Without further preamble Banks took a seat, on the plain uncomfortable chair sitting opposite the throne, rolling his eyes at the blatant power play. None of the food was in reach for him and so he casually placed his feet on the glass table and leaned back in the chair, giving the Psideri a placid look.

  "That's quite the broad topic," he stated, there's was more than one issue plaguing this town, although common sense told him they probably all stem from a root cause, or were triggered by a root cause. "Are you talking about the ghosts."

  "The ghosts, the collapse of the Golden Guards, the missing Undying?" she counted on her hand. "How infuriating it is to desire these questions, and yet be unable to rip them from your head."

  "You are a very dangerous woman," he said regarding the woman in front of him.

  "Oh, are you flirting with me?" she asked., tilting her head in a way that would have undoubtedly got legions of men to fall for her.

  "We're incompatible," he said calmly. "Quite literally." Even a kiss would likely cause her to fall sick, maybe even die. How about a compromise, a fact for a fact. I say some juicy piece of information and you respond with an equal piece of information."

  "And what if I already know that information?" she asked. "And who determines the worth of this information?"

  "Regardless of it already being known we respond," he stated. "And it's a gentlemen's agreement."

  "I'm no gentleman," she said.

  "Neither am I," he responded.

  "Fine," she said, with a smile. "The Undying Emperor is dead." Her smile faded as he gave no response. "You already knew."

  "His parts are scattered around the city in some form of ritual," Banks countered, causing her to fall silent.

  "Ascrew the self-proclaimed world's greatest assassin was seen in the city recently," she said.

  "No shit, really Ascrew," Banks said. "Genuinely did not know that," he admitted. "Some people have been found infected by the Festering Stream, a god."

  "A god, maybe a local god," she stated, before shaking her head. "The rebels have been roused by a man named Trisk Trinorim who was a remnant from the last regime that the Undying Emperor deposed."

  "The Trinorim Royal family," Banks mused on the words. "The Undie Emperor was once part of that family, wasn't he. Oh, sorry my fact. There are white strings that are controlling the Golden Guards to some extent and it's not a Raknid."

  "I don't know what a Raknid is," the woman admitted. "There's been a series of murders in the city," she stated. "People have turned up shredded from the inside."

  "Huh," Banks said, mentally filing that away. "By the day of Life the city will be shattered and most will be dead."

  "Is that a prophecy," she asked, looking seriously at him.

  "You can consider it a form of foresight," Banks stated and received an appraising look in return.

  "I don't have any information that matches the value of that warning," she admitted. "But you have given me some things to contemplate."

  "You're going to share with the class?" he asked, staring at her impassively.

  "No," she refuted dismissively. "Game is over. I have to go do some culture." She stood up from her throne and Banks matched her. "Actually I have one piece of information that I've just picked up," she said staring off into the distance. "The Eastern Gate has just been overrun with zombies. The undead are rising from the grounds around the temple district in vast numbers."

  "Oh shit, that's not good," he said, face going pale. "I've got a friend whose leaving in that gate."

  "Then you had better hurry," she said, downing a glass of whatever liquid was on the table, before sitting down again. "It seems to be pretty serious." He didn't ask her to come and she didn't offer it. Throughout the entire conversation she had displayed no shred of any empathy or love towards humanity. Wordlessly he turned away from the restaurant, lamenting that he had barely gotten any chance to eat before he stepped through the door and took of running into the night. He retraced his steps avoiding the expanding Ghost Domains that radiated sinister coldness, his heavy breathing loud amidst the quiet of the street.

  Eventually the silence slowly died out as the empty streets filled up with a line of makeshift barricades, manned by a dozen guards, each fully armored and with a murderous air about them. Behind them, there were dozens of civilians standing behind them on the street, milling about, a sense of purposeless urgency. He caught his breath for a brief second before he pushed through the thrumming crowd and came to the barricade. As soon as he approached it the barricade two guards stepped forward blocking his path.

  "Please step back, there are undead ahead," the guard said, holding up his hand to prevent him from going any further.

  "What happened?" he asked.

  "Didn't you hear, there are undead," the other guard said. "Fuckers came out from the ground. We had to fall back and secure the area. The whole area is being quarantined. Every entrance to Eastern Gate is blocked off."

  Stolen story; please report.

  "Are there still people alive in there?" he asked.

  "Possibly, some of the temples are built like a fortress," the guard said. "People who were inside at the time, may have been able to bunker down and survive the waves of zombies, but..." he trailed off gesturing past the makeshift barricade and Banks craned his neck to see past the relatively bad angle. The ground was absolutely covered in the undead, huge groups of them mashed into pieces, or decapitated, or otherwise disabled. Some still moved and the occasional one would twitch, which might set off a horde of writhing flesh.

  "Burn it," Banks commanded immediately.

  "What," the first guard said. "Hey listen..."

  "Zombies are generally copies of the dead at the moment of death," Banks stated. "They are generally a bit weaker, but with less of an instinct for self preservation and much less of a mind. They are at their weakest just after being raised. If you leave huge amounts of zombie flesh lying around there is an increasing chance it turns into something called an abomination. You do not want that to rise."

  "Noted," the first guard said. "We have already sent back the wounded and dead and are waiting on future supplies, which should include incendiary materials."

  "What nobody, can throw a fireball?" Banks asked. "Are you serious?"

