Systema Delenda Est
Chapter 19: Future Options

Cato-Heimdall was in a fantastic mood. In fact, every Cato was, because even though there were troubles and problems and all sorts of frustrations, Kiersten had come back. And it had gone almost as well as he could have ever hoped.

He knew she wasn’t a good person. Before the System arrived, she had been normal enough, though troubled by her own origins and the nature of her life before Earth. Hardly a saint, but still family, and someone he’d gotten along with once upon a time. Now, she had become complicit in genocide and world-burning — but then, that was true of a lot of people.

In fact, everyone who reached Alum had probably committed some sort of atrocity, somewhere in the mists of time, and it wasn’t clear to him at all if it would be special treatment to hold her more accountable, or less. Or if he should simply chalk up all of that to what the System was, what it did, and include her in the general clemency he was offering. Not to say she would be left to go do whatever she wished; there was a reason he was offering Alums the Elysiums and similarly restricted habitats. While he wasn’t going to pass judgment directly, especially since they weren’t even aware of the standards by which Cato operated, he also wasn’t going to let them wreak havoc among a civilian population.

Fortunately, all that was out of his hands. He knew he wasn’t going to be objective about Kiersten, but he didn’t have to be. Even if she wasn’t out of the System yet, he was certain she would be soon since Yaniss had been voluntold to be his liaison for Kiersten and others like her. Yaniss was someone who was simultaneously more sympathetic and more objective could make most of the judgements — and convince Kiersten to take the final step. Cato was afraid that he’d be too forceful and muck up the chance he’d been given, so he merely virtually hovered, paying more attention to the feed from Cato-Ikent than he probably should have.

At least, he did until something more urgent captured his attention. When Cato had asked Marus to send out communications tools to other gods, he had given it maybe a one in ten chance of going anywhere, even with over a hundred of the things sent by way of Interface. Although he did have Marus’ testimony about the other gods, the sims just didn’t have enough to project anything with any degree of certainty, but he’d learned his lesson and stopped having the sims prune low-probability scenarios. A lesson which had clearly been well learned, as he’d always thought contact was extremely unlikely, yet it had happened.

“Who are you, to have a communicator?” The god on the other end was, according to Marus’ memories, one Sorek Lundt, and like all Lundts, he was an over-muscled biped with intensely thick fur; a bodybuilder llama coated in slabs of carapace and steely wool. He was merely a low-status World Deity, somewhat equivalent to the kind of go-fer that Marus had been. Cato actually preferred that to someone like Misse or one of the other Clan elders; the higher-ups were most likely to put a ban on the communication. The lower ranks, though, might well have enough of a reason to try and defect.

“You know me as Cato,” Cato-Heimdall said through the frame that was monitoring that particular communication array, on one of the Hunting Worlds. Those worlds didn’t rate a dedicated god, since their permanent populations were in the hundreds at most, and were the best place to risk any kind of uncertain contact. “I believe I am speaking with Sorak Lundt?”

“What?” Sorak bellowed, gesticulating aimlessly and expressively as he rose behind the desk the communicator displayed. “How did you get this to me? I will—” He cut himself off and glowered at Cato’s frame. “You will regret—”

“Calm, Sorak,” Cato said, as the body language analysis he was running suggested a high chance of fear. “Neither of us would find any profit in reporting this conversation to your superiors, lest you be suspected of collaboration with the enemy.”

“What do you want?” Sorak said, able to do the same calculations and realize that simply calling Cato was risky, even if it was by accident. As terrible as it was for the rank and file, the extreme purity tests only benefitted Cato. Some people would never, ever be willing to entertain Cato’s offer, but everyone who was even slightly threatened would find Cato’s side far more welcoming than their own.

“I think I’ve made my goals quite obvious,” Cato replied, keeping his tone mild. “The System must go. But that doesn’t mean you have to suffer thereby. Until recently, I have had no real chance to make my offer to System Deities directly.”

“What offer is that?” Sorak asked, torn between cowardice and avarice. It would have been disappointing, were it not for the fact that the System gods were obviously people, and so vulnerable to exactly the same manipulations as anyone throughout history. The System had even flattened out the majority of true xenology, the individual cultural purchase points that might have made such offers more difficult.

