Ashtoreth returned to Diadem just two days later, warping in to land around the sa outer conduit that she'd occupied before. A mont after she'd arrived, Kylie appeared beside her. The lich had co not as herself, but as a translucent illusory projection that she'd apparently been working on ever since she'd first moved to Core, a spell that would allow her to interact with people on different realms without moving and losing her army.
Icon appeared before them just a second after they'd arrived. Instead of her Hunter-inspired garb, she now wore a long, neatly cut grey and black jacket with a stiff, close collar.
She fixed Ashtoreth with a glare. "You've taken a while just to think about things."
Ashtoreth shot her a grin. "You've changed into sothing a little nicer!"
Icon glowered at her, then turned to Kylie. "And this is?"
"I'm Kylie. I'd have co to talk to you sooner, but it took a bit of work to get this spell working."
Icon eyed her. "If it were important, you could have just used the outsider cores that your queen harvested during the extermination." She fixed Ashtoreth with a curious glance. "She clearly hasn't."
Ashtoreth smiled at her, but said nothing. There really wasn't any reason to tell Icon that Kylie's level wasn't the reason they were using her projection spell, but rather her undead army.
"The levels of those cores exceeds the upper bound of the cores provided on Orchard, if only by a little." Kylie said. "aning that we can optimize soone's maximum level by waiting to use them. And make no mistake—by 'soone,' I an Ashtoreth, who is obviously the only recipient worth considering."
Kylie's spectral form was translucent, but still had color, and her blue eyes seed to glitter like snow as she stared at Icon. "Had none of this occurred to you?" She drew out her tablet, then began to prod the screen as she glanced at the darkened ring around them.
Icon glanced at the tablet. "What are you doing? What's that?"
Kylie looked up. "You don't care to answer my question?"
Icon blinked. "About the cores?"
"Yes. I'll reiterate: had it occurred to you that spending the outsider cores as you'd suggested was a serious misallotnt of resources?"
"I—no?" Icon crossed her arms. "Obviously not."
Kylie nodded. "This is just a small personal computer. I'm taking notes on Diadem. And you."
"I see. I can only assu that Ashtoreth has decided to keep here while her underlings attempt to find a way to access Pinnacle without ."
"A thing like that is decided by vote," Kylie said. "And while Ashtoreth does get a vote, the rest of us would prefer to et you before we make that decision." She lowered her tablet, again fixing Icon with her unsettling stare. "Now. I would have said that you can undoubtedly see that letting you out of this place is a very risky prospect for us. But you've given cause to doubt."
Icon opened her mouth to speak, but Kylie pushed off the ground with her toes and began to float toward the distant inner ring.
"What do you an, doubt?" Icon said, crossing her arms and rising into the air to join Kylie as Ashtoreth silently followed after them.
Kylie's eyes stayed fixed on the inner ring. "I an doubt. The re suggestion that we would mis-spend our cores just to get here in person, along with your clear belief that two days was too long to wait after asking Ashtoreth for access to Earth, goes very far in telling what Hunter's report already indicates."
"And what does Hunter's report indicate?"
Kylie froze midair, fixing Icon with her stare once more. "You have no idea what you're doing."
"Excuse ? I don't know what I'm doing? I'll have you know that I'm more familiar with the intricacies of this realm than perhaps any other creature in the cosmos!"
"That's just more of what I'm talking about. You're weren't built for this, and it shows. You're making blunders, and I don't need to know your goals to be able to see that. When it cos to keeping humanity safe, you're… unskilled."
For a mont, Icon seed at a loss. Then, quietly, she said, "And so you'd just like to follow your lead, would you? Imagine that."
"Imagine this instead," Kylie said wryly. "Our predecessors left us a ans to defend ourselves. A breadcrumb trail to lead us to four realms beyond Earth, each of which could help us in the coming war—a war we never started but are, whether we like it or not, expected to finish. Orchard and Core function just as they ought to. But then we get to Diadem, and here we find there's only one living being left in this place, and she's used all the power she has, all the bargaining chips she can get a hold of, to turn the uppermost realms into her personal fiefdom, then use that circumstance to jockey for as much power as she can within the new human governnt."
"That—what? That's not what I'm doing!"
Kylie's voice was as steady and expressionless as her gaze. "Do you know what you're doing, Icon?"
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"I'm keeping an archfiend out of Pinnacle!" she cried. "If she rges the Five Realms and becos a pinnacle hegemon—hey! What are doing!"
Kylie had begun to prod at her tablet again. "Taking notes," she said. "I'm sure you can read them no matter how you position your avatar, but I'll share them with you if you like."
Icon paused a mont. "I'm not emotional!" she said finally. Then, seeming to realize how absurd the claim was, she said, "Or rather, my emotions are appropriate to the circumstances and so I shouldn't be characterized by the fact that I feel them!"
"You ntioned a hegemon. I take it that your civilization had one above all—a singular ruler?"
Icon stared at her. "Yours doesn't?"
Kylie was looking back down at the tablet. "So you were technologically advanced, but socially sowhat regressive."
"Hey!"
