Zeroth Moment: My Cheat Skill Is Stupid, So I'll Just Ignore It

Topher woke in the warm blackness of his tent, thrashed about for a moment, then remembered where he was; he had a vague sense of being late for something, and scrambled to the flap of his tent to see what was going on. When he emerged, only darkness and stars greeted him; he groaned in annoyance as he realized it wouldn't be dawn for at least another hour. Couldn't sleep in on the one day I'm not grabbing the bare minimum of sleep while monsters attack, oh no.

Grumbling, he returned to his bedroll and lay back down, but found that further sleep eluded him; after a fruitless half-hour of tossing and turning, he gave up and started exercising instead. Maybe they'll give us breakfast. Least I can do is work up an appetite.

When dawn broke, he finished his last set, then Summoned enough water into a bucket to have his first real shower since Strathmore; he washed his clothes, set them aside to dry, and put on the robes that had been part of his his "Tobin Copperfield" disguise in lieu of anything better to wear. Just as he was about to wander outside and ask for directions to the food (and his companions), a shadowy figure thumped his tent flap in a knock-like action. "Hello in'dere! You decent?" an unfamiliar man's voice queried.

Not by half, thought Topher sourly, but just shook his head. "I'm wearing pants, if that's what you mean. You can come in."

The tent flap parted, revealing a soldier Topher didn't know; he took off his bucket-like helmet and twisted it in his hands as though uncomfortable. "Beggin' your pardon, sir. I'm Jacoby... kind of a coordinator. Nobody else wanted to... well." He shrugged, not meeting Topher's gaze. "Thing is, sir, th' Archmage wants to see you."

Before breakfast, naturally, Topher sighed to himself. Probably wants another PB&J too. "Sure, whatever," he grumbled, and gestured for the man to lead on.

Topher watched in fascination as the man ducked his head, then sidled out of the tent; where'd he find these guys? They don't seem like the regular soldiers the kingdom had before. Warily, he followed the man out of the tent flap and trailed behind him as they crossed the encampment; his sense of unease deepened as he observed the general state of all the soldiers. Their equipment looked shoddy and mismatched, and discipline didn't seem to be up to the normal standards; most of them lolled about, with a significant portion clearly drunk. Maybe the war's not going that well.

Bowing and scraping, Jacoby gestured towards a long, low building that looked a bit like a squashed hunting lodge made of fresh logs; Topher expected to follow him inside, but the man merely stood by the door and gave Topher an expectant look. Guess it's another top secret meeting. Giving his best effort at an imperious nod, Topher strode past him and entered, the door closing behind him.

The interior was dimly-lit, with candles and lamps rather than the magical illumination Topher had expected; he blinked, trying to make sense of it. "All right, I'm here," he announced gruffly. "What did you want this time?"

A rather different voice than the one he'd expected drifted softly out of the darkness. "I'm sorry. Have I somehow given offense?"

Topher gaped as the hottest woman he had ever seen in his entire life emerged from the shadows.

Her hair was honey-blonde, and fell to her mid-back in languorous waves that draped tantalizingly across her bare shoulders; her impossibly full, round breasts were pressed tightly together by a sleek black dress that hugged every inch of her body. Her tiny waist contrasted sharply with wide, firm hips and thick, soft thighs, and she wore matching black heels that showed off taut, rounded calves mounting slender and delicate ankles in way that was almost aggressively sensual. Her face was angelically beautiful, with breathlessly parted red lips and long, full lashes that concealed slate-gray, guileless eyes. Most devastatingly of all, she had a shy, demure air about her that violently offset the lustful potential her body exuded; her hands were intertwined before her in a contrite posture, and her head ducked down as though afraid to meet his gaze. The overall affect was, to say the least, noteworthy.

Topher's entire nervous system whipsawed; his endocrine system dug vicious, barbed hooks into his synapses and tried to drag him bodily into her, consequences be damned. Simultaneously, his reptilian hindbrain set off every panic button it could reach, dumping him into a cold sweat as his heart rate ratcheted up into the triple digits; he felt vulnerable and exposed, and some of his impulses tried to make him back out of the room in terror even as others were repurposing as much of his blood flow as possible into other areas of his anatomy. He twitched, recovered, froze, got dizzy, and eventually settled for collapsing into a chair; his mouth went dry, his throat filled with bile, and his eyes jerked madly around the room in a dozen simultaneous attempts to ogle and avoid the woman from all possible angles.

