him on Twitter @doctorcomics. He lives in Seattle with his two dogs and blames Joe Pasini for this story.

About Tales from the Drift

The Tales from the Drift series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into the setting of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Written by members of the Starfinder development team and some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, the Tales from the Drift series promises to explore the worlds, alien cultures, deities, history, and organizations of the Starfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

Today is going to be a good day.

That’s what Major Ramalakesh remembered telling himself this morning while he was putting on his uniform. Now he wasn’t so sure. He looked up at the starry sky above Absalom Station’s Eye, squinting in the harsh light of the yellow sun, and thought of the relentless hard vacuum beyond the thin layer of polycarbon plate. The transparent dome looked so fragile. One crack, one tiny hole in that flimsy bubble, and everyone and everything in the Eye would die horribly and without honor in a matter of seconds. And the Pact Worlders placed their government here, without even a hint of defensive fortifications. Ramalakesh couldn’t comprehend it. It made him uneasy.

He lowered his gaze and tried to not to think about the dome overhead. He had been so excited this morning! This was his first day of leave since arriving from the Veskarium a week ago, and his first opportunity to really explore Absalom Station. It was what he had always dreamed of. This is why he had joined the Imperial Diplomatic Corps. This is why he had fought so hard to be assigned to the Veskarium’s diplomatic mission to the Pact Worlds. What better place to experience the galaxy’s wealth of alien cultures than the very hub of the Pact Worlds?

Illustration by Leon Tukker

So why did he feel so anxious? Why was he on edge? It wasn’t just the bubble, or the days that were four hours shorter than on Vesk Prime. It was something more, something unexpected. As Ramalakesh walked among the government buildings and gardens of Parkside, he studied the people passing by and marveled again at the sheer diversity of alien life all around him. Humans, kasathas, lashuntas, barathus, ryphorians, and countless others. There were so many of them, speaking so many different languages, it was almost overwhelming.

But why would that unsettle him? Ramalakesh was only a junior attaché on his first assignment outside the Veskarium, but this wasn’t his first encounter with alien species. The Veskarium was a multicultural society, especially on Vesk Prime. He had interacted with ijtikris, pahtras, skittermanders, and even a few Pact Worlders—humans and lashuntas, mostly—before, with no problems whatsoever. They were always accommodating, almost even subservient at times. They knew their role and position in society, just as they recognized his.

Slowly, it dawned on him what was so different here. Why he felt so uneasy, so out place. He was vesk, and back home in the Veskarium he enjoyed an entitlement he had never lived without.

In the corridors and streets of Absalom Station, people still gave him a wide berth, but that was only because of his imposing physical presence. Not because he was vesk. There wasn’t the automatic, deferential respect he was used to from non-vesk. Instead, there was indifference. The Pact Worlders didn’t care that he was vesk. He was surrounded by a multitude of people, different species from worlds scattered across the galaxy, and he was just one more alien, a single drop of water in a vast galactic ocean. He looked around and couldn’t find any other vesk in sight. At home on Vesk Prime, they thronged the streets, but here on Absalom Station, vesk were a distinct minority. Ramalakesh suddenly felt very alone, as if he was on the front line of a battle and his all comrades had suddenly deserted him, abandoning him to face the enemy alone. And a hot anger began to stir in his belly.

Lost in his thoughts and not paying attention to his surroundings, Ramalakesh bumped hard into an android passing by. The android spun around and gave him a rough shove.

“Watch where you’re going next time, lizard,” the android said, the circuitry tattoos on their expressionless face glowing brightly.

Did they just call me lizard? Ramalakesh thought incredulously. In an instant, a predatory rage dropped over him at the affront. Instinctively, Ramalakesh bared his teeth and growled in the back of his throat. His heart sung in exhilaration, and he could hear the war-songs of his ancestors ringing in his ears. His clawed hand flashed to the dueling sword at his waist. This android would learn to respect their betters.

The android’s face was unchanged as they flipped aside their cloak, revealing a disintegrator pistol pointed right at the vesk’s midsection.

“Back off, repto. I’d hate to have to melt a hole right through those pretty little scales of yours.” Somehow, the android’s monotone voice made them sound even more threatening.

Ramalakesh knew that if he got into a fight here in public, he risked creating a diplomatic incident. His career would be ruined. He would be cashiered and sent back to the Veskarium in dishonor. His heart was pounding in his chest, but whether from bloodlust or fear, he didn’t know. There was only one thing to do. Breathing heavily, Ramalakesh held up his hands and lowered his head. When he wasn’t immediately shot, he turned and fled into the crowd.

Everything around him was a blur, a clashing cacophony of lights, colors, and noises. But it was all wrong. The light was wrong, the smells were wrong, the people were wrong, and the babble of their languages was incomprehensible. Ramalakesh understood now why so many of his compatriots preferred to stay in the Vesk Quarter, where the blue lighting felt more natural, where the smell of spiced talakka meat filled the air, where they could hear and speak their native tongue, comfortably surrounded by their own people. A place where everything was in order, everyone followed a regimented routine, just the way things were supposed to be. It wasn’t home, but it was the only place on this station that felt even close. Ramalakesh hurried through Parkside, head down, retreating to the safety of the Vesk Quarter.

Just as Ramalakesh was nearing the exit from the Eye that led to the arm of the station that held the Vesk Quarter, a jumpsuited ysoki walked into his legs, halting them both in their tracks. The small ratfolk had been talking animatedly to his companion and hadn’t noticed the vesk coming toward him.

“Whoa! You’re a big one, aren’t you?” the ysoki said, looking up. Without thinking, Ramalakesh showed his teeth and growled, glaring down at the ysoki. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold back this time. The ysoki’s eyes widened and he scrambled backward, hand scrabbling toward the flame pistol on his belt.

“You walked right into him, Quig,” said the ysoki’s companion, a human female. “Now apologize to the nice vesk.”

“Hey, hey, all right,” the ysoki said, raising both hands. “Sorry, my friend. Wasn’t watching where I was going. My mistake.”

Ramalakesh took a deep breath and gritted his teeth, trying to will away his anger, his frustration, his doubt. The human woman gazed at him with thoughtful, appraising eyes.

“New here?” she asked. Her smile was friendly and genuine. “Welcome to Absalom Station. Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it. And if you haven’t checked out Golotra’s in the Freemarkets yet, you should! She has the best grilled talakka steaks on the station. Trust me.” She winked at him.

“Have a nice evening.” The human woman gave a wave that was half salute, put her hand on the ysoki’s shoulder, and the two of them walked past, disappearing into the crowd.

As he turned to watch them go, Ramalakesh suddenly realized he felt more at ease. Maybe Absalom Station and the Pact Worlders weren’t so bad, after all. He would retreat—briefly—to the Vesk Quarter and regroup in the comfort of his bunk in the diplomatic barracks. And in the morning, after a good night’s rest, he would again be ready for battle, of a sort. Ramalakesh would do his duty to the empire and conquer Absalom Station. He would make it a part of him, and himself a part of it, and maybe his efforts would help bring the peoples of the Veskarium and the Pact Worlds just a tiny bit closer together in true friendship.

Major Ramalakesh looked up at the stars overhead, the same stars that shone above Vesk Prime. He could almost smell spiced talakka in the air. He straightened his spine and smiled.

Tomorrow was going to be a good day.

About the Author

Robert G. McCreary is the Creative Director of Starfinder. He was a design lead for the Starfinder Core Rulebook, as well as the author of Incident at Absalom Station, the first volume of Starfinder’s inaugural Dead Suns Adventure Path. He has written and developed dozens of adventures and other material for both Starfinder and Pathfinder, but the science fantasy setting of Starfinder is where he feels most at home. Rob has had a lifelong interest in science fiction and history, the latter no doubt influenced by years spent living abroad.

About Tales from the Drift

The Tales from the Drift series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into the setting of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Written by members of the Starfinder development team and some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, the Tales from the Drift series promises to explore the worlds, alien cultures, deities, history, and organizations of the Starfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

We can learn much from the wisdom of the divine, but we can learn as much from their actions. The truly faithful understand that not even the gods themselves are infallible, and that words and promises do not always suffice. Those among us who see no fault in the gods are worse than zealots, worse than puppets. They taint the very idea of faith with their blind devotion. When a god makes a mistake, the results can be disastrous if their faithful do not understand the error. If they take that error as gospel, they are doomed to repeat the error and compound upon it again and again. And in so doing make the initial misstep into something more. In the worst of cases, these repeated mistakes can transcend to become the new order, and not even the gods themselves can turn them back.

Iomedae knows this well, for she was, not so long ago, among those who worshiped the gods herself.

Before her Ascension, Iomedae worshiped Arazni, the herald of the god of humanity, Aroden. When Arazni was defeated during the Shining Crusade, Iomedae turned her faith to Aroden. That Iomedae herself chose the path of a paladin was an indication of the strength of her convictions, for Arazni did not particularly embody the strictures of law, nor did Aroden particularly promote acts of goodness. But Iomedae saw the devotion to tradition and honor in Arazni’s deeds and could sense the underlying kindness and generosity in Aroden’s acts even if he didn’t notice them himself.

Even after she ascended to divinity herself, she continued to serve as Aroden’s new herald, and when the god of humanity perished unexpectedly at the dawning of the Age of Lost Omens, Iomedae did not lose hope. In the decades to follow, Iomedae’s faith grew and she inherited Aroden’s mantle. And as her church grew, she spread her wisdom to those who would listen. She told her followers to avoid her faults. To watch and judge themselves when she would misstep, and to not take her errors as gospel. For even before Iomedae’s apotheosis, she had noted imperfections in the gods she venerated, and as a goddess herself she vowed to never encourage the same unwavering zeal. And as such, she commanded that those who would worship her learn not solely from her words, but from her actions.

First came her memorable clash with legendary Nakorshor’mond, a gluttonous monstrosity spawned and abandoned by Lamashtu. The glutton consumed members of her adventuring group, and Iomedae had to cut her companions free from otherwise eternal slumber from the fiend’s supernatural gullets.

Next was her defeat of the Pallid Sisters, a coven of Garundi witches who had been terrorizing the city of Senghor. Here, Iomedae found triumph without ever drawing her blade, achieving victory through the clever use of wordplay and diplomacy alone.

The last of these initial acts performed before the Shining Crusade was the defeat of Segruchen the Iron Gargoyle, who had proclaimed himself the King of the Barrowood. Iomedae’s griffon-mounted battle saw the so-called King metaphorically dethroned in mid-air.

It wasn’t long after the Iron Gargoyle’s fall that the Shining Crusade began, and Iomedae was at the forefront of the battle from the start. During the Second Battle of Encarthan, Iomedae’s legacy grew as she took command of a regiment of mortally wounded knights and held back a wave of wraiths long enough for reinforcements to arrive at dawn.

Illustration by Dallas Williams

Erum-Hel, the Lord of the Mohrgs, was her next great triumph during the crusade—Iomedae defeated him during the Battle of Three Sorrows. She wasn’t able to slay the powerful undead monster, but sent him whimpering back into the Darklands nonetheless, and in so doing struck a crippling blow against one of the Whispering Tyrant’s most notorious and feared generals.

Soon thereafter, the Whispering Tyrant struck back against Iomedae and shattered her magical sword. Yet Iomedae didn’t let this deter her, and she simply rebuilt it and continued the fight, for she knew that it was not her sword that gave her the power to stand against evil—it was only a tool in that pursuit.

A month after the Shining Crusade came to an end, Iomedae visited Absalom with several other veterans of the war. Her visit to the temple of Aroden drew more adoration for her own acts than for Aroden herself, but it was a month after she left that another miracle took place when her image appeared at the same shrine—an image that healed the needy and spurned the wicked… including one false priest of Aroden who had secretly conspired with the cult of Asmodeus to convert those of faltering faith.

Although the Shining Crusade had ended, many of those who had fought for Tar-Baphon remained behind. Since the war was over, Iomedae sought to redeem those who had lingered. Her greatest work during these days was the redemption of the graveknight known only as the Black Prince. With her forgiveness, he was able to repent for his evil, bringing an end to his undead state and allowing his soul to pass on for judgement.

Elsewhere in Ustalav, Iomedae heard of nine forlorn knights who had fallen from favor among the church during the crusade, only to go missing soon after their excommunication. She sought them out and freed them from the vampire-mage Basilov, using nine drops of her own blood as payment in ransom. She was forced to slay the vampire soon thereafter, but with the knights’ aid, she also secured their return to the church.

Iomedae’s rule over the city of Kantaria began soon thereafter, but only lasted for a year and a day, but she never intended to rule for long—just long enough to protect the city from sinister shapechangers so that a legitimate ruler could take the role.

Finally came her eleventh act—an act that would end her time as a human and begin her life as a goddess. Iomedae cast her cloak down over the pit surrounding the Starstone Cathedral, transforming the garment into a bridge upon which she could cross the chasm and enter the edifice to take the Test of the Starstone.

Today, the faithful refer to these eleven deeds as the Acts of Iomedae. Iomedae has made it clear that the lessons, not the specifics, are important, and to her faith’s credit the vast majority understand this. What tends to get lost in the excitement of worship and admiration, though, is the fact that Iomedae didn’t set out at the start of her acts to perform eleven heroic accomplishments. They were, in truth, attempts by Iomedae to learn from the failings of those she respected, be they family or friend or even one of the gods.

About the Author

James Jacobs is the Creative Director for Pathfinder. While he was there at the beginning of Golarion’s creation, many of the deities worshiped by that world’s heroes and villains had already existed for decades before. Goddesses and gods like Desna and Rovagug, Sarenrae and Abadar, Achaekek and Zon-Kuthon first established their faithful among PCs and NPCs alike in James’ home campaign in the late 80s and early 90s. Sharing them with the world as deities of the Pathfinder setting, seeing players and creators come to love and hate them (and in some cases cosplay as them), has been a career highlight.

About the Windsong Testaments

On the northern reaches of Varisia’s Lost Coast stands Windsong Abbey, a forum for interfaith discussion tended by priests of nearly twenty faiths and led by a legacy of Masked Abbesses. At the dawn of the Age of Lost Omens, Windsong Abbey suffered as its faithful fought and fled, but today it has begun to recover. A new Masked Abbess guides a new flock within, and the Windsong Testaments—parables about the gods themselves—are once again being recorded within the abbey’s walls. Some of these Testaments are presented here as Golarion’s myths and fables. Some parts may be true. Other parts are certainly false. Which ones are which is left to the faithful to decide.

“Reality is born. Reality must die. So somewhere in between must dwell both you and I.”

Such was said to be writ upon the Seal, carved in such a way that all would understand regardless of language or intellect. The Seal was the gravestone of the previous reality. The Seal was the foundation stone of the next reality. It was upon the Seal that Pharasma was born into this reality, adrift in the Maelstrom within an unformed metacosmos. She stood, and read the Seal’s Truth, and saw that she trod upon its core. Looking out over the Seal’s eight edges, Pharasma beheld the eternity of probability, a vastness yet formed from the raw entropy of the churning remains of what had come before. She was the Survivor, yet she knew not what she had survived—just that she had.

Pharasma stepped off the edge of the Seal, and as her foot descended to the nothing, the Seal expanded so that she was supported. She stood there a moment on one of the Seal’s eight edges, one step into the new reality, and she could sense that she was already not alone. Something chewed and gnawed out there beyond perception. Something vast, and hungry, and dangerous. Pharasma knew her first fear that very first step—fear of the unknown, fear that something else had survived, fear that she would not.

And so she stepped to the side.

As Pharasma walked, the edges of the Seal grew. The Outer Sphere bloomed beneath her feet as the Seal expanded its power. Where Pharasma walked, the planes themselves followed, and with each circuit around the Seal, she widened her path, walking a deosil spiral of creation that gave those who would follow a place to love and hate, to war and create. As she walked the spiral, the Seal itself grew outward, forming the Spire. It reached toward what lay opposite its beginning. And when Pharasma finished, the Spire had grown to support the Boneyard above, and it would be her home.

The Seal had responded to Pharasma’s spiral path, and as she strode, other divinities were birthed into the new reality. The Speakers in the Depths retreated at once to the heart of entropy and could not be bothered to take part in what followed. Desna marveled at creation, and with a wave of her hand brought the first night to the skies above. Sarenrae followed swiftly thereafter, and was smitten with Desna and her work, and so she chose the brightest of those stars to shine as the suns, birthing the first day. Ihys, who would in time become the First to die, and his brother Asmodeus, who would in time become the First to kill, each defined the other and brought goodness and evil with them. And Achaekek rose to stand between, an arbiter over morality and a judge whose impartial aegis would, in time, crumble to savagery. Yet not all of the first would have names, or even be remembered. One tread forth beyond the Eclipse, but without death yet in the world, this Prince became Bound to a throne in the Spire’s shadow to await his time. And the final would foolishly step forth beyond Pharasma’s first fearful step, and in so doing would be transformed and absorbed by that fear. Whether that fear became Rovagug or whether it was Rovagug who was the devouring fear, not even the gods can remember.

As those First Eight became, so did Pharasma feel something else wake on the far side of time. Just as she had walked a deosil spiral to create, a widdershins spiral wound in opposition at the other side of reality, where the Lurker at the Threshold formed the second anchor of creation. Pharasma thus learned that each cycle required not only a Survivor, but also a Watcher. So that between the two, between Pharasma and Yog-Sothoth, all reality would thus become the Great Beyond. Thus began the Age of Creation.

Illustration by Mark Molnar

And so in the ages that followed, Pharasma remained upon her throne. She watched and judged all who passed from life into death, and as time wore on the number of the dead grew apace to the number of the born. And in time, Pharasma beheld her second fear. An event beyond anticipation fractured fate, and on all worlds, the flow of prophecy was forever altered. Storms raged, empires fell, gods died, and in the least fortunate corners of reality, entire worlds came to an end. Pharasma herself lost track for that brief moment of what had yet to come, and when she opened her eyes again, she saw that the Seal had vanished, leaving behind a featureless void. She reached out to the Watcher to inquire if such a ripple in destiny had ever occurred before, to determine if the loss of the Seal had always been ordained, but the Watcher would not reply.

Yet reality went on. Mortals were born, and mortals were slain. Pharasma’s second fear abated, and she realized that the lost Seal was not an ill omen, but more akin to the passing of a parent or teacher. Now, this cycle of reality had matured to the point where it could continue on its own, and Pharasma knew that, going forward, reality was well and truly on its own. The apogee of creation had passed, and Pharasma knew that her days ahead would forever be in the shadow of her days behind. And while she knew how much time remained, she knew as well that there was more than enough for mortal life to enjoy more glories and triumphs than they could envision.

And even though reality must eventually end, Pharasma does not despair. She knows that the number of the dead has never before eclipsed the number of the born, for even as the Watcher witnesses from outside the cycle, there must always be a Survivor to carry on within the cycle to begin the next. In time, the flux of the born shall cease, and their number shall become a static record. And in those final hours, Pharasma knows she must prepare the next cycle’s Seal, and she must watch and wait as the final count of the dead approaches. And when that final visitant from life steps before her throne to be judged, Pharasma knows that it will be the Survivor who stands before her, and that she will not judge but will herself be judged. And so, with her death, shall this cycle end.

But it is here that Pharasma’s final fear awaits. The fracture of fate and the loss of the Seal has made her conviction falter, and she no longer knows for fact that she shall be the penultimate death. For if she steps before herself to be judged, and leaves behind none to Survive, the cycle shall end and nothing shall wend.

About the Author

James Jacobs is the Creative Director for Pathfinder. While he was there at the beginning of Golarion’s creation, many of the deities worshiped by that world’s heroes and villains had already existed for decades before. Goddesses and gods like Desna and Rovagug, Sarenrae and Abadar, Achaekek and Zon-Kuthon first established their faithful among PCs and NPCs alike in James’ home campaign in the late 80s and early 90s. Sharing them with the world as deities of the Pathfinder setting, seeing players and creators come to love and hate them (and in some cases cosplay as them), has been a career highlight.

About the Windsong Testaments

On the northern reaches of Varisia’s Lost Coast stands Windsong Abbey, a forum for interfaith discussion tended by priests of nearly twenty faiths and led by a legacy of Masked Abbesses. At the dawn of the Age of Lost Omens, Windsong Abbey suffered as its faithful fought and fled, but today it has begun to recover. A new Masked Abbess guides a new flock within, and the Windsong Testaments—parables about the gods themselves—are once again being recorded within the abbey’s walls. Some of these Testaments are presented here as Golarion’s myths and fables. Some parts may be true. Other parts are certainly false. Which ones are which is left to the faithful to decide.

The bonds of family are strong and can blind even the gods to atrocity and awfulness. And no deity knows better the dangers of trusting one’s sibling than Shelyn, sister of Zon-Kuthon.

In the earliest days of mortal life on Golarion, there was no Zon-Kuthon. None suspected what dark fate awaited Shelyn’s brother Dou-Bral, and indeed the two deities were, in many societies, worshiped as a single faith, an inseparable pair devoted to the pursuit of song and joy. But even among the ranks of the divine, nothing is forever. The most dour and depressed take a lesson in this, alas, in that a mortal’s limited time on the world is a blessing. For the longer one lives, the more chances you’ll have of facing betrayal from those you once held most dear.

Arguments between siblings are part of the parcel, and both Shelyn and Dou-Bral had had their share of squabbles before, but the clash that would shatter their familial ties was something so overwhelming that it changed both deities forever. Whatever the cause of the great dissonance between the siblings, the results were undeniable. Dou-Bral abandoned his faithful and reality alike, leaving his sister to grieve and mourn as if he had perished. The prayers of Dou-Bral’s faithful went unheard, and those of the faith who survived this betrayal were welcomed into Shelyn’s church even as the goddess herself struggled with the results of that great sadness. It would be ages before anyone heard again of Shelyn’s brother, but when they did, they—Shelyn included—would have rather remained forever in mourning.

For when he returned, he was no longer Dou-Bral. He had become Zon-Kuthon. Unknown to the gods or the faithful, Dou-Bral had not only abandoned his family and followers, but reality itself. He had traveled to the very depths of the Outer Rifts, pushing beyond borders held in fear by the most ancient dwellers in those unknown Abyssal depths, to emerge into the Beyond Beyond. And what he found there destroyed him. And what he found there reincarnated him. A cycle of death and rebirth taken place outside of the auspices of Pharasma herself, Dou-Bral ended and Zon-Kuthon began.

Forever changed and transformed from the unimaginable ordeals and torments suffered during his absence, Zon-Kuthon did not immediately seek his family’s pardon upon his return, yet as different as he had become from what had been before, enough of Dou-Bral remained within the tormented frame of the new god of loss and pain for Shelyn to take notice.

Zon-Kuthon repaid Shelyn’s extended hand of forgiveness with trauma and agony, piercing the flesh of her hand with his razored nails. When she cried out in pain and again offered forgiveness, Zon-Kuthon responded by slaughtering their father, Thron. The mutilated god twisted and broke and reshaped Thron into his own enslaved herald, the Prince in Chains, an act that provoked Shelyn into something she had never before engaged in—battle.

Illustration by Yu Cheng Hong

The siblings’ combat shook the pillars of reality, and on worlds spread throughout the Material Plane, things of beauty withered and wept and bled and died. Zon-Kuthon had grown powerful indeed from his exposure to that which transformed him Beyond the Beyond, but Shelyn was empowered by her own righteousness. The battle ended in a draw as Shelyn wrested away Zon-Kuthon’s murderous glaive. She’d hoped that separating him from what she believed to be the source of his corruption would set him free, but in the time of horrors that followed, she realized that the glavie itself was not the source—that her brother was now forever a slave to loss. As news of Zon-Kuthon’s treatment of his father and sister spread among the gods, an unsettling schism began to form. Some took offense at the acts and called for Zon-Kuthon’s execution. Others expressed admiration for his cruelty and professed support in pursuit of a change to divine order.

Abadar, forever protector of society, be it among mortals or the divine, saw the rumblings of civil war among the gods and took action. He offered Zon-Kuthon a choice to accept banishment to the prison realm of Xovaikain on the Plane of Shadow for as long as the sun hung in the skies above Golarion, and in return offered the Midnight Lord a single item from the First Vault. Zon-Kuthon agreed and chose from the vault the First Shadow, and once again left the ranks of the divine.

There are those who say Zon-Kuthon knew of the promise of Earthfall, and even others who dared imply he had a hand in its engineering. Whatever the case, the Age of Darkness blotted out the sun above Golarion, and Zon-Kuthon was released from what should have been eternal imprisonment. In that time, though, tempers had cooled. Zon-Kuthon took his gift of the First Shadow and used it to transform his one-time prison into his planar realm and cemented his divine rule over the nation of Nidal, but he was careful to moderate his atrocities so as to avoid arousing the wrath of the other gods. And while his evil lingers in the literal shadow of greater dangers, much as the nation of Nidal’s cruelties are overshadowed by the more blatant mayhem and tyranny of neighboring Cheliax, Shelyn has not forgotten. Still she seeks a method of redeeming her lost brother. Still she seeks a way to save him from the horrors Beyond Beyond. And those who know and love the goddess of love can only pray themselves she finds a way, lest what transformed her brother so long ago find new despair to ripen within.

About the Author

James Jacobs is the Creative Director for Pathfinder. While he was there at the beginning of Golarion’s creation, many of the deities worshiped by that world’s heroes and villains had already existed for decades before. Goddesses and gods like Desna and Rovagug, Sarenrae and Abadar, Achaekek and Zon-Kuthon first established their faithful among PCs and NPCs alike in James’ home campaign in the late 80s and early 90s. Sharing them with the world as deities of the Pathfinder setting, seeing players and creators come to love and hate them (and in some cases cosplay as them), has been a career highlight.

