Latest Chapters

 

Arkk strode through the halls of the former Duke’s manor. Everywhere he stepped, it looked like a war had been fought. Blood stained the floor, discarded weapons and armor sat in corners of rooms, and every now and again, he passed by a body that had yet to be dragged out with the others.

All in all, a war hadn’t been fought. Most of the casualties of the operation were confined to the manor since it had been staffed with those most loyal to the Duke. Between some carefully targeted personnel at the garrison and the average soldier being less-than-willing to attack the citizens of the Duchy that they were meant to protect, and the general discontent with the Duke following what was seen as a surrender to Evestani among the army, the coup had come off with surprisingly little bloodshed.

“The Abbey of the Light is cowering within their church,” Lexa said, walking alongside him as she gave him a report on all the important bits of the coup. “A few low-ranked people came out to heal and extinguish fires but all the leadership and inquisitors are hiding away.”

He wasn’t sure what to do about them. The Abbey was, effectively, his enemy. It was they who convinced the Duke to ally with Evestani against him.

“From asking around,” Lexa continued, “subtly, of course. The public views them in a positive light. They came out to help the people, as little as they did, and that’s made them an ally of this coup.”

“Unfortunate,” Arkk said. He would have loved to have an excuse to get rid of them. He doubted Katja wanted to keep them around either. Then again, perhaps it was better to keep them around where he could see them.

Astra was ostensibly helping keep an eye on them, but she wouldn’t be around for long. The crux of her agreement to help him hinged on him keeping his focus on the Golden Order. That golden-eyed avatar possessing children to use in his army had personally upset Astra to the point where she was willing to set aside just about everything else to take him down.

Even if it meant working with a heretic.

She was to feel out a few of the other prominent members of the Abbey to see if anyone else was of similar thought. Then she was going to travel to Chernlock.

And wasn’t that a whole other issue.

The situation was complicated beyond Arkk’s understanding. In part because he didn’t have all of the facts but also because matters of kings and nations weren’t something farmboys like him were typically educated in. Even all the books he had read in his youth hadn’t touched on matters of succession or coups.

The Duke had initially requested help from Chernlock in repelling the Evestani invaders. The King had mustered his army and sent them north to the Duchy, only for the alliance with Evestani to be announced. Per Hawkwood’s reports, the King’s army had been stopped at the border and denied entry with the Duke’s guard claiming they had everything under control and no longer needed reinforcements.

But the pressure for the alliance came from the Abbey, which was headquartered down in Chernlock in the same city where the King resided. Wouldn’t the army have just supported the Duke and Evestani against Fortress Al-Mir?

There was miscommunication somewhere. Or disagreements. Arkk wasn’t sure which.

With Katja taking over here and having access to the Duke’s notes and whatever advisors hadn’t fled in the night, he hoped he would get a better grasp on the situation soon. For now…

“Where is Katja anyway?” Arkk asked. “I expected her to meet with me.”

“Offering a performative speech to those who ‘rescued’ her from the garrison,” Lexa said, complete with wiggling her fingers around the word. “She earned goodwill and loyalty through ensuring people’s needs were met. Can’t just go lock herself in the manor and become a despot overnight, can she?”

“I would prefer if she didn’t become a despot at all.”

Arkk was fully prepared to use the resources and magic of Fortress Al-Mir to prop her up. But there was much unknown about this situation as well.

The current goal was to consolidate. Give anyone who wouldn’t support Katja the boot while installing her men throughout positions of power. The King probably wouldn’t take kindly to her coup no matter the situation around it but if they painted the Duke as a traitor to the crown and managed to get the support of most of the population, having her beheaded would hopefully be a little more troublesome. Especially if the King thought the Duchy as a whole would immediately revolt.

Of course, if the King and the rest of the Kingdom were in full alliance with Evestani, no amount of sugared words or guile would spare them.

Lexa led him up through the manor and to a large room with wide-open glass windows looking out onto a grand balcony.

Katja stood outside, dressed in plain clothes with very little styling to her hair. The hulking form of Horrik stood at her back with his arms crossed over his chest.

Pausing well away from the windows—nobody was supposed to know of his presence here as he would prefer if any link between him and Katja were kept silent—Arkk watched and waited, listening to Katja’s speech while she spread her arms in grand gesticulation.

“I stand before you today as a liberator. The tides of change have swept through our lands and now a new dawn has risen. Let us cast aside the shackles of our past and embrace this new dawn for what it can be.

“I understand many might be apprehensive, having witnessed the swift downfall of the former Duke. Our illustrious Duke once resided here, throwing lavish parties, surrounded by opulence. But if you look and ask yourself what he offered you in exchange for his relaxed life, you’ll find nothing more than empty promises and broken trust, heavy taxes, and a blind eye to the people of the land in favor of those with wealth and power that he could use.

“Promises, trust, and the will of the people will have to be something worked on over time. However, I can speak on the topic of taxes today to give you something to look forward to. Effective immediately, taxes will be reduced to a mere ten percent for the next five years. The people have suffered enough with the war and the displacement it has caused. I will take no more than it requires to maintain a strong army.

“My methods may seem unorthodox and strange. Desperate times call for bold action. I will craft this realm into a society that can thrive. The invaders will be expunged. There will be food and shelter aplenty. In the months to come, you will witness—No, you will be the transformation of this land into one of prosperity.

“Together, we shall build a community of unprecedented change. May fortune favor us on this journey toward a brighter future.”

Katja remained at the window for a short time longer, making sure she was seen by all the crowd who had gathered. Eventually, with parting waves, she retreated back into the manor. Horrik followed, closing the glass doors behind them.

“Nice speech,” Arkk said. He nodded toward the window. “How much of that did you mean?”

The bandit lord shrugged her shoulders, cracking her neck back and forth. “Let me put it this way: I’ve already been reaching out to all the wealthy merchants and nobles, assuring them that their lavish lives won’t need to change in the slightest.

“Oh don’t give me that look,” Katja said, fingers finding her elbows as she crossed her arms and leaned against the desk. “As the Bandit Lord of Porcupine Hill, I learned well how things work. Especially once I started bringing Moonshine Burg around to my way of thinking. Every ruling structure has its key figures. The ones who can get things done. Some might be merchants with able laborers, some might know the secrets of the state, and others will simply be those whom others use as examples for direction and inspiration. The mass of people doesn’t matter half as much as keeping those key people happy. Offer the masses some useless platitudes to keep them quiet while we focus on those who can actually help.”

Arkk let out a small sigh, wondering if this hadn’t been a foolish decision. He could have had Ilya or even Alya take Katja’s place in this coup. Much as he was upset with the elder elf, at least she wasn’t… a bandit.

But Katja had the people and, as she said, the experience. And it got her out of Fortress Al-Mir, which was another positive of the situation.

If worse came to worst, he could always remove her. Probably a whole lot easier than they had gotten rid of the Duke.

“Don’t worry so much. Unless I turn actively malicious, I doubt I can possibly be worse than our dear, departed Duke.”

“You have a point there,” Arkk admitted. “I couldn’t help but notice a lack of cheering or excitement outside the window. You got a rise when you mentioned taxes but not much else.”

Katja scoffed. She looked back to Horrik with a raised eyebrow before shaking her head. “There were supposed to be some of my men in the crowd, ready to rouse the rabbles at the right moments. I think most were too drunk to show up. As for the rest of the people…” She trailed off with a small laugh. “I doubt half of them knew they were participating in a coup. They thought they were freeing poor Katja from the garrison prison. Waking up to find the Duke is dead and someone new is standing in his place is probably a shock to most.”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“Hardly. I’ll make sure I make a few visits around the refugee camps and elsewhere in the city, delivering supplies just like normal.” She shifted off the desk, sauntering through the room while miming handing out a blanket. “‘What am I doing here? Oh silly me. I could have other people delivering supplies these days. I didn’t want this position, you know. I just want to see joy on people’s faces.’ They’ll eat it up,” she said, dropping the act. “Word will spread and people will be content.

“There are two real problems. Evestani and Chernlock.”

“Unless the latter starts a war, I’ll leave them to you,” Arkk said. “Try to appease them? Cooperate or whatever it takes. We don’t need another faction in this war. As for Evestani… I acquired a magical artifact while you’ve been gone. I need men, however. Spellcasters especially.”

“I don’t know that my men will be all too enthused with that idea after what happened last time.”

“Look. That guy had very clear instructions to not move and he did the one thing he wasn’t supposed to do. I’m not sure what else…” Arkk stopped, shaking his head back and forth. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve already reached out to Hawkwood and he’s willing to lend his support but he doesn’t have many quality casters in White Company. The Duke’s guard, on the other hand, does. As does the academy here, if all the casters haven’t been drafted into the guard.”

“Ah. That might be a problem,” Katja said with a put-upon sigh. “I’m not a miracle worker. While, thanks to some key… adjustments of the personnel in charge, the local garrison is willing to work with me, the armies afar likely don’t even know that the Duke is dead. Convincing them to follow my lead isn’t going to be something that happens overnight. If at all. And they’re the ones with the spellcasters.

“All I can guarantee is that anyone who doesn’t fall in line will not receive any support from Cliff,” Katja said as a grin spread across her face. “The supply lines are effectively cut off unless they bow to me. I imagine most will want to eat. What’s exchanging one leader they’ve never met for another? Those who do not bow… might be open to alternate sources of employment.”

“More deserters with Company Al-Mir,” Arkk said, understanding her euphemisms. “I can work with that.”

“Shortly, I’ll be sending out a flock of Swiftwing harpies to inform the various divisions of the Grand Guard of the change in circumstances.”

“Wouldn’t you be able to direct them as normal using the Duke’s signet ring to stamp the messages?”

Katja dipped her head. “I considered that. I decided honesty was the best way to prevent an uprising when they find out they’ve been deceived. Unless you have a better plan for the guard that needs immediate action?”

Arkk considered for a long few moments. Between Hawkwood’s men, the deserters he had already gathered up, and the armies of the Duke, there was a lot he thought he could get done with regard to Evestani. The Walking Fortress, currently under construction, would only add to that once it finished. The Heart of Gold’s avatar was a problem but, presumably, couldn’t be everywhere at once or use his abilities with any resounding frequency.

There were short-term benefits to be gained from usurping control of everything as soon as possible.

Long term, they had to stop and think. Katja was right about the armies likely turning on her if they found out they had been following an impostor. It was hard to see right now but there was presumably life after war that needed to be taken into consideration.

Then again, the last war with Evestani had lasted for over a decade, waxing and waning at times but never quite ending. Arkk had this image in mind that the war would end if he just defeated the golden avatar and forced the armies out of the Duchy but…

How realistic was that vision? Even without the avatar, the war had started. Land had been taken. People had died. Those who lived wanted revenge. Even on Evestani’s side, they would see the deaths of their comrades and use those as motivation, making them martyrs of the Golden Order.

Perhaps planting the Walking Fortress in whatever was left of Moonshine Burg would cut off the two nations effectively enough to force a cessation of combat. Even then…

There was too much uncertainty in the future.

Did that warrant the safe approach that Katja was advocating for? Or a more aggressive approach?

There was also the King to consider. Deposing the Duke was damning enough. Falsifying documents and usurping the armies when control should rightfully revert to the King wouldn’t help matters.

Arkk didn’t know the first thing about the King. His name was Abe Lafoar. He ruled from the Bastion City, a star-shaped fortification nestled between three lakes, all of which sat in the middle of a desert. Everything beyond that was a mystery to Arkk. Most villagers of the Duchy probably knew of the Duke, if only tangentially, and likely knew of the King. But where they paid taxes to the Duke, the King was so distant and immaterial to their daily lives that there was just no need to know anything about him.

That needed to change.

A knock at the door broke Arkk out of his thoughts. He turned to find one of Katja’s men standing at the door he and Lexa had left open. As with most of Katja’s men, Arkk hadn’t committed the man’s name to memory, unfortunately. He was still a little put-off about going from knowing the names of every single member of Company Al-Mir to knowing a mere fraction of them.

“Sorry to bother you, Kat, but—”

“Lady Katja, please,” Katja said. “We must maintain appearances.”

“Lady Katja,” the bandit repeated in a slightly sarcastic tone. “Some bishop from the Abbey is here.”

“A bishop? What does he want?”

“To talk?” the bandit said with a shrug. “He has a guard with him. One of those inquisitorial types. No sign of their purifiers though.”

Katja let out a long hum. “I suppose that is a good sign.”

“I can’t be seen here,” Arkk said. They wanted to maintain the fiction that this little uprising had nothing to do with him. To do that, he would have to limit his interactions with Katja. But, while he was here, he paused and looked at the woman with the striped tattoos. “I’m not going to order you around or tell you what to do. Send the Swiftwings to inform the army if you wish.”

Katja smiled and dipped her head. “I appreciate that. I’ll send one of the Swiftwings with you as well. I know you’ve been wanting a harpy in your employ and it will be good for letting you know when I need fresh supplies.”

Arkk wasn’t sure how much he needed a harpy now that Priscilla was at Fortress Al-Mir. Someone who could actually see what they were scouting would be nice but the fairy backpack had worked well enough.

Still, he didn’t argue. He accepted the gesture with gracious thanks.

As Katja had said earlier, there were certain key people needed to keep things running. It was important to keep those people happy and content.

Katja just happened to be one of his key people now.

 

 

Duke Levi Woldair woke to a tolling of alarm.

The sound of the warning bells in the manor was never supposed to ring through the city. For a long moment, he sat in bed, staring at the ceiling with no worries, feeling like he was listening to the chime of the Grand Old Church, which rang every morning with the rising sun. It was only the lack of melody to the frantic and panicked ringing that made him realize something was amiss.

A jolt of adrenaline surged through his body as he jumped from his bed. Levi threw open the doors to his wardrobe and pulled out a simple robe and slippers. Not bothering with proper dress, he barged out into the hall outside his room just in time to barrel into the captain of his manor guard.

“Sir, there—”

“What is it? Is it… Evestani?” Levi said, whispering the word as he glanced around the hallway. Despite the Abbey of the Light’s recommendations to ally with the foreign power, the alliance had him ill at ease.

They had sent assassins after him at the start of this nightmare. The Abbey might claim that there were greater threats out there, ruinous magic that threatened the entire world. Levi didn’t care about the entire world, just the possibility of blades in his back.

He almost wished the Sultan had rejected his offer of an alliance if only so that he would know that they were still after him.

But his guard captain was shaking his head. “No Sir. At least, I don’t think so. It’s a horde of refugees along with—”

“Refu… Refugees?” The panic and alarm that had woken Levi faded, irritation and annoyance replacing the feeling. He let out a relieved sigh. “Just get rid of them? Why all the commotion?”

“It isn’t that easy, Sir. There are over a thousand of them, armed and even armored. The garrison can’t handle them all and… some of the residents of the city have joined the mob as well. Including some from among the guard. Things have already turned violent in some areas of the city.”

“Traitors.” Levi folded his robe around him and started walking through the manor. The guard captain followed behind him, continuing to inform him of the situation.

“Maybe so, but their presence and that of the city’s residents has made the guard hesitant to fight back. It’s like a wave has swept through the city and the longer it goes on, the larger the group of rioters becomes.”

That gave Levi pause. He shifted, glancing behind him with a raised eyebrow. “Magical influence?” Such could be the product of either of his enemies. Evestani used their heretical golden magic to wage their war and, if the Abbey was correct, that abominable splitting of the sky had been the doing of Arkk. A man who, he now knew, had been interested in a certain mind mage that had been causing problems in the Duchy.

“I don’t know.”

Levi scoffed, wondering why he bothered asking. Good help was hard to get these days. He knew without a doubt that Alya would have known everything there was to know about this incident. She would have likely known ahead of time and defused the situation before it got to this point. Or, at the very least, she would have handled it before it got to the point of waking him.

“They do have demands.”

“Of course they do,” Levi grumbled, ascending the tall tower’s staircase. He needed to see what was going on himself. The eyes of his underlings couldn’t be trusted.

“They demand the revocation of the alliance with Evestani and the release of some woman from the garrison.”

“Who?”

“Her name is Katja, supposedly, but there is no record of any prisoner by that name. Unfortunately, contact with the garrison has since been cut off because of the riot.”

Levi crested the top of the manor’s tall tower. A quartet of spellcasters were supposed to be present at all times, manning the manor’s magical defenses. Only one was present. Slumped over with a dagger sticking out of his chest, he was in no position to maintain the magical wards.

The guard captain moved immediately, calling out down the stairs for more guards.

The sight made Levi recoil. No rabble could possibly have reached the tall tower, no matter how riotous they were. And…

Now that he thought about it, had he seen any guards besides the captain?

Mouth dry and cold air biting at his skin through his thin robe, Levi slowly turned around. There was no sign of any assailant but the view from the tall tower let him get a good look at the state of his city.

In the early morning hours where the sun had yet to crest the top of Cliff’s mountains, he normally wouldn’t have been able to see much of anything. Today, however, little dancing flames bobbed back and forth with the masses surging through the city’s streets. In the distance, the exterior of the garrison was burning. Most of the garrison was built into the cliffside but it had a large courtyard that stuck out into the city proper. A few other pockets of flame were burning at various points throughout the city.

Much of the city was made from wood. The flames needed spellcasters to bring them under control as soon as possible or the entire city would burn down. Already, it looked like the mercenary quarter was being quenched but that wasn’t enough.

“Tell them we’ll free the woman and even pardon her for whatever crimes she committed,” Levi said without turning, his lips numb both from the cold and the threat at hand. He needed to de-escalate things as fast as possible. Regain control. “Tell them whatever they want to get them to lay down their arms. Then round them up and—”

A coughing gurgle from behind him had Levi turning.

The captain of the guard clutched at his neck, struggling for a moment before falling limp over the body of the spellcaster.

A woman… No, a gremlin with bright orange hair vaulted the side of the tall tower, landing just to the side of the two fallen bodies. She bent, wiping glistening red blood from the edge of her blade onto the spellcaster’s tunic.

Levi’s eyes flicked from the short woman to the stairs back down. He lunged, all but diving toward the opening.

The gremlin hopped over, planting herself firmly between him and the stairs. She pointed the tip of her blade directly toward his face. “Ah-ah,” she mocked, ticking the end of the blade back and forth. “You know, I thought I was going to have to find some hidden bunker or safe room. Even brought some alchemical explosives with me to blast my way in. Imagine my surprise when you come stumbling up here.”

“Who are you?” Levi said, backing toward the edge of the tall tower. He took a few steps around, moving closer to the fallen bodies. “What do you want?”

The gremlin remained in her spot, guarding the only exit to the tall tower. “I’m just your average seeker of fortune. No one important. And, obviously, I’m earning a promised fortune.”

“I have a vast treasury. Gold coins, precious gems, rare metals,” Levi said, taking another step. “I can pay you ten times whatever you’ve been paid tonight. A hundred times, even.”

“True, very true. But, my dear Duke, what is stopping me from marching into your vast treasury and taking it all?”

Levi grit his teeth. “Take it. All of it,” he said, eyes flicking to the body of the guard captain. The man had drawn his sword before getting his throat cut. It was on the ground, half resting on the legs of the spellcaster. “I can take you straight…”

Flicking his eyes back to the gremlin, he found her gone. Eyes wide, he dove for the blade, grasping it by the hilt in both hands. Whipping around, he looked for any sign of the assassin. Untrained hands swung the sword back and forth, hoping to catch the gremlin off guard even as he backed up to the stairs.

