When Hilda was a girl-child with only a slight wisp of facial hair, she had the honour of conversing with her Clan's Balefire Guardian. Her father, the venerable Lord Seer Bermyr Kül, had been in a session with the Grand Citadel Council to deliver the Craftsmen's Guilds' quarter-cycle Devlar on Dwarven Productivity. His negligence had left Hilda free to wander the Grand Hall of Gul-Zūh, where she had taken the rare opportunity to make mischief.

At the door to the Chamber of the Eternal Cog, she was stopped by a smouldering gauntlet almost as wide as herself.

"Thou cannot go that way, child." The voice that emerged from the vox-box communed with her through vibrations that tapped into her Core. "For one as youthful as thee, the deep-knowledge is _Vadam_."

At four metres, Lord Engineseer Urmrak Kül was over five hundred years old. He had consigned his Core to the Eternal Forge during the Long Siege when the Elemental Princes of the Deep had sealed off the Dyar Morkk in an attempt to starve the Dwarven city.

The result of that conflict— in no small part thanks to the ignition of the Soul Forge and the men and women who stepped up to the Glyph to consign their Cores— was a total defeat for the Elementals. For Deepholm, the victory ushered in a brief Golden Age of wealth and expansion, resulting in the rise of "Murk" Dwarves and their surface Citadels.

"Lord Urmra..." Hilda had bowed deep until she almost prostrated. Children like her, benefactors of the epoch of plenty, were taught from birth that their lives were indebted to the sacrifices of these noble Spirits. "It is not my intention to enter. I was merely curious."

"Then turn thine eyes away." The Golem-being rumbled, as did the chamber as it spoke. "Trouble not this old soul."

Unable to resist, she had reached out and touched the complex Glyph-work on the Dwarf's plating. Though young, her gift for inscriptions had already made her blood-line talents manifest.

"Does it hurt?" Her fingers traced the runes. "There's so much mana… the burden on your Core, Lord Urmrak, must be unbearable."

Urmrak's armour used his face's likeness in life; when the Balefire Golem peered down to regard the girl-child, the evanescent runes had cast an unexpectedly melancholic shadow over Hilda.

"The 'Rite' is bearable…" the Golem had droned, its eye sockets were now empty and dark, two black holes were vibrant eyes full of wisdom would have once been seated. "That, dear child, us Balefires must believe above all else."

Hilda felt her Core shudder with recollection as the venerable White Beard ducked under the lip of the archway leading to the makeshift hall.

"Lord Thalmar." Her voice modulator kept her emotions in check, though Varekan-Kül, blessed be her Ancestor, knew that a part of her just wanted to scream. "Your arrival is most welcome in this dire time."

"Aye, tis Dire—" The Balefire Golem's voice rumbled. Its Core-housing helmet was of an unprecedented design and not in a good way. Back home, the traditional Balefire patterns were highly personalised. Each Golem was unique, carefully modelled after the likeness of the sacrificed Engineseer or Master and explicitly stylised with Runes and patterns that told their life's work. A Balefire hailing from a Crafter's House, for example, would usually sport motifs of hammer and tongs and wield tools the Master had used in life. One descended from a Warrior's Noble House would usually occupy the Dreadnaught or the Berserks body, becoming a living embodiment of valour.

Thalmar's body, as far as she could see, was a rushed piece of work. The helmet had not the likeness of Thalmar in life, famous for his broken and shattered nose— a proud relic of his younger brawling days, but was entirely nondescript. Horrifically, if she had to place her fingers on the anvil, she would complain that the craftsmanship was a sham for someone as august as Emgus Thalmar, Eth Rjoth Kjangtoth's Master Maker of Arms.

"— But is any of this necessary?" the Golem continued. "Thou should have remained in the Citadel and listened to thy elders. Now, for thy selfish ambition, thy kin shall all suffer."

Hilda felt the heat rise but had learned enough to will the biochemical apparatuses in her suit to cool her head before the sentimental sympathy for the old codger faded.

"I shall not contest your displeasure, Lord Thalmar." Hilda glanced at her Keeper to see if her fellow Deepdowner had an objection. As expected, Ebren stood stoic and without a word while his Mistress took the helm. "To that end, Lord Thalmar, do you have recommendations from the Citadel?"

"I have." The nondescript visor smouldered. "Thou art to cease thy foolish act and return at once."

"That, I cannot entertain." Hilda's voice grew instantly stern. "Lives have been lost, Lord Thalmar, and many have paid the price. To withdraw now would be to disregard their sacrifice and contribution."

The Golem did not immediately respond, but stared at Hilda, making her scalp crawl even inside her Klad. Unlike her House Guardian, there was something deeply menacing about Thalmar, particularly the way his eyes smouldered, leaking Elemental Magma. "Thou would refuse?"

"I do not mean to be ungrateful. Yet I cannot be swayed from my course." Hilda held her breath as she fought the inner conflict of duty against tradition. She owed Thalmar an enormous debt— but she was in the right that personal gratitudes should not influence a Citadel's commitments. She had no idea what Zairic and Zethoag Gul-Zūh had offered the Engineseer to give up his existence as a Dwarf, but she understood the act must be directed toward herself.

For a moment, their contesting mana aura meeting mid-air grew thick enough to ignite the resting runes on Ebren's Klad.

"— I can sense thy conviction." The Golem fumed, releasing an ear-piercing shrill as its internal gasses escaped.

"If there is anything else milady may entertain..." Ebren spoke in that soft and melancholy voice of his, usually disguised by his modified vox box.

The Golem's light fell on Ebren, lingered rudely, then returned to Hilda.

"Very well, what I ask for instead is an opportunity to offer you instruction from the Masters, Gul-Zūh and Gul-Zūh. They know that thou will not meet them alone, so I have come bearing an Echo Device. Fraron!"

A Dwarf in his Murk Diver's suit shuffled forward and presented an obsidian cube inscribed with enough Runes to make the average Runesmith dizzy.

"A request for an audience is hardly appropriate for a debt of this magnitude," Hilda refuted the Engineseer's well-wishes at once. "I will listen."

"We wish to converse in private," Thalmar clarified his position with a low rumble. "We desire the knowledge of everything thou knows of this 'Devourer of Shenyang'. And in the aftermath of our meeting, we ask for Ancestor Møsvian's Silence."

For a brief second, even in her Klad, Hilda appeared taken aback. Møsvian's Silence, Hilda understood, was a sacred promise passed between the ordained scholars of Deepholm. In the original psalm, Møsvian the Skald was told of Brumdahr's shame, and though honour would dictate that the singer would inform the people, the battle Skald chose to keep a vow of silence for a decade while Brumdahr made amends for his trespass.

In the present day, Møsvian's Silence was a vow to the Ancestors that what passes between confessing Dwarves would remain among them unto death. When invoked, the Vow passed on knowledge and shameful secrets, and its violation would invalidate the "Oath Breaker", no matter the intrigue.

As for knowledge of her Human ally, Hilda understood Thalmar's wariness, for the sorceress had been instrumental in bringing Humans into the Murk.

If they were in the Citadel, there would be no way Hilda would willingly be subject to the burden that Møsvian's Silence would engender— certainly not when the deliverers are Zairic and Zethoag Gul-Zūh, two purity-obsessed fanatics from Umgor èron Varèkan. But for her present circumstance, to refuse even distant communication with the brothers while under the auspice of debt from their aide was arrogance too far even for a Kül-Hildenbrandt.

"Very well." Hilda could feel herself sweating despite the perfect environs of her Klad. "Ebren, prepare the conference room for privacy, then leave us. Until they are satisfied, Engineseer Thalmar and I will converse with our seniors from Umgor èron Varèkan."

When the party ran face-first into a clogged tunnel made impassable by battle debris, Gwen volunteered the vitality vacuumed up from the Aberrant nest to utilise Caliban in its Wyrm guise.

Several rationales supported such a lavish expenditure— first because the excess vitality shared between herself, Cali and Gracie was making them giddy and far too excitable, and secondly because she wanted to test Caliban's abilities as a digger to salvage lost time spent in transit.

Thankfully, her hopeful hypothesis proved on-point. Akin to the giant Wyrm Caliban had consumed a year prior, it began to writhe and drill at the shattered and fractured rock wall, clearing a path forward.

"Think Cali could manage to emulate a Fabricator?" Gwen fell into step beside Hanmoul as they watched the Wyrm excavate its way downward and forward. A few of the Dwarves were marking the Omni-orb's path, for even a few degrees of error could send them somewhere entirely off course. "After which we can get Human Transmuters to put up concrete supports and pillars."

"If it's only this size." Hanmoul studied the diagnostic data on his Swiftstrider. "But if yer wants the tunnel to stick around, keep to Dwarven engineering."

Caliban's width and girth meant that its tunnel was enough for someone like Gwen to walk through if she stooped, though if she desired to install a mass transit system, it would mean doubling Caliban's girth.

"Shaa!" Caliban made its pleasure known. As for its Master, her spine-tingled as the Void consumption withdrew the energy and mana her Familiar needed to digest and process the rocks.

"That's a shame." She checked that Gracie was coping well, and the young woman gave her an affirming nod. In her opinion, her newest ward was rapidly gaining confidence as she witnessed the true potential of Void magic. Though Richard had joked about the possibility that she may very well be breeding a new Sobel, thereby completing her Master's Path in totality— Gwen knew that with Essence Tap, she would have mastery over Gracie until one of them died. Such was the barbarity of Shamanistic Magic— and such was the rationale behind why seemingly "useful" Wildland sorcery was shunned by the Shard. Compared to invocations like Morden's Hound that's widely lauded and rapidly becoming a Conjuration staple, her "Kilroy Collection" remained ethically ambiguous at the best of times.

However, through her conversations with Walken, her Executive Officer remarked that the Shard applauded her exemplary monetary investments. One of the elements that defined Sobel was her withdrawal from a centralised political system. The Tower trusted Kilroy or had no choice but to believe that he would keep a tab on his Missus— though in hindsight such boundless freedom was a catastrophic mistake. Comparatively, with so many stakes in the city and the Mageocracy itself, including her extended family, the Mageocracy's offices felt at ease that Magus Song's commitment manifested as concrete and glass.

While she mulled over her Himmseg circumstances, Cali's rock crushing continued. To widen and then fortify the shattered tunnel with their lightly equipped Dwarven Swiftstrider took some effort, meaning the party had to toil even though Caliban had expedited the process by ten-fold.

"Shaa-Shaa!" Caliban hissed again from somewhere within its undulating, pulsating torso, its shrieks reverberating through the smoothly-bored walls.

"Cali says," Gwen translated for the rest. "We're almost near the end."

"Lots of signs of combat," Hanmoul remarked from his vox, his Swiftrunner pinging the walls with beeps and trills from its sonar. "Loose rubble, but also fused by Dwarven Runecraft. I am a bit curious as to what occurred."