About the Windsong Testaments

On the northern reaches of Varisia’s Lost Coast stands Windsong Abbey, a forum for interfaith discussion tended by priests of nearly twenty faiths and led by a legacy of Masked Abbesses. At the dawn of the Age of Lost Omens, Windsong Abbey suffered as its faithful fought and fled, but today it has begun to recover. A new Masked Abbess guides a new flock within, and the Windsong Testaments—parables about the gods themselves—are once again being recorded within the abbey’s walls. Some of these Testaments are presented here as Golarion’s myths and fables. Some parts may be true. Other parts are certainly false. Which ones are which is left to the faithful to decide.

One never needs look far from the loveliest flower to find the worms fatting on the buried dead below, providing for beauty’s banquet above. Such truths are known to the gods. There can be no light without darkness, no life without death, no good without evil. As one of the First among the gods, these truths are held as virtues to glorious Desna, Song of the Spheres. She knows and teaches that a thing of beauty to your eye may be a wretched affront to mine. Beauty and horror can exist simultaneously. Beauty and horror can be the same.

But do not let any deceive you that beauty and horror are equals. One need not endure the pain of rent flesh to marvel at the glitter of a finely-honed blade, nor should you be forced to endure the ache of loneliness just to enjoy the peace of solitude. Learn, Desna teaches us, that enjoyment and delight in the pleasures of life is not a sin. You need not pay for bliss with shame, and you should not fear the horror that lies within all beauty.

For so Desna learned herself when she woke the abominable Gossamer King from his shrouded dreams.

Illustration by Alberto Dal Lago

In those earliest of days, long before the first of us dreamed our mortal dreams, the gods were still young and they still had much to learn. The worlds of worlds had yet to hang in the firmament, and the First of those Worlds was still being woven as Desna drifted, dreaming and delighting, through the In-Between.

In that time, the Ethereal Plane was no Ghost World, for no lives had yet been lost to mortal souls. Nor was it a Space Between Spaces, for the worlds of reality had yet to be forged. It was first, and yet remains, the In-Between. A place not fully dreaming, yet neither fully awake. Such sights Desna beheld In-Between tugged at her heart and would inspire her in time to light Cynosure itself at the heart of the Cosmic Caravan.

And so when, in her rapturous wanderings, the Song of the Spheres came across a glistening shape drifting alone, she became entranced. Here was a splendid ovoid of shimmering silken strands, each twined length sliding and singing against its kin and bright with more colors than any mortal eye would ever behold. Desna could see that the shape was a shroud of woven lengths, yet the strings had no beginning and no end, as if it had simply formed at once as a single impossibly tangled length.

Desna was not content to simply look upon the shape, and so she settled upon it. It was warm to the touch, and its smooth surface compelled the hand to slide along its pleasing textures. And as she held the shape, she knew it was but a covering, a shroud that held an even greater wonder within. What mysterious marvel lay shielded from view by those few thin layers of silk? What unbeheld revelation waited within this strange traveler through the flickering void? Desna knew of the brutality of evil and the rancor of wrath, for such awfulness has existed from the beginning. She knew, even as she tugged at the strands and worried at the weave, that something this entrancing could also be something equally awful, yet she paid those nagging thoughts no mind.

She opened the Gossamer King’s cocoon, and as Ghlaunder emerged, Desna knew sorrow and regret for the first time.

Ghlaunder crawled from quiescence: eyes and mouths—eyes that were mouths; legs and tongues—legs that were tongues; hunger and hate—hunger that was hate. Ghlauder seized upon the Song of the Spheres. She brushed aside those starving stalks and slashing teeth, yet more were there to vex voraciously, for Ghlaunder had waited for eons, and in eons, hunger has much time to compel. As Ghlaunder fed in desperate gulps, as it glutted upon Desna’s divine grace, its wings unfurled and there Desna beheld glory again. For the Gossamer King’s iridescent wings held the same shimmering beauty that had caught Desna’s eye before his wakening.

Desna could not bring herself to destroy Ghlaunder, yet she knew he was a great hunger whose presence would bring pain and suffering. And so Desna drew upon her might and banished Ghlaunder from the In-Between, and the Gossamer King was hurled from the Inner Sphere to fester far beyond within the Outer Rifts, a place more accepting of his countenance now that his shroud had been forever torn.

Desna left the In-Between soon after, and in the creation of the worlds of worlds, she would find much more to remind her of the beauty of reality, yet always the Gossamer King’s lesson remained. Even in great beauty could dwell great horror—and in great horror one might find great beauty.

The Gossamer King lives still. His faithful infest the neglected cracks of society, and they see the face of god in the rasping kiss of the chewing maggot or the thirsty work of the supping leech. Yet do not doctors use maggots to save the living from gangrenous wounds? Have not physicians used leeches to reduce the swelling of inflamed flesh?

Desna’s faithful are not alone in the constant fight against the cults of those like the Gossamer King, but Desna today is the first to point to her mistake of releasing this evil into reality not as something to be ashamed of. It was a chance to learn. It is always better to live, to make mistakes, and accept the challenges discovered as opportunities to grow, to teach, and to do better than to suppress and forget.

And while the sight of a devotee of Ghlaunder clad in the faith’s most sacred raiment—a thousand thousand sucking mosquitos worn together as robes—certainly turns the stomach, is there not something of beauty in how each of those gossamer wings shines back the twinkling starlight from the night skies above?

About the Author

James Jacobs is the Creative Director for Pathfinder. While he was there at the beginning of Golarion’s creation, many of the deities worshiped by that world’s heroes and villains had already existed for decades before. Goddesses and gods like Desna and Rovagug, Sarenrae and Abadar, Achaekek and Zon-Kuthon first established their faithful among PCs and NPCs alike in James’ home campaign in the late 80s and early 90s. Sharing them with the world as deities of the Pathfinder setting, seeing players and creators come to love and hate them (and in some cases cosplay as them), has been a career highlight.

About the Windsong Testaments

On the northern reaches of Varisia’s Lost Coast stands Windsong Abbey, a forum for interfaith discussion tended by priests of nearly twenty faiths and led by a legacy of Masked Abbesses. At the dawn of the Age of Lost Omens, Windsong Abbey suffered as its faithful fought and fled, but today it has begun to recover. A new Masked Abbess guides a new flock within, and the Windsong Testaments—parables about the gods themselves—are once again being recorded within the abbey’s walls. Some of these Testaments are presented here as Golarion’s myths and fables. Some parts may be true. Other parts are certainly false. Which ones are which is left to the faithful to decide.

“There's nothing we can do—all systems are jammed! Prepare for emergency landing!”

As Captain Navasi's frantic voice echoed throughout the Sunrise Maiden's bridge, a sinking feeling settled into the pit of Zemir's stomach.

There were many realities in which the Maiden was an unreliable starship, but this wasn't one of them. Something wasn't right.

But that didn't change the fact that the ship was quickly plummeting into the atmosphere of an uncharted planet in the Vast. If the crew didn't act quickly, that desolate rock would be their grave.

Pushing aside his fear, Zemir leaned back in his chair and cleared his mind. In an instant he sorted through a thousand iterations of this crash landing and clung to just one—the one where everyone survived.

“Hard to starboard!” Zemir boomed. “Aim for that plateau—it's our only shot!”

“You heard him!” Navasi shouted, cutting in the ship's retro-thrusters to try to slow its descent. “All hands! Starboard side!”

Obozaya and Quig scrambled to the captain's terminal, the bulky vesk's eyes wide with adrenaline and the scraggly ysoki shrieking profanities. They forced their weight onto the controls, pulling the levers far past their safety points, desperately hoping the ship could find the landing spot Zemir had seemingly pulled from thin air.

“That's it,” Zemir encouraged them, clinging to the single survival scenario he foresaw. “We're going to make it!”

The Maiden's proximity sensor screamed a warning. The ship slammed three times into the hard ground. But sure enough, thanks to the reality Zemir had plucked like a grain of sand from an infinite beach, they crashed in one piece.

Once Navasi caught her breath, the captain stumbled over to Zemir and clapped him on the back.

“Another day, another of your mysterious magic tricks,” she said, grinning with relief. “I don't suppose the universe told you why we all just nearly died in a fiery crash, did it?”

Obozaya strode up behind Navasi, glowering with anger now that the danger had passed. “If there is an enemy here, Zemir, tell us. It is dishonorable to sabotage the ship,” she growled.

Zemir forced a characteristic chuckle and shook his head. His companions knew his powers didn't work that way.

“Look, I don't have all the answers,” Zemir said. He grinned impishly. “Where we are, and why we're here—well, I'll need some help figuring that out.”

Just then, a telltale pinging rang out from the Maiden's comms. Quig slid over to examine the readout.

“Hey,” the gruff ysoki barked. “While you three are over there solvin' the world's mysteries, somebody near us on this rock needs help. Distress signal incoming.”

Hesitating, Navasi turned toward Quig. “But the ship—how damaged are we?”

“Structural damage minimal. I'll reset our systems and we'll be peachy again in an hour. Seems we just hit an electronics-jamming field.”

Obozaya hefted her doshko and looked at the captain, who nodded.

“If someone else hit that field and didn't have someone with Zemir's talents aboard, it's possible there's another crew outside lying on death's door,” Navasi said. “Obo, Quig—you up for a search and rescue? Zemir and I'll watch the systems.”

The vesk and ysoki nodded, saluted their captain, and headed toward the ship's airlock.

Zemir's eyes narrowed. Again, the subtlest of ripples tickled his senses. Something was not right, but without any sense of what or why, Zemir did the only thing he could.

“I'll join the rescue,” he said, winking to Navasi and striding purposefully to catch up with his companions. “You saw that green sky? Seems like a view I can't miss.”

The captain nodded, and the three set off for the source of the distress signal. Despite the rocky planet's abandoned desolation, its atmosphere was surprisingly friendly. Helmets off, the crew sauntered past chalky rock formations, skirting steep valleys and stagnant pools of dark liquid. Knowing Zemir's love of culture and cuisine, Quig joked about making the witchwarper a “sludge soufflé,” while Obozaya missed the jest and offered to share traditional vesk baking recipes.

It was strangely like any other friendly stroll—until the twinge in the back of Zemir's mind became a nauseating wave. Gritting his teeth through the mental assault, Zemir saw dozens of beady eyes and vicious tusks beginning to rise from crevices in the surrounding rock.

The creatures' hulking, scaled forms and snake-like tongues were unmistakable.

“Riveners!” Zemir shouted. “It's an ambush!”

The tines of her doshko roaring to life, Obozaya gave a fearsome battle cry and lunged toward the nearest riveners—powerful and nearly mindlessly aggressive lizard-like monsters often used as shock troops. Not to be outdone, Quig snatched his flamethrower from his back and braced himself to unleash a gout of flaming petrol.

But Zemir stood back, the wisdom of infinite possibilities settling on his shoulders.

The odds, he noted, were not in the companions' favor. Zemir counted a dozen riveners rushing toward him and his friends, who were already beginning to falter. And Zemir was certain he saw a different humanoid form scuttle away from the battlefield.

The twinges he felt made sense now. There was another witchwarper at hand—that's why everything from the moment the Maiden's systems jammed until now felt like it existed in the reality next door. Someone was out to destroy Zemir and his friends, and it seemed they were willing to change existence itself to do it.

Not if Zemir could help it, he thought, as he scrambled atop a rock formation high above the fray.

Illustration by Igor Grechanyi

Gritting his teeth and stretching out his arms, Zemir focused his mind and began to call just a taste of a terrible world into their own. Hellfire rained down from the sky, the ground boiled into lava, and grasping hands sprang from the rocky earth to clutch at the slavering riveners' feet.

Of course, much of it was an illusion. Zemir's friends knew that; they had witnessed his raw power unleashed before. Still, Obozaya and Quig turned to stare at Zemir in terrified, respectful awe.

The riveners, on the other hand, screamed with horror as the spectral hands grabbed at them and the hellfire burned through their skin and flesh.

“Finish them off!” Zemir shouted. He leapt off the rock formation to pursue the opposing witchwarper. “Do not follow me!”

Purple robes billowing behind him, Zemir dashed to the ravine where he'd seen the mysterious humanoid figure disappear. But when he vaulted down, a different sight stole his breath.

Instead of a person, there was merely a metal hatch set into the ground. It was partially ajar, revealing a passage that led deep below. And on the hatch was a familiar crest: a stylized “IEM.”

The crest of the Institute for Extraordinary Minds.

An academy for witchwarpers.

Specifically, Zemir's alma mater—and one whose masters held a fierce vendetta against the fugitive who abandoned three of his classmates in an alternate reality many years ago.

Reflexively, Zemir lifted his comm unit to his mouth to warn Navasi back on the Maiden. His past had come to call, and now they were all in danger.

“Captain, they've found me,” he said.

No response.

“Captain?”

A scream, and then nothing but static.

About the Author
Amanda Hamon is the Managing Developer for Starfinder, and you could say science-fantasy is her jam. Her game design, worldbuilding, and adventure writing have appeared in dozens of RPG products, including the Starfinder and Pathfinder roleplaying games. Mostly, she just likes doing stupid voices for characters at the table. You can find Amanda on Twitter at @amandahamon.

About Iconic Encounters
Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games' iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

“I thought you said the signal was coming from a ruin,” Velloro said into his comm unit, looking up at the huge, very intact fortification in front of him with a large, unruined door blocking the way forward. The captain’s response was garbled, no doubt thanks to the rocky, mountainous terrain between him and the Sunrise Maiden. “Ye… …is th… …thing there?”

Rolling his eyes dramatically for the sake of his companions, who had instinctively turned toward the comm unit to try to decode Navasi’s transmission, Velloro shrugged. “Guess we’re improvising, Chk Chk,“ he said, winking at Keskodai’s larval son as he spun slowly in his protective canister. “Raia, can you get that door open?”

Before the technomancer could respond, a recess in the doorframe began to flicker with a dim red light that grew brighter and more steady. As it did, the ground thrummed with the energy of a long-dormant system sputtering to life.

“Yes—I’ll get the door,” Raia’s telepathic response darted through the hallways of Velloro’s mind as she began casting a spell that would magically bypass the door’s locks.

Several other vertical recesses in the wall drew Velloro’s eyes as they, too, activated. Boxy machines rose out of the staggered parapets, topped with gleaming barrels pointing straight up, then swiveled down to point directly at Velloro and his friends.

“Fall in—NOW!” Velloro’s last word was a telepathic shout to prevent the opening salvo of eight massive turrets firing heavy rounds from drowning it out. With no time to be polite, he pushed through his companions, knocking them off balance. Raia’s spell failed as her concentration faltered, but she immediately began to cast it again, cleaving close to Velloro as he raised his shield just in time to intercept the first wave of pounding projectiles.

Illustration by Setiawan Lee

As he often did in these situations, Velloro began to experience time much more slowly, to take notice of everything around him more carefully. He saw the firing mechanism jam on the fourth turret to the left of the entryway. He felt the heavy, staccato thud of rounds as they slammed into the ground just feet away and began to describe a dotted line that would momentarily bring the molten-hot metal slugs into contact with his shield, his armor—and possibly his friends.

The firing seemed to slow, but Velloro knew the automated turrets were cycling shots to prevent overheating; those towers wouldn’t run out of ammunition any time soon. Raia, somehow sounding out of breath despite being in his head, said “I’ve got the door,” and it slid open with unnerving silence and speed.

Three red-scaled, lizardlike ikeshtis wearing sand-tattered defrex hides skidded to a stop just in front of the entryway. They had been running toward stairs leading to the top of the wall, but now they turned to the intruders, semi-auto pistols in their clawed hands.

Velloro immediately charged the startled ikeshtis, smiling as he did. With each step, he drew more and more energy from the ground beneath his feet pushing back at him, until he’d gathered an invisible storm of entropy around himself, a cloak of molecular disorder that easily deflected the ikeshtis’ first few panicked shots. In just a few seconds, he was among them, facing down the biggest one as the two next to him flinched in anticipation.

The large ikeshti took the opportunity to fire at the lashunta nearly point blank, two bullets screaming toward the ancient rune of Castrovel glowing in the middle of Velloro’s chest plate. Velloro grunted with the impact of the first, yet this he could use. As the atoms of the bullet interacted with those of his armor, disorder bloomed like a coalescing storm cloud. Molecular lattices broke and reformed in countless chain reactions, ones Velloro could shape, divert, invest—and control. As the second bullet hit fractions of a second later, Velloro used the explosive energy of the first, all its waste heat and shrapnel and friction, to mitigate the damage from the second. The shiny metal round clinked harmlessly off his armor, no more destructive than an idly flicked pebble.

The lizard creatures on either side of Velloro raised their guns, taking advantage of the momentary distraction to aim at Raia and Keskodai. But Velloro was ready to react, grabbing the barrels of both weapons with either hand and crumpling them as though they were made of thin-pressed aluminum, before dropping them to the ground with a smirk.

Velloro turned his attention back to the one ikeshti that was still armed and swung his fist in a wide arc, gathering the remaining excess energy into his chest before sending it screaming to his shoulder, down his arm, and into his fist, where it whirled and careened in an ever-growing nimbus of destructive energy. As his fist made contact with the stunned ikeshti, Velloro cut the tether with the disorder he’d hoarded, sending it fully into the creature’s dry and brittle armor, which splintered and caved in. The ikeshti fell to the ground writhing in pain, futilely scratching at the ruined clasps of its armor in a desperate attempt to relieve the crushing pressure.

As Velloro turned back to the other two ikeshtis, who’d drawn their batons and were advancing on him cautiously, a gruff and incredulous voice rang out from somewhere high up, bouncing off the towering flat walls of the fort.

“Velloro?”

He looked up and knew her immediately, a towering and extremely familiar shobhad who was shouldering a sniper rifle that had moments ago been leveled at Velloro’s head. As the shobhad held two of her four hands out to stop the ikeshtis, Velloro grinned at Keskodai, who had already begun to focus on ripping the newcomer’s mind apart with his own.

“Hold on a sec, bud. This should be interesting…”

About the Author

Joe Pasini is the Starfinder Lead Designer at Paizo. He is steadfast in his belief that gaming is for absolutely everyone, and he’d love to play a game with you sometime! You can find him on Twitter at @joeadultman. His most recent passion project, the Starfinder Deck of Many Worlds, is out in December of 2019.

About Iconic Encounters

Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

It was well after midnight when Barsala had her breakthrough.

She was in the temporary laboratory structure built for her by Iratha Incorporated deep in the swamps of Zulypsindo, a Near Space world known for its extensive marshlands and the site of the latest episode of “Dr. B’s Science Jubilee.” The windowless, prefabricated walls provided ample protection from nearly any environment outside, and the overhead lighting within dispelled the shadows, providing for a clean and efficient work space.

It had been a difficult, but ultimately rewarding, day of shooting. This particular program focused on the breed of caypin native to Zulypsindo, a large amphibious beast with a mass of detachable appendages that function as both eyestalks and chewing mouths. One had been captured for Barsala to show her viewers its fascinating anatomy, and everything had gone according to the script… until the caypin broke free from its enclosure and nearly ate one of the crew. The poor creature had to be put down, but the vidcameras caught every last minute of it. Edson Frost, her producer, had spent most of the dinner afterward exclaiming about the number of clicks the episode would get. Barsala was similarly excited, though she was more interested in getting her hands on the caypin’s corpse.

The exact way the caypin’s appendages functioned independently from its body were still a mystery to the scientific community, and Barsala surmised that if she could solve even a fraction of that mystery, she could help craft an entirely new category of biotech augmentations. When the meal was over, she rushed back to the lab, eager to begin experimentation. Hours later, as she inserted a small vial filled with a dissolved piece of an appendage into a mass spectrometer with one hand and typed frantically on a datapad with another, she reached for her comm unit with a third and started a transmission.

Illustration by Mark Molnar

A groggy voice answered. “B? Do you know what time it is?”

“Not precisely, Edson, I’ve been a bit too busy to pay attention to the clock.”

“Well, it’s late and I was sleeping… trying to sleep. Is there something the matter?”

“The quantum measurement paradox!” Barsala blurted.

“Who? What?”

“It’s not really my area of expertise, but there is a theory in quantum mechanics that if you could measure the state of a particle frequently—we’re talking thousands of measurements a microsecond or more—you could essentially arrest the decay of that particle. Like they say, ‘an observed cooking receptacle on a heating unit never reaches its boiling point.’”

“B, no one ever says that. But I think I know what you mean.” Edson yawned. “Riveting. Is that why you dragged me out of a peaceful slumber?”

“Yes! No. I mean, sort of. I’ve been in the lab, analyzing one of that caypin’s detachable tentacles.” She poked the grisly blood-red tube with a scalpel she held in her fourth, cybernetic hand. “It has no internal organs to speak of and should be no more animate than a clipped fingernail.”

“Gross.”

Barsala continued. “I wondered: how can these appendages survive apart from the host body for days at a time? How does the caypin know where they are and how does it call them back? I tested a few hypotheses, and I hit on the idea of quantum entanglement. Somehow, the caypin is constantly monitoring the state of its removed appendages on a quantum level, preventing them from rotting like dead meat!”

“Riveting once again. And also gross. But really, you could have just written this down for one of your scientific journals.”

“Right, right, sorry. I also had an idea for the show. I’d love to explain the basics of quantum theory to our viewers, maybe start with the wave-particle duality of light, do a practical double-slit experiment. We’d have to bring in an expert on the subject, of course, and…” Barsala trailed off as she looked down at the dissection tray. The appendage she had removed from the caypin’s body was nowhere to be seen, only a trail of blood and slime that led to the edge of the table.

“Barsala, is everything ok?” Edson asked, though Barsala didn’t hear him. She had placed her comm unit down and was already walking tentatively to the other side of the lab table. The detached appendage lay on the floor, squirming ever so slightly.

“Fascinating.” Barsala’s mind raced with possibilities. How was this thing moving? Delayed muscle death spasms? An internal parasite eating its way free? Necromantic energy? Or…

Barsala hissed in pain as she felt a sudden sting in her ankle. She turned to see several more of the caypin’s appendages wriggling at her feet, their tiny lamprey-like mouths lunging toward her. Surprised, she stepped backward, slipped on the half-dissected tentacle and fell onto her posterior. The mass of appendages slithered toward her.

Barsala fumbled for the custom microlab in her lab coat pocket, pointed it at the tentacles, and scanned them. Seconds later, she had her answer: they weren’t undead. In fact, they were quite normal as far as a handful of ambulatory feeding appendages went. She exhaled in relief. Living creatures she could handle.

Before their sharp little teeth could shred her boots, Barsala grabbed the edge of the table, pulled herself up to standing, and grabbed a syringe and a handful of test tubes. She mixed together several reagents, along with a fast-acting catalyst, inserting the resulting mixture into the syringe as Edson’s voice continued to call out from the comm unit. With a grunt, she jabbed the syringe down into the tentacles. A high-pitched squeal of pain emitted from the mass, and Barsala brought back a hand covered in several small bites.

“Let’s test this hypothesis,” she muttered to no one in particular as she stepped backward to a supply cabinet. “If I’m right, the gene-altering chemicals I’ve just injected into one of you should affect you all, thanks to your quantum entanglement. Making you particularly susceptible to this!” Barsala picked up a container of hydrochloric acid from the shelf behind her and hurled it at the throng of tentacles. The glass jar shattered, covering the feeding appendages in highly caustic acid. They writhed in agony as they dissolved into a disgusting puddle of acrid-smelling goo.

Barsala pressed her damaged hand into an armpit as she gathered up her comm unit. “Edson. Edson! I’m fine. Don’t worry. Just a minor accident.” She paused for a second. “The caypin. You’re sure it was dead, right?”

“We hit it with the electric prods until it stopped moving and then put the body in the lab’s freezer unit like you asked. Why?”

Barsala turned to see the freezer’s door wide open. A streak of bloody bile was smeared down the outside.

“I’m going to have to call you back.”

About the Author

Jason Keeley is a Developer at Paizo, working primarily on the Starfinder Adventure Path line. His work has appeared in all sorts of products, from adventures to supplements to short stories written for Paizo and many other RPG companies. You can find him (and pictures of his dog) on Twitter at @herzwesten, and also watch him as Professor Nikodemus Thorne on the Oblivion Oath stream every Thursday!

About Iconic Encounters

Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

Legends say only a single man survived the doom that befell Fog Peak Hold. The Pathfinder sages will tell you that’s wrong: five made it out alive, though only three were still sane. The little matter of the collapse of the eastern pass had made the hold irrelevant by that point, and I guess the Taldans have been busy with other matters for the last few hundred years, so the place was never reoccupied.

That didn’t mean no one was interested in it, though, even knowing the last master of the hold had taken up strange habits. Venture-captain Kerivik Stormhand had been eager to get his hands–maybe I should say eyes–on a cache of old maps housed in the hold’s library and a few others, like me, had grown curious about the last master’s reputed interest in golden figurines. Ilvana, well, she was Kerivik’s favorite blade woman. She pretty much went wherever he did, even if that was halfway up a forbidding peak in the Taldan wilderness.

A switchback staircase led part of the way, and then a rockslide had taken out everything but the three stairs short of the old brass gate. Still, Kerivik was an old hand with mountains and got the three of us up safely. That’s when I took over. I won’t bore you with the harrowing details of disarming the trapped entry–I’m certain you’re well aware of my splendid facility with locks. Pretty soon the three of us were making our way down the main hall.

The wind can get pretty wicked up there in the Fog Peaks, and it made free play through the hold, owing to the way the old wooden shutters had rotted off the high windows. I could hear it moaning a lot more clearly than I could hear Kerivik’s grumbling to be careful. Every now and then it gusted so violently it rattled the suits of armor standing along the hall. A couple of them had succumbed to gravity over the years, but most stood as they’d been left long years before, ready for their long-vanished owners to don and wade into battle.

Kerivik stopped to inspect a sealed portal. Me, I headed on toward a distinctive warm gleam I spotted shining on a pedestal just a few paces away. Gold, as sure as the scars on my face. It was a kneeling figurine of a slim horned man with a snarl, draped in spiderwebs. I’d heard the old master had an interest in demonic lore, and this would likely be quite the boon for the Society’s Grand Archive—if not Eando Kline and the Vigilant Seal.

