Rimelion: The Exploiter

They walked toward the port.

The city opened up around them as they moved toward the port, the tight commercial streets giving way to broader roads.

Ian had strapped the daggers to his belt and kept touching the handles, the way someone checked for a wallet after leaving a crowded train. Every few steps, his fingers would brush the leather wrapping, and a small, disbelieving smile would flicker across his face.

“Stop touching them,” Lunaris said. “They’re not going anywhere.”

“I know. I just—” He touched one again. “Epic, Luna.”

“I heard.”

“Me! Epic!”

“I was there.”

“Quick-Draw.”

“Ian.”

He grinned at her, and she grinned back, and for a few steps the world was simple and good, and she didn’t have to think about keeps or miasma or the weight of a class she’d lost and regained.

Then someone landed in front of them.

Landed was the wrong word. Materialized. One moment the street was empty; the next, a figure stood in their path, black-clad, masked, blades at her hips, posture relaxed in the way of someone who could kill you but had decided not to and wanted you to appreciate the distinction.

Lunaris’s hand went to her rapier.

Ian yelped.

NightSwallow tilted her head. Behind the mask, her eyes glittered, and Lunaris realized she had done it again. She had been tracking them for at least three blocks and was privately delighted by how long it had taken them to notice.

“Juliette!” Lunaris’s hand left her rapier instantly, the alarm dissolving into warmth so fast it left no residue. She closed the distance in two strides and threw her arms around the assassin.

NightSwallow went rigid. For exactly one second, the time it took for the instinct of someone’s touching me to resolve into it’s the idiot, she stood frozen.

She hugged back. “Don’t call me that,” she said into Lunaris’s shoulder.

“Juliette, Juliette, Juliette,” Lunaris said, squeezing tighter.

NightSwallow sighed. It was the sigh of a woman who had lost this battle so many times that losing it had become a form of winning. She patted Lunaris’s back once, twice.

They separated. NightSwallow stepped back, composure reassembled, and looked at Lunaris with a soft expression. “I heard about the mission,” she said. “The keep. The dead zone.”

“Word travels fast.”

“I’m an assassin. Word travels at my speed.” She paused. “Good luck.”

Lunaris smiled. “Thanks, Jules—”

“I also have something for you.”

NightSwallow reached into her inventory. The motion was unhurried, the opposite of her combat fluidity, as if she wanted Lunaris to see this coming, to understand that it was intentional and considered.

She produced a folded bundle of fabric.

Silver-lined. Familiar.

Lunaris’s breath stopped.

She took it. Her fingers knew what it was before her brain caught up; the weight, the texture, the way the fabric caught the light like liquid moonlight. She unfolded it, the sock and the snowflake crest gleamed up at her, Charlie’s mark, etched in silver that hadn’t dimmed, hadn’t faded, hadn’t changed at all.

[Rimebreak Oathsworn Mantle]

Quality: 7-legendary

Restriction: Rimebreak Kingdom

Info: Bound by oath, this mantle flows like fate itself. Empowering duelists with unwavering balance, guiding twin blades in harmony, and shielding the sworn from unseen strikes.

Lunaris stared at it.

Her mouth opened.

“I grabbed the stone and the mantle,” NightSwallow said, and her voice was matter-of-fact, the tone of someone reporting a completed mission rather than returning a piece of someone’s soul. “After Brian’s sword came down. The stone went to Charlie, because it belonged to her and I didn’t want to deal with it.”

She paused.

“But the mantle was always yours.”

Lunaris’s vision blurred. She blinked, and something warm ran down her cheek, and she couldn’t even be angry about it because her hands were full of moonlight and her chest was full of something too big for her ribs.

“You—” Her voice cracked. She tried again. “You ran through that entire battlefield. With the shard. With this. While they were—”

“It wasn’t complicated,” NightSwallow said. “I saw it. I took it. I left.”

That was a lie, and they both knew it. Lunaris had saw it on holo-vids; the cat-girl assassin, the gauntlet of spells and steel, Dmitry and Luminaria dying to carve a path. NightSwallow had bled for this mantle. She’d nearly died in a coffin of ice with it pressed against her chest.

And she’d kept it, waiting for this moment.

Lunaris hugged her again. “Thank you,” Lunaris whispered. “Thank you, Juliette.”

“Don’t,” NightSwallow said quietly, “call me that.”

But she didn’t pull away.