"Maybe Hilda sealed themselves in?" Gwen asked.

"That makes sense," Petra, who had been helping the Dwarves, agreed. "The easiest way to keep safe would be walling the Aberrants out."

"I disagree." Richard chuckled, his voice echoing sinisterly in the flickering light emitted by Gwen's Lightning Hounds. "If you ask me, I reckon this is for walling folks in…"

"HOLD FIRE!" Hanmoul bellowed into the newly excavated and connected tunnel. "WE'RE BROADCASTING FRIENDLY GLYPHS! YER MURK-HEADS!"

Gwen felt an unbidden heat flush ripple through her body as the explosion on the other side of the wall ripped through Caliban's innards. Someone on the Citadel-side must have been surprised when an "Earthen Wyrm" without a smidgen of Earthen mana burst through the debris with a whirling maw of circular teeth and gobbling tongues flailing in every direction. For that reason, she was not upset, though Caliban's temper had taken a feat of will to banish "under" the underground.

To her relief, the Dwarves opposite did cease their Magma Bombs, Lava Bursts and Obsidian Shards once Hanmoul put himself between the retreating Caliban and harm's way. The Dwarf also had Lea to thank, for the Commandrumm of the Iron Guards would have taken a rippling blast to the canopy had her water barriers not diverted the heat and pressure.

As a show of loyalty, her Dwarves went first with their Striders to parley, after which Gwen and company emerged with hands slightly raised to show that they meant no harm, keeping their army of pets in the back chamber to prevent agitating the trigger-happy Iron Guards.

As they emerged, Gwen could see that they were in an enormous cathedral of dark granite, the largest she had encountered since delving into the Murk. On the far side, some several hundred meters away, stood the scarred battlements of the Obsidian Cavern. From what she could discern, the freshly churned earth below its battered walls still oozed black blood.

"What's the meaning of this?" Hanmoul's Strider popped its cockpit with a release of pressurised gas. "Bronzehorn! Why are your vox-units turned off? Where's Engineseer Hilda?"

Gwen had expected this "Captain Bronzehorn" to fall out of his cockpit and grovel for forgiveness. To her surprise, there wasn't even a popped cockpit.

"I see the Humans have sent their reinforcements." The Dwarf's tone was entirely apathetic.

"Aye that they have." Hanmoul waited for his counterpart to show his face. When the Captain failed to dispense even the slightest remorse, his tone grew dark. "Captain, as the Commandrumm of the Iron Guards, I am giving you an order to speak truthfully. What's happening? Where's her Eminence?"

"Her Eminence is inside," Bronzehorn's vox crackled. "I've reported your arrival."

Gwen led her party within walking distance of the Smashers, then stopped with both hands raised, keeping Golos at the party's rear. She could see the roughed-up Golem suits still had their Spellsword hot and sizzling, casting no doubt as to what had struck Caliban. "Hanmoul. Are we cool now?"

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

"We will be," Hanmoul ordered his Dwarves to fan out between the Humans and his kin. "Bronzehorn's not himself. Could be war-wariness, or a touch of the Murk Madness. It frays the nerves when yer've fought Aberrants for too long, making folk see and think things that are not there."

"Alright, how about an official approach?" Gwen raised a hand to signal her arrival. "Captain Bronzeborn! You are addressing Magus Gwen Song of the Shard! I have come to retrieve our Mages and resupply our allies. Tell your Eminence a friend has come to aid her in her time of need."

"Ah, about that," Bronzehorn's voice broadcasted across the distance between them. "The Deepdowner doesn't need yer help anymore, Human— she's safe now, and she gave express orders for you to leave the Murk."

"Bronzeborn! Insolent boy! What does that mean?" Hanmoul's temper flared. "We risked my men coming ter save her! Yer telling me that was fer nought? Deal with us? Send back an Echo Message! Tell the Deepdowner we're not her lackeys! I ain't leaving until the lassie learns some respect and we see the Citadel safe and secured!"

"If you know what's good for you." The Golem's tinted cockpit observed first Gwen and then his Commandrumm with visible agitation. "You should go. Lord Thalmar has arrived with a contingent of his Deep Divers. They mopped up the Aberrants and are in council with Mistress Hilda. You're not needed anymore."

"Thalmar? The Maker of Arms? What's a bleeding Cogmen doing digging in the Murk?" From Hanmoul's incredulous expression, Gwen took it that the news came as a shock for the Commandrumm. "The Engineseer's three centuries old, fer Bürumm's sake! Did he get carried here on a Swiftrunner? His beard was down to here! He—"

Hanmoul suddenly stopped talking.
The ring of Rock Smashers, broken and mangled as they are from cycles of ceaseless siege, had formed a semi-circle with Gwen and Hanmoul at the centre of their crossfire.

"I am sorry, Commandrumm." The Captain's voice lost all joy. "Return now. Those are my orders."

Around them, the Iron Guards raised their weapons.

Hanmoul's Swiftstriders raised their Shields.

Profanities exploded from Hanmoul while both of his hands signalled the curse of the Thrice-Jammed Cog.

Just in case, Gwen checked the hovering orb still veering toward the Citadel's depth. If the orb's mystical energies were correct, what she "desired", meaning Hilda, was still inside the Citadel.

More than Hilda, however, what worried her was where the hell their Mages had gone. There were at least sixty-odd adventurers inside the Dwarven Citadel. If Hilda wasn't in the mood to greet them, or if this Thalmar has taken control, then what of her men and women? What happens to the grass in the middle when two elephants fought?

"Calamity." Golos' voice drifted across to the inner circle where Gwen watched Hanmoul rave at the Third Legion's seditious Captain.

"Gogo?" Gwen offered an ear to the Wyvern. "What's the matter? Are you hungry? Bored? I am afraid I didn't expect this. I'll tell you what though, get ready for trouble. This 'Murk' business is turning out murkier than we could have imagined. So much for the simplicity of Dwarven honour."

"I smell Dwarves," Golos informed her.

Gwen wrinkled her nose. She had to agree, for Captain Bronzehorn and his battered troops stank of old engine oil, burnt paint and unfiltered, badly combusted mana.

"Daft female!" The Wyvern gnashed his teeth. "I mean the ones who came before us. I smell them here."

"I would imagine so." Gwen struck a thumb toward the Citadel's scarred surface. "You're smelling Thalmar, I guess? They managed to save Hilda before we got here. I doubt that's a coincidence. It looks to me like these new Deepdowners have got it in for us and are trying to prevent Hilda from owing us a solid one."

"Nay, there's something else." The Wyvern's nostrils inhaled and exhaled. "It's in the air. Something stinks like those white ones."

Gwen glanced at the mass graves bleeding dark ichor. "They've killed hundreds, or so they say, and their blood makes the land fallow. Is that what you smell?"

"They hid the scent." Golos glanced at the Citadel suspiciously, his slitted eyes hardening. "But it is in there. I can taste their polluted Essence mingled with the Dwarves. They're a single creature, Calamity—"

"Do you smell our Mages?" Gwen suddenly realised she could have asked Golos all along.

"I do," Golos grunted. "They're weak, but they should yet live."

Gwen paused to look at the livid Hanmoul and the unmoving vehicle of Bronzehorn, neither of whom understood a word of Draconic, unlike those of her party members who had come adequately provisioned.

Should she abide by Golos' deductions?
If the question was whether she trusted the Wyvern to pass on a message, she would feel ambivalent. As an Essence-based bloodhound, however, she couldn't think of any reason why the Wyvern would lie.

At any rate, if the Human Adventurers did not make an appearance soon, she should probably expect the worst.

"Richard, get everyone ready." She delivered a Silent Message via her device. "JP— bring the dogs up. Gracie, follow JP. Pats, keep a few Cubes ready to go. If there's going to be a fight, let's not get caught flat-footed."

"Captain Bronzeborn," she concurrently interrupted the Dwarven defender, both of her pupils glowing green with Essence and Lighting. "Let me ask you one more time. Can you send out our Human Mages? Where are they?"

"They're inside," the Captain responded flatly.

"Are they being held as hostages?" Gwen asked. "Are they safe?"

The Dwarf took a moment to respond. "They are exhausted from the battles and need rest."

Gwen pointed a finger to the Citadel. "Captain. Do you know who I am?"

"Aye," the Captain answered. There was a pause; then Bronzehorn's vox crackled in a voice that was not his own. "Kill the Devourer."

A surge of mana gathered at the tip of Bronzehorn's Spellswords.

"Bronzeborn! Ingrate! Yer dares—" Hanmoul's cry cut off mid-howl as an invisible Ariel swept up the Commandrumm and threw the Dwarf back into his Swiftrunner Strider before he could come between Gwen and the Golem.

_CLANG!_

Besides Gwen, Golos launched forward with the swiftness of a Lightning Bolt. In a flash, the Wyvern caught the offending Spellsword attached to the Smasher's power-gauntlet and wrenched the thing from its mounting. In a follow-up motion, the Wyvern swung the dismounted weapon back toward the Rock Smasher, sinking the cracked and burning blade deep enough into the cockpit to deform the chassis.

"FIRE AT WILL!" Came a commanding cry from another Smasher at their encirclement. At once, the platoon of Smashers took up their arms and began to charge, a few even closing in for melee. "KILL THE DEVOURER!"

More so than the sudden hostility, Gwen felt puzzled by how a team of beaten mechanical constructs believed they could best a Mage Flight capable of piercing the Murk without so much as a hair out of place.

"Richard, I'll draw their fire and perform Recon-in-Force," Gwen fired off an order. "If Hilda's serious, tell Hanmoul to prepare to prioritise our men and women."

"What about these?" Richard replied with complete calm.

"Disable them!"

Compared to the uncharacteristic chaos displayed by the indecisive Iron Guards, Gwen's party fell into formation with instant clarity.

She Dimension Doored forward to draw the Golems' fire, understanding Richard's Undine would keep off the attackers' brunt. Her ulterior motive was to breach the Citadel itself to take a peek inside— ideally from the battlements to determine whether the Citadel and thereby Hilda herself had extenuating circumstances.

Behind her, Richard took to the fore, instantly concealing the space around the party with a blanket of mist. Jean-Paul positionedhimself in front of Gracie but put a safe distance behind Richard, a set of absorption spells ready to be ushered from his lips as Umzokwe materialised by his side. Gracie and Petra took up the final two spot in the line formation, keeping together and trusting their teams to keep them safe while they provided support.

_CRACK!_

Golos' meteor of a tail smashed into the War Golem that held Bronzehorn, toppling the Dwarven engine.

His impromptu barricade fell just in time, catching the worst of the Lava Burst and Obsidian Shards before the rest rolled mutedly over Golos' innate spell resistance. Lightning crackled across the Wyvern's carapace as Draconic Essence raged through his veins, almost doubling the Wyvern's dimensions. Opening his mouth, Golos roared at the closest pair of Rock Smashers.