As I reached for the thing the wind picked up once more and I heard a heavy whoosh from our rear, a shout of surprise from Ilvana, and a rattle of armor from the nearest suit.

Turning toward the commotion while keeping an eye on the likely evil relic, my notoriously keen senses and Cayden’s own luck alerted me that the armor had rattled a little too loudly to be from the wind. Sure enough, the suit over my shoulder had lifted a long sword over its helm in preparation to lop off my head. Kerivik shouted something from behind as I leapt back, the blade missing me by a handspan.

Illustration by Tomasz Chistowski

Busy as I was dodging head blows, caught my first glimpse of what my partners were up to. Blades had started swinging down from either side of the hall, one of them so razor sharp it had sliced a few feet of deep green fabric off her cloak. Seeing our means of escape quickly cut off by the swinging scythes, Kerivik redoubled his efforts to pry the stone doorway open. I didn’t have the time to really assess the situation, though, with the idol’s defender still upon me.

The armor stepped forward, pivoted with military precision, and swung for me again. I’ve been a Pathfinder long enough to know that only magic or a spirit was likely to be making that thing move, and the odds of me hurting either with my blade, fine as it was, were slim to none. But there are other ways to stop a rampaging suit of plate mail, and I slid left of its next strike then threw myself forward. It’s counterintuitive, I know, but rather brave, as you probably noticed.

I caught the armor about its waist, smashing my chin into its waist chain, and sent it off balance. It reeled backward, slammed into the pedestal, and fell in pieces. I dropped with it and rolled. The figurine fell too, of course, and plummeted right past my face. I’d forgotten I was holding my sword and it rattled off along the ancient stones.

It’s a good thing I was already low, because damned if the big scythes didn’t choose that moment to start swinging down across my side of the hallway. I heard Kelivik shout that the weapons were getting lower and snagged the haft of my blade. That snarling figurine was just out of reach.

Not so one of the steel gauntlets from that vanquished suit of armor. I swear the fingers were pulling it back toward a steel arm right when a blade struck the wrist and dragged it along the floor with a deafening screech of wounded metal. If I’d been a moment later that would have been my own hand.

“Stop staring at the gold, Nerian!” Kelivik shouted at me. “Get back!”

Now I was perfectly capable of losing myself in contemplation of especially fine gold, but I swear at that instant I was still stunned a little by how close that blade had come, and I was watching in awe as sparks flew from the wriggling armored fingers as the gleaming scythe pulled it across the rough stone floor. Proving Kelivik’s assessment of my motivations wrong, I turned from the idol and scrambled back through the stone portal just as he and Irvana disappeared into the darkness beyond.

For once we lucked out. We stumbled right into the master map room, where tube after tube of old parchment lay under a thick layer of dust in their honeycomb shelves, including all sorts of old records Kelivik didn’t even knew he needed until he started looking around. True, there was also a golden statue identical to the one that had lured me nearly to my death guarding the stacks. It was twice the height of a man, but the rumors about how deadly it was are exaggerated–the thing was so slow Irvana and I managed to keep it distracted while Kelivik grabbed up his goodies.

The darned thing was so large it couldn’t even get through the portal, so we ended up with quite a head start before it had bashed its way out. By the time it reached us we had already started down the ropes. It surged out of the fortress doors, took three steps, and then ran out of stair and abruptly plunged about six hundred feet down the mountainside. We had ample time to observe that none of its component pieces were moving as we climbed down to safety. It was too heavy to haul the whole thing with us, especially with Kelivik’s trusty haversack full to overflowing, but we did manage to drag one of its arms back to the lodge. And that was pretty nice. I might go back to get more of it soon—as long as adventure doesn’t call me off in another direction, of course.

About the Author

Howard Andrew Jones lives in a wind-swept tower with a wicked and beautiful sorceress. When not spending time with her or their talented children he can be found hunched over his laptop, mumbling about flashing swords and doom-haunted towers. St. Martin’s published his newest novel, For the Killing of Kings, this February, and its sequel, Upon the Flight of the Queen, will be published in November. Paizo has published four of his Pathfinder novels—Plague of Shadows, Stalking the Beast, Beyond the Pool of Stars, and Through the Gate in the Sea—and St. Martin’s his critically acclaimed historical fantasy novels. He edits Tales from the Magician’s Skull. He knows karate and wrote this in the third person while eating stale popcorn.

About Tales of Lost Omens

The Tales of Lost Omens series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into Pathfinder’s Age of Lost Omens setting. Written by some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, including Paizo’s Pathfinder Tales line of novels and short fiction, the Tales of Lost Omens series promises to explore the characters, deities, history, locations, and organizations of the Pathfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

“Raia! Report status!”

Raia executed the last commands, feeling the change in the engine’s thrum as the Voidspear shifted course. She cued her coms. “All right, I’ve got good news and bad news.”

From far across the void, where the Sunrise Maiden currently hid on the far side of the moon, Navasi said, “Why don’t I like the sound of that?”

“The good news is that I’ve successfully rerouted the Voidspear into a decaying orbit. It should hit atmosphere in three minutes and break up over the planet’s surface.”

“And the bad news?”

Something huge boomed against the door to the bridge, accompanied by angry shouts.

“I’ll let you know in three minutes.”

“Raia—”

“Just be quiet and let me think, please.”

Navasi’s silence radiated disapproval, but at least it was silence. Raia looked around the empty bridge, taking in her options.

The original extraction plan was scrap. There were easily twenty drow soldiers between her and the escape pods—far too many to fight past. And while her security seal was holding for the moment, it was only safety in the most shortsighted sense. She was bottled up on a ship that would shortly begin tearing itself apart.

Of course, she could always undo the course change. Set the ship back in a stable orbit, wait for the drow to breach the blast doors, and throw herself on their mercy.

“Yeah, right,” she whispered to herself. “No thanks.”

She opened the captain’s internal hailing frequency, hearing the tone echo throughout the ship.

“Crew of the Voidspear,” she began, cool as a Triaxian glacier. “This ship will enter atmosphere and begin self-destruction in two minutes—you can see the truth of this on your nav readouts, or out the viewports with your own eyes. As your unauthorized pilot, I advise you to abandon ship immediately.”

That earned her more shouts from the hallway outside.

They wouldn’t evacuate, of course. Not most of them—drow were notorious for their zealotry, and their matriarchs would probably have any survivors executed anyway for losing a crucial warship like the Voidspear. But at least she’d given them the option. She’d avoided unnecessary loss of life as best she could.

Now for her own. Beyond the viewport window, the planet loomed large, the curve of its horizon rapidly flattening with proximity. Above it, the darkness of space beckoned, safety and danger in equal parts.

All right, then—if she couldn’t reach the escape pods, she’d just have to make her own.

First up: propulsion. There was no point exiting the ship just to follow it down the gravity well. Letting her eyes defocus, she summoned her magic and visualized what she needed.

This was the part that always looked like—well, magic to the uninitiated. And it was, but not in the way they thought of it. Technomancy wasn’t about just making wishes or reciting incantations. You had to understand the mechanics behind what you were doing, as clearly as if you were building something with your own hands. Control circuitry, discharge chamber, ion accelerator grid, hollow cathode neutralizer—every component mattered. Miss one relay or power processer, and all you had was a fancy sculpture. Assuming you didn’t blow yourself up.

Illustration by Rodrigo Gonzalez Toledo

Green lines glowed in the air before her, a three-dimensional wireframe technical drawing that expanded, gaining substance and heft, until the glow disappeared and the completed jetpack dropped into her waiting arms. She slapped a spare battery into it and watched the readouts light up. Fully functional.

Excellent. She slipped on the harness.

The next spell was easier—one of the first any sensible spacer learned. Putting one hand to her head, she formed a bubble of breathable atmosphere, extending the field down around her body. Not a great way to travel the stars for any length of time, but at least she wouldn’t immediately freeze, boil, or asphyxiate.

Alarms began to blare throughout the ship. Beneath her feet, the deck shuddered as structures intended solely for vacuum encountered their first fatal traces of atmosphere.

Time to go. Raia stared out the window, fixing a point in mind. Then she took a deep breath and cast the final spell.

Darkness. Weightlessness. Agoraphobia slammed into her as her brain suddenly recognized the lack of a ship’s comforting constraints around her. She fought down the urge to panic, willing herself to continue breathing deeply. Slowly, deliberately, she triggered the jetpack’s roll thrusters, spinning a hundred and eighty degrees.

Below, the Voidspear fell away from her, making its final dive into the blue and white of the planet. Already, delicate struts were breaking away, the hull glowing red with heat. As she watched, a single escape pod shot free—deserters choosing to take their chances with the matriarchs.

Good for them. Opening up her own engines to maximum, Raia accelerated hard, climbing toward a stable orbit. As she did, she reopened her coms. “Raia here. Mission complete.”

“Raia!” Navasi’s voice was gratifyingly relieved. “Are you all right? Where are you?”

Raia looked around, taking in the void stretching endlessly all around her.

“Well,” she said, “I’ve got good news and bad news...”

About the Author

James L. Sutter is a former Starfinder Creative Director and Executive Editor of the Pathfinder Tales novels. In addition to foundational work on both Pathfinder and Starfinder, he’s also written award-winning novels, comics, video games, and short stories. You can find him at jameslsutter.com or on Twitter at @jameslsutter. His Pathfinder Tales novels, Death’s Heretic and The Redemption Engine, are available now.

About Iconic Encounters

Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

“Come on, Couvo!” Seliette tugged at his sleeve, breaking his concentration and causing his complex mental translation to collapse into gibberish. He blinked up at his fellow student, confused by her voluminous waterproof cloak. The last time he’d gone outside onto the grounds of the Magaambya, the sky had been blue and cloudless. He hadn’t been sequestered in this reading nook that long, had he? Maybe Seliette was off on another of her field trips. He could hardly keep track of all the to-ing and fro-ing she did with her assorted mentors. “Come on where?”

She twirled, cloak spinning out around her. “Come and join the dance!”

He grunted. “Pass.” The tome before him, chronicling a supposed journey through the Doorway of the Red Star, hadn’t been written by Old-Mage Jatembe himself, of course—the true history of the founder of this school (though it was strange to call a place with no real classes or schedules a school!) was shrouded in myth. This book was written by a scholar whose grandmother had heard the tale as a child from a descendent of one of the Ten Magic Warriors, and that was as close to a primary resource as Couvo was likely to get. “This is too important. I can dance once I’ve ascended to Conversant.” Couvo had recently finished his term as an Initiate, after spending a year sorting a room full of scrolls and tomes recovered on an expedition a decade prior and never properly catalogued. Since being promoted to Attendant he’d been assisting the arcanist Thanda (some called her Thanda the Wanderer; others Thanda the Plunderer) with translating some of her finds from prior expeditions. Couvo had come to the Magaambya after a period of study at the College of Mysteries in his native Absalom because he’d heard there were works of great antiquity hidden away in the Mwangi Expanse. Though he’d found the Magaambya bewildering in many respects, it hadn’t disappointed in terms of treasures to translate.

Seliette plopped down across from him and pulled the book out of his hands. He sighed, knowing better to protest. Seliette was a native of Nantambu whose parents were associated with the academy, and she’d grown up in the towers, vaults, halls, and fields of the Magaambya. She was an Attendant too, and for reasons of her own, she’d decided to take Couvo under her wing, a position he found more pleasant than annoying as a whole. Without her guidance, he'd still be wondering where all the lecture halls and laboratory exercises were instead of successfully navigating the looser, stranger approach to the magical arts the faculty took here. “Did I say dance?” she said. “Forgive me. I meant to say, 'Come see a high-level collaboration between primal and arcane adepts in a rare demonstration of the power of halcyon syncretism’.”

“Oh.” Couvo closed the book. “Why didn’t you say so?”

Illustration by Tomasz Chistowski

“This looks exactly like dancing.” Couvo stood off to the side of a line of drummers who pounded their instruments with a beat so compelling it threatened to co-opt the rhythm of his own heart. A leaf fell on his head, and long grass tickled his ankles beneath his robe. Couvo hated being outside. Hadn't he seen the sky enough for a lifetime on his journey to the Mwangi Expanse?

“Some of the spellcasting I’ve seen you do looks like extremely complicated waving,” Seliette said. “Or as if you’re fending off a swarm of bees. This dance is both an ecstatic celebration of life, and one component of a spell blending natural and arcane magic.”

“What are they trying to do?” Couvo looked around the gathering in the clearing beneath the trees, trying to figure out who was taking part in the ritual and who was a spectator like him. The woman with the elaborate spiral paint was surely involved, but what about the catfolk, and—was that a Nidalese man? It was amazing who ended up here. There were a few people wearing Magaambyan masks, too—antelope, lion, even lizard—who were probably taking part. As an Attendant Couvo had the right to create such a mask, which would allow him to access his spiritual self more directly, and would gradually take on a life as its own and serve as a sort of familiar... but he found the notion of such a second face disconcerting, and since the masks weren’t compulsory, he’d avoided the issue.

Seliette spread her arms. “They’re going to make it rain.”

Couvo glanced at her, wondering why she looked so excited. There were clouds gathering, and controlling the weather was advanced magic, certainly, but several of Couvo’s teachers back in Absalom could have called thunderstorms or even tornados, if the season was right, and they wouldn’t have needed a drum line and a crowd of collaborators to manage it. “That’s it? Rain?”

She laughed. “Making it rain here, I admit, is not so impressive. But the Aspis Consortium has caused a terrible drought in one of those barbarous nations you have up there.” She gestured vaguely northward. “A group of us plan to travel there and bring the rain back.”

“So... this isn’t a ritual to summon a shower for a few hours?” That was the extent of the weather control he knew about.

“Oh, no. The arcane methods of weather manipulation get things started, but the primal magic connects more deeply to the land and the air, restoring balance to the area, in a sustainable, ongoing way: healing the climate rather than just changing the weather.”

“So the arcanists provide the spark, and the primal magicians create the fuel that keeps the fire going,” Couvo said. He could feel the change in the air now, the drop in pressure, the scent of rain.

“A fire metaphor isn't particularly apt," Seliette said, "but more or less. It's not just arcane here and primal there, though. The powers collaborate, and some adepts use both forms of magic at once—that's halcyon magic, the blending of traditions to create something new and marvelous.” She put her arm around him. “Isn’t that why you’re here, Couvo? Or did you just come to read old things? Books are wonderful, but to serve the Magaambya is to live in the material world and change it for the better. You could come with us and lend your own strength to our dance.”

He hunched. “I’ve got so much work to do, Seliette—”

“If you want to stay in your reading hole, Thanda will continue to take advantage of your talents, I'm sure… but she’ll keep you as an Attendant forever. If you hope to become a Conversant, and direct your own studies, you have to go out.” She cocked her head. “Tell me, Couvo. What are you doing all this studying for? What’s the purpose?”

It was a question he’d considered before, and always pushed back to think about later... but maybe later was now. There was a certain appeal to staying where it was warm and dry, translating the things Thanda brought back from her expeditions, working firmly within the limits of his competence, but he knew Seliette was right—that was beginner’s work, not substantively different than what he’d done as an Initiate… or even what he’d done back in Absalom. He’d always believed in the value of knowledge for its own sake, but could there be new satisfaction in using that knowledge for a purpose? He'd just translated a scroll reputedly copied from a Shory manuscript about manipulating weather patterns to benefit their legendary flying cities, and perhaps, with the proper blend of primal magic, it could be useful here…

Rain began to fall, just a few drops at first, and Seliette spread out her arms and spun in a circle, dancing to the drums and laughing her bell-ring of a laugh. After a moment, Couvo reached for her hand and spun with her, as the heavens opened and delivered their bounty.

About the Author

Tim Pratt is the author of more than 20 novels, most recently the Axiom space opera series, including Philip K. Dick Award finalist The Wrong Stars, The Dreaming Stars, and forthcoming third volume The Forbidden Stars. Tim’s five Pathfinder Tales novels—City of the Fallen Sky, Reign of Stars, Liar’s Blade, Liar’s Bargain, and Liar’s Island—are available now. He's a Hugo Award winner for short fiction, and has been a finalist for Nebula, World Fantasy, Sturgeon, Mythopoeic, Stoker, and other awards. His collection Miracles & Marvels is coming this fall. He tweets incessantly (@timpratt) and publishes a new story every month for patrons at www.patreon.com/timpratt.

About Tales of Lost Omens

The Tales of Lost Omens series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into Pathfinder’s Age of Lost Omens setting. Written by some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, including Paizo’s Pathfinder Tales line of novels and short fiction, the Tales of Lost Omens series promises to explore the characters, deities, history, locations, and organizations of the Pathfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

Sparks flew as Quig’s plasma cutter burned through the robot’s cranial plating. On the makeshift workbench, the bot twitched and shook, servos seizing as batteries failed and crucial fluids leaked from the wreckage of the robot’s lower body. The cranial plate popped open, revealing crystalline arrays and circuit boards blackened by discharge from misfiring neural processes.

“Ah, scrap!” He dropped the cutter and stretched a hand out toward the drone hovering just over his shoulder. “Scout—soldering iron! Now!”

Illustration by Rodrigo Gonzalez Toledo

The robot on the slab jerked again, and Quig leaned forward, pressing it down with his body so it couldn’t damage itself further. “Come on, buddy,” he whispered. “Stay with me...”

Obozaya glanced over, scaled snout wrinkling in confusion over the barrel of her rifle. “What’s the big deal? It’s just a robot.”

Iseph’s head whipped around from where they crouched next to an engineering screen in the station wall. “Excuse me?” The android’s words were dangerously flat. “Did you just—”

Navasi stepped smoothly between them. “I’m sure Obozaya didn’t mean it like that, Iseph. Obo, the authorization codes in this robot are the only way to access the station’s data core and locate the black ops facility. Without those coordinates, this mission is dead. Along with about a million Akitonians.” She turned toward the operating table. “How we doing, Quig?”

“I’m trying!” Quig drew a line of solder, crudely rerouting power around a glitching processor. The robot’s left eye telescoped outward with a whir, thrashing wildly.

“Try harder. Obo, what’s on the scopes? How far out is our pursuit?”

Obozaya consulted her datapad, scanning quickly. “Two ships, running dark—no transponders, but they’re probably Norikama dropships. One minute from rendezvous. Looks like they’re planning to skip the airlocks and come straight through the hull.”

“And after we rigged up those mines, too! Damn. That’s a waste of good ordnance.” Navasi looked out the viewport, toward the twin shadows of the approaching ships. “Two of those assault teams is two too many. We’ve got to pull back to the ship and cast off before—”

The robot on the packing crate jerked upright, glowing eyes staring blankly.

“Security codes verified.” Its voice fuzzed and crackled. “Facility access approved. Location 28.735, 98.302.” Then it slumped back onto the operating table, sparks and twitches ceasing.

“No!” Quig grabbed the robot’s head, jerking it up to stare into its dull, extinguished eyes. “No, no, no!” He poked frantically at the exposed circuitry of the robot’s metal skull.

“That was it! The coordinates!” Navasi’s face broke into a victorious grin—then fell just as quickly. She glanced around the room. “Uh... did anyone get that?”

“Um.” Obozaya looked back and forth between Navasi and the robot. “It started with a 2...?”

Navasi put her head in her hands. “Oh for the love of—”

“28.735, 98.302.” Iseph didn’t even look up from their wall panel as they flicked away warnings and error codes.

Obozaya gaped at the android. “You memorized it? Just like that?”

“My brain is one of the most advanced neural networks in the Pact Worlds.” Now Iseph turned to meet her gaze. “While yours is a glob of pudding evolved to run from predators that went extinct millennia ago.” The android returned their attention to the screen. “Not to mention currently fifty percent drugs by volume.”

“Hey!” Obozaya’s hand went instinctively to the armor pouch where she carried her nose-hookah. “Dragon’s breath is an honored Veskarium tradition. I only—”

“Save it!” Navasi drew her pistols. “You can light up once we’re safely in the Drift. We need to get back to the ship before—”

A hollow boom echoed through the station, shaking the decking beneath their feet. Navasi winced.

“That’s it, then. Iseph, you got the reactor overrides rigged?”

“Aye, Captain.” Iseph straightened, swiping a hand over the panel and turning the screen dark. “Failsafes are linked to my coms. One touch, containment goes down and this station becomes a short-lived star.”

“Perfect. Let’s move.” Navasi started toward the door, then stopped short. “Quig?”

The ysoki scrambled to strap the limp robot to the back of his pack, stuffing severed metal appendages into pockets. “Help me get Buddy!”

“The robot doesn’t matter anymore, Quig! We already got the coordinates.”

Quig looked at her like she’d just suggested he light his tail on fire, eyes wide behind his mask. “We can't just leave him here!” He looked down at the ruined robot. “Not after he helped us!”

Navasi rolled her eyes. Behind her, Iseph gazed at Quig with a thoughtful expression.

“Fine,” Navasi snapped. “But you’re carrying it. Obo, cover the rat. Iseph, you take point. Let’s go, people!”

They ran back through the derelict station’s halls. Emergency lighting flickering, illuminating walls scarred and streaked with the remnants of their battles. Quig huffed under the new weight of his pack, looking up enviously as Scout buzzed through the air in front of him, wondering if maybe he should have designed a drone capable of hauling more gear.

They rounded a corner, the docking bay coming into view. Quig had just a moment to register the swarm of red dots dancing across the wall ahead of them, and then all hell broke loose.

“Contact!” Iseph dove forward as a hail of bullets and the bright lines of energy weapons sliced through the air between them and Navasi. Quig turned and found an assault team in matte black body armor leapfrogging forward down a side corridor, their advance smooth and practiced, helmets a faceless, insectile cluster of lenses.

Obozaya swung around the edge of the hallway, autotarget rifle barking, forcing the intruders to take cover.

“Run!” Navasi sprinted toward the ship, Quig and Iseph hot on her heels. Behind them, Obozaya’s rifle went silent, spent magazine clinking against the decking. Then she was bringing up the rear, booted feet pounding.

Something roared. An unseen wave slammed Quig forward, sending him tumbling tail over whiskers. He scrambled out from beneath the crushing weight of a mountain of fallen metal, only to realize it was Obozaya, her heavy armor having protected them both from the grenade blast. They lurched to their feet, Quig snatching up his fallen pack.

It was too light. He looked back toward the blast’s point of origin.

The robot lay in the middle of the hallway, surrounded by steam from burst pipes and the sinister hiss of venting atmosphere.

“Buddy!” Quig started toward the fallen bot, but Obozaya grabbed the top of his pack and lifted him off his feet, carrying him backward toward the ship.

Behind them, red targeting lasers sliced through the steam.

They slid through the airlock, barely missing Iseph where the android knelt in the entrance, calmly laying down covering fire with their sniper rifle. The second they were aboard, the door whirred closed, and Quig was almost knocked off his feet a second time as Navasi goosed the thrusters.

Then they were free, ship gliding silently away. Quig staggered to the nearest viewport, looking out at the abandoned station as it shrank rapidly with distance.

“Iseph,” Navasi said. “Light ’em up.”

Iseph nodded and tapped their datapad.

The station erupted. The silent fireball expanded too quickly for Quig’s eyes to follow, engulfing the station and the enemy ships. The viewport dimmed automatically, shields maximizing to block the blaze of radiation. Yet almost as quickly, the glow faded, ionized gasses dispersing into vacuum.

It was like Iseph had said: A temporary sun, shining bright for one brief moment. And then darkness.

Quig put a hand to the viewport.

“Goodbye, Buddy,” he whispered. “And thanks.”

About the Author

James L. Sutter is a former Starfinder Creative Director and Executive Editor of the Pathfinder Tales novels. In addition to foundational work on both Pathfinder and Starfinder, he’s also written award-winning novels, comics, video games, and short stories. You can find him at jameslsutter.com or on Twitter at @jameslsutter. His Pathfinder Tales novels, Death’s Heretic and The Redemption Engine, are available now.

About Iconic Encounters
Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

The horns were blowing in her dreams again.

In her dreams, they all sounded together: the alarm and the battle march and the frenzied call to retreat. The calls overlapped into chaos, yet Veldrienne heard them all distinctly, and she understood with the perfect, crazed, crystal logic of dreams that of course the battle march was wild with panic, and of course the first call to alarm was a dolorous cry played over the bloody field of a lost battle, and of course it all began and ended with a weak, wounded note that broke on the thrust of a dead man’s spear.

Because this was Lastwall, where the knights of her order had trained for nearly a thousand years to meet the Whispering Tyrant’s threat, and where the Tyrant had destroyed them effortlessly. Every battle worthy of the name had been lost before the Watcher-Lord’s armies had mustered. They’d been defeated before they’d begun.

That hurt the worst of all. All their pride, all their valor, and they’d never had a chance.

And so Veldrienne dreamed, again and again, of a call to arms that was a call to mourning, and of battlefields she would never see.

Illustration by Tomasz Chistowski

She kicked off the blanket covering her legs. Watery gray sunlight, the only light that shone on the Gravelands anymore, filtered through the burned rafters of the farmhouse they’d sheltered in overnight.

Yeran held up a battered kettle. He’d been up for a while, long enough to have warmed water and made an attempt at shaving. “Porridge?”

“Thank you.” Veldrienne spooned the stale mush out of the kettle. They didn’t have any bowls left. “Save any of that wash water for me?”

Yeran nodded. He’d missed a few patches, shaving with just that dented kettle for a mirror. The stubble was white in the weak light. It made him look old, and almost as worn down as Veldrienne felt. “Plenty to go around, now that there are only two of us left.”

Two. Out of a full company. Veldrienne shook her head. They were the last two left, and yet they still pretended to uphold the niceties of their order. Yeran still tried to keep clean-shaven. Veldrienne still polished the pins of rank on the filthy rags of her uniform.

