Gwen now possessed such anticipation for the Amazon that her excitement was enough to displace the reek of excrement.

It had all begun the morning after Golos' foray into the jungle. Taking her morning jog, she came across what could only be the largest, foulest pile of draconic expulsion she had ever seen. The reality that dragons could "poop" was proven by Caliban, but of course, for creatures like Ruxin and the Yinglong, it was absurd to imagine them squatting over a litter box, roaring with effort.

It was only Golos, still a few centuries from maturity, that obsessed with eating and rutting. Nonetheless, Gwen had never seen journals or articles written on draconic-expulsions. Somewhere, a post-grad Magus could pursue a Magistership if they knew what she knew.

The whole ordeal began the night before. True to Gwen's demands, Golos had transformed, then introduced himself as their new leader. Almost without pause, he asked Petra if she would like to rut. Petra politely declined and suggested maybe Gwen could sample the goods. Golos then thoughtfully enquired if she would like to rut, and Gwen returned that Caliban was desperate for a Wyvern form.

Golos remained undeterred. A wyvern's gotta eat; he explained — a wyvern's gotta rut.

"A Wyvern's gotta shit?" she had replied sarcastically.

And here was her answer.

A turd-consuming Void Sphere was halfway vocalised when she spotted a glint.

Her nose wrinkled. A Creature Core?
Holding her breath, doubting her eyes, she approached the pile.

The previous day, Golos had eaten until he was sick. There had been tapir-like boars, monkeys with three tails, boar-sized frogs with translucent bellies, and an unlucky Titan Boa.

All of which slid down Golos' gullet without complaint.

Dragons, Gwen recalled the lesson from Ruxin, were beings that grew stronger by drawing nourishment from their hunt. When consuming other creatures, a dragon "fed" on their Essence as well. Concurrently, she thought of the Kirin Amulet and how it absorbed Essence from slain beasts into its Core. Perhaps, she realised, this was the real reason for the Amulet's abilities. Mysticisms aside, it came down to unadulterated, draconic mechanics.

As for Gogo, her test subject was a mere Wyvern, but one she was willing to risk.

Could Golos mass-generate Cores gastronomically? Though she had no dire need for HDMs, Cores were almost always in short supply. There were many Enchanters, but never enough ingredients for experimentation.

Full of hope, she dug into the pile, ferreting for treasure. Her Detect Magic, honed and trained after a semester of Divination Utility 101, cried out that this wasn't what it was designed to do.

_THERE!_ Her heart sang as her nose died. Golos' poo was obstinate, but she was strong! _It's a durian_ , she told herself. _I am splitting a durian._

"EUREKA!" She raised the scintillating orb to the light.

_I have to thank Ruxin,_ Gwen reminded herself, maybe shout the dragon dinner. Golos was the best summon a girl could want. A Planar Ally that paid for itself.

_Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!_

The team's jubilation was short-lived.

Inbetween a dream involving Gogo-golden-durians, simultaneous activations of Fudan's Message bangles shook Gwen and her companions from the lull of slumber.

"Mia?" Gwen punched the Glyph, half dazed. "You're back?"

"WE'RE COMING IN HOT!" Richard's voice filled the darkness, a moment before Rene lit the room with a pair of Dancing Lights. "Ten minutes! We're ten-Ks out!"

"Are you safe—"

_DANG! DANG! DANG! DANG!_ The sound of alarm bells ringing through the fort brought the outpost into full-alert.

"Get ready!" Richard's voice came through. "We brought a shit load of Harpies! They're all CCs!"

"Got it." Gwen leapt from the bed. She pulled the combat suit over her intimates, then parted the privacy curtain. Unlike her previous skin-suit, Shen-tei's transformative function saved her the trouble of wriggling into a shed skin. She activated her Message again. "Everyone, get that?"

"Outside already," Tei's voice returned. "I'll go set up the defences."

"Give me one minute." Rene's muffled voice came from the adjacent bed. The Magma Mage was a heavy sleeper.

"Lulan and I will go with Tei." Petra's Message indicated she was already outside as well. "Inti and his team just arrived."

With a sound of hissing air, the suit's material adhered. She spent a second stretching out the kinks, then Dimension Doored outside.

"GOLOS!" she cried out into the darkness.

"Here." Golos yawned, leaning against the fort's battlement.

"There's a buffet of CCs incoming," Gwen informed him.

"Never ate a Harpy before." Golos affected a toothy grin.

"Help yourself." Gwen conjured both Ariel and Caliban with a thought. "Watch out for friendlies."

Golos grunted.

Another Dimension Door later, Gwen arrived at the eastern battlements. In the typical Incan fashion, the observation post at Marcapata was formed of shaped stones staggered so that they slotted seamlessly. The design was highly resistant against impact and earthquakes. Here and there, Glyphs were carved in gold, bolstering the fort's magical defences.

"I see the flock now." Gwen's night-vision was near-supernatural. "Bloody hell, that's a biblical volume of Harpies."

Ding!

"Can you see us?" Richard's voice came through. "Jiro's almost out of mana, look for the Fireball!"

In the bible-black night, a brilliant flash of orange caught the contestant's eyes.

"I see you." Gwen squinted, channelling Almudj's Essence into her orbs. "The Message device registered only seven of you…"

"The others are hopefully back in Cuzco." Her cousin's voice took on a hard edge. "It wasn't easy breaking through the canopy and outrunning the birds. Don't worry. There wasn't any foul play."

Gwen glanced at Inti's group, noting their grim expressions. From the faint glow at Inti's ear, he was likely conversing with Tica. Before she could withdraw her gaze, Inti caught her watching.

"Miss Song." Inti pointed to the flock in the distance, a roving mass of indistinct shadows. "I am going to open with a wide-area AoE. Unfortunately, I do not possess the ability to differentiate friend from foe, can you tell your team to retreat?"

Gwen frowned. "Why risk striking our allies? We can do it together. All of our AoEs possess IFF."

Inti cranked up his aura. "My spell works best if the enemy is densely clustered. The opportunity will soon be lost, so please tell your team to retreat. We shall share the CCs, I assure you."

Before she could dissuade the prince, Inti rose into the air.

Sensing a stubborn parallel between Inti and Golos, Gwen opened a channel to Richard. "Dick, you and the others need to get moving."

"Wall of Water!" Richard stabbed himself with an injector, wincing as his VMI shot to a tenth of its usual maximum. "Lea! Left side!"

"Coca!" Tica followed suit, blasting the flock with massive webs dozens of meters across. Her spell was efficient and useful, but the Harpies had since caught on. This time, the birds had their rainbow-plumed priestesses in tow, considerably boosting the flock's overall prowess. "We need to move."

"Pack them tighter!" Richard commanded. "Jiro!"

"FLAMING TEMPEST!" Jiro had reached his alchemical limit fifty-kilometres ago and was now running on fumes. He covered their flanks, driving the pursuers closer, then stumbled as his movements momentarily faltered.

"I got him." Mayuree burned another Magic Item, blasting forward with Jiro in tow. She had spared no expense since the parties had escaped the temple ruins via the Harpies' tree-top lairs.

"Sanctuary!" Eunae relieved the Harpies' attention on their Fire Mage. "Watch out! Shield of—"

_THUAWK!_

A blade of air, razor-sharp and ten-meters tall, split Richard's cascading Wall of Water in twain. It continued to travel, forcing Richard to sharply bank.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Fuck!" Richard cursed. His left leg felt suddenly hot and cold. The combat suit had helped, but the light plating wasn't able to negate the entirety of the Wind Blade's damage, leaving him with a gash that stretched from calf to thigh. "Eunae!"

"Healing Word!" Eunae deftly switched from Shield of Faith to a minor invocation that could be used mid-flight. "Incoming!"

Richard cursed. He was almost OoM. The team's other defenders had already done their jobs. Uturunku had been the first to go, being the least capable and the slowest flier of the group. Rather than hindering the party's escape, he had chosen instead to delay the Harpies' advance.

After that, it had been Anita's turn. As a Mineral Abjurer-Transmuter, she possessed the second slowest flight-speed.

About a hundred kilometres later, Sumatika offered herself, though the Water Mage halted the flock only momentarily before she was swamped by Harpies clawing at her flesh.

Now, it was his turn to corral their CCs.

"GO!" He stopped. "Lea, keep them off me. Thirty seconds!"

"Richard!" his teammates cried out. "An AoE is coming!"

"GO NOW!" The Water Mage's face turned cruel. From his ring, he withdrew a rod of pyrite. Ever since Seoul, he had paid close attention to potential applications of Cloud Kill.

The Harpies swooped, their screeching voices filled his ears.

His spell would take six-seconds to manifest, and another ten to reach maximum range. He intended to hold them for a minute, but if the demi-human casters intervened, he had no idea if he could last that long.

Faced with a roving, endless tide of flapping wings, Richard felt as though he was reliving the Beast Tide of 71.

_ZWING!_ Came the sound of a fast-moving metal object.

"SQAR—"

A Harpy that had careless clawed at him exploded into a puff of dark feathers. The slab of shaped iron continued onward, its momentum unimpeded, skewering, smashing and maiming six-more creatures before it tumbled into the forest below.

_ZWING! ZWING! ZWING! ZWING!_

Four more volleys followed, clearing the space around Richard.

Lulu! Richard applauded the girl. Gwen had picked a real gem.

_DING!_

"DICK! WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU STILL IN THE BAIT BALL?" Gwen's voice barked beside his ear.

Richard scoffed. How massive could this AoE be? But, his vice-captain's orders needed following. He stowed his bar of pyrite, then shot downward toward the safety of the canopy below.

Behind him, the night sky grew suddenly bright.

Where Richard had been, the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Radiance gave birth to a star.

An incandescent ball every bit as brilliant as the celestial orb that brought life to the clay of terra lit the darkness with the collated faith of the Inca.

The Harpies closest to the orb melted like wax, their feathers suddenly alight; the fat of their goose-skin sizzling to a crisp as their eyes boiled in their sockets.

Richard too felt a numbing sensation across his posterior and his scalp. He smelled the sizzling of flesh and the acrid scent of hair set aflame. Lea evaporated with a wail, retreating into his pocket dimension.

He began to fall.

"Bugger." Richard puckered his lips thoughtfully. Assuming he didn't die immediately, Gwen would have to buy him a new Contingency Ring.

