The Wrong Kind of Immortality

The archives were quiet as always. The Owl was at his desk, working with both hands—one annotating a document, the other moving across the slate. He looked up as Orestis entered.

“Interesting day?” the Owl asked mildly.

“Routine,” Orestis replied.

Well, apart from the sparring.

“I’m looking for locations with consistent ridgeback burrower activity.”

“Mm. Field ecology index. Fourth floor.” The Owl slid a token across the desk. “There’s some interesting news from the training facility.”

Orestis took the token and waited.

“Apparently, a young woman ran the advanced battle simulation up to the highest setting and cleared it without a single mistake. On her first attempt—they checked the records to confirm it. They’re calling her a battle prodigy.” The Owl tilted his head. “She’s been seen in your company.”

“She’s a colleague,” Orestis said. Then added, “And a friend.”

“Of course.” The Owl’s expression didn’t change. “The ironic part is the contrast. The training staff know you as well—the Systems Continuity analyst who books the basic reaction chambers and, by all accounts, gets beaten thoroughly by the lowest difficulty settings.”

“Not my fault I’m working with a weak body.” He paused as the thought caught up with him.

Actually, it is my fault.

“Regardless, I’ve progressed to the middle difficulties,” Orestis said.

If they are going to spread rumours, the least they could do is be accurate.

“Her performance suggests someone who trains more than just spellwork,” the Owl observed. “Aura-enhanced reflexes, if I had to guess.” He adjusted his glasses. “A path that would be available to most people. Given sufficient dedication.”

The Owl has theories. He always has theories. The concerning part is how often they’re accurate.

Orestis went upstairs without responding.

He found the ridgeback burrower data on the fourth floor—regional distribution maps, behavioural reports, ecological surveys. The creatures were most commonly found in badlands terrain: rocky, sparse, dry soil over dense rock. Several active populations were documented within a few days’ travel of Orthessa—or rather, within a gate’s reach.

He selected a location, committed the coordinates to memory, and returned the token.

The Owl accepted it without comment. Then, as Orestis turned to leave: “Enjoy the field work.”

Orestis waved without looking back.

And, he knows I’m not going to study them from a desk. I’d be concerned—if he were the sort to spread rumours.

***

The next morning, Orestis arrived at Eirene’s room to find her already practising.

Gravity sigils hung in the air in front of her—the full formation he had demonstrated the day before, now reconstructed from memory. The structure was clean. Precise. Each layer properly nested, the control nodes positioned correctly, the force vectors aligned.

She had learned it overnight. He had spent perhaps two weeks on that spell, the first time around.

Granted, I was working without instruction and trying not to collapse the cave I was living in. But still.

“How is it?” he asked.

“Complicated,” Eirene said, maintaining the formation. “I can cast it with my own mana, but I can only hold it for a few seconds before the strain becomes too much. The adjustment layer is the real problem—every variable needs continuous monitoring.”

“That’s why it requires Fifth Circle for comfortable use. At that density, mana corrects small errors on its own. Until then, you’re doing the corrections manually.”

“I’ve been wondering about that,” she said. “Why is an adjustment layer even necessary? Gravity is stable. I looked it up.”

“The adjustments aren’t for the environment. They’re for the target.” He leaned against the doorframe. “When a living creature shifts, its centre of mass changes. The force distribution has to change with it. If it doesn’t, you either lose the restraint or crush something. Organs, ribs, circulation—all of it reacts differently to pressure depending on how the body is positioned.”

She absorbed that, nodded, and dismissed the formation. “I’m ready to test it.”

“Not on me,” he said flatly. “If you kill me by accident, that would be inconvenient.”

Eirene paused, looking at him as though he had said something unusual. She was probably assigning far more meaning to his words than they warranted.

Or, perhaps not.

I suppose most people would not consider death as merely an inconvenience.

“I was going to suggest a target that’s harder to break,” she said after a moment.

“Good. Because that’s exactly what we’re doing.” He opened a gate. Beyond it, there was cracked earth, sparse scrub, and flat terrain stretching to a horizon of eroded rock formations. Badlands.

“We’re looking for ridgeback burrowers. They twist, they dig, and they don’t stop moving. The goal is to restrain one without killing it, without letting it escape, and without harming it while it thrashes.”

He stepped through. Eirene followed.

As they moved into the terrain, Orestis said, “I heard about your performance with the battle simulation, by the way.”

