Level One God

[Talia]

The viewing chamber of the game manager's guild hummed with controlled chaos as I stepped through the doorway, my yellow robes swishing across perfectly clean stone floors.

A clammy wave of sweat beaded across my lower back and brow despite the chill in the room. I surreptitiously wiped it from my face, keeping my expression a careful neutral. Showing fear here was a quick recipe for the wrong sort of attention.

No.

I was supposed to be exultant today. Happy. Excited to see how our months of work and planning played out now that the unknown variables had been released into our controlled chaos. The tourney had begun, and we were supposed to be the proud orchestrators.

I did my best to look the part, even as my heart pounded so loud I worried my colleagues would hear.

To my left, cushioned chairs lined the wall. Each held a lower ranking game manager lying in a reclined position, eyes rolled back as they divided their focus between two or maybe three Eyes of Uvu at most. They were tracking events within the tourney and reporting their findings to supervisors. These reports were the source of alerts we gave the viewers, allowing them to instruct their personal viewing mages to steer portals to points of interest.

The tournaments were well-oiled machines, and most years, everything proceeded within the allowable parameters of variance. Just as the leadership liked it.

Just as He liked it.

Ostensibly, we reported to King Theon, but the presence of individuals like Divine Footman Amuntep were clear reminders of our real master. His Divinity, Ithariel.

The thought made my skin crawl.

I knew what happened to those who offended His Divinity. They vanished. No traces. No blood. No rumors. No stories to be told of kidnappings in the night. They simply ceased to exist, as if Ithariel himself could unwrite entire people from reality with a flick of his fingertip.

The sweat beating on my forehead came harder now. I paused by a large pillar, wiped it, took a deep breath, and then resumed my march into the room. Soon, I would be noticed. Soon, I would need to perform to keep my life.

The higher ranking game managers clustered at the far end of the room beneath the Master's Eye. The Eye was a large, one-way viewing portal that took up the entire far wall of the room. At first, it was disorienting to look upon, because the Eye was in the sky of the tourney grounds and pointing downward.

Right now, it offered a top-down view of a wooden outpost swarming with activity, and it looked as though a wrong step could cause one to fall into the portal and plummet a hundred feet to their death.

Thankfully, I knew the portals were for viewing only. It wasn't possible to step through them. Not even the Master's Eye.

As I drew closer I heard raised voices and saw the agitated body language of the highest ranking game managers. They stood around the Master's Eye, arguing as they pointed and discussed some moment from the tourney they were likely watching again and again.

I headed toward them, careful to keep my eyes forward even as I felt the attention of my colleagues. I was certain my absence was noted during the drop. But I needed to take the risk of sneaking myself onto the airship. The final outpost map and reward structure wasn't revealed to us until the last moments, and I couldn't risk Brynn taking the wrong strategic approach.

It was my first major risk. Everything until now had been carefully subtle. Every move and action had an explanation. I had been so careful, but I knew once the arrows flew and the tourney was live, things would get messy. I'd just hoped to find a cleaner, safer way.

"Talia," Norick said, rushing to meet me before I reached the cluster of high ranking game managers. He kept his voice low, barely a whisper as his eyes bulged. "You're here. I worried they—"

I cut him off. Norick was a lower ranking tomte game manager. He was a loyal friend of my family for years, and age had bent his back into a curve, his bushy gray brows proud over clouded brown eyes. His face was kind and I knew he was a good man, and it pained me daily to think how I had accidentally let him get tangled in my mess.

"No," I said tightly. "Get back to your station before someone thinks to connect us later."

Norick clearly wanted to argue, but the bent older tomte grimaced, gave a slight bow, and scurried back to his place.

I straightened my back and shoulders, then approached the cluster of senior game managers who were standing around the Master's Eye.

It was now flicking through a dizzying montage of the tournament's opening hours. Senior Game Manager Valric controlled the view with practiced hand gestures, rewinding and switching perspectives with the casual efficiency of someone who had put together hundreds, if not thousands of nightly recaps in his tenure as a game manager.

Valric was an oily man, bald-headed, sharp featured, and tall but with a bent, bird-like posture. His most noteworthy feature was his slow, controlled manner of speech that tended to command both attention and fear. Listening to him speak had a way of making one feel as though a sharp blade was inching closer to their throat, and it was perhaps how he had risen so quickly to such a high position in our guild.