"Dick!"

A burst of silvery Conjuration heralded the arrival of his timely saviour. Gwen caught him by the arm, then slung her cousin across her shoulder with ease. Where her fingers swiped his neck, a sheet of foaming material and scalded skin slid apart.

"Three stars for elemental resistance," Richard joked.

"I'll let Yeye know." Gwen activated a Spell Cube with one hand while her semi-dome Shield sizzled. "Hold on."

A series of gut-churning Dimension Doors later, they were back on Condor's Rise.

"Richard!"
"Dick!"
"Wocao! You look like a baked goose!"

"See…" Richard pointed at the glowing sun in dismay, his heart throbbing with agony. Below its brilliance, Harpies were falling like flies.

The team shielded their eyes.

"See what, Richard?" Gwen felt for his pulse. She then uncorked a bottle of Maotai and fed her cousin a mouthful.

"CCs!" Richard spat, his eyes watered. "Our CCs!"

The rest of the team breathed out. If Richard was crying over Contribution Credits, then he should be fine.

Behind them, Mayuree, Eunae, Tica and the rest were now landing. Like Fudan, Cuzco's team immediately surrounded their Mages, with the quiet girl, Mallqu, delivering a few healing spells of her own.

Gwen greeted her team members with open arms, heedless of their bloody attire and pungent aroma.

"You've worked hard." She hugged Mayuree tightly, then held Mia's head against her chest.

"We did it." Mayuree was keen to report on their success. "We…"

"Later." Gwen released the girl, then embraced Eunae. "Eunnie, thanks."

Jiro waited in line.

Gwen struck out a hand.

Jiro's shoulders fell.

"Just kidding, ya goof." Gwen pulled the young man close, then gave him a big bear-hug, lifting him from the ground. "Good work! Thanks for taking care of them."

Jiro retreated, pushing his bones back in place.

"Poor Anita." Gwen sighed after Eunae told them about the three contestants who chose to impede the flock. "I'll reward her later. A custom Boots of Flying that can raise her maxim speed perhaps, or a handful of Cores."

After Gwen, Tei debriefed the Explorers to clarify the situation in case tension with Cuzco rose unnecessarily.

"Where's Gogo?" Gwen realised her Wyvern was gone.

"He said something about barbecued quail," Petra informed her. "Ah, the Harpy flock is dispersing."

"EE?" Ariel complained.

"SHAA?!" Caliban salivated.

"I'll go find Golos." Gwen patted her Familiars. She was sure that they would remain dissatisfied and antsy until they spent their pent-up energy. Additionally, she was interested in what Golos could "retrieve".

In the distance, the artificial sun had dissolved.

Over the horizon, the real sun rose, painting the thin black silhouette a blush of orange. As for the forest below, the trees had turned to charcoal. Where stumps remained, a hellish wasteland full of smouldering Harpies quavered.

"Go, we'll take care of Richard." Tei patted her on the shoulder.

"Right." Gwen spotted something ponderously sifting through the smoking trees. "I'll D-D over."

"Gwen, wait—" Rene pointed to Cuzco's team. "What do you make of that?"

Curiously, Auberon and three additional proctors were now escorting Musi, Kusi and Mallqu toward the epicentre. Inti remained with the exhausted Tica, listening to her tale.

"I'll come with." Petra stood.

"Alright, let go." Gwen took her cousin's hand, then made up the distance with teleports.

Upon arriving at ground zero, they were surprised to find that many of the Harpies were still alive.

"SHAA SHAA!" Caliban nudged a smoking pile of feathers, dissatisfied that its prey wasn't screaming for help.

"EE!" Ariel wasn't opposed to grilled wings, though it preferred victims who weren't entirely helpless.

How curious, Gwen made a mental note. Neither of her Familiars fancied themselves scavengers. Was it draconic-pride? She wondered, or something to do with their growing sapience.

Downwind of the foetid air, she spotted Golos dragging still-kicking Harpies from the branches, crunching them in his jaws.

Gwen twisted her lips in mockery.

A few minutes later, the proctors arrived with their wards. The group alighted where the cluster of Harpies was the densest.

"Miss Huamani-Inka, you may begin." Gwen noticed that Auberon's stone-cold attitude was leagues from when he had dealt with her. Before she could judge the Baron of Shenfield for being biased, however, Kusi retrieved a leather orb from her storage.

Petra audibly gasped.

"Is that a human head?" Gwen asked her cousin very quietly.

"Yes," Petra confirmed.

"A baby's?"

"No." Petra observed the goosebumps that had risen all over her arm. "It's a shrunken head."

"What does that mean?" A revulsion came over Gwen which she hadn't experienced since Mark Chandler kicked at her diaphragm. She knew about shrunken heads, but not whatever this was. "Magically speaking?"

"I think they remove the skull, then stitch it back together." Petra kept her cool far more readily than her cousin. "You can see how well it's embalmed."

Across the field, heedless of the two girls from Fudan, Kusi began her ritual by raising the mummified head like a lantern. Stamping her feet, she began to speak in the tongue of the Shuar, a lingua franca beyond Gwen's means to comprehend.

Behind the dark-haired Shaman girl, the quiet Mallqu invoked some unknowable sorcery of her own, shuddering as a palpable source of vitality left her body.

Gwen swallowed, at a loss for words. She and Petra stood as though petrified, gaping at the open practice of that which must not be named.

"Help!" an enfeebled cry broke Gwen's stupor. She searched her perimeter and discovered a Harpy covered in burns, its once colourful feathers crudely begrimed. It was a Sky Priestess, Gwen recollected. In Ma's Bestiary, only select, sapient variants of Harpies could become noble Harpies.

Across the ravaged field, their eyes met.

"Kill me..." the thing pleaded.

But before Gwen could react to the unexpected plea, Kusi's ritual reached its climax. At the Shaur's command, a glut of Negative Energy began to accumulate inside the shrunken head.

"Ariel! Caliban!" She quickly retrieved her Familiars. "Golos!"

"!"

A soundless burst of Negative Energy washed over the wasted woods, smothering the wounded, stifling the croons and groans of the surviving demi-humans.

A purple light burst from the desiccated face, drawing a visible torrent of Essence into the undead apparatus.

Golos reared its plated head, its jaws suddenly grim.

"A Desecrator," came a grumbling roar from deep within the Wyvern's throat, wrought in ancient Draconic. Gwen could see every scale bristled with displeasure. "Gwen, that human must die!"

"MISS SONG!" Auberon put up a hand when a wave of dragon-fear disrupted the flow of purple-Essence. "Miss Huamani-Inka's craft is sanctioned by the Tower. It exists as a religious exception to the rule. I would classify it as no different from your unorthodox Planar Ally."

Gwen carefully shifted between Golos and Cuzco's Team.

"Calamity." Golo's tone grew dangerous. "If this were to occur in my father's domain, your city is forfeit."

"Peace," Gwen responded to both Auberon and her Wyvern, channelling her Essence to suppress Golos' overspilling aura. "Lord Lucas, I understand your concern. Golos, this isn't our business, and here isn't our home. Stand down."

"Good." The Baron of Shenfield exhaled. "I shall refrain from commenting further, but I applaud your understanding."

"No… no… no…" cried a squark from afar. The surviving Sky Priestess was rapidly wasting away. "… the daughters of the Sky Mother must return to the sky…"

The creature's hapless mewling reminded her of Chandler's sister, whose soul had been trapped in the Death Orb. Compared to that, Gwen imagined, consignment to the Void must be merciful oblivion.

"Void—" Gwen summoned a single-stage Void Sphere to her lips, but Golos was faster. With a gulp, he scooped up the bird-woman wholesale.

"Better this way," Golos spoke with his mouthful, a formidable feat. "It is only right that she returns to the Unformed Land."

One by one, the banshee wails ceased.

The dark ritual had reached its conclusion.

"We will win," Kusi's voice drifted across the death-soaked clearing. She then turned to the proctors. "Sir, we wish to return to Inti."

"Of course." Auberon likewise made sure he stood between Golos and the Shamaness. "Miss Song, thank you again."

Gwen and her cousin were soon alone with their Wyvern.

"BLEEURGH!" Golos regurgitated a mess of charred feathers and mangled flesh, mimicking what he had witnessed in Nagaland.

Gwen and Petra leapt back.

"It lives." Golos gloated at his new trick.

"Pats!" Gwen felt her heart skip a beat. Here was an excellent opportunity to exercise the middle path. "Can you heal it? I want to speak to it."

Petra dropped two cubes at once, simultaneously activating both a Restoration and a Cure Moderate. She wasn't about to question her cousin's motives when the Harpy could have perished a second later.

"Spell's working, but its life-force is fading." Petra frowned. "Sometimes, that which is taken cannot be restored."

"Not always." Gwen intuitively knew what to do. She hadn't watched Sufina for a year and learnt nothing. Circulating her Essence, she fed a drop of Almudj's panacea into the Harpy's lips, careful not to let its razor-sharp teeth snag her fingertips.

"More Positive Energy." Gwen held the saliva covered Harpy as it convulsed.

Petra obliged. An over-supply of healing energies resulted in cancerous growth, but she wasn't about to fuss over a demi-human's longitudinal well-being.

"Cali, Ariel, come out." Gwen materialised her Familiars.

In the ankle-deep grit, the Harpy's feathers rapidly moulted. The burnt plumes fell from its chest and its arms, exposing two shapely mounds for a split-second before a downy fuzz hid the creature's shame. Gwen baulked at the sight of avian-mammaries. From her Bestiary, she had imagined Harpies were birds with human heads. Instead, the woman's lower body was undeniably like her own but for a pair of enormous eagle-claws. Its upper torso was likewise no different until one saw its elongated fingers, reminding Gwen of an archaeopteryx. In place of hair, the Harpy sported a fringe of beautiful, blue-green feathers akin to a lorikeet's. When finally the Sky Priestess' facial features regenerated, Gwen marvelled its long-slitted eyes, each set with ruby-red irises.

As a woman pulled from the underworld, the Sky Priestess inhaled sharply, its dilated pupils contracting into focus.

Then, it remained very still while a Void Sorceress, a Mineral Scholar, a Kirin, a Death Worm and a bus-sized Wyvern loomed over its quivering body.


As a noble, Phelara was born blessed.