"Insolent Earthen-apes! LOREAT!" the scion of the Yinglong proclaimed the construct's destruction. A line of living electricity pulsed in the dusky light of the Murk, vivifying the cavern for three fulminating seconds as a Rock Smasher spat plasma in every direction; its Earthen barrier clashing with Golos' Essence-derived Lightning Breath. The illumination was enough to turn Richard's mist white as snow and briefly reveal the compelling figure of Lea's hidden body, though the next moment, the Sprite faded into oblivion.

Petra blocked a dozen blows with Crystalline Walls and reactive barriers, keeping the slow-reacting Gracie safe as the novice did her best to stomach the noise and weave her spells.

Up ahead, the cathedral's combatants collectively held their breath while the Rock Smasher sizzled, both sides seeing if the Golem would hold or fold.

To the Dwarves' groaning disappointment, the cockpit spat out its coolant-drenched capsule before the remaining mana ignited in a fireball of blazing and burning that turned the cavern's upper stratum black with ash.

Gwen took advantage of the Wyvern's showy aggression to dodge criss-crossing lines of Elemental bolts, arriving near the hastily-constructed Citadel. Up close, she could see where its walls were still streaked and cracked where Aberrant fiends had perished against its stones.

As forewarned, this deep in the Murk, she could feel the sluggishness of her conduits trying to draw from the Gate of Lightning inside her Astral Body. For someone with her tier of Affinity, the stifling sensation was akin to singing through a face mask, where though her invocations were audible, their effects grew muffled.

Nonetheless, she had recklessly chosen Reconnaissance-in-Force because she had to know the extent to which she could exert the force of her party. Though the Dwarves inexplicably turned hostile, there was a dire difference between a skirmish to establish political advantage and a battle of mutual destruction.

Very quickly, she checked her Omni-orb.

It still tittered toward what she presumed to be Hilda.

"WE ARE A HUMAN DELEGATION FROM THE SHARD!" She addressed the fortress through Clarion Call. "BY ORDER OF COMMANDRUMM HANMOUL— IF YOU DON'T WANT A DIPLOMATIC INCIDENT, TELL YOUR MEN TO STAND DOWN!"

An answer soon arrived from the parapets, albeit not the apology Gwen had expected. Instead, gobs of acid and corrosive ooze emanated from Spellswords wielded by a group of Dwarves-in-black. Compared to the Iron Guards whose visage involved articulated mechanical plates and overlarge gauntlets with attached blades, these suits were more akin to the Deepdowner's armour, with full-face headgears resembling gas-masks from the Great War.

On the shoulders of these suits, Gwen could see their single-mounted Spellblades glow like tiny stars where attuned energies of Earth and Ooze and Mineral struck an apex before manifesting their payloads.

"Dimension Door!" It was clear that these Dwarves were unused to fighting Human Mages, which made sense considering there had been no overt contact, much less hostile conflict between their cities. Only a few of the offending explosions were aimed at where she may re-appear, and even then their marksmanship was embarrassingly wide.

A jolt through the Void later, she was only twenty-odd meters from the wall. Not knowing what was inside, she couldn't teleport in.

Should she capture one of these rubber-suited Dwarves and ask for Hilda and her Mages' whereabouts? Gwen quickly measured the possibility of such a thing. Whatever their plan had been, shit had now struck the fan. As their team leader, she had to take responsibility and offer a clear path by gathering information.

"Wha—"

Just as Gwen eyed the wall for a possible angle to arrest a Dwarf, her spine tingled with a shriek, a sensation she had not felt for some time.

Sparing no time for hesitation, her Shield was up in less than the blink of an eye, though still not as fast as Lea, who had a commanding bird's eye view of the battlefield from above. Just as the Magma Bomb ripped out, the Undine's film of all-enveloping water doused the flames so that the impact that rolled over her consisted only of kinetic energy.

Gwen quickly measured the lightning-fast attack as she allowed the momentum to carry her backwards. The front of her double-glazed barrier instantly turned opaque, though it did not crack, suggesting a mid-tier manifestation.

Instead, what unnerved her was the swiftness by which the attack had manifested. With her Divination and her casting speed, Gwen seldom fell flat-footed, but that attack just now had sent her heart rate leaping into the mid-hundreds.

This time, she Dimension Doored twice in directions guided by her innate sense for danger, overriding her conscious decision making. Nils, her defence teacher, had promoted the stratagem as viable against enemies with foresight abilities.

As anticipated, the next two Lava Bursts struck close to home but landed far enough that Lea could negate the damage.

"Gwennie, look up! There's a big fire Dwarf casting spells without a Spellsword!" Lea's cry rang about her ears. "It's an Elder Elemental!"

After the first eruption, Gwen had a good idea of what she faced. The gate of Eth Rjoth Kjangtoth had given her a preview; only she hadn't expected an encounter so soon.

"No, it's a Balefire Golem," Gwen informed the Undine. She did not look up because there was no need. If there's a Balefire standing its ground, then she was confident there would be no breaking through the Dwarven battle lines by herself. The data provided by the Shard had stipulated very clearly that Balefire Golems, be they the Guardian variant or the siege-type Dreadnaught, were on par with ancient Elementals creatures, additionally reinforced by Dwarven Runecraft. Via their ever-burning cores, it was possible for these reborn "Dwarves" to instantly and without spell fatigue generate mid-tier sorcery unique to their professions in life. Additionally, they needed no food, no air, no water or shelter, and were arguably ageless.

A Balefire, therefore, could not be worn down— it can only be bested or overpowered.

The air around her grew scorching hot.
Another attack was coming, and the Balefire was biding its time.

"Tell the others to regroup, we—" Gwen was on the cusp of a long-ranging Dimension Door when she suddenly fell face-first into invisible wool. It was a sensation she knew well, though one she had not had the displeasure of encountering for a long time.

"—SHIT!"

Gwen knew she was caught in the cusp of some long-ranging Mind Magic, though she couldn't tell if the assailant utilised Human or Demi-human sorcery. From the "lockout" of her senses, she further understood the effect to be akin to a "Hold Monster" in the middle-to-upper tier, a spell that Petra had utilised in the competition on their foes.

At once, she performed as her cousin had taught, clearing her mind of all thought and focusing only on circulating mana through her body at its maximum threshold. Disregarding her tingling conduits, she further added Essence so that her mind and body grew resilient against invasive forces.

"GWEN!" Lea's scream rippled through the air.

She had been caught only for a moment, no more than a second or two, but such an interval was an eternity for a sorceress dodging spellfire.

Her world grew momentarily white.

The Balefire's full-force Lava Bursts erupted almost on top of her, followed by acid and ooze and a dozen other globs of energised matter conjured by Dwarven Spellswords.

Lea instantly congealed into her humanoid form, forming a triple-layer of semi-sphere Water Shields to fend away the incoming assaults. Bodily, the Undine dived on top of Gwen, bowling her over so that the Demi-human's watery figure withstood the residual energies piercing through her protective veils. The blasts connected, sending the two skittering a dozen meters away from the Citadel, leaving a long line of gouged dirt where Gwen's armoured body had traversed, darkly stained by the gel-trail left by Lea's dissolving form.

Against her armour, Lea's shuddering figure grew impossible hot, the Undine's liquid flesh growing cloudy as charred impurities roughly penetrated her gel-like innards to lodge in her chest and abdomen.

At the Undine' moan of torturous agony, Gwen expelled the last of the psychic energies clouding her mind, restoring her adrenaline-addled brain to crystal clarity. With a hand half-struck into the Undine's side, she injected a flood of unmitigated Essence, then wrapping her arms around Richard's feverish Familiar, she formulated another Dimension Door through sheer force of will.

"Dimension D—"

She needed a second, but as before, a single tick-tock was an eternity when a Balefire was laying down the full force of the Runic spells it knew in life.

Gwen clenched her teeth. There would be anguish; of that, she had no doubt. But after her agony, there would be a reckoning.

"USURP!" A mote of Void exploded just above the young women's entangled bodies. Jean-Paul's Signature Spell grew suddenly bloated as the manifesting mana was absorbed, then exploded as a fantastic nova of tenebrous ink, providing Gwen with the necessary split-second for her to complete the Conjuration uninterrupted.

When she re-appeared, she was a hundred meters away and returning to their original position.

By now, Golos was on his third Rock Smasher. As a Wyvern weened on Big Birds' flesh, the Dwarf's weapons were to him minor painful inconveniences. His choice then was to ignore cover and defence and solely focus on maximising ultraviolence.

Jean-Paul as well, before aiding Gwen with a series of Dimension Doors and a well-timed Usurp, had crippled a Smasher by taking away its armaments and its legs. Even Gracie, much to Gwen's surprise, had succeeded by utilising her Void-empowered Phantom Vertigo to send two Rock Smashers drunkenly careening into one another while firing wildly in every direction but theirs.

However, the most assuring sight was that of her armada of hounds, finally arriving to swarm over the remaining Smasher Golems, concurrently preventing them from attacking and serving to hinder the mechanised infantry.

"Thanks, JP."

The Void Mage gave her an eager nod, once again willing Umzokwe to engage.

"Is Lea alright?" She turned to Richard, who appeared to exhale as he dispelled the Undine clinging to her torso.

"She'll be fine," Richard assured her. "It takes time and mana to neutralise the damage. With your Essence, however, Lea should be right in ten minutes or so. The question is, are you alright?"

"I am fine now." Gwen hesitated. "Got hit by Mind Magic, I think."

"One of ours?" Petra's brow furrowed. "That's impossible unless one of the Adventurers hides their talent. The Shard's dossiers said nothing."

"Lass." Hanmoul's voice burst through a glowing Glyph by her ear. "Am so sorry…"

"Not now, Hanmoul," Gwen snapped at the Dwarf, genuinely upset and annoyed that they had put in all this effort, only to be met with inexplicable hostility. She knew of course that Hanmoul was not to blame, and from the looks of it, Hilda may be a victim as well. But if and when she cracked that Citadel, and if she were to find anything but dazed and worried Human Mages, there would be hell to pay.

"Naw, Lass, yer have to listen—"

"Hanmoul!" She growled at her companion. "I don't care about your apology. I trust you and need you to support me in whatever the hell is going to happen next. We're going to breach that damn Citadel, and I WILL see our Mages SAFE and SOUND, and maybe Hilda if we can help it! So stop pussyfooting and tell me how to bust that thing open—!"

"LASS!" The Iron Guard's Commandrumm, to her surprise, raised his voice as well. "I ain't APOLOGISING, yer git! Yer've got incoming! My Iron Guards have reported contact in the tunnels! The bleeding Aberrants are flooding back in full force!"

"... Fuck me, are you serious?" Gwen could hardly hear her voice over the bellowing Spellswords and the moaning Golem suits battling a tsunami of howling, yipping, yammering dogs pulling apart anything that could be targeted.

