The question of ‘who’ was soon answered. After three minutes, presumably spent the same way Rykard and his women had spent the short stretch after arriving, a group of dwarves came around the corner. The procession was headed by Iceface. The white that covered his features cracked in anger as soon as he spotted Tess.

  “Ye… ye harlot that ruin’d the patt’rn!” he thundered as he descended the steps. “Ye will rue the day!”

  “I would refrain from threatening her too much,” Miyo spoke up.

  “What do ye care?!”

  “Tess is no longer a Contestant, as you should be very well aware of,” Miyo said.

  Tess’ identity was a revetion to the other three Contestants in the room, who had not attended the st Divine Game. They put two and two together quickly. “You are the Contestant who dropped out?” Loran asked in a diplomatic tone.

  “I decided I would have more fun riding Rykard’s cock than herding cats,” Tess answered with her usual sarcastic drawl.

  “Ye ran away!” Iceface’s anger was enough that the disk of frozen water cracked open above his mouth. A frigid wind, white and fkey, streamed out of the jagged maw. “Yer name is atop the list in the Book of Grudges! Ye owe us a thousand years of hard bour!”

  “I swore to no such bond,” Tess dismissed.

  “Ye-”

  “Did you not hear my queen?” Rykard weighed into the conversation. “Be very careful with your threats. Anything you state you want to do to her, you wish to do to one of my women and thus to New Eden itself.” The harem king stepped in front of his gothic thief. He could sense her smug smile behind him and let it happen.

  “Ye takin’ on her debt, d?” Iceface shook his head. “That’s too bad and I liked ye.”

  “There’s a way to fix this,” Rykard reminded. “We were promised that we could restructure some of the Coastal Tiles.”

  “That’d half the punishment at most! A grudge must be settled by death and toil! Recompense is just the start!” Iceface decred. “Ye took on her debt, so we’re now at war, d.”

  “Not a great loss, I never intended to work with svers,” Rykard answered with a yawn.

  Iceface clenched his teeth, which melded back together. “Hamm’r!” he decred.

  “You don’t want to do that,” Rykard stated.

  “HAMMER!” he roared louder and one of the dwarves with him handed over a warhammer worthy of the title. The snow-white metal of the head sat atop an artfully crafted head.

  “You really do not-”

  “YER NAME IS IN THE BOOK OF GRUDGES!” Iceface roared and charged.

  Rykard rolled his eyes and met the swing of the dwarf with a backswing of his hand. Was it arrogance to meet a dwarven, mastercrafted warhammer with nothing but flesh and bone? Not if one was Rykard of New Eden. The hammer came to a sudden stop upon meeting the swung hand.

  An explosion of ice, Rykard had only half anticipated. It was violent, manifesting in hundreds of sharp pieces that scattered through the room. ‘The idiot would use a weapon like this in such a packed environment?’ was the first thought, closely followed by a panicked. ‘Miyo?!’

  Twisting his head around, the king saw the blood of his first woman. It was only a trickle, originating from a cut beneath her cheekbone. The fan she had manifested in hand bore the mark of another projectile, which would have hit her in the chest or perhaps even the stomach had she not blocked it.

  Rykard felt his foot sm into Iceface’s chest before he had formuted his next thought. The dwarf was catapulted away. Focused on more important things, the king hurried over to his queen. Subana was already there, mending the cut on her face. Tess held a dagger, staring in the direction Iceface had been slung.

  “Are you alright?” Rykard asked, his voice soft and worried.

  Miyo’s trembled with rage. “A minor cut, nothing more - but it could have been more.” She gred at the Butler. “What is the protection of the gods in this manor?”

  “There is none,” the Butler reported with a bow. “Although, I would ask you take it outside.”

  Loran paled at that being revealed to Rykard. Whether he had reason to or not hardly mattered at this moment. Eyes glowing with arcane power, the mage king turned his attention back towards Iceface.