By the grace of the Sky Father, she possessed the multi-coloured plumage unique to her lineage, promising beauty, magic and intelligence.

Last night, when the Sun Father had kissed the Tree Mother, she and her sisters had awoken to a great roaring conflagration, whipping the flock into a headless frenzy.

Phelara's first instinct was to order the den mothers to gather the chicks and the unhatched eggs. She then commanded her brood to strike the green and sappy branches so that they fell into the flames rather than be caught alight. In the past, when the sky had punished the tribe with lightning, the strategy had worked.

Yet, somehow, against all reason, the blaze grew fiercer. No matter how the priestesses called upon the air and wind, the burning boughs smouldered.

"This is no natural fire! It's magic! Find the priests of the stone cities!" The Cloud Father had called out, wise enough to recognise the fire's supernatural origins. At their leader's behest, the whole flock, Phelara included, had fanned out to flush the men of the mountains from their hiding spot.

"Here!" a veteran warrior had trilled. A group of city-kin had broken through the canopy and were rapidly making for the open air. "That one! The wielder of fire!"

Before Phelara could answer her brood-mate, a net of sticky vines had tangled the warrior's wings. Preoccupied with saving a hen, Phelara helplessly watched as the stricken female tumbled into the flaming forest.

"Sister!" Phelara screeched in anguish as her sibling's confused cries echoed. Many of Phelara's ungifted sisters lacked her aptitude. The bronze-feathers were inferior daughters of the Sky Father, but they were her sisters all the same.

"After them!" the Cloud Father hooted, his voice ringing from treetop to treetop, reverberating through the air.

The warriors gave chase, lead by Phelara and a few others. Along the way, they notified the surrounding Copper Claws, told their suffering through songs of agony and distress. Flock by flock; the tribes mobilised until they were innumerable!

One after another, they peeled the mountain-priests from their pack. Unlike the feather-kin, these "humans" were inexpert fliers, obfuscating their retreat with magic, and hiding whenever they could. But the tribe was relentless, so long as Phelara's kin persisted in the chase, it was inevitable that her flock would catch the culprits. Then, they would crush their bones, eat their flesh, and drag out their innards to feed the Tree Mother!

Phelara's final salient recollection was cornering another city-kin.

Instead, the sun rose.

For the kin of the sky, whose instincts were tied to the ebb and flow of Father Sun and Mother Moon, the phenomenon was enough to send the flock into turmoil. Phelara was no different, her dark pupils had contracted violently, owl-blind by the early sun, while her mind struggled to reconcile reality and instinct. When finally the dire radiance enveloped the flock, Phelara could do nothing.

Haplessly, her sisters tumbled from the sky. The lucky ones were disintegrated. The unlucky ones burst into flames. Those like Phelara plunged into the forest below, made insensible by the heat.

When she regained consciousness, she was but one of many, keening in the charcoaled ruins. Her eyes were blinded, seared by the radiance. She was bereft of her proud plumage; her skin wept, smeared with ash.

Every measure of her being was in exquisite agony, and that was before she sensed the strange magic syphoning her soul.

Phelara couldn't see, but she knew it was a charm of undeath. The same rot and decay utilised by the troll-hags of the deep forest.

Should the spell succeed, the accursed abomination would secure their souls to serve its ancestors, preventing the sky-kin from returning to the blue expanse.

It was a final indignity, one that filled Phelara's bosom with anguish.

Then, the Sky Father heard her plea.

She died.

Still conscious in the belly of a blessed beast, she realised she had been eaten.

Then without warning, broken, mangled and covered with mucus, she was abruptly re-birthed into the world, as helpless as a new-born chick.

In her delirium, a panacea had suffused her body, more potent than anything she had ever consumed, exceeding even the Cloud Father's blessing. Unbidden, her body healed and her bones mended; when finally her mind recovered, she gazed upon her saviours.

Why had they saved her? That was the question pressing at Phelara's scarlet-feathered throat. The Cloud Father had warned his Priestesses that the kin from the mountains sometimes took young chicks from their nests for sport. As for the fates of those poor sisters, none could know.

Very slowly and with great care, Phelara lifted her plumed head from the soot-stained earth.

She then spread her emerald wings, laying on the ground in a gesture of supreme supplication.

"Hello there," a female voice articulated from above. It was a tall city-kin female who spoke. She was a stranger, and yet Phelara felt familiarly drawn, as though something indefinable connected them.

"The Sky Father blesses," Phelara intoned carefully with clicks and squawks, keeping her pitch low and her teeth hidden. She caught the female's scent, and Phelara knew as sure as her wishbone that here was an extraordinary being.

The old tales had told of such creatures.
She was in the presence of a Godling.

"My name is Gwen." The female waited until Phelara lifted her head. "This is Petra. That's Ariel and Cali, and the one who saved you is Golos."

A pair of nostrils large enough for Phelara to stow a clawed foot sniffed her body. Reflexively, she quivered in Golos' presence. Like the female, Golos was also a Godling. From their scents, Phelara discerned, they must be siblings.

"Golos, not so close, you're scaring her." The female called "Gwen" pushed the scale-kin away. "Change to your human form."

Phelara gaped while Golos shrunk, not even the Cloud Father could change his shape.

"So," Gwen commanded Phelara. "Your name?"

"Phelara," she replied. "It means she with the illustrious feathers."

"I can see why. They're beautiful." The Godling shook her wing-digits.

Confused, Phelara bowed her slender neck. A pair of ivory hands then brushed over her plumes. Phelara quivered; she couldn't help but gaze upward at the green-eyed female with wonder.

"This one I like," the Godling called Golos spoke. There was an unmistakable scent of musk. "She has Father's colours."

Phelara remained bowed.

"EEee!" A four-legged Godling that bore the same scent as the female nudged her in the chest.

"Shaa!" A serpent coiled around Phelara's clawed feet. She suppressed an instinctual desire to swoop. Unlike the furry Godling, this one did not smell of anything.

"Gwen," a second female inquired of her leader. "What do you intend to do with this... thing?"

Unlike their alpha, the female called "Petra" smelled strongly of earth.

"I want to hear your story, Phelara," the Godling demanded. "Tell me how you got here, and where you came from."

The more Gwen interacted with Phelara, the more she liked the demi-human. Aesthetics aside, the bird was polite, respectful, and guileless.

Haltingly, the Sky Priestess relayed her tale.

When her discourse had been delivered, Gwen mulled over the occurrence. From the sounds of it, Richard was to blame, Jiro was the chief culprit, and Inti was the hand of deliverance.

Perhaps it was because Phelara had a human face, or maybe it was because of the Necromancy, Gwen felt especially empathic and sensitive to the Harpy's plight. It was sanctimony, of course, but her sympathy for the moment was genuine.

Now empathetically invested, Gwen instructed Caliban and Ariel to conduct search and rescue, as they had practised in Burma. By the time Phelara provided a summation of the territories between here and the Temple of Mama Killa, a total of twenty-two mangled individuals huddled in the impromptu clearing.

Initially, there were twenty-four survivors. Caliban, unfortunately, had gotten overexcited. As for number twenty-three; Golos had pulled the unlucky bird from beneath a fallen log, but left its legs where they lay.

Once the moment ripened, Gwen requested Petra revive the surviving Harpies.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"...Fine." Petra's concern was for what the Proctor's would think, though she did acknowledge that the same trick had worked wonders in Kachin.

As expected, a few more ragged-looking Harpies retaliated as soon as they were hale. In response, Ariel swatted them down, confirming the pecking order.

After a few reassuring squawks from Phelara, the flock fell into line.

"Copper Claws! Kin of the Sky! I have something to say." Gwen found herself a stump, stared down at the surviving squadron, then began to speak.

"QUIET!" Phelara screeched at her peers, mothering them into submission. "Listen to the Godling!"

"TOMORROW…" her voice projected through the clearing. "Tomorrow we shall travel through Amazonia. Tomorrow, we shall press upon your home."

"SCREECH!" As one, the flock burst into a clamour of croons.

"EE!" Ariel let loose a wailing warning.
"SHAAA!" Caliban flailed a tentacle.
The mob quietened, though a few of the dumber specimens continued to rile themselves.

"We come in peace!" Gwen told a white-lie, hoping that Jiro and the rest of the Explorers didn't choose this moment to visit.

"Lies!"
"Deceiver!"
"Killer!"

The lesser Harpies wouldn't have it. Not even Phelara could keep her rag-tag siblings in check.

"SHUT IT!" Golos opened his mouth. A line of vivid lightning shot straight through the congregation, obliterating two Harpies in the span of a wink.

The woods grew suddenly silent, harmonious but for the sound of cracking timber.

Twenty survivors.

"We mean you no—"

Gwen cleared her throat, making a mental correction to the script.

"We INTEND no harm! Unlike the soul-stealing mountain-kin, we come from Shanghai! For our quest, the tribe of Fudan wishes to transgress through your home to reach the ruins below. By my word and the grace of the Sky Father, your nests, your trees, your brood, will remain untouched by our passing."

Her captive audience hearkened, a flock of quails attending to a fox.

"I ask for your trust, and to that end, you have two choices. You could fight us, and indeed, it is your freedom to do so. BUT, should that be your choice, there will be- VOID SPHERE!"

With a whip of her fingers and a liberal dash of vitality, Gwen fired an all-consuming sphere of Void that first expanded to consume an enormous stump, then erupted as a dark nova, displacing a dozen more.

The resultant vertigo was palpable. Several of the Harpies grew suddenly ill.

"CONVERSELY-" Gwen allowed her dragon-fear to manifest in its entirety. "You can guide us through your domain as peaceful guests. That way, I win, you win, we all win. WIN-WIN!"

"We shall guide you," Phelara grovelled. "Just your eminence?"

"No. It'll be myself, Petra here, Gogo, and a few others."

"Not…" Phelara paused. "Not the…"

"The Desecrator." Golos was feeling helpful.

"Not the Desecrator." Phelara and the flock bobbed like hens. "Not the Desecrator, nor her flock. Not on our life."

"Not a soul from the mountain-kin's pack?"

"None." Phelara was adamant. "Especially the Sun God."

"I shall meditate on the matter." Gwen knew she had to consult with Tei on their latest intelligence. As for the Cuzco allies, she felt unimpressed by the challenge left by Kusi, not to mention there was the matter that Cuzco was arguably ahead on CCs. "Phelara, guard your flock. Golos, you stay and make sure they stick around. Don't you dare think of eating our feathery friends."