_Was this why Bronzehorn engaged them so far out from the Citadel?_ She wondered. Was it this Thalmar's intent that they would be caught between the hammer and anvil that was the Obsidian Caverns and the incoming Beast Wave of Aberrants?

It made sense— but why would the Aberrants attack so opportunistically? Could the Balefire predict the future?

"Dead serious, Lass—" Hanmoul' vox could barely be heard over the sound of warnings exploding across his instrument cluster. "My men held back every Crawler they could, but these gobblers are suicidal! They're pouring in by the kettle load! I've seen this before, Gwen—"

"Like when we found you?"

"Nay." The Commandrumm's tone grew grim. "There's one of them intellects! I reckon there's one controlling the horde!"


Dust flaked from the ceiling of Khorok Umgor's Hall of Communion, signalling the beginning of yet another battle outside its Dwarf-forged walls. Bound and un-Klad, Hilda Kül-Hildenbrandt, scion of Varekan-Kül, Bringer of the Lumen, sat in the dark, her eyes glistening wetly at the pale nimbus from the extinguished light stones.

Of course, her lineage could see perfectly well in the dark.

What distressed her was that both herself and Ebren were no longer safe in their protective, religious garb. Worse still, Ebren's unseen form had been strapped to an apparatus consisting of a tomb filled with inward-facing obsidian spikes, crafted from a crudely split geode. As for herself, she sat on a cushioned chair of moleskin leather, still dignified in the embryonic Klad-skin despite being bound by inscribed bands of corrupted Palladium.

"Ebren? Are you still…?" Her voice was hauntingly feminine without the modification provided by the vox-caster.

"I live yet, Mistress."

"Who do you think is fighting outside?"

"Commandrumm Hanmoul, without a doubt."

"Will the Commandrumm succeed?"

"Will he survive? No. Not if Lord Thalmar personally engages the First Legion. Not if he doesn't flee from the Aberrant horde."

Hilda sighed, exhaling almost all of the air in her lungs. "Kin against Kin, blood against blood. Are we to sing the Dirge of Møsvian after all?"

"I wouldn't call those things 'Kin'," Ebren croaked. "They will never set foot in the Ancestor's Halls. Deepholm, if it stands, shall never allow it—"

The ground shook once more, sending dust and debris down as a fine mist.

Hilda shuddered just the same, her body shaking in the same manner as the stone walls even now under assault. Deepholm would never allow it? She wanted to believe that was true, but what if the monsters' terms were valid and Deepholm had moved on from being Dwarfholm to something entirely aberrant?

When Farron Galrol, Captain of the Murk Divers had removed her helmet to prove Thalmar's point—

The Deepdowner banished the thought.

Hilda attempted to invoke her innate talent out of sheer desperation if nothing else. Usually, the Earth-bound mana inside her body would immediately attune to the surrounding stones, but now, they only brought pain.

"ARRRGGH— ENNNNMGGH!"

A disturbing odour of sizzling flesh escaped the Palladium bands as they heated up, turning her mind white-hot with agony. The pain, if she had to bear it, wasn't incapacitating. Her Shape Metal, however, refused to manifest.

"Don't," Ebren's voice floated through the dark, still muffled by the geode tomb. "There's nought we can do, for now. Be patient. Know that the Ancestors have suffered more in their building of Deepholm, and yet they still built our glorious city and carved out a home for our race to prosper. All of this— it will pass, or we will die. Either way, we shall return to the earth's embrace and leave nothing for the Aberrants."

Hilda regulated her breath until the cresting surges of agony grew dull enough for her to resume her speech. She wondered for a moment if a part of her embryonic suit had now welded to her skin.

"Were you tempted, Ebren?" she asked between huffs, her vision blurry with frustration. "By what that 'thing' offered?"

"If what they say is true," Ebren replied. "I could see why some would join them. The Elders have always envied the Knife-ears, and it isn't as though attempts to prolong their life weren't made in the past. The Chamber of the Eternal Cog is half-choked with Vadam designs, how many, Brumdahr knows, have escaped us?"

"Were you not… fascinated? Even in the slightest?"

"I am your Keeper, milady." The wizened Dwarf's voice grew pained. "We are our duties, Hilda. Never mind immortality. Never lust after boundless knowledge. If we forsake our debt to our Kin and our Ancestors, how could we still be Dwarves? We may as well be…"

"… Aberrants?" Hilda felt a smile touch her lips. A split-second later, her heart grew sore enough to bleed. "Ebren, do you think the other Citadels are aware?"

"… I hope they live in ignorance," Ebren said. "If they are not—"

_CRACK!_

Khorok Umgor jumped.
They were underground, and short of an Elder Earthen Dragon turning in its sleep, the cavern couldn't collapse. Hilda looked up, seeing the cracks just now appearing in the ceiling. The wards would hold— for they were designed precisely for incidents such as this, but what force could shake the Citadel's very foundations?

Hanmoul's Legion? She wondered. More Balefires Golems?

"Bürumm-Dal, give thy scions strength," her Keeper murmured in the dark even as the crystalline shards slowly bled the life from his enfeebled veins. "If we art to die, let us die as Dwarves."

"Yer not worried, lassie?" Hanmoul, son of Dwomrul, grandson of Handrek Bronzeborn, first of his name, struggled to fathom the leap in prowess his sorceress "mate" effortlessly demonstrated. Since their chance encounters less than a Himmseg cycle ago, the Human Mage's potential for destruction had risen ten-fold.

For the Dwarf, such growth was a terrifying prospect. If Himmseg's other Mages would improve as she did, then the Deepdowners were right to fear humanity's ambitions. Hanmoul was thankful, therefore, that Gwen trusted him enough to confess that she was a unique existence among the sorcerous millions inhabiting the Mageocracy.

"Why would I be worried?" The young female stood beside his barricade of Swiftstriders all lined up to form an impromptu fort, their exteriors clad with conjured obsidian, creating a formidable hedgehog barricade. The girl had called the manoeuvre "Encircling the Wagons", though for Hanmoul's Iron Guards, the tactic was standard fare for transportation crews travelling through the Murk.

Swallowing his nerves, Hanmoul examined the map panel, marking the tide of red blips swarming down from the sides. Most were funnelling into the very tunnel they had dug to access Khorok Umgor, while others slipped through gaps and cracks, or used their innate talents to make new passageways.

Below Hanmoul, Bronzehorn's Iron Guards were by now subdued or disabled, rounded up and held at sword-point with their Smashers added as material to the barricade. Most of them appeared groggy and confused, and more than a few, Hanmoul suspected, would never recover their senses. As for Bronzehorn himself— once Hanmoul's men could cut the poor sod from his Smasher suit, he had to be restored by Lady Petra's Spellcube then dressed by their medic, Barva, so that interrogation could take place.

"It is Mind Magic, I am confident," the lassie's cousin had informed them. "I'll do what I can, but this doesn't feel like sorcery we employ. The entrenchment of the glamour is pure brute-force."

"Alright." Gwen nodded, then again pointed to the danger from the Citadel. "Hanmoul, you think Thalmar will join the fray?"

"Nay, lass." Hanmoul shook his head. Dwarves as a whole disfavoured assaults while there was a wall to stand behind. The tactic of bunkering against foes was something hardwired into the Dwarven conscience. Without radical intervention and tactical experience, it was categorically extraordinary for a Dwarven force to abandon a stronghold.

"How about Ebren and Hilda? They could make for powerful military assets if they act against us."

"Not a chance, lass." Once more, he put Gwen to ease knowing that if "Their Deepdowners" were complicit, the pair would have shown their face by now. If Hilda desired, Hanmoul would be duty-bound to escort Gwen from Khorok Umgor if both Deepdowners demanded as such.

For these reasons, the Commandrumm had sworn by the Ancestor Irøngut that they could take their time dealing with the Aberrant swarm before refocusing their attention on the problem of the rogue Engineseer and the mystery of their missing Mages and Deepdowners.

"Gracie, this is going to get rough!" The girl called out from above. "Best make sure your Contingency Ring is firmly affixed. That said, any luck with our Captain?"

"Nothing yet," Petra reported back. "We're trying, but his brain's more wool than grey matter."

Hanmoul felt his chest constrict. He had known Bronzehorn since he was a lad. He had fought in the same tunnel as Bronzehorn's father.

_BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!_

The instrument panel he had extracted from the cockpit was now more red than black, indicating an imminent incursion.

"It's time," Hanmoul informed the others.

"We're surrounded? Good. Just like old times," the arrogant grumbling from above their makeshift Golem-fort was from Golos. Presently, the Wyvern had returned to its full size.

Hanmoul felt envy at the Wyvern's confidence, for if he had a body with a reach of almost twelve meters and the armour to withstand a full-strength blow from a Hulk, he would also revel in all-out-combat.

The sorceress ignored her pet Wyvern. Instead, she sent Caliban deeper until it hid under the surface in its Wyrm form, saving it as a pleasant surprise should their enemies bunch up.

Standing beside the girl, Hanmoul felt his Core shudder as invisible waves of Negative Energy cascaded from her armour.

_BEEP! BEEP!_ His instruments flashed their final warnings.

Caliban was not in luck. As anticipated, rather than rushing through the tunnel as a single, mindless swarm, the Aberrant force was banked on the other side and sifting through the bedrock.

Some of the signatures were enormous, indicating Hulks. Others suggested Centaur variants. Thankfully, most appeared to be Crawlers or their lesser cousins, the near-mindless Collectors. The whole nest, Hanmoul judged, was out for blood. Was this because Gwen had eradicated a brood earlier? He had never thought that Aberrants could hold grudges, which was why the present scenario further lent credence to his suspicion of a "Dark Intellect" guiding their foe.

If so, someone had to be tasked with finding and eradicating the thing. In Hanmoul's experience, so long as the "mind' was close by, not until the last Aberrant fell and the earth grew fallow with their poisoned blood would the monsters know retreat.

_PLOP!_
A stone fell from the wall, revealing a pair of pinching pincers widening the path.

"How many are in the first wave?" Gwen spoke, her complexion rapidly regaining its haleness after Caliban presumably took its share.

"Three hundred, not less." Hanmoul performed the calculations with a glance. "Mostly fodder, unless they overwhelm us."

"Good." The girl nodded. "JP, Richard, cover our flanks."

"Yes, boss!" the lass' followers replied from their vantage platforms on the fort.

"Lea, don't let anything past the barricade." Richard had by now restored his always-laughing Water Sprite, a feat that was a marvel in itself.

"I am ready!" Jean-Paul, a sorcerer Hanmoul had initially perceived as a half-Hob, stood on the opposite side. "Nothing will get through."

The remaining two lasses, together with Barva, were still trying to get Bronzehorn to talk, or at least find out what had muddled his mind.

Finally, it was Hanmouls' turn.