“Help!” he called. “Guards! Guard—”

Searing heat split his throat. He stumbled back, trying to swing the blade back and forth again. The gremlin jumped back, well clear of the sword. She looked entirely casual as if this were just another day even as she wiped the edge of her blade on the back of the guard captain.

The sword slipped from Levi’s weakening grip. He pressed his fingers to his throat, trying to staunch the blood. It leaked between his meaty fingers, flowing without end.

“You know, Arkk wished he could have been here for this. But he’s too busy plotting the downfall of another nation to deal with this one.” She let out a long and disgusting chuckle.

Levi felt lightheaded, woozy. He tried to speak but let out a sputtering cough as he stumbled back.

“Ah, but don’t you worry about a thing,” she said, her tone almost reassuring. A smile spread across her face, revealing sharp, pointed teeth in her unpleasant grin. “I’ll find my way to your treasury just fine.”

Levi tried to take another step back, only for his back foot to hit nothing but air.

The darkness closed in, shrinking his vision as he fell through the air. Everything went black when the back of his head struck a step leading down from the tall tower.

Master Inquisitor Darius Vrox heard the whispers in the halls of the Grand Old Church. Everyone, from the lowliest acolytes to Pontiff Bernardin himself, gathered at the south-facing windows of the church to watch the chaos in the city unfold. No one was quite sure what to do.

A few of the priests and abbesses had been dispatched to help end the fires that were tearing through some districts of the city. That was only a symptom, however.

The city guard didn’t have enough stationed in the city to quell the riots. The garrison had been running under capacity with the vast majority of the Duke’s Grand Guard being stationed out in the Duchy for the war. Even with the so-called alliance in effect, they had yet to be recalled. If the reports coming in were accurate, some of the guard had joined in with the rioters, further exacerbating the problem.

“…dispatch a purifier?”

“…make the problem worse.”

“When threatened with emeutes, drastic measures—”

“The Inquisition of the Light is not meant for quelling mundane riots. The Church isn’t threatened. None have tried crossing the bridge to the Church. There is no evidence of heretical magics at play,” Darius said, voice firm and admonishing toward the various whispers of concerned priests and abbesses. “We won’t expose undeserving people to the mercies of a purifier.”

“…lost his purifier.”

“Embarrassment.”

“This is a mundane issue,” Darius added. “The city guards will handle it or they won’t. The Abbey will continue in either case.”

“Will it?” Bishop Ocasek stepped forward, furrowing his thick eyebrows. “Times are unusual. This disruption will undoubtedly affect our actions against the enemy. If we stand by and allow this city to fall into chaos and thus cannot act when it matters, are we not dooming ourselves and all our subjects?”

“We should be out there anyway,” Abbess Marra said, clutching her hands together at her chest as if in prayer. “People are getting hurt. Dying. The few who are extinguishing fires aren’t enough. It is our duty to help as many people as possible.”

“The Abbess is right,” one of the younger acolytes said as he put himself in the middle of the group. “We’re hiding behind our bridge and gates. That isn’t right. Maybe we can’t quell the riot entirely but we can at least go through the crowds and administer what little aid we can provide.”

“There aren’t enough guards to keep everyone safe,” Bishop Ocasek said, shaking his head. “I fear for the ones who volunteered to fight the fires. If the riots turn violent toward the Abbey, the few we sent with them won’t hold the masses back on their own.” He turned, giving a pointed look to Master Inquisitor Joel Hachi.

Hachi, along with Master Inquisitor Verimas Kael were the only two stationed at the Grand Old Church with purifiers in their retinue. Darius had lost Agnete to Arkk. A few were set to arrive in the coming weeks to help in a joint offense with Evestani against Arkk. There were others out in the Duchy, dealing with their tasks. Most hadn’t contacted the Abbey in weeks if not longer.

Casualties of the war, presumably.

If they couldn’t make contact now that Evestani was supposedly in alliance with the Duchy, they were likely dead.

“Inquisitor Vrox isn’t incorrect,” Hachi said, shooting a dark look in Darius’ direction. “If the goal is to preserve lives and reduce chaos, unleashing a purifier into the city is counterproductive.”

“But—”

“If we act as regular guards, we can escort more healers around. Perhaps, with careful preaching rather than a show of force, we can help calm down some sections of the city. Anything beyond that is outside the scope of responsibilities for the Inquisition of the Light.”

Darius opened his mouth to voice an argument.

He found himself cut off by an unexpected voice, stepping forward from the shadows of the hall.

“All it takes is one idiot throwing one rock at a purifier to spark a massacre.”

For a long moment, no one said a word. They simply stared at the woman who had emerged into their midst. Silver hair dribbled out from the hood of a black cloak. A scarred face peered out with hard red eyes.

“Astra?” Kael said, sounding surprised.

He wasn’t the only one.

“Master Inquisitrix Sylvara Astra?”

With her hands covered in thick leather gloves, Astra gripped the sides of her hood and lowered it slowly. She looked over the group, scowl clear on display. “What a mess.”

“Where… You’re alive.”

“Obviously.”

“Chronicler Qwol made it back, injured to hell and back. He claimed you had perished.”

“Chronicler Qwol and I were separated following the fall of Elmshadow Burg. I was pursued by a golden-eyed abomination of Evestani’s Golden Order. It isn’t surprising he thought I wouldn’t make it out alive.” Her hard lips twisted into a grimaced grin. “Lucky, I’m hardier than I look.

“Unluckily, I return to find the city like this? An alliance with Evestani? What a sad joke.”

“A lot has changed in your absence,” Bishop Ocasek said. “Surely you saw the fissure in the sky?”

“Bah. I’m in no mood for excuses,” she spat. Her red eyes swept over the room, pausing on Darius for a moment longer than any other, before she finally let out a long sigh. “I’m going to take a nap and then I’m going to start on my report. Maybe it will convince the Abbey to part with this self-destructive alliance before it kills us all.”

“You’re taking a nap,” an acolyte said. “At a time like this?”

“Oh, would you prefer if I stand around at the window with the rest of you all? Useless,” she said with a shake of her head. “A waste of time. I am hurt. I am tired. And standing around helps nobody.”

Astra didn’t give anyone a chance to argue with her further. She turned and, with a slight limp in her gait, walked back down the hall.

Darius looked around the group for a long moment before walking after her. “She’s right,” he said. “As long as I’m awake, I’ve got work to do.”

He left the others behind. Perhaps the inquisitors would decide to send out their purifiers. Perhaps the healers would head out themselves, guarded or not. They could do as they will. It wasn’t like his input would be taken with any amount of gravity.

Contrary to his words, however, he didn’t head back to his office.

The Inquisition of the Light had a small section of the church set aside for their use. It contained sparse sleeping quarters and offices. There wasn’t much room there. Normally, there wouldn’t be this many inquisitors stationed in the church at once. With all the inquisitors, chroniclers, and purifiers, they had spread out, taking over a few of the neighboring rooms and even a few storage areas.

Astra headed for the inquisitor’s quarters but, rather than head in, she stopped outside and waited. When Darius reached the door, she looked over at him. “Something to say, Inquisitor?”

Darius looked up and down the hall. With all the commotion going on this evening, it was deserted. Nevertheless, he waved Astra over across the hall to his office. Holding the door open for her, he stepped inside and closed it behind them. Only then did he speak.

“Suspicious that you return tonight of all nights.”

“Make your accusations if you must,” Astra said with a sigh. “Or, better yet, submit them to our superiors in writing. I don’t need to hear them.”

Darius moved around her, taking a seat behind his desk. His fingers found the end of his cane. He didn’t use it for such short walks through the church. “You’re against the alliance?”

“I don’t know what the rest of you inquisitors have been up to in my absence. I was in the thick of it. Fought against Evestani and their golden abomination. I’ve seen things out there. Things I cannot abide.”

“Personally? Or as an Inquisitor of the Light?”

“Both.”

Darius leaned back, clasping his hands together. “Your plan?”

“Why do you…” Astra trailed off, closing her eyes. “Ah. Arkk. I met him, you know? Not sure what to think of him. Heretical, for sure.”

“Let’s just say that I have my own interests and they don’t necessarily align with the official stance,” Darius said, avoiding her comment. “And if you don’t align with that either, perhaps we can offer each other some mutual… advice.”

Astra eyed Darius for a long moment, simply staring. Her red eyes drilled into him, unblinking and unwavering. “I intend to go visit the inquisitorial researchers, find out if they have any countermeasures for the Golden Order, then come back here and finish what I started. Whether or not I get support along the way is irrelevant.”

“If they don’t have anything?”

“Figure out why not, impress upon them the necessity of coming up with countermeasures, and make my own. In descending order.”

“In that case,” Darius said, leaning forward once more. “I think we can work together.”

 

 

The transition was the important part of the act.

For the first few weeks, she had made a name for herself as the person the refugees of Cliff could come to for nearly any concern they had. Cold at night? Katja had blankets. Little ones fallen ill? Katja had medicine. Rations handed out by the guards weren’t enough? Katja had food. Injuries accrued from fleeing the enemy of the people? Katja knew healers.

In only a few short days, no one at the refugee camp hadn’t heard of her. Even those inside the walls, thanks to some of Edvin’s manipulations, knew of her and had used her services. The war and the refugees meant rationing for all but the wealthy, so even inside the city, people found themselves running low on food and supplies.

But altruism on its own wasn’t the goal.

Katja walked through the encampment, wearing a thin smile on her face to hide her disgust for the rabble. It wasn’t their raggedy attire, the stench of their unwashed bodies, or the unfortunate situation they found themselves in that disgusted Katja. She had been through all that and worse.

It was their helplessness. Their lack of drive. Were it not for Katja and the supplies brought in from Fortress Al-Mir, half the camp would have sat down and accepted death as if there was nothing they could do about it. They saw their current station and, in their feeble imaginations, could envision no grander future for themselves beyond being slaves, in action if not in chains.

Katja had once been an actual slave. Complete with chains and lashings for any perceived slight or fault. She hadn’t been content with her station in life. Through plots and schemes, and one careless master who had foolishly entrusted his servants with poisoning his mistress, she had risen above and carved a bloody path forward.

The transition was the important part.

“Woah there,” Katja said, forcing a laugh as a dozen children rushed up to her, all waving about little wooden bowls.

“Katja!”

“Tiger Lady!”

“You’re back!”

“I said I would be back, didn’t I?” Katja said. She then turned her smile into a disappointed frown. “And what else did I say?”

Blank looks swapped between the children’s faces as they looked back and forth before finally settling on Katja.

She let out a sigh. “We can’t serve food when you’re crowding around.”

“Oh! Line up,” one of the older kids barked out.

“No pushing or shoving now!” Katja called before turning to her side. “Horrik!”

“Aye.” The tall man, ever-present at her side, waved the first of the young children over to the cart. He dipped a heavy ladle into one of the large cauldrons on the cart’s back. Taking the first child’s wooden bowl, he filled it to the brim with stew kept warm thanks to stones heated in a hearth and placed in the bottom of the cauldron.

As Horrik distributed the stew, Katja slipped past the rapidly growing line of both children and adults. Off to the back, standing with his hands tucked under his cloak and his face set in a grim scowl, the assumed leader of this section of the camp beckoned her with a slight jerk of his head. Mal. The one man among the refugees who saw the reality of things around him. He didn’t have the drive to do anything about it but…

Everyone needed a push now and again.

“Mal,” Katja greeted as she approached. “How are things?”

“A new group, a few hundred large, just arrived. Don’t have exact numbers. The guard said to house them in the existing tents but there isn’t enough space to go around. We could use blankets and tents, as soon as possible.”

“Doable.”

Mal didn’t show any surprise to her instant response. He had long since given up trying to figure out how Katja got her supplies. He simply nodded his head with a gruff grunt. “They’ll need food as well but the Duke’s dogs have been doing their jobs for once in handing out a few scraps. It isn’t much but it is enough for now.”

“We have plenty of food,” Katja said, shifting to look back at the cart and the four pots on its back.

“There is one other thing.”

“Oh?” Katja turned back, cocking one eyebrow when she noticed the worried expression leaking through his lined face.

“The guard has been asking about you.”

“Judging by your expression, I presume they aren’t interested in giving me any accolades for doing their job for them.”

Mal let out a low grumble. “It was the weapons, I think. They don’t care about us so they don’t care if you feed or clothe us.”

“People have a right to defend themselves. A few on the outskirts were talking about scrawny, winter-starved wolves prowling the edges of the encampment. Maybe if the guards did their jobs—”

Katja cut herself off as a commotion in the crowd pulled her attention off Mal.

She fought to keep the grin off her face as she spotted a squad of armored men, all bearing the insignia of the Duke’s Grand Guard, making their way through the encampment.

The transition was the important point. The real problem with altruism, especially in a situation like this, was that it eased tension. Perhaps easing tensions would have been good under other circumstances, but not these ones. Katja had other goals, other designs and plans. She wasn’t here to make people’s lives easier.

So what needed to happen?

Well, everyone needed a little push now and again.

Katja wasn’t planning any little push, but a massive shove.

The guard quickly surrounded the cart, shoving away hungry people. A young man at the lead of the group, not wearing any armor, raised a hand and pointed out Katja.

“Looks like we’re about to find out what the guard wants with me,” Katja said, forcing a worried tremor into her voice.

“Edvin, you traitor…”

“Hm?” she hummed, looking at Mal.

“The man leading them. He was another refugee but… I thought he was better than this.”

Katja chomped down on the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.

“They must have bought him off,” Mal finished.

“Just doing what comes naturally, I’m sure,” Katja quipped as the guards and Edvin approached.

“Katja, Bandit Lord of Porcupine Hill,” the lead guard barked out, eliciting a few gasps from the people around.

“Formerly,” Katja said, straightening her back. “The war gave me a new perspective. I decided to use my ill-gotten gains for the betterment of the people.”

The lead guard didn’t look like he cared. “Submit to trial and summary execution—”

“What if the trial finds me innocent?”

The man sneered. “It won’t.”

One of the gathered crowd stepped forward, holding out a hand. “Hey now, that’s—”

The guard at the end of the group slammed a gauntleted fist into the man’s stomach, sending him sprawling to the cold, muddy ground.

Everything changed in that instant. Like an electric spark from one of Arkk’s lightning bolts had jolted through the entire refugee camp. The guards drew their swords and readied their pikes. Edvin shied back, hiding behind the armored wall of the guards as the refugees began producing weapons of their own. Swords, spears, and even bows and arrows.

A little altruism went a long way. It garnered goodwill and loyalty.

Threaten to take away the source of food and supplies?

Katja stepped forward, closer to the guards. “Wait, please. I’ll go peacefully. Don’t hurt anyone else.”

A long, tense moment passed while the lead guard pulled out a set of iron manacles.

“Katja,” Mal said, voice soft behind her back.

“I’ll be fine,” Katja said, shifting her shoulders in a way that disagreed with her statement. The guard clamping the manacles around her wrists with a resounding clank and the following jerk, practically throwing her off her feet, only reaffirmed her lie.

The crowd started to close in on the soldiers, only to pause as Katja turned to address them.

“Please don’t fight now,” she said. Her gaze passed Horrik’s tall form.

She gave him a small nod of her head. One he returned with a grim scowl.

“Don’t you dare show your face here again, Edvin,” Mal said, anger plain in his tone.

The cocky conman gave the refugee a jaunty wave as he jingled a bag full of coins. “After tonight? Don’t need to be here.”

A hand on Katja’s shoulder, shoving her forward, got her walking. The guards parted the incensed crowd with drawn weapons, dragging her straight through the encampment and to the main gates of Cliff City.

Through the gates and halfway to the garrison, the guard led Katja off to a side alley. With a few rhythmic thumps of one of their fists against an old wooden door, the wooden slat shifted aside. A pair of eyes gleamed in the darkness, staring out, before the slat slammed shut and the door creaked open.

“Ugh. How do they move in this much metal,” one of her guards groaned as the door shut behind them.

“Who knew Kev had it in him to order around the boss,” another said with a laugh.

Holding her hands over to Kev, he produced a key and unlocked the manacles around her wrists. “Good work, everyone,” Katja said, looking around at the ‘guards’ as they removed their helmets.

Her crew looked back at her, eager grins on their faces.

“Especially you, Edvin.”

“Praise?” He straightened his back. “From Katja the Great?” he said with sarcasm in his tone.

“Of course. I always knew you were a traitorous slime. Good job revealing your true colors.”

Edvin’s back slumped as he put on a flat expression. “Ha. Ha. Very—”

“Put on those rags, everyone, and get back out there. Spread the word. Light a fire under their asses. Harry, Victor, go speak with the malcontents inside the city and stir them up as well.”

The powder kegs were set. It was time to light the fuse.

Everyone needed a little push every now and again.

Walking Fortress Istanur had arrived.

Arkk’s powers as Keeper of the Heart worked in its vicinity, allowing him to rapidly teleport books, equipment, and everything else of value down to the lowest levels. A gaggle of lesser servants, supervised and assisted by some of his workers, carted crates of valuables over to Fortress Al-Mir. All of it had to go.

“Truth be told, I didn’t believe I would ever see one of these again,” Vezta said, voice soft as she ran her fingers along the shadowy stone.

“A walking fortress or stones made from shadow?”

Her lips quirked. “Both, I suppose, though I was mostly referring to the fortress.”

Arkk walked over, planting a hand on one wall. The shadowy stones felt… odd. The entirety of the Underworld was uncomfortably hot but the stones were cool to the touch. Not quite cold, they weren’t frosty or icy. It was like everywhere else in this world was constantly baking under the sun—even despite its perpetual cloudy skies—but this one fortress was made from normal shade.

“This [HEART] belongs to the Cloak of Shadows,” Vezta said, watching his movements. “Each of the [PANTHEON] has their little quirks and oddities. Rather than the lesser servants siphoned from the fractured sky that you’re familiar with, the servants maintaining this place would have been living beings made from pure darkness.”

“The lesser servants didn’t have any troubles fixing this place up,” Arkk said. They had all died during the incident with Zullie’s spell.

“There is some level of unification between all the [PANTHEON]’s gifts,” Vezta said with a small nod of her head.

“Mine, as well as Fortress Al-Mir, come from Xel’atriss, I presume?”

Vezta nodded her head, bowing slightly. “The Lock and Key is the only one of the [PANTHEON] capable of reaching through that fractured sky to reach the [STARS] where I, and the little ones, come from.”

Arkk pursed his lips, pondering for a moment, before raising a hand. “Slave Natum,” he intoned, calling forth one of the lesser servants.

They were disgusting beings. Arkk hadn’t watched the spell work before, not wanting to look at the creatures as they grew. Crawling masses, quivering and indistinct in form, didn’t so much as manifest from nothing. The very fabric of reality wrapped around the point where it spawned, as if the world itself recoiled from its presence. A thin slice in the world opened, visible for a bare instant before the amorphous body squeezed through, adorned with grotesque appendages—countless eyes and mouths opening and closing at random.

Arkk shuddered in a way that he hadn’t since seeing his first lesser servant. Having long since gotten used to the creatures, he wasn’t disturbed by its visage. It was what happened at the moment of its summoning that filled his mind with disquiet. For just a sliver of an instant, he glimpsed beyond the veil that had been cast over the world, keeping all ignorant of the ever-watching eyes of the [STARS].

The hole in the world was gone by the time the servant finished forming. Or perhaps it closed on the creature, squeezing off just a small aspect of a much larger creature that lurked just beyond.