  “It is time…” the voice of the dwarf rumbled like an avanche. Embedded into the wall, he grabbed the edge of it. As he pulled himself out, patterns of ice spread where he touched the broken stone. His form swelled. More and more ice yered on top of what was already there. His armour expanded to keep pace with it. “...YE FACE ICEFACE THE ICEBEARDED, COLLECTOR OF GRUDGES!”

  The dwarf leapt down the staircase and nded in front of Rykard. ‘Dwarf’ was no longer an appropriate term for him. Stocky of build still, he stood two heads taller than Rykard and was twice as wide. His elemental aspect had taken over completely, presenting Rykard with a horned, wolf-like visage on a body made from ice and magic.

  The sharp teeth of the white-eyed creature parted widely as he bowed down and roared in an attempt to intimidate the king.

  Rykard raised his hand. The ft of his palm met the point of Iceface’s chin. It shattered. The open maw was forcefully shut. Frigidness failed to seep into the king’s palm, his rage so much colder than any gcier. “You think your people’s little grudge is anything compared to what you just did?”

  Iceface tried to push forwards. He must have thought he was strong. Like a crocodile whose maw was being held shut, he was now experiencing what it meant to face something beyond strength.

  “A thousand ruined patterns does not entitle you to a single drop of blood from my Miyo!” Rykard suddenly pulled his hand back. Iceface tilted forwards, swinging his mighty hammer. Too slow. Way too slow.

  The punch cracked the surface of the elemental’s face. A meteorite crashing into an iceberg, that was the image invoked as the man was catapulted sideways. He crashed into the wall, turning it into shards of gss, ice, and rubble. Further, he flew, bouncing like a skipping stone over the expansive garden.

  Rykard only stopped where he stood so he could assure himself that none of that rubble struck his vixen. Once the pieces of the wall had settled, he turned to his haremettes. “You know what to do.” They nodded. “And I trust you know better.” Loran nodded thrice in quick succession.

  Then, Rykard walked outside.

  Iceface had come to a halt against a rge tree. Already the massive pnt was getting chilled. Pieces of bark fked off the trunk from the sudden temperature change. Grass around shattered when the elemental rose to his feet. Half of the face had been obliterated by the punch, but was quickly regrowing. What Rykard saw was an elemental hull around the dwarf within.

  “Neat trick,” the king spoke without his usual joviality. “Worth practising even. Too bad your mastery stops today.”

  “Yer an arrogant d,” Iceface growled. “Ye do not know the preparations we’ve made to take on that bitch raven of yours.”

  “Oh?” Rykard spread out his arms. “Try it. It’s best you despair before you die.”

  The weight of his magic was behind those words. The weight of his magic was behind his every heartbeat. The weight of his magic was behind his presence and that presence beat down on Iceface like a hammer.

  Even Rykard had never seen snow sweat before. Barely on his feet, Iceface colpsed again. He was an elemental, he did not need to breathe, and yet he was heaving. Drops of water fell in constant streams from the many spikes of his face. The grasp on his warhammer loosened. The heavy head sunk to the floor, the shaft barely still in his hands.

  One step forwards.

  Iceface’s gssy gaze snapped back to reality. He flinched, raised his head and beheld the approaching king with feverish panic. “What’s wrong?” Rykard asked, his voice grim. “I’m unarmed. I’m helpless.”

  Arms spreading out even wider, he continued to walk until he stood in front of the elemental. On his knees, Iceface’s head was just lower than that of Rykard. The king’s unforgiving gre met the white eyes of the creature.

  “There is no arrogance in me, only pride well earned,” he hissed. “I came with a goddess as my newest concubine.”

  “That is… absurd!”

  “SUBANA!” Rykard shouted. He did not need to turn around to know his woman obeyed. Divine radiance flooded the area for a brief moment, an echo of her true power that verified what she was.

  It wasn’t that Subana stopped immediately after releasing it, just that Rykard’s own presence drowned it out. A diminished goddess was little compared to even an angrily woven manifestation of his magical weight.