He gestured again, and I could see now they were trying to decide what to include for the nightly recap. These were a collection of moments that were curated and shown to participants within the tourney. A separate recap would be shown to audiences as well, but this one was curated with a different set of goals in mind.

For participants, the recaps could be hand-crafted down to the individual level. Participants the guild wanted to fail, for example, might be shown a carefully crafted moment to implore them into actions that could lead to catastrophic failure. Participants the guild wanted to win could be given key strategic insights to help add weight to their lead.

Audiences were shown recaps to reinforce the guild's narrative. Aspirants and slaves were often painted as villains or scrappy nuisances. Nobility were shown as heroes, with some of the more brutal and cruel moments left out to reinforce the view.

It wasn't a perfect art, of course. Viewers and participants both could see events live, but the art of crafting the perfect recap was one of the guild's greatest tools to steer events after the tourney began. Other methods of correction were far more… crude.

The guild preferred subtle, quiet strokes versus large messy ones. But some years, there were no other options.

I watched the view flick between scenes I hadn't yet witnessed as I was rushing back to my post from the airship. I'd had to wait with the guards to be rotated, which had been an exercise in immense frustration. I couldn't let on that I needed to be on my way as quickly as possible, but I had missed hours of the tourney waiting to get off that damned airship.

"—and here we see Lord Vitus's forces overwhelming the scorpith nest," Valric narrated. "Rather compelling. I think its inclusion would present them as a formidable target."

The view showed Vitus Ra-Set and his Azure Guard soldiers moving in perfect formation, their coordinated strikes making quick work of the chittering defenders. "Textbook, but efficient. He leads well," Norathen said in her reedy, high-pitched voice. She was one of the most recent to be promoted to the senior staff of game managers. If not for a pair of slightly-too large eyes, she would be quite pretty. Instead, she had a way of looking permanently shocked along with a bad habit of pursing her lips to the point it almost looked painful.

"Perhaps we should avoid showing this particular moment," Orcus pointed out, perpetually twirling his long black mustache. He wore extra layers of fat over a powerful frame. Orcus was Silver Ranked, but his days of adventuring were long behind him. "That view there—" he released his mustache just long enough to point. "The mountains with the sun rising beyond them. It'll allow the others to pinpoint the location of Vitus and his forces too easily."

"And?" Valric asked, smirking slightly.

"And King Theon requested a 'tourney to remember' this year," Orcus countered. "Eliminating a crowd favorite one day into the proceedings would hardly be memorable."

"Agree to disagree, old friend," Valric said with a shrug as he continued to manipulate the screen. "Predictable tourneys are hardly memorable. The death of a favorite in the early days would be quite stirring."

Valric paused, fingers lifted as he turned his head, finally noticing me. "Talia… how… typical of you to be late."

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He spoke slowly in that dangerous way of his, giving time for every senior game manager to turn from the Master's Eye and focus on me.

"Apologies," I said, bowing deeply. "There was a family emergency."

"Hm," Valric said. "I imagine there will be more emergencies in your family in the near future if you keep up this kind of disregard for your duties."

I kept my gaze down, knowing the scolding was light, given the severity of missing the first hours of the drop. The real danger wasn't Valric. It was being reported to King Theon, or worse—a direct report to Divine Footman Amuntep.

The others looked at me, but to my relief, I sensed their reluctance to get involved, even to scold me. When game managers fell from grace, it was typically a very messy fall, and any associates or friends were often brought down with them.

The view shifted, gratefully taking attention from me again. Valric folded his arms, stroking his pointed chin in consideration."We also have this. Kalcus Rathborne has secured three southern outposts in under two hours. His efficiency is remarkable, even for nobility."

"He has the largest group," Orcus said. "I should hope he could cover more ground with so many nobles following his orders."

"And Lady Seraphine?" another voice asked.

Valric's smile turned predatory. "Ah, yes. Our eastern commander." The portal flickered to show a massacre—aspirants caught in a narrow valley, picked off by crossbow fire from above. "Six aspirants eliminated in a single ambush. I heard the commoners are calling it the Crimson Valley already."

I watched the moment unfold as Valric replayed it for our consideration. Nobles on high ground using crossbows, throwing spears, and magical spells to send six aspirants into stasis almost immediately. The protections conveniently failed for one aspirant, a boy who barely looked eighteen. He was nearly sliced in half by a disc of spinning air flung by a noble girl who cackled with delight when she saw the blood.

