"Inti's no slouch," Gwen remarked as she surveyed the aftermath of the alpha-strikes. A movie quote came to mind, but she refrained from her Gwenisms. "Look at that."

On the western slope, Fudan had done a bang-up job of erasing Trollic occupation. As for the eastern side, Inti's solar flare had eradicated all signs of the previous squatters. With exhibitions like that, it wasn't difficult to imagine why NoMs worshipped Mages as ready idols.

"There's more hiding in the temple itself, in the underground chambers," Tei gave his evaluation. "The prince is impressive, but his Radiance possesses poor penetration. I prefer a well-trained Fire Mage. I bet if we had your VMI and Jiro's abilities, we could bake the temple like a clay oven. Let's see if anything survives that."

"Low penetration, eh?" Gwen chuckled. "Someone must have forgotten to pass Gunther the memo."

"Well- the Morning Star isn't your average virtuoso," Tei corrected himself. "He's one in a million, perhaps a billion?"

"He's a decent bloke." Gwen batted a hand, waving an invisible handkerchief. "I heard he's a desk jockey now."

Besides them, Petra snorted, imagining the great Gunther Shultz stuck behind a mountain of paperwork, fighting the urge not to burn it all.

"EE! EE!" Ariel kneaded Gwen's thigh.

"Good work, Buddy!" she kissed him on the nose. "Well done!"

"How was the Maelstrom?" Petra tapped a data slate. "From one to five, how exhausting?"

"Three?" Gwen reviewed the tier 6 AoE. "I guess sucking things into the Void and not consuming them isn't that bad. Toward the end, with those trolls, I'd say four? The effect isn't Sobel-tier."

"…And how do you feel…" Petra tapped her forehead.

"EE!" Ariel nuzzled Gwen's cheeks.

"I am okay." Gwen buried her chin in her Kirin's mane. "There was neither distress nor pleasure. I guess Sobel's talent is unique, after all."

"Just making sure." Petra saved the entry on her slate. "Right, shall we proceed with the next phase?"

"We'll stand guard," Lulan and Rene both offered.

"Cheers." Gwen gestured to a vacant lot that had once been a fishing port of sort. All the flimsy structure surrounding the inlet from the river had been wiped out, leaving a patch of unearthed vegetation, mud and debris. "We'll do it there."

Tei was the first to alight, marking the earth with glyphs to establish a beachhead.

Lulan hovered just above the team, her heart-seeking projectiles ready to snipe whatever dared to show its face. Beside her, Rene likewise readied a Lava Spear. Should something like a hidden tunnel open up close to the party, she could clog the entrance with a word.

"I am beginning!" Gwen drew the usual mandala in the air, carefully invoking her magic to maximise her output. "… Morden's Hound Pack!"

Eight lightning-clad draconic deerhounds emerged into the Material Realm.

"…BloodHound!" They were soon joined by a ninth.

"You can summon a pack of eight now?" Lulan inspected the lively dogs as they scented Gwen and her allies, licking their hands with paralysis-inducing tongues.

"We've been fighting and training non-stop," Gwen recalled her coaching under Walken and Alesia with a wince. "I think I am very close to tier 6 Conjuration."

"You were tier four when we met one and a half years ago," Petra pointed out.

"Hahaha… yeah," Gwen passed off her cheat-like growth awkwardly. "Tier happens, you know?"

While her hounds stood guard, she initiated a second variant.

"… Morden's Hound Pack!"

This time, her party gave her ample distance.

Inch by crude-oil inch, eight slick Void Hounds emerged, each faceless beast possessing jaw-slits that encompassed more than half of their body length, propped up by skeletal legs, with segmented whippet-tails waving like rapiers.

"Give me a second." Gwen steadied herself while her Essence circulated. Her tank wasn't running low, but eight pony-sized Void Hounds were enough to make any girl woozy. "… Blood Hound!"

The alpha of the pack was a head taller than the rest, a magnificent obsidian fiend, smouldering motes of dissipating Void.

"Ergh, so handsome." Gwen patted her big boy.

The hound's head-carapace split, revealing four tongues amid rows of chainsaw teeth. Slobbering with glee, it gave her fingers a tongue bath.

Petra measured a dog with her eyes, then prodded it so that it could open its mouth to be inspected.

"Hmm… very nice," the Russian murmured contemplatively. "A five per cent increase... extra tongue..."

"Hee-hee, that tickles." Lulan was a fan favourite, attracting the draconic dogs with her newly acquired Naga-scent. When she petted them, the hounds drooled, soaking her greaves.

Rene suppressed a gag, waving the dogs away.

Tei nodded appreciatively, glad he wasn't the only one. Their Void sorceress tended to warp the outlook of those caught in her orbit.

"Buck, you take the left flank." Gwen motioned to the Void leader.

"Gawrrr..." Buck mimed an alien bark, then commanded its pack to scour the ruins.

"Astro! Right flank!"

"WOOF!" The Lightning alpha led the way.

"Are they sapient?" Tei raised a brow. "I thought they were shaped Elementals."

"Naw, it's a dog thing," Gwen refuted the claim. "It's built into the spell. A smart dog has half the intelligence of a Gogo."

"Yip! ARRROOOO!"
"WOOF! WOOF-WOOF!"

A hundred meters out, a mound of heavy stone erupted, revealing a Troll warrior who'd been doing its best to regenerate. Unlike Inti's victims, Gwen's survivors were at worst bruised and disorientated by being tossed about like rag-dolls.

"ULOAR!" The warrior brandished a teeth-studded club.

Unmoved by its frothing spittle, the party watched from a distance as Morden's Hounds performed their original duty.

With a distended limb, the Troll swung at an agile hound, missing when the beast feinted, dodging the blow and forcing it off-balance. Instantly, the blue-white blurs assaulted its rear, tearing at its calves, acting as living tasers as they struck.

"GARRK!" The Troll stumbled to its knees.

"It's over." Lulan whistled as the foremost dog tore out the Troll's throat with a snarl, painting its electric muzzle with oxidising bronze. The party doubted the original spell had Gwen's efficacy. After all, it wasn't as though Morden possessed draconic Essence.

"Is it going to regenerate?" Rene readied a fistful of cleansing fire.

"Let the Void feast." Gwen motioned her second pack to move in. "Save your mana."

True to her intent, the Void alpha reached the Troll's side. An unnatural sound of shifting bone resounded as its jaws distended, dislodging itself so that in one bite, the upper half of the Troll's twitching body joined the Void.

"Mao!" The corner of Tei's eyes twitched when the rest of the Void pack shredded the remains.

"Alright," Fudan's captain conceded to Gwen's show of force. "Let's clean up."

With Gwen's dogs ferreting out the occasional Troll too foolish to retreat into the temple's interior, the party patrolled the western slope, hell-bent on picking up every spare CC, as well as purifying their future escape route.

"Golos still up there?"

"Yep." Gwen nodded. "Ariel's Maelstrom's better than I thought. Maybe we should have left some fun for Gogo, eh?"

Before long, the team arrived at the foot of a gentle rise.

From the western wall, the Temple City of Mama Killa began in earnest. Where Inti's eastern entrance held the Sun Gate, Fudan's side marked the Moon Gate. Between the walls and the tiered temple, there was a distance of over two kilometres, all of which held hidden perils.

With half the structures burned and the other half vacuumed, some of its ancient glory was now visible to the visitors. Their immediate objective was a mid-tier entrance into the temple's underground catacombs, sealed with forgotten magic. Fudan's passage through the central boulevard, unfortunately, took them through dozens of underground granaries, each a shattered ziggurat converted into interconnected Trollic warrens.

A direct flight was possible and at worst, Lulan and Rene would transmute their way into the vaults, but that would leave them vulnerable to becoming surrounded.

On the other side, they were sure Inti likewise worked his way forward, purging the Trolls as a secondary objective.

"Let's hope one of these things holds a Hag or the Chieftain," Gwen remarked as her dogs dragged yet another victim from under a cascade of rubble. This one was a tuskless labourer, lucky enough to survive the vortex, but not so her hounds. "We wouldn't want to fight either without room to manoeuvre."

_TOOM—TOOM—TOOM—_

The sound of tolling war drums interrupted the butchery. Fudan quickly formed up as the stones throbbed and the ground shook.

"Gogo, get ready," Gwen mentally commanded her drake. "If it's the chieftain, act as we've planned. Link Sight!"

"EEe! EE!" Ariel, now aloft and acting the invisible spy satellite, reported commotion from beyond the crested hill.

"It's coming from one of the smaller pyramids- ten O'clock." Gwen switched between her real eyes and drone-vision.

"Cao, you're a one-woman army," Rene blustered. The Magma Mage had armed herself with no less than four self-buffs, but had yet to set fire to a single Troll. "Should I come back later?"

"Ha, you wish." Gwen slapped her teammate's back. "Your real worth is when we're indoors. Chin up!"

"AROOOOO!"
"WoooOOO!"

Her dogs scented the incoming enemies.

"Ariel, stay." Gwen held her Familiar in check, taking in the battlefield from above. "Lulu, care for some exercise?"

"Any time." Lulan's adorable smile betrayed her innate battle lust. "Iron Skin!"

Though the Transmutation remained the same one the Sword Mage had always utilised, a layer of green-bronze now covered her skin, assuming a pattern of serpent scales. Lulan's pupils as well took on a jade-green sheen as five airborne blades, each enormous, hilt-less slabs of iron, materialised on either side.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Lucky Lulu." Tei smacked his lips. "To think a single Spirit could do so much."