  It must have started to simmer in: the futility and idiocy of what he had done. Iceface went sck for several seconds. Then, the stubbornness of the dwarves kicked in. “Well founded or not… YE TOOK ON A GRUDGE! YE MUST PERISH!” He clutched his hammer again and got ready to strike.

  Rykard’s hands grasped something beyond the air. Space distorted under his fingers, bending and wrinkling like bunched up fabric. Iceface’s swing had been on a direct trajectory to hit the king in his stomach. Instead, it missed him by centimetres and kilometres.

  “Wha-” the elemental stumbled backwards, his back hitting the tree. Space and time was howling around them. Laws of causality were stretching thin. “WHAT’RE YE DOIN’?!”

  “You will have a long time to reflect on your mistake.”

  Rykard’s curled fingers consolidated into fists.

  The ws of physics ripped apart.

  The garden around them was and was not. Them standing was and was not a factor. The air around them swirled with half-thought forms and concepts never quite put to paper. His mind had been in contact with this realm every day since he had discovered magic. This was his home away from home.

  “What did ye do?” Iceface gasped.

  Rykard did not care to respond to him. The simple answer was clear. The expansive answer would have gone over his head. The fact was this and only this: they were beyond the bounds of the material realm.

  The king raised a finger and snapped. The gesture was meant to cause a specific thing and thus it did. By believing it strongly enough, he made it so. Their surrounding warped. The conceptual darkness was repced with a very real one. A darkness so vast, so deep and destructive, that only a living cluster of stars could part it.

  Eight hooves stomped down a path made of fear. It was the fear of Iceface himself. The emotion radiated off his surface thoughts and bled into the Conjuration Realm. It was made manifest reality, a deep blue and red mixture of panic and impotent anger. He might as well have bled into shark-infested waters.

  Starlight Wandering All Worlds broke out into a gallop. The creature was impossibly far away, yet right next to them. There was nothing in the bckness but it. Without a carriage to slow it down, the celestial stag could have possessed any size.

  Iceface jumped to his feet and started running. A futile effort. He did not believe he could ever get away from the celestial stag- and of course he was right. Thoughts became a reality in the Conjuration Realm, but what were the thoughts of one dwarf compared to the desires of a demigod?

  The celestial stag was suddenly upon the dwarf. The head of the creature, always just a silhouette surrounded by a wreath of stars, descended. Iceface’s torso was gone. Iceface’s torso returned. Screaming in pain and confusion, he resumed running. Starlight let him get a head start.

  A long, long time of fear was before him. When Starlight Wandering All Worlds felt like it, the dwarf would be chased. If it did not feel like it, the dwarf would spend his waking moments in darkness without food or water, wondering when he would be chased again.

  “P-please no!”

  The female voice made Rykard turn around. He peered through the edge of the tear he had created in real space and found Vimi standing among the other onlookers. The blue-haired dwarf was deadly afraid, yet found her voice to speak.

  “Spare my advisor, I beg of you!”

  Rykard turned back to the scene. Starlight was letting the distance grow. Hope would make the desperation of the next bite all the sweeter. The creatures of the Conjuration Realm could be benevolent, but they were not good. They were not evil either. They simply were and put to this task Starlight would execute it until the very st of Iceface’s soul had been shredded down to its st fragment of mana by the entropy of this space.

  In no hurry to decide, Rykard turned to the Contestant of the dwarves. The broken veil thinned enough that she could see and hear him clearly. “Your advisor has wounded my Miyo, a price must be paid. I can’t let anyone get away with the idea that they can harm as much as a hair on my woman's head.” He stopped, drilling into her blue eyes with his gaze. “What will you give me in return for his life that makes it a worthwhile example?”

  “I… name your price!” the leader of the ice dwarves decred. “Whatever you desire, you will be given!”

