The woman grabbed Dodger by the armpits, easily hoisting her up to 
her feet and turning her to face the woman, "Are you a Dark? Darks 
are banned from Whore's End. If you've got to lie, | recommend you 
lie well, or it could be | wear your panacea-laced head on my shield 
as a trophy." 


Dodger furrowed her brow, "Such violence. And racism, too." 


"Marshall. Carter. Dark." The woman snarled nastily, her grip on 
Dodger tightening. 


"| was just teasing you. | don't work for money. | serve Manna. My 
name is Dodger. What about you?" 


The woman let Dodger go, and said nothing for a long while. Dodger 
broke the silence, "You must be a Foundation Knight, then? Who'd 
you serve before Number Eight?" 


The woman grabbed Dodger by the shoulder, and started to pull her 
along. 


"I'm not a spy, if that's what you're thinking! If what | hear is correct, | 
might actually know Number Eight from another time —" 


"Good. Then you're less likely to die in the next few hours. If you've 
got to lie this time around, | recommend you lie well." 


The way up the tower smelled heavily like chlorine. Somehow, the 
smell of sulfur was entirely gone. It was almost pleasant, like living in 
an above-ground aquifer tainted by chemical waste. She pitied the 
peasants having to stay outside with the sulfur. Maybe there was 
some manner of design in this tower that kept out the sulfur? She 
didn't know anything about engineering. 


Finally she reached the top floor, sweat beading along her hairline. 
The towering woman behind her hadn't slowed, and hadn't changed 
her easy breathing in the slightest. The room looked carved straight 
from stone, without any décor beyond a few seats and tables, and 
the vast open window carved on the opposite end of the room, using 
preciously rare clear glass to allow a view of the land around them. 


The Eighth Overseer stood on a dais extending towards the 
windows. The windows extended like a bulb, offering a view straight 
down below as well as straight up and all around. Pre-Fall construct, 
it had to be. Dodger could easily see the rot starting to set in around 
the edges, where the glass had been fused together and rammed 
into stone. Like every other braggadocious castle and fortress in the 
land proclaiming grandeur and terror, it was falling apart. 


"Speaking of falling apart," She muttered aloud as the Overseer 
turned and started moving towards her. It looked like she had gotten 
to the panacea too late to save her face. 


"Hey Anna," Dodger waved casually, knowing better than to try and 
flatter someone like her. 


The Overseer smiled, then tilted her head slightly, putting Dodger on 
edge before those coy words left her lips, "Do | Know you?" 


Dodger was sure the knight behind her hadn't moved, yet she could 
distinctly feel her presence far closer than she had upon entering. 


Dodger spread her arms slightly, innocently keeping her hands 
visible and open. 


"Dr. Anna Sobotka. My name's Dodger. 'Spiffy Dodger’, technically. 
Real name... doesn't matter anyways; everyone who was anyone 
only knew me as 'Dodger'. We used to work together a few times... 
After the Fall." 


The Overseer smiled, eyes still blank and expressionless. Dodger 
twitched, anticipating the knight's hands coming down on her 
shoulders to whisk her away to some manner of dark horror 
involving iron, stone, and possibly fire. Then the Overseer stepped 
closer, reaching out to touch Dodger's face. 


"| do remember you. What was it you told me? That you were a ‘last 
light of life and love in a land lacking leisure'?" 


"| may have been a bit boastful back then." 
"What do you want?" 


Dodger had hoped for at least a few more moments of small talk, 
"Pick up where | left off, hopefully.” 


Anna shook her head, but before the towering woman behind 
Dodger could wring her neck, she spoke again, "| can offer you a 
position tending to my flock..." 

"No." 

"Teach them to read and write, teach them discipline — " 

"No." 


"— Train them to use proper spears and shields, maybe." 


"Hell no," Dodger stood her ground and waited for the woman 
behind her to kill her at any moment. Anna frowned as much as her 
porcelain jaw allowed her to. Dodger broke in quickly, "I happen to 
know where you might find some useful anomalies." 


Anna's face remained fixed in that frown. Dodger continued, "We're 


close to at least three | know of. A hole; used to be in a building. 
Leads somewhere... anomalous. Still has things we can loot from 
them. Desks, chairs, tables, maybe some weapons. Other things. 
I've also managed to track down some a few hundred miles away. 
Very long journeys... could take years." 


"You want to be sent to fetch things for me?" Anna asked 
incredulously. By reputation, Dodger was always the sort to want to 
see action, even if it was digging latrines and polishing armor by the 
front lines, "There's a war coming, you know." 


Dodger squirmed a bit, clenching her porcelain teeth tightly together, 
"| Know." 


"You love war." 


Dodger looked down sheepishly at her chest, "I love a good war... a 
liberation, annexation of a failed-state, crushing some petty warlord. 
This one you've got coming... It's dirty. Confusing. Political, even." 