She glanced at him. “It wasn’t useful. The constructs followed a pattern. Once I identified it, the exercise stopped being meaningful.”

“The exercise may not have been. But the result was.” He looked at her. “You’ve already started working on the fourth pillar without realising it.”

“Initiative?”

“Yes. Everyone in that facility is calling you a battle prodigy. That reputation will spread—through the Consortium, through anyone who uses those training halls. You didn’t set out to build one, but you have a reputation now. And reputation is leverage.”

She nodded, easily understanding his implication. “Deterrence through capability.”

“Through certainty—an important distinction. Capability means you can destroy someone. Certainty means everyone else knows you can.” He paused. “Right now, it’s only an impression. In a few years, you’ll actually have that capability. But impressions have their own value.”

***

Orestis cast a detection spell as they entered the badlands proper.

It was simple enough that Eirene immediately tried it herself. Life signatures appeared in her awareness—scattered, mostly subterranean, with a cluster of larger readings half a kilometre to the east.

“This way,” he said, heading east. She followed while observing the surroundings.

The badlands were dry and still beneath a flat white sky. Wind-carved rock formations broke the terrain into ridges and gullies. The soil was pale and compacted, cracking in tessellated patterns.

They found the first burrower within minutes.

It surfaced with a grinding shudder—armoured plates breaking through the topsoil, dark brown and segmented, each ridge lined with rough spines. The creature was over two metres long, low-slung and powerfully built. Massive forelimbs tipped with heavy claws gripped the earth as it hauled itself forward; smaller hind limbs braced behind it, stabilising the body as it moved. Its head was broad and flat, nearly indistinguishable from the plates that covered its back.

Eirene could feel the vibrations through the ground before she saw it. The creature’s plates hummed faintly—a low-frequency resonance that loosened the soil around it, allowing it to push through the earth rather than dig in the conventional sense.

“It’s all yours,” Orestis said. “Try not to kill it.”

Eirene made a face at him before drawing on Eleuthera’s power and casting the spell.

The gravity field hit the creature like a weight dropped from above. It slammed flat—limbs splayed, plates compressed against the ground.

Then it began to fight.

The burrower’s body coiled and released like a spring, twisting violently against the restraint. Its forelimbs clawed at the earth, finding purchase even under pressure. Its plates began vibrating—that same high-frequency resonance she had felt earlier, now directed at the ground beneath it, loosening the soil, trying to create space to burrow.

She increased pressure on the forelimbs to stop the digging. But the moment she shifted force forward, the creature’s hind end surged upward. She compensated—too hard. The burrower made a sound she had not expected: a low, strained wheeze. Its breathing had changed.

“Too much on the chest,” Orestis said from behind her.

She eased the pressure. The burrower surged immediately—the vibrations intensified, the loosened soil giving way beneath it. It sank two inches before she caught it and pulled the restraint tight.

Too tight.

Something cracked. The burrower convulsed, and one of its hind limbs bent at an angle that was not natural. The creature’s vibrations stopped. It went still—not from exhaustion, but from shock.

Eirene released the field instantly, feeling a measure of guilt for having harmed the creature.

“Don’t move,” Orestis said. He extended a hand and cast healing magic on the burrower. She watched the hind limb straighten, the fracture knitting, and the creature’s breathing stabilise.

After a moment, the burrower stirred. It scrambled upright, shook its body once, and burrowed underground with the frantic urgency of something that wanted to be anywhere else.

Eirene stood very still.

“That,” Orestis said calmly, “is why we’re practising on creatures with armoured plates and dense bones. A person would not have survived that.”

The words landed. She had understood the theory. She had practised the formation. She had cast the spell correctly. And she had still broken a limb because the difference between restraint and injury was smaller than she had imagined.

“Again?” she asked.

He nodded. “Again.”

Orestis cast the detection spell once more and led her toward the next signature. The second burrower was larger than the first—nearly three metres, its plates darker and more heavily ridged.

This time, she started lighter. Let the creature’s own struggles inform her adjustments rather than guessing at the correct pressure. When it twisted, she gave slightly before compensating. When it vibrated, she adjusted for the loosening soil without clamping down. When its breathing shifted, she eased the torso pressure before Orestis needed to say anything.

The divine power handled the constant micro-corrections—the small fluctuations in force that she would have had to manage manually before Fifth Circle. That still left the larger decisions to her: overall intensity, directional distribution, how much force to allow on the limbs versus the core.