"A well timed lowering of protections," Valric noted. "The crowds loved that."

There were half-hearted nods and disinterested looks from the others.

This was what I was fighting against. The casual cruelty. The systemic slaughter presented as entertainment.

Near the corner, I caught fragments of a heated conversation between two junior game managers.

"—fucking grommets?" one hissed.

"They apparently chewed through the suppression arrays underground," the other replied, wringing his hands. "I had them triple check those things."

"Just get them fixed before they have our fucking heads."

Maintenance is investigating, but—"

"But?"

"The access tunnels keep collapsing when our people try to enter. It's like they're actively sabotaging our efforts to remove them."

"Gods. If I get killed because of grommets, of all things, I'm going to…"

A shift in the room's energy made me turn. The temperature seemed to drop several degrees as Calipha Ra-Set swept through the entrance, her Diamond Rank presence pressing against everyone like a physical weight. Two Kiergard soldiers flanked her—pale as bone, hairless, their dead eyes scanning for threats. I knew why they were really here. Not to protect Calipha, but to execute any game manager who disappointed or failed in their duties. Their curved blades could separate a head from shoulders faster than most could blink.

"Where is Amuntep?" Calipha's voice cut through the chatter like a blade through silk.

"Divine Footman Amuntep is attending to other matters, Lady Ra-Set," Valric said, bowing deeply. "How may we assist you?"

Her eyes were ice. "You have been steering viewing portals away from the so-called 'Mongrel Army.'"

Valric paled, rubbing his long fingers together like a rodent. "Y-yes. We were informed of King Theon's… anger regarding the group. We thought it best to suppress reports while we discussed countermeasures. Without regular activity reports, many portals have moved to watch other things."

Calipha's nostrils flared. The woman was terrifying.

Diamond.

Even among the nobility, the rank was virtually unheard of. Part of me almost wished the godsdamned rifts would open again in earnest and she would be called away from the city. Even if King Theon was technically the locus of political power in the city, nobody would pretend Calipha Ra-Set actually answered to him.

It was the not-so-hidden hierarchy. Nobility only mattered to a certain point. When personal power reached such extremes, even a king could hardly pretend to have control. So why did she play along? Why was she here?

"Stop suppressing reports at once," she said, her voice carrying the finality of an executioner's axe. "You will only grow the people's curiosity if you try to hide them. Let them watch. I assume you have a plan in mind to take care of them?"

"Y-yes, but—"

"Show me what they are doing now," Calipha said, stepping closer to the viewing portal and clasping her hands behind her back. Her armor and equipment gleamed so powerfully it was hard to look upon. I hardly dared imagine the damage those tools could cause or the horrors she'd endured to earn them.

Valric's hands danced through the air, and the portal shifted to the northwestern section of the battlefield. My breath caught.

The cliff-face outpost bristled with activity. Fortifications had been expanded, with grommets digging trenches and reinforcing walls with their peculiar efficiency. Former slaves moved with purpose, no longer the broken things that had been herded onto the airships. And at the center of it all, a figure in a simple iron helmet with two horns stood.

He was tall, broad-shouldered and straight-backed. Most of his face wasn't visible through the helmet, but what could be seen of his jaw and mouth hinted at handsome features. Almost heroic.

He was speaking seriously with a trio of grommets, one of whom nodded and rushed off, practically diving under the ground as its arms windmilled, throwing dirt at furious speeds.

The red-haired girl approached him, spoke, grimaced, and then jogged back toward the outpost.

A few aspirants patrolled the upper walls while a slave with big, muscular arms helped carry out freshly crafted wooden spikes, which they were sticking into the ground and pointing down toward the valley below.

They had found the crafting station, it seemed. Thankfully, it also seemed they had someone in the group capable of using it. That was good.

I even saw a few slaves and aspirants carrying what looked like freshly made wooden weapons with bits of iron reinforcement. For the moment, I doubted they had much access to iron, but if they explored a little, they'd soon find better materials for their crafter.

Calphia watched it all, her beautiful features scrunching in what looked like disgust or rage. "We need to end them now before the crowd has time to grow attached. I assume you have a beast capable of handling this rabble?"

This was my moment.