His eyes drifted away from the newly spawned lesser servant to the face of Vezta. She stared at him, watching with a critical eye—dozens of eyes, rather—as he wondered if she was just a larger mass of some larger creature still hidden just on the other side of the world’s veil.

“Something amiss, Master?”

Arkk pressed his lips together. Horror from the Stars or not, Vezta was Vezta. Aside from Ilya, there was no one he trusted more among his crew. “Just thinking about Zullie,” he said with a small sigh.

The witch was up and about… well… mostly. She hadn’t spoken a word. She woke, she ate, and she sat still in the corner of her room. None of Hale’s attempts at regrowing her eyes had worked.

And yet…

When Arkk had last stopped by to visit the witch, she had looked directly at him. Even when he wasn’t making noise or talking, she had stared.

“I saw the same thing she saw,” Arkk said. “And everyone saw the sky during our ritual. So what happened?”

“As I have said before, I have no definite answer,” Vezta said, sounding genuinely apologetic. “Either she was being punished for her hubris, you were protected by the [HEART] where she wasn’t, or she caught a glimpse of something that you were unable to perceive. Or… any other possibility. Truthfully, the actions of the [PANTHEON] are beyond the comprehension of beings such as you and I.”

Arkk shook his head. With an unnecessary wave of his hand, the lesser servant vanished down to the base of the tower to join the others in removing the tower’s contents. The job was almost finished. Close enough.

He walked through the room, approaching the pedestal upon which Walking Fortress Istanur’s [HEART] hovered. A shadowy orb that pulled in any light in the room yet, somehow, still allowed those within to see.

“Are we sure this is the wisest idea?”

“This fortress does us no good in the Underworld,” Vezta said. “Even the Protectors have fled with the arrival of this tower. There is nothing to defend against. Its power would go to waste if you use it as a glorified carriage.”

“I mean… I’m mostly asking for reassurances that the whole tower isn’t going to collapse right on top of the portal.”

“Ah. It shouldn’t. Probably.” Hesitating, Vezta shifted her weight from foot to foot. “I hope.”

“That’s not very…” Arkk frowned, noting the cheeky smile on her face. “A joke? From you?”

“You’ve been stressed lately. A little humor helps, I hear,” she said with a faint chuckle. “If it truly worries you, move the tower further away. But I don’t believe it will collapse.”

Arkk pressed his lips together, shook his head, took a breath, and went for it. He grasped the shadowy orb from its place above the pedestal and pulled it toward him.

The tower didn’t move but Arkk still stumbled and staggered. Vezta was at his side in an instant, holding him steady. “Master?” she asked with concern in her voice.

“Fine. I just… feel like someone stabbed my… chopped off an arm.” Arkk shook his head. The world had shrunk down all of a sudden, leaving him unable to see the entirety of the tower or its contents. He could see his minions down on the ground below the tower, still carrying off the last of the equipment. None seemed to have noticed what he had done.

Which was good. It meant the tower wasn’t falling over.

Feeling like he was about to throw up anyway, Arkk graciously accepted Vezta’s assistance in guiding him down and out of the tower. The feeling faded by the time he reached the bottom and, once he passed through the portal and felt Fortress Al-Mir expand through his awareness, he was back to normal.

Keeping hold of the Heart of Istanur, Arkk teleported both himself and Vezta to the exit of the false fortress. The one and only access point to the surface within the Cursed Forest.

Ilya stood at the top, shooting a wary glance at the shadowy orb in his hands. Priscilla stood a few paces away, arms crossed and iced eyes glaring at nothing. Olatt’an’s eyes widened ever so slightly before he resumed a casual pose, leaning against the husk of an old tree. Around them, a gaggle of lesser servants stood at the ready.

“Is that it?” Ilya asked, taking a wary step back. “It’s… smaller than I expected.”

The older orc snorted at her comment. “It isn’t the size. It’s what it can do.” He paused and turned a calculating eye to the orb. “And I am hoping it does something impressive, Arkk.”

Priscilla let out a small growl from the back of her throat. “A walking fortress to crush your enemies is impressive enough.”

Arkk just shook his head. Priscilla was at least partially right. With everything he had experienced in recent weeks, he wasn’t sure he wanted something more impressive. A mobile tower was enough for him. “Stand back, everyone,” he said as the lesser servants squirmed closer.

Gold flooded from his treasury, draining it to a mere few scattered coins. This was by far the most expensive thing he had ever done. The mines would replenish it in time. As long as he avoided any large constructions in the near future. This should be worth its weight.

“We start with the chamber for the Heart,” Arkk said as the lesser servants approached the pile of gold. “Then… we’ll see if we can get it walking.”

 

 

Savren provided answers where Zullie could not. He hadn’t been involved in the direct construction of her spell but he had helped out enough to put together what her thought process had been.

The golden rays were magic akin to Agnete’s flames. Powers of the [PANTHEON] granted to mortal avatars. Except those golden rays were likely stronger because Agnete’s patron, the Burning Forge, was cut off from this world while the Heart of Gold was not. In order to counteract that power they felt it would be best to use magic akin to that which avatars could output.

Xel’atriss, Lock and Key. Given its earlier act of kindness in opening the portal, they felt it was the best choice to base the spell on.

No one had lost their eyes from staring up at the fissure in the sky when they had performed the large ritual. According to Ilya, that incident had looked almost the same as what Arkk had described. Yet Zullie was currently in the infirmary, near unresponsive but not quite catatonic. She had been in and out of lucidity for the past week, frequently murmuring nonsense and uttering unintelligible whispers.

Had what happened to her been a warning of some kind?

Or had she lost her eyes because of some differences in the spell versus the larger ritual?

He had set Savren on researching the cause.

Savren was, until further notice, his lead researcher.

Arkk wasn’t sure how he felt about that. What Savren had done to the village of Hope in a selfish attempt to remove his annoying but ultimately harmless curse did not sit right with Arkk. Yet, since he had arrived at the fortress, he had been quite diligent in his efforts toward whatever tasks Arkk set him upon.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about Zullie either. She had been beyond helpful—instrumental, even. Fortress Al-Mir wouldn’t have made it as far as it had without her. Yet she had explicitly disobeyed his order to abandon all research related to the planar ritual.

The main problem was that, if the spell had worked out, Arkk would have taken it with thanks and used it as well as he could. Especially if she improved it to the point where it formed faster and maybe used a less irritating incantation. Even if he had learned the source of the spell afterward, he would have been happy with it.

But it hadn’t worked out.

It was something he would have to deal with later on. If—or when—Zullie was capable of speaking and answering questions.

For now, Arkk had to conduct an onboarding. A sizeable battalion of soldiers had agreed to join upon Ilya reaching out to them. Deserters of the Duke’s Grand Guard following his proclamation of alliance with Evestani. Taking them in was going to quadruple the numbers of Company Al-Mir. With all the other recruiting, Al-Mir was a fairly sizable entity, numbering just short of a thousand. Counting these deserters among his number would put him in league with White Company, though only after they suffered their losses at Elmshadow and, later, Gleeful Burg.

Fresh lesser servants were having to dig downward now to provide accommodations.

The leader of this group was a captain. Or had been a captain before deserting. Captain Richter Porter. The third son of some viscount, he had gotten his position through nepotism. Given how young he was—some of his lieutenants who stood with him looked older than he was—he hadn’t gotten it through experience or hard work. He was younger even than Arkk yet had somehow garnered the support of a full crew of retainers and lieutenants, not to mention the regular soldiers in their company.

“Thank you,” Porter said, extending a hand to shake. “We all want to fight the good fight but… without the supplies and support of the Duchy, we weren’t sure how we were going to manage.”

Arkk shook the man’s hand. It felt weak in his grip. The longer he talked with the man, the less of a man the boy looked. He was just some kid thrown out here to fight. The few other deserter groups Arkk had recruited had been smaller and more… well… raiderish. Soldiers who abandoned the Duke’s Grand Guard not because of alliances but rather for more visceral reasons. Porter, on the other hand, was idealistic and naive.

Nevertheless, the link formed. Arkk didn’t have to hand out a coin to people freely agreeing to work for him. Fortress Al-Mir took their agreement for what it was and acted accordingly. Not just with the boy leader, but with his men as well.

“It’s good to have you,” Arkk forced out with a smile. “Evestani rampaged across our land and now they want to play at being friends while still occupying burgs and forcing our people to starve? That isn’t something Company Al-Mir will stand for.”

“Good,” Porter said, voice surprisingly hard. Some of Arkk’s surprise must have shown on his face because the captain firmed his features and added, “My father was at Moonshine Burg when the invasion began.”

“Ah. I’m sorry to hear that.”

Moonshine Burg had been the first location hit on Evestani’s initial march into the Duchy. Reports from the burg were scarce but it was generally accepted that assassins had killed nearly everyone in a position of power as well as most of the guards, opening the way for the rest of the army to make their way into the Duchy unimpeded.

Porter gave a firm nod of his head before releasing Arkk’s hand.

“We have quarters being set up to accommodate your men—”

“All of them? I know your elf said that was possible, but that was before she realized how many are disgruntled with the current state of affairs.”

“Believe it or not, transporting them is more the issue. The magical teleportation you used to arrive is not well-suited for an army. I can’t promise open fields with cottages for every individual, but once they do get here, there will be plenty of space.”

“Excuse me!”

Arkk looked up, looking past Porter. The boy hadn’t come to the fortress alone. Four lieutenants joined him to tour the place, ask their questions, and make sure they weren’t being conned in some way or other. Along with them, a trio of retainers had joined as well.

The one holding up a finger wore the pure white robes, adorned with gold thread patterned in the concentric lines of the Luminous Mandala. A woman who bore a striking resemblance to Abbess Keena of Langleey Village. She was, of course, an abbess with the Abbey of the Light as well.

“I was meaning to ask but the ritual that brought us here wasn’t like anything I had seen before.”

“Company Al-Mir has recruited some brilliant magical researchers. Evestani has been using unknown esoterics to great effect during this war. We are engaging in research in an attempt to counter some of what they can do. The teleportation ritual is one of our most useful products of that research,” Arkk lied easily.

“It seems…” The abbess trailed off, not quite willing to voice suspicion of the magic being anathema despite clearly suspecting.

“Unfortunately, I do not believe we have any hope of fighting back against Evestani’s golden magic without some tricks of our own. After this… Well, if we survive this war, we’ll figure out what to do about it then. But until such time, if you have any among your ranks well versed in magic, adding them to our research team is likely the best use of their time.”

Porter turned and gestured to one of the lieutenants. A squat man with sleepy eyes. “Vector leads the platoon of battle casters. He is quite a capable caster himself.”

“I’ll introduce him to… Savren, my current lead researcher.” Arkk hesitated on the name, almost defaulting to Zullie’s name before he caught himself. “They can determine how to proceed with whatever resources are available.”

“Current?” Vector asked, his voice pitched less like a question and more like a flat statement.

“My former head researcher was caught in a magical experiment and is currently on bedrest until further notice. Savren is quite capable and I have confidence in his abilities,” Arkk said, surprising himself with his honesty.

Vector nodded his head, taking the statement as fact without any surprise or concern. As if such a thing was perfectly normal.

Perhaps it was. Arkk’s first encounter with Zullie had ended up with her in an infirmary bed as well.

Shaking his head, Arkk continued speaking. “We have had several recruits in recent weeks. Some of whom are a little too new. I don’t intend to throw anyone into combat unprepared. We might not have much time but anyone experienced among your ranks who can help train the fresh recruits would be appreciated.”

“Not enough time?” One of the other lieutenants asked. This one looked to be the oldest of the bunch, maybe up to ten years older than Arkk. He had a thin mustache, though it wasn’t as well-kept as it likely would have been outside the war. “The end of winter is still a few weeks away. Marching through it has been hell on the troops, especially since we lost the support of the Duchy.”

“I’m not planning on sending anyone through the snow if we can help it,” Arkk said. “The same does not hold true for Evestani. Following the destruction of Gleeful Burg, they pulled back to Elmshadow and were content to remain in place, presumably awaiting proper support from the Duke or their homeland. But I am… working on a method that may allow us to assail them heedless of the weather in the near future.”

Just as soon as it arrived.

“Are avatars born or are they chosen later in life?” Arkk asked.

Master Inquisitrix Sylvara Astra flexed her claw-like hand, staring at it with her red eyes. The prisoner link between her and Arkk was strained to the breaking point. It had been ever since Hale finished healing her legs. Between the weapon that was her claw, her magical knowledge, and the fact that she was being treated more as a guest than a prisoner, he was surprised that the link hadn’t snapped already.

Arkk figured it had to do with her temperament. She wasn’t trying to escape or attack him, thus the fortress still considered her a prisoner.

Arkk found his eyes drifting to her legs. It was a testament to Hale’s improved skill that Astra could now walk. Arkk had half expected Astra to come out of the regrowing process with a monstrous limb, leaving her lopsided and entirely unable to walk.

He couldn’t see most of her chitinous leg with the cloak she wore but a multi-taloned foot rested on the floor. It was like a bird’s foot with several sharp talons in an array fully around the end of her foot. She could grasp things with it as easily as Arkk could with his hands.

“Define avatar,” Sylvara said.

Looking up, Arkk found her red eyes boring into him. “A being with magic like Tybalt, Agnete, and presumably other purifiers.”

Sylvara leaned back, crossing her arms only to wince when the tips of her claw scraped against her normal arm. She brushed off the mistake without a word of commentary on the matter. “The Abbey of the Light refers to such beings, able to wield powerful magic without training or incantation, as abominations. Signs of abominations typically manifest in the late teenage years—often in situations of violence—though there may be signs in earlier years when exposed to certain types of magic.”

“How early?”

“Hard to say. Generally, local abbess or priest reports will comment on various oddities in their youth. Nothing indicating strong enough magic to be sent off to academies, just… differences between them and other children. Even then, oddities aren’t uncommon. Practically every village has that one odd child that nobody can make heads or tails of. Purifiers are not nearly as common.”

“I bet not,” Arkk said with a scowl.

“Why?” Sylvara asked, leaning forward once more. “Think you’ve located one?”

Arkk slowly shook his head. “No. Unfortunately. I was wondering if it was possible to become one.”

Sylvara curled a lip in disgust. “Whyever would you want that? Abominations like them do not lead happy lives.”

“And is that their fault or your fault?”

Bristling, Sylvara stood. “We give them a chance to live mostly normal lives. Abominations tend to lose control over themselves and their magic, leaving destruction in their wake. Research into nullifying and controlling their magic is among our many duties and it is to their benefit as much as it is to that of the Inquisition.”

Arkk shook his head, not believing that for a moment. “I haven’t needed to use the ice marble on Agnete since she joined me.”

“An anomaly,” Sylvara said, dismissing the notion with a wave of her chitin-covered hand. “Or you are exerting control through another method. Vrox did insist that you had a way of controlling your other monster.”

Arkk pressed his lips together, not quite able to refute that supposition. While Arkk didn’t believe that Fortress Al-Mir was controlling anyone, least of all Vezta, he was perfectly willing to admit that it was a mysterious magical artifact that had odd interactions with spellcasters in terms of both offering power and using their magic for him.

“We’re getting off-topic,” Arkk said with a shake of his head. “You didn’t actually answer my question. Is it possible—have you ever seen someone become an avatar later in life?”

“I have never seen it. That doesn’t mean impossible, it just means they’re too rare to say anything for certain. Now answer my question, why?”

“We believe that avatars are mortal agents of the old Pantheon. Manifestations of their power and, maybe, their will. Agnete’s patron would be The Burning Forge. Tybalt’s likely would have been the Jailor of the Void.”

“It is the stance—”

Arkk rolled his eyes, waving a hand. “Yes, yes. Only the Light still casts its gaze on this world as evidenced by the sun’s rise and fall. I know. You’ve said as much before. That isn’t our stance.”

Sylvara frowned. “Casual heresy aside,” she dismissed with barely a shrug, “I’m still not sure I understand. You aren’t the kind of person to seek power for the sake of power. I understand there is a war going on but…”

“The golden-eyed man is probably an avatar of the Heart of Gold. The rays of gold that sliced your limbs from your body are a manifestation of the Heart of Gold’s power. My researchers are under the impression that it will take the power of a god to stand up to the power of a god.”

Something new came across Sylvara’s face. A deep and heavy expression, one filled with barely contained anger.

She had told him of her encounter in the woods with the man, possessing the same boy whom Arkk had already injured with a lightning bolt. The way he had callously discarded the body as soon as it wasn’t useful to him, leaving a broken, injured, and scared child behind. Arkk could understand her anger, incensed at just the thought of this avatar going around and using children as disposable bodies in his war.

He had seen it himself in Gleeful Burg. Puppeteered body after puppeteered body had come after him. Arkk had been forced to kill them.

“Then I have evidence against your claims,” Sylvara said, obviously forcing herself to keep a calm tone to her voice. “Upon locating an abomination, the Inquisition of the Light begins research to counteract their power, restraining and controlling it, thus turning them into productive Purifiers of the Inquisition. If only the power of a god can counteract the power of another god, how are we mere mortals able to come up with such countermeasures?”

Arkk blinked. That… was right. They had been able to create those bracelets for Tybalt and the ice marble for Agnete.

He pulled the ice marble directly to his waiting hand, staring down at it. “How was this made?” he asked, pushing just a slight touch of magic into it, leaving it hovering just above his palm.

A trick he had learned after having seen Vrox at the Duke’s manor. He had known it could float before but something about that last encounter just made it click.

“I’m a field agent,” Sylvara said with a shrug. “Not a researcher.”

Arkk didn’t look up to her, still staring at the marble. It was a magical object. Enchanted or innate, it constantly output cold air into its surroundings, never diminishing. Even glowstones lost their glow after a time, doubly so when doing something actively magical like powering a ritual.

A suspicion started to form at the back of his mind. A suspicion that Sylvara wasn’t as right as she thought she was.

Arkk teleported his resident dragonoid directly into the cell. A cascade of water flooded off her body, leaving glistening icy scales behind.

The dragonoid didn’t wait even half a second before lunging directly for Arkk. The link hadn’t broken, so she probably hadn’t been about to cause any serious harm. Nevertheless, Arkk reacted quickly by swapping their positions. She kept up her lunge, now unable to stop as she crashed into the wall of the cell.

Sylvara was on her feet, poised for combat but with a rapidly rising look of horror on her face as she stared at the dragonoid.

Arkk blinked, realized, and winced. Right. Sylvara had been hunting down the dragonoid before everything went south in Elmshadow.

“This is Priscilla,” Arkk said, holding out his hands in a calming gesture toward Sylvara. “She agreed to work with me.”

“Having second thoughts about that agreement, Arkk,” Priscilla snarled as she used her icy claws, dug them into the wall, and picked herself up. “I thought you humans had prudish qualms about interrupting bathing women.”

“This is important,” Arkk said, ignoring the dragonoid’s attempts at getting a rise out of him. She didn’t look any different than normal anyway. The remaining water dribbling down her body was rapidly freezing, further obscuring the icy scales underneath. “Are you an avatar of the Eternal Permafrost?”

“Ha! I wish.” Priscilla molded her hands together, breathing out a frosty breath of air that caught in her cupped hands, condensing into a loosely packed chunk of ice. “This entire planet would be a ball of snow. An everlasting winter wonderland, beautiful and serene where all you humans would freeze solid.”

Sylvara shot Arkk a pointed look. One Arkk commiserated with.

