The Union.

West Coast.

From Tijuana to Matamoros, a war without official documentation raged across the pencil-marked line between the Union’s twin coasts and Neo Tenochtitlan.

To the grizzled combatants ofthe West Coast, the seesaw of violence was a product of old men with large cheques, and young men with light pockets, united in the grand narrative of Manifest Destiny.

It was ironic then that, unbeknownst to the Wand-wielding footsoldiers, the rumbling Golems and the spell-weaving Mage Flights, the nation’s grief with Neo Tenochtitlan ran far deeper than politics or economics.

They did not know because only a select number of Paleo-historians taught the nation’s pre-Union history, rightly understanding that their modern conflict was an existential contest.

These scholars knew, from the inherited throatsong of Origin Nation Elders who survived, that long before British Coffin Ships shattered the sand banks, other humans had tilled the soil and cultivated California’s tablelands. These were the silenced survivors of the Primordial Age who had fled from the jungles of the south and the tundras of the north.

For epochs unknowable to modernity, the survivors thrived by attaching themselves to lesser Mythics who fled from crucibles like Amazonia. They, like the elder races, then instinctively engaged in symbiosis, crafting civilisations around themselves in the manner of Trees, Drakes and Guardians. The rise and fall of these nations were tied to their Patrons, such as the crystalline Uktena of the Cherokee, or the Great Horned Serpent of the Sioux, leaving behind gargantuan “Serpent Mounds”, each a Dungeon connected to the world of their deities.

In the Union’s seldom-visited museums, there existed archeological evidence that for ten or more, Humanity had thrived on the Californian coast without catastrophe. Here, they contested the prolific Green Skins, who worshipped Katshituashku. They held back the Centaurs and fawn-folk of the Mojave. They allied with the Mer of the coasts and swamps. They fought, traded, interbred, then warred, forming over thirty prominent tribes prior to the Pilgrim Fleet, armed with the language of their Patrons and their topographical mythoi. Here, the Origin Nations had perfected what “bleeding-heart” scholars dubbed as permaculture, a means to perpetually exist within the framework of resources provided by their Patrons.

And, as the Smithsonian scholar’s footnote stated, “for a time, it was good”.

To Slylth, whom Gwen queried, the Land Gods of the Americas were ephemeral beings, scions and spawns of losers who had lost much of their divinity, history, and power.

To the Union, whom Gwen did not consult, the Origin Nations of the Americas were ephemeral tribes ravaged by Demi-humans, saved from extinction by the arrival of the land’s destined possessors.

In another multiverse, the colonists had arrived with the Bible, black powder, and disease.

In the Regent’s present world, the colonists had come bearing holy books and cold steel.

And Necromancy.

And manifest destiny.

While the Tribes were powerful in their totemic, Shamanic sorcery, European Faith Magic was founded upon the slaying of Demihumans and Magical Monsters. Furthermore, whether destined, by design or by accident, phages swept through the tribes and clans, erasing as much as three-quarters of the Origin Nations before the ravaged survivors turned to Faith Magic for salvation.

The sole survivors of slavery and conquest were the Träälvor and their allies, dubbed by the Harvard Magister William Illingsworth as “untamed savages of New Albion protected by impenetrable vegetation from Spanish poaching.”

Centuries passed.

Legal ownership of the land changed hands again, again, and again—from Revolution to Revolution, independence to Union, agrarian to industrial—but the one constant was that the original inhabitants had become, as the land itself, a precious resource.

Such was the unspoken history of the land upon which the largest and most prominent commodity brokerage in the United States was seated.

With a stationary levitation height of close to four hundred metres, the Salesforce & Partners Tower, SnP to the locals, stood as the West Coast’s bastion against the Empire Tower of the east.

On its sixty-first floor, its Tower Master and CEO, Cèsar Magnusson, stood with crystal glass in hand, pondering the shipping lanes of San Francisco Bay as boats slowed to a crawl under the Oakland Bridge.

The boardroom was empty but for himself and a plethora of aides, whose presence was professional and invisible.

“Angie, finalise the transfer,” Cèsar said after a while, noting his own reflection against the floor-to-ceiling panes. In his youth, VOGUE voted him one of the most eligible bachelors in the nation. Now a widower, he graced the cover of his own Magazine, “THE TIMES” as the premier silver fox of the billionaire generation. Presently, Cèsar’s unperturbed self was grinning; though he noted that the lines around his cheeks had grown prominent, and that his brows were unconsciously taut. A master of Physiognomy, Cèsar forced himself to relax before affirming with his aide a most unusual choice of trade.