  “You’re a liar,” Rykard told her ft to her face. He remembered her conduct during the st Divine Game. “So know this: whatever you agree to, you will swear to the Bond Crow. You will suffer if you break our agreement, should we come to one.”

  Vimi’s head twisted to the side towards Tess. She gulped, no doubt remembering the punishment she had suffered at the thief’s hands. “S-s-s-sure!” she stammered regardless.

  “My demands are then as follows: you will strike the grudge towards Tess from your books.” The queen nodded. “You will abolish the institution of svery.” The queen stood there. “You will, or your advisor’s life is surrendered to damnation!” Starlight chose that moment to stomp on the elemental dwarf, making his scream echo loudly from the interstice.

  Even with that, Vimi hesitated, her advisors all around whispering in her ear. In the end, she pressed out. “We will abolish svery, as you demand.”

  “Good. Lastly, you, specifically, will surrender your position as Contestant.” Again, the queen hesitated. If a faction lost their Contestant, then that meant they were incapable of summoning Hexagons until they agreed on a new leader. In the best case, that would paralyse them for weeks, if not months. In the worst case, no new leader could be found and the faction dropped out of the game entirely.

  Rykard got the feeling that Vimi hesitated not because it was going to diminish her people’s chances but because it meant she could not be queen anymore.

  “Your choice?!” the king thundered. “I tire of waiting.”

  “I’ll do it!” Vimi agreed, to the shock of her other advisors.

  Rykard reached out and grabbed Iceface by the back of the neck. Taking one st whiff of tasty fear, the celestial stag then trotted away into the Conjuration Realm’s depth. The king and his hostage, meanwhile, surfaced from the interstice. It colpsed as soon as Rykard stepped out.

  “Endless… nothing… always… running…” Iceface babbled, completely out of it.

  “We’ve reached an agreement. Now, Tess, help me find the proper formution.”

  They spent the next ten minutes working out a contract that left the queen of the Snowfkes Hold without wiggle room. Once that was done and Vimi had spoken the words with the Bond Crow as the witness, Rykard released Iceface from his grip. He had been ready to shatter the man’s spine the entire time.

  It was then that the Butler cleared his throat. “Since you are no longer with a Contestant, I will have to kindly ask you to leave.”

  “I… understand,” Vimi muttered and stepped away. Iceface was still enrged and had to be carried by four other dwarves. Shoulders hanging, the former Contestant walked away.

  There was a way to reverse this quickly, by simply breaking the vows she had made as soon as she stepped out of the Divine Game. The Bond Crow would punish her with bad fate, but it could not outright kill her for the treachery. Whether she did or not, Rykard had no way of knowing. ‘I will find out in due time.’

  Letting out a slow exhale, Rykard walked over to Miyo. Wordlessly, he kissed first the pce where she had been cut, healed and clean, then her lips, and stly pced his hand on her belly. Tenderly, he stood like that for a little moment.

  Then he turned to the other Contestants. “We are clear on what would happen to you if you overstep?”

  “Crystal!” Loran answered immediately. The diplomat was by far the most intimidated of the three. The artificer gave a carefree nod, while Lord began to ugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Like I’d bother waging war anyway!” the tiefling announced and started sipping on another bottle. “I’m in this to throw parties and fuck hot women.”

  “You don’t want to win?” Rykard asked.

  “I’ll win if I win and I’ll lose if I lose.” Lord downed the entire second bottle of high proof liquor in one go. “Until then, I’ll just summon more people to party with into this world. HAH! You would like what I got! One of the Hexagons I summoned is a pit in which free-use succubus whores appear whenever they want! It’s one long party in the Endless Rave.”

  That did not quite sound like Rykard’s preferences. “I prefer my women to be mine over steadily changing free use sluts, but I can see the appeal,” he told the man and shrugged. “We will see if time makes us enemies.”

  “Time is my enemy, it keeps trying to make me sober!” Lord joked.

  And while they bantered, the Butler began to fix the wall.