After a long moment, he managed to speak. "You're not Quint."

Her gaze stayed lowered; "No, sir. I am Sahlerra Siukh, Archmage of the Black Tower." Her voice was silk and red wine; warm velvet and buttercream. Topher thought he was going to have a stroke.

"My shadow," he croaked. "You're the one who... did... that."

She nodded, eyes still downcast. "My Unique Skill is Control Shadows. I have some small skill with it." She stood there, almost trembling, for several more seconds without speaking. "I am sorry to ask, but... we need your help." She took a hesitant step towards him, then another. "This world's need is great; we would do anything for your assistance." She stopped; Topher could feel his own heartbeat pounding in every inch of his body. "I would do anything."

"Wait. Hold on." Topher's body felt like it was about to explode, in multiple ways; he fought valiantly for breath, struggling with all his willpower against what was happening. "This is... I can't..." He raised his eyes to hers, desperate for some chance or opportunity to explain, to protest, to get free of the situation.

What he saw chilled his blood.

"Anything, huh?"

Her head snapped back the tiniest bit; her eyes jumped, shocked, to meet Topher's. "I'm sorry?"

"Not yet you're not." Topher stood, throwing himself out of the chair, and summoned his Stylus; giving it a single rapid whirl, he snapped out, "Ehn Ehf Zefekk Zoff Neifod!"

The burst of light which bloomed between them was blindingly bright; it caused them both to blink and duck their heads, but more importantly, it illuminated the dusky space to the maximum degree possible, smothering and drowning every inch of the space in brilliant light.

Chasing away all the shadows.

Sahlerra let out a disappointed sigh, and stood up properly; her head came up, her shoulders went back proudly, and one immaculately-nailed hand rested confidently on her hip. "What a letdown. I didn't even get into my pitch!" Bereft of her power, she was still unbelievably, impossibly attractive; but without the subtle emphasis of each curve and crevice of her body that control of shadows bestowed upon her, she was merely super hot rather than an irresistible succubus. She shook her other finger at Topher in mock scolding. "For shame, Sir Otherworlder." Her crimson lips turned up in a smirk at one corner. "You have to warn a girl first before you do that all over her."

Topher's blood positively boiled with rage; it took everything he had to hold himself back from punching the Archmage in her pulchritudinous face. "Go fuck yourself," he snarled. "Whatever you want, you can have the goddamn common courtesy to ask for it like a normal person."

She tossed her hair. "There's no need for that; I was only having fun." Pouting, the Archmage took a step backwards and leaned up against a table; crossing her legs at the ankle, she placed her hands provocatively on the edge behind her and swayed slightly as her eyes traveled over him speculatively. "Quint was right about you. You're not a typical F-Ranker."

Topher scowled, banishing his Stylus and crossing his arms furiously. "What the fuck," he growled, "would you know about a typical F-Ranker?"

"Oh, I know a lot, Topher. About F-Rankers, about mages, and especially about men." She began to walk slowly and tantalizingly around him, trailing a finger through the air; shadows boiled and streamed out from it, cutting the light from his Daylight spell as though it were nothing. Topher blinked. Shit. She let me do that. What am I dealing with here, exactly?

"For example," she continued, circling behind him, "I know that you are thinking, right now, that I allowed you to dispel my shadows with your Daylight spell. And I know you're wondering why I did that, and why I'm telling you that I know you're thinking that, and also that you're struggling with your attraction to me while also being absolutely terrified of me and the control I have over this situation." She circled back into his line of sight, smiling; horrifyingly, it was the same smile she'd had before, sweet and honest and kind, and Topher's flesh crawled so hard it felt like it was trying to pull right off his bones. Jesus Christ.

"You don't need to be shy, you know," she continued, facing him and banishing the shadows. "There's no danger to you here; I'm not trying to trick you or trap you. I like men; I like making love. Nothing more sinister than that." She looked up at him, openly and frankly; his palms immediately started to sweat. "I'm very good, too; definitely the best you'll ever have." She inched closer, putting her hands behind her back so that her breasts jutted out tantalizingly towards him. "You can even tie me up first, if you want."