"A high-tier draconic Naga Spirit," Petra reminded their captain. "One extracted from a flawless Core."

"Glad you like it. INCOMING!" Gwen opened her eyes. "Tei, any time now!"

"SIX PILLARS!" Tei wasted no time in erecting an all-consuming pillar-barrier that impeded all forms of harmful sorcery. The defence was well-timed, for a mere two seconds later, a stench of rot and decay rolled over the party.

"Cao! What is that?" Rene swatted at a glob of falling flesh, watching it sizzle as a Lava Blast sent the accused offal flying.

Against Tei's dust-strewn barrier, blackened-blood splattered, hissing offensively.

"Jackpot." Petra checked her data slate. "We've got a Hag! That was one of its signature spells. Bestiary says sacrificial blood is infused with Negative Energy to create flesh-eating necrosis."

The team gave pause at Petra's tone; the Mineral Mage had spoken as if she had found a rare butterfly.

"Tei, can we move the Pillars up?"

"Slow and steadily." Tei shifted the foremost pillars up the avenue so that his coverage leap-frogged. "If we're not physically bested, it is doable."

Outside the protective barrier, Gwen's dogs engaged the Troll-fodder released by the unseen Hag. A roving throng of tuskless slaves accosted her whelps, enraged and foaming at the lips, wielding make-shift armaments of teeth and stone.

Gwen sent a mental message to Golos to stay put, then focused on relaying the conditions of the emerging battlefield.

"I am going." Lulan turned to Tei.

"Tomb Ward!" Fudan's captain bestowed a single-use charm onto his melee Mage. "Stay safe."

Lulan nodded. "I'll draw them out of the underground."

"I am going as well." Rene had been itching to work her magic.

Tei planted another ward on their Magma Mage. "Then the three of us shall remain here. Don't forget to return if you're in danger."

"Yes, Captain!" the girls affirmed Tei's advice.

"Misty Step!"
"Blink!"

For Gwen, the bird's eye view made the bloody battle surreal- like she was playing a 90s real-time strategy game.

With Tei's considerable turtling skills, she and Petra remained snug as a bug, nestled inside the Tomb Mage's shell. For now, at least, they were at a curious stalemate. The Hag could not reach them with long-range AoEs, while they had no desire to rush headlong into a trap.

Though the tuskless Troll slaves were no match for her dogs, they still possessed significant threat as an enraged berserker-mob. With Ariel as her telepathic drone, she tactically applied her hounds, slicing into the slobbering mass surgically. With each Troll obliterated, her obsidian critters grew more substantial.

In a moment, Lulan arrived, an impromptu whirlwind of green death, her chain-linked blades slicing a path into the Troll horde. Whenever an iron slab lodged inside the body of a frothing Troll, she discarded the spent razor, then summoning another to continue the slaughter.

Behind Lulan, Rene cleaned up, paving the path below and around them with molten magma. Though the Mage lacked Seoul's bloodline talent, she was nonetheless an especially selected Transmuter for an international tournament, proving her prowess through fire and brimstone. With each swing of her arm, a glob of liquid fire engulfed a straggler or deflected an assailant from Lulan, showing herself equally adept at offence and defence.

"Lulu, incoming." Gwen spotted the beginning of yet another volley from the hidden Hag. "It's an AoE, looks nasty as anything. Get out now!"

The girls obliged, through Gwen's Void Hounds remained.

When the spell struck, the acid cloud melted what remained of a dozen Trolls that had been disabled by iron and magma.

Her Void Hounds smoked as they skittered through the devouring corrosion, ignoring the dosage.

_TOOM—TOOM—TOOM—_
 _WHAM!_

A stone slab slid from the entrance of a hidden warren. With an earth-shaking crash, it crumbled, spilling from the darkness a dozen warriors armed with darkly-gleaming obsidian, armoured with enchanted bark.

Behind them, through Ariel's trained eyes, Gwen could spot a vaguely female figure giving out frenzied commands.

From its gestures, the Hag had not enjoyed the slaughter of its slaves.

A dim, red glow suffused the Troll warriors. Their collective mass appeared to double, then the troop broke into a run, making for Tei's pillars. With their long limbs, the berserkers closed the distance.

"CONTACT!" Gwen called out. "HOUNDS! SIC 'EM!"

Lulan Misty Stepped into the air, then let loose all five of her blades, launching the volley with a thrilling shriek of "Panzerschreck!"

"Magma Wall!" Rene back peddled, shrinking from the charging horde, erecting no less than three offensive barriers.

"ULOAR!" The Trolls arched their spring-like arms. Veins bulged, musculature ballooned, then they tossed their weapons.

"TOMB SHIELD!" Tei gestured without delay.

_Shreeee—THUNK!_

Lulan had made a mistake in lifting into the air, for she became a willing target. In the next moment, a near-supersonic spear shattered Tei's shield, exploding into fossilised fragments of hardened obsidian.

_CLANG! BAAM!_

A second spear and then a club struck Lulan successively, the first clanging off her Parry, and the next striking her thighs, drawing a line of sparks before shattering against her Iron Skin.

The weighty projectile exploded like a grenade, shredding the armour, exposing one thigh and deforming the scaled-flesh beneath.

"Holy shit," Gwen spat. That was a close call. Had Lulan not attuned with a flawlessly extracted Earthen Sprite of hardened jadeite, her right leg would have painted Tei's dust wall.

Lulan wiped a smidgen of blood from her lips. In her mind, the sword versus Troll exchange had gone swimmingly, for she had disabled no less than three warriors, pinning their howling bodies to the ground.

"Don't do a Lulan," Tei cursed. "Rene! Get back here!"

"Coming!" Rene reappeared an instant later. Unlike the battle-crazy Sword Mage, if she took a stone hammer to the gut, there may not be a body left to teleport back to Cuzco.

As if flaunting her resilience, Lulan manifested new blades, then danced across to the Trolls' flank, dicing at limbs and throwing the occasional Heart-seeker into the group's midst.

"Come on!" Gwen kept an eye on the Hag while adding some love of her own. "Lightning Storm!"

A crash of thunder rolled over the mass of charging Trolls as her lightning Ice Storm manifested, pelting the warriors with arcing electricity. The berserkers, however, remained defiant to her elemental assault. Where her spell struck, their bark-armour sizzled in place of their bodies.

"ULOAR!"
"ULOAR!"
"ULOAR!"

Gwen swore. "HERE THEY COME!"

The warriors had reached their prey; with a crash that near-dislodged one of Tei's pillars, a mass of flailing bodies compressed against Fudan's barrier. Swirling dust smouldered and dissolved as a band of frustrated, frenzied Trolls beat down the Six Pillars of Taishan, said to possess the power to hold back ten thousand Jiangshi.

"Dust Tendrils!" Tei wasted no time in supplementing his wall with the vitality of his enemies.

The Trolls meanwhile, moved out to surround the hexagon formed by the six-pillars, bashing at the anchors and the invisible dust-wall.

"EEEEYAAAH!" Lulan's assault exploded as though an iron lotus, Misty Stepping above, below and beside her prey. Following her passage, tens of severed appendages twitched. Conversely. whenever Lulan suffered a blow to her iron-wrought body, there was the sound of clanging metal as the Troll's obsidian weapons shattered.

Rene meanwhile, took advantage of their temporary invulnerability to gift the Trollic conga line with a river of churning, smouldering stones spilling from the ground, half-cooking the hapless Trolls while they exhausted Tei's barrier.

"ULOAR!" The Trolls were no less frantic than Fudan's Mages in churning out as much damage as possible. Within seconds, a pillar crumbled, reducing Fudan's shelter. A triumphant roar echoed from Troll to Troll, then a viridescent flow of healing energies enveloped the hooting mob, renewing their vigour. A few of the trolls who Lulan had made bereft of limbs even sprouted new ones.

"B'lyad'! Regeneration and restoration!" Petra cursed. "AND they're resisting Lightning and Magma! Should we use Cloud Kill?"

"Not until the old witch takes the bait." Gwen sent a mental command to her dogs. "Buck! Astro! Bring me the Hag's head!"

A dozen of her dogs broke from the pack of warriors, forming two streams — her alphas, one blue-white, the other crow-black, sped toward the temple entrance.

"Incoming DECAY!" Tei steeled his pillars with yellow Fudas as a second round of the Hag's demi-human magic landed. "Lulu, get back!"

"Arrrgh!" A squall of black blood slipped past Lulan's Parry. Her one-time Fuda dissolved at once. Her Shen-tei armour sizzled, exposing her Iron Skin to the corrosive hunks of dark flesh. A chunk struck her exposed thighs, corroding her flesh almost to the bone. "M-Misty Step!"

She reappeared inside the barrier, a detox injector in hand. Willing away her Iron Skin for the briefest second, she stabbed herself, then grunted as the influx fought off the Negative Energy.

Rene let loose the two-meter ball of Magma she had been constructing above the Trolls, then turned to her companion. "Lulu, are you alright?"

"Hold on." Petra materialised a nephrite Spell Cube. "Knit Flesh!"

"TAMAAADE!" Lulan howled, forcing herself upright. On one shoulder, a piece of her armour had been corroded down to the Saurian leather straps. As for her ruined thigh, all she could manage was a moan as her muscles rejuvenated.

