“You should be worried,” General Vans said with a chuckle that didn’t make Det feel any better at all.

  “I knew you’d realize how awesome I am!” Calisco said. “Of course I should be in the advanced class.”

  “He said accelerated, not advanced,” Det pointed out.

  “I’m sure they’re the same thing,” Calisco said. “We should just rename it the awesome class now. Even though you’re in it.”

  “Considering how blatantly you disobeyed my orders,” General Vans said, something about the smile on his face as he looked at Calisco sending a shiver up Det’s spine. “You’re lucky you’re not in the stomped-under-the-heel-of-my-boot class. Though, given what I have in mind for the two of you, you’ll probably wish you were.”

  “Why am I getting caught in this?” Det couldn’t stop himself from asking.

  “Guilt by association,” Vans said, though his smile vanished. “And the fact you let her go.”

  “He doesn’t tell me what to do,” Calisco said at the same time Det said, “I don’t tell her what to do.”

  As one, they looked at each other, then at General Vans.

  “We’re not friends,” they said in unfortunate unison.

  Det just buried his face in his hands.

  “You may not be friends,” General Vans said. “But, now you are partymates. And,” he turned to Nancine as Det opened his eyes again. “There are things I need to discuss with this pair. I’ll leave you in Jeckles’ care for the time being. You will be returning to Avalon with us?”

  Nancine looked down at her daughter, then nodded to the general. “It won’t be easy leaving the only place we’ve ever known, but, maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s for the best.”

  “Your daughter will get the best education you can imagine,” General Vans said. “As will you, if you want it.”

  “Me?” Nancine said.

  “You,” General Vans said. “If there is one thing the Mistguard has learned from tragedies like this, it’s that survivors are strong. They often have untapped potential, and that can be good for everybody. More will be explained to you when the other Mistguard arrive. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

  “Of course, General,” Nancine said. “And, all of you, thank you for talking straight with me. And for saving us.”

  General Vans nodded, then motioned for Det and Calisco to follow him further down the street. As he went, he picked up his shield with a casual motion like the thing didn’t weight a metric ton. Then again, maybe it didn’t, since this Wordless material seemed to be special.

  Det followed as soon as the general motioned for him too, with Calisco—surprisingly—doing the same, almost in lockstep with him. As soon as she noticed, her eyes widened in a kind of existential horror, then she quick-stepped ahead of him.

  A sigh escaped Det’s lips before he could censor himself, but he continued to follow the other two ReSouled down the street. His feet stepped over debris from the exploded tavern, small ink-flames still burning in places, until they reached the crushed ball that was once a Wordless ant queen. Looking back, they’d walked out of sight of Nancine and the others.

  “You taking us out behind the shed to shoot us without any witnesses?” Calisco asked with a forced chuckle.

  “Depends on whether or not you’re going to learn how to follow orders,” General Vans said. “You wouldn’t be the first ReSouled I’ve had to put down.”

  The blunt delivery of the words cut Calisco’s chuckle off with a choke. From the look on the man’s face, he wasn’t joking, either.

  Det shrugged when Vans looked at him. After the display he’d seen with the ant queen—the crushed corpse of it not far from where they stood—Det knew he couldn’t stop the man.

  “You don’t seem concerned about the implications of my words,” Vans said to Det.

  “General,” Det replied with a tilt of his head to the side. “Despite how we both look, I’m old. I’ve learned over the years not to stress about things that’re out of my control. Compared to me, you’re a walking natural disaster. An earthquake or hurricane. If you wanted us dead, we’d be dead. Since you’re talking about it, though? I’m thinking that might not be why we’re over here.”

  “For now, it isn’t,” the general confirmed. “Going forward, I will expect better adherence to my orders, and the orders of any of your superiors, for that matter. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Det and Calisco both said at the same time, though the general’s gaze bored into the woman beside Det.

  “Really,” Calisco said. “I can be good.”

  “Time will tell,” General Vans said. “Good. Now, let’s talk. As you swore on the mistship, you are not to talk about anything you’ve seen on Ironsalt with anybody other than those I specifically give you permission to.

  “Of those on the mistship we arrived on, less than a quarter know the true extent of the threat of the Wordless. Most of the crew know less than Nancince and each of you are now privy to. They know there are threats we protect the kingdom from—bother internal and external—but not the details. You will, over time, learn how to recognize those ‘in the know’ about the Wordless.”

  “How do you keep the others from finding out about what’s going on?” Det asked. “This seems like a lot of complicated secrets.”

  “It is,” Vans said. “Normally, ships sent out to pick up new ReSouled wouldn’t come anywhere close to an emergence event. Ships like that are—let’s call them—probationary assignments. We watch the crew, study how they react to their roles. They don’t know it, but they’re being tested, to see whether or not they can keep these secrets. As for the mistship we arrived on, when we return to Avalon, the crew will be isolated and debriefed.