Golos eyed the females contemplatively.

With a glance, Gwen retrieved her Familiars, then placed a hand on Petra's shoulder.

"Let's see what Tei thinks of all this," Gwen informed her cousin. "After centuries spent fighting Necromancy. I am sure he'll take to Kusi very kindly."

"Very well." Inti inclined his perfect chin. "I understand your apprehension. Thank you for not reneging our non-aggression pact."

"It is we who should be thankful for your understanding." Gwen extended a hand. "Regardless, I promise you that the relics of your people will receive the greatest care from us."

"May the best team win," Inti intoned.

Cuzco and Fudan's leaders exchanged handshakes.

Before the conference, Gwen had expressed her concerns for the unusual magic demonstrated by Kusi, stopping short of the N-word. After consulting with her fellow members of Fudan's "flock", it was clear that close-cooperation was no longer possible. Openly, Tei had expressed that as one whose family spent generations putting the undead to eternal sleep, he refused to work alongside Kusi. Rene's dislike was likewise pronounced, citing that were it not for the Northern Front, she would be richer by two cousins, an aunt, and a grand-uncle. Lulan reminded Gwen that her beloved Master had died at the Front, eliciting from her vice-captain a heartfelt apology. Finally, Petra expressed that she distrusted the three girls from Cuzco and that Inti was slicker than a snake oil peddler.

In the end, "splitting the party" became a unanimous decision.

Having then agreed on limiting their continued cooperation, both teams proceeded with the Dungeoneering.

Once the Magi-tech engineers tethered the data-slates to the Divination Engine, a topographic projection of the region came into view. Tica gave her annotations, then Richard filled-in what Tica had left out.

In the time since the teams' recovery, Cuzco Tower had reported that the three teleported members were safe and recovering in the infirmary. This resolved the tension somewhat, enough at least for Tica and Richard to recount their adventure. According to the duo, it was during the final incursion into the temple itself that the parties had been discovered, leading to their hasty escape through the canopy, followed by many hours of hide-and-seek until they were close enough to receive Inti's salvation.

Richard sighed. He had envisioned that Gwen would nail the flock with an Ariel-charged Maelstrom or a Void Vortex.

As for the temple-Dungeon, the Dungeoneers had their work cut out for them. The golden halls of Mama Killa's abode were now a troll-fortress, its ancient walls converted into a grotesque ziggurat, at the top of which the trolls offered their live sacrifices.

"Are trolls religious?" Gwen enquired.

"Amazonian trolls worship the Dark God of the Forest, Kernunno," Tica demonstrated her expert knowledge. "It's a proto-religion atypical of demi-humans. They believe that Amazonia was created for their benefit alone and that they are the offspring of Kernunno, who sowed his seed to form the trolls. For a fort of this size, anticipate two hundred warriors, ten shamans, and over a thousand slaves. In all likelihood, a Hag Coven leads the fort."

"A coven?" Gwen inquired.

"A trio of Hags, lead by an arch-Hag..." Tica described the rare troll variant. "...highly adept at using magic, capable of debilitating spells that cause rot, disease and ruin."

"A trio of Hags, eh?" Gwen pursed her lips thoughtfully. "The wild and withered variety?"

"Yes, I suppose." Tica shrugged. "They are consorts to the Chieftain, and also his advisors."

Their attention returned to the map.

"The fire your man had set should have cleared the vegetation somewhat," Inti explained, pointing at the eastern quadrant of the temple city. "The canopy and the emergent layer should be significantly diminished. We intend to make our entry from there."

Looking at the Harpy's home, Gwen felt a pang of guilt, followed by a stab of hypocrisy. Like many bleeding hearts in her old world, she was the sort who loved her wagyu so long as she didn't pet the calf. As a fellow "deforester", she wasn't sure if she had the credentials to critique the slash and burn of an entire eco-sphere for ease of access.

"We'll arrange our entrance ourselves." Gwen motioned to Inti. "For now, let's say Fudan takes the western quadrant? Is that agreeable?"

Topographically, the temple complex was rectangular, with the old temple in the middle. To split the task in twain, therefore, was entirely agreeable.

"One more thing." Gwen allowed a sliver of Essence to permeate her presence. "We will be proceeding through the Harpy's lair close to the ruins. Due to Miss Kusi's cultural Spellcraft, we humbly request that Cuzco does not disturb the Indigenous inhabitants."

The conference table grew silent.

"If possible, we would like Cuzco to bypass the main nesting site of the Copper Claws," Gwen continued, her tone neither boastful nor pleading. "You may need to fly around, meaning your detour is longer. Is that agreeable?"

"Why such love for the demi-humans?" Kusi's voice came across with undisguised hostility. "Are you allying yourselves with man-eating Monsters?"

"Speak for yourself, Necromancer," Rene snorted. "I'd rather party with a Harpy than a Death Mage."

"Our ancient craft isn't Necromancy!" Musi snarled. "You ignorant raka!"

"Says the sha-bi!" Rene grew instantly hot. "Your kind should be locked up in Tianlanqiao."

"Let's hope we don't meet in the temple."

"You better hope."

Tei attempted to calm the situation, but the grave keeper's presence failed to douse the flaring temper. Tica watched by the side, seemingly amused by her teammate, while Jiro attempted to pull Rene back.

"ALRIGHT!" Gwen spared no expense in filling the room with her presence, causing even Inti to turn a shade lighter. "SHUT UP! All of you. Cuzco, I request that you avoid the Copper Claw's nesting site. If you wish to proceed, I can't speak for the risks involved."

"Is that a threat?" Musi stepped in, a finger touching her daggers.

Gwen's orbs glowed. Did these indigenous girls really think Fudan were ripe avocados ready for the plucking?

"You call that a threat?" Lulan stepped up. A two-metre slab of jade-green iron materialised mid-air. "This is a threat."

"Stop! We agree!" Inti checked the girls' retorts, placing himself as a barrier. "Cuzco will make the detour."

"Much obliged." Gwen inclined her chin, hiding her dislike for the Shaur siblings. "We'll do our best to ensure you won't be delayed. I promise."

"The promise of an outlander?" Kusi had to have the final word.

"Enough!" Inti snapped, then bowed his head. "I am very sorry, Miss Song. Please pay them no heed. Cuzco SHALL bypass the Harpy den, one way or another."

The sibling's objection was stared down by Tica, the undisputed queen of Inti's future harem.

"Thank you." Gwen found the prince as agreeable as the sisters were disagreeable. "Allow me to apologise for our misgivings in advance."

Ignoring their detractors, the teams' leaders soon agreed on their divergent routes, ultimately descending upon the fort from the east and west.

When Gwen brought her Dungeoneering team to greet their Harpy guides, she found the colourful pheasant surrounded by more of her kin. In the intervening three hours or so, Phelara had been busy.

"What's happened?" she alighted onto the soot-strewn earth.

A series of unintelligible squarks that translated into "She comes" and "It's the sister" and "I want my turn" addressed Gwen's arrival. When she shooed the bird-women away, trying to find Phelara, she heard a parting of ruffled feathers.

"Phelara?" Gwen spotted her favourite bird in a wholly unexpected condition, one involving her Wyvern.

Golos sat in his demi-human form, raw as a peeled onion, erect as a flagpole, looking happier than a bear with a stomach full of salmon. Beside her Planar Ally, Phelara appeared as though she had been put through the wringer. Here and there, she was missing tufts of feathers. As for Golos, either he had been vigorously punching a downy pillow, or he had done the Discovery Channel special.

"Wow." Rene licked her dry lips. "A wyvern's club has a spiked knob."

"It's the tail." Gwen's face flushed a brilliant scarlet while her fingers tingled. She had told Golos to protect the Harpies, but instead, she had set loose a cock in a henhouse. Or perhaps, was it more akin to commanding a dog to guard the hens, and only to find—

She slapped her cheeks to clear her head.

Phelara wobbled to her feet. Beside her, a few other hardy specimens helped one another to stand, strained by their weakened knees.

Gwen pinched her brow.

"Golos. Put on some pants."

Golos materialised a shawl.

"Phelara? Have you decided?"

"Yes." The Sky Priestess nodded, arching her spine in avian supplication. "We would like to invite Lord Golos to our domain."

"I'll need a week," Golos intoned with great anticipation. "Maybe two."

"YOU need to work," Gwen intervened. "No work, no play. I need those trolls gone, and relics recovered. Else, I'll send you back to Ruxin, and you can explain your failure personally."

Golos grunted.

Sighing, Gwen briefly explained their plan, stating that she had secured a deal to avert further damage to Phelara's village.

"Yes!" Phelara declared, now more helpful than ever. "The Cloud Father will show you where the trolls are weakest! Where the Hags sleep! We often raid one another. The giant-kin foray into our domain and take our young and our eggs for nourishment. Father may even know where these relics of the mountain-kin may be hidden. He has been our leader since the fort was manned by 'humans', many seasons ago!"

"Excellent." Gwen patted the bird on the head. "Well done. I have rewards for you if your Cloud Father can help us. For him as well, you can tell him that."

She then turned to her Wyvern.

"Gogo." she slapped Golos on the back. "Cheer up! Not only do you to get to eat trolls, but you also get to tango! Just remember, dead trolls, recover relics. Work well, and I'll keep you manifested. FOR TWO WHOLE WEEKS."


From Condor’s Rise, the IIUC proctors and the local garrison watched with ambivalent expressions as Fudan's menagerie entered the viridian expanse of Amazonia.

As pay back for Inti's detour, Fudan had volunteered the thankless task of first-contact. It was a risky move, though the proctors did not doubt for a moment Gwen possessed the means for an all-consuming alpha-strike.

“People are not going to believe this,” Tei shared another set of opinions. “A Void beast, a Kirin, a Wyvern and now Harpies, are we a Beast Tide?”

“They'll love it.” Gwen flew behind her Kirin's slipstream. “Golos is a Huangshan local, and we dealt with macaques before, right?”

“But these are HARPIES!” Tei baulked. "They're not even half-breeds. They're the real deal."

“Isn't that amazing?” Gwen turned to their guide. “Phelara, how long have your people inhabited Amazonia?"

The Sky Priestess levelled herself, carefully adjusting her velocity.

