The New Workshop had become a truly unbefitting name for the place in the Outskirts of NQSC. Such a place could not be called a Workshop, it was a siege capital in its own right.
It had consumed two dozen Districts, expanding outward from the 9,000s its expanse went farther than the eye could see.
However, it was not exactly present in all these Districts. The people came to the Workshop, not the other way around. The monuments built by Gehrman offered a great place to start off, but they had long run out of the initial materials that he had brought from the Dream Realm.
And now that their boss (and most of the Awakened) were off in Antarctica, there was no way to get more.
They could get some materials thanks to officially being a subsidiary of the Government, but the budget was greatly contingent on Gherman and the Awakeneds' kills. The ruin they brought to the Nightmare Creatures in Antarctica would allot them corpses and Soul Shards, and these would be turned into weaponry or fortification that the Government would pay them for.
Despite being a subsidiary, they did not have an official budget. This was a decision made by Gehrman in order to get them total independence from the rules of the Government. No mundane political figure could complain or interfere with the New Workshop since there was nothing that they could do to harm them.
Oskar, who had been placed in charge of management, was currently dying from trying to keep everything straight.
The income from Antarctica would be wired to his accounts, and it was constantly changing. What was worse, their beloved Red Judge had disappeared, the hundreds of daily kills that had come from that man alone was enough to sustain the entire New Workshop.
A few months ago though, he suddenly disappeared. Caster had explained to him that Gehrman had died, but it would only be temporary.
Oskar wasn't sure what he meant by that, but he assumed it was some Awakened thing. Maybe if they underwent a mind attack they "died" and it would take time for him to return to form?
He wasn't sure.
He didn't care.
Oskar just needed the man to come back. He could feel the pressure of this place building and building. It had started well enough, the New Workshop took in new people who would learn, and then teach others, who in turn would then teach the next group. This went on seemingly perpetually.
Of course, the issue with this was obvious. Every time someone underwent new learning, the teaching they received was further and further disconnected from Gehrman.
Though the Red Judge had left a large amount of information for any teachers and learners, the fact of the matter was that learning from mundane instead of that dreaded Ascended held a lot less impact.
The motivation he could spark with his simple presence was unparalleled, and indeed it was the foundation of this place.
Even with him being gone for over a year, the title "The Red Judge" was uttered across every corner of the odd place.
Oskar looked out over one of the highest rooms at the center of the New Workshop. Above was the quarters of Caster, and below belonged to Gehrman himself.
This level though, belonged to him.
Well, him and two others.
He could hear the two boys now, or rather, the film they were watching.
The fact that they were nearby was the reason that he left his pipe in the drawer, collecting dust.
He walked out, his shoulder slightly hunched under the weight of his exhaustion. In the living area of this level, two teenage boys sat on a couch.
Bitz was positioned on the couch somewhere between sitting and laying down, leaning back in an excessively lazy position. He was 17 now, almost an adult.
Oskar was tempted to kick the little shit out the moment he reached that magical number of 18.
The other boy could never be kicked out. The silent boy with colorful eyes sat much more properly, eyes also glued to the screen.
On it, an Awakened with a demonic black mask and a mantle that appeared to be made of dark stone fought 12 other Awakened in the Dreamscape. This fight had happened a while ago, but now that the internet was getting added to the households and rooms of the New Workshop, the sensation of "Mongrel" had spread like wildfire.
Oskar shook his head. Unlike the others, these boys weren't watching because they thought the edgy Awakened was cool (though they did indeed think that) instead they were studying the way he fought.
"There!" Bitz suddenly yelled, pausing the video. With the remote, he scrolled back a few frames at a time, stopping at a specific moment. "Look at his feet, Mongrel is already moving before the red armor guy even raises the weapon. It's just like how The Red Judge teaches, he's memorized the enemies attack patterns, and so quick too!" The teenager marveled at it, showing the clip at ultra slow speed, restarting it over and over again.