“Opportunity,” Cato said, although that was in many ways a lie. What Elysiums offered was more complex than merely the ability to indulge one’s dreams. They were genuinely places of learning and growing, given the right framing, and even virtual lessons could be applicable to the real world. Elysiums could be networked without any issue, and a simple leaderboard or other method of allowing former-gods to engage with each other elevated the virtualized management into something meaningful.

Of course, he didn’t intend to actually offer those gods a place in his campaign. While he wanted to absorb the cast-offs from the System’s political infighting, such people were also the most likely to try and compromise his goals, to try and drag him in different directions. There was a certain amount of deceit in what he was using to lure in gods and high-rankers, but he didn’t feel too bad about it. It wasn’t like he was putting people in chains and forcing them to fight for their lives.

“We both know the number of worlds available to any of the clans is shrinking,” he continued, seeing that he had Sorak’s attention. “Both thanks to my efforts and the destruction of anything considered compromised. That Misse is consolidating power to herself, and that soon enough the best you’ll be able to hope for are the dregs she allows you. What I offer is a fiefdom of your very own, outside the System, and the opportunity to grow.”

“Pretty words,” Sorak said, big bulging eyes squinting at Cato. “But I could just take all this to a Clan Elder instead.”

“You could,” Cato agreed, as affable as before. “But I would lose nothing, even if they decided to purge this Hunting World, and you would be under the suspicion of taking my offer. Especially since I would be perfectly willing to talk to your Elder.” It wasn’t exactly a threat, but Cato was sure the System-god could read between the lines.

“And why would you bother to offer me such a thing?” Sorak said after a moment, seeming more suspicious than ever. “There is very little I could offer in return.”

“Because I am quite serious when I say that the System must be destroyed,” Cato replied. “And the more people I can convince to leave of their own accord, the easier that becomes. The more gods on my side, the fewer I will need to fight. Perhaps, in the end, I won’t have to fight hardly anyone at all.”

There were many hints and implications that Sorak might read within that truth, the majority of which would just be reflections of his own biases. That, perhaps, such generosity was only for the first people to defect, and that later arrivals would get less consideration. Or maybe it would seem that Cato had a far larger empire than the System, and would reward those who were on his side once the worlds were subjugated. It was even possible Sorak just saw the entire contact as a blatant threat, but it didn’t much matter what the god thought so long as he could be convinced defection was an option.

“Now that is a ridiculous notion,” Sorak scoffed, but he didn’t terminate the connection. “And how are you even going to convince anyone you’re telling the truth?”

“By letting other people do it for me,” Cato returned. “I certainly didn’t send the communicators out personally. Would you like to talk to the god that did? He is, of course, safely out of the System and can speak at length about what I can provide.”

“What? Marus is gone?” Sorak leaned forward in the projection, seeming properly shocked for the first time. He reached up to touch the badge he wore, likely doing a brief interrogation, then narrowed his eyes at Cato. “Yes. I will speak to him.”

Cato pinged Marus, and then turned up the time acceleration of the former god’s Elysium until Marus responded. He knew that his personally low opinion of the god made him a bit carefree with manipulating aspects of the environment he normally wouldn’t, but at least that way he didn’t need to wrangle with Marus’ ego. Marus could take as long as he wanted to respond to Cato’s request; it was still only a second or so of real time.

The creature beside Cato woke up as Marus joined the conference. One version of Leese had taken the hacked-together teleconference creature that Cato had made for Yaniss and done a proper job of genetic stitching and mass production, resulting in something that was in many ways similar to the sensory cape. Project COLECO, so name for the startling resemblance it bore to a children’s toy from an early Summer Civilization, was the final result for a more dedicated solution. It had ended up as a big square body covered in chromatophores for images, a pair of syrinxes for audio, little tiny feet for positioning, and a little tiny mouth for nourishment. And, because Leese had a sense of humor, big googly eyes on the top corners, even if they weren’t the primary camera pickups. It was not much brighter than the average arthropod, but the Colecos were the perfect tool for connecting Cato’s slowly growing out-of-System population with anyone still in-System.

“Sorak,” Marus said as his image appeared on the Coleco.

“Marus,” Sorak said suspiciously. Cato left them to it, as interrupting or guiding their conversation would be entirely counterproductive. Though the truth was that Cato figured Sorak’s defection was almost certain, if for no other reason than the alternative was being suspected of treason by peers and elders alike.