"Relative to my society's standards, that is. This is sothing we considered—ready access to magic seems to accelerate developnt of a civilization's material capabilities… but the system stunts the developnt of their social organizations. It insists that one must stand above all. As such, it's hardly surprising that Ashtoreth is so threatening to you."
Ashtoreth had to admire Kylie for the way she was working on Icon: when the archival spirit responded, she was clearly suppressing a desire to protest in the strongest terms. Kylie had dragged her from her starting position of thinking they were crazy to sowhere in the space between thinking they were crazy and Kylie's clinical, emotionless sterility.
"No," Icon said, "but can you really bla for being surprised that she's not threatening to you?"
"I see what you're saying," Kylie said. "But we don't feel that Ashtoreth is unthreatening. It's more that Ashtoreth, plus every conceivable assurance we can obtain from her, is the best we can do in circumstances that are hardly ideal. I may have so insight into where our disagreents really lie—and I'd like you to at least consider our perspective, here."
"Okay…" Icon said warily.
"Now, my humanity has never been a stranger to using tools, nor to making bonds with other species, and I'd wager yours is the sa in that regard. Does that sound right?"
"Well, yes…"
"Your knowledge of fiends is going to be out of date. The King of Hell has had seven thousand years to perfect what humanity—your humanity, I an—once saw so much potential in. As far as we can see, he did an excellent job. And to give credit to your suspicions, that fact has been overwhelmingly bad for the rest of the cosmos. Archfiends are so of the most dangerous creatures that exist… and as a rule, they are fiercely loyal to the Hierarchy of Hell."
Icon glowered at Ashtoreth. "And this is supposed to be convincing to trust her?"
"I asked you to consider our perspective. Are you willing to do that?"
Icon opened her mouth, then seed to reconsider whatever she was going to say as she chafed against the walls of the box that Kylie had built around her. "Right. Fine. Go ahead."
"The system-appointed monarch is, at their core, a fighter. They are an extrely small choke point, one single person upon whom all our safety defends. Now, humanity has manifested so excellent fighters, especially those who began with high-grade bloodlines or undead augnts. But high stats and a mind for combat is one thing, and a lifeti of training is another. Let ask: did your humanity have spectator sports? Dynamic, physical competitions and gas of the mind?"
"I—yes. Of course we did."
"And if you placed soone who had all the innate characteristics that showed promise in a sport, but who had no training, against soone who had not only promise, but training also, how often would you expect the forr competitor to win?"
"I see what you're saying, I suppose, but…"
"The correct answer," Kylie said. "Was, 'never.' Ashtoreth's stats are too high. Her racial abilities are an armory of tools ant to make her unchallengeable. Dragons are powerful, and so are humans with draconic bloodlines—but archfiends are… sothing else. Archfiends are power that has been carefully engineered into more than the sum of its parts. And while it may be different in a contest between the inexperienced, the simple fact of the matter is that when two highly skilled people compete and one of them has a considerable advantage that the other doesn't, their skill ans that they'll be able to turn that advantage into an overwhelmingly high chance of victory. Ashtoreth has the stats, the training, and the overpowered racial aspect. Moreover, she knows how important that the job she's doing is, and she knows how to swallow her pride and subordinate herself to power—even to the disorganized, bureaucratic ss that humanity's governnt has so often been in the wake of initialization. I say again: we have every assurance from her that we can think of."
If Ashtoreth weren't undead, she might have been blushing by the ti Kylie finished. First General Matthews, now Kylie. Nothing cut straight to her ego like praising her ability to fight, even if she knew that both of them were doing it in pursuit of a goal.
"I want to clarify," Icon said at last. "I don't want to seem like I'm asserting so kind of dominion over Pinnacle. That would be… highly inappropriate, given my station."
"Understandable," said Kylie. "But in the course of doing what you think is right, you've done so nonetheless. Now: I can acknowledge that Ashtoreth is… passionate."
"Heck yeah I am!"
Kylie glanced over as if noticing her for the first ti. "I'd prefer you stay quiet."
Ashtoreth crossed her arms, but obeyed.
Kylie turned back to Icon. "I understand that things between you two got… emotional. Hardly surprising, given how much every decision matters in these interesting tis."
"That's sothing of an understatent," Icon said. "But it doesn't matter. She asked what it would take to trust her, and I told her what I wanted."
"Yes. And you'll get it."
"What?"
"I'm sending you both to Earth," said Kylie. "You can et humanity, if only to see what you've already helped us protect. But the quarantine stays. You frighten us, and it's hard to believe that you can't understand that."
"If you won't lift the quarantine, how am I supposed to get there?"
"The sa spell that's projected here," Kylie said. "It's worked well so far. It's local to Ashtoreth, so she'll be able to move you around. Built into a buff that I've placed on her, actually."
Icon looked between Kylie and Ashtoreth, seemingly confused. "I don't understand," she said. "This whole conversation wasn't to secure my cooperation despite not giving into my demands?"
Kylie peered at Icon, tilting her head. "As long as you accept that we aren't lifting the quarantine, your demands are reasonable. Do what you need to in order to assure yourself that Ashtoreth works for humanity, then aide us in reconstructing the route to Pinnacle."
Icon was quiet for a mont. "Right," she said at last. "Okay."
Ashtoreth grinned at her. "Ready to go?"
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