Anna grinned, "You only love when there's a clear-cut 'good' and 
‘evil'." 


Dodger didn't look up, "Only the perception of 'good' and ‘evil’. | 
know there's no such thing as ‘evil’ in the world." 


Anna smirked, and reached out to take Dodger by the hand, "No. Of 
course not. Let's talk." 


The square of gold-shielded men came to a stop near the edge of 
the vast bowl-shaped pit, where smoke still rose from the fires set 
weeks prior. Tracks indicated thousands of people moving to the 
southwest. 


A young woman ran up to Overseer Seven. She was unarmored, 
lightly garbed, with a satchel hanging from her hips. Scar tissue on 
her thighs and legs marked her a survivor of the Upland Mine Riots 
six years prior. A former slave turned traitor, one of many who 
opened the gates to the Overseer's assault force, and was granted 
her freedom for her troubles. 


She dropped to her knees before him, hands out and splayed open, 
"My lord. I've found a note from your servant." 


At his nod, she reached into her satchel, and withdrew a rolled bit of 
parchment, sealed with a ring of stone, likely made from blood 
spilled on the field before it could petrify. He pulled the ring off, and 
unfurled the paper. 


"Have | done well, my lord?" The woman asked, trembling. 


He looked down to her, then glared at his men. He tolerated no 
abuse of women in his service, regardless of their status. None of 
the men looked away in guilt. He trusted these men enough to 
accept that alone. 


"You have," He responded gutturally, and withdrew a bronze flask 
from his satchel, prying off the top and pouring a small handful of 
sticky golden syrup onto his outstretched gauntlet. 


The woman started to whimper, and lunged at his armored hand as 
he lowered it, smearing the panacea on her face as she devoured it 
all, licking each metal finger clean of the precious substance, while 
he continued to read the hastily written letter left him by Hagne- 
Allon. 


"Eight is alive." He drew a sharp breath. He still remembered Anna 
Sobotka, the way she had been; long blonde hair, shapely little 
nose, always with an over-shirt or a jacket of some type. Quick to wit 
and quick to forgive, always able to project a perpetual sense of 
calm and bring out the best in her coworkers. The Anna Sobotka he 
remembered didn't exist anymore. He wasn't even entirely sure that 
Anna Sobotka ever existed. 


He turned his hand over, watching the woman stiffen and stop 
lapping like a dog as he pointed right to her face, "Find the redhead. 
Do not talk to her. Watch the people around her. Don't leave them; | 
will send messengers for you to report to." 


"Ree... Recon? Conner Sense?" 


"Reconnaissance" He confirmed. 


The woman rose to her feet, and turned around, starting after the 
tracks at a jog. 


« A Monolithic Species | Slay, Cure, Protect | » 


Kingdom of Stone: The End of a Man 


| walked. 


| knew my end was near. | had not felt my feet for ages now, 
Overseer knows for how long. They used to ache, but that stopped 
quickly. As soon as they began to turn to stone, that is. 


| am an old man, lived to see many a war, fight in a few even. | don't 
know if to count myself lucky to live in this cold, hard world, with little 
to no hope of tomorrow. Heh, grim thoughts for a dying man. 

They say your last thoughts should be of home. Too bad | don't 
have any. Not after the Fifth Overseer's army burned it down. Damn 
them and their disputes to hell. 


| look around, seeing nothing but death around me. A battlefield, full 
of men and women, frozen in their last moments of horror, old 
friends and new foes alike. Beheaded bodies with their hearts 
pierced by arrows, still standing. Those few who did not die right 
away lying face down, with sand flowing from their veins to litter the 
ground. Fear still lingers on their faces, as it does on mine. | am 
terrified. Terrified of this war. Terrified of my own upcoming fate. 


Oh the foolishness of man to heed their king's word blindly and 
charge into battle. Why has it come to this | ask, with rulers bickering 
over their own concerns, throwing the common people at each 
other, only to prolong what comes to the rest of us; this unforgiving 
fate of all, both man and god? 


God. 
What a strange word to use of men who are but near-immortal. 


| trample through the barren land full of dust and stone. The skies 
are dark as ever. | feel the pain of the poisoned arrow in my 
shoulder sting once again. Might as well break it off, | think as | snap 
the shaft in half, the shock bringing me to my knees. | crank myself 


up and keep going. | cannot stay here. This is not the place. 


Before me is a forest, petrified much like most of me right now. | feel 
my ear; it chips off into my hand, and | toss it away. | tread onwards, 
only to see those same faces all over again. An expression of horror 
forever etched into those stony eyes and that gravely face. A sad 
display of foolishness from our Overseers, ones who we once held 
as gods. Our knighthood means nothing. It is but a carrot on a stick 
to lure us to fight their battles for them, to solve their fruitless 
bickering once and for all- and at what cost? Yet another garden of 
statues dots the landscape. 


| have not rested in what feels like forever, but | cannot stop now. To 
stop is to give up. And | am not ready yet. | feel the fingers on my 
left hand stiffening, and decide to break them off. Less weight to 
carry at least. 


| shouldn't be far now. 