Soon after Sorak signed off, having made no commitments one way or another, another of the communicators activated and Cato prepared for another conversation. Marus had only been able to send out about sixty of the communication devices, and ultimately Cato only expected maybe one or two would have the courage – or cowardice, depending on perspective – to defect. For now.

Soon enough the pressure would ramp up, and he wanted to make sure that everyone knew how to call him up.

***

[True Deity] Misse Eln sat with Muar in a comfortable office within the first floor of the essence nexus in the True Core, one she had created with her new and upgraded Interface and decorated with some of her personal effects as well as some of the few remaining artifacts from the prior rulers. None of them seemed to be anything active, just fragments of devices or trophies with nigh-incomprehensible [Appraise] results. There might have been more she could discern if she wanted, but there were other, more important priorities than such ancient history. Such as the current state of the System.

The two of them were delving through some options given to them by the True Interface, the one upon which all others were patterned. Which were many, varied, and complex. Even if Muar hadn’t yet managed to reach Alum and thus qualify for Deity status, he was the only person who was firmly on her side. Not her Clan’s side, not the side of any of the more senior gods, but her side. Or rather, Muar was dedicated to the System itself and found her the most worthy representative of it, which was an important enough distinction, but made his support even stronger.

So far as she could tell, her new rank was unshakeable. Now that she had claimed the role of [True Deity], nobody else in the System could contest it. All the functions of the True Core were open to her, and her alone — unless she wished to share, as she did with Muar. Unfortunately, it seemed that for all the newfound power, Cato was truly not of the System, for none of his works or presence could be found within the Interface’s reach.

Lacking the ability to resolve the problem directly with her authority, she turned instead to those aspects she could solve, as the new and improved Interface gave her heretofore unknown insight into the workings of the System. For example, she could see what worlds were actually contributing essence, and which ones were consuming it. The majority of the frontier was very close to neutral, with the fringes leaning toward a net negative and the nearer worlds being closer to positive. There were a few exceptions here and there, of worlds with a significant deficit or surplus, but those numbers were from the perspective of the System, not of the World Deities themselves. Quite a different consideration, as it seemed the True Core had some not-so-obvious contributions to the essence involved in quests and dungeons and rank-ups.

A small portion of the total essence surplus generated by the System came from the Inner Worlds, and a much larger one from the War Worlds. She could even pull up a list of the individuals who had generated the most essence, finding a number of Alums — mostly names she had never heard of before, even as a Deity.

Almost all essence transactions before Bismuth were irrelevant; it was that transition which truly drew on the System’s reserves, and it was in crossing over to immorality that mortals began to generate essence. For those who kept advancing, they were likely to remain in debt, as it were, until Alum, at which point their activities created large amounts of essence. It took the entirety of the Inner Worlds just to match the production of the top thousand Alums in the Core, demonstrating beyond doubt the System’s grace in allowing those who had failed in their journey to still contribute. Yet, adding in entire population of the Core, the thousands of Alums who didn’t make the top list, the total only barely matched the amount of essence that came from the font in the True Core.

“We can probably remove the portal restrictions,” Muar said, looking over a different set of reports from the Interface. “If Cato’s everywhere already, those restrictions are just crippling the growth of the frontier. Even if it doesn’t create much essence itself, those worlds and people are the seeds of the System’s future.”

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Misse nodded agreement and, with a simple instruction to her Interface, undid the proclamation. She hadn’t informed anyone of her discovery and new authority in the months since she and Muar had entered the True Core, and had no intentions to do so just yet. As a [True Deity] she had technical supremacy over others, but that wasn’t the same as authority to lead them. She well knew that, at least for the moment, others would try to undermine her, or strike at her more vulnerable family members.

No, she needed to continue consolidating her own power — The threat of Cato and the future of the System demanded it. But as ever, the System provided, and with far better tools it would be a much quicker process. For example, she could protect her Clan from Cato by promoting worlds from Inner to Core Worlds, or from frontier to Inner Worlds, which would at the same time raise her Clan’s own prestige. Such things happened naturally, of course, but with her newfound authority she could spend the vast resources of the True Core on it. If she did so carefully, at least.

Even if she couldn’t directly access Cato’s actions, his lack of aggression made it clear there were limitations, and ones she could exploit while he waited. Perhaps he was marshalling his resources elsewhere, or perhaps his presence in the Inner Worlds was merely that, a presence rather than a manifestation of true force. If he was going to give her the time she needed to cement her power and understand the new abilities that being [True Deity] allowed, she was hardly going to complain. All she needed was the ability to pull worlds into the Core, as it was clear that Cato was unable to breach that particular barrier.

