Candide ached.

In victory, the champion had won only bodily pain and further confusion. No medal weighed down his neck, and no laurel poked his temples. Candide's body told him of every bruise and scrape in wordless but equisite detail. The hero's yellow and blue patches reminded him of Spring flowers in his mother's garden – thorny hurtful flowers. He removed his own shirt like a gentle lover would remove it, slowly and while moaning.

Aegelief the drone stood beside Candide. The silent figure's large black eyes were glossy in the artificial light of Odin's flagship. Those eyes revealed no more secrets than his small unmoving mouth. Thin arms cradled a strange device which would alleviate the pain – or so Candide hoped. Aegelief wore no shirt.

“I don't get it,” Candide said. He meant for the statement to be small as if he were talking to himself. Candide's voice instead projected, filled the small room. He sounded like majestic eagle among chickens.

Aegelief did not respond. He hovered. He stood nearby. He waited on Candide, like squire to a noble knight of old. ...like a Robin to his Batman. …like a lamprey to her shark.

Candide spoke more purposefully to the drone, saying, “Did you see the fight, Aegelief?”

The Pancho to his Don Quixote answered, “I saw some of it. You know that most of your injuries were self-inflicted, don't you?”

With his shirt finally removed, Candide sought the answer to his most pressing question, “Are you going to use that space machine put me back the way I was, Aegelief?”

Aegelief answered, “No, that isn't what this does.” The drone connected parts of the strange artifact to Candide's bare but bronzed and bruised flesh. The drone explained, “The way you asked the question suggested that we have the capacity to replace your current body with one identical to when we first met you. Time displacement technology does exist but not on this ship. All we can do is fix the body you have.”

The curious device hummed. Aegelief continued, “I am merely recording your body in case we do get a chance to time displace it later. The nano-machines will repair the damage. The ship is already filling your body with machines too small for you to see. You are breathing them in now, and they are carried by your bloodstream to the injured areas. Odin has a fondness for nano-machines, but all of the masters use them for different purposes.”

Candide saw an opening and seized it. He asked, “What can you tell me about the other masters?”

“What would you like to know about them?”

Candide's voice was rugged and yet melodic. He queried, “Why do they seem – Why are their choices so – bad?”

“Ah, the masters are more intelligent than you or me. They don't understand humans all that well, so sometimes their choices of champions seem complex.”

“Not complex, just – wrong?”

“Each of the masters has different priorities. Lady Isis prefers to focus on the beauty of the universe over practical matters. Her champions are the most asthetically pleasing. She doesn't particularly care if they win or lose. Lord Shiva likes to modify and enhance his champions. He is very excitable, so he never bothered to learn very much about humans. He can think but chooses instead to feel. Lord Odin...” Aegelief trailed off uncharacteristically.

This struck Candide as strange. Candide would even call the creature “blunt” which was a complement in the mind of Candide. The drone had always been informative in the past even if Candide did have to press him with direct questions. “Are you afraid to say?”

“No, no Candide. I am just unsure. Master Odin knows the game better than any living thing in the universe, and his champions almost always lose. I suppose that is his talent. Lord Odin is a born loser.”

The device came off of Candide's chest. Aegelief said, “Don't you feel better? Your injuries look regenerated.”

Candide had forgotten his injuries, forgotten his pain. He looked down upon his perfect form. “Yeah, I feel great, I guess.”

Aegelief carried the device away and placed it in a drawer.

Candide asked, “Are you certain that they are not stupid?”

The drone spun and answered, “I am certain that they are more intelligent than me or you. Right now, they are in another room of this very ship conspiring. When they get together, they communicate on an entirely different level. We would not even be able to understand them.”

In that entirely different room, Odin said, “Give me a dice roll to resist toxin.”

Shiva dropped a small pile of six-sided dice from his claw to the table's surface. “FIVE SUCCESSES!”

Isis, sitting next to Shiva, leaned over and corrected, “That's a four, sweetie.”

Shiva cried, “FOUR!”

Odin nodded his round green head in confirmation. “Congratulations, Blasto the Combat Mage survived the weakest poison in the entire Sixth World.”

“Awesome,” Shiva declared. His large slitted eyes gleamed with pride. “I caught the spider. Now, I want to train it.”

“To do what?” Odin asked, already knowing that he would regret asking.

“To be a steed for my contact, FangFace. I'll cast Mindlink on the spider to get things started.”

Isis asked, “Hey, when do we get to see the spider's Charisma Stat?”

Odin shook his head. “Hold up. Shiva, isn't FangFace a spider too?”

Shiva said, “Heck yeah, just visualize it, one spider riding another spider into battle. If we ever see those gnats again, they won't stand chance.”

Isis agreed, “That would scare me if I was a gnat.” Her cotton tail twitched whenever she annoyed Odin.

Odin said, “Listen Shiva, you are not going to be able to train that spider tonight no matter how high you mini-maxed Blasto's Animal Handling Skill.”

Isis said, “Shiva, I'm gonna use my Artisan and Armorer Skills to fabricate a tiny little suit of barding for FangFace's new spider mount.”

Odin said, “Please don't encourage him. Also, you two are already in the middle of a run.”

Shiva looked at Odin and said, “Did we interrupt your railroading of us? Should I apologize for giving my character some long term goals and interests outside of Mister Johnson's errand?”

Odin said, “Sarcasm is my thing. Please keep your thing out of my thing.”

Isis leaned forward, her front paws resting on the edge of the table. Her long floppy ear brushed against some of the dice in front of her. “Listen Shiva, with my new Skillsoft, I can replace your new spider's web glands with a monofilament spinning implant. It could spin its own monofilament whips.”

“Awesome!” Shiva said, “I'll name him RazorWeb.”

Odin exhaled very slowly. By the time he finished exhaling, Isis and Shiva were discussing a plan to fit FangFace and RazorWeb with tiny doses of the combat drug, Kamikaze. Odin interrupted, “While your characters are discussing ways to mutilate your prisoner, the truck that Johnson hired you to rob is pulling away.”

Shiva said, “It isn't getting far. I'm casting Flamethrower and targeting the truck's tires.”

Odin said, “It's an ice cream truck.”

Shiva said, “The tires aren't armored.”

Odin asked, “Isis, does White Rabbit the Decker try to stop Blasto?”

Isis said, “No way, we are paws-deep in the Halloweener territory. Those gangers love a bonfire. I'm broadcasting the video to all their comlinks. I can smell the fame points already.”

Odin said, “That smell is melting rubber. Do you two understand what happens to ice cream when you get it close to fire? It dies.”

Isis said, “Mister Johnson didn't specify that the ice cream couldn't be in a liquid state when delivered. Silly, silly Johnson should have known better.”

Shiva asked, “Do I get experience for killing ice cream?”

Odin looked down mournfully at his carefully prepared notes. “Heck with it, roll the dice.”