"I knew that would come in handy." Petra inspected her work. "Gwen?"

"Almost!" came the response from their vice-captain. "Fucking bitch! I'll get this old Hag yet."

Up ahead, her dogs surged into the temple proper.

"WOOF! WOOF!"
"GRRRR!"
"YIP!"

One of her dogs, a lightning deerhound, perished without so much as a chance to dodge, catching Gwen by surprise. The rest of her dogs bolted from the interior, informing Ariel that the inner chamber was a narrow tunnel that made pack-tactics impossible. That and there was a huge stinking heap of befouled flesh blocking their way.

"ULOAR! Ashmasarg!"

From the darkness emerged an ungainly giant, thrice the size of an already enormous troll.

"What the fuck?! They have the HULK?!" Gwen spluttered when the green-skinned colossus emerged into the light. In one hand, it carried a dark iron club larger than Gwen from toe to torso. In its off-hand, it equipped a shield studded with dagger-like spikes. Its entire body sported thick plates of aged leather, painted with strange sigils in Trollic. "Pats, there's a copy-right violation!"

"A Brutaliser." Petra ignored Gwen's insensible splutterings. "Harass it with your dogs. Maybe Golos can take care of it?"

Gwen hesitated, tempted by the suggestion.

_CRACK!_

Another one of Tei's pillars collapsed, turning their safe-space into an irregular rectangle.

"Tei?"

"Let's move with Formation D," her captain gave the command. "Gwen, you're with me. We'll regroup on the hill and get LOS on the Hag. Leave these Trolls a souvenir."

"Right! Cloud Kill time," Gwen agreed, passing command of her dogs to Ariel. She then disabled her Link Sight, then placed a hand on her captain's shoulder. "Petra, Rene, Lulu, ready?"

"Ready!" Petra withdrew two cubes at once.

"Dimension Door!"
"Dimension Door!"
"Blink!"
"Misty Step!"

As one, the party reappeared fifty meters away, now nestled atop an abandoned ziggurat.

Tei's pillars collapsed at once.
Where the Trolls had been beating on Fudan's defences from all sides, they now fell into the centre. Dozens of obsidian armaments swung at empty air, crushing the weather-worn cobblestone. Troll warriors stumbled, falling over one another, too enraged to relocate their prey, so incensed by the Hag's frenzy magic that Gwen was sure that the red-eyed fiends would momentarily fall upon one another.

"CLOUD KILL!" echoed cries issued from the girls' lips.

"LAVA WALL!" Rene followed up as practised, encircling the pack in a circle of smouldering lava taller than Gwen.

Twin-eruptions of noxious smog, flare-filled and flaming with ionised pyrite, exploded across heaving green bodies, igniting as the vapour kissed the sulphurous air.

"GARRRK!"
"Glogzag hakungs!"
"Athrietess, ashavuth lugs!"

Incoherent howls burst from the flaming mound as the Trolls failed to flee, filling their lungs with inextinguishable fire. Though their armour and their scabby dermis provided ample protection against the elements, rarely did Abjuration shield the organs of a living being. It was one of the chief reasons why Cloud Kill remained restricted magic, for whether Mages or monsters, neither proved immune to the loss of one's respiratory system. Caught under a flame-wreathed sea, the Trolls floundered as though in quicklime, choking and guttering and coughing fire.

"Gudiots!" Came a cry from the inside the abandoned side-temple. In the next moment, the Hag emerged, wielding spells of healing in one hand and invocations of decay in the other. Beside the spindly female figure, the Brutaliser stood as her stalwart defender.

"There she is!" Petra maintained her borrowed magic.

Gwen recoiled at the sight of the fabled Hag. From a distance, the monster's gnarly feminine physique sported dreadlocked hair that ran the length of its bowed spine. Horrifically, its nude body was caked in a layer of dried blood in the texture of festering bruises. Immodestly, its lower body was a mess of twigs, cloth, leather and utensils wrought from severed limbs and pilfered digits. When the Hag opened its mouth to speak, a slithering tongue distended, milky with pus.

"Golos!" Gwen commanded her Planar Ally.

Her Wyvern confirmed its trajectory.

"Duccusemar gunvaders!" The monster shrieked as its followers burned. Then to Gwen's surprise, it screamed at her party in ancient Quechua. "By the Heart of the Wood, your intestines will wreath the trees! Gulorrifzag!"

A burst of Negative Energy erupted from the Hag. From what Gwen could see, the creature was drawing vitality from her guardian, the monster known as the Brutaliser.

"PILLAR WARD!" Tei recognised the incoming debuff. Whatever happened now, they would have to weather the assault, hoping the barrier held for the duration of the incoming incantation. "It's a Curse! Stay CALM and DON'T MOVE! WATCH FOR FRIENDLY FIRE!"

Gwen countered by filling her conduits with Essence. Her lips worked her next spell furiously, as did her hands, simultaneously informing Golos that the time had ripened for its grand entry.

The Curse struck.

Fudan's Mages simultaneously lost all vision.

Curses, also known as Hexes, were different from Spellcraft in that while traditional magic invoked phenomena to assault the mind or the body; Curses besieged one's spirit. It was a class of Magic unique to demi-humans and utilised only by Mages born from select bloodlines. Though counterspells to Hex Magic existed, the official solution involved preventative Faith Magic, or Positive Mind Mages specialised in dispelling, a rare bird in any wood.

Either way, anti-Hex Spellcraft wasn't something a godless communist country could provide. According to Petra, Fudan's only solution was to rely on first-strike doctrines and third-party defenders like Familiars, Summons or Allies.

In the bewitching darkness, a stark fear consumed Fudan's frail, human hearts. Each caster felt a quickening horror that, if left unchecked, would turn to madness.

"Shit!" Gwen fought back with a feeling of complete futility. "GOLOS! DO IT NOW!"

Within the interiority of her mind, she saw her family in Shanghai suddenly perishing by unknown powers. She saw her uncle Jun, his face a mask of anguish, mouthing strange, incomprehensible accusations. She saw Percy, his eyes bulging and his face bloated, floating across fetid water, she saw Babulya—

"CALAMITY!"

A fulminating roll of thunder woke her from the cascading horror.

Gwen opened her eyes, as did her team.

Their vision had suddenly returned, the Curse lifted.

A line of charred stone, cracked from both the roaring lightning and the violent passage of her Wyvern, marked the boulevard from one end to the other, interceding with a Brutaliser spluttering ichor, its shield and chest concaved by a terrific blow from a Wyvern tail.

As for the Hag, it now decorated the path leading up the temple steppes. For all the monstrous female's unholy command of life and decay, it was no match for the force of a Thunder Wyvern's full-forced strike. Against the relentless physics of a multi-ton draconic-brute obliterating its body, dragging it face-first some hundred meters over coarse, jagged rubble: the Hag was little more than a greasy meat-crayon.

"Nice work, Gogo!" Gwen cried out. "VOID SPHERE!"

She muted the surviving Bruitaliser. Before it recovered, ink-blots exploded across its battered body, consigning its indestructible flesh to the Void.


Gwen told Golos to remain in a holding pattern until he was needed once more. A brute without magical finesse, her Wyvern was little more than a resistant meat shield when indoors, one with at most three shots of Lightning Breath.

"I'll be around," Golos grunted, flashing a Storage Ring where the head of the 'Desecrator Hag' now rested as a souvenir, then took to the sky.

"The dogs don't give near as much as Caliban," Gwen observed the colour of her hands, watching the pallid flesh turn pink as her vitality returned. The Brutaliser was an enormous store of life, likely force-fed by the Hag to serve as a sort of Necromancy-battery.

"Take more time if you need it." Tei performed a quick Taoist rite so that the bodies of the two-dozen odd Troll warriors could no longer be raised from the dead. With a Necromancer only a kilometre away, Fudan's captain left no uncertainties uncovered.

"Nah, I am good, let's head up." Gwen warmed her fingers. "Lulu, how about you? You're looking worse for wear."

Lulan's injury was healed, but she had no patience for the slow restoration of her tattered suit. With a conjured blade, she had cut away the ungainly, damaged portions of her armour, ensuring that somewhere, an Enchanter wept. The result was that the Sword Mage appeared eclectic, covered from ankle to chin, but also exposed where her left shoulder, right thigh, and abdomen was concerned.

"Kusu is going to freak." Gwen tidied up Lulan's ponytail, then asked Petra to take a picture. "Lulu, you're going to be an idol."

"Why?" Lulan paid no heed to her exposure.

"More is less; less is more." Gwen studied her companion's innocent face.

"I'm keen for more! It feels so good to use my new skills." Lulan slapped her thigh, affecting an affectionate _Clang!_

"Don't forget your promise to your folks back home." Gwen pointed upward, reminding Lulan of the ever-present Eye of Providence. "Know what. Now's a good time. Want to do it here?"

"Ah." Lulan flushed. The Sword Mage then rigidly turned to face an imaginary lumen-recorder. "Comrades! I AM LULAN LI! I hail from the Sect of Huashan! If you wish to learn our skills, please put in an application for our Outer Sect! We welcome all magically-inclined citizens! Bring your Hukou when applying!"

Lulan Li, now "Outer Sect" elder, made a ninety-degree bow.

"Tei?"