He made a mental note to himself that, if they did find a way to turn people into avatars, not to do that with Priscilla.

“Okay…” he said slowly. “What do you make of this?”

“This?” She shook her head ever so slightly back and forth, confused as she stared just to the side of his head. Raising a hand, she pointed at her iced-over eyes with a blank expression on her face.

“Right. Sorry,” Arkk said, lightly grabbing one of her hands, he placed the ice marble inside. “Does this feel—”

Priscilla’s icy eyes widened. “What is this?” she said, anger now spent entirely, leaving her with something akin to awe in her tone.

“That’s what I’m asking. What is it?”

“It feels… nostalgic,” the dragonoid said, smiling. An actual smile, fond and full of distant thoughts, formed on her face. That was a first for Priscilla. She cradled it with one hand, gently running a finger over the marble with her other. “Like something I might have felt as a child, before the Calamity struck. I haven’t felt like this in… so very long.”

That one vague statement was more than Arkk needed.

The inquisitors were using magic derived from the Pantheon to counter the avatars. That answered one question.

Now, how best to use that information?

 

 

“This is based on the protective spell I developed before leaving the Cliff academy,” Zullie said, pacing back and forth in front of a large board of arcane diagrams. “The difference between your old spells and modern magic appears to be the source of that magic. Modern magical incantations, translated, often equate to something more akin to prayer—beseeching a higher power to act on your behalf. Old magic are more like commands. Edicts given out to magic itself to manifest servants or fire lightning bolts.

“I’ve not managed any success with command-type magic, but the difference between the two gave me ideas. Unfortunately, I’ve only managed limited success myself with those ideas but I have hope that your increased magic capacity can power through inefficiencies in the incantation and… Arkk… Arkk? Are you paying attention? Hey!”

Arkk blinked as a thumb and middle finger snapped in front of his nose. He blinked again and found himself staring through a pair of rectangular glasses and into the violet eyes of his lead researcher.

“I was listening,” he said, automatically.

Zullie planted a hand on her hip, cocking an eyebrow at the same time. “Oh?”

“Old magic is like an edict, modern magic is like a request.”

She pressed her lips together, glaring as hard as ever. Instead of continuing her lecture, she sat there, probably thinking up unspoken complaints about how his answer was just a lucky guess. Arkk left her to her thoughts.

The longer she sat there thinking, the more he could pay attention to Walking Fortress Istanur.

The walking fortress was more… alive than Fortress Al-Mir. It felt like a lesser servant, if more limited. He could direct it around and tell it what to do with a thought. It couldn’t do much. Walk, mostly. He could open and close any door at will, much like with Fortress Al-Mir, as well as interface with all its traps.

It… needed some repairs. Luckily, a small force of lesser servants, left behind before he and Priscilla had returned to Fortress Al-Mir, were quickly running through the tower, fixing everything they could.

And they had just gotten the walking part of the walking fortress operational.

It was nerve-wracking. He and Priscilla had carried back several books but there were plenty more left behind, not to mention all the alchemical equipment and gear in the other rooms. If the tower toppled and collapsed into a heap of rubble, all that might be destroyed.

Yet whatever lesser servant-like intelligence that occupied the tower was reporting that all its systems were functional. It was ready to move. It didn’t want to move but lesser servants didn’t want anything.

Arkk told it to pick up one leg and set it back down.

From a distance, Arkk could perceive Walking Fortress Istanur much like he could perceive Fortress Al-Mir. He could check in on any individual room like he was scrying into them or view the entire structure from a short distance away like any minion in his employ.

Watching the tower pick up one of its massive legs, each of which had the footprint of the entire Langleey Village courtyard, sent shivers down his spine. He almost jolted out of his seat when the other legs bent and the main tower started tilting to one side. He thought the whole thing was going to come down then and there.

It didn’t. It was just shifting the weight above to compensate for the change in balance. Like any human—or spider—might do when asked to lift their legs.

Interestingly enough, a round glass phial sitting on the corner of one of the alchemy lab tables didn’t so much as shift. Even when the leg came down again, shaking the ground it stood upon, the phial remained right where it had sat for who-knew how many years.

Arkk did jolt out of his seat when another pair of fingers snapped in front of his face again.

“Arkk?” Zullie said, lips pulled into a tight smile that didn’t reach her cheeks, let alone her eyes. “What did I say this time?”

Eyes darting back and forth between Zullie’s eyes and the board covered in arcane scrawl, Arkk grimaced. “Uh…”

“Please pay attention!” Zullie said, clapping her hand to the table. “I know you just got a new toy but what I’ve been working on might help us with our little golden problem.”

Arkk straightened his back, clasping his hands together on the table in front of them. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just…”

“I know. I’m excited to peruse the books you brought back. Maybe we can make this spell better with some of the information within. But until then, you might be our only defense from those rays of gold.

“Now, admittedly, I haven’t seen them in person—thank the Light—but I was scrying on you while you were in Gleeful. So I have a general idea of how it worked. To demonstrate, I… Well, I asked for that flame witch’s help. She hasn’t shown up.”

Arkk shuddered. When Agnete had come to him earlier in the day and told him that Zullie wanted her to throw fire at him, he had been worried that there was some kind of coup attempt going on. It hadn’t been a very big worry. Zullie had effectively one sole desire in life and he was fairly certain that he was fulfilling that desire more than anyone could—especially with the new books he had brought back from Istanur—but still…

“Why don’t we see if the spell works before we take it to a live fire exercise? Or, if fire is a must, let’s use regular fire. Not fire projected through the avatar of a fire god.”

“That it comes from an avatar is the point,” Zullie said before letting out a small sigh. “But I do concede that getting the spell working is a must. So, as long as you’re paying attention this time, I’ll explain it again.”

With a nod of his head and a wave of his hand, she did. In far too many words. Enough that Arkk found himself lapsing again. After testing all six of Istanur’s legs, he set it to walking.

It was… a terrifying sight to see, even through his detached perspective. He could almost feel the phantom trembles as each leg touched down, sending quakes through the ground. Although faster than any other building he had seen, he couldn’t call it swift. Each step seemed to cover the distance of a small village’s width, thanks to the long spider-like legs. He would have to do the calculations later but, if it didn’t change speed and didn’t run into any insurmountable obstacles, he guessed it would be at least a week before it arrived at the portal.

Arkk wasn’t quite sure what he would do with it once it arrived. At the very least, it could serve as a more fortified outpost in the Underworld. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t fit through the portal.

Maybe it could be dismantled once it arrived?

He would have to speak with Vezta and Priscilla on the matter. Until then…

Arkk caught Zullie’s fingers before she could snap in front of his face for a third time. “I am paying attention,” he said honestly. “You and Savren dismantled the lightning and lesser servant spells into ritual circles, modified those ritual circles, and now have built up an incantation from your modifications that acts as a request and edict combined.”

“That… is the essence of what I said, yes,” she said, looking pained to admit that. “You’ve skipped all the details.”

“You’ve been talking for over two hours, Zullie. You could have stood to skip a few of the details yourself.”

“Fine! Fine. Since you’re so interested in the fruits of my labor and not the research that went into it—”

“I’ll read your book when you finalize it.”

“—We’ll get into the meat of the work. Incantation: Boun-daries, b-b-b-barriers, blocks and blocks and blockades, ward-d and sheheld. The pauses, sputters, and odd pronunciation are important. In something of a cross between old and new magic, you’ll need to focus on an element but you do not need to gesture. The element is wall.” She promptly repeated it three more times, making sure that Arkk knew it forward and backward.

“Even with the stuttering, isn’t that… too understandable to be a spell? All the other spells I know are strange languages.”

“Without more samples of your spells, I can’t infer enough of the old language. Which is also why the incantation is odd. Need to get the magic flowing in the right tempo to make up for the lack of proper words.” Zullie scowled, likely at the poor incantation for the spell, before adding, “I haven’t yet had time to analyze the spells Priscilla taught you from her era. Perhaps they’ll have a clue that will help me shorten this.”

Arkk nodded along. Priscilla was trying to put what she knew about the old language to paper at the moment. Since she could speak well enough to be understood by modern people, she was able to write out the symbols and describe what they meant to some of Zullie’s new apprentices. That would give them some kind of foundation for translation.

But she didn’t need to write to teach him new spells. Those were just a few short words. There weren’t many, unfortunately. Priscilla wasn’t a spellcaster by trade. During her time, she utilized her brute strength and gifts with frost breath rather than spells. Nonetheless, Arkk had picked up a few tricks from her.

For now, Arkk drew in a breath and started the incantation. “Boun—”

“Hold it! Stop! Stop!”

“What? What?” Arkk asked, suddenly alarmed at all the shouting. He snapped his head around, half expecting that golden-eyed boy to have popped right into their midst.

Instead, he found Zullie swiftly backing toward the door. “You stay here and just hold tight,” she said, opening the room’s door. “I’m going to be in the next room over, watching from that small slit in the wall.”

Arkk followed her finger to find a small gap in the brickwork of the room, just above one of the violet glowstones that adorned the walls. Arkk hadn’t directed any of the servants to do that. Despite her having distilled the lesser servant spell into a ritual, they didn’t take many commands from others. Vezta must have made it, likely on Zullie’s request.

“Why over there?”

“No reason!” Zullie said, ducking out of the room.

The heavy, reinforced door slammed shut. Most rooms didn’t have reinforced doors. A quick scan through the fortress revealed only three rooms. Agnete’s bedroom, the [HEART] chamber, and the treasury. More of Vezta’s doing?

He had wondered why they had come out to this random room instead of doing this someplace like the library or even the meeting room. Now, he started to get a creeping feeling all down his back.

“Alright!” Zullie’s voice, muffled through the crack in the wall, sounded strained. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Is this safe?” he said, glancing back to the reinforced door.

“Oh sure it is! I mean, there’s just a little… It’s probably not a problem. Probably. Everything is perfectly within acceptable bounds.”

“Zullie…”

“You told me you were used to all that magic you tried exploding in your face!”

“Those explosions didn’t need reinforced doors.”

“You blew up the orcs’ old chieftain.”

“That… was intentional.”

“So is this! Trust me, you won’t get hurt. It is everything else that needs worrying about.”

“That isn’t the reassurance you think it is,” Arkk said, taking a deep breath. Even though the room was empty except for the one table, chair, and board with Zullie’s notes, Arkk sent them all away, leaving him standing alone. “Boun-daries, b-b-b-barriers, blocks and blocks and blockades, ward-d and sheheld.”

Focusing on a wall, he felt his magic flow.

It felt wrong. He realized it immediately. Electro Deus felt directed and targeted. The magic he unleashed for a lightning bolt did exactly as he expected—as it was supposed to. It didn’t at all feel like forcing too much magic through a pinhole or like globs of ooze and slime dripping between his fingertips.

Bright flashes of unbound magic sparked in the air around him. The glowstones on the walls doubled in intensity before cracking with enough force to send shards flinging around the room. The magically reinforced bricks didn’t care about the chaotic magic, thankfully remaining fully intact.

“Keep going!” Zullie shouted through the wall just as he was about to cut off the flow of magic. “Chant the incantation again.”

It was clear that the spell wasn’t working as intended. But aside from the bright flashes popping into the air all around him, making him wince, none of it had harmed Arkk so far. He followed along with Zullie’s directive, keeping up the flow of magic while repeating the stuttered and awkward spell.

As he did so, he started to notice a change in the magic’s flow. It didn’t improve. If anything, it felt stickier and even more disgusting. Nevertheless, the air around him started to change. The flashes of light grew more frequent, flashing together at points, merging. All at once, like the string of a bow snapping back into place, a violet dome flashed into place around him.

It dripped and oozed. Like he had taken one of the lesser servants and stretched them out into a thin, nearly transparent glob around him. Small spackles of light still darted around, reminding him again of Vezta and the lesser servants. Their eyes, specifically.

Although it had clearly stabilized, somewhat, he still didn’t think the spell was working quite right. The shield, if it could be called that, didn’t look like it would stop a tossed rock, let alone an arrow or golden rays. Even if it could, it had taken ten minutes from when he started to now. It couldn’t be cast in an emergency and, judging by the flow of magic out of him, nobody else in the entire fortress had the capacity to maintain it for more than a few seconds. Even he, with all the power of Fortress Al-Mir’s [HEART] at his back, felt like he could keep going for no more than ten minutes more before it drained him.

All-in-all, modern magic or old, Arkk felt the spell was a failure. Hopefully, Zullie had learned something from it.

Arkk cut the flow of his magic, only to gasp as his magic flooded out, ripped from his body like someone had sliced open his stomach. The laceration, pulled from his chest, cut into the dome of ooze. It didn’t feed the shield spell. It sliced open a gap directly overhead.

Above, he didn’t see the vaulted ceilings of Fortress Al-Mir. It was like a slice of the night sky had fallen into the fortress. It wasn’t the usual sky. Familiar, yes, but a version of the sky he had seen only once before.

The Stars shined through, like eyes twinkling and watching. Unintelligible whispers circled around him, calling out words in a tongue no mortal could comprehend. Fear crept up his spine. No normal fear for his life or that of others, but an existential type threat. That feeling of inconsequence. That nothing he was, nothing he could ever do, nothing anyone could affect anything compared to the watchers above.

Vezta had said that those Stars couldn’t interact with anything in this world or any other. The shattered sky kept them apart, unable to do anything but watch.

Yet they spoke. He could hear them. He had heard them in Vezta’s body too. If they couldn’t do anything but watch, why did their words reach down to the world?

Something shifted in the Stars as Arkk gaped up at them, unable to move. They slid away from the gap carved in the ceiling, making room for something else.

Arkk caught a split-second glimpse. A violet-hued moon rolled through the aether above, slowing to a stop in the center of the oblong slit. The now fully-formed eye twisted and rotated, its gaze falling directly on Arkk for a mere instant before it swiveled again, aiming at the wall of the room.

The last of his magic, ripped from his chest, allowed the eye an instant of a glimpse. A bare second. Yet time stretched on. The eye spent an eternity judging, an eternity measuring, an eternity weighing.

The spell collapsed around him. Black, charred ooze slopped to the ground around Arkk. The [HEART] of Fortress Al-Mir, drained of magic, seized. Glowstones across the entire fortress flickered and winked out. Every minion Arkk had in his employ collapsed as one. Lesser servants winked out of existence without the magic there to sustain them.

For one brief moment, the world closed in around Arkk in a way that he hadn’t felt since before contracting with the fortress. He couldn’t see any other room. He couldn’t check in on any of his minions. Even Walking Fortress Istanur vanished from his view.

He stood alone.

With not a scrap of magic remaining in the entirety of the fortress, the moon and Stars above Arkk faded as the slit in the ceiling sealed once again.

A resounding thump-thump echoed through Fortress Al-Mir’s corridors as the [HEART] beat once again. Another beat followed, stronger and firmer. The light of the glowstones blinked, flickered, and started a dim, steady glow that slowly brightened with every subsequent thump. The employees of the fortress slowly started to rouse themselves, picking themselves up.

He could see them again. Them and the rest of the recovering fortress. Panic coursed through many, some fearing an enemy attack, others just confused. The refugees, although not linked to him or the fortress, were obviously ill at ease. All the lights shutting down must have spooked them.

The lesser servants did not return. How many had there been? A hundred? More? He would have to summon them all over again.

Yet, Arkk couldn’t find it in him to move. His fingers tingled with an uncomfortable numbness and his legs felt weak. He wasn’t sure how he was still standing.

Dry eyes finally made him blink and, when he did, whatever stupor had come over him shattered.

Arkk teleported into the next room over.

Zullie sat, curled in a ball under the observation slit in the wall. Her arms shook. Her lips, blue like she hadn’t taken a breath in minutes, twitched and moved like she was trying to speak. No words made it out of her mouth. At her side, her glasses sat on the ground with a large crack running through both lenses.

And her eyes, normally violet and intense, were wide and…

empty.

There was no blood. No gore. Just empty holes where her eyes should have been. In the back of those empty holes, a sliver of starlight gleamed through in tiny sparkling dots.

Arkk stared at her, swallowing his demands for an explanation. There would be no answers for now.

He teleported both himself and Zullie to the infirmary. Hale joined them, her eyes hazy and confused but fully intact. She looked up at him, likely about to ask what had just happened, only to catch sight of Zullie.

Rather than look disgusted or concerned over the witch’s lack of eyes, she looked interested, leaning in to get a better look. That was probably concerning behavior but Arkk didn’t care enough to question it at the moment. He needed to sit down for a long few minutes. Perhaps a dunk in a cold bath would help.

“Magical accident,” he said as his only explanation. “Help her if you can. I… need to go.”

“But—”

Arkk didn’t have the words to contend with Hale. Much as he wanted to sit down, he had to make some kind of announcement. Let everyone know that things were fine. Just perfectly fine.

Before he could even consider what to say beyond fine, he got a tug through the employee link. Arkk teleported straight to the source in the scrying team’s room.

Luthor was on duty at the moment. The reptilian beastman didn’t look as bad as some of the others Arkk could see through the link. In fact, most beastmen didn’t. Possibly because their magic was different than that of demihumans?

“Everything is fine,” Arkk said, trying to inject as much emotion into his voice as he could.

His fingers still felt numb. His lips tingled.

“Uh… S-Sir,” Luthor said, pointing at the crystal ball. “I… thought it w-would be a g-good idea to check on priority targets after… w-w-whatever happened. The Elmshadow Burg Keep has bright golden lights streaming through its windows. I… I don’t know what that means.”

“Perfect,” Arkk said. “Just… perfect.” He almost teleported away, only to stop and remember something Alma had said to him. “Good work,” he said, clapping the chameleon on the shoulder. “Keep an eye on them.”

“S-Sir,” Luthor said, sitting straighter in his chair.

Arkk teleported to the war room. In an instant, all of his advisors were with him.

They immediately broke out into a cacophony of noise.

Arkk planted his hands on the table, taking as much weight off his legs as he could without outright collapsing into his chair. “Everything is fine,” he said, speaking no louder than a whisper, forcing the room into silence if they wanted to hear him. “Everything is… just fine.”

 

 

“Master, I am not sure this is the wisest idea.”

“Neither Evestani nor the Duke are making any obvious moves. That surely won’t hold out. This may be our only chance for a long while.”

Arkk stood atop the wall in the Underworld, looking out across the deserted wasteland. He couldn’t see the shadowy tower that Priscilla and Leda had discovered. Priscilla wasn’t the best at estimating distances because of her blindness and Leda had been too frightened to keep her eyes open for most of the journey. Savren, after calculating the speed at which Priscilla could reach the nearby village and the total time it took for Priscilla to reach and return from the tower, estimated the tower was a good seven to ten days away by horse-drawn cart. About as far as Cliff was from Smilesville Burg.

Teleportation portals didn’t work in the Underworld. The ambient magic levels spontaneously activated ritual circles which, for teleportation, caused unpleasant complications. That meant there were only two ways to reach the tower.

Unfortunately, Arkk didn’t think he could vanish from Fortress Al-Mir for two to three weeks—there and back—for a full expedition on foot. Things were just too precarious with the war. Ilya, Rekk’ar and Olatt’an, Vezta, Zullie, Agnete, and all his other main staff could handle some things on their own, it was true, but there were some things that only the master of Fortress Al-Mir could accomplish.

Despite being unable to venture far from Fortress Al-Mir for an extended period of time, he couldn’t help but agree with Vezta’s concerns. The harness he had on, made up of several straps of thick leather and metal hooks, felt secure against his body. That said, he weighed a whole lot more than a small fairy.