The burrower fought for several minutes before its struggles slowed. Not from injury—from exhaustion. It lay panting against the earth, restrained but alive. Plates intact. Limbs intact. Breathing steady.

“Better,” Orestis said. “Release it; there’s no point in holding it any longer.”

She lifted the field. The burrower hauled itself upright, shook violently, and vanished underground.

They found four more over the next hour. Each one handled with increasing precision. By the fourth, she was maintaining the restraint while also tracking a second burrower that had surfaced nearby—holding one and monitoring the other, splitting her attention without losing control of either.

By the fifth, she was maintaining the restraint while carrying on a conversation about the burrower variants found in geothermal regions.

“The magma variants have adapted through prolonged exposure to high mana density,” Orestis explained, while she kept a burrower pinned without visible effort. “They’ve developed some resistance to magic as a result. The terrain is also less stable—loose ground, heat vents, shifting conditions. It divides your focus. Those will be next for your training.”

“And after that?” she asked. With Orestis, there was always another tier.

“Spindle hydras. They can split their body into independent forms—each head separates into its own serpent. Pin the main body and the heads pull apart and move freely. Each one requires separate control.”

Which would mean that she’d have to cast the spell multiple times—or split the spell and control it through multiple points. Considering the spell structure, she realised it was more likely to be the latter.

“How many heads?” she asked.

“Varies. Six to twelve, usually. But they can split individually, so you can start with two and scale up.”

Eirene considered that while the burrower beneath her gravity field made one last attempt to vibrate its way free. She adjusted without looking. “And where are these? I haven’t heard of them before.”

“Demon continent.”

That was across the ocean, half the world away. She looked at him. “You say that like it’s a minor logistical detail.”

He raised an eyebrow. “It is. We have gates.”

She conceded the point and released the burrower. It fled underground.

“Acceptable,” Orestis said.

Eirene smiled, satisfied. He was trying to keep it understated, but she could tell exactly how much praise that word contained.

***

That evening, Orestis opened his observation gate above the valley.

The routine was familiar by now: small aperture, several kilometres up, magnification spell, brief survey. He checked the base, the scramblers, the patrol routes, the supply cadence. Everything consistent with the previous days. The base was still expanding, still consolidating. Nothing unexpected.

He was about to close the gate when something caught the corner of his eye.

A flicker. Brief—barely a second. On the far side of a ridge, several kilometres from the Kallistrate base. A thin crescent of light, the unmistakable border of a gate, visible for an instant before it vanished.

He waited.

Another flicker. Same location. A second gate, opened and closed in a controlled burst. Then a third, twenty seconds later.

He shifted the magnification toward the ridge. The terrain on the far side was hidden from the Kallistrate base by the mountain itself—no direct line of sight. Whatever wards Logrion had placed there would handle scrying and magical detection. Between the physical barrier and the magical protections, Kallistrate had no way to see what was happening behind that ridge.

He counted the flickers over the next few minutes. Each one represented a gate opening and closing—a squad arriving, moving into position, and the gate vanishing before anyone on the wrong side of the mountain could notice. Short openings for small groups. Forces accumulating. Not attacking—staging.

Toren moved faster than I expected.

They were building numbers behind that ridge with the discipline of people who knew their mountains and had no intention of being detected by anyone except, apparently, a man watching from several kilometres straight up.

Orestis watched for another minute before closing the gate.

The strike is imminent. Tomorrow, perhaps the day after.

He sat in the quiet of his room and considered the implications.

He had given Toren the base location four days ago. In that time, Logrion had scouted, planned, assembled a strike force, and begun staging it within striking distance of the target. That was the kind of operational tempo that suggested someone in Logrion’s command understood exactly how narrow the window was.

If they destroyed the base, the scramblers would go with it—and with them, the infrastructure that allowed Kallistrate to maintain an undetected supply line into Logrion’s interior. Rebuilding that would take weeks: new infiltration, new concealment, new positioning. In the meantime, Kallistrate’s interior army would be cut off from resupply. Isolated forces in hostile mountains, with winter approaching and no established logistics chain.

If the strike failed, the window would close. Kallistrate would consolidate, fortify, and establish permanent supply lines from the captured passes to the base. At that point, closing the gate would no longer matter.

He considered contacting Toren through the call-node, then decided against it. There was nothing he could add that Logrion’s own scouts hadn’t already gathered. The strike force was in position. The plan was in motion. This part was no longer his to influence.

All I can do now is watch.