"I'll pass." Her captain sweated just watching Lulan pitch her sale. Her lines were cringe-worthy that death might be preferable for the proud Tomb Guardian of Clan Tei.

"Suit yourself." Gwen likewise faced Lulan's invisible camera. In the background, she made sure that the pile of Trolls, her hounds, and Ariel all remained in view.

"Dear viewers, if you like to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to sponsor one of our team members, you may contact the House of M, or our representative, Ruì Lee, at our Fudan office. Limited ad-spots for product placements will be auctioned after the first round in early October. Have confidence that we will bring your company or your Clan to the world stage..."

"EE EE!" Ariel struck a pose, capturing a picture-perfect Kodak moment.

Tei thanked the Great Leader when the team finally moved on.

From the sounds and the flashes of light still raging on the western slope, they guessed that Inti's party was fighting an uphill battle.

As for Gwen's party, all that was left was to find the entrance into the catacombs, then find out if South American Fongshui favoured pupils from Fudan.

Hardin Smith never realised that he could sweat so much while wearing climate-cooled Magitech armour.

In the past two hours, his tentacle goggles ran diagnostics across the proceedings, recording all objects of interest for Dark Water's clients. His left eye was set to Scry over the Shanghai party, while his right eye was set for Cuzco.

In the last few hours, he had witnessed Chinese Clanner Magic, mysterious spell cubes, eighteen Morden's hounds and two Cloud Kills decimating close to a hundred Trolls. When confronted by a Hag, a fucking Wyvern showed up out of the blue and transformed the Troll-witch into roadkill.

Then, as Cuzco's diagnostic data displayed on his Divi-device, Hardin once more denounced the duplicitous Amaru.

The female Shaman known as Kusi had been noted on his data set as an "Indigenous User of Necromancy," a term usually denoting those whose religious rites involved draining mana and life from the dying. What Amaru had not relayed was that the girl raised the fucking dead.

"KREEEEEEE!" On the eastern slope, a banshee's wail resounded, creeping under Hardin's multi-layered armour to cover his arm with goosebumps.

In Hardin's mechanised eyes, the competition had become a who's who of horrors. His right lens triple-zoomed, focusing on the walking aberration now laying waste to the Trolls.

The undead fiend had doubtlessly once been a Harpy and a rare variant at that. The most salient aspect of the corpse was its wings, two enormous fans in vivid scarlet, attached to elongated arms. Where the Harpies usual sported feminine, female bodies, this thing was a husk of its former self, with sunken eyes and a smashed nose. Where it once must have been luxuriously dressed in multi-coloured feathers, it was now near-naked, its pallid goose skin turning Hardin's stomach.

Already, a dozen Trolls, warriors and labourers alike, had fallen prey to its aural assault. As for those who managed to close the distance, the skinny, feathery corpse proved immensely powerful, capable of cutting a warrior in twain with a single swing of its scything feathers.

"ULOAR!" A Troll grew in stature, receiving the benediction of a nearby shaman. Its javelins struck the Undead Harpy, though the effect was negligible.

"RADIANT STRIKE!" Inti finished his tier 5 Evocation staple within a second.

Where the Shaman took shelter, the fort's interior glowed like a furnace, spewing forth a vivid, orange light.

The Troll Warrior charged, knowing its buff wouldn't last.

"KREEE!"

The undead bird-woman met the warrior halfway, launching itself so that even as the Troll struck its sides in an attempt to crush its spine, the Harpy latched onto its body.

"Guluo!" the Troll panicked, pulling at the fiend attached to its arm. Opening its jaws, it bit the Harpy, gnawing at the creature's neck with jagged, ivory tusks. "GARRRK!"

Hardin watched as the thing's vitality readings tanked. As with its forerunners, the Troll grew suddenly feeble as its eyes turned glassy.

Beep! Beep! A warning flashed on Hardin's spectrometer.

"Jesus Christ, what kind of freaks are they letting in these days," Hardin swore. "A fucking Soul Eater?!"

A Soul Eater was a tier 6 undead which, when fed the Essence of the living, could rapidly grow in power, well-exceeding the higher tiers. In nations where the Undead Fronts plagued human cities; Blood Lords, Soul Eaters, Corpse Collectors and Death Knights made the "most loathed" monster list. Unlike regular Undead, these creatures possessed unpredictable powers and voracious temperaments. An unlucky party hunting a Soul Eater, for example, could find themselves potentially overwhelmed, becoming its nourishment and adding to the danger tier.

A novice Necromancer controlling a Soul Eater was walking a fine line between power and self-destruction.

Not far from the dying Troll, a half-cooked Shaman crawled from an abandoned granary; its skin burned clean off.

The Necromancer known as Kusi raised a shrunken head, this one made from a Troll's corpse, and drained the charred corpse of its remaining life.

"KiiiYEEE!" the Soul Eater wailed at its caster, trapped in a permanent state of unceasing agony.

Another one of Cuzco's Mages, a lycanthropic Transmuter with the Spirit of an Andes Puma, blocked the Eater's trajectory to its master. This one Hardin recognised as Musi, sister to the Necromancer.

Behind her kin, Kusi raised a second shrunken relic, a human head glowing with a sickly, purple radiance. With incantations Hardin couldn't lip-read, she compelled obedience from her monster.

The Harpy corpse shuddered, tearing at the feathers on its body even though there was none left to pluck. Its red wings bled, wet with a sheen of weeping gore as it faced the temple. With its back hunched, the once majestic mistress of the air trudged forward, an earth-bound raptor.

Hardin chewed his lips in contemplation, scanning the temple for dangers that could waylay the prince. So far, after the Hag Fudan had bested, he had seen no sight nor hide of the Chieftain, nor the Arch Hag.

Hardin considered his options.

His HUD showed that it was 1635. A counter he had set for the Blood Moon noted that the phenomenon wouldn't reach its zenith until midnight. From the looks of the parties' progress, neither would enter the inner sanctum before tomorrow morning.

Until then, perhaps he could add a little trouble to the mix for Cuzco to enjoy.

Kusi's Soul Magic, from what he could see, was a bastardised Necromantic manifestation. In Eastern Europe, The Black Priests could raise vast armies in a matter of hours. Had Kusi possessed an ounce of a true Corpse Mage's skills, she would now be neck-deep in Giant Skeletons or at least protected by a troop of Troll-Ghasts. Unlike traditional Mages, Necromancers thrived on death and destruction, growing stronger as the corpses piled up. It was one of the main reasons cities taken by the Undead rarely held survivors. Necromancers were without peer in protracted siege-scrums.

Hardin likewise knew that Undead creations were bound to a Necromancer's Astral Soul. There was no need for things like relics to command one's pawns, for Undead servants were loyal to a fault. From what he could see, Kusi's magic was entirely based on indigenous lore. If he could destroy her implements, then, what would happen to the necromantic energies therein? More importantly, what would happen to her well-fed Soul Eater?

Hardin couldn't help but let a smile touch his lips.

If Inti could perish by Kusi's fuck up, thereby engendering a civil war between Amazonia and Cuzco, he would surely become Operator of the Year.

"Gwen, we're here." Petra checked their map. "This is it."

Behind the two girls, a semi-circle of hounds stood guard, wary of Trolls emerging from secret alcoves or hidden entrances. According to the map, the party had arrived at the main temple. Unfortunately, its once splendid facade had been torn down, repurposed by the Trolls or destroyed by the team's earlier AoE.

"Pats, any ideas?" Gwen patted the stone door, its murals long erased by wind, sun, Trolls and creeper plants.

Her cousin checked the wards. "Hmm... I think the source is dead."

"Dead?" Gwen cocked her head.

"The power's gone, scrapped off, dispelled. The door's just a slab of stone now."

"Shit," Gwen grumbled.

A closed door with ruined magic meant that whatever was hidden behind it was likely looted.

"Allow me." Lulan cracked her knuckles. "SHAPE STONE!"

The massive slab warped, the stone shifted, forming a strange, vertical gash the likeness of parting curtains.

"Someone's used this entrance already," Tei observed. "Not surprising. I guess. The wards used by the Incan people are neither Dwarven or Elven. Human Enchantment rarely outlasts two decades. It has to do with our relatively short lives. Since there's a coven here, they likely corroded the foundations. I think we were too optimistic with the whole untouched treasure concept."

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Within, the room consisted of a pitch dark interior, unmoved even by the light from the unconventional entrance.

Tei motioned for Gwen's hounds.

Gwen nodded. "Buck! You're up!"

Her Void Hounds slinked in.

"Gawrrr!" Buck made a sound akin to a throaty cough.

"The coast is clear." Gwen received the paw-up from Ariel.

"Alright." Tei turned to his team members. "Buff up! Marching Order: Void Alpha, Lulu, me, Gwen, Petra, Rene, Lightning Alpha."

"You boys stay here and guard the entrance," Gwen informed her hound pack. "It's too tight for pack tactics. They can join us later, or I can D-D them in."

The inside proved tighter than her dogs could arguably discern, for when Gwen and company did finally enter, the passageway was barely five foot tall.

"Interesting." Petra pointed to the stacked and slotted stonework. "I think I know how this works. The stones perfectly fit but aren't mortared, meaning manipulation will collapse the structure. Meanwhile, its too short and narrow for Trolls to fight properly, while still large enough to invite them inside so that the small stature of the Inca can utilise spears or long-range spells. For Trolls at least, the entry can serve as a death trap."