“Mistress,” the Harpy said. “Our progenitors came from the sky. In the beginning, there was only the Sky Mother. When she grew lonely, she birthed the egg of the Sky Father.”

“Ooo,” Gwen cooed. “Immaculate Conception, very nice. Go on.”

“When the Sky Father grew out its feathers, it longed for the Sky Mother. Together, they made many eggs, each engendering the different tribes of the sky-kin.”

“How Grecian,” Gwen thought of Gaia and Uranus. “How many tribes are there?”

“Over forty with which we keep in close contact,” Phelara supplied the intel without reserve. “The Copper Claws had been one of the larger tribes.”

Gwen caught the loss in Phelara’s tone and felt unmistakable remorse. The birds' flocks had been doing their thing, living day to day without care until disaster had risen from below without rhyme nor reason.

“Don’t fret, little bird,” Golos’ reassuring voice sounded beside her. “There will be countless young ones in the years to come. Strong by virtue of my blessed blood!”

“I look forward to that day, Lord Golos.”

Golos beamed.

“Exactly how many eggs is the bird lady planning to lay? ” Lulan asked suddenly.

Gwen's lips quivered, loathing the prospect of having to explain polygamy to Lulan, wondering what Kusu would say if he knew.

"There's a teapot full of tea," Golos snorted. "And there are many cups waiting to be filled..."

"Gogo!" Gwen tried to prevent the corruption of Lulu.

Golos burst into lewd laughter. Below the flock, a cloud of birds rose into the air, fleeing in all directions.

"Phelara," Gwen changed the subject. "What lies in the deep forest? At the centre of Amazonia?"

"I do not know," the Harpy apologised. "Some say there is a great tree that holds up the sky. Some say there are ancient beings there, Godlings in their own right, guarding the heart of the forest. Our Cloud Father says that there are worse beings than trolls. Either way, we never venture past the Wall of Woods."

"The wall of wood?" Gwen asked. "What's that?"

"A great forest of trees taller than the emerald sea." Phelara's eyes grew reverent. "Beyond which, the Cloud Father says lies the domain of the ageless ones."

"And what is what?" Gwen felt her boundless curiosity tickled yet again,

"I do not know." The Harpy's voice grew remorseful. "We are told not to ask."

"Aww..." Gwen comforted the Harpy. "Don't fret. Tell me instead of the trolls."

"Yes, mistress..."

Enthralled by the cruelty of the nefarious trolls, Fudan's journey continued as a bee-line on the mapping slate. Whenever the flock approached a new Harpy nesting site, Phelara flapped ahead to herald passing, securing an unmolested passage.

"We're close," Tei remarked eventually. "Gwen?"

"Phelara?" Gwen passed on the enquiry. "Where are your kin?"

“I am not sure. There should be nest guards. SISTERS! WHERE ARE YOU?” Phelara's response was to loudly screech in rapid succession. "This is most strange. My sisters should be stationed here, as is their duty."

Gwen scanned the horizon for a miniature sun or at least signs of smoke. Though it was unlikely, Cuzco might have deceived them after all, choosing to infiltrate the ruins directly.

“Our nests may be under attack.” Phelara too searched the horizon for clues, though the mist-shroud limited aerial surveys. “If an enemy proves too strong, our warriors will sacrifice themselves to exhaust the enemy. But, as it stands, our flight is diminished by half."

"Do not fear." Golos offered his service first before turning to Gwen. "Calamity, I am going to help."

“Don't bugger off just yet." Gwen held her Wyvern in check. "Tei, what's your take on this?"

“We'll have to deal with Phelara's troubles when we return regardless,” Tei affirmed Golos' desires. “If so, let's resolve it now.”

“Why not leave it for Cuzco to solve,” Petra advised.

“I am with Petra,” Rene said. "It's not like we owe Cuzco. Circumstances change all the time."

"I am with Tei." Lulan was eager to fight, ensuring that the ayes have it.

“Good, I prefer to keep our word.” Gwen turned to the Sky Priestess. “Lead on, Phelara!”

Ascending to a higher altitude, the group maximised their speed. Soon, they caught sight of a flame-ravaged forest smoking gently, adding to the mid-day haze.

"There!" the Sky Priestess squawked.

Above the treetops, a massive flight of Harpies encircled an unknown something, forming a whirlpool of coppery feathers.

"Something stinks!" Golos barked, his voice suddenly unsure. "Father's feathers! What is that scent?!"

“Mistress, my flock is under attack!” Phelara accelerated amid a chaotic bell-beat of clamorous wings. “Sisters! Aid our kin!”

"You're right, what IS that?" Like Golos, she too had caught an offensive presence.

"!"

As Ayxin's scale licked her spine, Gwen additionally noted that her Wyvern hadn't bolted like a bloodhound after a hare.

"Alright, Familiars at the front." Tei didn't need draconic instinct to sense that trouble was brewing. "Formation C. Lulan takes the rear. Buff up!"

Up ahead, the encircling mass of Harpies began to exercise the sort of manoeuvre more typically seen in the ocean, where swarms of silvery school-fish formed massive bait-balls to deter predators. When Phelara’s flock joined the encircling Bright-Feathers, a burgeoning polyp of overlapping, coppery feathers rapidly expanded until, like a pustule, the avian mass burst into shrieking, free-wheeling birds.

“Wocao!” Rene, now clad in Lava Skin, let loose a sulphurous expetive. “What in Mao’s name is that?”

The being that emerged from the floundering flock was enormous, at least half the size of Golos. From a distance, the gargantuan bird appeared to possess the misshapen head of a man attached to a condor's body. Its nose, which Gwen had at first mistaken for a beak, was long and hooked; its lips, a thin, severe line, extended from ear to ear, revealing rows of human-like incisors.

With a snap, it snagged a Harpy from the air, crushing the poor thing between both sets of teeth, its prehensile tongue wringing the bird of its bodily juices before spitting the carcass back at the flock with disdain. When it flew, its feathers sliced the air with the sound of metal-on-metal, affecting a noise akin to windchimes.

“A Da-Peng!” Golos banked to a halt, his expression gravid with dread. “Impossible!”

“Mao! A Big Bird!” Tei discerned that the avian-titan possess claws that resembled six-fingered hands. “Aren't they extinct?”

"Slaughtered to the last by the Mythic Dragons." Lulan too knew the popular legend.

“So, an extinct species...” Petra materialised a lumen-recorder. "The question is, what's it doing here?"

Gwen attempted to reconcile the monstrous being in front of them with the semi-baked alphabet-teaching yellow bird of her childhood. “Big Bird? What's a Big Bird?”

"Dragon-eaters," Tei whispered in awe. "In ancient times, they hunted dragons for sport. When the great drakes allied with the Yellow Emperor, they drove the Da-peng to extinction. It's all recorded in the Analects of the Mountains and the Seas. The last Da-peng perished in a stew for the Emperor..."

“I don't understand, how can there be Da-Peng still in existence?” Golos appeared shaken by their present reality. "Father is never wrong!"

Gwen was just about to retort when a puzzle piece clicked into place.

"Gogo." She shared the Wyvern's dismay. "I think I know why there are no dragons in Amazonia or in the Andes."

As a scion of the Yinglong, Golos was smarter than the average drake. When it realised what Gwen had hypothesised, his gonads quailed.

"In Amazonia," Gwen declared with a fatalistic air. "Your kind lost the war."

"So..." Rene raised a hand. "Do we keep fighting?"

"We must fight." Tei reminded them of their present condition. "I don't fancy fighting the trolls with that thing looming over us."

"We'll feed it to Cali!" Lulan was raring to go.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Gwen,” the Russian suddenly caught Gwen's arm. “Lulan's right on the money. Didn't you say Caliban needed a flying form? If we use Bilby's, I think we can do it.”

The Void Sorceress' orbs widened. All doubt evaporated. From their safe vantage, Gwen studied the Da-peng. Indeed, Big Bird was a worthy combatant. As her enemies grew in power, Caliban's choice of polymorphic forms grew rarer and more demanding. In Shanghai, she had even considered asking Jun to take her on another tour, maybe to Kunlun to hunt the Thunder Birds.

"Cali?" she asked her hidden Void beast.

"Shaa!" Caliban was keener than Golos after a dry spell.

"KAKAKA!" a great cry, half-bird and half-human, split the air. With a single thrust of its wings, the Da-peng broke through the Harpy's encirclement, pursuing something.

"Wocao! It's after our bird!" Rene spluttered.

"Well, that's sealed the deal then," Gwen gave her commands. "Tei, Pats and I are going to immobilise it with our Bilby’s Hands. Neither of us can have our concentration disrupted.”

“Not a problem.”

“Golos! What do you know about Big Birds.”

“They’re immune to draconic magic… and highly resistant in general. Also, they're strong.”

“Anything else?”

“Nothing." Golos appeared wary. "Not even Ruxin has seen one in the flesh."

“Don't worry, Gogo. Mama's got the big bad bird covered." Gwen teased her Wyvern.

A surge of lightning exploded over Golos, boiled over like an over-filled kettle.

“FIRST BLOOD IS MINE!” Golos blasted off into the distance, ready to deliver his payload.

Gwen motioned for their rear guard. “Lulu, can you cover Gogo?”

“With pleasure.” Lulan had been watching the Da-Peng scythe its way through the flock, tracing its movements as it missed Phelara by a wing-length.

A faint, jade-green emanation suffused the Earthen Mage's Iron Skin as she tapped into her Naga Spirit, briefly materialising five subtle serpent heads across her arms and her neck.

“All at once?”

“Go for broke.” Gwen began her spell.

“True Strike!” Petra dropped unto Lulan a Divination buff she had saved for just the occasion.

“Rene?”

Rene kept her eyes affixed on their prey; her Salamander Spirit feeding her Lava Skin.

The Da-peng dived, closing in on Phelara, ignoring her wind blades.

"Now!"
“Panzerschreck!”

Ahead, Golos accelerated, transforming into a blur, affecting a sound like rolling thunder.

_SCHWING!_

As one, Lulan’s weighted arrows accelerated from the Elemental Plane of Earth, racing past the crackling Wyvern.

“BARAKA!” The bird suddenly banked, spluttering Harpy blood like a mangled sprinkler. Before Golos could deliver its breath attack, the Da-peng split its maw wider than a dump truck, then let loose a shriek so cacophonous that Gwen had to hold her ears from half-a-kilometre away.