She wasn’t sure why they bothered. Habits died harder than people, evidently.

Veldrienne paused, the spoon halfway to her mouth. There was smoke on the wind. Wood smoke. The Tyrant’s rotting minions had no need to cook, and certainly never washed. They didn’t light campfires.

“People.”

Yeran was already buckling on his sword. He’d smelled it too. “East?”

“East.”

Together they walked through the weed-choked fields and abandoned hovels to the last intact farmhouse in town. It was where Veldrienne would have sheltered, if she’d had to shelter here. If she hadn’t known that ghouls, and worse, hunted these grounds.

She knocked at the door. “Veldrienne of Vigil and Yeran Dhoskan, Knights of Lastwall.” It almost didn’t hurt to say that last part anymore. “Is anyone living here? Can we aid you?”

Scurrying inside. Hushed voices, fear and hope warring between them. Then a woman’s voice: “Can you… can you get us somewhere safe?”

Veldrienne closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see Yeran’s look. “Yes. If you trust us.”

They came out. A man, a woman, six young children. Plainly the children were not all theirs by blood. Just as plainly, they were by necessity. Veldrienne’s determination hardened, looking at the family that the Tyrant’s menace had driven together. If these people had managed to protect their children this far, she wouldn’t see them fail now.

“We can get you to the camp at Kassen,” she told them, “and from there you can take a boat to Vellumis. The Tyrant’s creatures don’t hold the water as fiercely as they do the land.”

“Thank you,” the woman said.

The man hesitated, then drew out a pendant he’d hidden inside the seam of his coat sleeve. He offered it to Veldrienne, who shook her head. “I can’t take your money.”

“It isn’t money. It’s… I was a jeweler. Before all this.” He laughed bleakly. “I thought I’d use some of my pieces to bribe our way out of the Gravelands, but there’s no bribing the dead. I want you to have it, instead. I can’t buy safety. None of us can. But I can, at least, offer this. Please. Take it and tell me that—that you understand.”

Veldrienne took the pendant. It was an octagon of rose gold, holding a pressed flower under glass in a ring of white seed pearls. The flower was familiar. Star alyssum. It had bloomed around the Watcher-Lord’s palace and spilled from the window boxes of Vigil’s tidy whitewashed homes, perfuming the city in summer. If she closed her eyes, she could almost breathe its delicate, honeyed sweetness again.

“I made them for crusaders traveling up to the Worldwound,” the man explained. “For them to remember the homes and loved ones they left behind. I never thought that crusade would be won, or that I’d need to preserve the memory of Vigil on its own ground instead. But — look. The back.”

Veldrienne turned the pendant around. In the back, under a panel of rose gold inscribed “Vigil’s blessing,” was a compartment full of tiny black seeds.

Mendev and the Sarkoris Scar were dotted with battlefield graves where star alyssum bloomed. Veldrienne knew those marked the final rest of knights from Lastwall, but she had never considered who carried the seeds there, or what it meant for a knight to lie beneath a bier of flowers on ground so grimly sanctified.

Now, holding the pendant, she understood. “Thank you.”

The man started to say something else, but Veldrienne held up a hand. “Quiet.” She’d smelled something on the wind. Not the remembered fragrance of alyssum.

Ghouls. The stench was unmistakable. The Tyrant’s minions didn’t breathe, and thus had no sense of smell — that was why Veldrienne had scented the family’s woodsmoke first, and why the ghouls’ foulness didn’t incapacitate their fellow undead — but they could see well enough, and the weak sun in the Gravelands didn’t cow them. They must have seen the smoke rising from the chimney once the family was too distracted to fan it away.

“Get inside,” Veldrienne ordered, drawing her sword. She could see the ghouls coming now, loping feral and hideous through the crumbling town. Yeran fell in beside her, and she was glad to have him at her side. There was no better feeling than standing beside a fellow knight, true and trustworthy, against a clear-cut foe.

She’d been wrong earlier. There were still battles worth fighting in the Gravelands. The knights of Lastwall hadn’t been utterly defeated. They hadn’t lost everything yet.

Not yet.

About the Author

Liane Merciel is the author of the Pathfinder Tales novels Nightglass, Nightblade, and Hellknight, and a contributor to other books including Nidal: Land of Shadows, Faiths of Golarion, and the Lost Omens World Guide. She has also written for Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, and Bioware’s Dragon Age franchise. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, two dogs, and an adventure toddler who is extremely into Spider-Man.

About Tales of Lost Omens

The Tales of Lost Omens series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into Pathfinder’s Age of Lost Omens setting. Written by some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, including Paizo’s Pathfinder Tales line of novels and short fiction, the Tales of Lost Omens series promises to explore the characters, deities, history, locations, and organizations of the Pathfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

Obozaya peeked over the rocky ridge. There was still just one of the creatures guarding the entrance, less than fifty feet away. The tunnel mouth behind it was nothing special—just a dark hole in the side of the hill. Yet this was where the footage had shown the creatures taking her crew.

Obo ducked back down and considered her rifle. With it, she could easily take the guard out right now, before it even knew she was here. That was assuredly what Navasi would advise.

But where was the fun in that?

Slinging the rifle over her shoulder, she drew her doshko and thumbed it on. Plasma spikes blazed to life with a soft hiss.

Yes—much better. Last, but most importantly, she pulled out her datapad, synched it to her personal coms channel, and cued up Obozaya’s Mayhem Playlist.

Immediately, Sylix the Siren’s “Moneythumper” began pounding through Obo’s custom sound system, bone conduction carrying it not just to her ears, but into her very skeleton.

Breaking hearts.
Breaking heads.
I always get my money down in advance...

Gods, what a perfect fight song. A former merc herself, Sylix knew just what Obo needed—her voice was a classic Veskarium egg-croon, floating over syrupy bass and a tuned kick that hit like an orbital bombardment. Obo’s pulse surged.

Navasi hated when she did this. And maybe blasting tunes on the battlefield wasn’t the best idea when you were trying to coordinate with half a dozen squadmates. But for the moment, Obo was on her own, which meant she could indulge in a few old habits. If the captain didn’t like it, tough scales—the thing about rescue missions was that the rescuer got to call the shots. And Obo was in the mood to enjoy this.

Win while you can,
Then we’ll dance till we’re dead.
You’re only living if you’re taking a chance...

You said it, Sylix, Obo thought, and charged up over the ridge.

The creature—Raia had called it a “mi-go”—was fast, but Obo was faster. Her boots churned the rocky soil in time with the pounding beat, her tail stretched out behind her for balance. By the time the mi-go noticed seven feet of armored lizard bearing down on it and brought its weird spiky gun to bear, Obo was already too close. She ducked sideways out of the line of fire and brought the doshko up in a sweeping diagonal slice.

Illustration by Alberto Dal Lago

The plasma spikes slid home with a sizzle, not stopping till the haft was flat against the creature’s side. Yet instead of dying, the mi-go just stood there, the doshko’s white-hot spikes sending up steam that smelled incongruously like roasted vegetable skewers. Whorls of color played across the mi-go’s face as it glanced down at the weapon, then back up at Obozaya.

“Um.” Obo said.

The creature fired, the bolt of cold slamming into Obo’s shoulder and sending crackling tendrils of frost across her pauldron. Her armor’s thermal regulators kicked in, ceramic superconductors safely dispersing the cold across her entire surface area before it could freeze the water in her cells. But it was still closer than it ought to be. Obo spun aside, lashing out with an ineffective tail sweep.

Obo’s doshko strike had been flawless—naturally—so it must be that the creature was immune to heat and electricity. So much for having some fun with things. Obo clicked the doshko off and dropped it, diving into a roll as the mi-go fired again. She came up holding her rifle.

She fired. Two quick shots, snare-crack counterpoints to the bass still pounding in her bones. No point wasting ammo if these failed as well.

The mi-go’s head snapped backward as magnetically accelerated tungsten lanced through armor plating. It screamed in a language that was at once totally alien and completely universal.

Obo smiled and switched to full auto.

It was over in less than two seconds. The gun hummed against her shoulder as she unloaded the magazine, stitching shots across the creature’s chest. A lifetime of training had her slamming home a fresh magazine before the spent one had hit the ground, yet even as she reloaded she could see that she wouldn’t need it.

The mi-go lay sprawled in the dust, practically sawn in half by the magnetar’s metal roar. Obo crouched over it, rifle leveled at the cave entrance, ready to do the same to any emerging monstrosities. When they didn’t immediately appear, she stood and recovered her doshko, never letting the magnetar’s barrel stray from its bead on the darkness.

With a last exhortation to get paid, “Moneythumper” drew to a close, replaced by the Aballonian skitterbeats of Godhead Collective’s “You Know Who We Are.”

“Right,” Obo said, and cued her holoprojector. The glowing banner coalesced above her head, rising up from her backpack and unfurling to reveal her personal war-glyph.

Navasi hated that, too. But what was the point of victory if you didn’t get to take credit for it? Anonymity was for cowards—better to let everyone know who you were, and if that meant more enemies came for you, all the better. Obo was always down to dance.

But of course, that wasn’t usually her call. Once upon a time, Obo would have laughed at the idea of taking orders from someone like Navasi. The captain had style, sure, and she could fight like a proper merc when she had to, but her answer to everything was talking. The whole team was like that. They didn’t understand the glory of single combat, of making a name for yourself by succeeding against impossible odds on the battlefield. Half the time they schemed to avoid bloodshed! They were everything Damoritosh had taught her to revile.

Obo desperately hoped they were still alive.

“Hang tight, little friends,” she whispered. “Obo’s coming for you.”

Rifle barrel leading the way, she stepped into the darkness.

About the Author

James L. Sutter is a former Starfinder Creative Director and Executive Editor of the Pathfinder Tales novels. In addition to foundational work on both Pathfinder and Starfinder, he’s also written award-winning novels, comics, video games, and short stories. You can find him at jameslsutter.com or on Twitter at @jameslsutter. His Pathfinder Tales novels, Death’s Heretic and The Redemption Engine, are available now.

About Iconic Encounters

Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

The trail led, of course, to a tavern.

Watching from a hidden perch across the street, Ulthor studied the place. It was a stinking, squalid wreck in Absalom’s Puddles district. Dead fish lay half-surfaced in the sucking mud around the entrance, their rotted heads poking up as if straining for one last breath. Inside, the air was thick with flayleaf and pesh smoke, spilled ale and unwashed bodies, and the pervasive, inescapable stench of the Puddles’ foul tides. Dingy gray cloth covered the grimy windows and hung from the rafters, turning the already-dim tavern into a warren of shadows.

The Rat of Gonevar had sunk low in the world since Ulthor had last had the trail. Still a weak man, prone to weak vices, but without the money or friends to indulge them extravagantly anymore.

That was good. It would make apprehension easier.

There. Ulthor spotted the Rat’s battered hat bobbing through an alley as the man picked his way across the muddy duckboards. The hat was different, and its jaunty feather too, but Ulthor recognized his quarry’s limp immediately. The Rat had lost half his left foot at their last meeting.

Beneath his grim iron helm, Ulthor permitted himself the barest semblance of a smile. No more than the slightest softening at the corners of his eyes and mouth, the most change he ever allowed in his habitually stony expression. It had been a long hunt.

“Prepare to move,” Ulthor told his fellow knights. He’d requisitioned three Hellknights of the Rack as support from the local chapter house. The Order of the Rack generally lacked the finesse he would have preferred, but its Hellknights were as terrifyingly fierce and incorruptible as the Chain’s. They’d do.

“Terms of apprehension?” one of the Rack knights asked.

Ulthor was briefly surprised. He hadn’t expected the Hellknights of the Rack to care. “The Rat of Gonevar must be taken. Preferably alive, but dead is acceptable. Minimize other casualties. Those who do not interfere should not be harmed.”

“And those who do?”

“Will be guilty of obstructing a lawful enforcement action.” Ulthor tacked the arrest warrant onto the face of his shield so that he could display it while keeping his hands free. Small chance that the patrons of the Puddles would respect the warrant’s authority, but a small chance was better than none. He preferred not to break skulls unnecessarily. “Further questions?”

There were none. Ulthor dispatched two Hellknights to watch the tavern’s rear and side exits. Once they were in place, he led the third to its front door. Mud-spattered urchins and drunk idlers, suddenly and nervously sober, melted away from the tavern as the Hellknights approached.

Ulthor ignored them. The tavern’s door was already open, but he kicked it anyway, shattering the weather-beaten wood against the wall to announce the Hellknights’ arrival.

Illustration by Tomasz Chistowski

“Dunryl of Gonevar!” Ulthor shouted into the shocked quiet. “You stand charged with desertion, murder, and trafficking in profane corruptions. Submit to the lawful authority of the Order of the Chain.”

“Don’t believe I will,” the Rat drawled. His tone was full of bravado, but even in the tavern’s poor light, Ulthor could see the Rat’s knotted jaw and shaking hands. Withdrawal, and fear. Mostly fear. “I’m a hero of Andoran, I am.”

“We’re free people here,” one of the other card players blustered. He squinted at Ulthor with hostile, ale-fogged eyes. “Free people. Unafraid.”

“You tell ‘im, Gammel,” the Rat encouraged, scooting his own chair back discreetly.

Gammel launched a clumsy fist at Ulthor. The Hellknight knocked his swipe away with a short punch of his own, driving a mailed fist into the drunkard’s face. Gammel’s nose crunched bloodily under the blow, but Ulthor held back his strength. The drunkard didn’t deserve to die over this.

The Rat was reaching under the table for a hidden weapon. Kicking Gammel and his chair aside, Ulthor brought his sword down on the table, smashing the wooden top, the cudgel that the Rat had been reaching for beneath it, and the Rat’s arm.

“You are a liar and a coward,” the Hellknight announced, his voice thundering over the Rat’s cry of outraged agony. “You murdered your superior officer and two comrades, stole a shipment of slaves, and sold all but the youngest and most impressionable. Those you released to spread false tales of your heroism. Then you began ‘rescuing’ slaves so that you could pin unholy texts and secret corruptions into their clothes and minds, using them as unwitting mules to carry foul contraband through Andoran. These are your crimes, Dunryl of Gonevar.”

Most of Ulthor’s recitation went unheard. At the sight of bare steel, the tavern erupted into chaos. Patrons threw mugs and half-full slop bowls at Ulthor, and then at the Rack Hellknights who charged in to support him. Others shouted and jeered, less interested in defending the Rat of Gonevar than in spitting on the nearest symbol of authority. The law wasn’t popular in the Puddles.

The Rack Hellknights moved to stop the brawling. They were efficient, methodical, and brutal. Bones cracked. Iron thudded into unprotected flesh. The taunts and jeers turned to panicked cries and bloody-mouthed moans.

Ulthor didn’t give them a glance. He reached over the splintered table, ignoring Gammel’s squeak of terror, and grabbed the Rat by his broken arm.

“You bastard!” the Rat shouted, hysterical with pain. “Five years it’s been, and you won’t leave me alone! You broke my arm!”

“Submit,” Ulthor said. His gauntleted fist flexed. Bones ground together in his grip.

The Rat swayed on the brink of blacking out. “Let me go. Let me go! I can tell you — things. All kinds of things. Schemes. Secrets. The — the moaners’ cults. The smugglers. The people who hired me. I can give them to you. Please!”

Ulthor relaxed his grip minutely. Behind them, the brawl had died down. Only the groans and whimpers of the injured could be heard now. The Rack Hellknights moved among the fallen, dealing out extra blows to those who refused to stay down.

“Please,” the Rat sobbed.

“I am a Hellknight of the Chain,” Ulthor told him. He stood, dragging the Rat to his feet by his broken arm. “It was my duty to apprehend you. But if what you say is true, it is not my duty to keep you. Unholy cults are not within my order’s remit.”

Somehow the Rat managed to swallow the shriek of pain that started up his throat. Despite it all, hope ignited in his eyes. “Then we’ve got a deal? You’ll let me go?”

“No,” Ulthor said. “I will send you to the Order of the Pyre.”

And then he smiled, really smiled, as the Rat of Gonevar screamed.

About the Author

Liane Merciel is the author of the Pathfinder Tales novels Nightglass, Nightblade, and Hellknight, and a contributor to other books including Nidal: Land of Shadows, Faiths of Golarion, and the Lost Omens World Guide. She has also written for Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, and Bioware’s Dragon Age franchise. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, two dogs, and an adventure toddler who is extremely into Spider-Man.

About Tales of Lost Omens

The Tales of Lost Omens series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into Pathfinder’s Age of Lost Omens setting. Written by some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, including Paizo’s Pathfinder Tales line of novels and short fiction, the Tales of Lost Omens series promises to explore the characters, deities, history, locations, and organizations of the Pathfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

“Down!”

Navasi grabbed Keskodai and yanked him around the corner, sending him sprawling as lasers sliced through the space he’d occupied a moment before. She returned fire, then ducked back behind cover and glared at the shirren. “I thought I told you to go in disguise!”

From the floor, Keskodai looked up at her, mental voice radiating confusion. “But I am in disguise.”

Navasi squinted. “You look exactly the same.”

“The same?!” The shirren’s throat-teeth splayed wide in shock. “I took off my headpiece! I shaved my moustache!”

Navasi leaned closer. Sure enough, the chitin above his mouthparts was smooth. She fought the urge to put her head in her hands, instead settling for thrusting her plasma pistol around the corner and firing blind. Doing her best to keep her voice level, she said, “I don’t think that was enough.”

“But it’s my signature style! It’s how everyone recognizes me!”

Navasi entertained a brief but deeply fulfilling fantasy of throttling the shirren right there. Was it even wrong to strangle a death priest, ethically speaking? Wouldn’t sending him to Pharasma be like giving a dance-pop fan the chance to meet Sylix the Siren?

But the first rule of captaining was not killing your own people, even when they really deserved it. Instead, she took a calming breath and said, “You’re right—they must have been using advanced facial recognition software.” Then she darted her head around the corner.

Illustration by Alexander Nanitchkov

Her fusillade of plasma bolts had produced the desired effect—sort of. The gangsters had indeed pulled back out of the line of fire, as she’d hoped. But in their place, they’d sent in a security bot.

Where in the worlds had these lowlifes gotten a patrol-class model? The thing stalked toward her with a fluid mechanical gait, mirrored face scanning.

She wasn’t quick enough. Even as she jerked backward, the robot fired, a line of crackling electricity burning down the corridor. It missed her face, but her scarf wasn’t so lucky—the artificial lightning burned straight through its trailing end, flames curling up from singed threads.

“Damn it, Keskodai! That’s coming out of your share!” She snapped off another blind shot, then cued coms. “Quig! We need evac. Like, yesterday.”

“Copy that, fearless leader.” The rat’s voice came smooth and calm. “They see through Keskodai’s disguise?”

“Advanced facial recognition software,” Keskodai said. The priest didn’t even have the grace to sound embarrassed.

Quig clucked his tongue. “I figured something was up. The bay started swarming with Iovan’s thugs—I had to take off to keep them from boarding the ship.”

“You’re not in the docking bay?” Navasi’s heart lurched. She’d known in her heart that escape wouldn’t be easy—there was only one way off this station, so of course Iovan and his goons would try to cut them off. But this was a whole new level of busted.

“Don’t worry, Captain, I’ve got you an alternative.” Quig sounded even more self-satisfied than usual, if such a thing were possible. “There’s a maintenance lock at the apex of the main dome. I’ll be there in ninety seconds.”

“The main dome?!” Navasi couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You want us to go back to the casino?”

“They’ll never expect it.”

“That’s because it’s stupid!”

“But it’s our kind of stupid.” Keskodai sounded positively cheerful. He crouched in a sprinter’s stance. “Ready when you are, Captain. May Pharasma bless us.”

“I’d rather she continue ignoring us.” But Navasi crouched as well. “Ready? Go!”

They burst from behind the corner, back the way Keskodai had come. The security bot was closer now, the emboldened gangsters creeping along behind it. Navasi raised her pistols, but even as she fired Keskodai darted forward, one hand to his temple. He thrust out with the other, and a wave of invisible force blasted outward, bowling bot and thugs backward like they’d been sucked out an airlock.

Then they were past them, tearing out of the corridor and into the grimy little station’s central casino. Glowing game machines and tables of crusty-looking spacers and only slightly less crusty courtesans packed every available inch, creating a maze of colors and chimes. Above it all rose a tall, transparent dome revealing the stars beyond—and the looming shape of her own ship as Quig matched the station’s rotation.

“There!” Navasi pointed to a ladder climbing one of the support struts, then vaulted up onto a felt-topped table, scattering chips and holograms. She leapt to the next table, then the next, using them like stones in a river crossing, Keskodai hot on her heels.

They reached the ladder. Behind them, the trail of angry shouts grew louder.

She climbed. Ten feet up, she looked back and realized Keskodai wasn’t following. “Kesk! Come on!”

The shirren had his head bowed, mouthparts clacking as he prayed aloud. Then he lifted his hands to the wall and began to climb, spidering up the dome’s sheer face faster than Navasi on her ladder.

Well, good for him. Navasi grit her teeth and climbed harder.

Her back itched, waiting for the bullet or laser blast. They were completely exposed out here on the wall, but that was part of the point: if they were lucky, nobody would dare shoot at them for fear of puncturing the dome and venting the whole place.

Of course, if they were unlucky, some drunken gangster wouldn’t think of that until it was too late. Long-term thinking wasn’t exactly these folks’ strong suit. It all came down to luck—appropriate enough for a casino, she supposed.

Above, Keskodai reached the airlock and cycled it open, clambering inside. Navasi’s shoulders burned as the angle of the ladder increased, the dome’s pitch threatening to peel her backward off a wall rapidly becoming a ceiling. Leaned back at this angle, she could see the bright gleam of the Maiden as Quig nestled it down against the hatch.

She was almost to the apex now, the ladder nearly horizontal, forcing her to hook her ankles around each rung, the floor a dizzying distance below. She leaned her head back, concentrating on the hatch.

Keskodai’s inverted head popped out of it, the casualness of his climbing magic giving her momentary vertigo as her brain tried to convince her that the two of them were right-side up, and the rest of the world was upside down.

“Faster!” he shouted in her brain.

On the floor below, something coughed. There was a single instant of blurred motion, and then the ladder between them exploded in a fireball.

Navasi’s hands tore free of the ladder. Suddenly she was hanging, arms waving helplessly as she dangled from a foot wedged painfully between two rungs.

“Captain!” Keskodai was out of the hatch in an instant, skittering across the dome’s underside until he reached her. He leaned down and she grabbed his hand, letting him aid her in the world’s worst abdominal crunch until she could bend double and catch the ladder’s rungs again.

Or what was left of them. Between her and the hatch, the last twenty feet of the ladder had been blown completely clear of the wall, nothing left to cling to but smooth, transparent polycarbon and jagged shards of white-hot metal.

Twenty feet or twenty miles, it didn’t matter—the hatch might as well be in another star system.

Except that next to her, her priest stuck to the dome as if he were a magnet.

“Keskodai!” she shouted. “Can you cast that spell on me?”

“I’m sorry, Captain—that was the last of my spells. But I’ve got the next best thing.” He turned, thrusting his armored butt in her direction. “Get on my back!”

“Your back?” She looked at his skinny limbs. “You can’t carry me! We’ll both fall!”

“Maybe!” he chirped. “If so, we’ll go meet the Lady together!” As she’d predicted, he didn’t sound particularly upset at the idea.

She had a choice, then. She could order him to save himself, to leave her to the gangsters or gravity. He might even do it. She was his captain, after all.

But that would violate the real first rule of captaining: You trusted your people. Always.

She let go of the ladder and swung out, grabbing for his shoulders.

The scramble into the hatch was a stomach-churning blur, Navasi clinging to the shirren like a baby monkey on its mother’s back. But then they were through, the airlock cycling behind them, making one final lurch up into the ship’s cockpit to collapse on the floor.

“Howdy, boss.” Quig swiveled the pilot’s seat to face them. “Where to?”

“Anywhere,” Navasi gasped. “Just out of here, please.”

“You got it.” Quig tapped a command on the console, and the engines engaged. Then he spun back sharply, furry eyebrows rising.

“Keskodai!” he blurted. “What happened to your ’stache?”

About the Author

James L. Sutter is a former Starfinder Creative Director and Executive Editor of the Pathfinder Tales novels. In addition to foundational work on both Pathfinder and Starfinder, he’s also written award-winning novels, comics, video games, and short stories. You can find him at jameslsutter.com or on Twitter at @jameslsutter. His Pathfinder Tales novels, Death’s Heretic and The Redemption Engine, are available now.

About Iconic Encounters

Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

Ketchi peered through the shrubbery at the overgrown monastery and grinned. "This must be the place!"

"You think?" Wik slipped an arrow from his quiver and nocked it. "What was your first clue, our friends languishing in cages, the Firebrand graffiti they painted on the wall, or the tribe of hyenafolk slavers who seem to have caught them in the act?"

Ketchi twitched his long moustache at Wik's sarcasm. "Since reports of those curs and other slavers setting up operations in the area have been so prevalent, and I can't really tell if that's Coriv's crew in the cage from here, I’ll go with the big blue crossed swords painted on the wall. Even if that’s not our friends, someone’s clearly in need of our help."

"Keep it down, both of you!" Layali's dark eyes shone like chips of obsidian above her face scarf. She wore the scarf to hide the scars she'd received while a slave for speaking disrespectfully to her master. If there was anything on Golarion she hated more than slavers, Ketchi didn't know what it was. "I count seven slavers. There may be more inside the ruins. We need to free Coriv's crew to even the odds."

"Think the one in the crow's cage is alive?" Wik asked.

"We'll find out later." Layali flexed her hand on the hilt of her sword. "First, we open the cage."

"Diversion?" Ketchi suggested. "I love diversions. They’re my specialty!"

"Crazy gnome," Wik hissed.