The party sent down a flood of Dancing Lights. The entrance's interior was spartan and utilitarian, forming a passage that led forward and downward, coiling to the right.

"Buck" led the way, prowling effortlessly, sniffing for signs of life. Gwen and Petra became hypothetical Trolls, having to bend their bodies until they were shuffling like apes.

_PUTHOK!_

A stone spear emerged from the wall, piercing Buck.

"Aroooough?" Buck snorted, then continued.

"An articulated mechanism?" Gwen inspected the passage wall.

"Careful," Tei stopped their amateur Enchanter from putting her face to the Glyph.

"A Conjuration glyph set to proximity." Petra erased the magic with a glowing hand. "It's crude and common in ruins like this."

"Next thing you know, there'll be a giant boulder, and we'll all run for it!" Gwen joked.

"I will cut this boulder in half," Lulan asserted confidently. "Unless it is a boulder of darkened steel or Adamantium, in which case, we can sell it for money."

"You can probably fit the rock into your Storage Ring," Rene joked. "Boulder traps are so primitive."

"Lulu," Petra derailed the train of thoughts. "Adamantium isn't naturally occurring. It's an alloy made by the Dwarves. Unless there's a Dwarven city down here, it's going to worthless boulders."

"Okay, forget I said anything," Gwen sulked. Indiana Jones in this world would have to contend with the Mines of Moria.

The party continued. A dozen traps put Buck through every form of torture; wall spikes, crushing mallets, a pitfall, and a pile of dead vermin that, when alive, would have made Gwen void the Dungeon. After what must have been several hundred metres, the party sensed a slight breeze that stirred the stale air.

"Gawrrr!" Buck interrupted their conversation.

"Contact!" Gwen translated in place of Ariel. Her Familiar lacked punch as a dog-sized ferret, while its Kirin form was too big for teamwork in the tunnel.

"Link Sight," Gwen whispered. "Buck, go!"

The hound flattened its body, then sped forward as a black blur with stiletto legs skittering against the smooth stone. With eyes attuned to Caliban-vision, Gwen immersed herself, hoping the exit wasn't too far. Different to her Familiars, Link Sight had limited range when used on creatures she conjured temporarily.

The tunnel ended abruptly, opening into the catacombs.

The ceiling was now a cavern of at least three or more storeys, roofed with conic stalactites. The hound's immediate surroundings were equally spacious, enough to fit a dozen Trolls from shoulder to shoulder.

And speaking of Trolls, her Vitality-VR quickly spotted the hunting party hiding in the shallow pools of dark water. In her Void fiend's life-sensing vision, the Trolls appeared as incandescent figures of light.

"ULOAR!"

Buck was a terrible actor. When it began to salivate uncontrollably, the Trolls knew their stone-form disguises had failed.

As one, the warriors leapt from cover to abuse Gwen's dog.

Up in the tunnel, Gwen grew instantly upset.

"If Buck dies, the new deerhound won't have the same memories," she explained. "I am going to help, but we shouldn't put all our eggs in one basket, volunteers?"

"I'll go." Lulan raised her hand.

"Be careful not to destroy the cavern," Tei reminded her. "No environmental AoEs. No sonic spells. Rene, get ready to reinforce the cavern if it starts to collapse. Petra, you help as well."

"Got it," the girls replied.

"Join me in five seconds!" Gwen commanded Ariel to get ready. "Dimension Door!"

When Gwen materialised with the newly released Ariel, Buck had already been beaten out of shape. As a Void beast, it had no sensation for pain, and unlike her lightning hounds, its usual tactic involved consuming enemies so that its foes died while it regenerated.

This time, the six or so Troll warriors and their Shaman had the dog well-pinned. After a well-aimed blow disabled its legs, the rest of the warriors pummeled Buck like a side of black mochi.

"Ushhuth glogagioz lugser!" The Shaman was the first to notice the dog's owner.

The warning came too late, for Gwen had finished her invocation. "Chain Lightning!"

"EEE!" Ariel acted as the power recycler.

The dark cavern grew momentarily brighter than mid-day. From Troll to Troll, an arm-thick cord of raw plasma traversed, overpowering the creatures' resistance to fry their nerves, causing an eruption of flesh where latent energies escaped from yielding bodies.

Gwen was once again impressed. Walken's signature spell was made for occasions such as this. Her only regret was that after a mere two revolutions, the spell grounded itself.

"Elemental Sphere!" But Gwen's incantations were quick. A second blast rang out, enveloping the paralysed Trolls, then striking them again with a nova flash.

"HEEEEYAH!" Lulan Misty Stepped in, a green blaze of swirling blades, slicing and dicing as she charged the Shaman.

"Ashtazag duway!" the Troll caster cried out in panic, throwing up a fistful of bones to erect a barrier.

Lulan crashed through the bone wall and pinned the Troll so that it appeared as though a giant bug specimen. With two broad strokes of "Sweep!", she severed its limbs, then its head, leaving a twitching torso to remain impaled on her hilt-less slab.

"Eat up." Gwen channelled a bit of her vitality so that her Void hound recovered. All of the Trolls were alive. Usually, it meant trouble. For Fudan, it implied Buck could restore what the bastards had taken.

Buck's body unmangled itself, then went about the business of replenishing it and Gwen's vitality.

"Good work." Tei descended with Rene and Petra.

Rene reinforced the cavern regardless, using her Magma to form hardened pillars, conjoining the roof and the floor.

"Where do you think this place leads?"

"Hopefully, the storage area." Tei likewise had no idea. "I was wondering how the Inca could build such enormous underground structures. Having tunnels that lead to a natural cavern makes far more sense."

"I read that the Incan gods dwell in Hanan Pacha, a small pocket dimension adjacent to the Material Realm," Gwen annotated from her guide, ignoring her tingling innards as Buck feasted. "According to lore, the inter-dimensional gate between Hanan Pacha and our world can be found in lakes and caverns."

"You think this is one of them?" Tei remarked as more Dancing Lights dispelled the dark. "Look, I see a Quipu, it's rotted, but you can make out the remains. Can anyone read it?"

Unfortunately, not even Gwen's Translation Stone could translate the strange knot-language called Quipu.

"Still, seems like we're in the right place." Petra made notes. "Shall we?"

"Gwwwargh!" Buck barked, finishing off a Troll.
"Woof!" Astro agreed.
"EE ee!" Ariel joined in.
"Gulelus—" a Troll's last words were cut off.

"Alright," Tei again commanded the party. "Marching orders."

"How are you feeling?" Petra noted flushing cheeks.

"Like Lulu said..." Gwen brimmed with excessive, bright-eyed energy. "I can do this all day!"

"Let us rest and recuperate." Inti wrung a fistful of sweat from his brow.

Unlike Fudan, what had awaited the Cuzco party after Kusi's Soul Slave opened the Gate of the Sun was an ambush involving a Hag and at least a dozen Troll Warriors, backed by two Shamans and a Brutaliser.

Inti immediately exhausted the collated faith his relic stowed, stunning the war band with an all-enveloping blast of Radiance. While the Trolls writhed and howled, Kusi and Musi set to work on the Hag, attempting to destroy the Trolls' support caster before it could turn the tide of battle.

The Hag, unexpectedly, had provisioned for Inti's magic. Its Brutaliser guard acted as a meat-shield, preventing it from being blinded. With one hand, it instantly raised a shower of black blood to fall on Inti's party, while the other wrung vitality from her guardian to restore her warriors. Against the decay, Mallqu intervened, performing a cleansing rite to abjure the black blood melting Tupaq's earthen shield.

A chaotic melee ensued. Musi transformed into a wildcat, slashing up Trolls as she harassed the Hag, darting in and out of range of the Brutaliser's teeth-studded club. Kusi, meanwhile, commanded both her Blood Harpy slave and a newly risen Troll warrior to keep the rioting horde at bay.

From the temple's interior, the combat spilt into the open, then back into the chamber, then out again when the Hag opened up with the magic of decay.

When finally the Hag unleashed its Curse, Inti made his move, filling the air with such an aura of radiant awe that all who bore witness to his glamour paid no heed to the black magic of the Trollic witch.

With Tupaq defending and the undead pets whittling down the warriors, Musi eventually took down the Hag, severing her head to prevent spell-casting, rending its body with her flesh-eating daggers.

The battle felt forever, though Inti knew their labour couldn't have lasted more than half-an-hour.

When Kusi siphoned the last Troll, the prince had exhausted his magic, the same with his party. It was only the Soul Slaves that became stronger, feasting on the Essences of the fallen.

"This will do nicely." Musi toyed with the head of the Hag, passing the trophy to Kusi. "A magic-user slave could be very helpful. With enough Essence, I can activate the Curse of Ch'aska."

Inti gave his consent, too tired to argue. "Don't get carried away. In two hours, I need to perform the dusk ritual, and come the next morning; I'll need an hour for the Rite of the Sun."

Musi mocked her future consort with a demeaning smirk, attracting unpleasant glares from Tupaq.

"Enough of your cheek. Set your slaves to guard us," Tupaq commanded the girls. "Do not forget that without Cuzco, your tribe would have perished; if not to the Trolls, then the Spaniards."

"You're noisier than a llama's ass," Musi snarled, hissing like a cat.

"Sister, peace," Kusi checked her sibling. "Sir Tupaq is correct."