As though beset by invisible turbulence, Golos’ trajectory floundered. His aerodynamic form crumbled. Against all expectation, the Wyvern roared, writhing in agony, crashing into a tree.

“KAKAKA!” the Da-peng cackled.

“Gogo!” Gwen cried out, shocked that her Wyvern wasn't up to snuff.

_CLANG!_

Lulan’s missiles struck, unaffected by its hideous birdsong.

_CLANG!_

_CLUNG!_

_TANG!_

_THUNK!_

“KAAK!”

Screeching roars of deforming metal polluted the air.

The first Panzerschreck had sent the man-faced condor back into the flock. The volley that followed then struck the creature unerringly, ping-ponging it into the arboreal sea.

“Lulan, another round.” Gwen kept herself within range of Tei’s defences as she and Petra drifted closer. “Phelara! Help your kindred! We'll take care of it.”

A great squark split the Harpy flock, dispersing the winged females while Gwen and her party moved in to inspect their prey. Parting the trees, they saw that Lulan had outdone herself, for one of her stabilised projectiles had pinned the Da-Peng’s inner wing to the trunk of an enormous acacia. With its body nailed against the fibrous wood, the fiend's fingers failed to purchase the smooth bark, leaving it momentarily helpless.

With Ariel and Tei at the fore, the party approached.

Upon closer inspection, the Da-Peng did indeed possess human hands for feet, with six digits on each foot, tipped with claws akin to inwardly turned scimitars.

"HAKAKUU!"

The Da-peng was screaming blue murder at Gwen and her party, its feather-strewn face twisted in irrational hate and agony, outdoing Gwen's Translation Stone.

“Gogo, get over here!” Gwen commanded her fallen Wyvern. Knowing the lineage of Dragons and their ilk, Gwen suspected there was something very much ingrained in the blood that prevented Golos from exercising his usual enthusiasm. “What’s wrong with you?”

Golos climbed the air.

At the sight of Golos, the Da-peng began to howl and cackle. It salivated uncontrollably.

“It’s calling for help!” Petra called out. “Lulu!”

“Panzerschreck!”

_TANG!_
 _CLUNG!_
 _THUNK!_

Two more Panzerschrecks drew a line of sparks across the bird’s chest and abdomen before ricochetting off into the canopy. The third penetrated a tender portion of its belly.

"KAK!" the bird wailed.

“Holy hell that’s some defence,” Gwen whistled. “Anyone else wants to have a go?”

“Lava Spear!” Rene punched the man-faced bird with a lance of lava. The projectile spent its energy, then crumbled. “Ergh, it's like hitting an iron plate.”

Lulan drew an emerald-green blade of iron. She gave its honed edge a swing, eager to test her mettle.

“Lulu, don't get too close,” Tei stopped Lulan before she went toe to toe with the thing. “Its physical abilities must be immeasurable.”

"Ariel, you stay back as well," Gwen had no desire for Ariel to be put to sleep before they could nuke the troll fort from orbit, and she had no means to cast additional offensive spells while maintaining Bilby's Hand.

"EE!" Ariel instead made itself a barrier for its mistress.

“Then I shall kill it, and gift it's head to Ruxin!” An ashamed and newly returned Golos loosened his jaw. “ROAR!”

“Wait—“

A line of lightning obliterated the bird and the tree behind it.

“Idiot!” Gwen swore.

Golos stared, dumbfounded that his dragon breath slid past the Da-peng's exterior like water off a duck's back.

“Bloody hell!” Gwen berated her thunder-headed stepchild. “WATCH OUT!”

The bird was free.

The Da-Peng must have figured Gwen for the alpha of the pack. Twisting its torso to bring its grotesque head to bear, it lunged at her as though launched from a catapult.

“Tomb Stones!” Tei’s hands were a blur. A collated barrier of raw mana and compressed Dust instantly shrouded his vice-captain, taking the momentum of the predatory pheasant in full. With a din of metal on stone, the bird's claws crumpled the first few inches. Thankfully, its sword-like nails failed to reach Gwen's abdomen.

“Dust Tendrils!” Tei appended his defence spell with an additional meta-magic component, wrapping the bird with tendrils of dust. “Hit it while it's slowed!"

"KAA!" The bird bit Tei's barrier, shredding a layer of its magic. The Negative Energy contained within the dust, however, was enough to subdue it for the briefest moment.

"NOW!"

The Da-Peng’s forced error was enough for Gwen and Petra to complete their pre-planned spells.

“Bilby’s Hand!” the girls invoked as one.

A pair of palms crushed the Da-Peng from either side, each ethereal appendage five meters across from pinky to thumb, shimmering with raw, translucent mana. Ever since Alesia's induction, Gwen had practised the fabled spell of the legendary Bilby ceaselessly, especially now that Petra had joined the fray.

Forming a vessel of pure force, the pair of Bilby’s Hands pressed in on the Da-Peng, creaking its bones even as dire feathers sliced into the mana-made flesh.

“KAK!” The bird howled in frustration, literally eating away at the girls' spell. “KAK! KAK!”

“Keep it pinned!” A surge of heady adrenaline kicked at Gwen's vertebrae. “Caliban!”

Caliban slithered into being atop the thrashing bird.

"KAKA?"

The Da-peng's panic was written all over its face.

“SHAAA!” Her Familiar decided its serpent form was appropriate for the occasion. It opened its maw, then let loose its twin tentacles.

“KAKU!” The bird twisted its lower limb, snatching at Caliban. It caught the serpent by the lower-mid section, then squeezed.

Gwen gaped as a bubbling dribble of stuff oozed between its hand-claws. Since Burma, Caliban's carapace had grown sturdier by magnitudes. Nonetheless, in-between the pink digits of the Da-peng, her Familiar may as well be a caramel-filled churro.

Besides her vice-captain, Lulan gulped, imagining herself being squeezed out like lotus-filling mantou.

“Gods, it’s strong!” Petra strained with visible effort. Lacking Gwen's VMI, she was struggling to maintain the hand at full force.

Gwen, meanwhile, wrote an empty vitality-check for Caliban to cash, confident that Big Bird should provide her with a subsequent windfall.

"Shaa-shaa!" The faceless portion of Caliban slithered up the Da-peng’s torso, shedding its lower body with less care than a Bobbit worm.

“KAA!” This time, it was the Da-peng's neck that distended. Its humanoid face full of insanity. With a snap, it tore off Caliban’s head, filling its mouth with ichor and gore.

Gwen stifled a grunt as her vitality fell.

“SHAA!”
“SHAA!”
“SHAA!”

Three heads sprouted where there was one.

One little Caliban went for the open wound.
The second Caliban assaulted its eyes.
And Caliban number three performed the Golos special.

Not far, Golos howled sympathetically, reduced to a peanut gallery by the Da-peng's unique physiology.

“CONSUME!”

Caliban erupted into an indistinguishable mass of tentacles, carapace, flailing fingers and gnashing teeth. The Big Bird writhed, a web of lampreys tunnelled under its goose-skin, its milk-white eyes rolled back in deathly ecstasy, giving way to probing proboscis. At its extremity, pink, elongated digits curled as synapses fired for the last time.

Caliban's audience gaped with fascinated horror as the globular mess of feather and flesh reformed itself. When finally the churning gumbo of guts and giblets unwrung itself, they saw a coiled-up Death Worm, ready for its nap.

“Shaa!” it belched forth a furball of feathers.

Quickly, Golos collected the evidence.

"For Ruxin and Father," her Wyvern explained. "I need to tell them that the Da-peng still live."

"Good idea- WHOA!" Petra too pilfered a pile for future research, surprising herself when the weight of a singular sheaf tipped her off balance.

Yet, the same feathers drifted through the air as though weightless.

It was an oxymoronic phenomenon, but not one for which Gwen had time.

“I need a place to 'meditate'. Golos!” Gwen retrieved Caliban, sensing that Big Bird’s palpable vitality was about to ravage her innards. “Guard me until I recover.”

This time, Golos obeyed without question. With the thoughtfulness of a well-trained hound, it bore her downward, then alighted on a branch the width of a two-lane viaduct.

The rest of her party followed.

With Caliban arrested in its pocket dimension, Petra unsummoned her Bilby's Hand.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to Cali.” Rene shook at the recent memory of the Da-peng's demise.

“Good.” Tei patted her on the back. “Sanity's in short supply in our party.”

Lulan drifted close, more contemplative than before.

“Gwen.” Petra took up a defensive stance. “The Harpies are returning.”

“Tell Phelara to hold.” Gwen maintained her lotus pose. “Pats, privacy barrier, please.”

“Water Sphere!” Petra dropped one of Richard’s spells, encasing her cousin’s body.

Golos brought to bear its clubbed tail, segregating its mistress from the others. From above, the pair appeared as though a drake safeguarding its blue egg.

In the next moment, Phelara broke from the host of Harpies, tweeting in excited tones.

“She wants to thank us for saving her tribe,” Golos translated in Gwen's absence. “Their leader wishes to meet with us.”

By the hundreds, the great flock alighted around Fudan, threading through space until plumed bodies weighed down every branch and bough.

Phelara returned, following a regal Harpy, the first male of its species Fudan had seen.

Compared to the females, the male was a splendid specimen, a brilliant hued peacock with three impressive locks marking its forehead. Its pupils, each a vivid scarlet, was punctuated by pearlescent, green lashes. Beneath its delicate, effeminate features, a tapered torso covered in teal-green plumage smoothed out as it hovered, held aloft by elemental air.

It bowed.

“Saviours,” the Cloud Father spoke in Quechua. “We are—“

“Silence!” Golos raised its head threateningly. “My mistress is preoccupied. Do not approach.”

"EE!" Ariel swished its tail.

The happy atmosphere grew awkward.

"Esteemed master," Tei intervened. "You may speak to me while our sorceress completes her meditation. We are delighted to have been of service in your hour of need. Our companion is overprotective, but Golos' brashness infers no insult."

The humans and the Harpies gazed at one another, ignoring the muffled groans escaping from the aquamarine water-barrier.

"There is no offence taken," the Harpy's leader spoke with great care. "My name is Aerivela. I am Cloud Father to these young ones."

"Well met." Tei bowed, instructing his team to do the same. "We are aware of our trespass..."

