Besides Jisha, there were around a hundred former changelings in the outpost — regular, everyday humans who'd been stolen from Earth and infected with a magical illness that turned them into living weapons. There were undoubtedly still more changelings roaming the Splinter — nobody knew how many. Thousands had been killed already. But these hundred had been kept penned at the cultists' camp as a last ditch defensive measure. Thanks to Touanne's hard work they'd been cured, but now they had to deal with the fact that they, from dozens of different cultures, countries, and socio-economic backgrounds, were all stranded together in a magical world that was technologically at the level of the early Renaissance at best.

At some point someone had started calling them the Stolen, and the moniker had stuck. Ana didn't use it to describe herself, though; she preferred "Accidental," if anything, since she hadn't been the target of the spell that summoned her. But, whatever. If they wanted a word to help them identify with each other, Ana wasn't going to argue. She just didn't feel any more kinship with any of them in the Splinter than she had back on Earth.

Many of the Stolen were despondent. A very few were excited. Most were understandably furious. And they had a convenient outlet for that fury in the two dozen cultists who'd been taken prisoner after the short, brutal battle at their camp around the white obelisk. Those cultists — less four that had been killed trying to escape during the march back to the outpost — were currently being held in a freshly built stockade in the northern part of the outpost, under guard and surrounded by a large mana suppressing ritual circle. The Stolen — or at least some of those who'd emerged as leaders among them — had decided that it was time for some justice.

Ana had seen this coming. She didn't give a damn about the prisoners — she was one of their victims herself, after all — but many of the people she considered friends did. And she didn't want to leave the volunteer guards, people like Tor and Sira, to stand between a mob of confused, frightened people and the bastards against which those people had some very legitimate grievances. Most of the volunteers were too good to either let the mob have their way, or to do what was necessary to hold them back, and it could only end in tears.

"Messy," Ana said as they approached the square. "I don't want you to get involved. I've seen protests turn ugly, and these people are already planning to get violent. Stay back, okay?"

"Okay," Messy said, and Ana knew that she meant it. Messy had a dagger on her, and she could use it to devastating effect. But she was also a good person. Every time she'd killed a sapient, even in self-defense, it was like a small part of her had died with them. Ana never wanted to see that empty look in her girlfriend's eyes again.

Sending Messy to fetch the others from Petra's, Ana approached the square. She didn't want responsibility or authority. She'd given up the title of Marshal as soon as the cultists were defeated, even before the White Obelisk that was destabilizing the Splinter fell. She didn't consider herself an officer of the Bluesky Guild, no matter what the others may think. But there were people she liked, whom she didn't want to see hurt, guarding those prisoners, and Ana considered herself uniquely suited to defusing this situation. If nothing else, she should be able to break this mob up for tonight.

She steeled herself and straightened her clothes. Then she strode into the square.

She'd heard them all the way from Petra's; there wasn't much that got by her when it came to sound, anymore. She'd heard the angry shouts of, "Are we just going to stand here?" and, "So what are we going to do?" She'd heard the ripples of translation — the Stolen had no truly common language, though Wanteul came close. They were shouting in a variety of languages that she understood, too, including English and Inter-guild, but their exact words didn't matter — they weren't going to be reasoned out of this. They wanted someone to suffer for what had happened to them, and some of the perpetrators were right there, almost in their reach.

What she saw was exactly what she'd expected: angry, frightened people who'd lost everything, with one man standing before the Waystone, riling them up. And he was doing a good job feeding what was already there: their blood was up, and their anger was running hot. If she wanted to end this quickly, she'd have to make them more afraid than they were angry.

That was fine. Ana could do fear.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" Ana roared at the crowd that had gathered before the Waystone. She projected a fury she didn't feel, but annoyance would have been counterproductive.

Everyone in that mob turned to face her. Many took a step or more away from her, but most of those she locked eyes with froze where they stood as their lizard brains screamed, "Danger! Predator!" They weren't just Stolen, she noted; there were several people there she recognized from before the march south. Some were even members of the now-disbanded militia. Those people didn't understand her, since she spoke in English, and neither did quite a few of the gathered Stolen, she was sure. But no one could mistake the volume of her voice, with 43 points of Strength behind it, or her tone, backed by 8 Levels of Intimidation and, more importantly, 52 Points of Charisma.

Then, to really drive home the effect and make it clear that listening to her would be the first good decision they'd made this evening, Ana activated Wings of Glory. Massive, ethereal wings sprouted from her back, each of them longer than Ana was tall and growing from nothing to their full size in an instant. She used her wings to leap high over the heads of the crowd, landing next to the leader on the raised plinth that held the Waystone.

Gasps of awe and fear rippled through the mob, many of whom had never seen Ana go full Angel before. The guy before the Waystone was tall, built, and, she could admit, fairly handsome despite his buzzcut. He probably had nearly a foot and a hundred pounds on her. It didn't matter. He was a [Human Trader (3)], with merely human Attributes. As she landed she gave him a glare, and he stumbled back and away from her. Before he could react she grabbed his arm and snapped, "Get down there," turning him and shoving him towards the others; not hard enough to make him fall, but enough to make her point.

