There were hungry, carnivorous reasons why Mages avoided travelling at night, even across Green Zones. Once past Humanity's ordered lanes, the mana signature from a Mage's delectable organs tingled the senses of the Core-bearing Wildland critters like honeycombs to sweet-toothed toddlers.

Luckily for Gwen and Yue's party, they had a bigger and badder bodyguard in the form of a foraging Golos, who stopped now and then to pluck sweetmeats from the screaming woods. And they were trailed by a tragic turtle, followed by a depressed duck looking to vent.

Thereby, for the poor residents of the Wildland between Auckland and Wellington, the dozen or so Mages, plus Gwen's pets, passed like a natural disaster, dog-bothering every existence under the sun until they reached the Halfling city of Hamilton.

Gwen stowed her Familiars near the border to avoid inciting the city's defenders. Likewise, in consideration of Auckland, she told Golos, Dede and Zippy to circle over the ocean, leaving only her human companions to follow Yue into town.

In her old life, Hamilton had played home to the set of the Shire for the grandfather of all fantasy fiction. Therefore, in this world, it was only natural that its rolling hills, verdant brooks and golden rye fields would house the Demi-Elemental cousins of Humanity, the Halfling-race

At first, hidden by distance, Hamilton looked no different to the one in her memories. However, as the crack of dawn peeped over the misty hills, Gwen sighed appreciatively for seeing the "Shire" from yore.

As folk with a great affinity for nature and a natural Affinity for Elemental Earth and Water, the Halflings lived both above and beneath the tamed hill-scape of Hamilton, carving the tableland into asymmetrical farmlands dotted with sheep, cows, and other domesticated beasties. As an agricultural community, the city's citizens were early risers, rousing from their labour to wave hats and pitchforks at the unusual Mage Flight frightening their barnyard animals.

The Halflings themselves, Gwen observed, possessed the height of children but were closer to Dwarves with their stout lower bodies and stocky shoulders. She noted that the main difference in garb was a love of gumboots and suspenders over steel shoes and light armour. She also pondered the curious lack of heavy equipment on the farms, which bellied the enormous scope of the agricultural operations.

"I can see the town hall," Yue reported. "Come on. I'll shout us a cuppa of the best damn coffee on the island. Nothing like that brown water you shouted in Northern China. Christ, that stuff almost made me piss myself."

_Tea!_ Gwen wanted to shout at her friend. That was priceless, _Fur-Peak tea!_

And it's called _Detox!_

Are "Yue" even _Chinese_ , Yunnie?

Hamilton's town hall was a white sandstone building constructed to accommodate humans and the locals. Around it, the business district was more like an open market than a commercial centre, consisting of animal yards, warehouses, and loading hubs for lorries. Unlike human or Dwarven civil construction, the architecture was more practical than aesthetic, quietly declaring the Halfings' humble, unassuming nature.

The group descended from the air into an open square, watched by thousands.

"This way." In these parts, Yue was an old dog, leading Gwen and company like horses to refreshments.

The coffee shop owner was a Halfling with a face Gwen felt she had seen somewhere before, which Yue affirmed by introducing the half-bloke as Rona's half-brother.

"Roni," the Halfling presented himself, his face ambiguously young and wisened at the same time. "Strewth, the _Devourer of Shenyang_ herself, in my shop!"

Gwen exchanged greetings; the group ordered, then took up most of the outside seats, becoming instant topics of conversation among the meandering farmhands and farmers.

"It's a shame what happened to Wellington. I hope my niece made it out," the shopkeeper passed a dozen mugs from a tray twice his size, which he effortless arrested with one hand. "Yue, you fellers retreating to Auckland now? How deep inland do you think the Shoal will foray?"

The group gave the man unexpected grins.

"There's no more Shoal to menace the city," Yue chuckled as she took a sip, watching the man's expression transform from sorrow to surprise.

"You don't mean…" he looked toward Gwen.

"You guessed it!" her friend resoundingly slapped Gwen's leather-wrapped thigh like a butcher proudly presenting a prized cut. "Our Magister here took care of it all."

While Gwen grew flustered, Roni took a careful step back from the woman who had devoured a thousand kilotons of living, talking, man-eating fish. From her waist, he bowed at her knees. "You have my utmost thanks, Magister Song."

"It was well within my duty," Gwen said while giving her friend a disapproving stare. "And please, there's no need for formalities."

"The information isn't _privileged_ , I hope?" Roni glanced at his other customers, who were already gossiping like sheep in a hot barn.

"Not at all. Tell the world if you care." Yue laughed.

"Coffee is on the house!" Roni declared with a reddened face, shouting out the window as he clambered onto a stool. "EVERYONE! Wellington is now safe! The Shoal there is dispersed!"