"Nevermind that," Inti interrupted his crew. "Fudan must be laughing at us right now. Remember, the proctors are watching all of our actions. Do not embarrass us. Cuzco, the Shuar, all who hail from the four Suyus are our family."

Inti watched Kusi's face as the girl turned away. In the event of their union, the Soul Priest would be his officious concubine, but it was Musi who would have to carry his child. Despite the ancient wisdom of the Shuar's craft, the side-effects of Negative Energy remained immutable. To that end, he understood the girls' antagonism. As a man, he had no desire to win the girls, but as a King, it was his duty.

Without interest, Mallqu found an empty spot, then laid herself down to sleep.

"If only all of the Antis could be as wise and cultured as the Jivaroan," Tupaq mumbled.

The girls said nothing. Manipulating her shrunken relics, Kusi set the guards, then retreated to a corner to meditate on the day ahead.

Condor's Rise.
A swimming sun slowly plunged into the jagged horizon.
Inside the stone fort, the Proctors had been arguing unceasingly about the match.

From Fudan's Wyvern one-hitting the Hag to Inti's all-searing AoE, the proctors fell into a buzz of passions. Cuzco's match was one that took place between two low-ranked universities, but the destructive power demonstrated by both teams had reached at least the semi-finals. It was a great boon, for grand spectacles made for good lumen-casts, which translated into additional influence for the IIUC.

"Don't you think our Void Sorceress and our Indigenous Necromancer are similar?" a Proctor was proposing a hypothesis.

"Nothing of the sort." Auberon snorted. "For one, Gwen is far easier on the eyes—"

"Sir!" Lucy intervened. "Magister Sakmann warned you about this…"

"You're mistaken." Auberon sipped his Earl Grey. An Englishman might be up to his neck in competitive sorceresses wielding sinister magic, but tea time was sacred. "Take a biscuit, Miss Pritchard. I am speaking in relative terms, but it is undeniable that our colonial sorceress makes for a good show, hmm?"

"I'll drink to that," another proctor agreed. "Her... display is sure to please."

A few of the women rolled their eyes.

"It's true, Lucy."

"Sir..."

"I am serious. Gwen's Void Beasts, Wyvern, Kirin, and that phallus she calls Caliban, they're impressive. And most importantly, they're exotic, or alien, or downright terrifying. Compared to a bleeding Soul Eater, which one would you rather see on vid-cast?"

"Miss Song, I suppose."

"That's right, Lucy." Auberon was in a lecturing mood. "Do you know why she enjoys such popularity despite her creature's aberrant exterior?"

"Is it because of Miss Song's beauty?"

"That too, but not my point, Miss Pritchard. Shame on you! It's because the Void critters are utterly foreign, you see? Out of this world. Completely obscene. We don't mind them after an initial fright, because they're exotic tools."

"Sir?"

"BUT the Undead, Good Lord!" Auberon replaced his cup with a clink. "You ever killed a man, Miss Pritchard."

"I can't say I haven't. I was in the service when the Suez incident happened."

"Yes, very good." Auberon smiled sympathetically. "Terrible affair, that one. My condolences. You recall how when someone's newly dead and the bundles of stuff come out, where even though you're behind the Abjurers, there's still a desire to be sick?"

Lucy paled.

"It's the same reason we are naturally averse to Necromancy," Auberon said. "It is human empathy that makes us sick- you see? We don't like to look death in the face. Why in God's name would we want to look at Undeath in the face? All are equal when the reaper comes calling. That's why Miss Kusi makes for terrible Vid-casts, you see. People don't want to acknowledge the possibility that death isn't the final frontier, that their spirit may never rest. Do you see?"

"I see, Sir."

"Kenneth, you were saying the girls were similar?"

"I was, Lord Lucas," the proctor called Kenneth replied. "Both are trying to prove that their magic is beneficial rather than something that should be caged. Now I see that they are different."

"Indeed." Auberon slathered a scone for the shivering Lucy. "Keeping malignant forces under control is never as easy as it looks. Either of our sorceresses—"

"SIR!" A proctor pulled a vid-cast across to the central display. "Something's happened to Inti's party! I think their Soul Eater has been untethered from the Necromancer's relic!"

"Speak of the devil…" Auberon commanded another proctor to keep an eye on the diagnostics. "Who is it? Fudan? Are they responsible?"

"No sir, Fudan is still fighting." A proctor pointed to yet another monitor. "I think we may have an intruder."

"Oh, truly?" Auberon reviewed the footage. On the real-time projection, Cuzco's party was beating a swift retreat from their undead pets. The Troll straight away fled into the temple's depth, while the Harpy appeared dead-set on murdering its master. "Politics?"

"Looks like it, sir." Another proctor brought up the mana-spirometer, while a second machine furiously spat out a script that recorded Divination readings surrounding the contestants. "There! A spike! Looks like Illusion and Transmutation, my Lord."

"Record everything." Auberon turned his attention back to the screen. "You know, when this happens in England, at least Brussels gets passed a note. How droll."

"SIR!" another proctor spoke up. "There's something else."

"What is it now?"

"I am recording massive energy readings in the Questing region. They read like shielding signals."

Auberon fell silent.

"Lord Lucas?"

"Yes, Miss Ashley?" Auberon peeled the crispy bits from his scone.

"Just received word from Cuzco Tower - there's going to be a Blood Moon tonight."

The proctors collectively inhaled a breath of humid, Amazonian air.

"Politics it is then." Auberon exhaled, smiling to assure his team. "Carry on."

"We're doing nothing, Sir?"

"We'll teleport out when we need to," Auberon considered the man's inquiry. "Beast Tides are no joke, you know."

"The contestants…"

"One side's on the receiving end, and the other can fly out on a Wyvern. I wouldn't worry." The Chief proctor was the very model of professionalism. "Keep calm and carry on, lads and lasses. My order stands, oh, and Miss Lucy?"

"Sir?"

"A fresh brew, if you please. The good tea. We'll be in for a long night."


* * *

Chapter Ref ::

Bonus :: Gwen's Outfits
Glossary and Magic System :: Glossary
Discord Server is UP

ALSO THE WIKI! https://metaworld-chronicles.fandom.com/wiki/Metaworld_Chronicles_Wiki

Voting for the novel :: Voting button
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****Volume 1 Paper Back Link (US, Japan and most of Europe)
****Google Play, iBook, Kobo, Nook and Playster Link
** **Please leave a review or just copy / paste your RR reviews!**

I don't have time to do all the image credits, so if anyone wants to provide feel free to comment below. Gwen is of course, the beautiful mylène jampanoï. Elvia is a makeup model with the tag Chuu Chloe (?) I'll collate them and add it here later.

**Gwen Song**

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**Ariel**

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**Caliban**

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**Golos (Gogo)**

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Mylène Jampanoï

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**Elvia Lindholm**

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**Yue Bai**

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**Richard Huang**

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**Petra Kuznetsova**

Chuu Chloe

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Black Pink person?

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Xenia Tchoumitcheva

**Mina Wang**

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**Tao Wang**

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**Mayuree**

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**Lulan Li**

Tsuyu from Twice

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Asian Rapper X

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Burmese Model

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**Alesia De Botton**

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**Gunther Shultz**

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**Henry K.F Kilroy**

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**Sufina**

Eva Green

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John Hamm

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**Bai Tei**

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**Jiro Peng**

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**Rene Mui**

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**Anita Wong**

K Pop

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J Pop

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**Eunae Lee**

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**Kusu Li**

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**Marong**

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**EricWalken**

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**Helena Huang**

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**Percy Song**

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**Surya Huang**

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**Guo Song**

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**Klavdiya Song**

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**Jun Song**

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**Morye / Hai Song**

Tzi Ma

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Yasmin Rossi

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**Ayxin**

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**Ruxin**

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**“The Dean”**

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**Ruì**

Dilraba Dilmurat

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Stock Image

**Carol**

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**Birch**

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**Hufei**

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**Michio**

| Bill Nighy |

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Chuando Tan

**James Ma**

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**Kumiko**

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**Marie-Roslyn Wen**

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An actual professor

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Lee Lin Chin

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* * *

  * __ Friday, September 13, 2019 1:10:26 AM
  * __ Friday, September 13, 2019 10:17:59 PM
  * __

__**Bio:** I write on the phone and edit at home. Times are tough!

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By sundown, Fudan's party had penetrated from the catacombs into the central cathedral. Their progress had been quick but not reckless, for they had paced themselves between each section, ambushing bands of patrolling Trolls while digging for treasure. In between the battles, the party recuperated just long enough to keep up the momentum.

Through each engagement, Petra took notes on how her cousin's unique physiology excelled against numerous foes rich in vitality. With her Chakram, Void Bolts, Seekers and the occasional Dark Tentacle, the Troll's regenerative qualities had been rendered null even as they fed Gwen's vital stores.

"This should impress the proctors and deter detractors," Petra observed. "Well done, cousin."

"We're not out of the Troll lair yet." Gwen replied with undisguised smugness. "Say that after we defeat the Arch-Hag and the chieftain."

Near the catacomb's centre, where the 'Hanan Pacha' awaited the party's plundering, the team's progress grounded to a halt.

"Hold up! My Gwen-senses are tingling," Fudan's vice-captain relayed an insensible Gwenism. "If we punch through this door right now, I am going to be in a world of hurt."

It was a curious prediction.