Of course, due to his Flaw, Milo could not respond. No words, not even a nod could be managed. Instead, what looked like a brush made of bone was brought upward, with a stroke of his hand a streak of black was drawn on the air. Then, as if coming alive, the stroke morphed and changed. The 14 year old boy added a few more strokes, adding different colors to the rapidly evolving painting.
Soon, a picture became clear.
A chill ran down Oskar's spine as the painting appeared to split into a copy, one of them floating before Bitz and another facing Oskar. He was not sure when the kid had noticed him, but it was quite eerie to know that he hadn't realized Milo was aware of his presence.
The kid was spooky. Not by fault of his own. He was a cute kid, he gave gifts to a lot of the others, and had even gifted Oskar a piece that evoked a strange solemnity in him. And yet, his inability to communicate meant that strange situations would often happen around him. No one could know what he knew or didn't know (because Milo could not express it).
This could have been a truly devastating thing, any other kid would probably be left behind, unable to ask questions when he was confused.
But this wasn't just any other kid.
Oskar had not looked into his background, nor the reason for Gehrman's favoring of him. However there was something undeniably different about him. A pain that he carried that had such a weight it should have crushed him completely.
Yet still he lived, and he created.
The painting looked to be made of splotchy water colors, it had a great amount of depth for something thrown together in seconds. It depicted a man dancing with a litany of shadows, graceful and lithe.
Oskar said nothing, simply looking at the painting with an odd sense of reverence. Then, Bitz broke his focus.
"I guess it is a bit different, you're right. The principal is kind of similar though," the boy said.
Bitz and the other teenagers had grown quite adept at interpreting the paintings that Milo used to communicate. It would naturally take a few seconds, but the meaning behind them was the only source of communication that the boy could use.
A while ago, Oskar had asked Bitz to get closer with Milo and try to befriend him. He knew for a fact the boy was special, and he wasn't going to pass on an opportunity to ingratiate himself to him in some way. Bitz had done as he had said. Though at this point, it seemed to Oskar that there was nothing artificial about their relationship.
Since Milo couldn't communicate, it was hard to say he had a 'personality'. Bitz seemed to think he did though, and he had evidently grown fond of the younger teenager.
At that moment, the painting dissolved into nothing and Bitz finally noticed Oskar standing a bit away.
His back straightened and he tensed a bit.
"Sir, did you need something?" he asked.
It was a bit disheartening that Oskar still had this effect on the kid. He was technically, legally, his guardian now. But Bitz, and every single other person who used to work under him still treated him with reverence and fear.
The kid was a damn Awakened now, and judging from things he had overheard, he was powerful too.
All of them were.
A new batch of young ones had gotten infected with the Nightmare Spell, and then Awakened in the past year.
Gehrman hadn't been here to supervise their training, so it wasn't nearly as good as the first 20 or so Sleepers that constituted Bitz's and Milo's "class". Still, now that they covered more territory, the number of Awakened they had gained quintupled. Now, there were an additional 100 Awakened here at the New Workshop. The eclipse had just happened, and they had all returned, and were now making their way to the Grave Citadel. A few of them had died, getting sent to Death Zones or other harrowing places, but the vast majority made it.
They were a terrifying force.
And yet Oskar, a mere mundane, was still treated like some big bad boss.
Though much of the management had been left to him after Gehrman left for Antarctica, the power he had was purely circumstantial. The second The Red Judge returned he would go back to being a bureaucrat (still a high level one, but nothing more than what the other former District Bosses now did).
"I…" Oskar trailed off, suddenly very uncomfortable. "Just grabbing some food from the pantry," he muttered.
Bitz nodded and hesitated a moment before slowly reaching for the remote and restarting the video of the Dreamscape battle.
Oskar meandered past them, turning into a kitchen in a separate room. There were plenty of ingredients to make healthy food for both him and Bitz. But sometimes, Oskar wanted the old synthetic stuff. Not the paste (he would never have that shit again) but a pastry or two with artificial flavoring brought him comfort.
'Why do you eat that stuff? We can afford the real thing now!'
Oskar froze as the memory, the young woman's voice, came unbidden to his mind. His hand started shaking, and he dimly noted that the pastry in his hand was getting crushed in its wrapper.