She was deep into her Interface, with the characteristic display windows spread out around her and Muar in their hundreds, before she finally found some of the options she was looking for. At the top level, there were some changes she could make to the System entire — adjusting the rate of expansion, for example, or even converting one world into another True Core. Why she would want to do the latter she could not fathom, given that it would divide up all the essence gathered by the True Core, exhaust enormous amounts of essence, and subvert all her attempts to protect them from Cato.

“We need to rearrange things and not just promote worlds,” Misse mused as she sifted through what the Interface offered. “The System’s connections are mutable, and millions of years of uncontrolled expansion and clan politics have made things far more difficult than they should be. We can ease a lot of tensions simply by shifting things around.”

“I can focus on changing portal connections,” Muar said, since he already had a map of the frontier up. “Promotion is something I would prefer to leave to you.”

“Of course,” Misse agreed. Rearranging portals was simplicity itself, but the essence costs to promote a world from Inner to Core worlds was staggering by normal scales. Of course, she wasn’t working with the normal scales anymore. The entire System’s essence flow was available to her, and the amount generated by the central font alone was enough to regularly promote worlds.

While Muar puzzled over the organization of the frontier worlds, Misse delved deep into the promotion options, and made some adjustments to the most important of the Eln Clan’s holdings. She had an obligation to protect her own world first, giving it a higher percentage of the flow, but all of them were getting an infusion of essence from the True Core specifically aimed at promotion. Without her needing to force it, that would bring her own world into the Core within a few years, followed by others a few decades later. That would create an unassailable position of strength from which to bring the other Great Clans in line.

Technically she already had that position as [True Deity], but the lesson of Meshan’s rampage was still fresh in her mind. Perhaps she was invulnerable with her new rank, but that hardly mattered if some all out war left her as the only god still standing. And a single god, acting alone, was nothing without a coalition behind her. The System itself taught that cooperation was vital, but so was strong leadership. All that [True Deity] did was give her better tools — and a perfect assurance that the System, with her at the helm, would ultimately prevail.

“We can shift all these portals to consolidate everyone into more discreet blocks,” Muar said, interrupted her deep dive by pushing a window her way with a gesture. On it was an as-yet uncommitted suggestion, showing a rearrangement of frontier territories – and a few Inner Worlds – to minimize the borders between the different Nine Great Clans, consolidating mortal subsidiaries and banishing the few remaining independents to isolated segments at the frontier’s edge. She saw he’d also rearranged some worlds relative to each other to bring more competent subordinates closer to the Inner Worlds, raising their rank when it came to the promotion process. The end result was a System layout that reduced travel times, improved resource access, and provided a smooth transition from the lowliest fringe all the way up to the Core Worlds.

“That is excellent,” Misse said, studying the layout. With the ability to rearrange portals and, indirectly, the overall Deity Space it would have been easy enough to directly cripple the other clans — and she still might. But again, there was no point. She had the upper hand and knew it, but better to use that to apply a more subtle pressure. “Better to warn everyone first, however.”

With her new Interface she could send out messages from the System — safely anonymizing her, in particular, as the source. With that it was easy enough to send a prompt to all deities about the portal network rearranging itself over the next year to better reflect the control of the Nine Great Clans. It blatantly left out the independents, but they would have to go either way and it was better to plant the doubt that the System even recognized them.

“What are we going to do about annexations?” Muar asked, glancing at the map of the System that hung in the background of all the Interface windows, and in particular looking at the world of Gellum. Cato’s presence in the area of the newest annexation had ceased, but they both knew that was merely a stratagem, and perhaps related to it merely being a Hunting World.

“We don’t need any just now,” Misse replied, discarding the whole worry and ensuring annexations were paused by her own hands. “Better to wait until we have a better handle on the Clans and the frontier in general, and then we can bring more order to the process. No more uncertain petitions or infighting. We can just open as many as we want, wherever we want.” She’d already found the option to open a new one, and while it was quite expensive in absolute terms, it was only equivalent to promoting a planet to the Inner Worlds — the equivalent of a thousand Bismuth ascensions. Not so bad at all.