Priscilla stood atop the wall, looking out with blind eyes and a scowl on her face. The dragonoid looked confident. She still stood a head shorter than he did. The idea that she could pick him up, let alone fly with him… Well, he supposed they would know whether it was possible soon enough. If they jumped off the wall and crashed to the ground, at least Vezta was standing by to help patch him up.

He wished Vezta was coming with him. Her input could be handy if this was a whole other intact fortress. She suspected that another Keeper would be able to access the tower and had given him instructions on how to do so. If anything unexpected popped up, he would have to operate on his own intuition.

But Vezta was the only one other than him who could give orders to the lesser servants. If something did happen during his absence, she could direct the fortress almost as well as he could.

Shaking his head, Arkk looked back out over the wasteland. There was one other problem. Ever since Priscilla and Leda’s scouting trip, the Protectors had been moving more and more. They shifted around, rearranging the positioning of their vigil over the portal and its surrounding defenses. It still didn’t look like they were about to attack but…

Arkk had ordered a full guard contingent on the walls until further notice. Everyone who could cast even a single lightning bolt without collapsing. Arkk didn’t want to head out and find the mother lode of old books and magical artifacts at this tower only to return to find Fortress Al-Mir inaccessible because the Protectors had taken the portal.

“Are you ready?” Arkk asked, looking at Priscilla.

“Been waiting for you, human.”

Arkk shifted at the tone in her voice. That was another thing. Despite agreeing to work for him and the link forming properly, he held no doubts about how much Priscilla liked him. He wasn’t sure how much he liked the idea of heading off alone with her. Nevertheless, this tower couldn’t be ignored. It was very likely the thing he had felt off in the distance—some power calling to him.

With one wan look at Vezta, Arkk stepped over to Priscilla and linked the metal hooks of his harness into the rings on hers. It was… uncomfortable being so close to the dragonoid… for several reasons. Aside from her prickly personality and obvious distaste for humans, she was cold. Not as cold as the ice marble but still cold enough that he doubted he would enjoy this flight even if everything else went perfectly. Then was her height, it just felt… awkward. She was a full head shorter than him and yet here he was clinging to her. He didn’t know where to place his hands or how to keep his legs.

Now, if Ilya had giant dragon wings, he could get behind that…

“Alright,” he said, looking to Vezta. “You know what to—”

Arkk didn’t get to finish before Priscilla leaned forward, picking his feet off the ground. She hopped up to the crenellations as easily as he could hop up a step. With one thunderous downward swing of her wings combined with a powerful leap, they were in the air.

Flailing with a startled yelp, Arkk wrapped his arms around the dragonoid’s neck and his legs around her waist. Pounding, beating thumps against the sides of his chest had him trying to shift to one side or the other, but neither made it better.

“Don’t touch my wings!” Priscilla snapped over the rush of wind. “Unless you want to go crashing to the ground.”

Arkk grunted as another thwack of her wings smacked him in the side. He made himself as thin as possible, trying to angle his body as best he could. There was no other option. He could feel the sweat rolling down his skin despite the cool temperature Priscilla’s icy body emitted.

The ground below was really far away. Arkk tightened his grip. His feelings of awkwardness vanished into his fear over the height. He would be as accommodating as possible to her wings, even though he knew his ribs would be sporting heavy bruises by morning.

This… might not have been the wisest idea.

By the time the shadowy tower came into view, Arkk felt like he had been taking Larry’s meat-tenderizing mallet to his chest for the better part of the day. At this point, he was fairly certain that at least some of the beating he had taken was intentional. It was hard to say. He was just a little too broad in the chest to properly move out of the way.

Priscilla, whether she hated him or not, did listen to his directions once they were close enough to land.

The tower was… massive. Arkk wasn’t even sure that he would call it a tower. It was at least as large as Elmshadow’s keep—and shaped roughly like it, with several blocky segments jutting up into the air, peaked with tall turrets. Many of the turrets had large circular tubes jutting out of them at all angles. Some kind of defensive spikes? Arkk wasn’t sure he wanted to meet whatever needed such large tubes as defenses.

The most interesting aspect of the tower was its base. Rather than sitting on the ground, six massive legs jutted out the bottom in a radial pattern. Each leg started as a vertical shaft coming out the bottom of the tower with a sharp bend at the bottom that angled back upwards, roughly diagonal relative to the rest of the tower. A third segment to the leg, angled back down, made contact with a large circular platform that connected to the ground below it.

Like a giant spider, minus a pair of legs.

With a building sitting on its back.

On the ground again, Arkk could not disconnect his harness fast enough. Even though he was taller than Priscilla, it still felt like he dropped down a short distance to the ground once the last hook was off. He was not looking forward to the return trip.

Priscilla didn’t seem to notice him. Her wings folded back behind her back, shrinking to an impossibly small size compared to how large they had been during their flight. Her eyes, milky and iced over as they were, still stared up at the tower above them.

A step away from her, Arkk felt the ever-present heat of the Underworld warm him back up. He took a few deep breaths, brushed off his clothes to shake off the bits of ice still clinging to the cloth, and stepped forward alongside Priscilla.

“How does something this large even move?”

“Magic,” she said.

Arkk frowned at the one-word response. He figured it was magic but had been expecting something a little more… Well, if they could get Zullie or Savren out to it, he was sure he would get more than he asked for. For now… “Don’t suppose you noticed an entrance when you were here the other day?”

“No,” she said, making Arkk frown all the more.

“Alright,” he said, trying to keep his irritation out of his voice. “What—”

“The fairy and I only stopped on the roof. Once I realized its magic was active, I doubted I would be able to gain access on my own and returned.” Priscilla paused and angled her head downward. “One of the legs should have an access hatch.” She paused again and looked toward Arkk—without quite looking in the exact right direction. “Happy?”

Arkk pressed his lips into a strained smile, not that she would be able to appreciate it. “Thank you, Priscilla.”

Every step closer he took, the larger the structure looked. Which, he was aware, was how perspectives worked. Still, it just felt too large. Fortress Al-Mir was larger, of course, but it was immobile and buried underground, spread out far and wide. For something able to walk around, if those legs worked, it was mind-boggling.

And once they got fully underneath…

“The hatch won’t be immediately obvious,” Priscilla said as they circled the second leg of the building. “Look for a section of the brickwork that doesn’t mesh perfectly with the rest. It will also likely be on the inside of the legs, underneath the tower itself, rather than on the outside where invaders would have first access.”

“You seem to know a lot about this place,” Arkk said as conversationally as possible as he stopped at an odd section of the tower’s leg.

“Naturally. I used one.”

Arkk snapped his head back to Priscilla, eyebrows raising. He knew she had been a Keeper at one point. His discussion with Vezta after meeting the dragonoid had been enlightening. Though they didn’t know when or where, Priscilla bore definite scars of someone who had ended up destroying her own [HEART]. A lesser being would likely have been killed outright. It was only thanks to her dragonoid physiology that she continued to draw breath.

“A mobile fortress? In our world?”

“They used to be common. Every Keeper used at least one. Hard to wage war when you’re sitting in your bunker, waiting for the enemy to amass enough of an army to overwhelm whatever defenses you’ve got.”

Arkk nodded his head. He had been feeling that as of late. Still…

Vezta hadn’t mentioned mobile fortresses before. According to her, Fortress Al-Mir, damaged as it was because of the Calamity, couldn’t support the creation of a mobile fortress so she had simply neglected to discuss them in depth. She then had the gall to insist that she had mentioned it upon their first meeting when she called Fortress Al-Mir the Ultimate Defensive and Offensive fortress.

It wasn’t her fault the fortress was broken.

Reaching out to the suspected hatchway, Arkk snapped his hands back as a spark jumped from the shadowy bricks to his outstretched fingers.

“Active defenses?” Priscilla hummed, more to herself than to Arkk.

Arkk frowned, looking at the blackened mark of burned skin on the tips of his fingers. “It has defenses,” he said, tone flat.

“Of course. You don’t want the enemy taking the stairs up.”

“You could have mentioned that.”

“I thought it would be obvious,” she said, sliding Arkk aside. She clawed her hands and planted her palms against the shadowy bricks. Lightning crackled over the backs of her hands, melting ice into clouds of steam. “Flood it with your magic,” she said, her voice straining. “As much as possible.”

Hesitating only a little, Arkk placed his hand up against the brickwork. A few small sparks jumped out at him but with Priscilla taking the brunt of the defenses, it barely tickled.

It was like a ritual circle. As soon as he unleashed his magic, he could feel it flooding through hidden magical pathways and channels. Mentally mapping his magic, he started to get a picture of what the circle was designed to do. With that, he directed his magic, forcing it down certain paths while pulling it back from others.

With a hiss of differing air pressure equalizing and a cloud of orange dust, coating both him and Priscilla, the shadowy bricks retracted into the leg, folding into themselves as they slotted into the walls.

Priscilla stumbled when the wall disappeared but looked toward Arkk with an appraising look. “Huh.”

“What?”

“I thought we might have to destroy the bricks. How did you do that?”

Arkk just shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of experience working with ritual circles and figuring out why they go wrong.”

“Huh.” She said again, then motioned a hand into the dark opening. “Shall we?”

Arkk took one step before pausing. “How likely are there to be other traps?”

“Extremely.”

“Why… don’t you go first.”

“I’m blind.”

“Yes, but if the walls crush together, I’d rather have someone who can probably survive that ahead of me.”

Priscilla hesitated. Was she scared? Were the traps inside so deadly that even a dragonoid stood no chance? Arkk considered calling this whole thing off until they had a chance to come up with some ways of disabling the traps only for Priscilla to take one step into the opening. Then another.

She tried to take a third only for her foot to knock against the base of the first stair. Hands in front of her, she caught herself on the next few steps and slowly righted herself. Arkk watched as she hurriedly straightened her back in a way that he might have suspected embarrassment on anyone else. She promptly knocked her foot into the next step, making her stumble again.

“Frost,” she swore, “I hate stairs.”

Despite Priscilla grumbling about non-winged creatures and their need for stairs the entire time, they did successfully end up ascending the staircase to reach the tower proper. There wasn’t much to the legs of the structure beyond the stairs. No real rooms or spaces for people. Just traps.

Lots and lots of active traps.

Priscilla, implacable dragonoid that she was, plowed through them all. Some, Arkk had to help disable. Priscilla triggered the rest, allowing them to ascend before the trap reset.

If there was one thing Arkk was learning on this trip, it was how best to make traps around Fortress Al-Mir. Already, he had directed some lesser servants into the long tunnels stretching out of the fortress to start making way for a few new additions—in particular, Arkk was interested in the darkness trap that made it impossible to see more than a step ahead and a particularly nasty fireburst trap, which was the one thing that gave Priscilla pause—all of which would be magically activated. Here in the tower, the traps were constantly powered because of the ambient magic but a few of the smaller glowstones should be able to keep magical traps active back home.

Arkk was fairly certain that he had figured out how to make the traps activate only when someone not linked to the [HEART] of Fortress Al-Mir entered its range. Considering that the current defenses in Fortress Al-Mir consisted of pitfalls and ballistae that had to be manually operated and did not discriminate, he was fairly pleased with even this much.

Now, in the tower proper, he hoped to find even more.

The first few rooms they passed through, occupying much of the lower levels of the tower, weren’t all that interesting. There were guard rooms all around the staircase, providing space for minions to stand and wait for any intruders that made it inside. Slits for shooting arrows outside the tower adorned nearly every exterior wall. Armories, containing intact ancient loot and gear, provided a buffer between the operational areas of the lower tower and the living quarters. Living quarters, made of the same magical room that provided Al-Mir’s residents with their dwellings, occupied a massive chunk of the tower.

At full capacity, Arkk could easily imagine this place could carry thousands of soldiers. Not just carry, but support.

Above the living quarters were places for creature comforts, including canteens, baths, and food production. All roughly the same as what Fortress Al-Mir had. Even though the walls and floor were all made of the same shadowy bricks, it was easy to spot the similarities.

“The towers move surprisingly fast for buildings of their size. Most people don’t expect buildings to move at all, I suppose,” Priscilla said as they made their way through an empty dining hall. “That gives two options if, for example, you’re assaulting any regular walled town. Either you send out raiding parties from the tower ahead of the walking structure itself, using it as a base to support and retreat to, or you march the whole tower on the town, which will often have evacuated before its arrival.”

“Seems you could do both,” Arkk said. “Use your army to encircle a town but without fighting. No danger. Eventually, the tower arrives and you can stomp over everything without any chance of reprisal.”

Priscilla shook her head. “And what are you going to do with a bunch of dead farmers and crushed rubble? The point of it all is to take assets for yourself. Entire towns.” She paused and dipped her head, slightly. “Now, if you’re assaulting a castle or someplace with important people who you don’t want escaping to cause trouble later, that idea works well enough. Except for one problem.”

“Oh?”

“People get desperate. Between an army sieging them and the inevitability of a tower like this, people feel backed against a corner. Then they start taking drastic actions.” She scowled, letting out an angry noise from the back of her throat. “A human with nothing to lose will do their best to screw over everyone around them in the most spectacular ways possible. I’ve seen magical detonations the likes of which have reshaped mountains and carved valleys, meteors called down from the skies to flatten everything, and even… demons.”

Arkk stared at the dragonoid, part in awe, part in disbelief. “I’ve never heard of such magic. Except demon summoning.”

Priscilla waved a hand dismissively. “I came into my power just after the Calamity, before the full ramifications of what had happened became apparent. Magic then, magic before the Calamity—and just after—was stronger than it is today.”

Arkk hummed. At least he wouldn’t have to face that kind of power.

Then again, the rays of gold unleashed by the golden-eyed avatar were destructive enough on their own. The bricks comprising this tower and Fortress Al-Mir were reinforced magically, so he wasn’t sure if those golden rays would do serious harm, but he couldn’t underestimate them.

The upper quarter of the tower was where the more interesting aspects of the structure were located. An alchemy lab that occupied an entire floor of the tower was filled to the brim with all kinds of equipment that Arkk couldn’t even name. His middling adventures into alchemy had proved useful on occasion but he wondered what kind of concoctions he could make with a place like this. There were books as well. Not many. If this structure had been used in conjunction with a stationary fortress, he imagined most important books would be located there. The ones here were probably just for reference. Most were written in the same ancient script that was in the salvaged books from the original fortress library. For every ten like that, there was one that looked a little more readable. Not quite modern books but the writing was close enough that he felt he could decipher it given enough time.

A library and magical laboratory chamber, smaller even than the one at Fortress Al-Mir, did hold a few books. More of these were in the ancient script than the ones in the alchemy lab.

“I know you’re blind but can you read?”

“I’ve had a lot of humans ask stupid questions—”

“I mean in the past. Could you read? A lot of books are written in an ancient script—including some at my fortress. Nobody I’ve met so far can read them.” Not even Alya. It was one of the few things Arkk had been willing to ask her about. “But you said you know the old ways. If you could translate even a few bits that we could use to translate everything else, it would help.”

“I’ve been blind for a thousand years. I don’t know anything about modern writing.”

“Anything you can do would…”

Arkk trailed off. Exiting the library and entering yet another stairwell, he felt it.

A thump. A pulse. A beat in the shadowy stone around them.

It was faint. Distant. Yet, somehow, felt very close. He craned his neck upward, staring through the shadowy stone. Opaque though the bricks were, he could see the beating heart of the tower just above.

Arkk skipped the next two floors, barely peeking into the rooms adjacent to the stairs. One was filled with gold, likely what was used to power this fortress and transmute food for the kitchens. The other might have been used by the owner of the tower or one of their favored subordinates, looking like extremely fancy living quarters.

The floor above, near the top of the tower, had a heavily reinforced door blocking access. Like the entrance to the tower, it took him and Priscilla working together to get it open. This time with a little more emphasis on her strength as she dug her frozen claws into the metal to give herself leverage.

The chamber beyond was unlike the rest of the tower. Where every room prior could have been found in his own fortress, this room was a massive chamber that ate every speck of light that came in from the slit windows in the stairwell. Conjuring up a light spell did nothing to help. It was like the darkness trap from before except intensified a thousand times over.

Yet, Arkk could feel forward. There was something ahead of them. A pedestal made from shifting and flowing darkness.

A thump.

As Arkk drew near, the light hovering above his open palm siphoned off into the distance, encircling a small glass-like sphere that hovered above the pedestal. It greedily drank the magic from his spell, pulsing.

A beat.

Priscilla was saying something behind him. Arkk couldn’t hear her. The rhythmic thumps pounding through the shadowy stone were growing in intensity. Vezta had said something about this. She had given him instructions. Told him exactly what to do.

Every one of those instructions faded. He couldn’t remember a single one.

Instead, Arkk operated on pure instinct. He reached out a hand, planting it on the cold glass sphere. Just a trickle of his magic leaked into the orb. Pulled from him a little bit at a time, then a little bit more until he was flooding it with magic, faster and faster.

Its pulse shuddered, the thump jolting like an electric shock struck it. The entire tower shook and quaked.

But Arkk didn’t so much as stumble. His awareness expanded, moving to encompass everything within the tower.

The [HEART] let out another beat. This one in perfect timing with Arkk’s heart and the [HEART] of Fortress Al-Mir.

 

 

“They killed my wife and son! Burned my farm. My daughter succumbed to the cold while fleeing and I lost three fingers and two toes!” he shouted, holding up his left hand.

“Our village tried to fight back. We numbered barely a hundred but there were only a few of them, come to pillage our food stores like any common raider. They did… something. Magic. The young men defending our village turned to gold and started attacking each other before turning on the rest of us.” The woman choked on a sob. “Only six of us made it to the next village over.”

The reaction of the crowd shifted. The undercurrent of anger still swept through the people. This time, it was accompanied by a sense of awe. Everyone knew that large burgs between the border and Cliff had been targeted. It was tragic but expected. Hearing that the invaders were targeting even small villages with their strongest magic sent a wave of shock.

Edvin, dressed in tattered clothing, let the silence hang for a few moments, making sure the feelings settled into the crowd. “I have a friend in the manor guard,” he said slowly, rubbing his hands together before holding them out over the open flames.

Today, following along with Arkk’s plan to stir up some discontent, he was out in the largest of the temporary shelters outside Cliff City. Tents dotted the landscape, built all along the road that led to the city’s gates. The materials for building the tents had come mostly from one of the wealthy merchants in the city. Donated freely. An act that allegedly earned the merchant a little ire from the Duke.

When he had come here a week prior, Edvin had fully expected a need to lie, cheat, and steal to convince people to rise against the Duke. There was anger here. He knew that going into it. But it was one thing to be angry, it was another thing entirely to do something with that anger.

And yet, the Duke was practically doing all his work for him. Between word getting out that he would rather let the people who had traveled all this way die of the winter’s cold, handing out insufficient scraps of food from his storehouses, and the vastly unpopular move of proclaiming publicly his new alliance with Evestani, Edvin was honestly not sure he needed to be here at all.

It wasn’t just the people out in the tent city either. He had been inside the city during his week here. Even though the normal citizens of Cliff hadn’t been directly affected by the war—they had yet to see the massive armies cresting the distant horizon—the sea of refugee tents on their doorstep was enough to know just how poorly everything had been going, how much destruction there had been across the entire Duchy. The guards were even less thrilled. Although soldiers were ultimately paid by the Duke, thus working for him, they were still people. Citizens of the Duchy like any other.