Monsters are what they call them. The creatures out there, hunting 
what is left of the mankind. A threat to our beloved leaders, and to 
ourselves. The sole reason to why we exist, to why our Foundation 
of Knights was born; to slay these threats and stop them. Slay, cure 
and protect. And look how well we've succeeded. Even now | can 
see something ahead, crawling its way through these cold woods. | 
try to go around it from as far as | can. 


It had a tail. 


| haven't seen an animal all my life. Heard stories, and saw a few 
statues, but the thought of something other than man existing was... 
Baffling. To think that we are not alone in this unforgiving world was 
a scary thought. Mostly because we are weak. 

The only reason we exist anymore is the manna, the panacea. Stuff 
of legends. Golden nectar oozing from deep down under. The 
greatest reason for our struggles against each other, the greed of 
our kings... And the only thing keeping them alive. 


The smoke of the mines has created a thick layer to cover the skies. 
Has been that way for... Centuries, at least. Cold and darkness 
have been the mankind's friend for as far as our memory goes. We 


tooth — you know there used to be something there but all that's left 
is a bloody hole." Testing has confirmed that it is possible to loosely 
direct what memory is excised, by concentrating on a specific 
memory before touching the stone. If a subject handles a sample of 
888 with no specific thought in mind, the memory lost is essentially 
random, though it may be chosen by the subject's subconscious. 

(| have personally confirmed that the ‘donor’ retains no access to the 
lost memory, however related memories seem to be unaffected: | 
can no longer recall seeing the movie , but | do recall 
that it was the worst film I've ever seen. — Dr. _ ) 


If a subject instead touches a ‘full’ stone, the subject experiences the 
memory contained within it, firsthand. Subjects report that the 
experience is completely ‘real’ to them during replay. As long as the 
subject remains in contact with the stone, the memory continuously 
‘loops,’ with each subsequent re-play possessing the same 
emotional impact, as if every repetition were the first time. Contact 
by the original memory donor does not restore the memory. Instead, 
subjects experience a dissociative state, in which the memory 
reportedly feels like "a story someone told me," or "something | 
dreamed about." 


Before-and-after MRI scanning seems to indicate that the memory 
transfer process causes cellular death in the subject's brain. The 
exact mechanism is unknown at this time, but it is theorized that the 
transference causes a burst of electrical activity in the cells which 
originally contained the data, essentially cauterizing minute portions 
of the brain tissue. Playback causes no analogous damage to brain 
tissue, however the replayed memories are so vivid that some test 
subjects have exhibited psychosomatic responses, such as blisters 
rising on a hand which was burned in the memory. 


Samples smaller than ~8 cubic centimeters lack the ability to retain 
data, and are unable to absorb or replay memories. Aside from this 
‘minimum operational size,' there appears to be no correlation 
between the size of the sample and the amount of data which can 
be stored. If a ‘full’ sample of 888 is reduced by mechanical means 
into fragments smaller than 8 cubic centimeters, the recorded data is 
lost when the stone becomes inert. The original host does not regain 
the lost memory. However, if a ‘full’ sample of 888 is separated by 


don't even know how many moons there are, if any. Sounds like a 
fairytale to me. A giant stone, flying in the heavens... As believable 
as the "miracles" our god-kings make. 


| think this is it. 


| cannot walk another step. My knees crackle with every movement, 
and | feel them slightly chipping. But | must go on, | am not there 
yet. 


| walk out of the woods. 
The sunlight greets me. 


A faint flicker from between the smallest crack in the thick mattress 
of clouds that has always remained there, as far as | could possibly 
remember. 


| look down at the landscape below me. A grey land of dying souls, 
false kings and misery. My friends and family lying dead, and | have 
nothing left. 


| don't think I've ever seen sunlight before. As | feel my heart slowly 
come to a halt, | think to myself: 


This is good. 
This is where I'll stay. 


« The End of a Man| The Under-Class » 


Kingdom of Stone: The Under-Class 


When | saw the sky open, | suspected they would make 
their attempt there. What | expected was a bumbling 
mass of men, noise and frenzy, cowed by the glint of 
steel. At worst, some would die. Nevertheless, | would 
give them what aid | could; | always took a perverse 
pleasure in seeing some new disaster or atrocity break 
the monotony of everyday life. 


The sky is always gray for weeks at a time. Even when 
the sky opens, there is nothing to shield you from its 
light. There are no rocks or mountains nearby — they 
have all been mined and collapsed. | expected the light 
alone would break up what ever plans they had.