Ketchi winked at the half-elf. "You bet your pointy ears. Aren't we all?"

"Valid point," Wik admitted.

"Quiet!" Layali pointed to the left. "Draw them off that way, Ketchi. Wik, you cover him. I'll slip through the ruins and open the cage." She patted the heavy satchel full of weapons. "Tell Darik and Bosk they're our rear guard. When all hell breaks loose, they come in."

"Right." Ketchi slipped back through the underbrush as silent as a ferret to where the warriors were hiding. He tapped Darik on his armored shoulder and took some satisfaction in the big knight's surprise.

"Bloody gnome! Don't startle me like that!"

"Shhh!" Ketchi held a finger to his lips and whispered the plan. Bosk frowned through his thick Ulfen beard, but Darik nodded. "Just wait for the screaming to start, then come running."

"Screaming?" Bosk narrowed his eyes. "Hyena-men don't scream."

Ketchi twirled his moustache. "No, but I do." He slipped into the brush and worked his way around the camp, confident that the slavers wouldn't hear, see, or smell him. The crew had done this many times, and knew their jobs. In this instance, they were rescuing fellow Firebrands—a team of Bellflower tillers—instead of slaves or refugees, but it amounted to the same thing. How Coriv's crew had been captured in the first place did concern the gnome, but not overmuch. In his opinion, prisoners existed to be freed, regardless of who they were or how they got there.

Finally in place, Ketchi peered over a fallen log to assess the situation. The slavers crouched around a firepit, arguing and gnawing on haunches of meat. Hopefully that meat wasn't one of Coriv's people. Smoke wafted from one of the old monastery's chimneys, so there were probably more. No matter; once they freed Coriv's crew, the odds would be in their favor.

Ketchi unwound the long scarf from his belt, quietly cleared his throat, and meowed.

Fourteen furry ears swiveled as one toward the noise. Ketchi grinned and meowed again, louder. Their bloody muzzles rose from their meal, noses sniffing the air. Another meow, and the slavers snarled and spat back and forth in their barking, yipping language. Ketchi didn't need an interpreter. Come on you canine cretins, come and get the nice kitty. He meowed again, and three of the four slavers rose to investigate. The others watched them approach the edge of the camp.

Beyond them, Layali crept along the edge of the monastery toward the cage. Perfect! Ketchi cupped his hands around his mouth and summoned his quirky arcane talent. "Meeeeow!" The sound seemed to come from a clump of bushes some fifty feet beyond his hiding place.

The slavers snarled and strode forth, stepping over the log where Ketchi hid. They had their swords out now, and crouched low to inspect the bushes.

Showtime! Ketchi dashed forth and leaped to scramble up the nearest slaver's back, flinging his scarf up and around his stunned target's eyes.

"Yeeehaw! Ride that dog!" Ketchi dug his heels into the thrashing slaver's neck and belted out a bawdy rhyme. "Oh, I'm a dog rider, a dog rider is me, tra-la-la, tra-la-la-lee."

The slaver thrashed and howled. His two companions brandished their weapons, but couldn't slash at Ketchi without risking taking off their friend's head. The others lurched up from the campfire and charged. Beyond them, Layali worked on the cage lock. Wik stood from his hiding place and sent an arrow into the rearmost of the charging slavers. Darik and Bosk charged from hiding, weapons drawn, but so far, all attention remained fixed upon Ketchi.

As it should be, he thought, belting out another verse, struggling to keep hold of his scarf among his blindfolded mount’s thrashing.

Then everything went sideways.

Illustration by Tomasz Chistowski

A cloaked figure appeared in the window of the monastery, her voice crying out an arcane phrase accented by growls and clacking teeth. The slaver Ketchi was riding, and all the rest of them for that matter, suddenly grew in stature to ogre-height. Ketchi hung on and belted out another verse, but drew a dagger with his free hand, just in case. Wik felled one of the enlarged slavers with a lightning-fast volley, but another of the beast-men threw a spear and caught Bosk in the stomach. The warrior folded over like a sawdust doll. Darik bellowed a battle cry and shattered his enemy's shield with a sword stroke.

Ketchi drove his dagger into the slaver's neck and continued his ballad, shifting the theme from one of distraction to encouragement. He sprinkled helpful hints to his allies among his lyrics while dodging the slaver's clumsy attempts to drag him off.

Layali had the cage open, and handed out swords to Coriv's crew as they poured out. Several of them dashed into the monastery, and more shouts rang out as they clashed with the robed spellcaster and any other slavers in the ruin.

Ketchi stabbed again, and Wik felled yet another slaver with two shots to the chest. Then another slaver lashed out with a long whip. The leather wrapped around Ketchi's neck and jerked hard enough to cut his song short and unseat him. He held his grip on the scarf, however, unbalancing the slaver as he fell.

Ketchi landed hard enough to knock the wind out of his lungs, but he got a hand around the whip to keep it from throttling him. The slaver he'd stabbed had dropped his sword, but lunged at the fallen gnome, jaws wide. Ketchi jerked the whip hard and rolled. Slavering jaws snapped closed an inch from his shoulder. The whip wielder brought his shield down hard, and the edge caught the gnome on the knee.

Ketchi howled in pain, "Ayeee, I'll never dance again!"

The shield came up for another blow, but two arrows thunked into the slaver's throat. He looked suddenly surprised and fell backward. The other, however, landed on Ketchi like a fallen tree, clawed hands grasping and jaws wide.

"Bad dog! No biting the nice gnome!" Ketchi drew another dagger and thrust deep into that maw. The teeth closed on his arm and he howled in pain again, but the slaver went limp as it bit down on the gnome’s upturned blade.

Quiet...

The fight was over. Coriv's crew waved from the monastery window and reached out to pull the crow's cage in. The shape inside moved, alive at least. Darik knelt to Bosk, pressing a bottle to the old warrior's lips.

Ketchi tried to pry the slaver’s jaws open, but they seemed to be locked closed. "A little help, please!" He tried again, but failed to pry the teeth from his arm. "I seem to have a dog attached to my arm!"

"Need a hand?" Wik reached down with a knife to carefully slice the seized jaw muscles.

"I nearly lost a hand." He winced as the bite relaxed and the teeth came free. "Thanks! Nice shooting, by the way." Ketchi unwound the whip from his neck and cleared his throat. His knee throbbed, his voice rasped, and his arm was bleeding.

"Nice performance." Wik drew a potion bottle from his satchel and handed it down. "And nice riding."

"I'm thinking of taking the act on the road." Ketchi downed the sweet elixir and sighed in bliss as the pain faded. He lurched up to his feet and tested his knee, then his voice. "La-la-la! What do you think; Ketchi the dog-riding gnome and his canine companions?"

"I think you need to keep the day job." Wik chuckled and clapped his friend on the shoulder.

"Yeah, probably right." Ketchi toed the dead slaver and grinned. "Firebrand's pretty much a full-time gig."

About the Author

As a sailor and gamer, nautical and RPG tie-in fantasy came naturally for Chris A. Jackson. His Scimitar Seas novels won three gold medals from Foreword Reviews, and his Pathfinder Tales novels, Pirate’s Honor, Pirate’s Promise, and Pirate’s Prophecy have received high praise. His magical assassin Weapon of Flesh series hit the Kindle bestseller list. He’s also published urban SF—Dragon Dreams—for Falstaff Books, and horror—The Deep Gate—for Fantasy Flight Games's Arkham Horror line. He's also written tie-in fiction for Shadowrun, Legendary Games, Iron Kingdoms, and Traveller. Visit jaxbooks.com for a look.

About Tales of Lost Omens

The Tales of Lost Omens series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into Pathfinder’s Age of Lost Omens setting. Written by some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, including Paizo’s Pathfinder Tales line of novels and short fiction, the Tales of Lost Omens series promises to explore the characters, deities, history, locations, and organizations of the Pathfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

The light on the door pad blinked from red to green.

“Okay, you’re in.” Even though she was holed up in the data center, hacking the locks remotely, tension made Raia whisper. “The tracker chip I planted says Averly is in there. We need to get to him before they do... whatever it is they do to people.”

“Understood.” Keskodai stood from his place in the shadows. “I’m headed in.”

“Good hunting, Keskodai.”

Keskodai reached down to the child at his belt. “Ready, Chk Chk?”

Safe inside his canister, Chk Chk tapped his larval beak-tooth against the transparent polycarbon, treating Keskodai to a blast of confidence and enthusiasm.

Of course Chk Chk was confident. As far as he knew, his father was invincible. As was Chk Chk himself, for that matter. After all, hadn’t they survived one hundred percent of their adventures so far?

Keskodai knew better, yet some part of him still stood a little straighter at his child’s vision of him. Wasn’t that what drove every parent? A desire to be the person their child imagined them to be?

He stepped forward and keyed the door.

Illustration by Rodrigo Gonzalez Toledo

It swept aside, revealing a room full of strange equipment. Pumps whirred and hissed, spotlights stabbing down through the gloom to illuminate a shaved human lying nude on the central table. That was their contact, all right. Robotic arms like something out of Keskodai’s medical bay prodded at the inert body, injecting fluids or implanting subdermal machinery. And standing over it all—

The gray jerked upright, its movements an eerie, strobe-light stutter. It stretched a hand toward Keskodai, and he felt the sudden press of its mind—an overwhelming impulse to freeze, to sleep. It tugged at his synapses, seeking to reshape them with the force of its will.

But shirren already escaped such slavery once. Keskodai raised his pistol and fired.

The shot was dead-on: straight to the heart, the sort of merciful deathblow Keskodai thought of as the Lady’s Grace. Yet it passed through the gray like it was a hologram, the creature’s flesh seeming to ripple out of phase with reality. For a nanosecond, it was gone, and then it was there again, the bullet ricocheting harmlessly off the wall behind it.

Keskodai, on the other hand, had no such protections. He dove sideways behind a bank of machinery as the thing sighted its own weapon and fired, needles driving deep into the doorjamb.

So be it, Keskodai thought. If mercy wasn’t an option...

He stood, one hand out for focus, and shoved his way inside the gray’s head.

The creature’s mind was truly alien. In some ways, the neural pathways were structurally similar to Keskodai’s own, but without shared context or a known starting point, the thought processes that ran along them were nearly impossible to decipher. He’d heard Raia speak of different types of computer encryption, and this was like that—he could see the shapes of ideas, gliding past him like leviathans in a darkened sea, without having any idea what they meant.

But you didn’t need to know how something worked to smash it. Keskodai focused his magic and pushed.

The gray doubled over, screaming soundlessly as Keskodai’s spell surged through its neurons, scrambling synapses. Keskodai felt a momentary pang of regret—then plastered over it with the memory of what these creatures had done on Thersius 4. He pushed again, expanding his mental presence inside the creature’s skull, inflating until there was no room for anything else.

The creature gave a final twitch and collapsed to the ground.

Keskodai gasped and let the magic drop, grabbing the console for support as his mind dizzily readjusted to being back in his own body. He put one hand to Chk Chk’s canister—safely intact.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Keskodai said.

Chk Chk responded with a wave of fierce pride.

Keskodai tapped the canister in negation. “No, Chk Chk. That wasn’t good. Necessary, perhaps, but never good. Minds are sacred—they’re what make each of us unique. To shatter one like that, even in self-defense, is to take a sledgehammer to a cathedral.”

Chk Chk’s response was dubious, the telepathic sentiment accompanied by a rare image flash: Pharasma’s spiral, glowing in the air above Keskodai’s head.

The message was clear: if the Lady of Graves was content to let Keskodai take lives, then so was Chk Chk.

Keskodai’s antennae drooped in a sigh. He’d been worrying about this more and more, lately. Had his faith in Pharasma made Chk Chk too cavalier about death? Of course he couldn’t expect a larva to understand when it was acceptable to cut short a life, the differences between a death that furthered Pharasma’s plan and one that furthered your own. All the child saw was a father grown comfortable with killing.

Keskodai had never wanted to indoctrinate the child. Show him the galaxy, yes, and teach him as best he could, but it was crucial that Chk Chk feel free to walk his own path.

And one day, no doubt, he would. He’d leave Keskodai behind, the same way Keskodai had left his own parents. After years of constant company, Keskodai would be truly alone once more.

But there was no time to worry about that now. Keskodai hurried to the operating table. With the gray’s death, the robotic arms had gone limp—psychically driven, perhaps? That could be useful in Keskodai’s own medical bay. But he yanked them free, casting his senses down into the man’s flesh and letting the healing magic flow.

Except that it wasn’t needed. The man—their contact, who had called himself Averly—seemed perfectly healthy. Whatever the gray had implanted in him, it didn’t seem to be harming him. He didn’t even seem to be sedated, by any conventional or magical means.

Yet he didn’t wake at Keskodai’s touch. Keskodai shook him harder, slapping him gently on the cheeks, then less gently. He even spat on a battery and pressed its contact points to the man’s skin, shocking him. Yet still the man slept.

And now, Keskodai thought to himself, we set another bad example...

“Chk Chk,” he said. “Remember what I said about minds being sacred? That’s why you should normally never invade a friend’s without their consent. But sometimes, we must hurt to heal.”

And with that, he dove once again into the mind of another.

This intrusion was gentler—an attempt to read a book, not tear out its pages. The comatose man’s thoughts were a familiar human structure, yet in some ways that made the content stranger. The man wasn’t quite asleep, but neither was he awake. His thoughts routed around the edges of strange, artificial holes. Yet certain images recurred. A face... a ship...

A warning. Keskodai broke contact and cued his coms. “Raia?”

“Keskodai! Did it work? Is our contact okay?”

Keskodai looked down at the comatose man, locked inside his alien dreams.

“After a fashion,” he said. “But listen—we need to get back to Navasi and the others. Immediately.”

He could feel her come alert. “Why?”

Keskodai lifted the unconscious man in his arms and turned toward the door.

“Because I know who they’re going after next.”

About the Author

James L. Sutter is a former Starfinder Creative Director and Executive Editor of the Pathfinder Tales novels. In addition to foundational work on both Pathfinder and Starfinder, he’s also written award-winning novels, comics, video games, and short stories. You can find him at jameslsutter.com or on Twitter at @jameslsutter. His Pathfinder Tales novels, Death’s Heretic and The Redemption Engine, are available now.

About Iconic Encounters

Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

Iseph crept through the empty museum, footsteps soundless on the tiled floor. All around the android, monsters loomed—alien creatures propped up in glass-walled display cases, their exhibits pumped full of inert gas to prevent the corpses' decay. In the dim emergency lighting, some of them almost looked alive. But of course that wasn't how places like this worked.

Iseph paused at the entrance to their destination. Pulling the tube from their belt, they blew a soft puff of dust through the doorway.

Laser lit up red, crisscrossing the small room. Iseph made a mental map of their locations, burning them into short-term memory even as the dust drifted to the floor and they disappeared again.

Bending low, Iseph slithered beneath the first laser, then arched high over the second. Of course, the android's cloaking field could bend lasers without breaking them, the same way it was currently foiling the thermal imaging cameras, and would have beaten the visual spectrum cameras if Iseph hadn't already hacked them to loop the footage. But Iseph had a certain level of professional pride, and laser tripwires were novice stuff—the sort of thing you put in because it looked impressive to clients, not because it deterred professionals. Dancing around them was so easy it was almost insulting. But of course the museum's security couldn't have known whom they'd be dealing with.

Illustration by Alberto Dal Lago

The crystal stood alone atop a display pedestal, glowing softly. Inside its cylindrical viewing case, it balanced incongruously on a single metal point, its lower half an elaborate setting of wires and circuitry.

Rerouting the arcano-electric security seal on the case itself was more of a challenge, but still too easy for someone of Iseph's skill. The android added the appropriate relays, synched them, and popped the case free.

With nothing left between Iseph and the crystal, the android considered the pedestal's pressure sensor. It was a classic mechanism—the sort of thing you saw everywhere from ancient temples to modern bank vaults—yet still remarkably difficult to deal with. The era when you could just swap in a similarly sized rock as you snatched away the treasure was long gone, if it had ever truly existed.

Iseph knew the right tool for the job—a specialized lifter-and-pump mechanism that you anchored outside the pressure sensor, then attached to your target. The pump drew up liquid from a reservoir in the anchor, inflating a sack atop the sensor at the exact same rate as the crane arm lifted the prize free, making sure the weight remained constant. But it was expensive, and by necessity single-use. Iseph couldn't be expected to have one on hand.

It was a perfectly reasonable test to fail, yet something about it stuck in Iseph's craw. It was just so pedestrian. If—

A glint at the crystal's base caught their eye. There—a single metal flake, its color slightly off from its surroundings.

Iseph smiled. A magnetic proximity alarm. Electromagnetic sensors inside the pedestal would be calibrated to the alloy of that tag, sensing its exact composition and distance. Move it, and you'd disrupt the invisible magnetic fields and trigger the alarm.

And Iseph almost hadn't seen it. Here, at last, was some quality security work. Getting past it would require time and finesse.

Iseph snatched the crystal off its pedestal.

Alarms blared, accompanied by the clangs of security gates slamming down across exits throughout the museum. Iseph dropped their cloaking field, briefly considered waving to the thermal cameras, then sprinted back through the exhibits.

Security guards came rushing through the main entrance just as Iseph neared it—two humans, a ysoki, and a full half-dozen humanoid security bots, all positioned between the android and the exit. They didn't even give a warning, just opened fire with arc emitters and pulsecasters, the air humming and crackling with electricity.

Well, that isn't very professional. Iseph dove for shelter behind an exhibit featuring some sort of star-nosed lizard. The android drew their own pistol and leaned out to return fire, winging one of the humans.

It was tempting to keep firing—to show them all just who they were dealing with. But nine was probably too many, even for Iseph, and besides, the android had promised: only enough combat to sell it. Which meant it was time for the hard part.

This is going to hurt. Wincing in anticipation, Iseph slipped the crystal into an armored pouch, then stood and darted around the corner, straight for one of the patrol bots.

The blast caught Iseph full in the chest, sending them sprawling as electricity overloaded circuits and set muscles twitching. Someone kicked the gun from Iseph's hand, and then the android was staring up at a circle of angry faces and mirrored robotic lenses.

The human Iseph had shot clutched at his injured shoulder. “An android?” he snarled. “I'd have thought one of you half-bots would be too smart to try stealing from the Galactic Heritage Foundation.” He patted Iseph down roughly, eyebrows rising as he pulled the crystal from its case. “The Songstone! You've got a good eye, for a thief.”

“I'm not the thief here.” Iseph pointed at the Songstone. “That crystal stores the psychic memories of the Parelnesi tribes going back a thousand generations—their whole culture is in there! It doesn't belong in a museum.”

“That's exactly why it belongs in a museum,” the guard snapped. “That kind of history is too valuable to leave on some backwater world. Besides, they obviously couldn't protect it.”

“No,” Iseph acknowledged with a nod. “But they could hire somebody to get it back.”

The guard smirked. “And look how well that went.”

Iseph matched his smile. “I don't know, I think it's going pretty well.”

The ysoki guard wrinkled her snout. “How do you figure?”

As if on cue, the six security bots swiveled in unison, pointing their weapons at the guards.

Over the museum's intercom, a familiar voice said, “Weapons down, please.”

“What?” The lead guard gaped, pistol hanging loose as he stared down the barrels of his robots' arc emitters.

“You didn't really think I tripped your alarm by accident, did you?” Iseph stood, shaking out the last pins and needles of the stun bolt. The android reached out and plucked the crystal from the guard's grip. “I just needed to lure you all away from the security station long enough for the others to get in there and work their magic.”

The intercom clicked on once more, ringing with Raia's smooth tones.

“The museum is now closed,” she announced. “All jewel thieves, please proceed to the nearest exit...”

About the Author
James L. Sutter is a former Starfinder Creative Director and Executive Editor of the Pathfinder Tales novels. In addition to foundational work on both Pathfinder and Starfinder, he’s also written award-winning novels, comics, video games, and short stories. You can find him at jameslsutter.com or on Twitter at @jameslsutter. His Pathfinder Tales novels, Death’s Heretic and The Redemption Engine, are available now.

About Iconic Encounters
Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

“‘Fix the shuttle,’ she says. ‘It’s only a little banged up,’ she says.” Angry clanging noises came from beneath the deck, followed by Quig’s face popping up out of the engineering access bay. He waved a spanner angrily. “Next time Navasi wants to sign us up for a salvage mission, she can patch the junker, and I’ll stay on the Maiden and watch for pirates!”

Altronus stared down from the hallway, both sets of arms crossed. “I’m sure the captain was just expressing confidence in your abilities.”

“Yeah?” Grease-smeared ears twitched above Quig’s mask. “Well I’m sure that this rustbucket isn’t going anywhere without a miracle. I’ve wired together every battery we’ve got to charge the capacitors, but the reactor containment field is totally shot. If I fire it up without the magnetic bottle in place, they’ll be finding pieces of us all the way out on Aucturn.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Sure. You can tell our fearless leader that unless she wants to abandon our score to the rest of the jackals, we’re gonna remain stranded on a barren rock approximately three times the size of my furry brown ass, with no way to call in a tow because—oh yeah—this whole job is technically illegal.” The spanner made another wild circle, nearly clipping Altronus’s knee. “I swear by my grandmother’s tail, I—”

“Anything else I can do? To help with the repairs?”

Quig sighed and let the spanner droop. “Go outside and get a look at the right main thruster for me. Let me know if the nozzle housing looks intact.”

“Right.” Grateful for the chance to escape the ysoki’s incessant, undignified complaining, Altronus walked to the hatch and cycled the airlock.

The air beyond was thin, and bitterly cold. The sarcesian colonists who had once tried to make this asteroid habitable had long since abandoned the project, and Altronus’s lungs burned with strain and frost as he struggled to process what little air their machines had left behind.

Yet as it always did, the nearness to vacuum soothed him even as it stung. Out here, there was no barrier between him and the cosmos. The cold he felt was the same cold that wrapped the stars. The song of the Cycle hummed in his veins like background radiation.

He walked around to the back of the shuttle. From the outside, the damage looked worse—for all Altronus’s faith in the captain, he had to admit that Quig had a point. The fact that they were even close to getting the thing flying again was a testament to the ysoki’s skill. He reached up with his highhands and hauled himself easily up into the engine’s darkened mouth.

“Quig? Altronus?” Navasi’s voice crackled over coms. “Are you still at the shuttle?”

“Where else would we be?” Quig snapped. “Listen, Captain, this thing—”

“Stow it. Raia’s got life forms on scanners. Half a dozen of them, moving fast in your direction. Raia and I will intercept as many as we can with the Maiden, but some of them will reach you before we do.”

“Acknowledged, Captain.” Altronus turned and leapt down from the engine, his descent gruelingly slow in the meager gravity. “How much time do we have?”

But the answer was already coming over the crater’s rim: three round-shelled creatures, their front ends writhing masses of tentacles, two of which were longer than the others and heavily scaled. They skimmed along like antigrav speeders above the asteroid’s surface, their shells glimmering metallically in the light of Altronus’s mote. One instant they were at the ridge, and the next they were at the shuttle’s side—halfway between Altronus and the hatch.

Illustration by Alyssa McCarthy

“Altronus!” Quig appeared in the open airlock. “Get in here!”

“Working on it,” Altronus muttered. Then he stepped forward, careful not to launch himself off the asteroid’s surface, and raised his voice.

“Greetings, friends.” He lifted all four hands in what he hoped was a universal sign of peace. Would tentacled creatures even recognize the gesture? Raia would probably know. “I mean you no harm. My name is Altronus Barasul Dovenayan, a kasatha of House—”

A distortion rippled across the creatures’ shells, blue lines that weren’t quite lightning tracing down their tentacles.

Altronus froze. “Easy, friends. I—”

The creatures pulsed.

Altronus flew forward, dragged off his feet by some invisible force. He landed in the dust and rolled, barely avoiding lashes from the closest creature’s main tentacles. He yanked his pistol free of its holster, but the creatures pulsed again. This time, the pull on his body was weak enough that he could brace against it, but the gun lurched from his hand, slapping against the side of the creature’s shell and sticking there like—

Of course. Magnets! Now that he had the idea in his head, he could feel the variation in the pull—the force exerted on the metal components of his armor, but none on the plates themselves. If he squinted, he could see the lines of magnetic fields around the creatures, dust-like metallic fines from the asteroid’s surface forming a cloud that pulsed like breath.

Quig’s swearing flooded the coms. Altronus looked over and saw the ysoki splayed out across one of the creature’s shells, pinned to it by his junkyard of a spacesuit.

Beneath his scarf, Altronus smiled.

The creatures thought they’d disarmed him. They didn’t realize that the gun was just a tool.

Altronus was the weapon.

He stilled his mind, letting the false divisions between him and the universe fall away.

He was not Altronus. He was not kasatha. He was matter: forged in the heart of a star, pulling and pulled by every atom in the cosmic dance. He was energy: uncreateable, undestroyable, a momentary configuration of an eternal process.

He was everything. He was nothing.

And he was going to wipe the floor with these worm-faced bastards.

He stretched his consciousness down, into the asteroid, finding the thread of its gravitational pull and strengthening it. This time, when the creatures pulsed, he stood firm, tethered to the rock’s surface. With his lowright hand, he reached up and grabbed his mote, feeling the white-hot stellar energy distending into its familiar blade.

There was a sharp pop, like an electrical arc, and something slammed into Altronus’s side, spinning him halfway around. He looked down at the metallic barb protruding from his armor, and had just enough time to think the word harpoon before the creature pulsed again. The force yanked him sideways, threatening to rip him in two as the creature’s magnetic tether competed with his own gravitational anchor.

Well, one of those he could control. He dropped the anchor, lurching through the air toward the barb-thrower, stellar blade extended. The sudden rush caught the creature off-guard, and alien eyes widened as the blade struck home. The creature thrashed, tentacles sliding across Altronus’s armor as he slid his glowing blade free and thrust again. And again.