  “Those who we deem passed the test will be inducted into the circle of those who know. Those who didn’t pass the test, but didn’t learn anything they shouldn’t, will be reassigned to sterile ships. By that, I mean ships that shouldn’t normally come in contact with Wordless. Of course, on each of those ships will be agents who know the truth and can watch for the signs.”

  “And those who don’t pass the test but learned something?” Det said.

  “They will be restricted to sections of Avalon, and duties therein, until such a time they are deemed safe to have their freedom again. Before you ask, this is a surprisingly small number of people, historically.”

  “Who do we have permission to talk with?” Calisco said. “Please tell me it’s more than you and Det. No offense.” That last part was clearly directed at only the general.

  “If you’re careful, and nobody can overhear you,” General Vans said. “You may talk with each other about this. What you both went through can be traumatic, and while you will have experts available to you on Avalon, there is something to be said with talking to peers who have gone through the same thing.”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “Det’s not my…” Calisco started.

  “Enough,” General Vans said. “While you have a healthy appreciation for your own abilities, you need to recognize the man beside you just cleared an E-Rank dungeon—albeit one in its infancy—by himself. One with both a Boss and a rare spawn. This is not unheard of, but it is uncommon enough that if he were a second or third-year cadet, he would receive a commendation for it.”

  “Eh?” Det said. “I would?”

  “Yes, you would,” General Vans said, emphasizing the last word. “However, since first years aren’t supposed to know about emergences or the Wordless, we will need to sweep this under the rug, at least for the time being. Which is what we are over here to discuss.”

  Det held up the hand with the white half-glove on it. “You saying I have to get rid of this?” The words left his mouth, evenly, but he couldn’t stop the slight scowl from marring his face. He’d worked hard for these rewards—as the dungeon called them—and he was not keen on giving them up.

  “No, you may keep that which you earned,” the general said. “You’ll need the additional strength, considering what I have planned for you.”

  “And what is that, exactly?” Calisco said. “The advanced class you talked about?”

  “Accelerated,” Det corrected under his breath.

  “Yes,” Vans said. “But we’ll get to that in a moment. First things first, Det, what does your new equipment do?”

  “And why didn’t I get any?” Calisco interrupted—as usual—before Det could answer the general. “Didn’t we kill one of those bossy things?”

  “My power far outstripped the dungeon’s,” the general explained patiently. “Thus, it wasn’t a challenge deserving a reward. You will, however, have earned some experience towards increasing your Ranks.”

  “We get experience?” Det said. “This really is like some kind of game.”

  “I can tell going off-topic is going to be a regular occurrence with you two,” Vans said with a shake of his head. “I will explain experience, then I expect you to follow my line of questions. Understood?”

  Det and Calisco nodded.

  “Experience is just the word we use for what our bodies gather from Wordless we kill,” General Vans said. “This is all second-year material, but you will notice changes in your body you can’t explain. Instead of experimenting, it’s better I just explain it.”

  “Why does it sound like we’re hitting puberty for the second—no, third—time?” Calisco said.

  “Because it may feel like that,” General Vans said. “Our ReSouled bodies are miraculous things. They learn from tasks we complete—whether successful for unsuccessful—to increase our chances of succeeding the next time we try. They adapt quickly to atmospheres and situations, allowing us to survive things that would be fatal to somebody like Nancine back there.

  “More than anything, they absorb some kind of energy or meaning from things we defeat in combat. This energy goes directly into increasing the Ranks of our attributes, making us stronger, faster, and wiser.”

  “Can they make us smarter too?” Calisco said, then looked at Det again. “Asking for a not-friend.”

  “Intelligence is one of the trickiest attributes,” General Vans said. “Well, all of the mental stats are, actually. Measuring physical growth is very easy. Stronger. Faster. Tougher. Easy. For things like intelligence and wisdom, while the Ranks increase the same way as physical stats, a Rank-up of intelligence won’t directly make you smarter.

  “You won’t suddenly go from understanding basic algebra to mastering calculus. What it will do is make it easier for you to learn calculus. Higher Ranks improve the body—including the brain—but they don’t magically instill knowledge in you. You still need to put the work in yourself to master the skill.

  “It’s like having a higher dexterity will make you faster. More accurate. It won’t make you better with a knife on its own. You still need to learn how fight with a blade to capitalize on the increased attribute. Which is exactly why you’ll learn how to fight with multiple weapons during your three years in the Mistguard academy. You’ll also take classes on alchemy, mistship engineering, weapon and armor crafting, to name a few.”

  “I can’t even sew a button on my pants,” Calisco said.

  “You’ll learn that too,” General Vans said. “And increasing the Rank of your intelligence attribute will help make that process easier.”

  “Getting, uh, experience will help that?” Det said. “And we get it from anything we fight?”

  “Anything you kill,” General Vans clarified. “Especially the Wordless.”

  “Why them?”

  “We don’t know,” General Vans said. “But, the Wordless and ReSouled have some kind of intrinsic relationship. We gain more experience by destroying them, making their dungeons an integral part to our growth. On the other hand, they go out of their way to murder us as soon as they sense us. Which they can do, over hundreds of feet, through walls and around corners.”