A resounding cheer roused from the space around them as the news spread, growing more and more riotous with each passing moment. Before Gwen could finish her coffee, a celebration had broken out in the town centre and rapidly spread through Hamilton.

Like their Dwarven cousins, the Halflings were folk of great emotional honesty, which meant there was no stopping the impromptu festival. No longer at peace in an early morning inundated with crows, moos, baas and the sound of laughter, Gwen turned to her friend with deep suspicion.

"Why do I feel the whole reason we're here is cuz Roni would shout us coffees?" She demanded of Yue.

"Hee." Yue shrugged, returning her accusation with a smug shake of her shoulders. "What of it, rich bitch? You think salaries grow on trees?"

The party left after an hour, refreshed and stocked up on caffeine, with the Cambridge grads mightily impressed by the quality of farm to table morning tea offered by the too-generous Halflings.

Perhaps as another one of Yue's calculated ploys, dozens of folk she knew accosted them at the coffee shop, asking if they could ferry supplies of fresh foodstuff to Auckland Tower for friends and family, which Gwen could not refuse thanks to the free feed.

When finally Auckland came into sight, they spied the Tower hovering north of Port Jackson, some fifty kilometres from its usual nest of criss-crossing ley-lines.

As for the city itself, the damage caused by the deterred tsunami was self-evident. Auckland was a city that sat on a verdant headland, allowing access to the Tasman Sea to the south and the South Pacific to the north. From a dozen chimneys of smoke rising from the city's edge where many sounds met the sea, Gwen saw that it had undergone a baptism of Mermen. The banks of the Tamaki River, which Gwen recognised from its half-moon entry into the city, had flooded over into the residential districts, drowning the low-lying apartments. Nearer the harbour, a few industrial zones were likewise was up to their rafters in ocean water, with seaweed visibly hanging from the street lamps, acting as bookmarks for the Mermen's ingress.

Nevertheless, the city marched on, for Gwen could also see the traffic jams, the workmen, the barges clearing the debris and the aldermen screaming at the labourers. The city kept its calm and carried on in an all too human manner, heedless of the multi-million predators lurking just outside its Shielding Barriers.

As they passed a Barrier Station, the party broadcasted their mana signatures, attracting the attention of a Mage Flight on patrol. Once verified, the worshipful Mages guided Gwen and her party northward, passing a ten-storey sinkhole, once the home to Auckland's "Sky Tower".

Their guides soon arrived.

The presiding Magister introduced himself as Wa Mātaatua. Gwen knew of the man, whom Aria had briefly noted as the Chief of a prominent Maori Clan and a rival to Te Wherowhero. He was one of the "Ten" in her Master's old title as "Master of the Ten" and the presiding leader of Auckland's Militant Faction.

The two shook hands, Magister to Magister, dressing down one another with their eyes. Mātaatua was a short but stocky bloke, well-endowed with the ocean-fairing fortitude of the Maori folk. From the choking coverage of Ta Moko turning the man's olive complexion into near-jet, she could feel an aura of Enchantment that exceeded Petra's.

Mātaatua informed her that he had been sent to await their arrival, as Tower Master Hildenbrandt had been more than keen to hear the good news of Wellington's liberation from the horses' mouth.

Gwen knew she wasn't on sound footing with the Militants and tried to break the ice by asking about the city's fortifications.

"The harbour would be our final stand," Mātaatua explained as they passed the buzzing centre of the city's business district. "There aren't enough ships in all of Auckland to evacuate everyone. Outside of the city, the Green Zone ends at Hamilton. Therefore, what you see is what we have."

Mātaatua meant that even if the city evacuated en-mass inland, there wasn't near enough infrastructure to keep the refugees housed safely. Likewise, without the port and its supply of materials from Oceania, the local manufacturing industry in Auckland could not keep up with the city's complex upkeep.

Presently, the port was stowing its tankers and freighters. Atop the gangways, construction Golems operated by NoMs were working with Mages to transform the ships into makeshift barriers against the entry of super-size Demi-humans. Considering what she had seen in Wellington, Gwen saw sense—for any vessels that failed to outrun the Shoal would only wash into the city and become a Mermen battering ram.

"Where are the War Golems?" Gwen asked their guide. How could a city's defence be complete without War Golems? If Sydney had not been ambushed, its harbour would be lined from San Sousi to Port Botany with patrolling Golem engines. They wouldn't be new, but neither would they be few.

"We'll be seeing them soon," the Magister assured them. "Our party will be passing the inner islands in a few moments."