“The lower ranks will need time to return to normal with the portals open again. I understand why it was done, but the long-term harm was not inconsiderable,” Muar said, demonstrating again why selecting him had been prescient. Not only did he understand the politics she was engaged with, he still had a connection to the mortal ranks that meant he could grasp the impact of changes in a way most gods could not. Some gods didn’t even recognize that it was the flow of mortals that both created essence and gave deities their very purpose. There was a reason no Hunting World needed one, after all.

That didn’t solve the issue of Cato being on so many of the worlds, but really the most important seeds of the System’s future were in the Inner Worlds anyway. Given time she could sweep everything important into the Core, and then just keep going so long as Cato was unable to press her too hard. She knew that she still didn’t have a proper grasp of his true strength, but it was obvious he couldn’t contest the Core, let alone the True Core.

Now that she had the entire True Core under her control, she didn’t believe Cato was a real threat — but she wasn’t going to leave it to chance. She set the Interface to keep track of any signs of his presence, ensuring she was alerted if he made a move anywhere across the whole System. There was always the possibility he was up to something subtle, something that would require close attention to catch.

As troublesome as Cato was, she was vaguely grateful to him for forcing her to elevate herself above the usual mediocrity of deities, even if he might still end up wresting some of the frontier from her control. But such worlds were not vital. The frontier could be replaced, and no matter how many of those worlds she had to cut off, it was a sacrifice she was willing to make.

***

Imel Miche, née Raine Sekhel stowed the jager frame’s massive spear and trudged toward the portal off Gellum. There didn’t seem to be any point to thinking of it in any way other than the System’s naming because there wasn’t anyone to dispute it. Despite all the travel she and Leese had done, and despite Cato getting a surveillance network assembled in record time, they couldn’t find any trace of natives.

According to Cato’s records, native species got special quests which let them create new towns without needing to reach all the way to Gold, yet none had appeared. Nowhere on the planet could anyone find a new town. The only System buildings were those that had been established on the other side of the portal from the [Gellum Staging Area], and those didn’t constitute a town. There wasn’t even a true Nexus, as the portal itself was still out in open air.

“Well, guess we’re done with this planet,” Cato-Sekhel sighed over the link. With no natives and barely any System presence, nobody had any interest in hanging around. They were simply leaving before the Bug Bombs they’d left in each of the dungeons went off.

“Maybe it was just uninhabited,” Leese replied as the Jaeger stepped through the portal. The large protective dome still covered the staging area, which was people mostly by Golds getting quests and turning in resources from the new world. Outside it, Cato’s forces had stopped attacking simply because there didn’t seem to be a point. Besides which, all the Bismuths and Azoths around made it extremely difficult for Raine and Leese to act with the freedom they really needed.

“It’s looking possible,” Cato admitted. “With so many Hunting Worlds I suppose that most annexations would have to be to uninhabited planets, and either there was nothing here or it was all overwritten. Virtually all the flora and fauna seems to be represented elsewhere in the System. There’s some grasses that might not be, but that’s it. I haven’t checked the ocean yet, but it could well be this planet wasn’t much past the stage of early plants and ocean creatures.”

“Every single planet having a pre-existing sapient species doesn’t make sense anyway,” Raine agreed. She was quite familiar with Fermi’s Paradox and the apparent rarity of alien civilizations. The System might well answer it to some extent, but it still seemed unlikely that intelligent races were particularly common. Even two thousand or so spread among the billions of stars that made up the Milky Way and its neighbors was higher than seemed likely given Earth’s data.

“I still worry that it was something like Uriv, and there was like some single tribal species that just got utterly annihilated,” Cato said, though given the extent of the surveying Raine and Leese had done, such a possibility was unlikely.

“It’s probably fine. Better than the alternatives, anyway,” Raine said, as the jager passed the checkpoint. There was still an Azoth posted at the entrance to the dome to check that nothing and nobody blatantly connected to Cato went through, but after Cato stopped his attacks, the security likewise diminished and nobody was paying too much attention anymore.

Once they were out, they used their movement Skills to zip to the Nexus and head through the portal, returning to Sekhel. Not that they needed to be on Sekhel itself to return to their orbital frames, thanks to FungusNet, but the jager frame had to be put somewhere. So they’d simply rented out a room in one of the Sekhel inns, one of the cheapest ones, and used it to store the jager until it was needed.