"LADS!" the Commandrumm broadcasted to his crew. "This is it, Iron Guards! When that wave of rot hits, it's us against the tide! The odds are in our favour, so show nae fear! Keep up the fort, keep our allies safe, and keep bevvy ter drink the lassie's Mao-tai after!"

"YES! COMMANDRUMM!" came a resounding reply, fired up the thought of vital, Essence-infused alcohol from around the other side of Himmseg.

The ground shook.
More debris fell, irking the Wyvern perched atop the barricade.

"Confn!" The Wyvern vocalised in guttural Draconic. "Aldoer ekess dout marfedelom!"

"SKKAAARRRRK!" As if in reply, a dozen more blocks of debris burst into fragments, revealing pallid, scrabbling bodies struggling to escape the loose stones.

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"Ready?" Gwen asked him.

"Aye. Ready." Hanmoul's fingers rested on the control units of the twin Spellswords mounted atop his Swiftstrider, now re-tooled into repair armaments. "Remember, look fer the one that does the Swarm's thinking."

"Will do," the girl replied. "Alrighty then, EVERYONE! Cover your ears!"

Hanmoul felt his Core hum as the gathering of Elemental Air and Positive Energy collected beside him, a stark contrast to the life-draining aura from before. The girl's eyes glowed blue then white, then took on a viridescent hue, transforming the sparks that leapt from her blue armour into vivid bursts of earth-seeking electricity. The toiling mana continued building for several seconds, so much that Hanmoul was sure his instruments were on the verge of popping their gaskets.

A hum of discerning tinnitus slowly built in the space between Hanmoul's head as Essence and Lightning mingled within Ariel's, growing so powerful as to distort the Invisibility shielding it from view, turning its antlers into twin branches of solid, glowing plasma.

The Dwarf covered his ears as told.

Gwen took a deep breath, then unleashed the fury of a continent.

" _BARBANGINY!_ "

The ground shook.
The cavern jumped.
Stones leapt into the air like struck Gobs while sleeping stalactites fell as summoned spears onto the transgressing Aberrants below.

To Gwen's knowledge, Walken's Thundering Shatter had never been used in a place like this, nor had it ever been mustered with the full force of overcharged, maximised meta-magic together with Mystic Essence.

Perhaps because Almudj was itself an embodiment of lightning fulminating over cane fields— or maybe the granite stratum's quartz and basalt were prone to such disruption— her spell distorted the air, blurred all vision, then struck the far grotto with the force of a Leviathan sliding into Sydney harbour.

The dark cave turned shadowless.

Even with their ears covered and Ariel rerouting power, Gwen's crew suffered. Hanmoul's screens exploded into a thousand shards; instrument panels popped and cladding shed their bolts to the din of clattering and clanging.

The rock wall split and sundered, crushing the Aberrants tunnelling through with a glacial mass of liquified stone turned into ten-million pieces of rolling debris. Those that escaped or were too robust to instantly perish stood stunned as the rocks turned to slag, crushing their ichorous bodies in a spontaneous avalanche of cascading slabs.

Hanmoul's Dwarves did their best to shield the party from the deluge of boulders, as did Richard. For the next few minutes and more, all Gwen's allies could focus on was managing not to be crushed by the disaster their leader had created, paying no heed to the enemies that once threatened to swallow them in a grotesque tide of teeth and claw.

"ROAAARR!" Golos battered away the fallen stones with his enormous wings, sending the rocks flying into the panicked swarm. Having the Wyvern assume its original shape proved foresightful, for the drake's reach sufficiently covered the "fort" made by the Dwarves. Likewise, though tumbling bits of igneous shards were deadly to an undefended Dwarf or Human Mage, the Wyvern's Draconic constitution made light work of otherwise haphazard labour.

"They're still coming through, but the first wave is pretty much a done deal." Petra, who kept a Clairvoyance Cube handy, took up relay duties when the Dwarves reported that they could no longer rely on their displays.

"How many?" Gwen asked through their communication devices. Almost all of their ears still buzzed with the aftermath of the Thundering Shatter.

"More than enough."

"Good!" she exclaimed. "I thought there wouldn't be enough to fill-in for future expenditure. JP! Let loose the Hounds!"

"OKAY," the Void Mage shouted back. "UMZOKWE!"

The Afrikaner's slinking Void leeches, joined by Gwen's dogs and lead by a slithering white Umzokwe and an obsidian Buck, raced for the carnage.

While the dogs cleared the distance, the slag heap began to shift and move. Crumbled granite and inert bodies were pushed apart, revealing distended limbs and powerful torsos that had not only survived the collapse but were now forcing the carcasses of their allies out of mangled tunnels. From Gwen's vantage, she couldn't help but shudder at the sight, for the scene appeared as though a nightmarish vision of pallid wasps emerging from a shattered hive to sting and stab at their hateful enemies.

"Will you look at that," Richard remarked. "There's a Hulk dragging itself out, guts and all. Damn these things are tenacious."

Following her cousin's thumb, Gwen's Essence-fed eyes saw a six-limbed siege Hulk pulling itself forward, only now its powerful torso ended where a length of exposed spine unfurled rope-loads of its purple digestive tract.

"I don't know if these things feel misery." She swallowed the bitter bile. "But I am sure as hell am going to put them out of it."

"Cleanse Mind!"

Mind Magic was different to Enchantment in that almost all of its manifestations were without visual components. Therefore, the hallmark of a good Mind Mage was subtlety.

Likewise for the victim, good Mind Magic was subconscious, unseen and natural in its application. The recipient should not feel an overtly adverse aftereffect other than a headache or a bout of fatigue, or fuzzy recollections of young women and alcohol.

In scrutinising Bronzeborn, Petra felt tempted to ask if a Chinese or Russian Mind Wipe team had gotten to the Dwarf— for the Captain's continued mental degradation had reduced the pilot's cerebral state to that of a drooling imbecile.

To her chagrin, the same effect had spread among the surviving Iron Guards under Bronzeborn, all of whom now sat demure and sedated, battered and exhausted in a modified Wall of Crystals Petra conjured to prevent the Dwarves from escaping with their innate Earthen talents.

While Gwen and company delayed the Aberrant tide, their job was to gather intelligence from the survivors, though presently, she might as well be fishing in a ditch.

Together with Gracie, the two had attempted every method from Renew Mind to Dispel Magic to Greater Dispel. When those failed, Gracie gave Hallucination and Cloud Sense a run for their money.

When nothing worked, the medic ran diagnostics on the enfeebled Bronzehorn, finally revealing the presence of an embedded "object"— the reason why whenever Petra attempted to glamour the delirious Bronzehorn, her sorcery sunk into the Dwarf's mind like a river into the sea.

"Cog! What in the Ancestors' name is this?" Barva Katri, Hanmoul's Medical Officer, held down what remained of Captain Bronzehorn with one hand. "There's a wound under his right eye, his sclera's bruised to bits."

"Let's see." Gracie leaned in. "Ouch, that looks nasty. I think they forced something into his head."

"Or something forced itself into his head..." Petra took a second to compose herself. "I guess now we know 'how'. The question now is 'what'..."

According to Hanmoul, for such a Captain-ranked officer to turn willingly— and in a manner that was so stupid and reckless, belied every training exercise Hanmoul and his men had ever conducted. Furthermore, Bronzehorn's family still lived in the Craftsmen's District, meaning even if he had succeeded, not only would he bring shame, his family would suffer for his ambition as well.

If so, what did this portend?
Was this the "Dark Intellect" that Hanmoul proposed was behind all this? Most importantly, was this being the one that attempted a Hold Monster on Gwen's person?

At the Tower, the Mind Mages were taught many things.
How to tease; how to please; how to talk, and most importantly, how to listen. Master Popov never mentioned underground monsters capable of Mind Magic, certainly not ones that dug into a person's brain.

The girls regarded the Dwarven combat medic expectantly.

"What?" The Dwarf furrowed her bushy brows. "You don't expect me to open his skull here? Aberrants are howling all over, fer Ancestor's sake! Besides, he's still alive!"

Petra considered the cost of ignoring the Dwarf's feelings and just cleaving into Bronzehorn's skull.

"Pats!" Gwen's voice rang from above, saving her from such a decision. "How's it looking? What did you find out?"

It took only ten minutes for the tide to turn.

"Buck! Return! JP! Get Ume back to base!" Gwen ordered the dogs to retreat. "Pats! How's it looking? What did you find out?"

After the Void Hounds tore apart and consumed the stragglers, a fresh wave of Aberrants began to push through the debris. The newcomers possessed a madness that surprised even Gwen, for they burst from the stone-piles and immediately snatched at the Void Hounds. A few that were still feeding on twitching Aberrants fell victim to elongated limbs with grasping claws, suffering near-critical damage before what remained of their corporeal forms could slip away and regenerate.

"Sorry, Gwennie. His head's cotton candy," her cousin reported from below. "Hanmoul's right, though. Something was controlling him. Something like a device or a parasite on par with Dominate Mind."

"... Fuck, I am so sorry, Hanmoul." Gwen turned to the Commandrumm with a face full of sympathy. Their initial plan had been to gain intelligence and then act on it. Now— they'd have to play it by ear. "How do you want to proceed?"

"We must find the Aberrant's whip," Hanmoul commented through his viewfinder. "Easier said than done though, lassie. These new buggers look old and experienced with better spell resistance ter boot. It's nae going ter be an easy fight."

"It would be if we can funnel them." Gwen watched her dogs retreat. "Dick, any ideas? What do you think about a V-shaped Blade Barrier? Maybe I can flood the place with an Elemental Swarm? I am not sure how effective that would be though— these Aberrants aren't very vital."

Her cousin's eyes shone with a keen malevolence. Gwen knew Richard had been on more adventures than she had and could always be trusted to give good advice. "You're looking to ambush them with Cali, correct?"

"Yeah, but the buggers are skirmishing us now. They've learned."

"Then don't use Cali for mass-Consume." Richard looked over the barricade. "I'd say we save Cali as a hunter-killer unit. Hanmoul said the Aberrants would fight to the last monster if their leader lives, right? Then all we need to do is focus on finding and Consuming the leader."

Gwen nodded. Dick's proposal made sense.

"At the same time, we can try to mill the swarm down— I mean, it is not as though we have a choice. We can surround the Strider with a Lightning Blade Barrier, and set the space above us with a Void variant of Cloud Kill. Have the dogs fight them outside for as long as possible, let the numbers build, then we can focus on AOE. At some point, one of us can locate this 'Dark Intellect' of Hanmoul's, after which Cali can nix it."

"Gracie and I can try and Scry its whereabouts," Petra informed the party. "How are you planning to get to it if we do?"

"Cali can dig undetected, correct?"

"More or less," Gwen said. "With enough vitality at its disposal, anyway."

"SHAA! SHAA!" Caliban echoed the sentiment in her mind.

Gwen briefly pictured an infamous worm from a specific sandy planet full of spice. Caliban was nowhere near such epic, mythic proportions, but she was confident a "Wyrm" with two dozen lamprey tentacles would have no trouble stuffing an Aberrant brain into its gullet.