Gwen's bargain Divination lacked the capacity for foresight. Instead, her Gwen-tingles had been interpreted by Mayuree into five tiers. ONE implied, "this might hurt real bad," while FIVE represented, "I may die if I stand still and do nothing." Usually, Gwen's portents were ineffectual, as they only activated seconds prior to becoming mangled in exotic and exciting ways. As for their present predicament, the sorceress had made the call a second before Lulu Stone Shaped through a dormant gate.

"My apologies. I should have been using Scry and Arcane Eye." Petra produced a spell cube. "The fault is mine. Our risk level has been too low, and I've let my guard down."

Petra's remorse was well-founded, for the party had so far garnered considerable success, recovering no less than three golden idols placed in inert wards where the tunnels met. Two of the relics had been defaced, with the 'head' of Amaru removed. The third, uncovered when Lulan Shaped into a gateway, was a crude carving involving Inti riding a Cloud Puma. What was disconcerting, however, was that someone had indeed looted the place long before Fudan and Cuzco had arrived. At a prior shrine they had uncovered, the golden murals had been scraped clean. When Petra performed forensics on the damage, she noted that magic-tools such as the Stone Cutter's Cunning Blade had been used to remove the Glyphs wholesale.

"No, the responsibility lies with me." Tei shook his head. "The constant battle has dulled my senses too. As Captain, I should have been the one to intervene, not Gwen."

"How about we see if there's anything in there first?" Rene felt for Tei, who had been dragged along by Gwen's infectious enthusiasm.

"Arooo?" Astro looked at Buck.
"Woaroough?" Buck wagged its tail.
Ariel whined from its pocket dimension, comforting the alphas.

Presently, the party had reached the end of a section marked by tight tunnels opening into a larger chamber. At the end of the room, hewn from bedrock, laid the door Fudan had almost tunnelled through.

"Arcane Eye!" Petra crushed her nephrite cube, freeing Mayuree's favourite spell. "Give me a second to get adjusted. Double-vision is disorientating when you're not a Diviner."

After a minute fiddling with the spell's mechanics, Petra sent the eye through the wall. "HOLY—"

The Russian held her lips.

"What is it?"

"St Peter…" Petra murmured. "We found the temple's centre."

Silently, the rest of the team waited while Petra's invisible eye made the rounds. When she finished, the spell fizzled.

"Thank 'Inti' that the door is immobile," Petra said as she conjured a rough map using her crystals. "I wonder how the Trolls got in? Here's what we're up against…"

The final cavern was enormous, easily the size of an international duelling field and just as high. The cavern was roughly oval, with a sharp decline in where Fudan's party now situated, rising to almost fifty meters near its zenith. What was strange was that there was natural light refracting from above. Furthermore, there was a tiered mechanism akin to a reverse pyramid, in the midst of which a triangular crystal-cap dispensed a moon-like radiance. In a way, it reminded Fudan of the Geofront under Shanghai.

For Fudan's amateur historians, it made sense that the home of Mama Killa, the Moon-mother, should possess a "moon" lit sanctum.

"I don't think its moonlight," Petra corrected the party's hypotheses. "The illumination was reddish."

"What else could it be?" Gwen asked. "Something wrong with the light Glyphs? Fungi on the lens? Rusty scum water?"

Petra shrugged as she added more details to her model. "Don't know, but the Trolls are transfixed by this thing. There's something to the colour, I think. Also, they're brewing something foul."

"Dinner? Even Trolls gotta eat."

"The centre of the chamber holds a six-tier ziggurat." Petra pointed to the cavern's centre, where she constructed a pyramidal hill. There are Troll structures all over the place. Atop here is where I saw the Chieftain and the Arch-Hag. There's a bubbling cauldron, though for now, they're much more interested in the pink light."

Tei counted Petra's crude figurines.

"Thirty Warriors..." He grimaced. "And a Hag, an Arch Hag, the Chieftain, and four Shamans. TWO Brutalisers- plus a hot pot full of Mao knows what."

"I'll re-conjure the pack." Gwen immediately set about her work. "I feel Cali is about ready as well. Can we wait?"

"We'll wait as long as you need," Tei stated affirmatively. "There's no rush. Is Inti out of contact?"

Gwen checked her Message bangle. "I sense no signals other than our own."

"How about we collapse the cavern?" Rene butted in. "Why fight the Trolls when we can pick up the loot later?"

"I don't think Cuzco would like their religious site destroyed," Gwen intruded. "We'd be worse than the Trolls— hell, we'd be worse than the Spaniards. Also, what if the relics inside are delicate? I mean, a crystal skull isn't out of the question."

"Why a Crystal Skull?"

Gwen stopped herself from saying "Aliens" because not even Harrison Ford could save the fourth instalment from the critics.

"How about Cloud Kill? We have plenty of pyrite bars." Petra flashed her ring.

"The cloud shifts and may be moved, making it unpredictable," Tei shook his head. "The cavern is also too spacious for Rene to use Magma Wall, AND there's Shamans as well as Warriors, not to mention their leader. If just one of them knows how to manipulate the Cloud Kill with wind spells, we'll be caught up in it."

"How about the alternative? My Void dogs are immune to the effects of my Void cloud," Gwen offered another possibility. "And to my knowledge, the Void mass remains stationary. I can make a 'ring' around us if we want to keep the melee away."

Tei gave the strategy some thought. "How about Void Swarm? Or Conjure Elemental?"

"If I can sustain my magic, it could work." Gwen crossed her arms and hugged her chest. "Do Hags know how to Banish?"

"They shouldn't." Petra shook her head. "However, you'll be stationary while maintaining the swarm. If the Trolls start hammering you with projectiles, not even Tei can shield you. Moreover, what happens if we're cursed?"

Their vice-captain pursed her lips. The "Curse" had been terrifying. If only she possessed Sobel's all-consuming egg, Gwen lamented her lack of dedicated Void Spells. Sobel's magic possessed both an ironclad defence and a self-sustaining offence.

"Maelstrom?" Rene recalled their opening act. "The big one. Can't Gwen do two at once with Ariel?"

"Doubt the cavern can take it," Tei refuted the possibility. "How about this? Rene and I control the Warriors, Lulu goes after the Shamans. Gwen, you and Petra attempt to silence the Hags. One of you can open with a disabling spell, say an Ariel-fed Flash Bang..."

"Brutaliser first or Hag first?"

"Hags. I'll stun them with Hold Monster," Petra suggested. "Once we liquidate the curses, our chances improve. Most of us can fight the brutes head-on, but if we're blinded, we're sitting ducks. Get Cali to Consume them while they're held— its Naga form has multiple heads, right?"

"What abilities does the Arch-Hag possess?"

"More Curses?" Rene shivered.

"And other new tricks." Petra wasn't one to take their enemies lightly.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Then I'll keep it quick," Gwen replied. Closing her eyes, she focused on her Conjuration Sigil. "Gogo, are you there?"

Crickets.

"Where's he gone?" she fumed. "He must be out of range. Maybe I can D-D out and get him real quick."

"Never mind Golos. It's too cramped to fly in there," Petra advised. Turning her intelligent eyes, she then affected a strange smile. "How about your one-eyed Shoggoth? It's now or never. If you're keen, I can draw the Mandala."

"There's no Divination signal for us to beg for permission," Gwen suppressed a smirk.

"So, we wait for Cali?" Lulan wetted her lips as she gazed at the mass of crystalline figures milling about in Petra's diorama, already planning the best routes.

"That or wait for Inti to pop in and start the fight," Rene snorted. "What the hell happened to those guys, anyway? We haven't seen or heard from them since early afternoon. Maybe they all died?"

"Woa!" Gwen shirked back from their crow-mouthed Magma Mage. "Knock on wood!"

Unfortunately, the temple was wholly wrought in stone.

"INTI! Cover me, Tupaq needs help!"

"CLOAK OF RADIANCE!" Inti set the Soul Eater aflame even as its wings grazed his forearm, threatening to turn the wound necrotic before the prince's Faith expelled the Negative Energy.

"Inti above!" Cuzco's captain grunted, suppressing the livid agony tearing at his flesh. Divergent from the searing pain of steel or fire, a Necrotic strike froze the blood and jarred the liver, engendering a simultaneous fever of the nervous system.

The Blood Harpy retreated.

"Mark of the Sun!" Inti's hands were a blur, firing a second spell even as he fought down both nausea and fatigue.

"KREEEAAAGH!" A brand appeared on the Soul Eater's torso. Before it could take a step further, the Glyph erupted, gouging a deep gash into the creature's abdomen, exposing its innards.

_Splotch!_

Bundles of intestines and festering organs, freed from the constraint of the Harpy's profaned form, polluted the sacred stones of Mama Killa's abode.

Inti was dismayed.
The Troll Slave had perished in two blows.
Comparatively, the well-fed Harpy made for a hardy combatant.

Glaring at Kusi with hatred filled eyes, the unbound slave chose to retreat.

"After it!" Musi twirled her daggers, then launched herself, transformed into a humanoid puma. "Sister, I'll recover its head for you! Your match hasn't ended! Fudan hasn't bested us yet!"

"Musi! Careful!" Kusi called out, though she knew there was no holding back her sister. When her precious relics flamed amazement with consumptive smoke and cinder, Kusi's heart had suddenly seized. After that, her Undead dolls had turned. That was when Tupaq took a blow meant for herself.