Nobody paid them much mind as they walked into the inn and touched the crystal there, extending their reservations by a full month before carefully making their way through halls that were not quite meant for something the size of the frame. Rather than lying down, the jager was designed to go into hibernation while standing, and they went through the shutdown procedures that locked joints and balanced the torso before escaping back to their normal bodies in orbit above.

The sensation of instantiating into a biological frame was always strange, not quite waking up but not far distant from it, either. She could have omitted it, and the feedback wasn’t entirely necessary, but it felt better than the abrupt cut that was otherwise the case. Raine opened her eyes as the pod opened, and hopped to her feet. Even if she was technically clean she always felt like she needed a shower any time the bio-frame came out of hibernation, and by the time she was done and dressed Leese had also emerged.

“Should really start thinking about joining one of those civ-habitats,” Leese said, glancing around at the enormous ring full of greenery — and no other people. Though that was why a number of civ-habitats had popped up in various worlds across the System, so there would be more peers than just the three of them. “Or make one for ourselves.” Raine grunted, not particularly worried about that yet, but Leese did have a point. There was no telling when it would be time to remove Sekhel from the System, and once that happened they would no longer have the option of going to Heimdall.

That would leave Cato alone on Sekhel, though, and Raine considered him enough of a friend that she felt rather bad about that. He would be stuck caring for System inhabitants by himself, all alone with the task of easing them into technological civilization. Not that Raine had much interest in that work herself, but the point remained.

“Maybe we should ask if anyone wants to immigrate?” Raine suggested. While Heimdall was the primary locus for refugees or émigrés, it wasn’t like it was hard to make the infrastructure, either digital or physical. Some of the Sydean habitats had been going for long enough that there was a new generation, and that was ignoring any that were using Summer Civilization style technology to run through the years at a much quicker pace.

“Or maybe we should try to convince Cato to just emigrate everyone,” Leese said, and Raine nodded. While Cato didn’t like mass digitization, most people within the System wouldn’t see a problem with it, and Sekhel was one of many worlds where there were no obvious natives or anything unique enough to be worth saving. Cato didn’t like to abandon worlds on general principles, but for some places it was far easier to send everyone to settlements on other planets. With a global population of one million, divided between four different races, there just wasn’t much when it came to seeding a new civilization.

Leese followed Raine away from the biolab, the two of them getting into the vehicle waiting for them out front. It was a bright red convertible automobile – Raine’s, of course – with styling based on the Laplace Era of the Hamien Summer Civilization. Leese had something a little more practical. The seats self-adjusted to fit the pair as they slid in, and then Raine put her foot on the accelerator.

Tires protested as the car raced out onto the equatorial road, and Raine cackled at Leese’s expression. Trees whipped past and the sound of the engine – as Raine found that old-fashioned combustible engines were far more fun – bounced off the ceiling. The equatorial route took them through wilderness and over a couple bridges, the lakes a combination of aesthetics, storage, and temperature regulation, before she finally started to slow down as they approached the housing area.

She and Leese had their own houses and yards next to each other, a few acres backed by automated fields, while Cato’s was just down the road. The three of them used entirely different aesthetics, and Cato’s log cabin was backed by a meadery and rows of beehives. The stuff was odd to the Sydean palate, but not bad.

Raine parked her convertible and they hopped out, a quick ping to the station’s virtual intelligence showing that Cato was in the meadery at the moment, doing whatever arcane work producing alcoholic beverages required. They wandered in, pausing by the doorway to wait for Cato to finish the chemistry he was doing on a sample, before he beckoned them forward. While he was still using a human frame, this particular one was older, with a neatly trimmed bit of facial hair above his lip that Raine privately thought looked ridiculous but was apparently fairly normal for humans.

“Glad to be back?” Cato smiled cheerfully, opening the test-batch refrigerator and taking out two bottles to offer them.

“I think we’re pretty much done with the System,” Raine agreed. Even if there were only so many Lineages who could use the jager frames, it was definitely more of a job each time they went back. “So I think it’s time to talk about future options.”

“Ah,” Cato said, turned to retrieve a third bottle for himself. His hand had just touched the bottle when a high-priority ping from Cato-Uriva dropped into the local network. They all opened it at the same time to find that all the gods had gotten a broadcast from the System that the portal networks were being rerouted to some new configuration. Raine wasn’t sure what exactly that portended, but it probably wasn’t good.

“Well, sounds like we might have to worry about being cut off.” Cato popped the top off the bottle, the carbonation hissing. “Definitely time to think about future options.”

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