He blinked, and put it back.
Living like this, it brought back more memories than he would have liked.
Too many.
He left the kitchen, walked past the boys, went back to his room and grabbed a warm coat…as well as his pipe, lighter, and some crushed up, pale-colored depressants.
He hid them in his coat before leaving.
"I changed my mind. Getting some fresh air. You boys feel free to make something or go out to dinner, don't wait up on me."
…
Oskar sat on the roof now, his legs hanging off the edge. It was an eerie place, fauna grew on every single roof, and down below much of the smooth cobblestone roads were split with medians flush with plant life. Metal boxes filled with algae did similar work, absorbing the toxic waste in the air and pushing out clean oxygen.
It wasn't perfect, but near the center of the city, the air was noticeably easier to breath.
This too was another thing that bothered Oskar.
He exhaled, and the smoke blew from out his mouth in a steady stream. His eyes were unfocused, and Oskar tilted backwards, looking at the grey sky.
His head swam with emotions and feelings instead of thoughts. Anytime a thought came to his mind, it drifted away with each exhalation he took.
Satisfied, he took the burnt remains of the depressants and poured it into a baggie that he would dispose of later. Then, he cleaned out the pipe methodically before storing it and the lighter. This was something he had done hundreds of times now, and even in his state it was second nature.
He had made it a rule, after all, to make sure that any drugs were disposed of safely so it couldn't taint the District anymore than it already was.
Now those drugs were barely a thing anymore, and his rules were moot. Unless one had a prescription (seriously, Gehrman had gotten actual pharmacists here somehow) then it was illegal, and sharing it would get one kicked out and banned from the New Workshop.
Even the surliest of drug dealers were terrified of losing the privilege of living in this place, so things had gotten a lot cleaner.
…Oskar wasn't setting a good example. He had thrown some weight around and gotten a prescription for himself, getting more than he probably needed.
But at this point, he needed it more than he did when he was running the District.
Suddenly, he heard the quiet crunching of grass behind him. It was odd though, no one came up here besides Caster, and that guy was on the other side of the world.
It was also weird since he didn't remember hearing the door open.
"Yo, long time no see," a tired, familiar voice said.
A young man was suddenly next to him, hopping on the building's edge, letting his own feet dangle off.
"Uhhh," Oskar looked at Gehrman with a blank face. These drugs didn't have hallucinegenic properties, he wasn't sleep deprived, and he wasn't schizophrenic, so it didn't make much sense that the Red Judge himself was here.
And he looked different. The outfit was more layered, his face was more perfect and pretty than before, and…
"You got a scarf," Oskar said.
Gehrman turned to look at him, the yellowish-orange ring that cut through his grey iris was more faint than usual, and if Oskar didn't know to look for it, he wouldn't have been able to see it at all.
"I did, it's a part of this Memory. I got it in the 3rd Nightmare."
"Oh," Oskar put his hands in his pockets, unsure of what to do with them. He looked down over the edge, noting how far down it was.
"You, uh, you're a Saint now then? I think that rumor has been going around. The Government hasn't released anything though, and they always put some bullshit out when a Saint gets to…like, become a Saint."
"I'm still thinking about how I want to roll with this. I think I'm going to have to be much more public, drop the folk tale vibe I got going on. Though I will still be weird, gotta keep freaking out the people so they know that even though I'm young and pretty, I'm still scary."
"You know, I think that all the weird stuff you do with blood is plenty enough to make you scared. You could be a 10 year old girl with a pink dress and a magic wand and people would still worship you if they saw you pull half the shit I've seen."
"Quite colorful with our language today, aren't we?"
Oskar was silent after hearing that barb. His mind was slowly working through the haze and realizing that his boss was really here, somehow. It was the first time seeing him in over a year.
And he was high.
"I'm not…I don't do this much anymore," Oskar said. He knew that the smell would still be clinging to him, and there was no use hiding it. He did bring out some cologne to mask the stench afterwards, but he hadn't applied it yet.