"Can I tie you up and then leave?" Topher felt like he was choking; he'd never wanted to escape a room so badly in his life. "How would that factor into your master plan?"

The Archmage shrugged. "No big difference, really." She reached up and brushed her hair away from one ear, looking away winsomely. "But I'd be very disappointed." She licked her lips. "As Quint and Kelfir probably made clear to you, we Archmages don't get a lot of novelty in our lives. Unrivaled arcane power means that you aren't told 'no' very often."

"Yeah, well, I'm gonna be the gift that keeps on giving in that regard." Topher rolled his eyes. "You're no different than the S-Rankers; you all think that your power lets you do whatever you want."

"Doesn't it?" She cocked her head to one side. "But more importantly, I'm not forcing you. What's the harm?" Slowly, she wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed; her breasts strained against the fabric of her dress with a soft rustling sound. "Hasn't this world been awful enough to you? Don't you want just one good thing out of all this?" Her eyes crawled back down over Topher's body hungrily. "Wouldn't even take five minutes. Neither of us would last long..."

"Moving on," Topher rasped, sitting down again and Summoning a bagel. "You want something from me, and it's not what you're spending all this time talking about." He took a large bite out of the bagel and chewed as loudly and disgustingly as possible, open-mouthed in her direction. "Archmages don't go through all this effort just because they want to bang bald, fat old men. Spit it out."

"I'm not really in the habit of spitting," demurred the Archmage, moving smoothly to sit down across from Topher; to his relief, she sat upright and poised, with her hands crossed before her rather than in a more seductive pose. "But if you want, we can discuss this first." She leaned forward and tapped the table. "You have the Soulstone of Vashyarl the Black. I want it, very badly; what would it take for me to get that from you?"

Topher shrugged, reaching into his Magic Bag, and produced the Stone; he set it down on the table, just out of the Archmage's reach, and gripped it tightly. "You could say 'please', for starters."

Don't do that, warned the distant part of his mind, but it was too late; she reached across the table and wrapped warm, slender hands around his wrist, looking deeply into his eyes. "Please," she moaned, every inch of her abruptly transformed into sincere, desperate longing, "Please, give it to me. I'll beg, if that's what you want; I'll get down on my knees --"

"Eugh!" Topher released the Stone, shuddering and shaking his hand as though it had touched something foul. "Never fucking mind. You can have it, just don't do that. Christ."

Looking shocked, the Archmage grasped the Stone and pulled it to herself; as she did so, shadows gathered around her, darkening the room almost to pitch blackness. "Goodness, you are terrified of me, aren't you? How curious. Most men have a very different reaction when I beg..." She drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly as she held the Stone up and marveled at it. "But enough games. This is a treasure without peer; for less than a millionth of its worth, I have done deeds that would shatter your mind." She reached out towards a candle, and solid wisps of darkness carried it into her grasp; holding the Stone before it, she murmured runes to channel and refract the light into a tight beam. "Observe."

As Topher watched, awed, the light poured through the Stone and painted an impossibly complex chiaroscuro on the wall of the lodge; as the Archmage tilted and shifted the Stone and the light this way and that, the patterns shifted and flowed, interlocking and moving in a fantastically complicated dance of light and motion. "What am I looking at, exactly?"

"You're a Metaphrast," teased Sahlerra. "I don't have to spell it out for you."

All at once, Topher understood: the patterns were runes, linked and codified in ways that spelled out not only the magicks Vashyarl had known, but the ways in which he had constructed his power, including the invincibility of his dragon form. And, further down, he could glimpse traces of other things; the geases he had wrought, the ways in which he had designed and produced the Stone Elves, and even the ways in which their specific talents and characteristics were --

"Don't." He squeezed his eyes shut. "You shouldn't mess with something like that. It's vile."

She chuckled, unseen in the darkness. "I think I might know more than you about vileness, Topher Bailey. But nevertheless, it is a useful weapon; and we need every weapon we've got if we want to stay alive in this war."

Then, abruptly, the hot black pressure on his skin eased; he opened his eyes again to discover that the shadows had fled the room once more, and the Archmage was in front of him, staring at him speculatively again. "You're not homosexual," she mused, eyeing him up and down again. "You're not impotent, you're not in a relationship. You're clearly very, very attracted to me. So why...?"

