“That didn’t seem like something you might want to mention?” Warcry growled.
“What the Ylef said?” She scoffed. “It might not even be true. He could’ve just been telling me so you guys would get flustered and be an easier target.”
Fire flared up along Warcry’s head and shoulders. “What’s that supposed to mean? Just coz he busted me prosthetic in the Wilderness Territorial, I ain’t a problem for him?”
“See?” Kest said, going back to her work. “Flustered.”
“Can’t believe a bleedin’ Nameless got in by query,” Warcry muttered, crossing his arms. “Dragons ain’t takin’ requests my foot.”
“Why didn’t Biggerstaff mention this before?” I asked.
“Because I didn’t know whether the Nameless would make it through Bogland,” the catfish’s voice said from behind us. “Ylef aren’t famous for their survivalist tendencies, and I wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to die or give up and turn back.”
We twisted around in our seats to see the recruiter.
“What’s this about the Nameless gettin’ our affiliation if he gets twenty wins before us?” Warcry demanded.
“Actually, that condition was specific to you, Mr. Thompson. He’ll get your affiliation if you can’t beat him to twenty wins.”
Warcry looked from me to the catfish like he couldn’t figure out whether he was more upset that I wasn’t the one on the chopping block or that Biggerstaff had screwed him over.
“But we got a contract,” he growled. “Signed and sealed, you reneging cove.”
Biggerstaff chuckled. “Aren’t you the one with a brand lawyer from your IFC days? Have them look over it, Mr. Thompson. Your affiliation is dependent on your performance during the probationary period, and since this is the probationary period, the Dragons are within our rights to demand that you earn twenty wins before that Nameless does or we can give your affiliation away.”
I pulled up the contract on my HUD and started skimming. To be honest, I hadn’t read it all that closely, either. We’d been desperate for an affiliation—any affiliation—to protect us from the OSS, so I’d just been happy we were getting one.
Warcry slammed a burning fist down on the table. “Of all the bending-overs! Lying through your gills...”
A bit of wording in the contract caught my eye—all challenges deemed necessary during the probationary period, including any Spirit improvements required to make the affiliate acceptable to the local Shogun...
“Shut up for a second,” I told Warcry, then turned to Biggerstaff. “What does this mean, Spirit improvements? Like, if the Shogun wants, we have to change our Spirit?”
“You can’t change your Spirit,” Kest said. “That would require getting a completely different Spirit sea, and attempts at Spirit sea transplants have been unsuccessful across the board.”
“I’m glad you brought that clause up, Mr. Hake,” Biggerstaff said, “because that brings me to your conditional improvements. Remember how I told you to work on cloaking your Spirit?”
I grimaced. The aftermath of the tournament had been so crazy that I hadn’t thought about cloaking since we’d talked.
Biggerstaff’s catfish mouth stretched into a wide smile. “Your wins will only count when they occur under a Spirit cloak. If I can sense your attacks while you’re fighting, they go down as a loss.”
My mouth dropped open. “But...”
“Good luck in your fights tomorrow,” Biggerstaff said, giving us a nod before heading off toward the arena.
“This’s the deepest load of space trash I ever heard,” Warcry muttered. His chair’s feet screeched on the tile as he leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. “Givin’ away a man’s rightful winnings...”
“Do you guys know anything about cloaking your Spirit?” I asked.
Kest shrugged, cinnabar stick elbow clicking a little on the tabletop with the motion. “What would be the point of cloaking Metal?”
“Yeah, Warm Heart Spirit isn’t exactly a threat to most people,” Rali said.
“The bollix I care about cloaking?” Warcry sneered. “I ain’t afraid to be the only human with a Ten specialization in a system. The Ylefs and their pet Confederation can choke on me excess.”
Hungry Ghost can teach Death cultivator a cloaking technique, the grinning skull croaked inside my brain.
How? I asked it.
Death cultivator must reach oblivion.
“I have the jade book on cloaking,” Kest said.
“Awesome,” I said, thinking back to the bands of bog ferals converging on the Heartchamber. “Throw it here. I’m going to take it up top and see if I can figure this out.”
Spirit Cloaking
I RIPPED A LIFE POINT out of a stumbling bog feral, then bashed a closer one with my Death Metal shields. Rotten brain goo and bone shards sprayed in an arc and ran off my shield along with the rainwater.
What about that time? I asked Hungry Ghost.
No. Can Death cultivator not reach oblivion?
Apparently not.
I finished off the last feral in that band, then sucked down the Miasma from it and the other decomposed corpses piling up.
“You’re still not cloaking,” Kest called down from where she was sitting under the eaves, messing around on her HUD. “Or not very well, anyway.”
I exhaled a disgusted breath. “Were you even looking?”
“Nope.” She finished what she was doing, then swiped some wet hair out of her face with her metal stick-hand. “Your Sho’s so in-your-face I didn’t need to look to know it was there.”
I checked to make sure there weren’t any more bog ferals coming just yet, then triggered Corpse Fire to burn off the greasy brown soul contamination in my Spirit sea while I went to work emptying the dead ferals’ pockets. They were mostly empty or full of muck and disintegrating paper, but a couple of them had Spirit stones or credit coins. One had a chunk of what looked like amethyst. I took the loot up the hill and ducked under the eaves with Kest to get out of the rain.
“Trade me,” I said, dropping the loot I’d collected beside her. “Let me