Ian stood three steps behind them, daggers on his belt, hands at his sides, wearing the expression of a man who wanted to contribute to the moment but had absolutely no idea how. He settled for looking moved and slightly uncomfortable, which was his default state and therefore required no effort.

Lunaris finally let go. She wiped her face with the back of her hand, laughed a wet, shaky laugh, and swept the mantle over her shoulders.

It settled around her as if it had never left.

The silver fabric draped over her frame, catching the harbor light, the snowflake crest riding on her shoulder. The weight was right. The balance was right. She could feel the faint hum of its enchantment, the steadying presence, the guidance, settling into her bones alongside the Chronosblade’s rhythm.

She looked down at herself; mantle and class restored.

She looked up at NightSwallow. The assassin had already taken a step back, her posture shifting toward departure, the shadows around her feet darkening in a way that was less metaphor and more job description.

“Come back with your class,” NightSwallow said.

“I will.”

“Come back winning.“

“Obviously.”

Something flickered behind the mask; the ghost of a smile, there and gone, plausibly deniable. NightSwallow turned, took one step toward the shadows—

And vanished.

The street was empty where she’d stood, just the faint sound of wind carrying a whisper that reached them half a second later, soft and formal and edged with warmth: “Lady of the Night says farewell.”

“Imagine when this will be possible on Earth…” Ian shivered. “She’s terrifying.”

“She’s wonderful,” Lunaris said.

“Both things can be true.”

Lunaris laughed. She adjusted the mantle on her shoulders, felt the fabric settle, felt the sock plop, and the snowflake crest catch the light.

Then she reached for Ian’s hand.

He took it.

The boat stank of fish.

The crew was everywhere, hauling ropes, checking rigging, rolling barrels across the deck. Lucy herself stood near the mainmast, one boot on a coil of rope, shouting orders in her pirate voice while pointing at things with a hammer she had no apparent reason to be holding.

“Tighten that jib, ye slack-jawed deckswabs! I want her sailin’ sharp enough to cut the wind’s pride!”

A sailor adjusted a rope by approximately two inches.

“PERFECT!” Lucy boomed. “Now do the other one!”

Lunaris adjusted the mantle on her shoulders and walked up the gangplank, Ian half a step behind her. The wood groaned under their weight, and the harbor sounds folded around them like a blanket.

She hadn’t expected Charlie to be here.

But there she was, near the stern rail, frost clinging to the edges of her clothes in that way it always did, as if the cold followed her around and had given up pretending to be subtle about it. Lola stood beside her, clipboard angled against her forearm, one finger tracing a line on whatever document was currently keeping the kingdom from collapsing. And across from both of them, Fty, arms crossed, shoulders tight.

That wasn’t the plan.

Charlie and Lola were supposed to see them off from the dock, a wave, a good luck, maybe one of Charlie’s smiles that made you feel like you could fight a dragon and win.

This was something else, so Lunaris walked toward them. Ian followed, his hand drifting to his dagger hilts, probably not because of danger, just because they were there and he still couldn’t believe it.

As she got closer, she caught the tail end of Fty’s voice, the tone he used when he was being immovable about something. “—not comfortable with that assessment. The variables are—”

He saw her, and his expression shifted. “Luna can do it.”

Charlie glanced at her. “Hi, Luny. I—”

A red-haired missile hit Lunaris from the side.

Lisa’s arms locked around her with a force, and Lunaris staggered sideways, the mantle flaring, boots scraping the deck. Lisa buried her face in Lunaris’s shoulder and squeezed with an intensity that suggested she was trying to communicate an entire emotional essay through compression alone.

“Big sis,” Lunaris wheezed, how can a mage be so strong? “Ribs.”

Lisa did not let go; she never let go first. That was a rule of the universe, like gravity or Poundcake speaking in bread.

“Hi big sis Lisa,” Lunaris managed, patting Lisa’s back. “Hi big sis Charlie. Hi Lola. Hi Fty.” She paused, craning her neck to look past Lisa’s hair. “Is something wrong?”

Lisa finally released her, keeping one hand on her shoulder, fingers curling into the mantle’s fabric as if she needed to confirm it was real. Her green eyes moved across Lunaris’s face, checking.

Charlie exchanged a glance with Lola. Lola’s clipboard shifted angle, a tiny adjustment that Lunaris had learned to read as we’re about to discuss something complicated, and I have the documentation ready.

“There’s been a development,” Lola said. Her voice was professional, measured. “Our analysts reviewed holo-net activity in the region around the Twir outpost. The tower isn’t abandoned.”