"Alright, that sounds good to me." Gwen turned to the rest of the party. "Hanmoul, can your Swiftstriders hold up?"

"Aye, my Guards and I will keep the fort standing, or meet the Ancestors trying..." the Commandrumm nodded. "Do what yer must, girlie. Don't worry yer whiskers about old Hanmoul."

"Nonsense. We're the ones with Contingency Rings," Gwen reminded Hanmoul while self-consciously touching the top of her lips for said whiskers. "We'll survive, more or less, but you and your kin might become the next wave of Aberrants…"

"Ha! Irøngut would turn in the Ancestor's Halls before that happens!" The Dwarf steeled his eyes. "Alright, lads! Yer heard the Devourer! Let nothing through! Bumrorlim! Keep yer ears to the ground and make sure none of the buggers undermines us! We survive this, and I'll give yer Bronzehorn's Third Legion!"

"Yes, Commandrumm!" Hanmoul's cousin saluted with a Sign of the Interlocking Cog.

“Tordok, Tordum, Grimgal!”

"Til' the Ancestors call!"

"AYE!" Hanmoul flexed his gauntlets, returning the Cog Sign. "Do or Die, LADS! Show them Murk rats that Dwarves bow to no monster!"

Without their IIUC experience, Gwen was confident her party would have shat their pants by now.

As predicted, the reemerging Aberrants punching through the debris field were either veterans or upper-tier variants, both individually cunning and capable of working in small groups. Even a single kill was fraught with danger, for when Gwen harried the pallid monstrosities with her dogs, she found that more often than not, they either ignored her bait or set ambushes.

Though the encounter's slow escalation to an all-out melee felt as slow as molasses, in real-time, it took only a few minutes for Gwen's wagon-circle to be completely overwhelmed.

"BLADE BARRIER!"

A glowing halo of electric current ignited at the wagon fort's base, sparking into life arcing plasma blades by the hundreds. Unlike the vorpal edge of the Void barrier, the energy-based blades could only leave gashes and gouges on the scarred flesh of the pale marauders milling into their killing zone. The deterrent, however, was efficient enough to dissuade both the Crawlers and the long-limbed Collectors.

"ROOOOWARR!" Golos was a blur of tooth and claw, club and wing, thrashing, throwing, biting and tossing Aberrants from the Dwarf-made mound, role-playing a future king of the hill. In only a dozen rounds of melee, his lower torso grew coated in corrosive ichor, though thanks to his Draconic constitution, the searing agony only roused his ire.

"Chain Lightning!" a sonorous female voice rang out from within the skittering pile of stabbing legs trying to drag down the Wyvern. The first chain struck out from below, while the second and third chains leapt from nearer the ceiling where a pseudo-Kirin acted the spell turret.

_CRACK—BOOM!_ An echoing fulmination broke across the cavern.

The top of the wagon-fort glowed viridescent with currents of criss-crossing electricity, then exploded as the compressed energies of the upper-tier evocation erupted, sending a mass of limbs and body parts flying through the air.

Golos howled, revelling in the violence.

"Lightning Sphere!"

The Aberrants cramming into the void left by the previous attack fell back as multiple electric novae rang out, empowering the Thunder Wyvern and sending their foe skittering.

"WEAK!" Golos cackled. "CALAMITY! MORE!"

"EE!" came a thrilling battle cry from above. Ariel's horns were white-hot with inefficiently expended mana. Gwen grunted, sharing in the stifling agony Ariel sustained when shifting Elemental Lightning through its conduits. With its repressed Affinity, the effort applied was like squeezing a bag of over-thick batter through a clogged sieve.

"Ball Lightning!" Four more explosions tore through the undulating pile of pallid skin and sinews, clearing a path for less than a second before other bodies piled in.

If anything, the battle's direction made it apparent that either the Aberrants all died— or the Human Mages OoMed and Teleported back, leaving their Dwarven "Mates" to suffer fates worse than death.

"LEA! LEFT FLANK!" Richard directed Lea's super-pressurised jets toward a pair of jaws that had bitten through the reinforced sheet metal of the Swiftstrider barricade. The pummelling mass of super-pressurised water instantly filled the gap, bloating the offending maw with so much liquid that the stiffening body behind it exploded like a popped balloon.

"Grimgal!" Hanmoul redirected his crew even as he repaired another punctured hole made by the monstrous beings.

"Got it!" Grimgal steered the tethered Spellsword back toward the momentarily empty hole. Ignoring the ichor and the gore, she welded shut the rent just in time to catch a scribbling pair of elongated digits trying to widen the gap, severing the finger so suddenly that the fallen extremity continued to dance on the venom soaked floor.

Opposite, JP served the same purpose as Richard with his Signature Spell Usurpation, filling in rents and holes with motes of self-expanding Void matter that fed on the flesh of their enemies. Unlike Gwen's Enervating Orb, the Void Mage's spell possessed the means to condense Void matter under his complete control, minimising friendly fire.

Gracie and Petra stood on elevated platforms in the middle, guarding their collection of drooling prisoners and firing off support spells to ease the burden on their defenders. Concurrently, the girls had Scrying pools conjured in front of them as they scanned for signs of whatever was controlling the swarm. Each took a quadrant, and each searched for static mana signatures within the roving sea of moving pings and blips.

"I think we found it!" Gracie shouted up at the floating Mages fending off the swarm. "Er… I think?"

"What is it?" Their leader finished off another round of explosive, Aberrant rending Evocation.

With one hand, Petra threw the projection forward until the Scrying pool expanded for all to see.

"CHAIN LIGHTNING!" Gwen fired off another volley of Lightning Bolts, feeling her tank drop to half. Upon seeing Hanmoul's boogieman, her eyes widened. "The F— M-Mysterio? No, wait, is that a Dwarf?"

In the mirage-like pane, the party observed a Dwarf garbed in rubbery armour from head to toe, with an overlarge helmet of semi-translucent obsidian in the form of an upturned fishbowl. Left without context, none of them would have suspected their offender of being anything other than a Dwarf in a Murk suit. However, within the Scryed vision, the stunted Demi-human stood in a tunnel crawling with Aberrants, directing the troops.

"Bürumm-Dal's Beard!" Hanmoul's voice came from below. "That's Farron Galrol, Captain of the Murk Divers! WHY?"

"Never mind why." Gwen cast her eyes toward the insensible Iron Guards of Bronzehorn's Legion then back toward the projection. In her mind, she willed her tunnelling Wyrm forward toward the location Gracie had indicated. "Cali… I want that thing nixed..."


Hidden in the outer orbital passage of Khorok Umgor, a Klad-covered silhouette stood among leaping, howling masses of warped flesh bellowing for blood.

If any Dwarves were present, they would have recognised the visage as that of a Murk Diver, a specialist Legionnaire trained in infiltration, discovery, and mineral-finding. However, they might wonder why such an august member of the Citadel kept company with a ravening horde of rabid chimaeras.

Furthermore, if they could see the throbbing organ hidden within the semi-opaque obsidian helmet, stimulating the glans grown into the Aberrants' spines, they would grow warier still.

"SKARRK!" the dome Dwarf screeched.

A pulse of reverberating telepathy rang out, bouncing around the walls and the bodies of its numberless minions, whipping the swarm forward.

A second later, its echoing thought returned with the assurance that there were no enemies near. Satisfied, it reached out once more, seizing each node of bestial consciousness embedded in the retarded organs of its minions.

Despite its numeric supremacy, the creature was worried; for against all expectation, the battle had gone awry.

Though diminished by distance, it participated in the anxiety of its brood still bastioned in the Citadel, rushing to create the Thralls necessary to halt the Human incursion so they wouldn't have to.

Initially, their entwined wisdom had deduced that the Human Mages would soon be exhausted. Collectively, they understood that where Dwarves seldomly wielded overwhelming power, their longevity and ability to re-arm and fortify made them troublesome prey. On the other tentacle, the Humans began every battle with overwhelming prowess but seldom could continue the fight longer than a stone cycle. Both were conclusions directly extracted from their Thralls' grey matter, and therefore could not be false.

Thus far, despite heavy losses on their side, the newly arrived Human Mages did not appear to be losing mana.
Nonetheless, the brood was confident the Humans should exhaust themselves shortly.
And once captured, these august specimens would add to the brood's body of knowledge.

Verily, it looked forward to inhabiting the alpha female. Earlier, it had entered her mind and found the vitality of her body more exquisite than anything it had ever experienced since emerging from the brine pool.

Unfortunately for the thoughtful Dwarf, it did not notice its favourite female's Familiar rapidly ascending from below, paralleling its predatory thoughts.

Therefore, the "Dark Intellect" realised far too late that some aberrant thing was about to breach the stones beneath its feet.

The floor below it shrunk in the manner of a rapidly-forming sink hole possessing the pull of a Maelstrom. That and several tentacles, each armed with lamprey lips not uncommon to the demi-plane where it lived had pierced into its Klad-suit.

In a blind panic, the creature aimed its will downward and musted all its might for a psionic strike.

Its thoughts, which would usually stun or pierce the mind of any lucid foe, rolled over the expanding tripartite lips like water off a Murk eel's hide.

Out of beak-clenching habit, the doomed creature performed a final act— probing its killer's mind to send a warning back to its brood.

Hunger— that was the thought its abominable mind communicated.

Depthless, insatiable hunger.

"Did ya get em, lassie?" Hanmoul shouted from below. "Is it nixed?"

"A snap and shut case," Gwen informed her party over their Message Devices, shaking herself out of Caliban VR lest her hunger grew too tangled with her Familiar's. "Alright, Hanmoul, let's see if your hypothesis is correct. Gracie, you can ease off now."

"Okay!" Their newest member withdrew the vitality expenditure of her Phantasmal Force. As an illusionist, her phantom "Hounds" cost significantly less life-force than Gwen's Conjuration variant. The offset was that Void Illusions lacked the advantage of Negative Drain, albeit pitted against the right opponent, she could instil spontaneous insanity. In the future, Gwen figured, Gracie would have to create Signature Spells, a noteworthy but not improbable feat, especially considering her tenure at Cambridge and the enthusiasm of Maxwell Brown.

Clad in static as a neon goddess, Gwen let loose consecutive Lightning Bolts. As much as her rip-roaring mass-bombardment spells showed off the extraordinary destructive potential of her Affinity, the simplicity of the tier 3 staple relaxed rather than taxed her mind.

"HA! WEAK!" Golos shouted from above, raining spittle and bloody foam down on his team members. Rents and gashes covered the Wyvern from tail to toe and marred the length of his majestic neck. The flesh wounds looked worse than they were in actuality, but even so, the horror made Gwen frown. "They're more lively now. Calamity, did your fiend consume another nest or what?"