Gehrman was silent for a while.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but for you, it's more of a stress response than a habit or recreational thing."
Oskar turned his head slightly, looking at the young man – or rather the old man – through half lidded eyes. He didn't say anything, instead opting to just grunt in acknowledgment.
"What's stressing you out then?" Gehrman asked.
It struck Oskar how insane this was. The Red Judge, a Saint, was playing therapist for him. Right now though, he couldn't even be bothered to brush him off.
"I'm pissed off," Oskar said. "Things were going well, but with you gone, things are already starting to get frayed around the edges. At this rate, things are going to collapse in on themselves in a year. And you got, what, three months till you have to leave and be some prince?"
Oskar paused for a moment then sneered.
"Ah, wait, actually that's what's pissing me off the most." Oskar turned fully to face Gehrman, straddling the elevated edge of the building with both legs. "You come here, fix shit up, give people hope. Not only that, you make a difference. Help people, build new things, teach them, and then teach them how to teach others. What you did is more saint-like than anything those 'Transcendents' have done. And yet, you're abandoning it half-finished just so you can go get with some Legacy Princess."
Oskar realized that this was exceedingly dangerous. He knew Gehrman was not as crazy as he appeared, but insulting any Awakened, let alone one as singularly powerful as this guy was suicidal.
"You fucking moron. Aren't you supposed to be some genius? Why can't you see where this ends? They're gonna get you nice and happy with all their pretty resources and pretty women. They're gonna throw you at some monsters. Protect the Citadel, capture a new Citadel, kill that monster. Except there is no end, just escalation. Because that's how they work. Their greed is the reason they are so strong, so they think it is a necessity. So they will make you keep fighting stronger monsters, and then even stronger ones, all the way until you fight a god. And then you'll die. And they'll hold a funeral. And you know what? They're not gonna let any one from here attend. I show up and they turn me away because they think I'm there to leech off them. They think I'm gonna take their food or some shit. It's a funeral gods damnit. I'm trying to mourn and they kick me to the fucking street. They act like they lost a loved one but they didn't. They lost a tool. And they have the gall to act sad. Act like they're the ones in pain. They lost their toy. I lost my fucking family!"
Oskar blinked, taking deep breaths. He suddenly realized just how loud he was being, he realized how angry he was, he realized what he had just said.
Gehrman looked at him with something Oskar hadn't seen in a long time.
Compassion.
Not pity, not sympathy, but compassion. It made his head feel like it had been hit with the bat.
He was suddenly very sober.
"I…" Oskar couldn't find the words. He wanted to explain, but he also felt like if he did, that would only make things worse.
He suddenly scoffed.
"Some useless mundane fuck telling a damn Saint how to live his life. Gods, what a joke. I think my tolerance went to shit, I must've been way out of my mind to say something like that," Oskar's voice betrayed him, trembling a bit.
Gehrman was silent for a long time then he placed his hand on Oskar's shoulder. It wasn't a tight grip, but not too soft either. It steadied him, more than he would like to admit.
"I know it's hard, but for your own sake, you shouldn't keep it bottled up," Gehrman's hand rested on his shoulder.
Oskar let out a shuddering breath.
He promised himself he would never say a word of it to anyone. Apparently, all somebody had to do this entire time was just let him get high and say some sweet words.
"Her name was Oliv. She was my sister. A damn fighter she was. Got past the 1st Nightmare. It was like, a 1 in 5 million chance back then I think. But I knew she would survive, that was just the type of person she was. She got an Ascended Aspect, and then she got to some Citadel of Clan Song during the Eclipse, and she became an Awakened. One of the Vassal families offered to take her in, she had killed some Awakened Demon or something as a Sleeper, and they were impressed enough to give her a job. Naturally, she became a citizen, and she even got enough money to pay for my own citizenship. We got out. Got a house. I even got a job working on PTV's. They were even preparing to send her on a second Nightmare…" Oskar trailed off.
It was obvious what happened next. And despite giving up this much, telling so much of the story he promised himself to never speak of again, he couldn't finish it.
Oskar was sure though, that Gehrman knew how it ended.