"Is Tupaq going to be alright?" The corner of Inti's eyes twitched. "Mallqu?"

"I… I am alright," a bloodless Tupaq gurgled from the floor, coughing blood from his corrupted lungs. "G-give me time to rest… More healing!"

"Remain silent and keep your Bear-form active." the unfazed Mallqu activated a flesh-stitching incantation. "Sir Tupaq, my recommendation is that you return to Cuzco."

"No! I FIGHT… cough!" Tupaq's eyes rolled toward the ceiling.

"Tupaq, calm yourself. You're not going to die yet," Inti placed a hand on Tupaq's head so that he could circulate a gentle stream of Faith energy from his depleted relics. "By the sun, we shall persevere, brother."

At his lord's assurance, the giant's breath finally returned to a gentle cadence.

"I'll need some time to fix Sir Tupaq." Mallqu looked to where the Harpy had fled. "But first, I need Musi. She needs to cut away the necrotic tissue with her Flesh Borers so that I can regrow…"

"Searing Ray!"

Tupaq's wound cauterised at once, cleansed of the embedded necrotic energy.

"Musi!" Inti's voice grew hoarse. Left alive, the Soul Eater would continue to be a menace, but his Faith Magic countered the servants of the Shaur. For now, it was the health of his best friend that concerned him.

_CRASH!_

Instead, what answered him was a clattering din, followed by an explosion of animal noises.

"Huacas' bloo—" Inti held back a curse. Losing his cool wouldn't help.

Different to Fudan's Gate of the Moon, the Gate of the Sun lead to the upper sanctum of Mama Killa's abode. When they had passed the Chamber of Radiance earlier, Inti saw that the abandoned sanctum had been left unmolested. Though the place was ankle-deep in moss and fungi, Cuzco's prince knew that there should exist a network of crystals marked with ancient Glyphs below the vegetation. There, the moonlight collected by the temple's exterior could be refracted into the 'underworld', illuminating the inverse sanctum.

"Kusi, you stay here with Tupaq and Mallqu." Inti materialised a mana injector. "I'll retrieve her."

Pshht!

His reserves reached just half.

Unfazed, Inti injected another, then drunk a potion of Heroism to dispel his mental and physical fatigue. In the alchemical aftermath, the prince of Cuzco now brimmed with power, though his future injections now suffered from radically reduced efficacy.

Kusi nodded, then produced her last totem, this one possessing the face of an old Shaman of her tribe. With it, she could conjure souls friendly to her bloodline to defend the wounded.

"Lord Inti, I know you're upset, but please understand what has happened isn't my fault." Kusi gazed up at the glowing form of her future husband. "As Musi said, there was an intruder, more than likely— it was Fudan..."

Before she could finish, Inti Blinked.

When Inti opened his eyes once more, he wished he hadn't.

In the Sanctum of the Sun, the cold air of the exterior had mingled with the odour of panicking, frothing, maddened Magical Beasts rioting against the walls in general mayhem. From what he could see, the fauna of the forest had broken through the central structure's crystalline pinnacle, a magically warded segment at the ziggurat's apex.

"Inti! Help me!"

In one corner, Musi was fighting for her life, buried under tooth and nail.

In another corner, the Soul Eater scythed through the tide of screeching minions, turning itself crimson from head to toe. From what Inti could see, the Essence provided by the dying beasts had elevated its power to the next tier.

"KREEEE!" The Blood Slave howled at Inti. The creature's face had also regenerated, once again assuming the striking visage it once possessed in life. However, despite its restored beauty, the avian's glare remained full of madness, its eyes twin pools of depthless darkness.

Crimson swirls of stolen Essence suffused the Soul Eater as it deeply drank the draught of life.

Above the combatants, a blood-red moon glowered, turning Amazonia's emerald sea incarnadine.

The prince's heart seized.

A Blood Moon?
If so, then understandably, that was why the monsters were crazed.
But a Blood Moon was something his father, not to mention Uncle Amaru, should have predicted if not outright prophesied.

A dozen hypothesises raced through Inti's becalmed mind. The prince lacked the acumen of the Inca Sapa and the wisdom of the Tower Master, but even he knew that higher forces were now in play.

If so— particularly so— the proctors would not intervene.
A slow calm circulated through Inti's mana conduits.
He had to survive.
If he could drag his team back to Cuzco, things could be salvaged.

The weight of his kingdom, the crushing responsibility of Tawantinsuyu, now threatened to overthrow Inti, son of the Sun. His father was right, he should have left Tica with a child before he ventured into Amazonia.
Bathed in the Blood Moon, Inti wondered if the IIUC even mattered.
Dead heroes led no nations just as barren thrones engendered no dynasties.

"Inti!" Musi's cries grew desperate.

Inti began to chant; there was no rush.
The agony would teach Musi the importance of following orders.

"RADIANT BLESSING!" Inti invoked his unique magic. Instantly, the chamber flooded with his latent energies, searing the rampaging tide of flailing fauna, charring the Soul Eater's feathers and Musi's fur. Around and above them, the moss, the vegetation and the smothering mould burned away at once, utterly incinerated by the spell's orange light.

"ARRRRGH!" Musi howled.
"KREEAAA!" The Harpy withered.

_CRUNNG!_
 _CLANG! CLANG!_
 _PING! P-PING! PI-P-PING!_ The floor began to turn.

To Inti's complete surprise, the Sanctum of the Sun came to life as its murals were bathed in a blood-pink effulgence.

Ancient Glyphs long starved of moonlight, thirsty for the magical power of radiance, fired up one by one, fuelled by ancient mandalas no longer dormant.

Inti's eyes widened when the floor began to shake. Slotted stone long at rest suddenly split and cracked, bringing the temple's ancient designs to life.

"By Viracocha!" The prince was in awe as long-forgotten puzzle-pieces clicked into place; both physically and in the recess of his mind. "This... this is the Rite of Dusk and Dawn!"

The proctors stared slack-jawed at the glowing projection.

"So that's how the damned things work…" Auberon felt suddenly enlightened.

On one screen, from a bird's eye view, the examiners observed the protruding temple's slow and ponderous movements as the pyramidal cap lowered itself.

"What of our Void sorceress?"

Their eyes shifted to Fudan's vid-cast.

The students from Shanghai were being tossed about like peanuts in a can, bouncing against the jittering walls of their tunnel. Dogs and Mages flew and flung as "Amaru turned in his sleep".

Abruptly and without warning, the stone door which they had failed to breach activated, exposing the team to an equally shocked brigade of Trolls.

Before either party could act, from the cavern's zenith, a platform descended. The ponderous mass moved with an agonising shudder before it dislodged entirely, crashing into the Trolls below.

Before the tribe could react, a flood of Magical Beasts in the form of hooting simians, screeching harpies, venomous lizards, mucus coated frogs, anacondas and quill-studded hogs fell into the cavern. Some went splat, falling instantly to their deaths, others more resistant to rapid descents survived to fight like drunks on Takanakuy.

With a shudder, the ziggurat the Trolls had been using as their base likewise elevated, erecting itself so rapidly that the toppled cauldron sent a great splash of sacrificial gumbo cascading down the sides. On the lower slopes, rolling boulders the size of cars mowed through demi-humans and animals without mercy.

Cuzco's Melee Mage, Musi, fell with the Beast Tide, though expectantly, she landed on all fours, just like a cat.

"THERE!" a proctor denounced the vision now coming into view.

The Soul Slave, now fully regenerated, took to flight, harvesting Essence from the falling and the dying.

"There's Inti!" another proctor marvelled. "Wow."

A line of radiance obliterated a hundred lesser creatures, carving a path of molten stone through the monsters, clearing a space around Musi.

Auberon gently set down his tea.

If Inti could open these temples up, then Inti needed to live for all their sakes.

"An unexpected escalation," the Baron of Shenfield drily observed. Ignoring his earlier treaty for inaction, he gave the order. "Call Cuzco and ask if they forfeit. Tell the Inca Sapa we have a situation, and that he'll need to commit his best Mage Flights if he wants his temples back."

Hardin Smith swallowed a mouthful of cocoa leaves when the temple began to shift.

Safely hidden against the underside of a great tree, he had been calmly observing the decline of Inti's party when the prince accidentally unravelled a persistent mystery of the relic-temples.

Hardin was impressed by the prince's luck. So much lore had been squandered by the Spanish Inquisition. Losses like the reading of Quipu, the code language of the Empire's administrators, had left the temples' puzzles indecipherable. At least until now.

That Mama Killa's sanctum possessed magical mechanisms was a fact Hardin knew - for how else could the vaults be sealed or opened? But what Hardin had not anticipated was the serendipitous convergence of the Blood Moon, Inti's bloodline element and the Rite of Dusk and Dawn.

If indeed Inti was key to the lost temples, then the prince was worth his weight in mithril. If Inti's blood, his element, his faith or whatever mix of physiologies Inti possessed were capable of opening the old vaults, then Dark Water would have infinite uses for the young man, Amaru be damned.

BUT— Hardin sighed wistfully. That was wishful thinking.

It wasn't as though any one Mage currently present could pull the prince from danger. By what means could anyone concurrently battle the Trolls, the Beasts and the Undead now thrown into this churning soup of carnage?

"Here lies Inti, Prince of Cuzco," Hardin lamented the loss. "Sweet dreams, scion of the Sun."