"It is the Sky Father's will that has brought the Godling here," Aerivela trilled musically. "It is we who are indebted."

"What was that creature?" Tei indicated to the dark stain where the Da-peng had been pinned.

"An ancient one," Aerivela intoned with reverence. "They live deep in the forest, beyond the wall, beneath the great tree. Since time immemorial, the ancient ones have acted as the guardians of the forest's centre. For one of its kind to appear here is neither expected nor a calamity we could anticipate."

"A great tree - a World Tree?" Petra perked up. "Where do the elves dwell? In Amazonia's interior? What colour is their skin? Caramel? Ebony?"

Aerivela shook his head. "I would not know, human-kin. None of our kind has ventured past the Wall of Wood. We are happy enough with the domain which the Sky Father has granted us."

"I see," Tei cleared his throat. "Has Miss Phelara informed you of the tragedy at Condor's Rise?"

"I grieve for our loss..." the male Harpy exhaled. "Though—"

_SPLOSH!_

Behind Fudan's Mages, their vice-captain reemerged into the world, balancing herself against Golos's many-spined tail.

“Their leader is here to speak to us,” Tei informed the disorientated sorceress while she circulated her Essence. “That's him there, the peacock.”

“Oh?” Gwen paused when Tei accused the Harpy's leader of peacocking, but then she saw the peacock. “Oh, I see! Good work, Cap."

Golos uncoiled itself while Gwen straightened out her attire, pulled back her hair, then climbed the air.

“Greetings, Scion of the Cloud.” Gwen crossed her arms across her chest as Phelara had advised. "We come in peace."

According to her endearing avian, the way to convince Phelara's leader lied in presenting herself not as an invader, but as an emissary of sorts. The higher Harpies were a sanctimonious lot, and so the best way to ensure cooperation was through shock and awe.

Both of which had been amply supplied by the Da-peng's demise.

“Great emissary from beyond the treeless sea,” the brightly hued priest's eyes sparkled. “This one humbly welcomes the Godling to our abode.”


Hardin Smith had thought he would die serving the United States Marine Corps. It was only fair, for he was a post-Tide orphan, one who had reaped the benefits of a booming decade, receiving the best education a world at war could offer.

From ward to conscript, from NCO to cadet, his early life had embodied the American Dream. Even as a foundling with no backing and no connections, his judgement, talent, and his ruthless determination had earned him a commission.

Those had been his halcyon days, and during a restive lull in San Francisco, Hardin had met his fianceè. The lovers had spent a week locked in a motel, then married. Unfortunately, for his honeymoon, Hardin was sent on a two-year tour to Patagonia.

When he returned to the states, war-weary and feeling a decade older, what greeted him wasn't his doe-eyed wife, but drifters puffing the Blue in his abandoned apartment.

Hardened by his time in the tundra, Hardin knew that alarm was a useless emotion. He made the necessary enquiries with the local PD and discovered that his wife had become involved with local layabouts.

Hardin took some time to cool his head, then made enquiries. The culprit was the leader of a local gang, the son of a multi-millionaire, heir to a string of trendy clubs in San Francisco's bay area. His wife, a pretty, blue-eye thing from the mid-western Frontier, had been out with friends when she must have caught his eye.

That certain people predated on the wives and children of military personnel serving abroad wasn't an unusual tale. Hardin had heard the rumour many times in the military but had never expected himself to become a victim.

Now that it had happened, what was he to do?

An NoM's life, even in the democracy of the States, wasn't worth a high-tier Mage's fingernail. It was a point his CO had drilled into Hardin over and over in cadet school. The equal society spiel was just that, a spiel. Egalitarianism was an ideology, one Hardin with his magical talent could arguably uphold. Conversely, for his NoM wife, life was one big pile of increasingly sour lemons.

If Hardin had been a hothead, a penthouse in Rincon would have perished, revealing no less than two dozen victims.

As a rational man, Hardin took the loss of his lover as a lesson learnt of the way of the world. He left the military against the advice of his CO, citing bereavement, and walked into the front lobby of Dark Water, America's premier PMC. There, he met with Erik Garant Price, a name he had loathed as a USMC officer, but now saw as the catalyst of his metamorphosis.

Across the next decade, Hardin proved himself again and again to his employer. From Guam to Managua, from Bogota to Guayaquil, he had seldom disappointed. As he rose through the hierarchy, his opinion of the world equally expanded. Behind the hands of administrator Price was the Towers, and behind the Towers, were the Factions. Beyond that, there were more significant forces at play, far beyond Hardin's pay-grade.

Take his current quest, for example.

His role was so embedded in the agenda of the higher powers that he had given up on elucidation. On the surface, he had been hired by the Tower Master of Cuzco, one Amaru Paullu-Yupanqui, cousin to the Incan's Sapa. In Hardin's estimation, the ambitious Mage with the likeness of a snake was fully invested in vaporising the Sapa's son, likely as a bid for more power and control.

This coincided with Dark Water's long-term objective: the destabilisation of Amazonia. Hardin's side-project was to document the creatures that could be found within the rainforest. In addition to politics, Dark Water also organised extradition of rare materials for the American Grey Market. These included and were not limited to Incan relics, pre-Tide artefacts and demi-humans, especially exotic female variants. As his boss once had mused: for the ultra-rich, nothing but the best - or the strangest - will satisfy.

Armed with Cuzco's crude maps and the Magitech provided by Dark Water, Hardin and his team navigated the forest. Though the feat seemed impossible for some, Hardin had since discovered the hidden rules of the jungle.

Prior to his current mission, Hardin had been documenting a second ruin for Amaru. In fact, Hardin had been the one to map the Temple of Mama Killa in the first place, providing the catalyst for his current employment.

When finally his Divi-map had received Inti's attack route, Hardin told his team to remain stationed in the Temple of Viracocha, the forge god of the Incan pantheon. Dark Water had promised its Tower VIPs more relics than they could shake a stick at, and the company aimed to deliver.

Alone, he then made his way to the Temple of Mama Killa to await the arrival of the sun prince. As a man without family, Hardin preferred solo work, for not all Mages possessed the means to travel undetected across so hostile a landscape.

Now crouched against the fork of an ancient cocoa bough, Hardin plucked then masticated its tender leaves. Unlike the variety grown in the north, the Wildland specimens were potent beyond belief. A dozen blades, crushed between one's teeth and suckled for an hour, could keep a Mage awake for days. The concoction did nothing for fatigue, of course, but Hardin wasn't tired; he merely enjoyed the hypersensitive wakefulness.

As for the "Amazonian Tragedy" of Prince Inti's fall from grace, Hardin had planned two ploys and a flawless contingency.

First, he had previously harassed the Troll fort so that not only were its denizen aware and vigilant, the beasts had pulled back their scouts and hunting parties from the jungle.

Secondly, Hardin had composed and delivered cryptic missives in Trollic, informing the Arch-Hag and her coven that the Son of the Sun would soon arrive to reclaim his Amazonian domain.

Of the two, his confidence lay in the Hags. In his mind, there was no doubt the witches would bury themselves deep within the temple caverns, safe from harm until Inti arrived, tired and haggard and out of mana. Then, in that dire moment, the Hag's Brutalisers would fall upon Inti's party, aided by hexes and curses, sending the haughty prince to an early grave.

And if somehow Inti survived?

In addition to Magister Amaru's 'Contingency Rings', Hardin could activate a string of resonating devices he had painstakingly planted so that all manners of creatures would swarm the Temple of Mama Killa, swallowing Inti in a freakish Beast Tide.

Having processed his thoughts, Hardin waited for his prey, a smoky ghost lost in the haze of the Amazonian jungle.

Gwen acknowledged that Aerivela was a better host than she was a guest.

After a diplomatic exchange, Gwen and her "Flock from Fudan" toured what remained of the tribe's home. As bumpkins visiting a city for the first time, the party then gawked at the wood-spun homes of the Harpies and cooed at the hanging cottages. On suspended balconies, they saw chicks, half-naked and barely feathered, suckled by heavy-breasted hens. Elsewhere, brightly-plumed priestesses lead less experienced pullets in flights around the trees, harassing the stranglers with squawks of frustration.

For Gwen, it was a scene that stabbed at her chest.

As for her host, his lack of animosity made her squirm in her Shen-tei combat suit. If anything, the peacock Cloud Father reminded her of an ascetic monk, living with one foot in the material world, and the other in the clouds. An Affinity-induced personality? Gwen wondered; though she had no idea if Demi-humans could be affected by such a thing.

"I can't say that we're not responsible for your plight," she explained as they toured the Harpy's stronghold. "I mean, our quest ruined your home, and now you're proposing to vacate permanently."

The Cloud Father shrugged attractively.

"The moment the Ancient one appeared, this place was no longer safe," Aerivela explained with great patience. Though his priestesses were wearing anxious faces, the Cloud Father himself seemed entirely at ease. "The Sky brings life, and it takes as well. Say your fellow city-kin had not burned our home. There would have been more of us, but that would mean more fodder for the Ancient. In your remorse, you come to parley. As was the Sky Father's will, you defeated the Ancient. Now, we live to build a second home. Is not the will of the world intriguing?"

"I don't think that's how it works." Gwen was beginning to wonder if the airy Aerivela gave a shit at all.

"Do not fret." Aerivela laughed, his handsome, effeminate face radiant as he pointed downward at Golos. The Wyvern had not joined the party when they entered the trees. Instead, he lingered outside, accompanied by Phelara and a flock of warriors eager to engender powerful spawn for the next generation. "Where there is death, there is life. Your death-dealing sibling is now bringing new children to our tribe. Knowing this, what need we fear a decade of labour? The emerald sea is limitless. We shall find a home, and the Great Sky willing, we will grow stronger."

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Gwen sighed; there was no reasoning with the Harpy Pope.
She had anticipated being henpecked, or perhaps, she had expected to coerce Aerivela with her dragon-fear. Instead, the Harpy leader had laughed off her suspicions, dismissed her threats, and told her that Golos was free to plough whatever he wished.

"Thank you, Cloud Father." She bowed her head. "I wish there was something else we could do. I could convince Cuzco to leave your new home alone, for example. I can be very persuasive. "

"No." The Harpy smiled. "No need. Are you ready to proceed with your quest to recover the relics of the mountain-kin?"

Gwen and team noted that they were ready to proceed.

