JUDICATOR JANE 6 - CHAPTER 41

New Acquaintances

A cold breeze drifted in from the north, tousling Dyle’s dark hair as he moved silently through yet another vast slave plantation—this one within the Mandala of Courage. The place reeked of quiet misery. Slavery was so deeply rooted here, it hung in the air like rot, seeping into everything. He passed a tall central pillar, its ropes stretching outward like veins feeding a diseased heart. Disgust curled his lip.

Shrouded by his Vanish skill, Dyle ghosted forward and sliced through the thick ropes tethering two laborers to a row of green-stalked crops. They were gathering odd, tubular vegetables—foreign to him but cultivated with care. The men turned at the slackened tension, one lifting the cut rope in confusion. The other simply shrugged, then both returned to their task without question.

Not running? Dyle frowned. He had little experience with slavery—just the rare nobles and mercenaries trafficking humans along the Golden Coast. For a moment, he considered revealing himself, telling them they were free. But the thought withered quickly. Freedom was more than just words spoken—and this wasn’t the time. A mistake here could be fatal. 

Suddenly, a sharp pulse stabbed through his skull. Blasted headache… I must be discordant. He paused, breathing slow, trying to do as Anith had taught—centering his thoughts on the ideal of courage. It takes courage to enter the Netherrealm… to dive headfirst into a war you don’t understand, he told himself. The pain dulled, but only just. Anith had warned him: it was the Masters who defined each Mandala’s virtue. Without aligning to their vision of courage, the dissonance would never fully fade.

In the distance, a sprawling fortress-like structure loomed at the heart of the plantation, bristling with guards. Dyle veered away from it. Whatever secrets it held weren’t worth dying for—not yet. He could infiltrate, yes, but they were still far too deep in the south for anything more than whispers. Better to follow the road, to move closer to the frontline. The landscape offered little cover—endless farmland stretching where he expected forests, a stark contrast to Arcadia’s dense woods.

Only once he was safely away from the plantation did he drop Vanish, slipping a hand into his pocket. From it, he pulled one of the strange vegetables he’d taken earlier, turning it over in his palm. So much effort to cultivate this… 

Okra (Food)

A vegetable grown from a stalk.

What an oddity. It was listed as a Food, so Dyle took a cautious bite of the strange vegetable. The texture was slimy, clinging unpleasantly to his teeth, though the taste itself was mild—grassy, earthy, not entirely disagreeable. He chewed, swallowed, then shrugged. Whatever it was, the locals were cultivating it in massive quantities. Finishing the rest, he flicked the last fibrous bit aside and turned his gaze northward.

The road ahead rose gently above the farmland, tracing a low ridge that snaked through patches of recently cleared fields. From this vantage, the plantations looked endless—neatly ordered rows stretching toward the horizon, eerily devoid of motion. Several unused slave poles jutted from the fields like teeth from a broken maw.

Then he heard it: voices, faint but distinct. Odd—there was no one visible on the road. Instinctively, he reactivated Vanish and slipped into the sound’s direction, keeping low as he crept toward the edge of the rise.

Below, nestled in the lee of the hill, stood two figures partially hidden among a cluster of tall weeds. One wore a white dust-covered robe and a gold mask that shimmered in the muted light. His voice was uneasy, edged with panic. “We can’t go further south. This is the end of clan lands—it’s too dangerous.”

The other, arms crossed, had a sharper tone—female, defiant. “It doesn’t matter. They have to know. Everyone has to know. You heard Cytorax—the demons have already breached the Mandala of Wisdom! Even if it costs us everything, the Culls deserve to know what’s coming. Otherwise, what was the point of all this? It’s our sacred duty!”

Demons? Dyle’s attention snapped into focus. Flattening against the slope, he studied the pair more closely.

Fascia (Level 12)

Nyxor (Level 7)

Low level. Strange. Every golden-masked figure Dyle had seen before was powerful, surrounded by elite escorts and warded like royalty. Yet here were two, alone and exposed in the open. No guards. No protection.

“We’re as good as dead,” the one labeled Nyxor muttered, despair thick in his voice.

Dyle narrowed his eyes. These two clearly knew more than most—too much to pass up. Time to act.

He unsheathed Darkspine, his Arcanite blade whispering free of its scabbard. Steeling his breath, he crept forward like a shadow on silk. Then, with practiced precision, he dropped Vanish and slipped behind the higher-leveled of the two—a woman from the sound of her voice—pressing the blade against the soft place above her collar bone.

“Don’t move a muscle,” he whispered. “Or it’ll be your last.”

Both figures froze, tension crackling in the air like a drawn bowstring. Nyxor raised his hands with a shaky tremor. “N-Now hold on—y-you can’t do that! We’re Masters! Let her go, or—or…”

“Or what?” Dyle cut in coldly. “Remove the mask. Unless you want those to be the last words she ever hears.”

“Don’t listen to him, Nyxor!” the woman cried. “Run! Find the closest—”

Dyle pressed his blade in sharply, not enough to kill but enough to steal the breath from her throat. She gasped, eyes flaring in panic.

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” he growled. “I only need one of you.”

Nyxor’s shoulders collapsed. “Wait, please—don’t hurt her!” He reached up with trembling gloved fingers, unclasped the golden mask, and lowered it.

Beneath was a smooth, blue-scaled face—slightly reptilian, but graceful in form. No nose, only a pair of ridged indentations above a lined, lipless mouth. Definitely not human.