Golos' guess was as good as her's, Gwen thought as she observed the leaping horde piling on top of one another, impaling themselves on whatever space was left, even if it meant humping an obsidian shard. Once more, she thought of what would happen if these creatures ever made it to the surface. If the Siege of Sydney replaced zealous Mermen looking to loot with these stomachs on legs, what manner of a catastrophe would that engender?

Then it happened.

The assault of the Aberrant tide lost their singular focus.

Individually, the monsters were still fighting fit. From Gwen's levitated vantage, however, she sensed that something had pulled the adrenaline plug and replaced it with a general madness. Not only were the monsters fighting Golos, her Mages, and the scant Morden's Hounds that still lived, they were now also fighting among themselves.

It must be the hunger— a stray thought filtered through. The Aberrants' bodies are not unlike hers in that while active, they consumed vital internal energies to fuel their frenzy. Now that she had robbed their nest and its essential nutrients, the hive must hunt indefinitely or perish. Whatever the case, she acknowledged that these "Dark Intellects" that Hanmoul mentioned must be truly sadistic with designs utterly alien to Humanity and its allies.

"How's it look?" Hanmoul asked anxiously. "Did nix'n Farron Galrol help?"

Gwen returned her attention to the undulating tide of bodies bashing against their barricade and now one another. Whenever a claw or maw pierced the rubbery hide of an ally, the accidental violence would engender a maddened blur of frenzied self-destruction. Like hens pecking at a diseased companion, fresh carnage would break loose near the wounded Aberrant, be they Hulk or Centaur, ending when the victim became gnawed, brittle bone.

But of course, such furore would never end at one victim. In the insane scramble for food, others would emerge, wounded by the insensible, omnidirectional attacks. Like street cats thrown into a bag, the Aberrants turned from fighting Dwarves and Humans to each other, with pockets of the swarm descending entirely into derangement.

All monsters had weaknesses, Gwen profoundly observed. For the Aberrants, was destroying the nest the lynchpin? Or was it the extinction of Mysterio Dwarf? Or perhaps both?

"I think," Petra observed the fray from below through Scry. "That the 'Dark Intellect' Dwarf must be suppressing the instincts of these creatures to keep them advancing as an orderly horde. We see it with the Highland Demi-humans and the High Shamans of the Northern Steppes who make use of monster tides."

"Like a node?" Gwen whipped at the horde mercilessly. Was Petra right? Was Mysterio merely a relay, like the ones refracting resonance from a Shield Generator?

"Ya think?" Hanmoul's expression remained grim. "If Farron's a node— then what's the source?"

"SHAA—SHAA!" Just in time, Caliban's arrival brought answers the party sought.

"What's that?" Gwen asked of her Familiar when Cali began to act coy through their mental link. "You brought me something?"

In her mind, the worm nodded. The inference Gwen had empathically received was the understanding that one of her cats had caught something in the garden and was now taking it inside the house for show and tell.

"SHAA!" Caliban pierced through the crust at the bottom of the barricade, merely inconvenienced by the transmuted metal as its caustic Void-saliva melted through the warded steel.

"Ancestor's Beard!" Hanmoul swore. "Give us a warning, lass!"

"Shaa! SHAA!" Caliban rose until its upper body hovered above the Swiftstrider barricade. It wiggled its bloated waist, as if to show off, then split itself in twain by peeling back its shell.

"Alright, alright." Hanmoul waved off the apology with a gauntleted hand, fighting the induced vertigo.

The Wyrm's faceless mien leaned over, then with an enthused SHAA! Its tongues rolled outwards, vomiting forth its prize. The party collective ceased breathing for a moment as the contents of Caliban's gullet poured onto the metal planks.

Their prize consisted mostly of piecemeal Aberrants coated in corrosive Void-goo, that and blocks of precious metal collected during its passage.

Most importantly, there was a Dwarf— or what's left of a Dwarf's upper torso, sans legs, one arm, left lumbar and most of her innards. What surprised Gwen was that she had only thought of capturing the Dwarf in passing and had not given express orders for its recovery. Could this imply a new tier of empathic understanding in her Familiar?

"Clever girl!" She patted her Familiar.

"Farron Galrol!" Hanmoul recognised the inscriptions on the armour. "Ancestor's Beard! What a way ter go."

"Shaa! Shaa!" Caliban slid wetly into its hole, then reemerged in a manner that was borderline obscene. "SHAA!"

"Of course you can," Gwen understood her Familiar's desire to burst in on the anarchic Aberrants to harvest whatever life it could.

With another happy "SHAA!" Caliban slid itself back into the vertical tunnel like a jack-in-the-box, causing Golos to expel an audible whimper.

Gwen looked up.
The Wyvern's blaming eyes met her demanding gaze.
A split-second of understanding passed between Master and Wyvern.

"Good work, Gogo," Gwen delivered her heartfelt praise. Gogo had worked hard this time around. The missing scales and the sheer volume of corroded wounds on the drake's body was plentiful evidence of how hard the Wyvern had fought for her sake. "Essence and SPAM later? These Aberrants are rather malnourished…"

Golos returned to clubbing Aberrants with a grunt.

"J-P!" She re-engaged command of the field. "I think we can start mop-up operations. I'll take left flank— you take the right."

"Yes, Ma'am!" Jean-Paul agreed without complaint. "Umzokwe!"

The freshly reborn leech slithered from the Void to happily vault the barrier, hungry for confused Aberrants. To aid in their efforts, Jean-Paul conjured corpse worms akin to Umzokwe, while Gwen settled for a threesome of vitality-harvesting Hydras.

"How many dogs have we got left?" Gwen asked her crew.

Petra indicated that her dogs were spent, as did Jean-Paul.
Richard's perishable pets hung around thanks to their ability to turn incorporeal via Lea but would serve little purpose as hunter-killers. As for Gwen's dogs, all had died to the crushing horde of tooth and claw, fulfilling their purpose.

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"Any reaction from the citadel and our Engineseer?" Gwen demanded of Hanmoul. "This Farron fellow was one of their's, I assume."

"Aye." Hanmoul left the defence to his men and approached the helmeted carcass of the Murk Diver's Captain. "She WAS a Master-tier Diver, one of the best Earth Striders in Eth Rjoth Kjangtoth. It's a nasty way ter perish, getting nixed by the Void. And aye, Khorok Umgor remains silent."

"They don't want to strike while we're OoM?" Gwen furrowed her brows.

She had enough left to fight, though she couldn't say the same for the traditional casters in her party like Richard. Petra as well was running low as she had provided buffs and defence together with active barrier-building.

"Well, we're in a fort." Hanmoul pointed out something that no Dwarf would deny. "They're in a better fort. And they're Dwarves. As I said, abandoning defensive positions isn't in their blood."

Gwen mulled over the Commandrumm's fuzzy logic while the battle between their monsters seesawed back and forth.

For another hour, the carnage continued, with most of the killing performed by herself and Jean-Paul's minions until finally, the Aberrant horde began to disperse. Even as the pale and skittering bodies started to retreat into the dark crevices of the cavern, Caliban and Umzokwe pursued, dragging limbs and half-consumed torsos down from ceilings with sticky projectiles, or dragging screeching creatures underground with pink tentacled tongues. Her Hydras, lacking the Familiars' speed, went about slurping up broken stragglers, too damaged to escape, too wounded to fight.

The spectacle was mesmerising even for the hardboiled Mages. Without Gwen and Jean-Paul present, they would have wondered which side were theirs.

"Umm… Gwen?" It was Gracie who raised her hand and dispelled the stupor. Gwen had tasked her and Petra to pry apart the rubbery, interlocking armour, hoping to reveal some worthy intel Bronzehorn had failed to elucidate. "I think you and Hanmoul need to come and see this. I believe we found your 'Dark Intellect'."

Still mystified by the lack of response from Khorok Umgor, Gwen dropped down with Richard, putting Golos in charge of any overambitious Aberrants seeking final glory.

"I am here," their sparkle-fingered leader landed. "What's the— HOLY HELL, WHAT THE FUCK?"

There was a Merman's head, INSIDE the Dwarf's helmet. Where Farron's "face" should be, she was dead set staring at a Mon Calamari.

"Is it dead?" Gwen could hardly believe her eyes. Had the Mermen penetration of the Planes come so far as to infiltrate the Murk? "Wow. Just like the movies."

"Aye, tis the tentacled 'Intellect' like the one I saw," Hanmoul confirmed her horror while ignoring her Gwenism. "But why is it wearing one of our suits?"

From the neckband of the Diver's suit that sealed the interior, they could see rubbery flesh more so resembling the underside of a squid; only this one had multiple skin folds that reminded Gwen of gills. Its eyes as well, were enormous and bulbous, protruding from either side of its elongated skull, tied to its face by powerful optic musculature. More notably, there were four tentacles, each ending in fingertip appendages that now lay limp on its cheeks. Within its gaping mouth, teeth that were once incisors had fused to become a parrot's beak.

"Imposter Dwarves!" Gwen sucked in a breath of tepid air. "Holy shit! Hilda— do you think—"

"It's not a disguise." Hanmoul shook his head. Using a length of Spellsword, the Commandrumm pried open a portion of the suit still hanging onto the carcass's torso. There was a Glyph there, tattooed into the skin like a Ta Moko. "See here, that's a Glyph of Dark Passage. It's what Farron would have earned when training to be a Murk Diver. Within the inner Glyph, you can see the Cog and Anvil of House Galrol."

"I don't understand, why are there Mermen in the Murk this far from water?" Gwen pivoted her hypothesis. "And wearing Golem suits."

"She's wearing a Klad," Hanmoul said. "Those who do not wish to be tainted by the light of Himmseg wear Klad sanctified by Deepholm."

"Alright, so that's a Klad," Gwen nodded. "So, are these Mermen infiltrators? I heard there are underground oceans. I mean, if there are giant Brain-whales, why not a Calamari-Dwarf?"

"Gwen, I think it's a parasitic creature attached to Farron," Gracie pointed to the difference between the skin textures of the body and the face. "If we're looking at a head that doesn't match the neck, that's usually the case. There's lots of precedence in nature. The Evermore Mistletoe, for example, assumes complete control of the trunk. The Wright Fungi found in the Deep Murk does the same, rooting themselves inside a Murk Stinger's spinal column to subvert the host's control of their body. There's a kind of aquatic Murk mite that eats their fish host's tongue, and then becomes the tongue itself while controlling the fish…"

"Jesus Christ, the Murk is underground Australia." Gwen felt her skin crawl all over. "Hanmoul, considering that we still need to know what the hell we're fighting next. Do you want to do the honours?"

Hanmoul pointed the sword's tip at the centre of the squid's head. "Am sure the Ancestors won't mind if we need ter ken if there are imposters in our midst."

With a swift strike, the Commandrumm split the head in twain.
A gush of foul, yellow liquid with the consistency of yolk immediately escaped the parted skull.