And the guards were a little more informed than the regular citizens. They knew of the losses suffered throughout the Duchy. The ones remaining here had seen others shipped out to fight the invaders. And now…

“The manor guards are gearing up for another of the Duke’s lavish parties,” Edvin said, voice deliberately soft and controlled. “A lot of you aren’t local, so you might not know, but the Duke used to have a big party every few weeks with merchants and travelers and anyone wealthy or interesting enough to catch the Duke’s eye. Tons of fine food and drink, looted from the taxes and tributes the Duke enforces on all of us. Everyone wearing pure silk dresses and clothes the likes of which we’ll never touch in our lives.

“He hasn’t had one since the war started. The last one had some uninvited guests show up. Assassins from Evestani. Killed half the guests and almost killed the Duke himself.” Edvin let out a cool scoff. “Now, my guard friend tells me that the top name on the guest list… guess who?”

Edvin let the question hang. Even if some village idiot had survived and made it here, he doubted his implications would go over anyone’s head.

“We’re starving out here and he invites the enemy to share bread and wine?”

“More than bread, I imagine,” Edvin said. “Pies and cakes and meat by the cartload. Shimmering ale served in crystal glasses. Plates encrusted with gold. Think of the largest festival you ever had at whatever tiny village you came from and you’ll be close to what the Duke feasts on every night. So for a special occasion like this, you probably can’t even imagine how excessive it will be.”

A discordant grumble swept through the crowd with Edvin’s words. He suppressed a grin, masking elation at stringing the crowd along with rubbing his arms up and down. It helped that it really was freezing out.

“I don’t know about the rest of you all but my mother always said not to shake hands with a man who just tried to stab you in the back unless you want a knife in your chest.”

“Good riddance,” someone barked out. “I’ll attend the funeral just to piss on his grave,” he said, earning a few chuckles.

“Ah yes. I doubt anyone will be upset to see him go. But the problem is his guests. Evestani comes in here with the guards swinging open the gates for them—”

“My burg, Tweeden, opened the gates for them,” one woman said, scratching at an eyepatch that covered one side of her face. “I heard the guards were killed and replaced with Evestani. They killed half the people—anyone who resisted—and took all the food for themselves. When starvation set in and people got desperate, they killed them as well. A few of us slipped away in the chaos.”

Edvin nodded his head. Although irritated at being interrupted, the woman’s story illustrated his point perfectly. “Evestani kills the Duke and takes over. Then what happens to us? At best, they ignore us fleeing elsewhere. We run, find somewhere new. The winter is almost over so maybe we survive in the short term, but we’ve got no time to build houses and till fields while running. What kind of crops can be grown in time to survive next winter—if we even make it to then.”

“That’s the best option?” an older man asked.

“There are other ideas,” Edvin said with a shrug “Maybe the Duke himself forces us out tomorrow—or just tries to kill us—not wanting Evestani to see our… unsightly camp. At worst…”

“At worst,” the same woman said, “they kill us on their way into the city just because we’re camped out front.”

That morbid thought left another silence in its wake as people considered what they had just heard. It didn’t last long, quickly devolving into questions of what could be done.

“Should we run now?”

“If you want to lose more fingers and toes.”

“We can work the fields once the ground thaws. Building up here—”

“Work for Evestani?”

“They killed my family!”

“Or the Duke?”

“Bastard!”

Edvin sat forward, hunched over the fire as the flames around him grew in intensity. He had said his part for now. Too much too soon and a fire would smother. He had to stoke it properly, feeding it the right amount of fuel at the right times until it turned into a raging bonfire the likes of which could burn down cities.

He would move on to one of the other main groups around the tents today. Tomorrow, a stop inside the city to meet with a few of the angrier groups of people, stoking their flames.

For now…

“What’s going on here? Is everyone alright?”

A familiar voice cut through the arguing, stalling his carefully stirred fire. He glared up at the woman with striped tattoos. Katja, the bandit lord of Porcupine Hill, was the other prong of their plan. Seated atop a small cart loaded with supplies, she smiled down at the group with the fakest, cheesiest smile Edvin had ever seen her wear. He was fairly certain that she only smiled for real when watching her enemies flee from the desert wurms.

Despite the fake smile she wore, her appearance sent relief through the crowd. In the week since she had first appeared here, Katja had become well known. Her distinctive appearance, the hulking Horrik always at her side, and her odd ability to gather up spare bits of food, blankets, and medicine for anyone who asked had made her beyond popular out here in the tent city.

Sure enough, she set into asking if everyone had everything they needed for the next day or two. Enough blankets, clothes, and food. With Arkk’s backing, she could get just about anything delivered within a day.

She was necessary, even if Edvin didn’t like her presence here. Still, she could have let the fire in the people burn for a little longer before she came to squelch it with her relief.

Then again, she also presented an opportunity.

“Katja!” Edvin said, enjoying the brief moment when her smile cracked and her true nature glared through.

She hid it well and quickly, smiling once again though a little more strained. “Yes? Edvin, was it?”

“You can get just about anything, right?”

“I have my contacts,” she hedged. Edvin had heard commentary in her wake, suppositions that she was some kind of outlaw. Nobody cared enough to make a fuss, however. Not as long as she was the best thing to have happened to this camp since it sprung up. “Evestani has started moving around again, making it a little harder to get some things…”

“I don’t need anything much. Maybe a sword? A pike or spear? Even a dagger.”

Katja stared at him, confused for just a moment before her eyes roamed over the rest of the crowd he had been speaking with. “Most weapons are being used, if you know what I mean. Why do you ask?”

“Just got to thinking about how safe we are and how safe we’ll be in the future. Not sure whether to be more scared of enemies afar,” Edvin said, waving his hand out toward the greater Duchy, “or those closer at hand.” He gave a pointed nod of his head toward Cliff’s main gates.

Katja crossed her arms, humming as she thought. “I… might be able to scrounge up a few weapons. Maybe some armor as well, if you’re interested.”

“Am I? Hell, even if I’m lucky and don’t need them, I’m sure I can sell them for a pretty coin later on.”

Nodding her head, Katja said, “I’ll see what I can—”

“Hold,” the woman with an eyepatch said. “If the offer is open, I wouldn’t mind some gear myself.”

“I can use a bow,” someone else said. “For hunting, if nothing else.”

“Me too!”

“And me…”

Katja held up her hands, placating. “Alright, alright. I’ll speak to some people. It might not be fast, but this war has left a lot of unused equipment in its wake. I’m sure some of it will have fallen off some carts transporting it around.” There was a bit of discomfort at the idea of looting the bodies of soldiers. Katja expertly swept that away with a direct look at one of the people around the camp. “Cearl, how is your daughter? Do you need some more medicine?”

And just like that, she was back to the revered figure that she wanted to be seen as.

Edvin scoffed as he stalked off. There were other flames to stoke.

Some people saw a fairy’s wings and assumed they could fly like harpies. That wasn’t true. Harpies had light, weak bones and large wings in place of humanoid arms that let them power through the gravity holding them to the ground. While small and lithe—roughly the size of gremlins, though not as stocky generally—fairies had thin wings that were narrow and flimsy. Their wings could move fast enough and in a specific pattern to create a small pocket of air as a buffer between the fairy and the ground. In other words, they hovered.

In Leda’s view, hovering was not a glamorous form of travel. Someone who spent time training up their hover could outpace a human for a short time but harpies and even horses were faster while humans would catch up once a fairy tired out.

Knowing and having made friends with a few of the Duke’s harpies in the menagerie, Leda sometimes daydreamed about what it might be like to soar the skies. Legends passed down in fairy communities of ages long past—before the Calamity struck—said that fairies could use magic to augment their flight, carrying them through the skies faster than hawks. It always sounded so thrilling.

Now, numb fingers dug deep into the icy scales of a dragonoid’s shoulders while the wind whipped her blue hair into a flurry, Leda could confidently state that flight was overrated. She was nestled between two massive wings on the dragonoid’s back. They swept up and down, beating down equally massive amounts of air. Every thump sent deep reverberations through Leda’s small body, threatening to throw her off the dragon. Only the thin straps of a hastily constructed leather harness kept her from falling to the ground down below.

The fall might not kill a fairy. Although she couldn’t fly, she could slow herself enough that she should be able to walk away with only minor injuries. That wasn’t to say that she would survive. Protectors down below might not take kindly to her presence in their world.

She was supposed to be scouting right now, looking for any landmarks or areas of interest. Leda could barely keep her eyes open. They were moving so fast that the wind had dried her eyes out and made them itchy and raw if she tried to look.

“Arkk was right. There is really one out here…”

Despite the wind’s roar in her ears, the dragonoid’s cool tone wasn’t much different than if she had been sitting right next to Leda. “One what?”

The dragonoid didn’t respond. She banked, dropping Leda’s stomach.

“There.”

Despite the itch in her eyes, Leda forced them open.

The desolation of the Underworld surrounded them. Everywhere she looked, it was the same, dirt desert that was all around the portal. Leda had no idea how far they had traveled but it didn’t look like that desolation ever changed. The only thing of note on the horizon was a tall tower of shadow. A little plot of land that the orange light above the hazy clouds just couldn’t touch. Though she hadn’t seen it up close, she heard that the village near the portal was somewhat similar.

The odd thing was that they were headed directly toward it. “I thought you couldn’t see!” Leda shouted over the wind.

“I see what I need to see. The Stars, though different in this world, guide me.”

Leda had no idea what that was supposed to mean. All she knew was that the tower in the distance was quite rapidly growing closer. It was a simple tower of shadowy stone, but its base was odd. Like it hadn’t been built where it now stood and had rather moved there. For such a tall structure, that should have been impossible.

But Leda had seen several impossible things since being rescued from the Duke’s menagerie. Even before, with that fissure in the sky.

The distant tower wasn’t so distant at all, anymore.

The dragonoid still barreled onward, not slowing.

Leda’s fingers, numb from the cold of the dragonoid’s icy scales, clung ever tighter. “We’re going to crash!”

The moment she spoke, the dragonoid angled her wings. Leda found herself pointing straight up at the sky, rushing higher and higher as the shadowy stones of the tower swept by underneath them. They crested the top of the tower, soaring high over it. Something in the air must have alerted the dragonoid to that fact for, without a word from Leda, she adjusted her wings again, stalling their climb and dropping them back downward.

The pair landed atop the tower with a thump.

Leda, arms shaking from the flight, unlatched the harness. She dropped to the smooth, shadowy stones without even trying to catch herself. Why she had ever thought going flying would be fun was a question she couldn’t begin to answer. Not just flying, but flying with a blind dragonoid. It was lucky they hadn’t crashed into the building. The dragonoid might have been fine, they were true monsters, but riding on her back, Leda would have been battered and broken by the bricks.

And they still had to go back… Would the blind dragonoid even be able to find the way?

Shuddering, Leda picked herself up, standing. The dragonoid stalked around the flat roof of the tower, head down like she was staring at the structure below them. Although the bricks looked like they had been cast from molten shadow, they were solid and hardy to the touch.

“Do you see a door? A hatch?”

Leda looked around and started to shake her head in the negative until she realized that the motion wouldn’t be seen. “No. Just flat bricks. They all look like they’re made of shad—”

The dragonoid didn’t wait for her to finish. She lifted a foot and slammed it back down. The entire tower shook and trembled but the stone remained firmly in place, even after the dragonoid continued stomping on the roof. Leda worked her wings, bringing her to a slight hover to keep from losing her footing because of the shaking ground.

“Magically reinforced. Someone is actively using it? Or is the magic in the air keeping it active? It seems inert, but…”

“What?” Leda didn’t understand a thing of what was being said. It was clear the dragonoid knew something.

Figuring she would be blown off again, it came as some surprise when the dragonoid turned to her. “This is a mobile fortress. A machine of war.”

 

 

The Greater Kingdom of Chernlock was made up of four separate states. The Kingdom of Chernlock to the southeast, the Duchy to the northeast, and two principalities on the eastern side of the peninsula. Shortly after the war began, the Duchy had sent for reinforcements which were just now arriving from the Kingdom to the south.

Arkk wasn’t sure where the communication breakdown occurred. From what he knew, based on what Vrox told him, the Abbey of the Light had pushed the Duke into this alliance. The main headquarters of the Abbey was down in Chernlock and had close ties with the King. So either the army in transit had not received alternate orders yet, the King disagreed with the Abbey’s recommendations, or the Abbey had splintered into two factions with only the local leaders pushing for this alliance. Whichever of the three options, scrying on the southern border of the Duchy was certainly an interesting affair. It almost looked like a war was about to break out between the Duchy and the Kingdom.

The King’s forces were being denied entry.

Then there was the poor state of the Duke’s Grand Guard. The effective army of the Duchy hadn’t escaped their few encounters with Evestani without suffering casualties. In the week since the decision to ally with the invaders, the Grand Guard had shrunk.

Deserters. People who didn’t agree with the Duke’s decision. Maybe they had lost people or their homes to Evestani’s assault, maybe they heard what Arkk had done to Gleeful Burg and just didn’t want to fight that kind of force. The army had split up and the deserters scattered. From scrying, it seemed like the deserters were acting more like brigands or raiders, needing food and supplies in the middle of winter while having nowhere to go.

That they had decided to turn around and start attacking the people they had been charged with protecting irritated Arkk. Nevertheless, the chaos in the Duchy was good for him. It was hard for Evestani, cowering in Elmshadow Burg, to launch a joint assault against him with an army that couldn’t even form a straight line without punching each other.

Besides that…

“There is opportunity in the chaos,” Arkk said, looking around his table of advisors. “The deserters need food and shelter. We can provide.”

The usual crew was present. Olatt’an, Rekk’ar, Ilya, Vezta, Zullie, Savren, Khan, Lexa, and Alma. Arkk had also invited a few others. Edvin sometimes joined meetings when Arkk felt he had input worth sharing. The conman sat between Lexa and Alma, looking pleased as could be for being included. Katja, the bandit lord sat at the table as well, trying to look unimpressed while clearly confused as to why someone not part of his employees was with them. Sylvara Astra looked around the assembled group with narrowed eyes, included because of her possible input and because her current stated goal was to ‘destroy the child-possessing monster of the Golden Order’ even before any other duties that the Abbey might saddle her with.

Alya had not been included. Ilya would tell her everything later, probably, but Arkk had no desire to listen to the woman who would probably run back to the Duke if given an opportunity. The newest member of Arkk’s minions was not present either. Priscilla, though she initially claimed to want to guide him, had been rather despondent as she languished in her private quarters deep within the fortress. He had ideas for her but he didn’t want to push too soon. Employee though she was at the moment, he doubted that would last if he offended her too much. Best to take things slow and make sure that she could be trusted and wouldn’t stab him in the back the moment she saw an opportunity.

“You plan to recruit the deserters?” Olatt’an asked.

“Recruit is the keyword, yes,” Arkk said with a nod of his head. “This is not an offer of housing as we’ve done for the various refugees we’ve taken in. They sign up or they get the boot.”

Rekk’ar curled a lip. “They deserted one army,” he said, most hypocritically given how he and Arkk first met. “You can’t trust them to stick around.”

“I’m hoping that they are generally good people who just can’t abide by the Duke’s actions any longer. We can provide needs, food, and shelter, but also a way to carry on a more noble fight than their current brigand-like activities. Evestani is our enemy. The opportunity to continue fighting them should entice at least some of the guard.”

Lexa’s sharp teeth gleamed as she grinned. “Failing the noble route,” she said with a scoff, “I’m sure more than a few would be happy to stick around for a little coin.”

Arkk dipped his head, nodding in agreement. He didn’t have exact numbers on the deserters. There were a few larger groups that were obvious and a few other less obvious groups in smaller numbers. Potentially, they could bolster Fortress Al-Mir’s numbers by several hundred up to a thousand if every single person who deserted joined up—which wasn’t likely. Maybe more if the deserters knew of other malcontents who were still with the Duke’s men. Already, he had the lesser servants expanding the fortress down below for food production and living quarters, among other necessities.

There was a small problem. While he was still mining from the vein of gold that lay deep beneath the fortress, the current output couldn’t sustain a gold coin a month for more than about three to five hundred additional people. He could—and almost certainly would—pay less than a full coin a month to the deserters. But that was only a delay to the problem. Having no idea how long that vein of gold would last was another issue. If it suddenly dried up and he had nothing else to fall back on, he would be the one experiencing desertion.

To that end, he was considering ways to recycle some of that coin. The orcs already had their small fight pit tournaments. He could expand that into company-sponsored fighting bouts where he could charge a fee to attend. Or large gambling dens where the house took a cut of the proceeds.

It was one of the reasons he wanted to speak with Katja. The bandit lord should have ideas for keeping men happy and in line.

“We’ll discuss the exact specifics of what we can offer later. For now, I want our most charismatic personnel ready to go out recruiting these deserters in short order.”

Edvin straightened his back, brushing some imaginary dust from his shirt. “I would be happy—”

“Not you,” Arkk said.

The smile on Edvin’s face turned to a devastated gawk. “But—”

“Edvin, Edvin, Edvin,” Arkk said, rounding the table. “I have a far more important job for you.”

“Oh.” He looked dejected for a moment longer before Arkk’s words finally registered. “Oh?”

“Desertions might be the most pressing of the Duchy’s problems, but they’re far from the only problems. Just yesterday, the Duke had to suppress a small group of troublemakers in Cliff. People, not soldiers, were as displeased with the Duke and the Abbey’s decision as everyone else.

“It was only a few people. Just a handful. Nonetheless, it got me thinking…”

“Oh…” Edvin said, this time with understanding in his tone. “You want someone with quick wit and a sly tongue to, shall we say, stir up a little more discontent?”

Arkk shook his head slowly. “Many who fled from Evestani’s march found their way to Cliff. Displaced and with their homes likely destroyed, they’ve got nowhere else to go. A whole city of tents has formed outside the walls. I can’t imagine many are happy that the Duke is now inviting their oppressors straight to the heart of the city, cozying up and sharing wine like old friends.

“I don’t want discontent,” Arkk said. “I want riots. I want the Duke to cower in the walls of his manor while the people flood the streets. So many that the few guards still in the capitol can’t just show up and arrest them. If possible, having the garrison guard join in would be ideal.”

“That… Although my talents are beyond inconsiderable, that is a tall order.”

Arkk clapped the man on his shoulders. “I can’t think of anyone else with the ability to incite ire like you can, Edvin.”

Katja snorted at the statement, making Arkk turn to her.

“And you’re going to help,” he said.

“Excuse me? I’m not one of your toy soldiers.”

Arkk stepped away from Edvin, approaching Katja. Not too close. Horrik, her bodyguard and ever-present shadow, shifted behind her in a way that wasn’t quite threatening while still being warning. “You shared with me your vision of the future. Queen Katja, was it? Why not get a jump on that dream right now?

“The Duke has never been popular. He held the Duchy together well enough. Now, however? Get your people spread throughout the city and the refugee camps, posing as the displaced, to help Edvin drum up his riots. Put yourself at the center of it all, maneuver and lie and cheat and whatever else it is that you’re best at. Make contact with merchants and other elites, garner their support, and, at the peak of everything, make sure you’re standing in the right place at the right time.”

“That’s so easy to say,” Katja said with a shake of her head. “Pulling off a coup will be harder than a few honeyed words.”