As the harbour grew minuscule, the volcanic archipelago of Rangitoto, Motutapu and Waiheke grew in size. Gwen performed a double-take when she saw Rangitoto, for the island's base was bare of all vegetation where the last pyroclastic flow had bubbled across its surface. Furthermore, energetic fumaroles between the capped vent and the ocean steamed and hissed, sending forth waves of wafting sulphur.

"Is that active?" Gwen demanded of their guide. Considering what she'd seen in Shalkar, her faith in the volcano's continued irrelevance in a time of crisis was non-existent.

"Rangitoto will unleash the occasional high-tier Fire Elemental now and then," Mātaatua's tone was possessed by frustration. "I understand your concern, Magister, though I am happy to say that the next eruption shouldn't be for another six months. Besides, the Fire Elementals are existentially opposed to the Mermen, and they usually never leave the vicinity of Rangitoto's mana-rich ash-layers."

"Did your Diviners predict this?" Gwen's mind turned to another suspicion.

"Auckland is far too removed to have a Diviner of that magnitude," the Magister gave her a strange look. "Not even Master Gunther's Sydney has such a boon, certainly not to our knowledge."

"Sorry, I misspoke," she made up her mind to speak with the Tower Master regarding the island. There wasn't too much that could be done—but even being mentally prepared for trouble was better than being surprised mid-siege.

East of Rangitoto, its sibling islands reminded Gwen of two kicked over ants' nests. The dense forests covering the lowland had been trimmed into barriers funnelling attacking Mermen into kill zones, taking advantage of the uphill slops and loose volcanic shale making up the jagged landscape. At the saddle, two dozen War Golems, Cromwell MK Is by the looks of their dated design, were fed into dugouts, behind which were hundreds of crates of HDMs for their mounted siege Spellswords.

"That's... not a lot of Golems," Gwen mentioned to Magister Mātaatua. "I can see long-range Spellswords, but where's the artillery?"

She focused her eyes. "And those Militia men, where are their Wands? There's one between two at most?"

Additionally, she could see that the troops were unused to whatever they were doing. Half were meandering here and there while the other half worked.

"Perhaps it is best if you directed those questions to our supplies officers in the Grey Faction," Mātaatua half-answered her.

As they passed the dugouts, she could see the shame in Mātaatua's face. During the Purge of the Triffidus, the Shard and the Royal Marines had fielded twice as many second and third-generation units, each with higher rates of fire and overall suppression power than the MK Is.

Already, she could see that the Mermen Tide had tested the inner island's defences. Up north, corpses six-deep in pre-dug mass graves were being piled up and covered by crawler Golems with their scooped, shovel-like limbs.

"Is Auckland holding up okay?" Gwen asked, suddenly worried about Wellington.

"Better now, thanks to your team's Purge of the Wellington Shaol," Mātaatua was forthright. "At the very least, you've dimmed the chaos in the council since those with relatives there are no longer clamouring for justice."

"Justice?"

"The Greys wished for Paladin Te to split the Mage Flights and save WETA's Mages. They say that if WETA and our forces combined, we'll stand a better chance at holding the Shoal at bay."

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

_I don't think that would have worked_ , Gwen wanted to say. Shyvaphyr would have ripped Wellington in half and taken a dump on WETA's walls if not for herself.

"Yeah-Nah, that wasn't going to happen," Richard chimed in. "The Greys should leave the fighting to the ones doing it, eh?"

"Thankfully, that's what the Tower Master said," the gruff old Chief affirmed her cousin's analysis. "Only there won't be much fighting, not with that lot holding the purse strings."

Heeding the Magister's loaded words, Gwen's attention returned to the defences. The stratagem of the city's defence aside, she was reeling from a sudden realisation. Five years ago, she couldn't walk around Sydney Tower without an escort—now—Magisters who wouldn't have given her the time the day was deferring to her. The difference was slowly putting her "Magisterhood" into perspective.

But there was little good news to purr over.

From Auckland's bulwarks, she could smell the same stink as she had sensed back in Sydney. Something was rotten at the heart of its management. Something that reminded her of the paralytic infighting that culminated in Walken's catastrophic error.

After Sydney, Gunther had exorcised that rot with laser precision—but what of Auckland? To her knowledge, Auckland's status quo had remained unchanged since the late 80s.

Once they were past the trio of islands, the hovering silhouette of Auckland Tower became fully visible against the curved horizon of the South Pacific.

She had a public duty here, compounded by her heartfelt desire to help Whetu's hometown and Yue's home away from home. She was Auckland's consultant sent from London. And as any consultant worth their salt would know, the opposite of an organisation actively evolving to meet new changes is not paralysis but _regression_.

"Auckland thanks Magister Song for her service to Wellington!"

After yet another round of applause, Richard was positively sure the welcoming ceremony was dragging on.

