Adamant Blood

"I'm gonna do it tomorrow," Isoko said, over dinner in their suite.

Mark, Isoko, Eliot, and Sally owned an entire four-story apartment building located in the Nobles' District of the settlement. It was a massive place, made small by how much it was already used. Eliot occupied the entire bottom floor, using it for projects, while the second floor had been given over to Mark and his adamantium forging experiments, and the gym that all four of them used. The third floor was the bedrooms. The top floor was the living room, party room, and a few other things. Mostly, they lived on the top floor.

Today was June 20th, 2049, a Sunday, and though the four of them tried to have at least one meal a day together, it was a much more solid thing on Sunday. Sally had made dinner today, and it was an entire whole turkey, breads of all kinds, mashed potatoes, gravy, beans, and roasted vegetables of all kinds.

The Battle For Memphi, where cultists killed tens of millions and then resurrected all but 4.6 million, was still the biggest event in modern day world history, right alongside the birth of Mark's talzarki 'brother', the dragon Addavein. Since the Battle the last 4 months had been a whole lot of things, but mostly they had been simple living; killing monsters, making homes, making sure that the settlement was prepared for gate days every 15th of every month, and everyone slowly doing their own things. Learning, and expanding capabilities.

Mark had been prepared to learn about cultists and otherwise, but that had kinda fallen through.

The Collective had put the kibosh on new inquisitors about when Mark and them had managed to get back to the settlement, a month after the Battle.

A whole lot of new people tried to become Inquisitors and several of them had plotted to kill Inquisitors from the inside. People died. It was a whole thing. A secondary front on the War for Life. It seemed that even in the wake of the worst cultist disaster in recent history, where the cultists lost completely, they still worked toward demonic ends to infiltrate and kill, even when it cost them their own lives.

So Mark's request to become an Inquisitor, to learn all of the secrets that the Inquisitors hid from everyone, had been put on hold. Lola Turner, Mark's teacher of Union and would-be Inquisitor trainer, was told, along with a thousand other teachers outside of the direct oversight of the Collective and Citadels of the gods, that she was not allowed to teach Mark anything at all.

There were monsters for Mark to kill and adamantium for Mark to forge, anyway.

Other people, ones who were actually Chosen by a god, and not just with the same Power as a god, were allowed to begin training, though, so Isoko and Sally were training when they could. But not that much.

Eliot had buildings to build (and he didn't want to be an Inquisitor) and Sally had a desire to learn how to be a noble, so both of them were taking accounting classes together when they weren't going with Mark and Isoko out to hunt big monsters. Big monsters could bring in a lot of good money, and everyone needed money.

Theoretically.

Eliot was loaded and Mark was too, so they were more at the 'is doing this politically advantageous for us' point in their careers.

And Isoko was doing magic.

Isoko had advanced in magical learning a lot faster than Mark, even though they both had the same lessons with Duchess Elaria Valen every Monday. Mark was currently still Mapping his Binding, but Isoko was at step 2; Altering the Binding and adding magic to her current Power of Platinum Body.

Mark was happy for her.

He really was!

Totally true.

Mark asked, "You're ready? Already?"

"I am," Isoko said, taking a breath. "Gonna get that Flight magic." And then she challenged Mark, "And we're gonna race to see who is faster."

Sally laughed. "He's gonna blow you out of the sky!"

Isoko rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue. "Maybe the first time! But not the tenth! I'm up to a 2.5x speed modifier! That translates to Flight magic, too. To everything."

Sally said, "I don't get why more speedsters don't do magic."

Eliot answered, "Because high speedsters don't need flight magic. They can run on the air and avoid all attacks, and all of that shit."

"Sure, the high speedsters," Sally countered, "But lower speedsters can do a lot with flight magic, right?"

"Right!" Isoko said. She put her hands up and spread them, like she was displaying lights, saying, "Platinum Bullet!" She told them all, "That's gonna be the name of my move when I turn on the flight and barrel through whatever is ahead of me."

Mark grinned. "But mostly it's gonna be flying in the clouds as fast as you can."

Isoko's eyes seemed to sparkle as she softly grinned. "That is the main thing, yes."

"Where you wanna fly first?" Mark asked—

A notification appeared in his eyesight.

"One sec," Mark said, looking to the side. Quark brought up the message and Mark read it while everyone looked at him. Dinner paused. The alert was a notification from COFR, Citadel of Freyala Resources, and the header was good news. Mark didn't read the actual note right now. "COFR's messages are high priority so they come through like that— Anyway! I'll read it later—"

The team relaxed. Sally chuckled and went back to eating.

Mark continued, "But the headline was that Lola is now cleared for Inquisitor training of non-Chosen people. Gonna be learning about cultists soon, for real!"

The mood turned serious.