With a narrow vote from the board, he had sold the forty-six per cent stake he held in TODAY USA, a prominent West Coast paper that had been on the decline, and his eleven per cent share in InterRepublic, representing the sixth largest advertisement firm on the West Coast’s totem pole.

Both sales followed the surprise ownership change at Elling-Gibson Dunn, the third-largest Corporate Banking, Merger and Acquisition firm facing the Pacific, eleventh in the nation.

The purchaser was a buyer as infamous as it was underestimated, being the private subsidiary of a state-sponsored enterprise—an entity dubbed STC: the Shalkar Trade Consortium.

The volume of HDMs thus moved—somewhere between forty-two million shards of minted crytals—was facilitated by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, insured by a wealth of Wildland Ingredients, priced at hundreds of thousands to a million HDMs… including the liquor inside Cèsar’s glass.

Quadruple-distilled Golden Mead.

Sap from the literal veins of a World Tree, tempered by the Regent herself to become a consumable fit for mortal men.

A resource that the Regent held a monopoly upon.

A resource that only the rich could daily imbibe.

A resource the truly rich desired above all else.

Distilled youth.

Distilled time.

For a week, across London, Shalkar, Yangon and Shanghai, conversations were had, negotiations were leveraged, and decisions were made.

By the blessing of Cèsar Magnusson, the Regent shall enter the landholds of the United States by invitation as a Foreign Investor. Through her ownership stake in United States corporations and interests, she was granted conditional citizenship and a Mithril Card, which guaranteed public and private rights to exchange and enterprise.

Cèsar sipped his drink.

His eyes turned to the north, where the magnificence of the Golden Gate Bridge stood as a monument to independence and commerce. All around its surrounding marina and parklands, the ant-like, happy people of his golden city milled about their affairs, unaware that a mere eight hundred kilometres away in Baja California, their fellow citizens were neck deep in trenches, spell-slinging Fireballs and Ice Bolts at Panther Warriors and swooping Eagle Mages.

Many of Cèsar’s contemporaries were happy with the present paralysis of the front, both within the corporate realm of the twin coasts and in the bloodshed between the Union and Technochitlan. Factories burned bright, employment rates were up, the destitute were signing up as volunteer soldiers in record numbers, guaranteeing sky-high stock prices.

But Cèsar Magnusson was dissatisfied.

A society, he believed, must challenge itself.

Stagnancy wasn’t status quo—it was regression.

Even if their world changed for the worse, so long as Cèsar’s foes lost far more than he, then that was in itself an unquestionable victory.

While miles away the pulsing brain of a corporate Leviathan dreamed of market caps, investments and triumphs, the milling ports of South Beach Harbour in San Francisco bustled with business as usual.

Except for holy days, the port did not rest, for daily fleets of fishermen would return from the Gulf of Farallones, a great armada laden with the bounty of the Pacific. As the great breadbowl of the west, kelp, fish, shellfish and other jewels of the gulf made up for a third of the coast’s diet, transporting the products of its canning factories wide and far across the grand Union.

Presently, a Super Heavy Factory Trawler was docked at Pier 41, its guts splayed across the dockland, unloading a week’s worth of harvest from the Farallone Kelp Fields. At almost two hundred meters, the Shielding-equipped trawler Demeter was the pride of Trident Seafood, a full twenty meters longer than its closest competitor, The Argentine, the flagship of the east’s Fulton Corporation. Within the hive, a thousand tons of school fish, prawns, sharks, rays, octopuses, and bugs were held in refrigerated chambers, rapidly being sorted by thousands of workers.

Ashkii “James” Dighin, son of the Navajo, had laboured as a fishmonger in the footsteps of his displaced father’s displaced forefathers for as long as his Amá’s throat song could recall. By all technicality, James was no longer a fishmonger, for the family had lost their heirloom ship after their grandfather folded to Trident’s market consolidation. Thankfully, the invaluable skills passed on by their grandfather remained, and no man aboard the Demeter could skin and parcel fish as fast or as artfully as James.

James was “locked in” and on the third hour of his shift when, invariably, the carcass of a frozen humanoid arrived at his station.

“Dighin!” His foreman hammered a button, stopping his line feed. “Do me a favour. Remember. Nothing conspicuous.”

James’s brows furrowed, forming a deeply judgmental valley. “You’re shitting me.”

“Oi. Didn’t your Amá say she’d stew’em in ya Wildland days? That’s how her Ashkii grew big and tall, like his Apà, eh?”

“I am a Richmond boy, you one-eyed moray,” James fired back in jest. “My old gran probably flogged yours at Richmond High.”