The creature’s strange antigravity cut out, dropping them both to the ground. Before Altronus could regain his feet, new tentacles wrapped him up from behind, pinning his arms to his sides.

The thing’s grip was like industrial machinery, the coiled tentacles crushing. Trying hard to ignore creaking bones and empty lungs, Altronus cast his mind out to Mataras, the blazing sun at the heart of the Pact Worlds. Delving down into its flaming seas, he made his consciousness a conduit, and let the fire flow.

Flames burst from his body in all directions, a tiny supernova burning tentacles to ash. He spun, chest heaving as the pressure around it relented, and brought his blade up.

The creature lay flat against the ground, charred tentacles twitching spasmodically. Off to one side, Quig stood next to the corpse of his own attacker, yanking tools free from its shell.

Alien eyes rolled in terror as Altronus pinned his beast to the rock with one foot, placing the tip of his blade inches from its eye.

Altronus coughed. “Let’s try this again, friend. I mean you no harm. And you don’t mean me any harm either, do you?” He waggled the blade.

The creature stared up at him, but made no move to protest. It just lay there, its shell wrapped in softly pulsing lines of magnetic fields.

Magnetic fields. Altronus turned to his companion. “Quig. Is the reactor’s magnetic containment still broken?”

“Yeah, why?”

Altronus stared down into the creature’s eyes.

“Because I’ve got a crazy idea.”

About the Author

James L. Sutter is a former Starfinder Creative Director and Executive Editor of the Pathfinder Tales novels. In addition to foundational work on both Pathfinder and Starfinder, he’s also written award-winning novels, comics, video games, and short stories. You can find him at jameslsutter.com or on Twitter at @jameslsutter. His Pathfinder Tales novels, Death’s Heretic and The Redemption Engine are available now.

About Iconic Encounters

Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

They were talking about the dragon.

Uguro flattened himself against the rocky outcropping and bellied closer, using his elbows to scoot along the rough ground. The rocks bit into his bruises, but he pushed back the pain and kept quiet.

“— but there are no dragons in Taldor! There haven’t been for centuries! Why, the Dragon Plague was well over two thousand years ago, and since then our glorious dragonslayers —” The voice was older, male, full of affronted privilege. A noble, Uguro decided, and one unaccustomed to taking bad news.

The other speaker was determined to make him swallow it. This voice was female, younger, and glossed with a foreign accent that did nothing to disguise its sharp exasperation. “Eovras, when did the Dragon Plague end?”

“3672 Absalom Reckoning, my lady.” That was a new speaker. Younger still, and male.

Uguro eased forward, daring to poke his head around the nearest outcropping. Now he could see them. All three wore armor, but they could hardly have looked more different.

The gray-haired noble had been squeezed into a gilded suit of ornate, old-fashioned plate that had obviously been made for someone broader in the shoulder and trimmer at the waist. He faced off against a brown-haired woman in battered but well-maintained plate and a clean-cut younger man who appeared to be an… apprentice knight. Squire?

The woman shook her head. “It appears the good baron’s recollection was off by a bit. Would you consider the events of ‘well over two thousand years ago’ sufficient to deter a dragon from trespassing into the barony within the past few days?”

The young knight—Eovras—bowed his head. “I could not say, my lady.”

“I can.” Uguro’s interjection startled even himself. He flinched, almost losing his grip on the outcropping, as their eyes flew up to him. The apprentice knight and the baron startled visibly. Only the woman seemed unsurprised. Had she known he was there?

Swallowing, Uguro climbed down the steep rock and stood before them. He straightened his tunic uselessly, all too aware that the rough cloth was scorched and full of holes, and that he himself was a barefoot, grubby miner’s cast-off. But he had to tell them.

“It was a dragon. My lords. My lady. It was—it was a dragon.” Suddenly Uguro’s eyes were full of tears, hot and glassy. His chest ached, and it was as hard to breathe as it had been when the dragon had raked the stony earth with fire, sucking all the air from his lungs. It was as if speaking the beast’s name had brought those terrible moments back.

“It was a dragon,” he managed to say again, and then he broke into shuddering sobs. He couldn’t stop them. He was thirteen.

“Show us,” said the woman.

---

Streaks of fire had plumed across the miner’s camp, driving down with such fury that the hard earth was furrowed at the center of each blast. Gravel-pocked glass cracked under Uguro’s steps as he led the woman and her companions into the ruins. They’d given him boots to protect his bare feet, but he could still feel the echoes of fire through the thin-worn soles.

The ferocious heat had cracked rocks and melted iron tools into rippled puddles, but it had passed so quickly that the camp garden’s turnips, sheathed by damp soil, were perfectly sound under their crisped black tops. The woman, Cirra, pulled one up to examine it, then carefully replanted it. As if someone might someday want to harvest that turnip, and she wouldn’t be responsible for its waste.

Such strange people. Caring for turnips, when…

“They died here.” Uguro pointed, unnecessarily. The dining hall, once the camp’s largest building, was a smoking ruin. Outside its blackened doorframe, the miners’ boots were still lined up in a neat, untouched row. The dragon had made them take off their shoes before it had herded them inside. Its idea of a joke, demanding that the miners show proper respect to a graveyard.

A detritus of personal letters and charred keepsakes fluttered around the boots like fallen leaves. The dragon had taken those, too. Had read the letters aloud, one by one, mocking the misspellings and the triteness of the sentiments before it torched mementoes and owners alike. Uguro had watched from afar, hidden, struck breathless by the creature’s cruelty as much as by its grandeur.

He didn’t tell the strangers this. But he saw the woman stoop to pick up a letter, and saw her mouth harden as she studied it, and he knew that she knew what the dragon had done.

She folded the letter up and tucked it respectfully into an empty boot.

Such strange people.

“What do you think?” Eovras asked the woman.

“I don’t know,” Cirra admitted. “The intensity of the firestrikes, the size of the claw prints… I’m not saying this is Daralathyxl’s work, but —”

Eovras’s eyes widened. “You really think —”

“No, but only because I don’t think the Sixth King of the Mountains would bother with a mining camp in some Taldan backwater.” Cirra caught Uguro looking at them and shrugged apologetically. “No insult meant.”

Uguro couldn’t imagine why he should be insulted. The mining camp was a backwater. And he didn’t understand the attack either. “Why would a dragon come to us?”

“I don’t —” Cirra began, but a cry from the baron’s tents interrupted her answer.

“Dragon!”

A moment later, it came again, carried by new voices. Then the screams became higher and more frantic, and then they were eclipsed by the sound of Uguro’s nightmares.

First the vast, crackling hiss of the exhalation, then the hollow, unreal roar of the flames igniting with such fury that the air itself seemed to writhe and burn, and then —

— then everything else. The screams of horses and knights afire, the desperate shouts of surviving commanders trying to restore order, the chorus of smaller fires spun off by the initial conflagration.

Leaving the others behind, Cirra ran toward the noise. The baron and the apprentice knight hurried after her, and after a frantic, frozen hesitation, Uguro ran after them too. The only thing he feared more than the dragon was the idea of facing it alone.

Illustration by Tomasz Chistowski

Fire, smoke, and confusion had seized the baron’s outriders. The lingering panic of the dragon’s presence poisoned the air. It prickled the small hairs along Uguro’s neck and stung his nose like acrid smoke.

Then he felt a lurching surge of terror and knew even before he looked up that the dragon was wheeling around again.

It was immense. Redder than rubies, redder than blood, and then abruptly black as its wings swallowed the sun. The sight turned Uguro’s bowels to water. He didn’t understand how the knights could spur themselves toward it, but somehow they did.

Cirra had found a horse somewhere. She was waving a sword and shouting something, but Uguro couldn’t make out the words. Then he saw the dragon dive toward her, its jaws unhinged to loose another blast of doom.

Rocks took the flames. Somehow Cirra had dodged behind an outcropping. And now Uguro saw what she’d done, distracting the beast so that the cooks and cobblers and other camp civilians could take cover. They’d been directly in the dragon’s original path and would surely have gone up in flame if she hadn’t drawn it away.

Cirra came out from around the rock, calling another challenge, but this time the dragon didn’t take her bait. The baron had come charging at the beast, his retinue behind him, and the dragon turned to meet them instead.

For a moment, the baron was resplendent in his bravery. Sunlight sparked off his ornate gilt armor. The knights’ thundering charge looked like a storybook illustration, all plumes and banners and white horses.

Then the dragon exhaled.

The baron’s breastplate, glowing with magic, withstood the inferno. Nothing else did. The knights’ armor melted like candlewax. Their horses screamed. Their plumes and banners disappeared into ashes, and chaos swallowed their line. And what fell from the baron’s smoking breastplate, headless and legless, was grisly indeed.

Lazily the dragon snaked through the rubble and plucked the baron’s breastplate from the ground. Snarling its triumph to the smoke-stained sky, it slit the leather straps with a twist, as if it were shucking an oyster. Then it held the broken armor high over its mouth, opened its jaws wide, and swallowed the half-cooked morsel with a loud snap of relish.

Hidden behind a rock, Uguro doubled over, his eyes wide in horror and the heavy wash of dragonfear. He clapped his hands over his mouth, trying not to retch. It was a losing battle.

Then reassurance flowed through him, strong and certain, easing his terror. Cirra’s hand was on his shoulder. She motioned for him to stay down as she crouched beside him, watching the dragon feast on its kills.

“What—why,” Uguro stammered. “Why did this happen?”

Cirra answered in a rough whisper. Her eyes were still tracking the dragon. “I don’t know. That isn’t Daralathyxl. It’s big enough, but… it doesn’t have the scars. That isn’t any great red I know.”

“What will you do now?”

“We will retreat. Our first duty is to lead the survivors to safety. Then we’ll find out who this dragon is, and why it came. When we’re properly prepared, and armed with more than just courage, we’ll act.”

“You will?” The idea of standing against that thing…

“We will.” Cirra glanced at him with a hint of a smile, despite their circumstances. “If you want. If you’re ready. But for now, our duty is to the survivors. So we’ll go. Quietly. Carefully. You know the trails here, don’t you? Help us find our way out.”

“Yes.” Uguro nodded. His throat was still dry, but he was glad to help. It made him feel braver. Brave enough to imagine doing more, someday. “Yes. This way.” He swallowed. “For now.”

Liane Merciel
Contributing Author

The cards were going mad.

Irhina felt their agitation thrumming through her tiny sea cabin. It was a sharp, jangled vibration, like a dozen out-of-tune instruments all bleating different songs. Something was coming, some great weight that sat on destiny’s weaving and bent all the skeins of fate toward itself.

Shivering, Irhina went to the porthole. All was dark through the bleary glass, save for the rough shapes of heaving waves barely illumined by a cloudy and uncertain moon. Distant lightning flashed through the heavy-bellied clouds. The storm was nearly upon them.

The Sea Falcon bucked and dipped as another wave slammed into it. Irhina's Harrow deck tumbled from the table. Nine cards spilled across the cabin's well-worn rug.

Irhina's skin prickled. There were no accidents in a Harrow deck. No coincidences, no mistakes. Only amateurs could indulge such comfortable fantasies, and it had been many, many years since Irhina had believed them.

Not since she'd been claimed by this very deck, in fact.

Irhina shivered again. That had been a bad night. Fire, screams, confusion. The Harrow deck's folded-paper box, sodden with her uncle's warm blood, crumbling and spilling the lacquered cards into her hands. The stinging thrill of magic against her skin, unwanted but impossible to refuse.

Then—a heavy duty, and a hard life. Years of loneliness with little laughter. Those memories would swallow her easily, if she let them.

She didn't. Here and now, she had a storm to survive.

The cards had spilled into a rough square on the cabin floor. In a traditional reading, they would have been dealt into three neat rows of three: past, present, and future, with the pattern centered on a role card. Tonight, however, they'd formed a different pattern on the shabby red rug. The cards had fallen into a sequence of three by three, but the rows were interleaved, with no clean breaks between past, present, or future. Some of the cards were not only reversed, but thrown sideways, one image interrupting or obscuring another.

The Midwife. The Big Sky. The Brass Dwarf askew: invulnerability under threat. The Carnival and The Demon's Lantern bridged by The Tangled Briar: trickery and illusion on one side, malicious deception on another, and a bloody history that gripped them together—but whether that meant their shared history was the key to unlocking their deceit, or merely signified that some great lie had continued unbroken for ages, was impossible for Irhina to read.

Ordinarily, a role card would have guided her through the conflicting interpretations. The role card, like a story's protagonist, created clarity from a jumble of conflicting elements by providing perspective and narrative structure. Even in a spontaneous reading, there should have been a role card set out to anchor the other symbols in its orbit.

But here there was none. No central figure, no guide toward meaning. Irhina's fingers danced lightly over the cards, signaling her question. The vibration she received in response was unmistakable: the deck did not hold that answer.

There was only the chaos of future-past-present, all knotted together and writhing senselessly. She could as easily have tried to read the future from a bed of snakes.

She swept the Harrow cards back into their box, ignoring the protest that prickled across her palms, and left her cramped cabin. Storm or no storm, she needed air.

Above decks, the storm hadn't broken. A strange yellow pall suffused the clouds' dark bellies, shocking erratically brighter as lightning spidered across the sky. The great golden dome of Crystilan glittered in the distance, reflecting the same eerie stormlight from its perch above the coast's wave-lashed cliffs.

No, Irhina realized. Crystilan wasn't reflecting the light. It was the source of that eerie, dazzling glow. And the glow was intensifying, moment by moment, spilling ribbons of yellow light across the sea and tinting the waves' white froth toward saffron. Luminous ripples raced across the dome's immense interior, fracturing into runic shapes that strained to create whirling diagrams before they shattered apart.

Illustration by Federico Musetti

She wasn't the only one mesmerized by the sight. Other passengers had come up to watch it with her: a Tian woman, a Keleshite man, an Ustalavic nobleman in a fine cuffed shirt whose shaggy, bestial features made her wonder if his line was cursed with lycanthropy. It wouldn't have surprised her. The Sea Falcon charged exorbitant rates, but it carried anyone who could afford them, and it ran swiftly to destinations that other ships avoided.

She wondered if one of those passengers had paid for the Sea Falcon to pass this close to Crystilan. The Thassilonian ruin had mystified scholars for millennia. Within the great crystal dome, an entire empty city stood perfectly preserved, untouched by time and impossible to reach. Most assumed that the city and its people had fallen victim to some ancient archmage's curse, and superstitious sailors tended to swing wide around it, afraid of being snared.

Irhina had always thought that a foolish fancy, but now she wasn't so sure. The city under crystal had always been eerie, but now it felt different, aware and more intensely menacing, in a way she'd never sensed before. It was as if some power within the dome was awakening, and was beginning to look upon its surroundings with envious and hungry eyes. A malevolent power, she was sure, though she couldn't say why.

Beneath the Sea Falcon, the sea was lit up from within, so that it seemed they sailed on a lake of molten gold. Lightning flashed from cloud to cloud, faster with each stroke, always strangely soundless—

—until a stroke of thunder cracked overhead with such ferocity that Irhina quailed.

Another sounded, and another, and Irhina realized that it wasn't thunder at all. Crystilan itself was breaking. Massive fissures cracked the gleaming dome. Shivering slabs of crystal tumbled into the sea, throwing up geysers of saltwater and splintered stone that shook the Sea Falcon from afar.

And inside the long-vacant city beneath Crystilan, Irhina could see the tiny, impossible figures of… of people. Some were human-sized, tiny at this distance. Others towered above them, so huge that they must surely be giants. She could make out no details of language or dress, but the sight of them filled her with unreasoning fear.

“What is it?” the maybe-werewolf nobleman muttered beside her. His thick dark nails dug into the railing's salt-spattered wood. He looked half a monster, but in that moment Irhina felt a sudden sense of solidarity with him. If he was a monster, he was at least a monster she knew.

“Upheaval,” Irhina said. “The future tangled into the past, and the past into the future. The cards gave me a reading, and now it begins to come clear. The old will clash with the new, and the new with the old.”

“But what does it mean?” The nobleman's eyes glowed yellow as he turned toward Irhina.

“The cards are but cards,” she told him. “They do not know who the role card in this tale will be. So, in this, they can tell us no meaning. That is for us to find.”

“Or whoever's in there,” the nobleman said, looking back at the tiny figures in the dome.

“Yes.” Irhina clasped her arms against a renewed chill of apprehension. “Or whoever's in there.”

Liane Merciel
Contributing Author

“There. Yes. Those two.” Excitement, wet and thick, curdled Chemurr’s voice. She coughed and swallowed noisily, but she was too agitated to keep the phlegm worms from crawling back up. Her swollen fingers clenched around Gaiter’s arm. “Come, boy.”

Gaiter pulled back. He knew it was stupid, dangerous. You didn’t annoy Chemurr ever, but especially not when she got like this. He hated the phlegm worms, though. Hated them too much to be smart, sometimes.

“How—how do you know?” He made the question tremulous, fearful, hoping Chemurr would be satisfied enough with his terror that she wouldn’t demand more. It wasn’t a stretch. Gaiter really was frightened half out of his mind. “Did the Great Master tell you so?”

“The Great Master doesn’t have to tell me that, boy.” Chemurr’s grip tightened with her scorn. Her fingers squelched against Gaiter’s bones. “I can smell it on them. The stink of delusion. Thinking that what they do matters.” Her nostrils flared, sniffing, and a phlegm worm dropped out.

Gaiter flinched. He couldn’t help it. Nor could he help looking at the thing that squirmed across the cobblestones, fat and segmented and slimy, its skin whorled with runes that shimmered with greasy, unreal colors and made his eyes ache. He tore his gaze away, hastily, his eyes burning with tears.

If the light had been better, he knew, he’d have been able to see a pink tinge on his fingers as he dashed those tears away. Blood. His eyes were filmed with it, just from a glimpse of a phlegm worm. A longer look, and he might have gone blind. Mad. Worse.

It didn’t bear thinking about. Trying to ignore the grub, Gaiter studied the figures Chemurr had pointed out. There were two, cloaked and hooded despite the warmth of Egorian’s summer night. They moved quickly, but with a burdened caution that suggested they were carrying some fragile or heavy contraband beneath those cloaks.

He couldn’t smell anything from them, but that wasn’t a surprise. The hooded figures were fifty feet away, and Chemurr and Gaiter were crowded into the recesses of a stinking, unlit alley, hidden by shadows and the Great Master’s magic. All he could smell was stale urine, rotting fish, and Chemurr’s thick breath, fouler than the rest.

The hooded figures had stopped. The street around them was momentarily empty. Quickly, they tossed back their cloaks and drew out… a covered bucket and… paintbrushes? Gaiter squinted and leaned forward.

One of them pulled a collapsible ladder from under his cloak, shimmying to the top and balancing with impressive dexterity as he painted a pair of silvery-blue crossed swords over a banner displaying the red-circled cross of Infernal Cheliax. The other held the paint bucket and dipped the brushes, handing them up to her partner.

“Why, they’re rebels,” Gaiter blurted, too astonished to keep the thought to himself. He didn’t recognize the mark, but no one else would dare deface Imperial insignia. Rebels. In Egorian! Perhaps the devilers’ control wasn’t as absolute as he’d believed.

“Rebels and devils, devils and rebels,” Chemurr crooned, as if she could read Gaiter’s thoughts. She gurgled a wet laugh, audibly swallowing another phlegm worm in the middle of it. “Yes. That’s all anyone thinks about here. They chase each other round and round, and everyone forgets about us. Just as the Great Master wants it. Oh—here come the devils now.”

A Hellknight patrol had spotted the painters. They shouted a warning, made unnecessary by the clatter of their heavy spiked armor. As good as alarm bells, that armor. The rebels tossed their brushes aside, leaving a final swipe of blue across the defaced banner, jumped down from the ladder, and ran.

Illustration by Tomasz Chistowski

The Hellknights hadn’t a prayer of catching the light-footed vandals. Gaiter was astonished that they could run at all in that massive, spiked plate, let alone so quickly, but even so they were falling behind by the second.

They knew it too. One of the Hellknights blew a carved bone whistle. The whistle was soundless, but the bone-prickling baying of hellhounds rang out in response. Three of the infernal beasts came rushing to join their armored masters, their fire-wreathed bodies swift and bright in Egorian’s dark night. They pursued the fleeing rebels relentlessly, gaining ground as quickly as the Hellknights had lost it.

“Now,” Chemurr hissed as soon as the Hellknights were past their alley.

“Now?” Gaiter balked again. Twice in the same night. He really was tempting fate, pushing back on Chemurr like this.

But the Hellknights were still in sight—they’d only have to turn around to spot him—and he’d seen what the Chelaxians did to the Great Master’s servants. Despite everything else Gaiter had seen, everything else he’d done, those screams stayed with him. There was a reason they’d stayed out of Thrune lands so long. The devilers could be as cruel as the Great Master himself, and their questions were as sharp as their knives.

“Now.” Chemurr’s fingers tightened so hard on Gaiter’s arm that one of them burst, soaking his sleeve with wriggling slime. “While the rebels and the devils are distracted with each other. Or do you not wish to accomplish our Great Master’s work?”

Gaiter swallowed, nodded, and ran.

Darting up the ladder that the rebels had left behind, Gaiter swept one of the discarded brushes across the blue swords, working the changes he’d seen in his dreams. Subtle alterations made more so by the Great Master’s will. A curl here, a swish in the brush texture that suggested an almost-word there, a fold between the overlapping red and blue that suggested some other color, an un-combination, an unraveling of the others that allowed a tiny, tantalizing glimpse beyond their mundane reality.

He climbed down. Sweat soaked his shirt. That was bloody too, just as his tears had been before. He could smell the meat-and-iron taint of it. The Great Master’s presence was too terrible for his poor mortal servants to withstand.

“Good.” Chemurr stood at the base of the ladder, looking up with satisfaction. Her hood had fallen back a bit, showing a bit of her face.

Gaiter swallowed again, shuddering. The Great Master’s presence was terrible indeed.

“Will it… catch the Hellknights?” He wasn’t sure whether to dread or hope for that. The snare he’d woven felt too fragile to catch a will like theirs.

“No.” Chemurr’s snort was choked by another worm. “Those mighty knights don’t scrub vandals’ paint themselves. They’ll send slaves. Halflings. The resentful, the powerless. Fertile soil for the Great Master’s secrets to seed. But…” She trailed off. The silence stretched into squirming discomfort.

Suddenly Chemurr’s hand shot out. Her fingers squelched around Gaiter’s face, muffling his screams even as they pried his jaw open. The swollen pustules in her palm split open, filling his mouth with the wet slurry of her dissolving humanity and with phlegm worms.

They poured into him. Writhing, biting, burning, melting. Gaiter felt his throat corrode into red melt, and then he was swallowing that too, desperately, trying to keep from drowning in his own dying flesh. His legs swelled together and burst, puddling into slurry as the worms coursed through the liquefaction and smeared it like ink across the ground.

And then he couldn’t feel anything. He could still hear and could see the banners that his eyes had fixed upon before they’d stopped moving or blinking, but he felt nothing. Only dread, and a last distant knot of pain somewhere in his chest, aching as it faded. His heart, maybe. His soul, before the phlegm worms ate it.

Chemurr laughed. She was licking her palm to seal it up again. A sound he knew too well. “Traitor boy. Did you think the Great Master couldn’t sniff out your delusions, too? That you would escape. That you would repent. No matter. Even the disloyal are useful. The Hellknights don’t come to study vandals’ banners. But they’ll come for you. And the snare you are—well, you might catch one.

“Rebels and devils, devils and rebels. Playing their little games while the Great Master laughs.” Chemurr crooned, softly, as the last of Gaiter’s sight and hearing melted into roaring black and whirling, poisoned stars. Not death. Not peace. An infinity of rushing madness, a fall that never ended. And Chemurr’s voice, and the phlegm worms, forever. “While the Great Master laughs.”

Liane Merciel
Contributing Author

Hadizah stood stiffly between two other students—one a degenerate lizardfolk and the other a savage Ekujae elf—as their frail teacher Mawunyo gestured with a staff at the vine-covered towers, graceful arches, and broad towers of the Magaambya, greatest magical academy in all of the Mwangi Expanse, if not the world.

"You embark now on a life of study and service." Mawunyo's voice was rich and resonant despite his slender frame and reminded Hadizah uncomfortably of the ringing tones of the priests of the Deathless Child back home. "You have been chosen because we see great promise within you, passion and will, spirit and intellect, strength and judgment... and perhaps a few seeds of wisdom that might sprout and blossom if tended." The teacher's assistant Kweku chuckled, and Hadizah risked a glance at her. She'd been with Mawunyo for years, apparently, traveling with him to the far ends of the world (and even, some rumors said, beyond). Her robe's hem was spattered with mud and her hair was a thousand messy braids and an hour after meeting her Hadizah was more than halfway in love. Inconvenient.

Illustration by Tomasz Chistowski

Mawunyo went on. "You come from different places, but you are all children of the Expanse, as am I. We are the successors and inheritors of Old-Mage Jatembe, who taught that those who use great magic bear great responsibility, and that we must use our knowledge to better the world. I do this by teaching such as you."

"And by beating demons to death with sticks," Kweku said.

Mawunyo shrugged his bony shoulders. "When I am abroad. As needed. With sticks made especially for the purpose." He thumped his staff, which hadn't previously struck Hadizah as particularly threatening, but now did. "We need no such weapons here. Nantambu the Song-Wind City is the safest place I have ever lived."

"So safe we leave sometimes just to feel the thrill of danger," Kweku said.

Mawuonyo took no notice. "Those who mean this city harm soon discover the folly of attacking a place hundreds of mages call home. No invader has needed to learn that lesson recently. This safety gives us the freedom to learn in peace. I am here to help discover how your talents might best serve the world." He leaned on his staff and gazed at each student in turn. The instructor's eyes seemed to penetrate Hadizah's soul. Hadizah hoped they couldn't.

