The party had been a few days ago, and the group of Dark Between Stars Signers and their significant others had been lounging about for a while, just taking life easy. There were no pressing threats that Xera called them to deal with, and they could just enjoy life. Every evening they had done a family-style meal up in Jace and Shhiv’s new combined apartment.

  Priam felt just a hint of jealousy at how the two engaged with each other. But only a hint of jealousy.

  He yawned as he got out of his bed in the desert-depiction of his room. Stretching, he yawned again as he walked out of the room – the square panel on the floor instantly removing all of the dust and sand from his body. He entered his hygiene station and then threw on some relaxing clothes.

  Glancing back into his bedroom, he coughed slightly, “Dee, you coming to breakfast?”

  Dee’s ‘goop’ form that had been coated in sand surged into its chitinous shell, and she walked out of the room. “That was a good conversation last night,” she said.

  Priam nodded, “Yeah, it was!”

  Neither were really interested in any type of sexual activity unlike Priam’s upstairs neighbors who he thankfully could not hear. Both were, however, somewhat attracted to each other’s personality. Dee had called it “Asexual”, which was a term that Priam had never heard, but didn’t mind being called.

  The jealousy Priam felt came from the fact that Jace and Shhiv were open about their relationship. Whereas Dee and Priam were keeping things quiet. For now. Priam was sure that eventually they would tell people. Eventually.

  Dee left the apartment and Priam walked behind her in casual, lounging-about clothes. “We’re going to have piles of bacon again,” Dee said. “I need to have more of that slab-style that is super juicy and fatty.”

  Priam smiled and kept walking behind her, “Yeah, it is tasty. And I’m not a big meat eater either! I like plants more.”

  Xera sat at the breakfast table in her Sera persona as the whole group and their companions or family enjoyed the meal. There was chatter going back and forth, and she sat there, occasionally answering questions, but wanting the event to go faster.

  Thankfully, she was not waiting too long, as Ree, Missy, and Shhiv wrapped up their meals at around the same time and headed downstairs to the Workshop floor for their day of work. Once they had left the room, Xera swapped her figure to that of her usual black-skinned form. “Now that we have only Signers present,” she tapped her wristpad, the room darkened, and two worlds appeared in front of them.

  “Deckard still has his bounty active. His home world is only Tier 7, and that is his Tier as well. The Nebula Alliance are one of the few factions where removing their leader would not cause any significant issues in The Cosmic System – someone else would take his seat.”

  “What’s the plan, then?” Greg asked. “Assassination?”

  Xera shook her head, “Shock and awe. You all need to get more Stardust. But, then you can show up, kick in his door, and blow some stuff up.”

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  Dee squeed happily, “Just what I love! Can we steal from them, too?”

  “Sure,” Xera replied as she tapped the world on the far-right: a snow-world. “This is Poltor Six. A world that used to house the species known as the Guatch. They achieved the threshold for Cosmogenic Merging, but around the same time their planet was flung from its orbit and became a rogue planet. Right now, on the surface of that world, it is at -380 degrees Fahrenheit. It was once a giant swamp planetoid.”

  “That’s freezing!” Priam said.

  “Colder than freezing,” Jace added.

  Xera nodded, “But, because of the timing of the two events, their magitech did not integrate properly thanks to the planet’s location shifting. As such, there are a lot of Complexes to clear out. One such Complex at the core of the planet can be cleared to install a planetary engine, which I can then activate to bring it into orbit around a star once more. Making it habitable.”

  “Simple enough,” Dee said as she leaned forward. “We go there, clear out all of the Complexes, get a ton of Boons and Stardust.”

  “Correct,” Xera replied. “Easily enough to achieve Tier 7. But you will need to be able to return rapidly. Since it is a magitech world, you could take a vehicle suited for the ice and snow.”

  “Let me guess,” Jace began. “You want us to be able to come back quickly if another one of those Astral things happens?”

  “Astral Incursions,” Xera replied with a terse nod. “When our layer of reality and the one ‘under’ us is torn asunder by magic, technology, or magitech. In the case of this most recent one? I believe souls were used to bait the Astral Demon from the other side to rip open reality. I think the souls being focused through that magic weakened the layers between our reality and the Astral Verge, as well, otherwise we would experience Incursions far more frequently in massed population centers.”

  Jace nodded and stood up, “How long until we head out?”

  “Take as long as you like for downtime,” Xera replied as she let the holographic display fade. “And, I am enacting Verge Protocol for all of your Wayfinders.” The rest of her Signers stood up, and Xera snapped her fingers, warping back to her command center.

  Sitting down at the central console, she pored through dozens of messages that she had been neglecting. Those dozens turned into hundreds, then into thousands. I really should snag a few more Wayfinders. “Josie! Why isn’t my mail read?”

  Troxanir was puzzled. He had felt reality ripple. A low ranked Astral Demon had somehow made its way into this reality. Someone was naughty, he thought as he looked at the still-being-completed Penrose Ringworld that surrounded the singularity at the center of the universe.

  He turned to where his physical body was, trapped in the singularity proper, and ran his fingers through the masses of souls that had been caught in his form. In me, you find your paradise. In me, you find your sanctuary. He began filtering through the souls, looking for any that stood out to him.

  And none did. They were all just residents of this universe. People. Nothing more. No one special, they all were equally valuable in his eyes. A source of power. Troxanir crossed his arms as he sighed. I need another twenty-trillion souls to level up, he thought.

  The System that existed within the Astral Verge had two forms of currency; possibly more, as Troxanir was not the most powerful creature in that layer of reality, and he only knew of a few types of resources that the Astral System accepted. Souls, which were more numerous but far less valuable, and Universal Matter.

  Which brought him to his current project. He looked through the reports from his Signers and Ascendants on Velenar Prime. They were still fighting against the Pulsar Coalition, but progress on the new drill was underway, and soon enough they could ship in and install the Astral Engine, which would feed off the core of the planet for power. Then, they could send the planet directly to Troxanir, giving him a large amount of Universal Matter.

  I just need to keep growing. Feed oblivion. Feed myself. He let out a chuckle as he sent off messages to other project leads. There were other worlds of interest to him. Including something that he had not expected – a rogue planet that was traveling somewhat close to the universe’s center. He began issuing orders to send Signers – primarily low-Tier Aspirants – to scout out the hostile, frozen world.

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