His foremen grunted. James was his best worker, and the man knew better than to antagonise the dozen or so processors with enough skill to prepare Mer for the Grey Faction auctions.

The process wasn’t so different from breaking down a two-hundred-pounder Bluefin, but there were patterns and cuts in Mer-meat that exposed the flesh as something other than Wildland-caught produce.

Before the Woozencroft Treaties, the consumption of Mer was commonplace.

After the Demi-human covenant, the United States agreed to follow its European counterparts and recognise the personhood of coastal Mer.

This tale has been pilfered from NovelBin. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

But the oceanic Mer were unlike their counterparts in the Black Zones of Florida or the salt marshes of Las Flores. They were unquestionably hostile. They were aliens who ate the flesh of fishers like James and disrupted the good business of Trident’s multi-billion HDM ventures.

That, and the oceanic Mer were, unfortunately, ubiquitous as a bycatch, and exceptionally delicious.

This particular Mer was of the Sword-fish kin, one of the rarer, deep Vel-living species that could be found riding enormous flying fishes, skimming the surface of the sea to take sailors off the edges of their rigs.

James replaced his flensing knife with a magical variant powered by a condensed LDM. Only with its vibro-function could the Mer be dissected and its enormous body parcelled into taboo sushi for the discrete diner.

As a master of his craft, James began by severing the head, looping around the gills' edges to avoid damaging the brain case and releasing the bitter bile. The shoulders followed. The meat was tougher here, for the Mer sported massive arms with impressive delts and biceps. These had to be processed carefully, as any signs of ligaments naturally exposed the origins of the pink, inviting flesh.

Next came the chest. Two sweet oysters of flesh consisting of twelve pounds of prime cut. After the upper body was processed, the skeletal structure finally began to resemble a fish. Once the guts were hollowed out, the enormous tail steaks, rich with marvelled fat, were the highest gastronomical prize, choked full of the vital oils that commanded astronomical prices at Presidio’s boutiques.

The work required meticulous attention and time, meaning the head thawed.

Though snap-frozen to kill parasites, the head, consisting of the least flesh and the densest bone, gradually lost its layer of rime.

From the side table of his work station, the beheaded Mer gazed with milky-white eyes at its butcher, its elongated, razor-lined maw full of accusation.

James disliked that.

It was no secret to anyone that, no shit, the oceanic Mer held strong opinions about being food.

James was just about to remark that the damned thing looked like it was ready to take a bite out of him when, against every experience his family had accrued in the last half-century, a sudden contraction of severed tissues sent the thing tumbling from the table to land at his feet.

“Je—” Before James could even blaspheme the name of the Nazarene, the head took hold of his ankles, sheared through the rubber, and struck his lower shin like a branding iron.

“Christ, what the fuck?” His foremen and the others came to his aid at once. A meat hook as long as James’ arm swished through the air and caught the head before it could continue to convulse.

The massive maw came away bloody.

James fell, caught by the foreman.

“You alright, Jim? Holy shit… your leg, it's gone…”

James groaned when he was bit, something like lava shot through his leg and into his torso, almost blinding him with agony.

“No… no no no… my leg!” he moaned, his vision blacking out from the assessment. “Jesus, Jack, I swear to fucking God… You…”

There was silence… then suddenly the room burst into rancorous laughter.

“It’s just a nick, you gob,” his Foreman brought him up so that James could stand. “So much for that Navajo spirit.”

James stood.

His leg was on fire, but it was in one piece.

Visually, the wound was so shallow that accidentally dropping the spined claw of a Crab-kin on one’s foot would have done more damage.

Still, the shock he had felt was unlike anything he’d experienced, worse than the time he lobbed off his pinky.

“Alright, alright, back to work. Donny! Toss that thing into the incinerator. Bloody bad luck, that is. We’re on a tight shift as it is. James, go to the infirmary and get that looked at. Come back as soon as the painkillers hit. I need this batch processed.”

James stopped himself from rolling his eyes at his neighbourhood “uncle”, his mother’s unrequited admirer. “Yes, Jack.”

“Remember the bonus.” Jack coughed. “We’re still a hundred-fifty-two days without incident…”

The crew burst into laughter once more, with Jack swearing and James limping his way to the gangway.

There had better be a bonus just for him, James mulled to himself. Otherwise, Amá would have words with Mister Jackson Taylor!

While men in cloud-scraping Towers concocted schemes, and men in splayed factory freighters caught inexplicable fevers a continent away, the Regent of Shalkar was making good on a promise she made almost a decade ago.

High in the penthouse suite of the Wang Enterprise Tower, her aunt Nen seriously questioned the newest ambition of their homegrown Demi-goddess.