A tense, expectant silence fell over the square.

"Stand down, and return to your inns or other lodgings!" Ana commanded, raising her voice as much as she possibly could while still keeping it tightly controlled. "I will not tolerate any mob violence in this outpost!" She then repeated herself in French, Spanish, and Inter-guild.

Ana had spoken to many of these people after they were cured. They didn't know her, but they knew she was from Earth, and many of the looks she got back were laced with betrayal. When the mutters started up again, quickly growing louder, much of the anger was now directed at her.

"Madam Cole!" said one man, a Chinese national named Mister Liu, if she remembered correctly. His English was precise and only barely accented. "You would stand in the way of justice?"

"Mob justice? Yeah," she confirmed.

"And the guards at the prison, would they?"

"I don't know," Ana said honestly. "It might go either way; they're all pretty good people. But I'm not, so you'll never reach them."

"You're alone, Miss Cole," Buzzcut said. "There's dozens of us. Do you really think you can stop us?"

A single fellow American in this world, Ana thought, and he had to be from fucking Boston.

She didn't dignify his question with an answer. Instead she locked eyes with the man, waited for him to freeze — which he did — then spread her wings and roared, "Stand down, and return to your lodgings!"

Charisma, Intimidation, and Predator made for a potent mix, and combined with the display of supernatural power that was Ana's wings, it all became too much. Almost as one the mob lost their nerve and started backing away. "I understand your anger!" Ana told them. "You're right to be angry! I am! I'm one of those bastards' victims, same as you! But if you want to get to them, you'll have to go through me! And you can not take me! Try me! I dare you!"

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

With a powerful beat of her wings she shot upward. Two more and she hovered twenty feet in the air, only barely bobbing and swaying as she hung there. "Are we clear?"

They were clear. Ana swept her gaze across the mob, and it broke apart, its members retreating back down the main and side streets towards their temporary homes. And as it did, Ana received a notification.

Congratulations! Your Skill Acting has improved to Level 7! You have been awarded: Growth Crystal (Medium).

Congratulations! Your Skill Intimidation has improved to Level 9! You have been awarded: Growth Crystal (Medium).

Well, Ana thought. That's one hell of a way to get enough for Level 17. And somewhere at the edge of hearing, she heard the voice of the Wayfarer laughing softly. Hell of a time for the recently absent goddess to be paying attention.

Messy arrived with Kaira, Tor, and Omda as the mob were still dispersing, backed by Petra and several other patrons of the inn.

"Gods, Ana," Messy said before they even reached each other. "That was dangerous! What if they'd turned on you?"

"They were almost all Level 2 or 3, Mess," Ana said. Everyone who'd been cured had been given a Shard or a Least Growth Crystal to trigger their insertion into the System, but few had really gotten with the program yet. "If that's not enough, all but a handful of them are social or artisanal Classes. And knowing what I do about the world I come from, it's unlikely that any of them will know how to use a weapon well enough to hurt me, all else being equal."

"There were dozens of them," Messy pointed out, but she wasn't upset. All Ana saw in her eyes was excitement.

Ana snorted. "If they'd tried, despite my Intimidation, they'd've broken before they could hurt me. The only question is how many of them I'd have to break."

It would have been so easy. Against five or six dozen changelings Ana would have been wary. She would have worried about her chances simply due to the literal weight of numbers; she'd been brought down before. Against a larger number of regular, unarmed people, though? People who feared pain and had a working self-preservation instinct? With her massive advantages? At no point had she been worried. It may have taken a few busted joints and broken bones, but she would've sent them running, and she wouldn't even have to kill anyone to do it.

Probably. Would've been a damn shame to kill someone so soon after saving them.

"We should hang around here," Tor said with a sigh. "If I know Captain Falk, he'll be here any minute."

"I would've expected him to come out to deal with the crowd himself," Ana said frankly.

"He's at the stockade. He's been taking double shifts every night, from what I've heard. Assuming he knows about the mob, he's probably making sure the streets from here to there are blocked off. He'll be here with anyone they can spare in… yep. There he is."

Captain Tober Falk entered the square from the northern side, coming along Main Street. With him were five combat Classers, all of them volunteer guards, and his wife Marra. The somewhat rotund woman looked out of place with the tougher-looking fighters, but anyone who judged her by her appearance would be sorely mistaken; while most people would only see a Level 28 Clerk, Ana knew that her first 25 Levels were all in Vanguard. And Ana had seen her fight; she may have put on a pound or forty since retiring from Delving, but the woman could more than hold her own if she had to.

Even more out of place was the Indian teenager walking behind them. Ana briefly wondered what Jisha was doing there, but there was really only one likely explanation.

"Miss Cole!" Captan Falk called out from across the square even before he approached. Only he, his wife, and Jisha did so, with the others staying to block off the street. "I see we're late. Or did Miss Pillai overstate the seriousness of the situation?"