"Jesus, this again? Let it go," he advised her, pushing back his chair and standing up from the table. "Some questions are better left unanswered." But he'd given something away; her eyes lit up with sparkling interest.

"You're in love!" she squeaked, bouncing slightly with excitement; the resulting physics of this drowned out Topher's primary consciousness for a split second, but he managed to fight back the tide of hormones and gasp in a calming breath. "Oh, that's sweet. But with whom? It can't be the Otherworlder girl, you can't stand her. Was it the dwarf you adventured with?" She twirled around, exhaling dreamily. "She was pretty, I know. A good rescue makes for such a great love story, doesn't it?"

"Dwarf? You mean Tok? But he's a..." Realization dawned slowly, spreading a flush from Topher's ears downwards. "Oh. Well, no. Just a good friend." He frowned. "How the fuck did you --"

She chuckled again. "You didn't think my primary talents were playing with shadows and spreading my legs, did you?" She fanned her fingers; multicolored lights bloomed between her fingertips, spiraling out to fill the room. Topher gaped; there were hundreds, each showing a snapshot of something or somewhere; knights training, soldiers marching, crabs underground tearing a fish apart. "My mastery is Divination, Topher. I'm the best Diviner in this world; and more to the point, I'm an Archmage, with an A-Rank Intelligence and enough interest in staying alive to keep track of all the pieces."

"A-Rank?" Topher blinked. "I thought people from this world topped out at C."

"Mostly," the Archmage demurred, "but there are exceptions. Particularly when you're an Archmage." She gestured; a swirling maw of darkness emerged from the tenebrous corners of the room, snuffing out all the lights and gathering behind her like a throne as she leaned forward and blew him a kiss. "I know everything you've done, everywhere you've been. I know what motivates you, and Zashe, and Quint, and Kelfir, and every other player in this game." She frowned. "Except one."

"The Demon Lord." Topher nodded. "You see it too; nothing he does makes sense. If his armies are as strong as they are, he could wipe us all out in a day if he wanted; so why doesn't he?"

She sighed. "Believe me, I wish I knew. I don't generally have much trouble sleeping, but that question is enough to keep me up at nights." Dismissively, she waved a hand; the shadows around her dissipated again, leaving her looking smaller and much less formidable. "And I have a feeling that if we find out the hard way, we really won't enjoy the experience."

Topher sighed. "Probably not." Reluctantly, he forced himself to sit back down. "So, what do you need me to do?"

The Archmage shrugged. "The Stone is a great deal of what I need; but there's more, too. You spoke to Tetsuo Okano, so you know that there was always a small chance that you were going to be important; when you killed Vashyarl, that stopped being a small chance."

"I didn't kill Vashyarl," said Topher automatically. "That was Hana. Maybe she's the chosen hero you want." Please let that be true, he thought fervently.

Sahlerra shook her head. "Your fates are all tangled up with each other anyway; it doesn't make a difference which of you did what." She leaned forward, tapping the table with a long, sharp fingernail; he noticed that she had a french manicure. "I'm not like Okano -- my divinations can only show the present, and I have to guess at the future. But when I can look at the present of the people that can divine the future..." she smirked, then sobered. "But more to the point, if you think I'm letting you out of my sight during what's happening now, you're crazy; this is the big show, Topher, the third act."

She gestured theatrically; the back wall of the lodge disappeared, obscured by shadows, and glowing lights appeared at various points. After a moment, Topher realized that it was an aerial view of the land around Vorn; a large blue blob appeared to the north, while a smaller, greenish blob was slightly to the southeast. Sahlerra stepped up beside him, directing his gaze to the map. "The blue army is Sheonn's main force; that's where all the C-Rankers and D-Rankers are. The green blob is us, the surprise second army from Pioren that nobody was expecting." She gestured again; a huge red blob, brighter and much more massive than the other two armies combined, appeared just to the west of the green blob. "And this is the main force of the Demon Lord's army, led by Tyal Ex Zedeus, Unforgiving Queen of Swords and the Demons' most powerful warrior."

Topher's jaw fell open and his eyes bulged; Sahlerra smirked again and added a tiny, infinitesimally small pink dot directly between the green blob and the massive red holocaust of the approaching Demon Army. "You are here."