Gone was Isoko's quiet joy over her plans for 'new moves' to use for theoretical future Hero/Villain program shenanigans. Eliot was solid. Sally was relieved, actually.

Sally said, "Thank Drakarok. Did they finally fucking clear all of the interlopers?" She looked at a big screen to the side. "Is there news, Eliot?"

Eliot was already looking at that screen, flickering his Man-made Manipulation through the systems, bringing up the news. The video flickered a few times and then settled as Eliot said, "This one is from two days ago with the most views."

It was an official press release from a Sentinel of the Aluatha Empire, Saikou Jowa, and Mark was instantly on edge. Mark hadn't seen the guy since the end of the Battle For Memphi, but he knew him as much as Mark wanted to know him. Saikou Jowa was the same purple-skinned, white-haired guy who had threatened Mark with trumped-up charges of selling draconic goods in order to throw him into an adamantium farm. In that moment, all of that shit from that horror show came rolling back, from Lola being threatened with exile and his uncles Alexandro and Gabriel being on those crosses over the battlefield, while Kardi and demon-Contracted Chris Powell, Grey Phantom, threatened everything Mark held dear.

Mark felt like the last 4 months hadn't happened at all.

Mark breathed deeply.

Isoko looked at Mark as much as she looked at the screen.

Mark shook his head; he was fine.

Sally glanced away from Mark to watch whatever Saikou was saying.

"With confidence, the Aluatha Empire and the Collective of Paladins, declares that the recent incursion of Cultists into the Inquisitors, is now closed. The final purge was a mere 18 people, all of them new faces to the Collective. None of them penetrated deeply at all. All of their attacks were surface level, and no vulnerable data was exposed.

"I will explain the event, and go from there.

"In the wake of the Battle For Memphi and the result of all of that ordeal, a great many people desired to fight against the darkest evils of the world. Those people came to the Inquisition looking to help those who help all. The Inquisition vetted each and every applicant with as many mortal means as possible, but the Cult is ever dangerous, and we do not, and never will, have a strict guideline that all applicants for the Inquisition be paladins.

"95% of applicants and Inquisitors are paladins, though, and thus they have direct oversight from gods, and those people are fully clear of demon influence. But we are an organization, as well. An international organization that ties into many normal operations the world over. We have clerks, secretaries, and people who we hire and who are exemplars in their fields to manage critical infrastructure, and not everyone has the Calling that makes us paladins. And that is fine. That has been acceptable for a long time.

"This particular vulnerability to the Inquisition has always been known and heavily policed.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"In the wake of the Battle For Memphi, we relaxed guidelines in order to fill critical missing personnel requirements, and so the Cult infiltrated as much as they could, through those avenues open to non-paladin people. They did not get far.

"The story regarding this event is a lot more fantastical and fatalistic than what happened in reality. In reality, 18 Cultists killed 31 people, in total. They did not get far.

"And yet, this vulnerability of the Inquisitors was too vulnerable. In the wake of the Battle For Memphi, we opened applications to more non-paladins. This was a mistake. The Collective is now closing those openings completely. Only paladins and very specific, known people, are allowed to apply to the Inquisitors, for the foreseeable future. If you're not a paladin, or connected directly to an Empire, or the largest of organizations of Earth, then we have torn up your application. We apologize to those who tried to apply and who we wanted to accept, but we cannot, in good conscience, accept many non-paladins into such critical programs like the Inquisition. The oversight of the Pantheon is critical to maintaining the stability of the Inquisition, and we will not be opening our doors that wide ever again.

"Thank you.

"I will be accepting questions now."

Reporters asked questions and Saikou answered.

But Eliot lowered the volume and said, "I guess you're one of the 'very specific' people, Mark?"

Mark frowned a little, saying, "Maybe I should read that letter from COFR… Quark? Summarize?"

Quark spoke up, "Your application for Inquisitor training has been re-approved, thanks to letters of recommendation from several Powers That Be, including COFR, Memphi, Crystal Tower, and others."

Isoko exclaimed, "Good! Lola is a great teacher, by the way."

Mark grinned. "She's the best, yeah."

Sally said, "I hear we're getting an Executioner in tomorrow."

Eliot scrunched his face. "Aren't you an Executioner?"

Paladins were people Chosen by the Gods of the Pantheon to right wrongs in their names and with their power. They were vigilantes empowered to do good, and most nations of the world recognized them as powers unto themselves, and backed by the gods. Freyalan Union-users were on every front line of every major monster fight, healing people and hurting monsters. Hearthswellian Castellans protected every city and fortified every fort. Verdagoin Farmers made food at farms and otherwise, and Plutan Clerks brought prosperity to everything they touched, and they managed most of the mortal bureaucracy of the Pantheon. Drakarok paladins fought on the front lines, right in the thick of it. Malaquan priests kept the Stone Churches active, where people participated in the False Tutorial, to find out if they were capable of taking the real Tutorial, where Malaqua himself oversaw the whole thing and gave people real Powers at the end.