Arkk just shrugged. He knew it wouldn’t be easy. Or simple. Now was the best time for riots and what were riots but a precursor to a full coup. Even still… “Do it right and you’ll have the support of the people, the power of the wealthy, and whatever aid I decide to lend from the shadows.”

“And I suppose you expect me to wear a collar around my neck? I usually like to be the one holding the leash.”

“Frankly, you would be hard-pressed to be half the pile of refuse that the Duke is. Keep the Duchy running smoothly and don’t ally with my enemies and you’re free to do whatever you want.”

Mostly. There were a few things he might lean on her for. However, given her former past as a slave and stated distaste for slavers, employment of non-humans, and track record of successfully running a criminal empire, he figured that she could hardly be worse than the Duke.

Katja hummed, thoughtful and considering. She glanced back to Horrik. Not for one of those silent communications that people sometimes had, more like she was using his face to help organize her thoughts, maybe considering the whos, hows, and logistics of such an endeavor.

“I’ll consider my options.”

“Consider fast. Edvin is moving out tomorrow along with a few others from my employ to help. Drumming up support for yourself will be harder if you suddenly pop out of nowhere at the end.”

Katja nodded, leaving Arkk to turn back to the rest of the table.

Presuming this plan worked perfectly—which Arkk would never plan for—the Duchy would be tied up for the foreseeable future. Potentially permanently if Katja did manage her takeover. Even without that, angry people and a confused army from the Kingdom would keep them off his back for a little longer.

“That still leaves Evestani and the Golden Order,” Ilya said, following his thoughts. From the frown on her face, he doubted she was all that pleased with his plan. Less the assault on the Duke—she would probably not blink an eye if Arkk suggested outright assassination—and more the person he planned to put in his place.

There might be better choices out there but Katja wanted the job and Arkk did not. Managing Fortress Al-Mir and dealing with all the baggage it came with was more than enough for his plate, thank you very much.

“Evestani’s regrouping army is under the protection of the golden avatar,” he said, looking to Zullie and Savren. The former shook her head while the latter just shrugged. Outside of Savren examining Agnete and her flame magic over the last few days, neither had any real starting point for dealing with the magic of avatars.

So he looked to Sylvara Astra.

“The Abbey of the Light—or rather, the Inquisition of the Light—collects anathema and uses those magics against their enemies. I don’t suppose you know of anything that the Inquisition may have in their stores that can fight off an avatar of the Heart of Gold?”

Agnete, being one of those anathema, wasn’t extremely knowledgeable about much of what the inquisitors worked with beyond things that involved herself. Arkk was hoping that Master Inquisitrix Astra would have a little more light to shed on the subject.

“The Abbey of the Light carries out numerous experiments and investigations into any magic we do not understand. Through these experiments, Binding Agents are developed that nullify such powers. Purifier Tybalt’s Binding Agent took the form of the bracers you saw. Agnete’s is the… ice marble,” she said, wrinkling her nose at the terminology.

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“The Abbey may or may not have research on abilities demonstrated by the Golden Order’s anathema user. If so, I am unaware of that research,” Sylvara admitted. “If, as you suppose, the Abbey has splintered between the branches in the Kingdom and the Duchy, the Ecclesiarch Manfred Engel at the Grand Temple may be willing to lend us aid. If the Abbey as a whole is unified against the one who caused the fissure in the sky, on the other hand…”

“Contacting them would be dangerous? The worst they can do is say no. Or ignore the request entirely.”

Sylvara shook her head, locking her red eyes on him. “Every bit of additional information about a subject helps the oracles hone in on truth and dispense with distractions. It might not seem like much but a delivered letter, the contents within, the direction the letter came from, and even the paper type or ink type used will let them pinpoint facts about you.”

She clenched her teeth, rubbing the palms of her hands against her knees. One hand was still that of a clawed monstrosity, currently wrapped with black linen to hide it away. Sylvara glared at it like she had just remembered it. She hadn’t objected to it. In fact, she had requested Hale be allowed to continue healing her in order to get her out of the wheelchair she was in. “I shouldn’t… tell you that,” she bit out. “You are anathema. But that golden-eyed abomination… If the Abbey has allied with such a creature, it has failed in its mission.”

Arkk pressed his lips together. “If we sent you away from here, to a safe burg or even a smaller village where I have never been, would you be able to write to the Ecclesiarch or your superiors or whoever you need to ask questions? Ask about their stance toward me, Evestani, and perhaps relay the story of your encounter with the golden-eyed being that you told me and ask if they have a way to counter the possession at the very least.”

“The oracles may discern that we are working together. They may set a trap or feed false information.”

“A risk,” Arkk said with a frown, “but as it stands, we have no information. Nothing ventured…”

“I’ll consider the best method to gain information,” Sylvara said with a nod of her head.

“Consider fast,” Arkk said again. He turned to the rest of the room. “Other topics. Zullie, how goes old magic research?”

“I have an experiment I would like for you to test. A new spell.”

“Good. We’ll see how it goes after this. Our new friend may be able to assist with that topic. She claimed to know old ways and such,” Arkk said with a nod before turning to Savren. “Effects of undoing the Calamity on both the Underworld and our world?”

“A dearth in definite data denies denouement. Source of sorcery starts several stratums separate from our subject of scrutiny. I require resources in the form of redundant realms for review.”

Arkk stared at him a moment, parsing his words. “You want to travel to a different plane for experimentation?”

“Right.”

Arkk pressed his lips together, glancing at Vezta. “We did suspect there would be clues over there. The Protectors have us stalled but with Priscilla’s aid… She is blind but she could carry someone and, together, search the land over there for anything else of interest. I’ll ask her if she is willing.” Arkk turned, looking at the orcs in the room. “Any news on the Protectors?”

“A new one showed up yesterday,” Rekk’ar said with a shrug. “That makes five sitting around and watching us. Still no sign of hostility.”

“Sending out scouts might provoke them. I’d still prefer to ally with them rather than fight. Maybe we can try talking beforehand. If that fails… We’ll be sure to be ready.” Everyone stationed on the other side of the portal could cast a minimum of two lightning bolts before collapsing. That, combined with some assistance, would have to be enough.

“Ilya,” Arkk said, looking at the tall elf. “Any trouble among the refugees?”

“Quite the opposite, actually. I’m not sure how but word got out that the Duke is allying with Evestani. That’s going over about as well as you expect.”

Arkk crossed his arms, looking back to Edvin and Katja. “Look out for volunteers to leave for Cliff. Slipping in a hundred more people will only bolster the riots.”

Ilya did not look impressed. Her silver eyes glared. “You’re going to use them? Poor people who have nowhere else to go?”

“I’m asking for volunteers. Just like I asked for blacksmiths and cooks. They’re free to return here after if they wish. They really only need to show up once things in Cliff heat to the point of boiling over—it might not be for weeks yet. I’m not kicking them out or getting rid of them.” He shook his head. “It’s just something to feel out among them. Anything else of immediate importance?” Arkk asked when Ilya didn’t speak for a second. He looked to Khan and Alma. The former looked half asleep, utterly blissful, while the latter still sat on the edge of her chair like she had no idea what to do with herself.

“Alright,” Arkk said. “We have our plans. Let’s get to them.”

 

 

The dilapidated ruins of the false fortress were more than they appeared. Initially, when designed to fool Vrox, the ruins had looked like a weather-worn version of the regular fortress. Agnete’s arrival burned away the enchantments on the walls and floor, leaving them little more than regular stone which promptly burned and turned to slag under her fire. As she continued through the corridors, the burned fortress walls and floors lost connection with the rest of Fortress Al-Mir and reverted to bare dirt and earth.

Anticipating the possibility that the inquisitors might return to investigate the ruins, Arkk had been careful when reclaiming the false fortress. Lesser servants, when claiming territory, automatically reinforced the walls and floors with stone tiles and glowstones. Rooms such as the foundry, private quarters, canteen, and so on, were like layers on top of the base foundations. So he had designed a ‘room’ to go over the top of all the corridors that appeared to be little more than crumbling dirt tunnels.

The further in one went, the less burned and husked they would find the false fortress. Once they reached the point where Agnete had stopped, things would look more or less like a worn-down version of the rest of Fortress Al-Mir. There wasn’t much in the empty rooms, however.

There were only two locations of note. One was a circular brickwork pit, designed to look like the [HEART] chamber. It had no floating maze-like sphere hovering over the pit and, while the real [HEART] chamber didn’t seem to have a bottom, the false version was merely deep. The other room was the teleportation hub. Six ritual circles would take anyone who used them out of the fortress and to a variety of small clearings. Once upon a time, those clearings each contained six more ritual circles leading out to six more clearings. Each of those had more teleportation circles that went to the other clearings, making a big messy maze that didn’t have a proper exit.

The initial plan with the teleportation circles had been to ‘escape’ the inquisitors. Arkk could have led them on a merry chase throughout the false fortress before teleporting himself directly back to the real fortress, leaving behind the impression that he had taken one of the six circles. The inquisitors wouldn’t have known which circle was real—none of them were—and would have been forced to give up the chase, departing with the impression that Arkk had escaped to elsewhere in the Duchy.

That plan had not survived contact with the enemy at the time. In a way, it was good that they had never been discovered. It kept the exact method by which Arkk moved through the Duchy a secret.

Now, all the clearings had been more or less destroyed by wind and weather and animals. The room itself was still there within the false fortress, safe and secure underground.

It was there that Arkk teleported in, appearing in one of the ritual circles but using the free movement within Fortress Al-Mir rather than the circle.

If this dragonoid was loyal to Evestani, he wanted to give away as little as possible. Best to disguise his movements wherever he could.

The dragonoid, at the moment, was stumbling around the dirt tunnels. To further confuse any intruders, the tunnels were a maze. Arkk wasn’t sure if the dragonoid had noticed that they looped back around; she had been wandering in roughly the same two hallways for the last six hours.

Arkk stretched out an arm, extending the oily tendril just a little too far before remembering himself. The doors in the false fortress didn’t open on their own. The whole purpose of the place was to look abandoned. Like how Fortress Al-Mir had been before he took over. Thus, manual doors.

Moving through the maze of the false fortress with a surety of step that no one else would be able to replicate, Arkk reached the looping corridor that the dragonoid was in after only a few minutes. He stared through Vezta’s eyes, noting how perfectly she could see in the dark.

The dragonoid, one hand dragging along the wall, walked away from Arkk. Now that he had a frame of reference in the rest of the fortress, he could tell that she wasn’t actually that large. She stood about a head shorter than he did, maybe about the size of Vezta, and had her massive wings folded up to the point where they were just twin tentpoles sticking up over her shoulders. He had no idea how they fit all shrunk up like that. By all means, she should barely be able to walk through the corridor.

She was a woman. The icy coating over her body didn’t hide her chest and she didn’t appear to wear clothing over the top of the ice. It was a bit odd that she had a chest. Most lizard-like beastmen didn’t have them. Gorgon did. They were the odd species out in that regard. Perhaps because they all came from different worlds?

Arkk lightly cleared Vezta’s throat. It wasn’t quite the same operation as clearing his throat. Her throat just didn’t work the same way. Nevertheless, it made a small noise.

The dragonoid whipped its entire body around so fast that it was almost like she had teleported in place. Her wings spread to fill some of the corridor and the ice-like scales coming off her cheeks glinted in the few dim glowstones that lit the false fortress. Vezta’s eyes let him see her frosty breath. What surprised him most were her eyes.

They were iced over. Milky and dead.

“Who approaches?” the dragonoid called out. Her head turned like she was scanning the hallway yet didn’t stop when she crossed over him. “Announce yourself!”

No wonder it had taken her weeks to find the entrance to the false fortress. Or… how had she found it? Blind, circling high in the air, Arkk couldn’t see how she would have ever noticed.

“I know you’re there. There is something strange about you. The light of the Stars, brought low…” the dragonoid murmured. “Speak! Or has your tongue frozen over in my presence.”

Master, Vezta said from within, the creature awaits a response.

Arkk drew a breath into Vezta’s body, licking her lips. Which was certainly an odd thing to think about—possession really made everything weird.

“You invade my home and make demands?” Arkk said, projecting as haughty of an attitude as possible. Confident and firm. If there was one thing he had learned from his encounter with the gorgon, it was that a little spine went a long way when dealing with a potential hostile. “State your name and purpose and I shall respond in kind.”

The dragonoid took an aggressive step forward.

Arkk held position. There were twenty paces between them. Unless the dragonoid really could teleport, he could move far faster than she could cross even five paces.

But the dragonoid did not continue. She paused and a thoughtful look crossed her features. “Your home? You’re the Keeper of the Heart. Or a minion?”

The dragonoid knew about that, it seemed. Was that a good or bad sign? Either way, Arkk didn’t respond. He waited, watching the dragonoid as she brought up a hand to her mouth. Her hands were… odd. Arkk couldn’t quite tell if they were normally claws or if the ice coating her hands was simply in the shape of taloned claws.

She came to a decision, stepping forward without anger or aggression. She sniffed at the air a few times before her lips parted into a wide smile filled with sharp teeth. “I am Priscilla,” she said, planting a hand on her chest. “The first daughter of the late cryo dragon Lagorn.”

That seemed cordial enough, Vezta said. Perhaps she has traveled to join us?

That would certainly be the optimal outcome. “Arkk. Keeper of Fortress Al-Mir.” If she already knew this was a fortress, there wasn’t much point in hiding it.

“The Keeper. Finally.” She started forward again. The movement and the way she spoke made Arkk tense, unnerved at the eager tone. “The very Stars led me here. They showed me the way when I got lost and—”

The tension vanished in an instant as Priscilla’s foot knocked against a small lump on the uneven floor of the false fortress. Bits of loose rock and stone kicked up into the air, accompanied by a pulsing warning from the [HEART] that his domain was under attack. Priscilla’s arms pinwheeled through the air and her wings spread out, but they knocked against the corridor walls before they could fully extend.

She fell flat on her face with a grunt.

Arkk stared, eyes wide. Possessing Vezta, he could feel her incredulity.

Priscilla didn’t move. She went so utterly still that Arkk felt a pang of worry for the creature despite their reputation for violence and viciousness.

“Um…”

“Fine! I’m fine.” Using her wings, not her arms, Priscilla pushed herself back to her feet, dusting her front off with her hands as best as a blind person could. “I sought you out for one reason and one reason alone,” she said, trying to carry on as she had before. The haste in her speech felt more like embarrassment than anything natural. “Lesser keepers pop up all the time. Ones blessed by the Stars are few and far between. And likely running out. There may never be one like you again.

“Thus, you require a guide. Someone to keep you on the correct path. I know the old ways. I know the ancient tongues. I know how things are and how things were and how things should be. The world is broken. You might not believe it. You might not see it. But I can see things—”

“You want to revert the Calamity?”

The dragonoid’s icy eyes blinked twice even as she stared slightly off from where Arkk actually stood. “Oh. You… know? Are you…” She paused with a confused frown drawn across her face. “The Stars brought low,” she murmured before her eyes widened. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? I thought the last of you died centuries ago.”

“I’m just a human, but you could say—”

“Human?” Confusion, anticipation, excitement, and even embarrassment all twisted away into a fierce scowl. “A human? Blessed by the Stars? Impossible. While I smell human on you, you don’t smell human.”

Arkk pressed Vezta’s lips together into a thin, worried grimace. He had a feeling that the next few words would determine whether or not this dragonoid would contract with Fortress Al-Mir or try to kill him to leave the power open for another she could guide.

“The one you smell is of the Stars,” Arkk said, speaking firmly. “Vezta. My chief advisor and guide. She lent me her body for this meeting, knowing you would be more hostile to humans than anything else. She is also the one who chose me for the Heart of Fortress Al-Mir.”

Priscilla clenched and unclenched her icy claws as she paced back and forth in the corridor. Arkk watched carefully, ready to teleport the moment she turned her ire in his direction. She mumbled to herself as she moved, grumbling under her breath. “Why a human? There must be others more worthy. They caused this…”

She pivoted on her foot and slammed her fist into the wall. Arkk could feel the tremor from where he stood yet the wall, despite looking like a rough dirt wall, still held tight to its reinforcement magics. The dragonoid didn’t leave a mark. Which Arkk took as a good sign. At least she wouldn’t be as bad to deal with as Agnete.

“You, human,” she said, pointing a clawed finger in the completely wrong direction. Had she gotten turned around during her pacing? “You are possessing the Servant of the Stars? Vacate the body immediately.”

Arkk lightly cleared his throat, making the dragonoid whip around fast enough that her tail thwacked against the wall.

She hissed as she dropped into a combat stance. “An ambush?”

“No, just me still. Are you actually blind?”

“I see what I need to see, human,” she said, spitting the word but slowly straightening to her body into a slightly more relaxed pose. “I see the guiding light of the Stars, I see the burning hearts of my kin, and I see the fear in your heart at my presence. Vacate the servant and allow me to ask questions without your poisoned tongue in the way. Do so and you will have nothing to fear from me until my questions have been answered.”

It could be a trick to get you in a more vulnerable position, Vezta said. Not likely based on what we have seen, I will admit, but the possibility exists.

That was true. It could be a trick. Arkk doubted it. Practically the first thing that the dragonoid had said was that he—or rather, Vezta was of the Stars. She sounded more like an ardent believer in the Light, except replace Light with Stars, than she sounded like an assassin of the Evestani Sultanate.

That didn’t mean that he wasn’t in danger. Frankly, between the Abbey of the Light and the Golden Order, Arkk was sick and tired of religion. Maybe that was an odd thing to say for someone who had literally talked with a god but…

Arkk ended the spell. He reappeared in the real world, blinking a few times at just how dark the corridor was. Red light from his eyes illuminated the corridor a little better than the faint glowstones but it was a far cry from what Vezta could see.

Vezta, at his side, reverted her pose from his wider stance to her usual prim posture with her hands clasped together at her waist.

“Very well,” Arkk said, speaking in his own voice. “Ask your questions.”

“Before that,” Vezta cut in, “allow me to answer your most likely inquiries and save us all a great deal of time. What you heard earlier was true. Arkk is the master of Fortress Al-Mir and he has proved himself to be a most adequate master. Already, we have earned an audience with the Lock and Key. The crystalline portal functions once more, though it is currently locked to the Underworld. Our progress has been stalled by the war but that is a temporary setback. I do not doubt that we will emerge victorious and continue our work.

“And I will suffer no insults toward my Master.”

Priscilla’s sharp teeth clanked as she clamped her jaw shut, cutting off what likely would have been an insulting retort. After seething for a moment, she opened her mouth. “Why? Why a human?”

Vezta turned her head, looking at Arkk with a kind smile. “He was in the right place at the right time.”

“That’s it?” Priscilla asked after a moment of silence. “Luck?”

Rather than respond, Vezta simply turned her head back to the dragonoid, regarding the woman with a cold look. She cocked her head to one side as if trying to decide what to do with her. A fairly useless gesture with someone who was blind if she was trying to communicate something.

“Luck doesn’t make someone worthy, they must desire the power, seize it, and wrest it. There must have been someone else—”

“And who would you suggest? Yourself?” Vezta cocked her head to the other side, stepping forward.

“What?” Priscilla took a step backward. The muscles in her cheeks twinged like she was blinking but her eyes didn’t quite close. “N… No, I—I can’t…”

“No? Are you not worthy?” Vezta said, stepping forward again. “I can see what I need to see as well as you can. I can see the scars. No, not your eyes,” Vezta said as Priscilla brought a hand toward her face. “You’ve done it before. You contracted with a [HEART]. Perhaps had one of my sisters at your side? And where did that get you? Here you are with your eyes dead and your [HEART] cold. I might not have seen your reign, but I can guess. You were corrupted. Delved into the power offered and wanted more, more, and more. Hating humans as you do, you must have turned the power of the [HEART] against them and waged war until…

“Until your [HEART] cracked.”