Pillai? Ana thought, then looked at Jisha. She realized she'd never asked the girl's last name. But when she thought about it, it did sound vaguely familiar. She'd had Jisha in her Party before, so she must have seen it at least.

To Falk she said, "No, Captain, I doubt she did. There were seventy or eighty people here; Stolen, mostly, but a few locals, too. I sent them home."

"Reliable as always, Miss Cole," Falk said. "Thank you."

"Don't get used to it, Captain," Ana said coolly. "I'll be going out in a few days, and I intend to do as much Delving as I possibly can before the cycle ends. The cultists are your prisoners. You're going to need to find a long-term solution."

Captain Falk looked at once understanding and understandably disappointed. His wife, though she didn't say anything, looked thoroughly disapproving.

"That's unfortunate," the captain said, "but it is neither in my nature nor my power to attempt to force you to handle a situation that is not your responsibility. No, most certainly not. I can only thank you for intervening here tonight, and hope that you change your mind. Any chance you know who organized it?"

"Afraid not. The guy on the plinth who was riling them up was tall, muscular, skin about the same tone as yours and with very short hair. I've seen him before but I don't know his name."

"That sounds like Mister Belov," Falk sighed. "I shall have to have another talk with him. Is there no way I can convince you to help settle these unfortunates, Miss Cole? I hope you might be able to reach them in a way I can't."

Ana sighed. They'd never officially broached the subject of Ana's origins, but everybody knew. Nobody believed that she'd fallen into the Splinter accidentally — though that apparently did happen. "Captain, let me be clear," she said. "These people are not my responsibility. I don't feel any kinship with them. Many of them don't even share a language with me. But that's all beside the point. I've talked to many of them. A quarter or a third of those people don't respect me simply because I'm a woman. Just as many actively despise me, because it's well known at this point that Messy and I are a couple. So I'm not going to reason with them. I don't see a reasonable chance of getting through to them, and I have no interest in putting myself through that frustration for their sake. What I can do is to scare them, and I'm willing to do that if you'll give me immunity for doing what I must to make it stick. Otherwise I'll wash my hands of them."

"Frankly, Miss Cole," Captain Falk said, "I'll happily take fear if reason will not work."

That gave Ana pause. She hadn't expected that. Captain Falk was a fairly amiable man, from what she'd seen, and not one to rule through strength and intimidation. But, then, she'd only seen him with a population that wanted to be there. Now he was stuck with a hundred poor, angry, and desperate people whose entire reality had been shattered, while also keeping track of and protecting twenty captured cultists and the fifteen traitors who'd joined Trilgayeri in her attempt to murder Ana.

The situation was quite different, and Captain Falk, it seemed, may be willing to do what was necessary.

"Fine," Ana said. "Get them together, here in the square, sometime tomorrow. I'll talk to them. If it works, great. If not… I'll help if they try anything while I'm in town, but that's as far as my responsibility extends from now on. Deal?"

"Deal," Falk said. "And thank you. I'll do what I can to gather the Stolen and make sure that you're kept informed. All I ask is that you appeal to their better natures before you put the fear in them."

"They get one chance," Ana said.

Falk nodded. "We'll get back to guarding the prisoners, then."

Before they left, Marra spoke up. She still looked generally unhappy with Ana's attitude; no surprise considering how much Ana had done already. "Ana," she said. "Can we rely on you if something happens?"

Ana sighed. She liked Marra. She'd prefer not to disappoint her too badly. "Fine," she said. "While I'm at the outpost. If they're stupid enough to try something tonight I'll be either at Touanne's, or at home."

"Thank you," Marra answered, looking somewhat mollified.

At a look from Ana, Jisha stayed behind as the Falks left. "You talked to Kaira, huh?" Ana asked her, keeping her voice light. She'd decided that she wasn't annoyed. Not really; that had just been a gut reflex, her not liking surprises.

"Yeah," Jisha said with a relieved chuckle, glancing at the themion woman who stood only a few feet away. "She'd already promised to take me out, so I figured… may as well ask, yes?"

"Sure. Just don't come crying to me if it gets too tough. Kaira isn't going to hold back, and we're not returning to the outpost until we're done. You have until tomorrow morning to back out, alright?"

"I won't," the girl said, and Ana had to admire the determination in her eyes. They'd see soon enough.

"I hope not," Ana said. "Now, Tellak is probably wondering where I am. I'll see you at class tomorrow. Oh, and Jisha?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks for going to Falk instead of me," she said, meaning it wholeheartedly. It was one thing for her to volunteer to take care of the situation; it was something else entirely to have someone expect her to do so.

Jisha would need protection for a while. Ana wouldn't put it past some of the mob to target her, if they'd seen her take off north when the rally started. As Petra and the others walked Jisha back to the inn, Messy and Ana made their way to Touanne's. Ana forced the interruption to her evening out of her mind, and the added chore of having to put the fear of God into a bunch of refugees. She'd deal with that tomorrow. Tonight, she had some magic to learn.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.