“Gwen, I… I don’t know about this…” Gwen watched as the mother of two sternly protested her offer.

“Aunty, it’ll be fine. Tao’s got real talent, and this is his dream, after all. He won’t be involved in my business side. He’ll join me for a spell while I discreetly tour the place a little.”

“But you’re going to the United States!” Her aunt, perhaps thinking of Percy, remained unconvinced. “It’s the bastion… of you know what.”

Wang Xing, Tao’s father, rolled his eyes at his wife, then shot Gwen an apologetic look.

“Nen, our son’s a lost cause…” he began.

“Oi—! Don’t Diss!” Tao, AKA Peaches, AKA the Prince of Fruits, raised a visual objection with his hands. “I am spitting bars and making it rain, homie, you said I am cool! You didn’t object!”

Her uncle Wang’s eyes moved slowly between her and his son, clearly weighing his answer. “Tao, before you’re… the fruit… You are the cousin of the Regent of Shalkar, her Magistership, Gwen Song of Cambridge, and nephew to Jun Song and Lord Ayxin. Are you seriously telling me you think your lyrical mastery is opening all those doors all around Shanghai?”

“I am no fool,” Peaches, his lips curled, looked comically indignant. “But I know my worth, b–Dad. My b-boys are bringing home the stacks.”

Watching her aunt sob as the father sighed at his son, Gwen could only sigh in turn.

South of 2003, she had promised Tao that she would one day take him to the USA if she visited.

Tao was twenty-one then.

Now, her cousin is almost thirty years old.

Mina, now in her late twenties, was engaged and living in sin with the heir to the Yun Conglomerate, knowing fully well that not even her de facto spouse’s patriarch dared to raise his voice against her or to ask that the wedding be pushed forward. Mina had also attained the fifth tier of competency in her medical studies as a secular Healer, meaning she was on track to take over the central management of the Second People’s Liberation Hospital.

Elsewhere, in the Mahjong talk of other people’s children, Richard was twenty-seven, the dear leader of Shalkar’s senior management bureau, a Magus in his own right, and one of the most eligible bachelors in the high society of London and Shanghai. His parents spoke to him a few times a year but boasted about his accomplishments daily.

Petra, though less famous than Richard, was a well-established Magi-tech scholar, one of the foremost researchers in Dwarven Runecraft. She was a recognised Journey-woman who occupied the position of Chief Technology Officer in the august ranks of Shalkar’s leadership. Her parents, now citizens of Gwen’s city, also spoke incessantly to Babulya about their happiness.

As for Gwen…

Gwen’s position had reached such a stratum that jealousy had turned to admiration, then turned into an abstraction. To speak of the Regent of Shalkar was to talk of mythical world leaders and corporate founders, people so removed from one’s social circle that they may as well be statues in a temple.

In Tao’s group of hotpot enjoyers who had once hung out while hungover, it was only Tao who had remained… a fruit.

No marriage prospects from sensible partners.

No advancements of a “real” career.

No accomplishments other than his craft.

Even his friends, “Little” and “Big Dog”, had hung up their Adidas and taken over their family business. It was only her cousin who stubbornly hung on, cruising on the favours of “licking dogs”, hoping for a smidgen of the Regent’s trade business.

Ego, Nen did not wish her son to delve deeper into the heretical pursuit of America’s hip-hop renaissance. As for his father, Wang Xing had corporate succession lined up and shares apportioned, ensuring that if nothing else, Tao would live a life of aimless luxury, shielded by the reasonable near-immortality of “Uncle Jun” and “Aunty Ayxin”.

Tao’s parents did not understand.

Ironically, Gwen understood.

“Reality is wrong. Dreams are real.” Those were the words of Tupac, the one who wasn’t Inti’s bodyguard.

The Peaches who wasn’t allowed to live his dream, and who doesn’t love his music back twice as hard as his haters, would cease to be Peaches. What’s left would be a husk of a man, a shell called Tao who sat in a boardroom, listening to quarterly reports and signing off on decisions he could not understand.

“Peaches will be perfectly safe,” Gwen allowed a smidgen of her immortal Essence to leak into her conduits. “I’ve already acquired a firm in the US. Elling-Gibson Dunn, if you’ve heard of them. They have a significant legal branch. From contract law to litigation, we’ve got everything covered.”

Nen looked to her husband.

“This…Elling-Gibson Dunn,” Wang mulled the words over his Translation Stone. “You bought THE Elling-Gibson Dunn?”

“The one and only,” Gwen smirked. “We tapped into a bit of our warchest, but compared to the acquisitions I am hoping to make, a finance firm isn’t that incredible.”