The old man spoke. "Tell me: once you have attained the power of which you dream, what goals do you wish to achieve?"

The lizardfolk spoke slowly, with many words in a tongue Hadizah didn't know, but the gist seemed to be something about improving prospects for the females of its species. Perhaps it was female? Hadizah had no idea how to tell. Such creatures were not common back in Mzali. Then the elf spoke, something abstract about combining arcane and druidic arts to make an alloyed magic stronger and more flexible than either alone. Mawunyo and Kweku nodded along thoughtfully during these speeches, then turned their gazes to Hadizah.

He straightened his spine and said, "I come from Mzali, home of the Deathless Child, who rules my people with fire and fear. Do you know the place?"

"I have been there," Mawunyo said. "When it was a place of fading glory, before the child mummy Walkena woke and seized control. Not since."

"Citizens are... not encouraged to leave," Hadizah said. "Walkena demands obedience and sacrifice, and his rule is cruel if you do not have his favor. There is a group, the Bright Lions, who seek to overthrow Walkena's rule and return control of the city to the living. The Lions discovered my interest in the arcane arts and offered to help me come here. They did this purely out of kindness... but I wish to return that kindness, and to turn whatever power I gain toward their cause. If left unchecked, Walkena will achieve his goal of uniting the whole of the Expanse under his burning banner. He would put even this place to the flame. I wish to prevent that."

Mawunyo and Kweku nodded at that, just as they had at the ambitious proclamations of the other students, and deep in his hidden heart Hadizah relaxed.

"Take the afternoon to familiarize yourself with your living quarters," Mawunyo said, "and at least the immediate areas of the academy nearby. I will ponder what I know of your goals and resources, and tomorrow we will meet again to discuss the first steps of your studies." He turned and walked away, using the staff more as a prop than an aid to walking, it seemed to Hadizah. Perhaps he was less frail than he seemed.

The group broke up, and Hazidah headed for his dormitory, wondering where he might find a place of privacy to record the day's events. Kweku fell into step beside him. "Mzali," she said. "You still have people there?"

"I... not really, not anymore." He thought, briefly, of fire, and ashes, and stains on stones, but pushed those images away. Actions had consequences. He would make wiser choices than his parents and siblings had. "In a way, all the people in Mzali are my people, and deserve liberation." That sounded like something a friend of the Lions would say.

"I'm sorry to hear that." She spun and started walking backwards so she could face him while she talked, effortlessly going up a set of stairs in reverse. "This place must be quite a change. Not just the change in architectural style, but all the different sorts of people, the music in the air, the absence of a pervasive atmosphere of terror...."

"It is a... most refreshing change."

Kweku nodded and preceded him through a wide and empty plaza. "I wanted to mention, there's a small but dedicated group here studying the problem of your Deathless Child Walkena. I know some people on it—there's even a Tempest-Sun Mage among them. Maybe you'd like to be introduced?"

Hazidah hesitated. He didn't know if he'd been sent to this place on orders directly from the child-god Walkena himself, as the priest who'd recruited him claimed, or if he was part of that priest's own pet project, but either way, his mission was both simple and dauntingly complex: find out the weaknesses of the academy, and discover how the mages here would deal with an invasion from Mzali, so the Deathless Child might better counter their plans. Being part of a group specifically addressing the threat of Walkena would be perfect for gathering such information, but it might also expose him to greater scrutiny, and his mission was meant to be slow, cautious, and years-long. "I am not sure I have much to offer to such a group."

"Oh, I don't know." Kweku grinned. "Having a double agent who's trusted by the Deathless Child's priests could be very advantageous for us."

Hazidah froze. His hand crept toward the interior of his robe, but Kweku snorted. "You'd lose a fight with me anyway but look up before you even try."

He quickly flicked his gaze upward, and saw something in the air above him, like a flash of sunlight on bright metal. The stories said the Tempest-Sun Mages flew high above the academy, watching for approaching threats... and they were capable of dealing with more dangerous foes than Hazidah. He lowered his hand and gazed levelly at Kweku. "I suppose I should have feigned confusion."

"Many spies would have, but this saves time. We've known about you since you first applied. The spellcraft hiding your lies is good, but we did a deeper delve into your story and found some loose threads that unraveled when we pulled on them." She stepped close to him, and he tensed, expecting an attack, but instead she looped her arm through his. "Walk with me."

"Are you taking me to be executed? Or to break my mind and make me your servant?"

"Life under the Deathless Child has not been good for you, Hazidah. You see enemies everywhere. I'm not your enemy. I'm your teacher. And what I'm going to teach you is that you're on the wrong side."

Hazidah shook his head. Loyalty was all—the foundation of every temple, the ground beneath every step, and to transgress against Walkena was to face the Punishment of Seven Angry Suns. The priest who'd recruited him had made provisions to ensure Hazidah's loyalty even if his faith faltered, though. "Even if I were swayed by your lies, my obedience is compelled by powers far beyond my will."

"Oh, yes, I know," Kweku said. "Your bindings have bindings. Those will have to be removed if we hope to make any progress." She patted him on the arm. He tried to remember the last time he'd been touched in such a friendly way. "It's a good thing we're in the greatest magical academy the world has ever known, surrounded by experts in magic, isn't it?"

His heart stirred at her touch. He'd never met anyone like her at home—she was intelligent and powerful, but she was messy, and impulsive, and outspoken. Everything he should hate: a native of the Expanse who'd been corrupted and weakened by the outside world, and who sought to bring that poison back home. And it was poison. He could pretend to play along, let them think they'd won him over to their cause while he gathered intelligence to use against them... surely there were such things as triple agents—

She stumbled on a loose stone and put her hand on his arm to steady herself... then left her hand there as they walked.

"Will you be... working with me closely?" He stared down at her fingers, curled over his forearm.

"That's the idea. I'll be your handler, Haz. We'll do great things."

Haz. His heart stirred again, and he thought: what if she corrupts me? Would it be better to fight back now, and die, still pure? Or had he pledged his allegiance to the wrong flame—the flame of his master's power, rather than the flame inside himself?

She stepped away to lead him through an archway at the base of a dark tower, and when her back was turned, he reached out to her.

Even he didn't know, in that moment, if he was reaching out to strangle or embrace.

Tim Pratt
Contributing Author

Ishaani walked through the bustling market in the shadow of her efreeti guardian, Shadqadir. "I don't like this. It's dangerous, dealing with... these matters... out in the open." She clutched the scroll case close to her chest, though it was already secured across her body on a leather strap and further sealed with magic.

Shadqadir rumbled his volcanic laugh. "You feel unsafe in my company, little Ishi? Have I not protected your family against every harm for six generations?"

The crowded lanes were rather less crowded for them than they were for everyone else, as people gave Shadqadir a wide berth. Genies of all sorts were common enough here in Niswan, but Shadqadir was no aloof marid or benevolent djinn. Efreet were made of fire and fury, and he radiated heat and malice. Though Shadqadir had been a constant presence in her life since infancy, Ishaani still found his burning eyes, razored horns, and knowing grin disturbing at times.

Illustration by Tomasz Chistowski

She would never show him fear, though. "I am no longer a child," she snapped. "I'm capable of taking care of myself. I've studied at the—"

"Yes, yes, a House of Perfection." The efreeti yawned, smoke rising from his mouth. "We're all very impressed. You probably thought attending the Monastery of the Unblinking Flame would flatter my fiery nature and stop me from eating your young when the time comes."

"My choice was not influenced by you at all. I chose that House because the study of occult philosophy interests me more than strength of arms."

"Why would you worry about martial skills when you have my powers to command? At least until you spawn."

Ishaani's ancestor had bound Shadqadir to service centuries before, with direct control of his considerable powers passed to the firstborn of his previous owner... but the binding was flawed, and Shadqadir would go free upon the birth of the seventh generation. He made no secret of his plans to take revenge on Ishaani's entire family for his time of servitude once she had a child.

Ishaani had therefore decided to be the last of her line. If she died without a child, he would also go free, but she was young, and had time to work on that problem. If her legacy could not continue in the form of children, she needed to make her mark on the world in other ways. This scroll, found behind a false wall in a forgotten store room deep in her family's estate, presented the greatest opportunity to do that. "Just be watchful, Shad. I am less concerned with assault or theft than with someone overhearing our discussion. We should have found someone to authenticate the scroll who would come to us." The scholar they were going to see had actually offered to come to the estate... in six weeks, when his schedule opened up.

"You made no mention of convenience, Ishi. You asked for the best, and the most discreet. As always, I followed your instructions to the letter."

And not one syllable beyond, she thought. "The best is an Avistani man? I still find that hard to believe."

"Sometimes the perspective of an outlander offers clarity. For instance, as a human, you find Jalmeray to be an isle of wonders and Niswan a city of splendor. You marvel at its golden temples, its graceful pagodas, its perfumed streets, its shining palaces, its bridges and towers wrought of magic and metal together, at all these myriad mortal glories." He gestured widely, sending the people nearby scurrying away. "While I, unblinded by sentiment, hailing from a more rarefied plane, see this place for what it truly is."

"Which is?"

Shadqadir sniffed. "Kindling."

They reached a book-filled stall draped in colorful cloth, the largest in a lane full of booksellers, scribes, and calligraphers. A dapper man, paler than Ishaani and elaborately bearded and mustachioed, approached them. "You must be the young lady who wanted to see me. And your companion." He nodded respectfully to the efreeti. "How may I be of service?"

"You are Zotikos the Wise?" Ishaani said.

"Some flatter me so."

She glanced around, then leaned close. "I am told there is no greater expert in the antiquities of Jalmeray dating from the reign of the Arclords."

"This I can confirm."

"I have a scroll that purports to be from that era. I wish to determine its authenticity."

Zotikos nodded. "The world is awash in false treasure maps and forgeries."

"It is a matter of some discretion—"

Zotikos touched a jewel at his throat and the bustling noise of the market vanished, some spell to exclude sound and prevent eavesdropping. "We have complete privacy now."

Ishaani opened the scroll case, carefully removed the document within, and unrolled its delicate length.

Zotikos leaned close, scanned the document, then looked into Ishaani's face. "This purports to be a letter detailing the hiding place of the legendary artifact known as the Scepter of the Arclords, written by a leader of that order before they fled the island."

"Oh good, he's literate," Shadquidar said. "We know what it says. Is it real?"

"Mmm. Probably not. There was a rumor the Scepter had been found recently by an Andoren fool, but that wasn't true, either. May I?"

Ishaani handed over the scroll. Zotikos pinched the document between his fingers, put it close to his eyes, and even sniffed it. She was afraid he might taste the ink. He instead took a round lens from his pocket and gazed through it. After a moment he handed the scroll back. "I don't know if the contents are true, but the document comes from the right period. The quality of the ink, the level of fading, the composition of the paper—it's all consistent with the last years of Arclord dominion over Jalmeray. Even if it's accurate, the Scepter is doubtless long gone, looted or moved—"

"We don't need that kind of advice." The efreeti opened his hand, and gold coins dropped onto the table. Zotikos went to scoop them up and hissed, dropping them, and making the efreeti chuckle. "Those may be a bit warm."

Ishaani glared at the effreeti and said, "Thank you for your help, Zotikos. I can count on your discretion?"

"Of course."

"If not, it can be compelled," Shadqadir growled, and the man looked appropriately worried.

The two of them stepped out of the bubble of privacy, and the sound of the market returned. They walked for a couple of minutes, Ishaani in silent thought as she considered her next moves, and then the efreeti spoke again.

"The terms of my service require me to tell you that man was not actually Zotikos, the Avastani scholar, but an imposter. I suspect he was a rakshasa cloaked in illusion."

Ishaani wanted to stop and look back, but she kept walking as naturally as possible. "How do you know?"

The efreeti chuckled. "I met Zotikos once before, years ago, on an errand for your mother. He initially proved reluctant to turn over a volume she desired, so I persuaded him, and left a small mark on his wrist to remember me by—a brand in the shape of my fingertip. Even if Zotikos somehow forgot me, his flesh would remember our meeting, but the skin was unmarred. I only noticed when his sleeve slid back as he handed over the scroll or I would have alerted you earlier."

"A rakshasa," she murmured. "We can't trust his appraisal, then. The letter may be false."

"Or it's real, and now one of the devil-born knows your quest. Perhaps the fiend even replaced Zotikos in order to meet with us. We arranged this meeting two days ago, after all. Plenty of time for an interested party curious about the scroll to make their own plans."

"How could anyone even know about the scroll?"

Shadqadir shrugged. "Treacherous servants, spies, magical surveillance... your parents are known to dabble in powerful matters, and it wouldn't surprise me if your estate is watched. The point is, we can no longer count on security through obscurity. We now face potential opposition in your quest for greatness." Shadqadir's smile was like a forge fire.

She scowled. "You don't need to look so happy about it."

"Oh, but I am. I'm pledged to protect your life and well-being to the fullness of my abilities... but if sufficiently powerful enemies rise against you, my best might not be good enough. In that case, you could die, and I would be free to eat your family." He sighed contentedly.

She'd heard this sort of thing from him before... but she'd never worried about it until now. "Efreet don't need to eat anything at all," she grumbled. "Let alone my relatives."

He shrugged. "I don't expect to enjoy the process, but a promise is a promise. So. Shall we go out and seize your destiny, Ishi?"

Tim Pratt
Contributing Author

"Got us between Hell and high water again, Captain!" Giant ducked spray and shot a glare to her captain. She didn't have to duck much; even standing on a box step, the halfling was barely tall enough to see over the ship's wheel.

Devrin Arlos just laughed and eyed the six Chelish warships closing in on them. They'd chased Nightwave all the way from the Arch of Aroden, along the coast of Rahadoum, and through the treacherous Jagged Reach. They weren't likely to give up now. Ahead loomed the Eye of Abendego.

Illustration by Yasen Stoilov

"Wouldn't have it any other way. Don't worry! Nightwave can take it!"

She struggled with the wheel. "Maybe time to put a reef in the forecourse?"

"Long past time, but I was hoping—" A crack louder than a ballista shot pierced the howl of the wind, drawing his attention back to their nearest pursuer. "Hoping for that."

The foremost Corentine frigate's foretopmast shattered, falling with yards of shredded canvas and a mile of tangled cordage. Sailors scrambled to hack the wreckage away, but the ship slewed off course, and jibed her mizzen boom, ripping yet more canvas.

"Payback's a bitch!" Vulmia Manux, Devrin's navigator and general fix-it go-to, shook an ebony fist at the struggling ship. The Mwangi half-elf was still sore that Nightwave had been damaged by the Corentines’ hell-spawned minions. The Corentines were out of devils now, and clearly intended to overpower the Firebrand ship with brute force.

"Reef the forecourse and tops'ls." Devrin squinted forward. "Take her a point to starboard, Giant. Batten down and rig lifelines! We're going in!"

The crew responded without question. The outer wall of the perpetual storm towered in a burgeoning barrier of torrential rain and wind, mountainous seas, and deadly currents. A glance back confirmed that their pursuers were also shortening sail, but hadn't broken off the chase.

"Come and get me, you bastards!" Devrin shouted.

"You taking this personal, Captain?" Nightwave's bosun, Gaspiya, dropped down from the mizzen shrouds, eyeing him with concern, her lip curled back from her short tusks.

"No, but somebody's got to teach them that they don't own the whole damned sea!" He clapped Vulmia on her shoulder and grinned. "Don't worry. We've got them right where we want them."

"Sorry, sir." Vulmia nodded and squinted into the screaming wind. "I just think we might have bit off more than we can chew. Six to one?"

"I said, don't worry! That's my job, right?" Devrin flashed a rakish smile and pointed to the impending wall of the storm. "Give Giant a hand at the helm and hold fast! We're in for a trouncing!"

The storm hit them like a charging bull, with rain so thick he could barely see their nearest pursuer slashing hard enough to sting exposed skin. The seas mounted to vertical walls higher than Nightwave's topsails, their plunging tops threatening to overwhelm them. Nightwave staggered as a wave broke over the ship’s stern, and Devrin struggled to stay put in the waist-deep deluge. Lightning lit the sky in sheets, but the captain howled and laughed into the teeth of the storm.

"Captain!" Devrin's cabin boy, a stout young man from Katapesh, pointed abeam. "They're trying to cut us off!"

Devrin shielded his eyes and squinted at the Corentine frigate, Helldawn, plunging down a towering wave. "How in bloody blue blazes did they—" Then he spotted the tornado of animate water at the ship's bow, pulling on two thick ropes like a massive draft horse. "They've summoned an elemental!"

A webbed hand closed on Devrin's shoulder. "It's time, Captain."

He turned to look into the blue-on-blue features of Ris, an undine and recent addition to his crew. It had been Ris who had told him about the Chelish plan to dump tons of toxic mine tailings onto a submarine merfolk city in the Hellmouth Gulf. At his behest, she had delved the depths to warn the merfolk. With no way to forestall the Chelish, the merfolk had evacuated their city, saving tens of thousands of lives. Now was the time for retribution.

"You're sure, Ris? The seas—"

Another wave buried Nightwave's quarterdeck, but while the rest of them struggled to stay upright, Ris reveled in the torrent, her lips curving from pearly teeth in glee. The deluge flowed off her blue skin and sharkskin leathers, lending strength to her slim frame.

"I'm sure, my captain." Ris lifted a willowy arm to point to a towering swell, a hundred feet of sheer water. Lightning lit the sky behind the wave, illuminating thousands of sinuous shapes within.

Devrin's mouth dropped open at the sight. A vast school of merfolk, tridents in hand, their marine minions swimming along with them, shapes enormous and terrible, yet beautiful.

"Sing them a song, Ris!"

"I will, my captain." She pulled the lyre from her back, an enchanted instrument crafted from shell, narwhal horn, and mother of pearl. A wave crested to break against the ship's quarter, and Ris dove straight into the tortuous sea.

"Hope she hurries up!" Vulmia shouted over the roar of wind and water. "They're getting close!"

Indeed, Helldawn was closing fast. At the peak of a swell, the ship yawed, and ballistae cracked. The deadly bolts flew at Nightwave with unerring accuracy, holing sails, smashing into the hull, and impaling flesh. Devrin bellowed for the ship's cleric, Rikkan, to see to the injured, even as the holed sails tore to shreds in the hurricane winds. Vulma, Gaspiya, and the top-crews clambered up the ratlines like spiders to cut away the torn canvas, but the damage was done. Nightwave slewed with the uneven strain and nearly broached on a towering wave.

"Captain!" Giant screamed, fighting the wheel with all her strength. "She'll roll on the next one if we don't get some sail aloft!"

Devrin fought his way to the binnacle and flung open the hatch beneath the compass. There, in a golden frame, sat an apple-sized emerald glowing with an inner light, Nightwave's heart.

The captain placed a hand on the gem and spoke low. "Spirits of the deep, hear my call. Claim your places at my side! Make sail!"

The spirits of a hundred and one sailors lost at sea surged from the gem in a translucent torrent, racing aloft, untouched by the hurricane winds. Ethereal canvas billowed on ghostly winds to pull Nightwave upright. Her bow pointed down the next towering swell, and they raced forth. The ghostly sails faded away quickly, but they had saved the ship.

The burst of speed had taken them out of range of Helldawn's ballistae, but for how long? The peak of a wave blocked their view of Helldawn, but then both ships rose, and Devrin saw their salvation surging from the depths.

"She rises!" he bellowed, as the behemoth surged from the sea, an orca of such massive size that it dwarfed the leviathans of the deep.

The monstrous whale breeched to the height of Helldawn's main crosstrees, and came down amidships. Timbers snapped like kindling, planks exploding with the horrific impact. The ship's keel snapped with a report that Devrin felt through the soles of his boots. The ship foundered, broken in half, two hundred sailors, gone in one moment of vengeance.

"Payback!" Vulmia screamed from aloft, and the captain and crew of Nightwave cheered.

In a moment of eerie clarity, the torrential rains ceased. The remaining Corentine ships stood there, stark against the raging storm.

Then, from the sea, vengeance rose like a plague of demons from the abyss.

Tentacles ensnared one ship, tearing at wood and flesh, while the jaws of a megalodon ripped at the hull of another. Thousands of merfolk surged up the sides of a third, their tridents crackling with electricity, torrents of water blasting Chelish sailors and marines off the deck. A fourth ship surged upward as a vast shape thrust up from beneath. The dragon turtle's spiked shell smashed through the deck of the ship, and the beast thrashed, splintering wood and crushing sailors. The last ship in the armada tried to flee, but the sea behind them frothed with the fury of the merfolk. In their haste, the Corentine captain must have forgotten about the storm. A breaking sea took them on the beam, and the ship capsized, masts snapping like felled trees. When the wave rolled past, there was nothing left but flotsam.

Devrin stared in silent shock for a long moment. Six ships, twelve hundred sailors...gone.

"Captain." Ris touched her captain's shoulder, and he turned to see the undine's sorrow. "I'm sorry. I sang the song of vengeance to them. They needed no such encouragement."

"I wish we could have let that last ship go, just to take the message back to Cheliax." He scanned the sea, but it was clear that there would be no survivors. "Maybe it would have prevented another incident like this."

"Perhaps." Ris shook her head. "But the sea is a harsh mistress, and even Hell lacks the wrath to thwart her will."

Chris A. Jackson
Contributing Author

Invisible and as silent as a church fart, Twilp Farfan slipped through the sparse midday crowds of Sothis's Malhitu Bazaar. Skulking in broad daylight always freaked the halfling out, but if he didn't stir up too much dust or bump into anyone, his passage would go unnoticed. Sothans tended to close up shop and nap in the blazing heat of the day, so there weren't many people about.

All good for me. He paused in the shade of an awning and wiped his face. All except the heat.

Twilp studied the blue-domed cupolas across the square and found the right building. Two burly guards stood beside the beaded doorway of Kepeshka's Antiquities Emporium. Sweat glistened on their ebony skin, their eyelids sagging, but each rested a hand on a khopesh at his belt.

Nobody trusts anyone these days. Of course, that included Twilp. He didn't care who he stole for or from, as long as the gold was yellow. In Sothis, gold was all that mattered, and after the fall of the pyramids, there had been a glut of expensive antiquities on the market, ripe for the picking. The halfling's gaze drifted up to Sothis's looming Black Dome and the recently fallen pyramid beyond. The instant it hit the ground, grave robbers had swarmed like ants over a fallen elephant. The very trinket he was being paid to steal had come from that megalithic monstrosity. Twilp didn't know what was so important about this particular bauble anyway; a dagger was a dagger as far as he was concerned. But gold...

The ground-floor windows were girded with ornate iron latticework, and the sheer walls defied even the deftest climber. Twilp edged around the square and up to the bead-curtained doorway. The guards blinked lazily, half asleep. The burglar eased down to the ground and squirmed quietly beneath the curtain.

Good thing I'm skinny. He rose up inside and scanned the showroom. A woman sat behind a counter, idly polishing a lamp. Twilp grinned. Now for the prize.

Illustration by Illustration by Tomasz Chistowski

Upstairs, he found the merchant's bedroom. Two more guards stood at the door, which gaped to allow the breeze to circulate. They didn't even twitch when he slipped past them. Gauzy curtains billowed, the Black Dome and pyramid looming beyond. Some said everything from the inside of the fallen pyramid was cursed, but Twilp didn't believe it. Gold was the only thing he believed in.

Twilp tore his eyes away from the view, and skulked over to the merchant's bed. Big enough for six, it currently accommodated only three: the merchant, Lorisi Kepeshka, and two comely men, husbands or toys. Sweat glistened on their skin like the luster of precious metal. Like gold... The dagger hung from the headboard above Kepeshka's tousled black hair, worth enough to keep Twilp happy for months.

The halfling examined the serpent hilt and pommel, its fanged head and ruby eyes. Gaudy. As his fingers curled around the scaled hilt, however, the dagger's eyes came alight.

"Hello, little thief."

Twilp jerked his hand away, unsure for a moment if he'd heard the voice with his ears or in his head. His client, Lady Nikiri, hadn't told him it was haunted. Doesn't matter. As he reached again, a bead of sweat fell from his brow and plopped down right between Lorisi Kepeshka's eyes.

Twilp froze.

She stirred, one hand reaching up to wipe the drop away, her eyes blinking open. She stared right through the invisible burglar for a moment, then looked up to the dagger. She sighed, smiled, and reached for it.

Oh, no you don't! Twilp grabbed for it, and their hands touched the scabbarded weapon at the same instant.

"Well, this should be interesting," the voice said in his mind.

Lorisi Kepeshka's eyes flung wide. "Thief!"

Crap! Twilp jerked the dagger out of her grasp, and the weapon became invisible.

"The dagger! Thief!" Kepeshka's bedmates lurched up, and the door guards burst in, swords drawn.

"Kill her!" the voice said in Twilp's head. "Use me!"

Bugger off! Twilp backed away.

"Someone took the dagger!" Kepeshka vaulted out of bed. "They're invisible! Block the door and sweep the room!"

"Is that any way to talk to someone who can make you a god?" the voice of the dagger asked.

You can hear my thoughts?

"Yes, and read your greedy little soul, Twilp Farfan."

Great. Now shut up; I'm busy! He clipped the dagger to his belt and dashed for the window.

"Wait! Aren't you going to kill her? You really should, you know."

I'm a burglar, not an assassin. Twilp leapt and tore through the gauzy curtains.

"Oh, but her life force can be yours! I can give it to you!"

I don't want it. The burglar hit a canvas awning and slid. Anyone heavier would have torn right through, but Twilp didn't. "But it'll make you powerful, invulnerable, immortal!"

Don't particularly want those either. He flipped off the awning into the street, bowling down a man carrying a basket of flatbread.

"What kind of mortal are you?" The dagger sounded incredulous.

The kind who likes his life the way it is. Now shut up.

"Thief!" Kepeshka screeched from the window, pointing right at him. "Guards! After that thief!"

The two ground-floor guards drew their swords and advanced.