"You came back to the Outskirts after?"
"I had too. My citizenship was not a high rank to begin with, and I was never as good as the people with actual education. The only reason I had a job was because my sister was Awakened. The Legacy Clan said that all her stuff and money belonged to them. We didn't know enough about the world of citizens, we didn't have any papers that said I was her real brother except a few of the entry papers, and they said they needed more documentation to overrule the Legacy's claim, documentation I didn't have. There was nothing left for me there."
They were silent after that. A minute passed, and then another, and then 10 minutes of the wind brushing their face.
Eventually, Oskar spoke again.
"You're a good guy, Gehrman. I know you say you do this for your own gain. Like you're taking advantage of us in order to get hunters or whatever, but you are helping these people more than anyone or anything ever could. I don't want to see you die like that. I don't want to see this place collapse."
Gehrman turned away then, his eyes distant. His shoulders seemed to relax, and for that moment, he looked no different than a normal young man, even with his attire.
"...yeah, me neither. I've been thinking for a while, and in truth, I don't want anything to do with the Legacy Clans. I just need something from them, from the Song Clan specifically, and I'd rather not antagonize them. So I made a deal. In that deal, I signed myself away with a few stipulations. I won't kill any humans unless both Seishan and I agree it is the right thing to do. But I will kill any Nightmare Creatures ordered of me, and serve as a weapon for the clan. They think they got a pretty good deal."
Then, Gehrman's face lit up with a smile. One filled with a childish glee. It was so unnerving that it made Oskar shudder.
"They're damn morons. I'm strong, stronger than any Saint they or any other Legacy Clan has. But the thing that would always tip the balance of this world was never me, it was the New Workshop. They thought that I was training Mundane Hunters because I thought they could keep up with Awakened beasts and help with the general threats going on in the world? Indeed, they could do that, but when gods are invading, that's useless. What I need are people with enough strength and drive to become Masters and Saints. Now that I have hundreds, if not thousands of mundane people killing Nightmare Creatures, how strong do you think they could get if they themselves became Awakened?"
Oskar's eyes widened.
"W-what are you talking about? They're all adults, they can't enter the 1st Nightmare."
Gehrman wagged his finger in front of Oskar's face, quieting him.
"No, not true. They just need a seed of the Nightmare Spell, and it's easy to get one of those. All one has to do is be in the Dream Realm for a bit. And I don't know if you noticed, but we now have a Saint capable and willing to take as many people as necessary to get their 1st Nightmare Seed. The second they come back to the Waking World, the seed will blossom and they will enter their 1st Nightmare."
Gehrman's eyes started to shine then, the light did not come from the rings of madness around his pupils, but instead the sheer excitement as a plan years in the making came to bear fruit.
"This is how you, and everybody in the Outskirts will turn the world on its head. You've dealt with more pain than any of those citizens and you are more desperate than them. So that means you will be more powerful than them."
Oskar had to stop himself from trembling then. He had thought that this man was one of virtue and charity. And indeed he was, but that was secondary. He saw it then, the unquenchable greed that had taken Gehrman's very soul.
Ah, I should have known better, Oskar thought. Oliv was the strongest person he had ever known. He believed that if even she had fallen to the machine that was the Legacy Clans, then no one was capable of breaking free of it.
But this man, he was no person. He wasn't human. Oskar was reminded of that fact, and it never left him from then on. In that moment he made a promise, deep in his vengeful heart.
I can see it. This is what it takes to curtail their machinations. This overwhelming desire. To his surprise, he felt it too at that moment. Oskar wanted nothing more than to be infected by the Nightmare Spell, and then become an Awakened. Then a Master. Then a Saint. Then whatever the hell was beyond that.
He wanted strength. The strength to crush those in power beneath his feet. To make sure he never lost anything he held dear ever again.
What truly stressed him, what truly burdened him, was the idea that this paradise had the inevitable fate of falling to ruin.
They would lose Gehrman, true. But they would not lose this place. He would leave them with his mightiest weapon: his knowledge.
And with it, they would turn this whole world upside down.