"Lady Calipha," I said, stepping forward with a carefully crafted expression of concern. "With the deepest respect, isn't this exactly what His Majesty desires? A demonstration?"

She turned those cold eyes on me. I had spoken with her on a few occasions, but the empty way she looked at me said she didn't remember. "Explain yourself, game manager."

"The common people need reminders of their place, yes. But which is more effective—crushing them with monsters they never had a chance against, making martyrs of them? Or allowing them to rise just high enough that when Lord Vitus inevitably defeats this 'army' with ease, it becomes a lesson that truly resonates?"

I saw the calculation in her eyes, the way her pride in her son warred with her desire for immediate action.

"I humbly beg you to consider," I continued, gaining confidence when she didn't immediately shut me down. "Commoners are actually beginning to hope. When your son destroys that hope with his own hands, rather than through some released beast, he doesn't just win a tournament. He destroys a dream. He becomes the symbol of nobility's natural superiority. And no one can say we feared the power of the commoners. No one can claim he had to intervene to protect the nobility."

Calipha's lips pursed. Around us, other game managers had gone very still, sensing the danger in this moment.

"You presume much, game manager," she said finally. "But... there is wisdom in allowing the rabble to reveal the full extent of their delusions." She turned back to the portal. "Very well. No artificial interventions. Let them play at war. It will make their inevitable destruction all the more... educational."

She swept out as suddenly as she'd arrived, her Kiergard shadows following. The room exhaled collectively.

"Bold words, Talia," Valric murmured, not quite meeting my eyes. "I hope you know what you're doing."

So did I.

As the others returned to their observations and discussions, I found an unoccupied chair in a quiet corner. Time to check on my investment personally.

I closed my eyes and reached for my Eye of Uvu, the familiar sensation of consciousness splitting as part of me remained in the chair while another part soared across the battlefield. The invisible orb responded to my will, racing toward the northwestern outpost.

What I found made my heart race.

The fortifications were even more impressive up close. Grommet tunnels wove beneath everything, and they had all been dug large enough for humans to gain access. With them, the defenders would be able to easily navigate around defenses, surprising attackers from behind and below. Above ground, slaves worked alongside aspirants, the usual divisions of status forgotten in the face of shared purpose.

And Brynn Stygos moved among them like he was born to lead.

I watched him direct the placement of defensive positions, saw him pause to dispatch scouting parties, telling them exactly what to look for and where. Some were being sent to look for better materials for crafting, others for food and water, and more still to recruit any remaining aspirants or slaves.

This wasn't the behavior of a typical aspirant grabbing for power. This was something else entirely.

My Eye drifted to the edge of the camp, where scouts were returning. They guided in a group of aspirants and slaves—eight haggard figures led by a seductively attractive woman with dark, curling hair and upward tilted eyes.

They were growing. Not through conquest or force, but through something far more dangerous.

They were offering hope.

"Don't make me regret this, Brynn Stygos," I whispered to the viewing orb, even though I knew he couldn't hear me.

I felt the full weight of what I'd set in motion. Every person he saved and every small victory he achieved raised the stakes.

If he failed, it would crush the spirit of the common people for generations, just as I'd told Calipha.

But if somehow, impossibly, he succeeded...

Everything could change. Maybe not in my lifetime. Maybe not even in the next. But this could plant a seed. A seed that would matter. Something to give hope to those at the bottom. The hint that maybe fighting back wasn't so pointless. That maybe the differences between us and them only went as deep as the fancy titles.

I opened my eyes, returning fully to the room of game managers. Outside, I heard a deep roar so powerful it shook dust from the high ceilings. I recognized that sound. I also recognized the clatter of chains and battle-hardened voices coming from outside.

The monster hunters guild was moving the thing they supposedly captured in some gods forsaken dungeon a few weeks back. If I had to guess, it was bound for an airship.

It was this year's contingency. Every year had one.

A beast so terrible it could be released and wipe out all the contestants, giving the king a lever to pull if he didn't like the outcome of the tourney.

It had been decades since it was needed, but I worried this year might be different. Because in the northwest, something unprecedented was happening. An aspirant wasn't just surviving or making deals with nobility for protection.

He was building something new.

And I would do everything in my power to make sure he had the chance to finish it. Even if he was likely going to die before he could truly win, maybe I could give him enough time to make the statement I needed him to make. To plant the seed.