"Brumdahr's beard, there's no skullcap!" Hanmoul immediately cleaned his blade with a runic word. "Cuts like a rotten melon."

"That explains the fishbowl." Gwen waited for Richard to hose down the two halves, then exhaled deeply when what they'd all been expecting came into view.

"Where's her brain?" Gracie's eyes widened with horror. "Jesus, is that all in the head? There's a heart, gills, digestive tracts, nerve vessels by the bundle..."

"Talk about living rent-free." Gwen grimaced, then pointed to the white, fatty bits that formed a fist-shaped cluster of vessels and nerve endings. "I assume that's the brain of the Mon Calamari and not our Dwarf."

"Aye." Hanmoul prodded the jello-like fat. "Mon Calamari, eh?"

Gwen traced the cross-sectioned nerves' pattern until her eyes lingered on the beginnings of the hewed spinal column.

"You know what?" she said suddenly, realising that they had been stunned by this turn of events without acknowledging the significance of what this portended. "While we're standing here marvelling at our specimen, wouldn't there be a dozen more of these fuckers inside the Citadel waiting to head-hump Hildy?"

At once, the party of chagrined rescuers turned their attention to the pockmarked walls of Khorok Umgor.

"Gather up and mana up," Gwen gave the order even as her blood ran ice cold. "Let's get ready to breaking through."

"If we had the Smashers, we might be able to entangle Thalmar," Hanmoul remarked as the Swiftstriders untangled themselves from the mangled Golem armours. From Bronzehorn, the Dwarves only managed to recover three suits, now used to defend the survivors. "As fer now, I am afraid we'll only get in yer way."

"Nonsense," a scarlet-cheeked Gwen replied as she rebalanced the vitality Caliban and the Hydras were feeding back into their collective vital pool. "You did well defending us, Hanmoul, and now you're our support once more. Assuming we can recover our Mages, we're going to need rapid exfiltration to the ISTC station in Merthyr Tydfil. No way that's happening without you."

The Dwarf agreed with a depressing solemnity.

"I'll do the fighting in your stead, Earthen one." Golos leaned his massive head closer, forming a formidable backdrop to the svelte sorceress's profile, not unlike a classical fantasy lumen-poster. The drake appeared pleased while picking at the scabs with a claw, licking the Aberrant ichor clean. "You can owe me a debt as well, hahaha…"

"Gogo, don't be rude," Gwen waved off her Wyvern. "Alright, any suggestions? Petra, any parley demands?"

Her cousin shook her head.

"I smell the Humans still," Golos reminded Gwen. "And they stink as well."

"A delay tactic?" Richard tossed in his two cents after packing away an empty mana injector. "More Calamari coming our way, perhaps."

Gwen rubbed her throbbing forehead. Since accidentally naming the squid-faced brain parasites, "Mon Calamari", was now fast-stuck inside everyone's heads.

"Right, then we proceed as discussed. JP, you take care of the Balefire's spell-chains. Once we immobilise it, Cali will attempt to swallow it wholesale, and we'll try to subdue the rest of the Murk Divers with our Morden's Hounds. Dick, knowing how fast that thing casts, we're going to need you to catch whatever JP misses."

"Of course." Richard gave her the thumbs up. "Lea's ready to pull some squids from their Klads."

"I'll drown them all!" The Undine's voice rippled through the air like ice. "Especially the ones that hurt me!"

"They're squids, so they probably aren't prone to drowning." Richard patted the invisible shape beside him. "Too bad Yue isn't here, else we could have calamari teppanyaki."

Thinking sweetly of their foul-mouthed firebrand, Gwen relaxed her nerves. "Alright, any luck with the Scry?"

Gracie shook her head. "I can't get through the wall to find our Mages, sorry, Gwen. Maybe if we get closer."

The team studied the distance between them and the Citadel. They were currently well out of Spellsword range, and by Gwen's reckoning, the Balefire's rapid spell-assault had only half the reach of an Obsidian Shard. If they teleported closer, they might succeed in conjuring a penetrative Scry or Clairvoyance— but at the same time, Gracie and Petra would be within the range of artillery spells.

"I'll keep Gracie safe," Petra assured her cousin by withdrawing six defensive Spellcubes kept afloat via Naga heads. "For now, gather round for Mind Wards. My Abjuration is woeful, but better an impoverished mental barrier than nothing at all."

"I should buy us all Mind Ward earrings," Gwen remarked while the team received their final benedictions. "I never did replenish the one that got nixed in Shenyang."

Petra's eyes lingered on her cousin's thoughtful face. "If I acquired mid to upper-tier Mind spells, I can Enchant the items myself."

A current warmth ran through Gwen's solar plexus, which inspired her to lean in and embrace Petra. With the Balefire Golem waiting impatiently to unleash hell up them, Gwen felt a genuine nostalgia for the "simple" days at Fudan, when all they had to deal with were Fu-er-dai cockfights and not Calamari head humpers.

Like walking on an invisible ladder, Gwen stepped into the air.

"Shaa! Shaa!" Caliban had assumed its position underground, ready to entangle a Balefire.

"EE! EE!" Ariel launched its invisible self forward, ready to deliver its mistress' displeasure.

Gwen took a deep breath.

" _BARBAGINY!_ "

For the second time in as many hours, Khorok Umgor leapt into the air.

Usually, such as in the case of Eth Rjoth Kjangtoth, a Citadel's walls were built by generations of stonemasons piling Enchantment enhanced stones through interlinked Glyph works. Performed correctly, not only were the walls impervious to non-catastrophic damage, they effortlessly survived inevitable Turnings of the Earth-Dragon.

Khorok Umgor was a stronghold build within a month. Its parapets and barriers were reinforced slabs of tilted granite raised and conjured from Elemental Plane.

When the Thundering Shatter struck, the impact manifested as a million hair-line cracks appearing along the wall at once, followed by the rapid liquefaction of the load-bearing base transformed into a crushing wave of crumbling slag.

Gwen had chosen a frontal assault because of the ease of forced entry combined with the lack of desire to become trapped in the claustrophobic space of a sealed interior. She had also chosen the strategy because no "Dwarves" were staffing the walls, and even if there were, she suspected it would be those fish-bowled Calamari Mysterios that used Ooze Magic.

It took a few seconds for the dust to clear.
Gwen's Essence-focused pupils grew into twin pinpoints.

"MOTHER FUCKER!" their team leader's curse swept through the still-ringing cavern. From her vantage point, the scene that came into view killed both motivation and momentum.

As anticipated, there were no Dwarves, but there were plenty of Humans. Against all expectation, the Human Mages Gwen had vowed to save were not trapped in stone halls or suffering in watery dungeons, but milling about like drones in the courtyard.

What was worse was that there were no screams nor complaints, just impassive stoicism as the wall folded onto their upright bodies.

Without a Dwarf's innate fortitude or the ability to Stoneshape— without even activating their Shields, the volunteer "Murk Mages" from the Shard took on the brunt of the rolling slabs, some larger and taller than a grown man, others the size of their heads.

The invocations of a maximum range Dimension Door was on Gwen's lips within a split-second.

"Gwen! Don't!" Petra's voice halted her cousin's impulse.

"They're glamoured!" Gracie's voice rang from a Message spell blooming by her ear. "Don't go, Gwen, what if they're lying in wait?"

Despite the blind rage coursing through her conduits, Farron's squid-shaped frontal lobe flashed across her own.

"Magus Song, the Iron Guard will go first," Hanmoul volunteered, revving the engines of his Swiftstrider. "If they restrain us, do what you must. They can't control all of us; else they would have taken Khorok Umgor long ago."

Their leader cooled her heated head by circulating Void to dull the adrenaline, then ordered the minions to advance past the Dwarves.

"Buck! Astro! Umzokwe! Bring me the prisoners and dig out the survivors!"

The monstrous army of dogs fanned out, launching like multi-coloured rockets over the jagged granite. Fuming but still calm enough to remain out of spell-reach, Gwen held her position as her Lightning Hounds blazed onto the base of the collapsed wall.

_BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!_

Hanmoul's jerry-rigged instruments burst into life.
The Dwarf invoked the thrice-jammed cog.

A pillar of heat sprung into existence where the dogs made a mad scramble up the hillside. Even from outside the spell's maximum manifestation range, they heard the in-ward sucking of air as superheated Magma gathered into a point, then—

_KABOOM—!_

An explosion rang out, taking three of her dogs and sending the rest skittering and rolling down the slag heap. On the other side, Gwen saw the shockwave pummel the milling Mages. A new piece of debris, as large as Buck, rolled into the loosely positioned crowd, instantly reducing two insensible Adventurers to wine stains.

Gwen's mind turned white with superheated fury. The fucking—

"THALMAR! YER ANCESTOR-CURSED ABERRANT!" Hanmoul's voice burst like a thunderclap. The Dwarf stood on both accelerator pedals, his expression so contorted with rage that his speech shuddered. "CRAVEN BASTARD! ARE YER STILL A DWARF!?"

"We need to push through." Richard's voice cut through the chaos. "Forget the hostages. They're dead Mages walking. Be it from the Mind Magic or the Calamari or Thalmar, or if we leave them by retreating, they're fucked. If we pussyfoot this, then they died for nothing."

Between the roaring blasts and her team members, Gwen's mind buzzed from the mental tinnitus of seeing Mages she was tasked to rescue dying deaths of no worth.

But she was no longer that young girl who Gunther had rescued from Blackheath. She was now the MVP of the IIUC and a certified War Mage. Unlike the Gwen Song of Forrestville, the Magus Song of London had put down a city of ten thousand Undead and razed a peninsular of Triffidus.

The fire fled, rapidly replaced by chilling ice.

As the liquid lead in her veins solidified, calculated choices crystallised within her mind.

To do as Richard suggested would benefit her party by far. Gwen did not know if the Empire would hold her accountable for innocent lives, but she had no doubt that every Mage dying to misadventures equated more weight London could exert to pry open the Dyar Morkk.

The alternative was obvious.
Kill the Mon Calamari, nuke the Balefire, free the Mages, find Hilda, then go back to Eth Rjoth Kjangtoth to find out if the Deepdowners there had tentacles for beards. The difficulty of that, comparatively, bordered on masochism.

She glanced at her teammates.
Richard and Golos were both eager to begin the assault, their expression showing either conviction or complete disregard for the hostages.
Petra silently awaited her cousin's decision.
Gracie's eyes were wider than hers had been, and the Illusionist's mouth still hung on its hinges, her pink tongue parched and hesitant.
Jean-Paul stared straight ahead, his intent beyond her comprehension.
Hanmoul and his Dwarves were already halfway, fully ready to make up for his kin's shameful display.

"Gwen, don't..." Richard read her mind. " _It's a trap!_ "

Her frontal lobes throbbed. The rational part of her wanted to listen to Dick, but what choice did she have? Who could have thought that the damned molluscs would have a one-up on the Empire?