“Scorio!” Lianshi cut through the crowd to approach, Leonis a few steps behind. “Did you really agree to this?”
“I guess so?” Scorio smiled at the sight of friendly faces. “Though Naomi didn’t really give me a choice.”
“I knew it!” Leonis grinned. “Naomi suffers no fools.”
“That’s…” Naomi hesitated, eyes narrowed. “Remarkably close to a compliment.”
“Because,” continued Leonis, “she’s a murderous harridan trapped in the innocent shape of a young lady.” He beamed. “At least as far as I’ve gathered.”
“You ruined it,” said Lianshi with a despairing eye roll. “Come on, Leonis.”
“What?” He affected surprise. “I call it as I see it, and if I was in need of an assisted suicide I know precisely whom I’d call.”
“It would be my distinct pleasure,” said Naomi, smiling sweetly.
“See? She probably wouldn’t even need to be asked twice.”
“Or once, for that matter.” Naomi’s smile grew wicked. “Have you been having troublesome thoughts, Leonis? I’m here if you need me.”
Lianshi stepped between the two of them but spoke to Scorio. “This is serious. You agreed to an official Testament, correct?”
“Correct,” said Scorio. “Jaks said it was a way to figure out ranking in the Fury Spires?”
“It is, but it’s more than that.” Lianshi took a breath. “The Iron Tyrant is, apparently, a supremely ordered person. Everything is documented, ranked, and accordingly rewarded. Your rank in the Fury Spires determines privileges and, if you’re in the Iron Vanguard, the kind of missions you’re sent on and how much Gold mana you’re given. It’s all in their contracts.”
“That’s fine and all,” said Naomi, affecting boredom. “But in case you haven’t noticed, we’re not in the Iron Vanguard, and don’t plan to stick around long enough to care.”
“I wasn’t finished. The loser of a Testament agrees to swear a Heart Oath to the winner -”
“What?” demanded Naomi, her outrage immediate.
“Within very definite limits,” continued Lianshi, speaking over her. “The loser agrees to perform a small favor to the winner, though the nature of the favor is limited by the standard Testament contract. I’ve not read one, but Moira told us about it on the way over. Favors can’t be used to harm the Iron Tyrant’s interests, to endanger the one obligated, or to betray other oaths. It’s definitely a minor favor, but it’s a real obligation.”
“The sneaky little bitch,” said Naomi, turning to glare through the crowd at where Jaks was grinning at another companion.
“She told us enough to get us here,” mused Scorio, “and then planned to spring the Heart Oath part on us in front of everyone. If we backed out we’d look cowardly, and if we agreed, they must think we’d lose to the three of them.”
“It’s nicely played,” said Leonis, crossing his forearms over his broad chest. “You could always step out now before the announcement, but something tells me that’s not your style.”
“What do you know about them?” asked Scorio. “Their powers?”
“When I heard you were fighting them I started asking questions,” said Lianshi, but Naomi cut her off.
“Why? We used to be friends, true, but we’re strangers to you now.”
Lianshi hesitated.
“Naomi,” protested Scorio.
“No, it’s a fair question.” Lianshi glanced at Leonis, as if for support. “After saying goodbye in Bastion, we used most of our coin to pay for a teleport to the Chasm.”
“Dread Blaze called Jarex,” rumbled Leonis. “Terrible with money and always looking to make more.”
“We visited our graves,” said Lianshi, her gaze locked on Scorio’s. “On some level everything you’d told us had felt like a story, and I wanted… needed to see the reality of what you’d said.”
“We needed,” said Leonis darkly.
“You visited your graves,” said Scorio softly.
“They were there, just as you said.” Lianshi inhaled deeply. “It was… deeply uncomfortable. But we sat down, after -”
“When we returned to Bastion -”
“- and went through everything we’d been told. Wrote a list -”
“Lianshi does love a good list,” said Leonis with a grin.
“- and wrote down everything we knew about you. And everything we’d learned directly from you both, and how you’d behaved.” Lianshi glanced up at Leonis again, who took over the conversation.
“Look, the long and short of it is that our past selves trusted you, and from what Lianshi can tell from her diaries, we as Great Souls don’t change that much from life to life. So while we don’t know you as our past selves did, we decided -”
“ - together -”
“To trust you when given a chance.” Leonis’ grin was wry. “You seem to be good people. We’ll look out for you when we can.”
“Thank you.” Scorio felt his throat close up. He wanted to turn away. To not see their faces, to feel the pain and gratitude that their words had brought up again. He inhaled sharply. “That means more to me than you can know.”
“Thank you,” said Naomi softly.
“What was that?” Leonis cupped his hand to his ear and leaned down. “Could you say that again for those higher up?”
Naomi scowled. “I’ve had a change of heart. Any and all gratitude has been summarily retracted.”
“Their powers work well together,” said Lianshi, tone brisk. “It’s why they’ve remained as a unit. Jaks has an inverted version of my own power; where I can become invulnerable for a short period of time, she reverts to a completely unharmed state every thirty seconds.”
“Must make getting drunk really hard,” observed Leonis.
“She can also augment her allies with the qualities of whatever fiend she fought last, and can change her size. Yuze can fill an area with razor-sharp filaments, like a spider’s web that slices you apart if you touch a strand. He can also transform into hundreds of spiders, and reform wherever any one of them are.”
“He what?” asked Scorio. “He turns into spiders?”
“It’s his Tomb Spark power,” said Lianshi. “You know how all Tomb Sparks either gain the ability to control others in some fashion or hide? He hides by becoming a mass of spiders. They can’t really do much, since their purpose is to obfuscate him, so don’t worry about being swarmed or bitten by them, but they scatter and make him hard to kill.”
“That’s right. Jova explained as much to me, once.”
“And his Flame Vault power?” asked Naomi.
“It was an amplification of his Emberling ability. Before, he could just shoot single strands from his finger. Now he can just fill an entire area all at once.”
“Alright.” Scorio gave a sharp nod. “Jaks can heal every thirty seconds, enhance her friends, and change her size. Yuze fills the area with cutting wires and can disappear into a hundred spiders. Dakshina?”
“She’s the most dangerous of the three,” said Leonis, tone serious. “She has a weird power. I don’t quite understand it -”
“Then I’ll explain it,” snapped Lianshi.
“- but I’m happy to try and explain it,” said Leonis, pretending not to have heard her. “She basically steals people’s ability to move.”
“No,” said Lianshi. “She steals your speed and enhances her own. And whenever she wants she can split herself into two copies, each with half her current speed. Only one of them is the real her, however; the other just acts like her but can’t actually do anything.”
“But she can do this over and over again?” asked Naomi.
“Correct. As long as she’s stolen enough speed to make it practical. She could do it over and over again till she was paralyzed and surrounded by a bunch of slow moving copies, but what would be the point?”