  “Do we smell funny to them?” Calisco said.

  “Scent is one of the theories, though we haven’t found any evidence to confirm it. We don’t know why the Wordless hunt us or hate us. The amount of experience—the word that has been settled on for cycles to describe the mysterious energy we get from them—is easily double what we would get from something else of equal Rank or power.”

  “And that’s why Ironsalt will become a Mistguard training facility and outpost,” Det said. “Since we can’t destroy the emergence, we’ll use it to train. To get stronger. Because it’s E-Rank?”

  “E-through-C-Rank,” General Vans said. “The emergence in the tavern…” he pointed to the ruined building that still smoldered with black flames. “… is an entrance to the E-Rank portion of the dungeon. The mine led directly to the chained D and C-Rank dungeons, though there was a secret passage that connected them.

  “I suspect there may even be a B-Rank deeper in, but we didn’t go that far.”

  “Why didn’t we, anyway?” Calisco said. “Because I was with you?”

  “Jeckles is also Low-B-Rank,” General Vans said. “While you were the primary target in the D-Rank dungeon, he would’ve been vulnerable if we entered a High-B-Rank dungeon. As our Medic, it was a risk I wasn’t willing to take. Besides, culling the C and D-Rank dungeons is enough to cut off the dungeon burst for the short term.

  “And, no, before you ask, we’re not going to discuss dungeon bursts right now. We’ve already gone off-topic, and bursts aren’t part of the experience discussion.”

  “That’s what this all was, though?” Det said. “The ants left the emergence because it was a dungeon burst?”

  General Vans didn’t immediately answer, clearly weighing whether he’d answer the question even after he’d said they were done with the topic. “Yes, this was the result of a dungeon burst. It’s the thing we aim to avoid at all costs, and you can see why.”

  “How did it happen here?” Calisco said.

  The general frowned. “That’s an excellent question,” he finally said. “Unlike how the Wordless can sense us, the opposite isn’t true. We have agents on every pillar, as well as regular Mistguard patrols watching for the signs. We even had agents here. They missed it. Not just any dungeon either, but a chained dungeon with secondary emergences. These are not common. We need to learn how and why this slipped past us.”

  “Because of the chamber the miners found?” Det suggested. “Could the dungeon be, I don’t know, growing underground?”

  “It’s the likely answer,” Vans said. “Which means we may have even an A or S-Rank dungeon deep within the pillar. That is… very dangerous.”

  Det groaned just imagining an ant with the kind of power General Vans had displayed. Then again, if the pillar was already evacuated, how much of a risk was it, really? So, he asked just that question.

  “While most Wordless are limited to the pillar they emerge from,” General Vans said. “Evolutions have taken place.”

  “They learned how to fly?” Calisco said.

  “Yes,” General Vans said. “If the resulting evolutions lead to E-Rank Wordless leaving their pillar, to infect another distant pillar, the risk is much more limited than a B-Rank or above spread. Thankfully, we’ve only had to deal with one of those before we could get in and halt the burst by killing the Boss.”

  “What happens if you can’t kill the Boss?” Det said. “Does the burst just keep going and going?”

  “Yes,” General Vans said. “You probably didn’t see it from where you were in your emergence—they are hidden behind thick walls—but there are production facilities to produce Wordless. Endlessly. Somehow, the Boss contains a kill-switch, which shuts down the production as soon as the Boss dies. One of many things we don’t understand about the purpose of the Wordless.

  “Why would their creators build in such an obvious and exploitable weakness?”

  “… did ReSouled create the Wordless?” Det asked. “We gain more experience from them, along with rewards?”

  “You catch on quick,” General Vans said. “That is the leading—and most closely guarded—theory of the origin of the Wordless. One we absolutely cannot share, as it would destroy the trust we enjoy. If our ancestors are responsible, we will continue to do our job and deal with the emergences, but the truth—if it even is that—getting out won’t help us.”

  “You know, for a guy with all kinds of super-secrets,” Calisco said. “Your tongue runs pretty free.”

  “Because you’ll learn these things anyway, over time,” General Vans said. “And, considering what you’ve seen here, I would prefer you get straight answers instead of sneaking around trying to dig into things you shouldn’t. That’s when things go wrong.”

  “And yet you don’t think the general population should know about the Wordless,” Det said.

  “Hypocritical, isn’t it?” General Vans said. “When it comes to the kingdom, we’re following the direction of our predecessors that’s been in place for cycles. And we don’t see any reason to change it yet. But, enough about that for now. We need to get back to the original topic… though this discussion reminds me of something I should tell you. In the interest of keeping you from digging into things and causing trouble.”

  Oddly, he looked at Det instead of Calisco, but before he could point out he wasn’t the trouble-maker of the pair, General Vans continued.

  “The creature you faced back on Radiant, Det,” General Vans said. “The one that killed the sheep. We have reason to believe it was a Wordless.”