While paladins fought monsters primarily, Inquisitors went in the other direction.

Inquisitors were a loose affiliation of god-approved people who fought against people. They usually worked closely with law enforcement to do so, but not always. Inquisitors were the ones who policed magic users, to prevent abuses of magic, where normal law enforcement couldn't function for a variety of reasons, but mostly because mortal organizations were easy for demon cultists to infiltrate. And so, Inquisitors went after the big bad guys.

The Collective was all paladins of the Pantheon working together in the same sort of umbrella organization. From Paladins, to priests, to Inquisitors, and finally, to the Executioners of Drakarok.

The Executioners were special.

They were the ones that toppled wrong-headed governments, and mayors, and small-time despots who set themselves up in the wilds, lording over their few hundred people like an unquestionable god. The Executioners usually didn't have much big work, but they led the fight against the Cultists the most of all.

"I mean, like, we might be getting an official Executioner," Sally said, waving a hand. "I'm nobody."

Mark said, "Well that's simply not true. You are somebody to me, Sally."

Sally rolled her eyes, disbelieving Mark's attempt at cheering her up. "Anyway! You can come to cultist class now, Mark."

Isoko went, "Bleghh! Don't call it that, for fuck's sake."

Sally laughed.

Eliot grinned.

Sally continued, "You won't have missed much. It's all detective training, and you'd ace that the second you could actually get near enough to read a person."

"Oh you're doing fine, Sally," Isoko said. "Union is just better at reading people than Retribution."

"It's not supposed to be," Sally said, "I'm supposed to be able to look at a person and get a feeling for what they've done that's wrong, but I haven't managed that at all. I'm only an 'Executioner' because Drakarok Chose me for that role, and I have not been able to live up to the... responsibility."

Sally had beaten herself up some ever since the Battle For Memphi. She was holding on to a lot of pain. From not being able to kill Kardi when she was right there, to not being able to protect Eliot, to… to a lot, really. Most days she was able to move past it all, but she was having trouble today.

Mark said, "So I'm still avoiding the fuck out of therapy. How about everyone else?"

"Same!" Sally announced.

Eliot said, "Same."

Isoko hummed at everyone, frowning.

Eliot continued, "But! Good news: I'm pretty sure if I ever get knocked down to a brain again I can still survive. Got the plans all made up and the parts scattered around the settlement and the hoverspider. I can probably save a lot of other people, too, if I have to, though being a head in a jar is not fun. Mostly it's horrific."

"Preparation is good!" Mark said.

Sally chuckled with gallows humor as she said, "It's one way to get 'a head'!"

Eliot smirked, the shadow of death upon him and everything around him.

Isoko was worried, but her mouth was silent.

Mark did a bit of a Union of Good and Bad, black veins pulsing out of his pale skin, into the air around him, as he said, "Therapy is overrated, anyway."

Exasperated, Isoko said, "Holy shit, you guys."

They all laughed.

Isoko continued, undaunted, "Talk to some people! Holy shit! I'm serious."

"I'm doing a lot better!" Sally said, still smiling. And then she turned as serious as she could, but she still had a grin. "I'm for-real, now. I'm better."

Eliot said, "I'm doing fine, too. I'm fiiine!"

"Eliot is fine!" Sally said, "I'm good. You're good." She looked at Mark. "How about you?"

Mark held up his plate. "I'm out of turkey, and that royally sucks. More please!"

Sally grinned. Eliot chuckled.

Isoko pulled back.

And Sally cut off more turkey for Mark, saying, "Thank god you didn't use your blades this time."

Mark said, "My adamantium is perfectly sanitary."

Sally derided him for that, saying 'no it's fucking not' and then Eliot suggested a microscopic investigation for bacteria, and Mark said to 'bring it on!' and Isoko rolled her eyes. The bacterial investigation of Mark's adamantium yielded no results.

"See! Clean!" Mark said.

Sally said, "Probably loaded with 'poison mana' in the astral cracks, though."

"That's not a thing," Mark solidly declared.

"It might be a thing," Isoko said, taking Sally's side.

"Kaijushit," Mark exclaimed.

They laughed.

They bullshitted for the rest of dinner, and it was great. The dinner itself was good, too. Sally was turning out to be a very good cook, once she got a good setup to cook in, and Eliot had turned a massive part of the common area up here into a state-of-the-art kitchen. Sally was cooking all the time, and she loved it.

Mark loved his friends.

Isoko grinned at that feeling of Mark's seeping out into the world. Sally and Eliot couldn't tell exactly what Mark felt all the time, because they didn't have a Unionsense, but Isoko did have a Unionsense, and she could tell, for sure.

Mark really liked that about her.