Aliases are alternative forms of a reference. They can include actual aliases for characters, nicknames, plural variations, gendered versions of some [Classes], and even typos.
Of the thirty-two Workers that had chosen to save her, four remained. Bird, Garry, Belgrade, and Anand. They lay in her inn or sat propped up, wounds covered by some kind of sticky red substance. The Antinium had little in the way of medicine, but they were tough. They would heal.
“They died to save you. It was well. But what will become of those dead? When Bird, Garry, Belgrade and Anand and I die, who will remember the fallen? They lived. Magnus, Rook, Calabrian, Vladimir, Emmanuel…they lived. But only we remember. Only we care.”
It sounded like someone screaming, incredibly loud and from far away. The man with the bow—Jerad Riels—hesitated, but then he ran through the forest, heedless of the snow that crunched beneath his boots. He was normally as stealthy as possible to avoid alerting his quarry or dangerous predators, but that sound was drowning everything else out.
He ran out of the forest and saw a bear. Jerad knew this bear. It was an aggressive male that he’d stayed well away from while it was hibernating in its cave. Right now, the bear was loping back to his cave as fast as he could. He was running, yes, running from…a girl?
Jerad squinted. He didn’t have a Skill that enhanced his vision, but his eyesight had always been good. His eyes widened as he saw the young woman standing in front of some kind of sleigh. She had no horse, but perhaps the animal had bolted. The girl was the source of the unbearably loud screaming.
The older man rubbed at his ears, which were ringing. The young woman smiled at him. She was wearing winter clothing, and her sleigh looked like it had been cobbled together in a hurry. There were several jars in the back, and Jerad’s eyes widened when he saw one jar was full of deadly Ashfire Bees.
That was it. Pawn closed his mandibles and made sure not to make another sound as the sounds of chess resumed. These new Individuals had names, but they didn’t have what he and the others had. They still obeyed orders like any other Worker, and they didn’t express their opinions. They hadn’t developed personality like he, Bird, Belgrade, Anand, and Garry, the only surviving original Individuals had. It wasn’t these new Individuals’ fault, of course. They had been forced into the choice, they hadn’t made it themselves. They didn’t have…Erin.