She understood why Wang was impressed, but, truly, compared to groups like BlackRock in her original world, the trade consortiums, legal agencies, and banking groups in their present world really weren’t that significant.

A part of it was the unimaginative greed of financial instruments, both in Europe and America. The other part was that, in a world of practical magic, corporations like Slate and FedEx had a far larger impact on the daily lives of Humankind than a cabal of financiers trying to turn air into gold. As for herself, she had cash capital, and now she had the mechanisms to test the very threshold of what the US stock markets are willing to absorb.

“Nen, let him go.” Wang Xing waved his son over, gave him a one-over with his eyes, then sighed. “Tao, don’t worry about your mother. Just… be safe.”

Stunned by his father’s offer, all Peaches could do was respond in the ingrained formality of Mandarin with a “Yes, father, I shall.”

“I’ve got a Contingency Ring prepared for Tao as well, if you’re worried for another reason,” Gwen smiled diplomatically at her aunt, who could only stare at her dazzling face, owl-blind by the morning sun. Consciously, she dialled back the charisma. Ever since the Mermen's affair with Caliban, Gwen distinctly felt that she had acquired something of a metaphysical radiance in the style of her Brother-in-craft.

“You didn’t have to,” Wang bowed his head at his niece. “If it’s HDMs, we can…”

“This one had contracts with every branded Tower in the United States, and can teleport Tao to safety even from Elemental Planes, though that function isn’t guaranteed,” Gwen reinterpreted her insurance for Tao. “Technically, I could tune the ring to bring him to Deepholm, Shalkar, or even the 2nd PLA, but his er… limited VMI means he might not survive the Planar Jaunt…”

“I see,” Wang looked at his son. “Thank you, Gwen.”

“Yeah…” Tao scratched his face sheepishly. “Thanks, cuz…”

Gwen handwaved their gratitude. Tao may not have done something for her in the explicit sense, but when she had first arrived in China, and things were both dark and difficult, it was Peaches who had made her laugh at the absurdity of it all.

“Load up your ring, Peaches,” she gazed upon her cousin with infinite benevolence. “My only hope is that, wherever you go, you will find what you’re looking for.”

Shalkar

The Bunker.

In a more discrete level of the Bunker with less glass and pomp than the Regent’s private chambers, the chamberlain of the city, its Chief Management Officer and the second in command after the Regent, lay in bed, reading a stack of data slates.

By his side, curvaceous where appropriate, was the silhouette of their trusted shewolf, the very lovely Natalia Volkova, formerly of Moscow.

“What’s happening now?” the youthful blonde slithered through the silken sheets to appear at Richard’s side, moving with the subtlety of a hunting serpent.

“She’s leaving for the West Coast,” Richard found himself smiling.

What horrors will Gwen bring to New Albion? He amused himself with the thought of his cousin’s open volley against her detractors on the East Coast. The fact that Gwen immediately requested everything they had gathered on the West Coast’s conglomerates and notable persons had sent the crows into a tizzy. Still, the prospects were something almost all of them looked toward with great anticipation.

“Our Mistress will surely devour them, as she had Moscow’s ambitions.” Natalia’s eyes were alive with what Richard recognised as faith.

For others, this was a genuine worship.

For Natalia, who was Gwen’s soul subordinate, there was passive magic at play, ensuring that her loyalty was more hound-like than it was fickle humanity.

“That said, you’re leaving her there alone?” Natalia walked a pair of fingers up his bare chest, stirring the perspiration as she did so. “We have sparrows who are well nested even in the heart of capitalism. I am not sure what Popov would have done to them by now, but we can bring them into the fold just as easily. That way, we will have eyes everywhere, even in their precious DC.”

“You know that’s not her… style,” Richard shook his head. His wandering hands moved past his lover’s waist to cup her hips. “We can offer her aid, naturally. But to be honest, I am sure she needs no such thing to turn things around. I am far more confident in Gwen’s financial abilities than I am in her ability to fight off a Lich—and she has already done the latter. Besides, I told Slylth this will be the adventure of a lifetime, and he’s already studying up on their Spellcraft.”

“What do you think she’ll do?” Natalia buried herself against his neck, though she lacked the fangs. “Moscow never managed to profit off the Empire Tower, even with insider information.”

“Ah…” Richard kissed his compatriot on the forehead. “That’s because your country never offered them something no merchant could refuse.”

“What would that be?” Natalia’s ocean-blue eyes twinkled.

“Easy,” Richard relayed his Regent's sentiment without pause. “Irrational, unimaginable profit. Profit beyond their wildest, most irresponsible dreams…”