  "We've been trained to only use mana in the approved ways," the first guard said. "Generally they don't approve of guards throwing fireballs, but I see your point." He turned back towards one of the similarly armored guards that had a blue pauldron on his right shoulder. "Captain, apparently the meat will automatically revive if we don't burn it. Mind if we toss a few fireballs in?"

  "I can hear your conversation, Ren," the higher up guard said, as he raised a hand and a tornado of fire, descended on the mound of corpses. The smell of cooking flesh pervaded throughout the street as skin tore, fat and muscles cooked and bones scorched and the remaining twitching intensified as the muscles contracted and they curled up into each other. The night grew warm as the tornado of flame roamed up and down the street until the corpses were reduced to ashes that coated the street. "I didn't want to do that," the man admitted as he turned away from the sight and the fire winked out of existence. "Are you looking to go in?"

  "Am I allowed to?" Banks asked sizing up the guard that had nearly a head on, his admittedly not very impressive height. "Is this not one of these one way barricades."

  "I don't have enough time or energy to stop you," the Captain admitted. "Mind if you are going in to die, take a few zombies on your way out and try not to die with a full corpse."

  "I'll make sure to blow myself to bits if it comes down to it," he said, walking to the barricade and hopping over it. "Good luck."

  "Save your luck," the Captain said. "You'll need it more than me."

  Banks nodded, as he walked through the field of ashes. The smell was simply indescribable, a rankness that goes far beyond the smell of decay and cooking meat. He no longer felt like running, while not scared this placed felt like it deserved a certain level of caution. Despite it being near the middle of the day, only a weak light seemed to still pervade this part of the city. While known as the temple district, this place was also full of residences, schools, bars, hospitals and various other things that people need to live. Nearly all of them were in some level of ruin, windows smashed, walls vandalized with blood and body parts on the street that failed to become a zombie. But none of the undead fell within his sight as he headed towards the largest of the temples determined to find the Temple of Light.

  He stopped to view a sign, reading through those various arrows until he paused as a flicker of motion caught his eye. Past the sign in a nearby bakery a zombie was munching on a hand, just looking at him. As he watched the zombie gulped down the rest of the hand and launched itself through the window before it stiffened and he watched as white strings entrapped it pulling into the air and wrapping around every limb, the strings splitting and lengthening until the entire creature was wrapped in a cocoon of string that floated ominously in front of him.

  "Did...did that zombie just evolve into a mummy," he said. "I did not think it actually worked that way."

  "It doesn't," a honeyed voice with a knowing confident tone said moments before the cocoon burst open. "I don't consider myself ready to be a mummy quite yet." Despite the joking tone Banks found himself unable to relax as the area around him flooded with mana. The standard background level of mana increased by dozens or even hundreds of times creating an oppressive feeling as it bore down on him with pressure akin to the infinite abyss.

  "Quite an entrance," he said, smiling despite the fact that it felt like his teeth would shatter any moment. "To what do I owe the pleasure... You were the one at the bar." It was the young man with the purple striped hair that showed up on the wanted poster, before the bar exploded in the last loop the suspected rebel. He was wearing a rather plain, yet smart looking white suit and was leaning on a cane that carried so much mana his atrophied mana vision couldn't actually process it.

  "I've been at a few bars," the young man admitted candidly, with a grin that made one want to check for their wallet. "But if you are talking about the one that blew up, I did stay there for a while. Although how you knew anything about it is beyond me. As far as I was aware there were no survivors in the bar. A crazed Golden Guard murdered them all." His lips curved into a smile that indicated that if there was a joke, he most certainly was in on it.

  "I read the papers," he lied badly.

  "Well then I hope the papers caught my good side," the young man said. "Ah, what am I saying, I'm all good side."

  "You are pretty handsome," Banks admitted, somewhat envious.

  "Thanks Banks," the man said smiling, causing the hairs on his neck to rise.

  "How did you know my name?" he asked. "Have we met before?"...or will we meet in the future. Occasionally, he found himself in the situation where he would meet somebody who already knew him due to something that future Banks would do and the situation never failed to creep him out.

  "Oh, we go back a long way," the man said. "It has been so long though. It feels like a million years since we met."

  "Now you're making me feel old," Banks admitted. "And you have me at a disadvantage. Do you have a name?"

  "How rude of me," the young man said. "You can call me Trisk Trinorim. Rightful ruler of Triskolin and true heir to the Sovereign of Light."

  "Quite a pedigree," Banks admitted.

  "No less than your own, old friend," he said, causing a shock to sweep through the time traveler's body.

  "How the fuck do you know so much about me," he said only to get no response as something crashed down next to the young man sending up clouds of dust and debris.

  "I'm here, boss," a husky voice announced, as an absolutely enormous man stepped out from a crater, the newcomer's torso was itself wider than Bank's entire height and both the pair of the normal sized men barely came up to his knee. "You should really teach me that teleportation. I had to run all the way here."

  "Let me introduce Gustane the Butcher, my employee," Trisk stated. "A bit uncouth, but he has his strong points."

  "And those are?" Banks asked as he looked at the towering mountain of a man. No, not a man, a zombie. If it wasn't for the paleness and sense of Death-aspect mana then he wouldn't be able to tell. The man himself was practically bursting with vitality and he could practically feel the heat radiating off of those muscles.

  "I'll let him display them to you, do not worry," Trisk said casually, before turning to the big man. "Gustane please kill him. Let's talk again in another future, Banks."