"Then I shall direct you to the western entrance." Aerivela lifted a wing, its plumage covering every shade of paradise. "Come, Godling. Your adventure awaits!"

With Aerivela's aid, the party broke through a part of the undergrowth the cock had transcribed as neutral territory.

All through the forest, these "trails" existed. However, unless one could read the signs and smell the scents of the jungle, the network was impossible to traverse.

From treetop to the undergrowth, the guided tour took an hour to thread through the trees, avoiding the unhappy simians left by the Explorers' previous passage. At the understory's end, the party emerged into an overlook hanging. Below, they saw the roving mass of a vegetation-choked stream.

"We're here," Tei noted on his device. "This is one of the three streams leading to the temple city."

"Follow the water, and you shall not miss your mark," Aerivela intoned sagely. "Remain in the understory and the earth-kin shall not expect your arrival."

"Thank you, Aerivela. We'll take it from here."

"Beware the coven of three," Aerivela warned her again. "Not even I dare to approach when the crones gather. Once they witness your prowess, they will surely hide and seek to ambush you at your most vulnerable. Such is their way."

"Please take care, Mistress," Phelara urged her saviour. "Lord Golos, you as well."

"I shall return shortly." Golos, in his human form, pinched the Priestess' underside. "We'll make a whole flock!"

"I'll have the nest ready." Phelara touched her belly with the tip of one wing.

Feeling as though she had been force-fed dog food, Gwen wondered what Ruxin would think when he found out that she had pimped out his brother. The rest of Fudan's flock likewise diverted their attention to the task at hand. A bird flirting with a Wyvern marked the limit of human prudence.

"Inti's been notified." Tei checked his Divi-marked map. "He'll start right after we do."

"Right." Gwen took a deep breath. "What's the plan?"

"We'll begin with nav-point Alpha, then move to Epsilon pending on their resistance." Tei tapped the map. "Gwen, Barbanginy at E4 and Maelstrom at G16, can you manage without Caliban?"

"With Pats here, I should be fine," Gwen refuted her captain's fears. "Cali should awaken by the time we're into the inner chambers. Don't forget, Inti will be taking half their forces as well."

"Lord Golos, you will be responsible for the main avenue, C12 to F29, does that satisfy?"

"He'll be fine." Gwen patted her Wyvern. "He's eager to return, after all, the sooner the trolls perish, the sooner Gogo inseminates his flock of hussies."

"Calamity," Golos corrected her. "Phelara is your aunty."

"..." Gwen swore internally. She motioned to the map again. "We're counting on you, Golos. The Troll chief is worth a hefty load of CCs."

Golos snorted. The princeling of Huangshan appeared to have restored his bravado after spending some time with the flock. The Da-peng had been a punishing episode for the proud prince, one that Gwen initially feared had scarred the Wyvern's psyche.

"Alright!" Gwen shook out her long limbs. "Captain, will you do the honours?"

"FUDAN!" Tei snapped, a rare hint of colour touching his grave keeper's complexion. "BUFF UP!"

Hardin hung from the underside of a tree overlooking the temple city, plated in MKIII optic-camouflage. To the forest's fauna, he resembled a piece of bark, perfectly blended, appearing nothing like a six-foot soldier clad in articulated combat armour.

Attached to his helmet were two tendrils resembling a snail's stalks, the latest in military hardware - a pair of All-Seeing Googles modified for full 360-degree coverage.

"There you are." Hardin spotted Inti's mana signature through the layers of spoiled foliage. He double-checked that his Divi-linked devices remained connected to the slate in his hand, wondering why Inti's party still remained stationary.

_BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!_ A warning marker appeared in his peripheral vision.

The answer to his puzzlement came in the form of an unexpected commotion at the western end of the temple city. Hardin had neglected the quadrant because the passage there was made near-impossible by the density of demi-humans living in the deep jungle.

The mercenary willed both google-tentacles toward the phenomenon.

As a part-time evoker himself, he recognised the beginnings of a wide-range Maelstrom now collating above the western wall. Below, the trolls exploded into a frenzy of activity, erupting from huts and houses, tents and crude humpies, retrieving whatever weapons they could find.

_TWOOOOO! TWOOOOOOO!_

The fort's war-horns called the tribe to action.

Hardin cycled through the lens filters until he found one capable of long-range Detect Magic. When the diagnostics came through, his agitation was so profound that he almost broke his perfect camouflage.

A Void-Element Maelstrom! Hardin swallowed the cocoa leaves. It was the sort of spell he had only ever read about in the archives. With a shiver, a name intruded into his mind, though Hardin immediately dismissed the possibility. There was no way the world's most hunted Void Sorceress would be in a backwater part of the Amazon, fucking with Trolls.

_Shreeeeee—WOOMP!_

A vortex opened into the Quasi-Elemental Plane. The expansion was itself soundless, but not so the gush of hysterical air in its midst.

Hardin zoomed in further, maximising the utility of the magical lens.

First to be drawn into the all-consuming orifice was the debris. Bits of bone, the carcasses of animals, scraps of leather, crude parchments used by the Shamans, as well as a bric-a-brac of life's little necessities all met with oblivion. Next to rise were the tusk-less slaves, too numerous to hide inside buildings and too weak to grasp onto the smooth stones of the temple's original buildings.

With horrible fascination, Hardin observed the phenomenon, clicking his tongue every time a troll was launched into the air to kiss the dark dimension-sphere, its size no more than the circumference of a human head. Whenever Troll-fodders arrived kicking and screaming, they were wrung as though by some irresistible force, turning the consistency of thick soup.

"God damn," Hardin couldn't help but mutter. The spell was inexpertly utilised, and its stability was horrid, but even so, its power made his scalp crawl.

_Woooooo—WHOOMP!_

Before Hardin could finish recording the first vortex, a second one appeared. Rapidly zooming outwards, Hardin caught the absurd sight of a flying deer imploding a lightning-fed nova.

The second Maelstrom was huge, more extensive than anything Hardin had ever seen. Where a regular variant was already an impressive spell with an AoE of fifty meters, this one was well over two hundred and expanding with each passing second.

_Crack! Boom! Boom! Boom!_
A cascade of thunder fulminated, mixed in with the sound of war drums.

"What. The. Fuck?" Hardin considered tearing away his goggles so that he could acquire un-assisted visual confirmation.

The Trolls were now in a frenzy. Compared to the Void Maelstrom, this one was more akin to a natural disaster. Within its epicentre, a portal into the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Lightning tore itself open, a full ten-meters wide and then some. Unlike the previous variant, the new updraft possessed ten-times the suction, forming a crackling, cyclonic vortex that tugged at the anchored huts, straightaway ripping the wooden humpies from their foundations.

"Initiate Scry," he commanded the suite of magical diagnostics attached to his helmet. In awe, Hardin rapidly calibrated his device, successfully triangulating his optics until he caught sight of the caster.

It was a girl. A mewling young miss and her university-age companions. A TEEN sorceress! A lass young enough to be his daughter!

Quickly, the mercenary recalled the data provided by Cuzco.

Gwen Song- Fudan's Ace.

Hardin had been vaguely aware that Cuzco's foreign competitors had talented casters, but he had fought both Void Mages and Lightning Casters before and knew what to expect.

As for his present reality— What in the name of the Apostles John, Paul and Luke was this Lightning Maelstrom? How was it possible that a university student could manifest a maximised, empowered, enlarged, and hybridised tier 6 Evocation?! Upon closer inspection, the damned girl wasn't even using a relic!

Hardin cursed. Wasn't it only Inti who possessed such powers? How could a mortal girl match the faith of twenty-two million—

"MOTHER FUC—!" Hardin tore the goggles from his face when a second sun blossomed across the eastern quadrant of the troll fort, expanding as a proliferate orb of light fifty-meters above the temple's eastern escarpment.

The celestial sphere lasted ten-seconds, within the expanse of which all flammable things ceased to exist. Trolls caught in the blast became instantly black and charred. Those who shielded themselves under anything but the hardened stone properly cooked, the moisture seeping from their seared bodies as vessels burst and boiled. Wooden lean-tos disintegrated, humpies burst into flames. Wildland vegetation instantly turned to ash, falling from the stone fort's ancient facade. Lichen smouldered, mushrooms wilted, and the murals of blood painted by aeons of sacrificial rites oxidised into nothing. Sand, pebbles and other loose rubble melted into cracks and crevices, turning the surface into pockmarked glass.

Hardin circulated what healing energies he had brought with him into his optic nerves, restoring his eyesight.

When he regained his vision, the Troll fort, or at least the parts of it that were exposed, was consigned to history.

A thousand Trolls, hundreds of warriors and God knows how many Shamans had perished. What remained was the temple itself, now appearing as a strange, two-sided construct.

On the western elevation, it was as though the storms had vacuumed away all life. Only the stoutest trees remained embedded and leafless in the rock formations, while evidence of Trollic occupation had all but disappeared.

On the eastern slope, the temple glistened, raw and a little runny like a smoked slab of brisket. From an epicentre, a dark ring of smoking stone, resembling those used in traditional cooking, blistered and boiled. No troll structures wrought of wood, mud or rock remained standing. Away from the blast, the Trolls that did survive the flashfire crawled in the ash, mangled and medium-rare, howling in unfathomable agony as their regeneration failed.

Hardin decided he had to make a call.

Inti's prowess was beyond his expectation, but the problem now was that he faced not one, but two Ace-Mages. Worse still, he knew from experience that while Inti's faith magic was quickly exhausted, the Void and Lightning sorceress had appeared unfatigued.

"Sir." Hardin altered his voice, adding to the distortion of his long-range Message.

"… instructor," came an annoyed response. "How goes our acolytes' lessons?"

"Poorly," Hardin replied euphemistically. "I'll need more resources to keep these kids in line."

"How much?"

"ALL of it."

"I see," came the reply. "In that case, I have good news."

"What is it?" Hardin furrowed his brows. He had enough surprises.

"You should inform the children that they need to be very careful between tonight and tomorrow…"

"Because?"

"Because the Blood Moon rises," the effeminate voice replied. "Tonight, the jungle will come alive."

Ten-thousand flower-wreathed llamas crossed Hardin's mind as he cursed Amaru's family to burn in the deepest pits of hottest hell.

"So, can Dark Water handle it?"

"Of course." Hardin spat his next words between clenched teeth. "It will be done."