Lunaris blinked. “Someone’s living there? With the miasma?”

“A guild,” Lola continued. “They’ve established the tower as their base of operations. Approximately forty members, mixed levels, mostly mid-tier.” She paused. “They call themselves the Necromancers.”

Ian snorted. He tried to catch it, failed, and the laugh escaped through his nose in a way that made his ears go red. “The Necromancers? That’s—I mean—they’re in a necromancer’s tower and they called themselves—”

“It’s not subtle,” Charlie agreed, the corner of her mouth twitching.

Poundcake, who had appeared at some point, stood near the mast with his hands folded and watched the conversation

Charlie’s expression settled. The almost-smile faded, replaced by something harder. “Veranthos declared independence from Altandai. Because of the players. He’s claiming the tower and surrounding territory as sovereign, and he’s announced that anyone who approaches will be—” She paused. “‘Turned undead.’”

“Can he do that?” Ian asked.

“He’s a possessed necromancer with and a guild of players backing him up,” Charlie said. “He can say whatever he wants. Whether he can enforce, it is our problem.”

She straightened, and Lunaris watched the queen surface, not the Charlie who cracked jokes and called Poundcake “Pancake,” but the one who sat on a throne of ice and made decisions that kept a kingdom running.

“The mission has changed,” Charlie said. “The staff is still important—Lisa, it’s still yours if we can get it. But that’s secondary now.” She looked at each of them. “The tower sits on the river between Altandai and our future capital. It’s not a ruin we’re clearing. It’s a strategic position inside our kingdom that we cannot leave in hostile hands.”

Fty’s hands, resting on the rail, hadn’t moved, but the tendons stood out like cables. “I won’t be killing players,” he said. “They were there first; the tower belongs to them.”

Poundcake tilted his head. “When two loaves are placed in an oven built for one,” Poundcake said, “the question is not who arrived first. It is which dough was kneaded to last.”

Charlie turned to him, and for a moment Lunaris thought she was going to react. Instead, she faced Fty. “No. I claimed this area before they did. The kingdom’s borders were established. I was unable to travel here to enforce them.”

“So they were here first,” Fty said. “Similar situations have happened in Earth's history. With native populations who were told someone else had claimed their land from far away.”

The deck went quiet. Even Lucy’s shouting had paused, though whether she was listening or had simply run out of rigging to yell about was unclear.

Charlie gritted her teeth. Lunaris could see the frost on her clothes pulsing faintly brighter. “I know,” Charlie said. “But I don’t have a choice. They will either be absorbed into our kingdom, or…” she exhaled. “Wiped.”

“Wiped?” asked Lunaris.

“Yes,” Charlie said. She turned to Fty. “This river is critical. We need to contain them, one way or another.”

“I prefer a peaceful solution,” Fty said.

“Me too,” Lunaris added, and she felt Ian shift closer to her, his hand finding the small of her back.

“Sometimes you need to burn your enemies.” Every head turned. Lisa stood with her arms crossed, chin up, green eyes steady. There was no playfulness in her expression, no bubbly energy, no big-sis warmth.

She looked like a court mage delivering an assessment, and the transformation was so complete that Lunaris almost didn’t recognize her. “This is a choke point between our two major cities,” Lisa continued. “Altandai and the new capital. We can’t allow anyone outside our control to sit on it. Not players, not a possessed necromancer, not anyone.”

Lisa caught the stares. Her composure cracked, just a little, the serious mask slipping to show the person underneath who was aware she’d just surprised everyone and wasn’t entirely comfortable with it.

“Hey!” she said, and there was the Lisa they knew, indignant and a little defensive. “I’m not an airhead. I don’t want to deal with this, but I can.”

Charlie nodded. “Your mission,” Charlie said, addressing the group, “is either to force them to submit to our authority or destroy them.”

Fty shook his head. “I can take part in this,” he said. “I’ll lead the expedition. I’ll keep everyone alive. But I will not be the one persuading them. That’s not my role, and I won’t pretend it is.”

Charlie looked at Lola.

Lola’s clipboard shifted, a page turned, a note already written. “We’re attempting to make contact on Earth,” she said. “Through the holo-net. We’re offering employment within Rimebreak’s structure, compensation, and land rights within the kingdom’s borders.” She paused. “Whether they’ll respond before the expedition arrives is uncertain.”

“And if they don’t respond?” Lunaris asked.

Charlie met her eyes. “Then you’ll have a decision to make on the ground,” Charlie said. “And I trust you to make the right one. Lunaris.”