Twilp now understood why Lady Nikiri wanted the dagger. Denied the political power of her elder siblings, married to a lesser house, and now aging and bitter, the lure of power and immortality would be irresistible to her.

I'll settle for gold. Twilp dashed up the street.

"Coward," the dagger chided.

Twilp ignored it and ran.

"There!" one of the guards bellowed.

Twilp glanced back and saw the puffs of dust where his feet touched the street. They'd spotted him.

The burglar dodged under awnings, over, around, and under displays of goods, but they were hot on his heels, their longer legs doubling his best speed.

"Kill them! I'll make you a god!"

And deal with all that religion crap? No thanks! Twilp sprinted past the auction houses and into the Rose Quarter, trying to keep the dust of his passage down, but to no avail.

"There!" The guards were right on him.

Desperate, Twilp dodged into Wimiri's Bathhouse.

"Look! Footprints!"

Twilp glanced back at his dusty tracks on the otherwise spotless tile floor. Damn!

"Kill them!" the dagger screamed.

Shut up! The halfling dodged through a doorway and skidded to a stop inches before falling into a sunken bath crowded with chatting women sipping cool drinks. The guard chasing him wasn't so dexterous.

The man slammed into Twilp's back, and they both plunged into the bath. Twilp's head cracked the bottom of the shallow pool hard enough to stun him. He thrashed to the surface, women screaming, and a meaty fist closed on the neck of his jerkin.

"Got you, little thief!" The guard lifted him, raising his khopesh.

"Kill him!" the dagger bellowed in his mind. "Use me! It's your only chance!"

For once, Twilp agreed. He had to get free, and the blade hung at his belt. He drew it and stabbed the man's elbow.

"YES!"

Crimson light flooded the bath. The dagger's blade shone like a flaming ruby, pulsing with life as it pierced the guard's arm. The man drew a startled breath, eyes wide, not in pain, but in terror.

Flesh shriveled on the guard's bones, blood, life, and for all Twilp knew, his soul sucked away into the blade...and into Twilp. The dried husk of flesh crumbled, and the halfling hit the water.

The bathers erupted in panic, thrashing to get away from the spreading pall of ashes in the water.

"There, now." The dagger sounded satisfied. "Feel better?"

Twilp did feel better, his pain gone, his head clear, and he fairly bristled with energy. He felt like he could do anything, like he would live forever.

"And you can," the dagger assured him. "Every life you take with me will make you greater."

Twilp thought of it, immortality, power, riches, the helpless bathers fleeing around him, and almost puked. He thrashed out of the water and invoked the magic of his ring again, blinking into invisibility. Sheathing the dagger and snatching up a towel, he slipped out of the bathing room, avoiding the panicked patrons. The voice of the dagger rang in his head, urging him to sheath it in flesh, to drink their lives.

Quelling the temptation to become a god, Twilp crept into another wing of the establishment. Sheltered alcoves, each with a lidded commode, lined a wall beneath narrow windows.

Perfect! Twilp hopped up onto a bench and lifted the lid at his feet.

"What are you doing?"

He thought about what the dagger had promised him, and what someone like Lady Nikiri would do with it. The gold she had promised him suddenly seemed stained with blood.

Twilp drew the dagger.

"What are you doing?!"

"Saving my soul, you filthy piece of crap." Twilp held it over the dark pit.

"DON'T!"

Twilp released his grip and watched the blade's red glow vanish into the depths. With a wet plop, the crimson light winked out. Hundreds of patrons would bury the weapon deeper. Nobody would ever dig it up.

"Some treasures are better left buried." Twilp clambered up the wall to slip through the narrow window into the fresh air. "And some things are worth more than gold."

Chris A. Jackson
Contributing Author

I knew it would come for me. My thrice-cursed fate would not be denied: my blood, my birth, and my faith. I knew I would be chosen; my mother all but promised me.

"The year thirteen will fall on you, daughter. You cannot prevent it, but you can prepare."

Twenty-four black hooves, four iron-rimmed wheels, and fourteen glowing red eyes, the coach and six, the harbinger of my fate, my promise, my doom, glided down the cobbled street toward me without a whisper. The good citizens of Cesca scattered, scuttling into doorways, slamming shutters, scurrying into alleys like terrified rats. I stood and awaited my fate.

The ebony coach stopped before me, the driver's burning coal eyes transfixing me like needles pinning a moth in a display. Armor rustled like winter-dead leaves hammered from cold iron as one hand released the reins to delve the driver's cloak. A roll of ebony parchment bound with a blood-red ribbon issued forth, held out in that undying grasp for me.

"Your invitation, daughter of Arudora." The voice chilled me like the touch of an icy scalpel.

"Of course." I took the invitation in hand, pulled the ribbon, and unrolled the black parchment that sealed my doom. I read, "Marilisa Balcus Arudora," my name, the only words on the page.

The armored driver gestured, and the coach's door swung silently open. "Welcome."

The midnight coach swallowed me.

Illustration by Mariusz Gandzel

Black leather, satin drapes, and pale faces rimed with terror greeted me. I sat and adjusted my skirts. The seat was cold, and the faces colder, six of my kin doomed to the fate we all shared. I only recognized one, a cousin I'd met only once. His eyes took me in with subdued recognition, one hand gripping the head of his walking stick, a silver wolf, teeth bared in rage. The others, two peasants, a tradesman, a merchant, and a trollop, avoided my gaze, resigned to our common fate. A prospect worse than death lurked in their eyes.

The coach moved, but I'd not felt it and heard not a sound but the beating of my own heart and tremulous breath. The merchant rocked forward and back, his hands clutched white-knuckled. The trollop withdrew a silver flask from her ample bodice and drew a draught. She caught my eye and flashed a smile.

"Drop o' liquid courage, love?" She held out the flask, the scent of brandy heady in the air.

"No, thank you." I'd long ago consigned my courage to the flames.

"Suit yourself." She drank again and tucked the flask away.

"Can't do this...can't do this..." the fidgety merchant muttered.

"Oh, do shut up, man!" My gentleman cousin eyed him derisively.

"Bugger off and leave him be!" one of the peasants snapped, a lip curling back from tobacco-stained teeth.

"How dare you speak to—"

"Can't do this!" The hysterical merchant drew a stiletto.

"Don't!" The word escaped my lips before I could bite it off, but it did no good.

The merchant's trembling hand drew a ragged line of crimson across his throat. He cut deep, deep enough to paint the trollop seated across from him with the spray. She swore, fending off his lifeblood with a raised arm. The merchant choked and coughed, shuddering as the torrent slowed.

"Bloody fool," my gentleman cousin scoffed. "Death is no escape now."

True enough, for as the merchant's blood ceased to flow with the last fluttering beats of his dying heart, only surprise registered on his paling features. His eyes blinked, bloody lips gaping in shock as undeath took him. We could not escape our fate so easily.

The trollop withdrew her flask and drained its contents in one greedy draught, her cheeks pale under the cheap rouge and flecks of blood.

"Hells and demons," the surly peasant swore, making a sign to ward off evil.

"That won't save you either, ignorant fool." My gentleman cousin's nose wrinkled, perhaps at the stench of blood, perhaps in sheer disdain.

"Neither will that blade in your cane, sir, enchanted though it be." I don't know why I spoke, but I felt the need to put the pompous ass in his place. "No mortal-forged implement will save you."

His eyes narrowed at me. "You seem quite sure of yourself, Marilisa."

"I am." I adjusted my skirts again, my hand exploring the folds for my one hope of salvation. Cold metal caressed my palm. "I've known my fate my entire life, Lord Wolthaven. As have you."

"Oh, and I suppose you've some trick you hope will save you!" He glared at me, dredging courage from anger.

"No trick." I gripped my only hope and prayed silently.

"Look!" The tradesman pointed out the window at the passing scenery.

Ruined buildings, dilapidated cottages, and crumbled towers took on a ghostly radiance, blazing blue with shadows of their former grandeur as we passed through the dead village of Maiserene. I recognized it from my studies. I wondered if anyone outside the carriage could see the apparition or if it existed only for our doomed eyes. Ahead the spectral bridge to our destination coalesced over the dark water of Lake Laroba. Our conveyance paused not as we crossed, silent water roiling beneath us, perhaps hungering for the living or welcoming us to our fate.

We plunged through the toothed maw of Bastardhall's gate, the wail of cold iron hinges, gears, and chains a cacophonous greeting. One of the peasants began sobbing. The coach pulled into a vast courtyard and stopped before the grim foyer.

Three tall figures awaited our arrival: a woman of pale complexion with white-streaked hair, another woman bearing the sigil of Urgathoa upon her breast, and a hooded shape holding a swaddled bundle in his arms.

I knew they had long prepared for this meeting.

The carriage door opened and my destiny propelled me forth, my legs steady, teeth clenched against useless screams, and my hand gripping the spike of silver that no mortal hand had forged. The fire of a burning sun scorched my palm as I strode forth to my fate.

Chris A. Jackson
Contributing Author

Selik slouched along at the back of the party with Boret and the other archers. "Stupid crusader. Why is he even here? We don't need him. Our god has returned and reunited us with the rest of the clan."

Boret grunted. "Dolok Darkfur is a power, no doubt, and without his leadership, we'd still be hiding in the forest. Even so... Ramnos has more practical demon-fighting experience than the rest of us put together. You'll be glad we have his sword on our side when we storm that keep."

Their god—a massive, bear-like creature whose bright feathers and intelligent eyes made it impossible to mistake him for an ordinary animal—led the group, flanked by that irritating crusader and the clan's god-caller, Nelket.

Selik spat. "The other crusaders left Sarkoris when the Worldwound closed. I don't trust him. Why is he still here? Shouldn't he be riding to the soft southern lands with the rest of his people?"

Boret snorted. "The crusaders only turned south because the Whispering Tyrant stirs. Things aren't so soft there."

"But why—"

"By the Stag Mother's antlers, boy, go ask him yourself if you want to know his reasons! The crusader doesn't confide in me."

Selik glared toward the front of the group, his eyes widening when the crusader stopped walking until Selik reached him, then fell into step beside him. "I could not help but overhear your question." His accent was atrocious. "I remain because I took an oath to cleanse your ancestral lands of the Abyssal taint. Some think because the land no longer bleeds demons, our work is done, but I disagree." He paused. "Also, I am very good at killing demons."

"Braggart."

Ramnos laughed, a sound that irritated Selik to his marrow. "I prefer to think of it as clear-eyed self-regard. I know you are angry, Selik. I don't blame you. Your people have suffered as much as anyone. But I wish your anger wouldn't settle on me. Not all outsiders are invaders. I've developed great affection for your people."

"You mean for my aunt."

"Starting with your aunt, let us say," Ramnos agreed.

"You'll never be part of the Farheaven Clan," Selik muttered. There were precious few of his people left, but Selik bristled at the idea of outsiders traveling with them, or, gods forbid, marrying in.

"Perhaps not. But—"

"We're here," the god-caller said, her voice somehow seeming to whisper in Selik's ear. He stepped away from Ramnos, joining the others on a low rise that looked down on the grim expanse of Carlhon Keep, once home to men and women, now a stronghold of demons, with black clouds swirling unnaturally above its towers and walls.

Illustration by Mariusz Gandzel

Selik had grown up in the forests and fields with members of his clan and had spent barely any time under roofs of wood and stone. Carlhon Keep was vast beyond his imaginings. Could his people really live there, if they removed the demonic infestation? "The walls are glowing," Selik whispered.

"Demonic runes." Ramnos sighed. "Those walls may need to come down entirely. The taint runs deep into the stone. The lightning worries me more, though." Sick green flashes lit the dark clouds.

Dolok Darkfur rose, towering on his hind legs, and Selik could not deny the stirrings of awe within him. With their god at their head, how could they fail? "I fear no lightning," Darkfur said, his voice all rumble and strength.

"The rest of us must." Ramnos pointed with his sword to tiny specks moving among the dark clouds and green flashes of electricity. "Those are wrath demons. Vile things. They do a dance—"

"They dance?" Selik scoffed. He made a mocking little pirouette.

"Their dance brings ruin," Ramnos said. "Few who witness it survive. The demons dance not for pleasure, but as a ritual, to call down evil upon their enemies. That lightning... I fear the fiends know we are coming, and have begun to dance our deaths."

"They can't dance if someone bites their legs off," Darkfur growled, and then rushed forward on all fours toward the keep, Nelket and the clan's warriors hurrying after him, swords and hammers drawn.

Ramnos watched them run. "It's a good thing we discussed the plan in advance. Ready your bow, Selik."

"What?"

The crusader pointed again. The specks in the air were getting bigger, and a few swooped toward them. Selik gasped, fumbled with his bow, and nocked one of the blessed arrows. He was one of the best archers in the clan, famed for his ability to shoot birds on the wing, but the things coming for them weren't birds—they were a grotesque cross between men and vultures, trailing feathers and dust.

"Better if they do not come close," Ramnos said. "They spew a poisonous cloud."

Selik took a breath, sighted, and loosed. The arrow sailed true and caught the approaching demon in its right wing just as it dove toward Darkfur. The demon spun, its other wing clipping the ground, and went down in a sprawl of feathers. The god paused briefly over it to deliver a killing blow, and then loped on. "I got it!" Selik crowed. Other demons fell to the holy arrows loosed by Boret and the other archers, and the rest of the demons in the air retreated back toward the keep.

"They were focused on your god, and didn't consider the rest of you threats before," Ramnos said. "Now, they do. Come on!" He rushed forward, and Selik followed, blood singing with something like the thrill of the hunt, but even more potent.

The archers stopped within bowshot of the walls and loosed arrows at the twisted figures on the battlements, protecting the warriors in the vanguard. To Selik's annoyance, the crusader stayed by his side, acting as a spotter and calling out targets—he seemed to know which demons were the equivalent of officers, and once Selik had killed a few of those, the lowlier fiends broke and fled.

Darkfur reached the keep's gate and rose up, roaring, to slam against the barrier. The runes on the walls flared and burned brighter. The warriors joined their god, battering the gates with their weapons, but the god was a siege engine in his own right, and soon the dark wood began to splinter and crack.

"Here." The crusader offered Selik a knife—almost big enough to be a small sword—with a blade that reflected more light than it should have beneath those clouded skies. "Your bow will be less use inside."

Selik reached out, scowled, paused, then snatched up the weapon. It felt good in his hand, thrumming with power. "Why are you giving me this? Why are you sticking so close to me at all?"

"It is... possible... I told your aunt I would look out for you," Ramnos said, "while she and the other warriors stay close to your god."

Selik stomped his foot. "I am not a child in need of a nursemaid!"

Ramnos chuckled another infuriating chuckle. "That is fortunate, as I would make a poor nursemaid. I am, however, a capable fighter, and would be honored to stand by your side."

"I don't need your help," Selik said. "I can find glory on my own!"

"I do not doubt it, but she made me swear an oath." He shrugged. "An oath is an oath."

"I don't—"

The crusader suddenly shouted and shoved Selik aside as a vulture demon leapt down on them from the battlements. The crusader and the demon went down in a jumble of limbs and feathers, claws and blades, and Selik froze. Shooting arrows at distant shapes was one thing, but now the demon was here, at his feet, stinking and writhing and vile and terrifying. He froze for a long moment, then looked around for help, but the rest of the clan was disappearing into a crack in the gates.

Selik shook himself, raised his new blade, and waited for his moment. When he was sure he wouldn't hit Ramnos by mistake, he struck, plunging his blade into the back of the demon's birdlike head. It screamed, the wound smoking, and Ramnos rolled out from under and struggled to his feet. The crusader plunged his sword through the monster's back, ending its shrieks. He plucked a moldy feather from his hair and rubbed at a long scratch on his cheek, but smiled. "You see? You are the one looking after me."

Selik nodded. "That's right. You're... lucky I was here."

"I never could take care of myself alone. That is why I joined an order of knights in the first place." Ramnos nodded toward the cracked gates. "Shall we teach these demons to dance properly?"

"Dancing is soft," Selik muttered, but he followed Ramnos into the keep as lightning began to lance down from the clouds all around.

The crusader's answering laughter somehow annoyed him less this time.

Tim Pratt
Contributing Author

"Pardon..."

Over the din of the bustling street market the young boy's cry reached the passing nobleman. "Pardon me, my lord. Are you seeking the god rock? Do you need the courage to take the leap? The blessing of one who passed the test?"

The nobleman ignored him, but the young merchant persisted, obviously recognizing the robed figure's wealth from the quality of his clothes and the confidence in his step. "I have here the tears of Iomedae herself, shed when she learned of Aroden's death!" The boy pushed through the crowd, following the nobleman, waving a tiny vial that undoubtedly contained ordinary water. "My lord?"

The nobleman paid the boy no mind and walked through the throng seemingly oblivious to the solicitations of its eager vendors.

All along the Avenue of the Hopeful it was the same racket. Everyone had some divine relic to sell: a tabard supposedly worn by Iomedae in the Shining Crusade; a barroom dart thrown by a mortal Cayden Cailean; a blood-rusted dagger said to have been wielded by Norgorber himself. They were all fake, of course, but the visitors that streamed down this road every day to look at the Starstone Cathedral didn't know that—or pretended not to out of willful ignorance. Sometimes even the merchants believed the veracity of their claims, their fraud offset by their misplaced good intentions.

Illustration by Federico Musetti

Among themselves, the charlatans hocking these wares claim the cathedral is the straight man in their cons. Its very presence adds an air of mystery and divine authority to the propositions, no matter how obvious the counterfeit relics are. How could it not? Inside the towering ancient shrine, suspended in the center of an unfathomably deep pit, lay a chunk of rock that fell from the heavens millennia ago amid the untold devastation of Earthfall. Those who brave the cathedral, passing all of its cunning tests, defeating its deadly guardians, and surviving to touch the Starstone exit the cathedral as gods. Many have tried over the centuries since Aroden constructed the cathedral to protect the holy relic within, but only three have ever succeeded. Unsurprisingly, it is Absalom's most visited tourist spot—the epicenter of the City at the Center of the World.

"Just two silver weights!"

The nobleman was now so far from the desperate tear-merchant that the boy's last cries were all but lost to the sounds of the city. The kid was new to the street and if he didn't soon fall in with one of the many organized rings of counterfeiters and con artists who worked in tandem to move their merchandise, he'd undoubtedly end up like so many others in the Ascendant Court, picking pockets to turn a profit from even the most discerning of customers. Those with experience working the God's Market knew not to waste their time with this particular nobleman, either as a customer or a mark.

Lord Synarr arrived in the city only six months ago, and since then he has walked the avenue every morning to gaze upon the Starstone Cathedral. At first, he was swarmed by kids hawking sacred items and protective talismans, but over time, they learned not to bother. Lord Synarr never spared even a single copper for any of their wares, he never once inspected their goods. He only diverted his attention from the Starstone Cathedral at the end of the Avenue of Hopefuls for the hopefuls themselves—those adventurers, demagogues, and zealots ambitious (or foolhardy) enough to plan their own run on divinity.

In a bid to prove their worthiness, most set up in one of the God's Market's many empty stalls and proselytize to what small audience they can wrest away from their competition. Some preach a message that speaks to a particular listener, or are charismatic enough to enthrall the crowd with their pageantry, and convert real followers from among the masses. On any given day a half-dozen or more hopefuls line the avenue, preaching their new faith, offering indulgences for coin, or performing rituals to prepare themselves for their journey.

For his first few weeks in Absalom, Lord Synarr stopped at each one as he made his way down the avenue, listening to the articles of the hopefuls' soon-to-be faiths before stoically moving on. The enigmatic noble no longer tarries before such aspirants, but he listens carefully to their tirades as he walks past, sometimes even smiling smugly to himself when a hopeful exhibits particular skill at capturing the crowd's attention.

Today, Lord Synarr witnessed a Keleshite trade prince offering a golden scabbard to Golinarth, the hulking hopeful who always wears a wooden skeleton mask and claims to have come back from the dead to become the god of second chances—one more rube offering wealth for miracles that would never materialize. A few yards further down the avenue, Ryni the Jest, a prankster hoping to become a god of mirth, gave the stern noble an unreciprocated wink of acknowledgment before turning his attention back to the butt of his public ridicule. The lord had his suspicions that the clown never actually intended to attempt the Test of the Starstone, but was simply amassing followers to start his own cult of personality.

A half-orc woman with a lilting accent offered Lord Synarr a score of rings, pendants, and bracelets tied to a velvet pillow. "Welcome back, my lord. Taking the test today?"

The noble didn't flinch, continuing his leisurely stroll toward the cathedral without a second glance in the merchant's direction.

"I got a new one, I did. Lets you walk on air." Her arm shot toward the end of the avenue like an arrow loosed from a hunter's bow. "Fttt—straight over the pit!" Recognizing that her daily pitch to her regular "customer" would have the same results today as it had the last six months, she turned her attention seamlessly to a wide-eyed gnome wearing Mwangi fashion to Synarr's left. "How about you, chum?"

Lord Synarr doubted any of the woman's jewelry was even magical, much less powerful enough to help someone cross the yawning expanse that separated the Starstone Cathedral from the surrounding city. Some fool, he was sure, would slip the ring on and dive headfirst into the abyss, cursing the merchant the whole way down. His dark eyes twinkled at the thought. One more shrine for the cathedral of the Failed, if even that.

Finally arriving at the edge of the chasm, Lord Synarr stopped for a moment and looked at the ancient temple. He was not the only one to hesitate near the precipice, and he had noted other regulars with their own routines in his time performing this daily ritual. Very few of them had lasted longer than a month or two, either giving up on their hopes of godhood or having perished in the attempt. Lord Synarr would be neither distracted nor a failure; he had one shot, and he would only attempt it when the time was right.

The robed lord turned to the left and walked around the chasm, the same route he took every day.

As he walked, his gait embodying both purpose and tranquility, Lord Synarr's thoughts turned to the temples adorning the grand plaza surrounding the pit. Iomedae and Cayden Cailean, two of the four whose apotheosis occurred mere yards away, had monuments here, built by their faithful as testaments to their success. A bridge spanned the chasm between each temple and the Starstone Cathedral, a physical manifestation of the gods' connection to the Starstone through which they attained divinity. The ascended god Norgorber, second after Aroden to pass the test, was far too secretive to put his temple out in the open. Those, like Lord Synarr, who studied the Starstone Cathedral could guess in which direction Norgorber's temple lied from the alignment of the third bridge, which appeared to point toward nothing in particular.

Lord Synarr ended his circuit of the Ascendant Court each day before the ruined fourth bridge across the mighty chasm. The missing span once pointed to the city's great temple to Aroden, who had raised the Starstone from the ocean depths along with the entire Isle of Kortos and in so doing captured his own spark of divinity. Though the bridge and even Aroden himself are gone, the temple still stands, now serving as the Chelish embassy. Despite the addition of the infernal insignias of House Thrune, Lord Synarr could still make out symbol of Aroden's eye that was once emblazoned above the grand entry, a negative outline in old dirt and moss.

The noble ended his daily stroll here to remind himself of his own mortality. While Lord Synarr welcomed the dignity and experience the gray in his hair and the lines at the corners of his eyes indicated, he could too easily allow the comforts afforded by his vast wealth distract him from the unwelcome truth that unless he passed the Test of the Starstone, he too would die. Though Aroden, god of humanity, may have died, Lord Synarr would not, he told himself.

His gaze turned from the repurposed Arodenite temple toward the towering cathedral at the city's heart. From this vantage point, he didn't see the gulf separating him from the home of divinity, and the sights and sounds of the bustling metropolis fell away. With the focus of an owl trained on its unsuspecting prey, he was aware only of the Starstone Cathedral and the power within. And just like every other day, he said one word, quietly to himself, before turning and walking back to his stately manor and the day's extravagances.

"Soon."

Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design

Now that we've concluded our Iconic Evolutions video series, I'm sure all of our readers are eagerly awaiting news of what exciting content we'll be sharing on Tuesdays going forward. Have no fear, brave Pathfinders, for I've got you covered!

Starting next week, hot on the heels of what's sure to be the best PaizoCon yet, we'll be showing the first of the new regions of the Pathfinder setting as presented in the Lost Omens World Guide, coming out on August 1. These 10 meta-regions are geographically contiguous and thematically linked sections of the Inner Sea region, each intended to be a bit more accessible to new players and Game Masters than the previous 40+ nations presented in the Inner Sea World Guide.

Cartography by Rob McCaleb

In addition to new groupings of neighboring nations, we've also updated the "status quo" of the setting to incorporate the effects of the past 12 years of adventures. We'll share a few of these changes every Tuesday until August, giving you a glimpse of the state of the world in 4719 AR and beyond. Don't worry, though, we'll do our best not to spoil past APs for those still finishing up their First Edition campaigns, and we'll leave plenty of reveals for August when you can read the full book yourselves.

Illustration by David Alvarez

For fans of the Iconic Encounters series of flash fiction we've tied to the weekly Iconic Evolution videos, we'll be continuing that with a piece starring Fumbus on Thursday of this week, and then continuing the flash fiction trend with a new series beginning next week: Tales of Lost Omens. These pieces are slightly longer than James Sutter's Iconic Encounters, but are still closely tied (as best we could) to an epic piece of art from the forthcoming Lost Omens World Guide. Fans of past Pathfinder Tales novels will be happy to know that we've gotten some of our most prolific authors to return for this series, so stay tuned!

Let us know in the comments or at PaizoCon this weekend what you've thought of the Iconic Evolutions, Iconic Encounters, and other preview content we've featured over the last few months here on the blog. We've been really pleased with the level of engagement on both series so far, and hope that varying the format a bit will keep things fresh and exciting for the coming months.

I've got lots of PaizoCon preparation to get to, so I'll wrap this up, but I look forward to seeing everyone at the con and then showing off our first region next week. Until then, Pathfinders, may your wayfinders always point toward adventure!

Mark Moreland
Franchise Manager