Squdnik

Not wanting the blue-haired woman to lose any more modesty than she already had, Fate decided to try out one of the perks of his new Level. Since his Divine Energy was now colored by Negativity, he now had the ability to extend aspects of his Prodigy power (or Manifest Power, as the wider multiverse called it) to others within the range of his Divine Reach, with less powerful effects.

Using this new power, he coated the woman in a thick layer of his Divine Energy. It wouldn't wipe her from the eyes and minds of everyone else like he could, but it should make her seem insignificant, someone not worth sparing a second glance.

Knowing this planet, that was probably already the case, but Fate wanted to be sure.

He left the cellar, then the bar upstairs, and headed to an alley across the street, where Robna was waiting. He found her in a foldout chair, leaning forward and studying a board game on the table in front of her.

Across from her was a man dressed in raggedy, baggy clothes. He had at least three jackets on, and two pairs of pants, with a brown beanie warming his head and thick socks covering his feet. His black beard was long, and his green eyes twinkled with mischief as he stared at the board game.

The man moved a square-shaped piece, sliding it across the gridded board to sit a space away from a triangle on Robna's side.

"Squdnik," the man said gleefully. Robna cursed, then she suddenly sprouted a wide smile as she shook the man's hand.

"You truly are a master at this game," she said. Fate caught a glint of something shiny between their palms.

The man grinned and nodded, pocketing whatever Robna had put in his hand. "Aye, been playing every day since I was a wee lad. You isn't half bad yourself, girly."

"Thank you. I've been practicing." Noticing something, she turned to Fate, frowning at the girl in his arms. She caught his gaze, then nodded toward the bearded man and blinked twice. He shook his head. The raggedy man could not see him.

Nodding, she excused herself and stood, walking with Fate toward the house of this Frederick person, though she didn't know that was where they were going. When they were out of earshot of the Squdnik man, she spoke.

"Who's this? She looks like she went through a lot." She looked Fate up and down. "You look pretty messed up too, actually."

Like he was doing to himself, Fate was stopping the woman's bleeding with his Divine Reach and forcing the blood back into her veins, preventing death by blood loss. By now, she was unconscious from the pain.

"Saved her from some asshole named Gilliam and an Incarnation named Freyda."

"F-Freyda?! The Killer of Pondraso? The Slayer of a Million Men? The hottest woman on the planet? That Freyda?" She looked like Fate just said he could shit diamonds. The passersby gave her weird looks. Unlike her, they couldn't see Fate, so Robna probably seemed like a crazy person.

"Well, I didn't see her face on account of a thick plate helmet blocking my view, but she did have some pretty nice golden eyes. Pretty sure she had the Vast Manifestation, considering the weird way everything seemed to grow distant."

"You shouldn't be alive right now," she said disbelievingly.

"Relax. She went easy on me. It was obvious; she didn't use any abilities that an Exemplar wouldn't have access to. Think she just wanted me to get her out of that oath."

He wasn't lying. Despite using Divine Reach that was easily at the higher end of Hold, TK was still something an Exemplar had access to. Moreover, he knew she didn't use anything other than her base Manifest Power. If she had, he would have died within moments. The only way he knew she was an Incarnation was from the feel of her Divine Energy, along with her ease in sensing him.

"She had an oath? What was it?"

"To protect Gilliam."

"And you killed this Gilliam?" When Fate nodded, her expression turned serious. "I suggest you keep that to yourself. That woman puts her honor above everything. Spreading that around would disgrace her, and make her kill off everyone that spoke of it to reclaim her lost honor. Besides, knights do that all the time with charges they hate. It's an unspoken rule to not do anything about it when they let their charge die."

Fate made sure to remember that. Robna knew more about this world than he did, so anything she said about it was something to heed.

They stopped at a large white house, the length and width of a superstore, with two stories. The numbers next to the door matched the address on the card Freyda gave him: 216 Bedrock Lane.

He and Robna ascended the stone stairs set into a small hill at the foot of the house, Fate stopping his use of his Manifest Power, allowing the world to notice him and the woman once more. Robna knocked on the door.

A short, lanky man opened the door, his shaggy brown hair disheveled and his duck print pajamas wrinkled. The man rubbed his eyes. It was only a few minutes after dawn; Fate had been in that cellar for the last hour of the night.

The man dropped his hand and blinked, growing serious as he inspected Fate and the woman. When he saw the card that Fate was holding out, having to rest the woman's back on his arm so he could use his hand, the man's eyes widened.

"Come in, come in. Quickly," he said quietly, shooing them inside. When they were in, he scanned the streets with his eyes narrowed, then shut the door quickly.

The man turned to the trio, his eyes going to the wounds on Fate, then to the blue-haired woman. "You'll be fine for another hour or so with that blood-staunching tactic, but she needs immediate attention. Come, follow me."

He led them through the large house, bringing them to a room similar to that of a hospital, with tools and machines. The man, evidently the Frederick mentioned on the card, went to Fate and slid his hands under the woman in his arms.

"Help me move her onto the bed," he said. After they set the woman down as gently as possible, Frederick rolled his sleeves up and grabbed a needle and some steel wire. "If she struggles, you two will have to hold her down," he told them.