Dyle’s brows lifted slightly. With curiosity, he activated General Identification.

Nyxor (Level 7)

Dragonkin

There’s the race. Dyle scoffed, giving a slight shake of his head. “Dragonkin, huh? Wonders never cease in this land.” A few months ago, the sight might have shaken him—myth made flesh. But after encountering elves straight out of bedtime stories and watching a thousand-foot titan tear through the Great Woods, this barely registered. Just another oddity in a place that refused to make sense.

He gave his captive a shove. She stumbled forward, landing hard on her knees, coughing for breath. Still, she rose with quiet defiance, stepping between Dyle and Nyxor, shielding him with her body.

“What do you want with us?” she asked, voice tense. “You do realize that seeing a dragonkin unmasked has sealed your fate.”

Dyle leveled Darkspine at her, his eyes unreadable. “Is that so? Then I suppose I shouldn’t leave any witnesses.”

She swallowed hard, saying nothing.

He held his stance a moment longer before easing the blade slightly. “Listen close—I’m not here to kill you. Not unless you make me. Cooperate, and you walk away breathing.” His tone sharpened. “Now tell me everything you know about the demons to the north.”

***

Hand to his chin, Dyle listened in silence as the two dragonkin recounted their tale—a grim chronicle of horror and death. Nyxor spoke of arriving too late, of finding their brethren massacred in some kind portal chamber, the bodies torn and piled like garbage. Of fleeing in desperation as a tide of demons erupted from what they called the Terrazene Labyrinth, some ancient relic of a bygone age.

“The last thing we saw,” Fascia said, voice low, “was a towering black demon emerging from the entrance, right as flying demons poured out like flies.” She shuddered. “Those poor Culls… but there was nothing we could do. Traveling through the northern wilds with a group that large? It would’ve been suicide. Their sacrifice wasn’t in vain though—it bought us time to warn the southern clans.”

Dyle’s eyes narrowed. “And is that all? There was no human woman among them?”

Fascia shook her head. “I don’t know. It was too far to tell. Just monsters and dark shapes pouring from the entrance in a torrent. Only the massive one I mentioned before was clearly visible. Their leader, I assume.” She paused, visibly unsettled. “There was something wrong about the way it moved. A mixture of beast and man.”

Dyle felt a twinge of disappointment twist through his gut. A part of him—foolish, maybe—had hoped Jane was leading the charge. That she had somehow found a way to return, even if it meant overcoming a demonic army to do it. But no… Jane would never sanction the slaughter of a conclave of scholars. That wasn’t who she was. Whoever had emerged from the Netherrealm, it wasn’t her. This sounded like something far worse—a second Faceless Dark, loose in another land.

Still… if demons are pouring out, that means the portal might not be sealed. That provided a hope that there just might still be a path to Jane. And if she had been taken—if she was in the hands of the terrible demon they’d seen—then she might also need rescuing.

Nyxor, shook his head, his shoulders drooping. “That’s why we’ve been traveling from one Mandala to the next—warning the clans of what’s coming. But the demon legions move faster than we ever imagined. Every day, another Mandala falls. They’re carving a path straight through the center of Kaldara on their grisly mission.”

Fascia dropped her head, her golden mask tilted downward, voice hollow. “These are the end times… the apocalypse spoken of in the sacred texts. We heard there are still Cull cities to the south. That’s where we we’re headed.”

Dyle raised a hand, halting her. “Then you’re walking into your graves.”

They both looked up sharply.

“I’ve been south,” he continued, tone firm. “I’ve seen how the Masters are spoken of there. Whatever your intentions, they won’t matter. You won’t last a week.”

He stepped forward and drew Darkspine again, letting its sparkling edge glint in the dying light. “No. You’re not going south.”

He pointed the blade toward the road behind him.

“You’re coming with me.”

“With you?!” Nyxor recoiled, clutching the fringes of his robe as if they could shield him.

“That’s right,” Dyle said coolly. “I need safe passage north—and what better escort than two ‘Masters’ to make sure I don’t get conscripted or gutted along the way?” His tone was calm, almost casual, but the blade in his hand still gleamed with menace.

Truthfully, Vanish would suffice for much of the journey. But the skill had its limits—he could only use it for parts of the day, and there was risk of being caught while it was unavailable. Traveling with these two wouldn’t just make things easier. It would give him options.

He raised a hand in a gesture of measured truce. “Once we reach this demon army, you’re free to go. But until then, your job is simple—keep my neck as safe as you would your own.”

Nyxor’s hand drifted instinctively to his throat, eyes wide. “But… the demons? Why in the Maker’s name would you want to go toward them? Shouldn’t we all be running the other way?”

Dyle sighed and finally lowered Darkspine. “You’d think. But I’ve met my share of demons—more than I care to count. And there’s someone I’m looking for… someone with a deeper connection to them than I can explain.”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter if it makes sense to you. Just know this—your odds are better with me than heading south into the Free Cities. Bet on it.”

The two dragonkin exchanged hushed whispers, their golden masks nearly touching. At last, the female turned back toward him, her voice cool but resolute.

“Very well. We’ll take you north. But once you’ve seen what we’ve seen…” Her eyes narrowed behind the mask. “Whatever false courage you’re clinging to will dissipate like ash in the wind. Count on that.”