Priscilla’s head snapped back like she had been struck.

Vezta’s sun-like eyes burned as a smile spread across her face. “Guessed right, did I? Who cracked it? Your enemy’s blade after your incompetence drew them into the center of your fortress? One of your minions in a bout of rebellion? Or… Did you do it yourself, seeking ever more power beyond your own limitations?”

“No! No, it wasn’t like—”

“Arkk may not be the most optimal master. He may not make the best decisions in every situation—”

“Hey…” Arkk said, weakly.

“But he is a loyal and kindhearted master. He does the best he can. That is enough for me. Enough for Fortress Al-Mir. He hasn’t succumbed to corrupting temptations, nor has he engaged in depravity of the sort that would cause such injuries on you.” Vezta sneered, glaring at the blind dragonoid even as the latter stumbled back with practically every word.

Arkk had never seen Vezta like this. She rarely got angry. Rarely raised her voice. Even when she did, it wasn’t… this. Vezta’s fury wasn’t as palpable as someone like Agnete’s might have been. She made it plenty apparent in her lashing tongue.

The wild and vicious choler backed Priscilla over another bump on the uneven floor. This time, she didn’t even try to fight gravity, letting it slam her into the ground. Her blank eyes stared up at the ceiling even as the rest of her body went still.

Vezta stopped her forward assault just a pace away from Priscilla’s prone body. Arkk followed along, frowning as he looked over the two.

“Vezta,” he said, voice soft.

The Servant of the Stars let out a sigh, shaking her head slightly as she looked down on the catatonic dragonoid. “Master, magnanimous as he is, will forgive you for your crimes even if I argue for your execution. But only if you kneel, scrape your face on the ground, and lick the soles of his boots.”

“You don’t need to lick my boots,” Arkk said instantly.

“Kindhearted and loyal,” she said with another sigh.

With a shake of his head, Arkk looked down at the dragonoid. She had hardly moved since falling. Had she hit her head? He was a little concerned despite her recent vitriol against him purely because he was a human. “You… don’t look like you’re in much of a state to discuss things further,” he said. “I’ll be back in—”

“No,” the dragonoid said. Her voice, soft and lofty, came with a mist of icy crystals on her breath. “I understand.” Rolling over, she tried to dig her claws into the dirt floor. The loose rock moved but the actual floor underneath remained static under the magical reinforcement of the fortress.

Arkk tensed, worried she would lash out at him.

She slammed her head into the ground, bowing in front of him. “The Servant is right. I have… wasted my worthiness. All I can do is help you.”

Her words hung in the air, accompanied by a ping through the [HEART]. A link formed. Without accepting payment—much like what Ilya had done when they first found Fortress Al-Mir—Priscilla entered into his employ.

Arkk pressed his lips together, not sure if he was disappointed or not. On one hand, it felt like he had just pressed someone in distress into his service once again. On the other, Priscilla was an old being who claimed to know the old ways. Did that include magic? Or literature? She was blind but if she could give a key to translate the tomes in his library, who knew what he might discover.

“Normally, I would interview you, discover where you can be best used, give a tour of the fortress, and other onboarding tasks. At the moment, you look like you need some time to yourself.” Arkk looked over to Vezta.

Besides that, he had a few questions for the servant.

“I’ll find you a room. We’ll onboard later tonight.”

 

 

 

Arkk stared at the distant Elmshadow Burg with his lips pressed into a thin line. Everything had been going so well.

Elmshadow’s keep had been ruined in the initial defense of the burg and it had not been repaired. With the white mist obstructing his scrying, Arkk wasn’t able to determine exactly where the majority of the Evestani occupiers would be stationed. A few refugees in Fortress Al-Mir, originally from Elmshadow, had given him a few ideas of possible locations within the burg, so he had targeted them.

The first two boulders fell unimpeded, crashing straight to the earth with all the destructive power their weight carried. He then ran into the problem of a hazy defense springing up around the burg, much like the one at the initial assault of Gleeful. He figured it would take less effort to break. The moment it sprung up, it was weak and flickering. Six boulders would probably have been enough, rather than over a dozen at Gleeful.

Now, well into six or seven dozen boulders, Arkk stared at the golden dome that surrounded the burg.

It had sprung up just as the normal defense had failed. And it was not taking any apparent damage.

In some ways, it was a relief. Arkk hadn’t been sleeping well ever since Gleeful. He still didn’t think it had been the wrong thing to do. It had stopped Evestani’s advance and the destruction they left in their wake. Having seen reports on the aftermath, the thousands dead at his hands, that was a small consolation.

It had taken nearly twenty days to recharge the glowstones. Almost a week longer than the initial charging time with Zullie working on her own. Zullie had spent a majority of the early days training volunteers to work the ritual circles in the Underworld without damaging the stones. Hopefully, now that her apprentices were trained up, the next charging time would be faster.

“Pack it up,” Arkk said, looking around the group with him.

The apprentices Zullie had taken on had probably been expecting to learn some proper magic, rather than rote memorization of a repetitive task, and Arkk planned to ensure they received some instruction. For now, Vezz’ok—the orc who had assisted with the ritual—worked alongside an elf named Hyan and two former bandits who had ditched Katja in favor of working under Arkk, Morvin, and Gretchen. Vezz’ok hauled the large crate of glowstones back to the teleportation circle while the other three dismantled the bombardment ritual.

Arkk moved alongside Agnete, the latter standing guard between the circle and Elmshadow. Much like at Gleeful, they were at the bombardment ritual’s maximum range so he wasn’t expecting any return fire from the burg. Still, best to be prepared with the one person who could deflect that golden beam. If it could even reach all the way out here.

Though, as long as that golden dome stood, Arkk doubted they had anything to fear.

He had discussed his encounters with the golden avatar with his circle of advisors. The consensus was that their opponent couldn’t work his powerful magic back-to-back. It was why only one ray of gold had been fired at the keep, one ray at the wall the next day, and one large ray at Gleeful with only smaller rays after that. It was somewhat surprising that this golden dome had lasted as long as it had. Arkk figured it was just more efficient to defend than to attack.

He would question Zullie and Vezta on the matter later. Agnete was the only other expert on the powers of avatars and expert was stretching the term.

Her ember-like eyes stared at the golden dome without blinking.

“Thoughts?” Arkk asked, deciding to get her read on the situation in advance.

“The power of the Heart of Gold seems versatile,” she said after a long moment of continued staring. “I burn things. Purifier Tybalt… detained things.”

“We only knew him for a day or two,” Arkk said. “He might have had more tricks up his sleeve.”

“I would prefer if he didn’t. I burn things,” she said again, more despondent this time.

“You deflected one of those rays of gold at the keep over there,” Arkk said, gesturing in the direction of Elmshadow.

“Luck. And fire. And I nearly died for it.”

Arkk pressed his lips together. That was true. She was here now because she was the only one who had managed to put up a defense, even as incomplete as it had been. It was a danger. She could easily die if she tried again and was even a fraction less successful.

“Those dreams you’ve been having since opening the portal, they haven’t given you any… I don’t know, guidance?”

Agnete turned, raising an eyebrow above the smokey skin around her eye. “Putting stock in dreams, are we?”

“I spoke to a god.”

“Outside a dream. This… It’s more like… inspiration?” She paused, frowning to herself. “I’ve always liked creating things. Heating sand and molding it into glass sculptures was one of the few ways I could use my heat without destroying everything around me. One of the few ways the inquisitors allowed, when they were feeling generous. Maybe that makes sense now knowing who my patron is.

“These dreams are more like ideas for other things I could make.”

“I’ve stopped by the foundry on occasion.” Perr’ok and the other smiths loved Agnete. They had viewed her as a nuisance at first, sitting inside the forge or hovering over their shoulders, but as time went on, they started to notice improvements in their work when she was around.

Perr’ok had come to him, asking him about the phenomenon. Agnete didn’t seem to be working any magic yet, while she was present, they created products faster, made stronger metal, and even found supplies, such as a box of nails, filled even when they knew they were almost out.

“You can’t tell me everything is normal there,” Arkk said, offering a small smile. “Not everything is so… flashy,” he added with a wave of his hand toward the distant golden dome. “I’ve almost thought about having you permanently stationed at the smithy just because of how efficiently everyone works in your presence.”

“Coincidence.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But it isn’t just that. You’re making something. Components for something larger, not simple glass sculptures. Metal cogs like what that ritual circle uses to guide the targeting matrix,” Arkk said with a nod toward the partially dismantled ritual circle. “And you made the wheelchair for Katt’am.” The orc she had burned during the invasion of the false fortress.

Agnete nodded her head. “Among the inspiration I’ve been having, I thought I could make him metal legs that would allow him to walk, run, even fight again. But perhaps he would prefer Hale’s solution instead.”

Arkk grimaced. Hale, with Astra’s permission, was trying to fix the inquisitrix’s body. It… well… Arkk wasn’t sure he would consider the inquisitrix wholly human anymore.

Mentally peering into the prison section of Fortress Al-Mir, he couldn’t help but wince at the hand Astra now sported. While her arm looked muscular and rugged but otherwise mostly normal, her hand looked more like… like the Protector’s hand. It was covered in a violet chitin, hard and rugged. Her fingers flexed like the articulating plates of metal armor and were tipped in long, black nails that grew to a sharp point no matter how much she tried to file them down.

Hale was temporarily off the task of healing Astra until she could figure out why she hadn’t been able to make a more normal hand. And why she hadn’t stopped once she realized the extent of the changes she was making.

“I don’t know if many would prefer that solution,” Arkk said slowly. “Do you think you can make working legs that… well, work better than wooden pegs stuck to someone’s limbs?”

“I haven’t tested them myself, obviously. I’m almost finished. I’m just… not sure how to approach a man I injured with something that may not work well.”

“What’s worse? An awkward conversation or Katt’am remaining bound to the wheelchair while your creation collects dust? The worst he can do is say that he prefers the chair to—”

“Sir,” Vezz’ok said, coming up from behind Arkk. “We’re finished. The others are already back.”

Arkk glanced around and found the small clearing on the side of the southern Elm mountain to be empty. He nodded, summoning a lesser servant with a muttered incantation. “Then we shouldn’t dally here.”

Once back in Fortress Al-Mir, Arkk separated from Agnete and Zullie’s apprentices. The latter had some assigned studying to return to while Agnete would likely head back to the foundry. If she really needed someone to push her into speaking with Katt’am, he would step up. For now, he would let them work it out between them.

After a quick meeting with Ilya and Vezta to ensure that nothing vital was going on at the fortress, Arkk started his rounds.

He was trying to get out and among his employees more often now. He wanted to know them. To learn everyone’s name and at least some of who they were. If…

If he ever had to add names to the memorial wall, he wanted to be able to say at least a few small words about them.

He found John and Yavin in the small carpenter’s workshop, working away on crafting arrows. Alma and Kelsey were eating in the cafeteria, talking casually with Lyssa and Kia, of all people. Lexa was giving Nyala pointers on throwing daggers in one of the training rooms. The fairies in his employ, Leda and Camilla, were actually spending their downtime in the Underworld. They weren’t on guard or construction duty—there wasn’t any ongoing construction as they had finished a full wall around the archway and, while there were a handful of Protectors watching from a distance, none had tried to get too close.

Arkk was starting to get comfortable with their presence. It seemed that as long as he didn’t venture further into their domain, they were content to leave him alone. He was free to head in and drain the abundant magic for his glowstones to his heart’s content. Useful for now, even if this latest bombardment had been nullified, but he did still want to look for other old magic and relics. Or even convince the protectors to join him.

As for the fairies, it was difficult keeping them out of the Underworld. Three other fairies from the refugees had signed up with him just to be able to spend time out in the Underworld. They were drinking in the magic-rich atmosphere like a man who crawled across Chernlock’s desert and stumbled into an oasis. So far, none had been able to cast more spells than usual because of their time in the Underworld, much to Arkk and Zullie’s disappointment. There didn’t seem to be a downside and it made them happy, so he was content to leave them to their wants.

Rekk’ar and Dakka were in the underworld as well, mostly taking the assignment to guard the walls as a chance to kick back and relax. The former continually warned the others not to let their guards down and yet Arkk often found him leaning back in a chair with his feet on a table.

Olatt’an, strangely enough, was in the library with his nose in a book. Not just any book but one of the ancient books from the original fortress, transcribed to modern parchment because the old books had been falling apart. He couldn’t read it. Arkk confirmed that much when he saw what book it was.

Zullie sat a few seats away, completely ignoring the orc. She had ideas about old magic but wasn’t quite at a point to test those ideas. Unable to create new verbal spells without more samples of the language used, she was trying—and succeeding—in turning the verbal spells into rituals. Specifically, the lesser servant summoning ritual. She hoped to use the ritual circle to then reverse engineer how the verbal version of the spell functioned which might open doors to the creation of more short spells.

Which Arkk was all for. With all this golden magic being thrown around, he felt his current repertoire was lacking.

Rounds coming to an end, for the time being, Arkk stopped in the scrying room before ending the day. Luthor was on duty. The chameleon with a stutter was hard to parse on occasion. Not worse than Savren. He was getting better. As one of the beastmen who came with Alma’s forced recruitment, Arkk needed good places to position the man. Scrying was low-stress and didn’t require talking with a whole bunch of people, just the others on duty.

“S-sir!” Luthor said, still stuttering.

“Anything to report?” Arkk figured the answer would be no. He had stopped in upon getting back to the fortress and nobody had come to him or called for him via the link in the time between. So he was a little surprised when Luthor slowly nodded his head.

“I… wasn’t sure if it was u-urgent or not. I-I decided not because nothing worrying is happening bu-but… the dragonoid found the false fortress.”

Arkk blinked, quickly checking the false fortress with his sight as Keeper of the Heart rather than a scrying ball. Sure enough, the dragonoid had her wings folded back as she walked through the deliberately dilapidated section of the fortress. She walked strangely, slow and stumbling while keeping one hand always on the wall. Then again, it was dark. The false fortress was designed to look like old ruins and the few glowstones in the area were dim and barely put out any light.

Arkk had preternatural senses within Fortress Al-Mir. He figured that a dragonoid would have decent night vision as well but it wasn’t looking that way now.

“Huh,” he said with a small frown.

The dragonoid had been flying circles around the Cursed Forest for a few weeks now. She had flown directly over the entrance to the false fortress a number of times—as well as the hatches near the local burgs—but had never once tried to gain entry. He had almost started to believe that the dragonoid wasn’t here for him. Given that nobody present was quite sure how to deal with a dragonoid, he had been content to ignore the situation so long as it wasn’t actively acting against him.

Now… Well, he probably shouldn’t have been ignoring the situation. But there always seemed to be something more pressing going on.

“In the future, if you’re unsure whether something is urgent or not, contact me. I don’t think this is urgent—” Not unless it could squeeze its rather large wings through one of the tiny tunnels that connected the false fortress to the rest of Fortress Al-Mir. “—but I would rather know than not.”

“Y-Yes. S-sorry. It won’t happen again.”

Arkk let out a small sigh, taking in the chameleon beastman’s downcast expression. “It’s fine. My fault for not being clear enough. Go, take a few minutes break. I’m going to be borrowing the crystal ball anyway.”

Teleporting away with the crystal ball, Arkk reappeared inside the main meeting room. His main advisors popped into place around him. Zullie and Savren looked irritated at being interrupted. Olatt’an simply closed the book he had been reading, placing it on the table. Alma, Ilya, and Lexa tensed up, alarmed at the unannounced relocation. Khan let out a long, annoyed hiss but otherwise swiftly curled around the warm rock that acted as his chair. Agnete, hunched over like she had been working on something in the foundry, actually let a small wave of heat flood into the room before she reigned herself in. Finally, Vezta assumed her usual position at his side without any visible distress.

Rekk’ar, Dakka, and a few others of note were over in the Underworld and thus he was unable to directly teleport them. If something happened that they needed to be informed of, he would send a messenger.

“There is no grave emergency and we’re not being attacked,” Arkk said, aiming to calm the alarm of some of his advisors. “I think.”

“You think?” Olatt’an said, leaning forward.

In lieu of an answer, Arkk activated the crystal ball in the center of the table. The image in the glass wasn’t anywhere as clear as the image in his mind, yet the silhouette of the winged, scaled humanoid still stood out against what little background light there was.

“The dragonoid is in the false fortress,” he said for anyone who had worse eyesight. “Now is probably the best time to deal with it. I’m considering collapsing the entrance and, maybe, the entire false fortress, but I’m open to options. Especially as the latter option will cause disturbances on the surface that people will take note of.”

“Dragonoids are said to be physically resistant,” Olatt’an said. “I’m not sure a little dirt and rock will be enough to injure it.”

“Stranded stationary among silt and stone, suffocation will set in shortly.”

“Um…” Alma shifted in her seat, making Arkk glance over to the half-werecat. She had a single finger raised into the air. Upon realizing that she had everyone’s attention, she hunched her shoulders. With a deep breath, she looked up, meeting everyone’s eyes… except for Vezta’s. “I’ve been thinking since the last meeting. Are we sure it is an enemy?”

Arkk blinked and, with a small frown, looked around the room.

“Maybe… we could try talking to it?” Ilya hedged.

“If the supposition is incorrect,” Vezta started, “the prowess you have claimed they possess presents a threat to Arkk that he may not be able to escape from.”

Vezta didn’t know anything about dragonoids. While they existed pre-Calamity, they weren’t something that her previous master had much experience with and thus, she didn’t have experience either.

Zullie, still looking annoyed, raised her brows. “I’ve been wanting to see that possession spell in action again,” she said. “This seems like a perfect opportunity.”

“I’m not going to put someone else in danger just to keep myself safe.”

“What about… Can you possess a reanimated creature?”

“Your undead horse?” Arkk pursed his lips, considering the idea for far longer than the idea actually warranted. “I wouldn’t be able to speak. Would I?”

The skeletal horse had no meat and muscle, so it stood to reason that it wouldn’t be able to make any noise, let alone human speech. Then again, it somehow moved without meat on those bones.

Maybe it could talk?

“Could also try the corpse of that Protector sitting in the dungeons. If you can possess the undead, I could try reanimating that. Oh. Can I try anyway?”

Arkk grimaced. The horse had been useful. It was a one-off thing. Turning that one-off thing into a pattern… Well, necromancy was a high anathema in the eyes of the Abbey of the Light. They already hated him so it probably wasn’t going to get worse and…

If animating a dead Protector saved some of his own, living men—and himself, in this case—then he certainly could make excuses.

Ilya wasn’t looking happy with Zullie’s suggestion. Few were. Khan looked utterly unbothered and Savren looked intrigued. Olatt’an had a heavy scowl on his face, probably because the spells came from the black book owned by the orc’s former chieftain. Agnete…

Didn’t look as bothered as he would have expected from a former inquisitor. Then again, her experiences with the inquisitors hadn’t been the best.

“There is merit in trying to speak with it instead of jumping to conclusions,” he said after a long moment. “I’ll wall off the exit to the false fortress, just to keep it from leaving. But I suppose we can try to figure out a safe method of speaking with it. Does anyone have suggestions other than diving into necromancy?

“Anyone?”