The converted ceremony room took up a modest section of the Tower's upper decks. From the tapered gangway entry, the room gradually grew in size until it met an impressive pane of curved glass stretching from floor to ceiling. Plates of steaming food sat on heated dollies serviced by the low-level Mages while NoM attendees brought refreshments.

Richard found ceremonies cumbersome, especially when pointlessly given to show gratitude. In his opinion, tangible rewards like HDMs for the recipients were superior.

Still, he knew that Gwen was a sucker for the superficial and that the same knowledge had filtered into the ear of whoever had arranged the fanfare. Merely watching her expression, which resembled a cat being stroked from head to tail, was enough to inform any observant schemer that shallow praise was Magister Song's guilty pleasure.

Before they boarded the Tower, Gwen had expressed her worries for Auckland. And so, as Gwen's second, it was his duty to navigate the masquerade while making a mental list of her foes and friends.

While Gwen worked her charms, he had a Faction to bribe and resources to gather, just as Petra had Golems to inspect and Enchanters to visit. Unfortunately, to execute their intentions subtly, they needed the information collected by Aria Ravenport, Gwen's aide from Cambridge.

Yet, even with Aria close at hand, the Magisters and Maguses surrounding Gwen like Shark Mermen circling a bleeding porpoise had kept her politely and wholly occupied since their arrival.

Lulan had expressed her willingness to make a scene on their behalf an hour earlier, but Gwen had vetoed the notion. Though not the organiser, the Tower Master was their host-in-name, and it would not do to embarrass Whetu and his Master before they could plumb the depth of Auckland's half-hearted defence.

Not wishing to waste more time, she had excused him from her circle, then distracted the others by regaling the tale of her defeat of the Shoal.

Freed, Richard quickly found his target, one of the "Oceania Ten" Gwen's Master used to toot on occasion, the Ta Moko Enchanter-Transmuter who was their guide from earlier. And who looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here during the ceremony.

Wa Mātaatua was the Magister's name, looking a little lost among his bevy of mates in the Militant Faction, all grumbling at the meddling members of the Tower's peace-drunk pacifists.

Though the truth had to be confirmed with Aria, Richard confidently suspected that the Militant Faction's waning was an unintended consequence of Gwen's meddling. A part of it had to do with the record profits posted by the Grey Factioneers riding off the coattails of Gwen's port authority reforms or the investments on the Isle of Dogs. Another was likely tied to the bankruptcy of Militant backers in the wake of her victory over the Hollands.

That Gwen's greed in London could ripple across the Mageocracy like a tsunami was a sobering thought, a realisation that made Richard shiver.

He emptied his flute of wine in a single gulp.

"Magister Mātaatua," Richard projected a sense of total ease as the unfriendly gaze of the Militants swept over his unwelcomed body. "If I may borrow a minute of your time?"

"Of course," the man broke from the group after glancing at his mates. "How can I not make time for the saviours of Wellington? Magus...?"

"Huang," Richard replied. "From King's College. Magister Chandra and Milford have often spoken of your time there, Magister Mātaatua."

"Oh-ho?" the Mātaatua's expression softened, relaxing the contours of the frightening Ta Moko around his chin and brows. "You're an alumnus as well?"

"Still enrolled," Richard laughed sheepishly, then bowed his head. "My good lecturers would be pleased to know that I've met an old friend from their adventuring days."

"Would they? Even though I am a Frontiersmen?" The Magister snorted cynically in his direction. "I can read you like a book, boy. Alright—what is it that you want?"

"To render some much-needed aid, Sir." Richard was delighted that the Magister read him precisely as he intended to be written.

In the straightforward manner of military men, the Magister directed Richard a curt distance from his crew.

"Out of respect for Magister Song, I'll bite," the man said. "What is it, Huang? Do you need a favour? Why not ask the Greys over there fawning over her?"

"Sir, we're here to gift you a favour. As you have heard, our party managed to defeat the Shoal of the Elemental Prince Shyvaphyr. Interestingly, Paladin Te Wherowhero did not mention that the retreating Elementals had gifted us a subdued Dragon Turtle among our winning spoils."

The Magister's eyes widened only a micron but could not help the slight dilation of his pupils.

"As the presiding Element of the Dragon Turtle is Para-Elemental Steam," Richard continued with his guileless grin. "Our first thought was how useful its Spirit might become if bounded to the right Mage—such as Lord Benedict Thomas of House Holland."

"The inheritor of the Golden Blood," the Magister looked parched. "Yes. I could imagine he would be interested in such a thing."

"I imagine he would be well pleased. Pleased enough to send a wealth of resources down to the antipodes," Richard addressed the Magister's intense, demanding gaze with smiling eyes. "As you can tell from Gwen's popularity, we can only hold onto our spoils for the short duration of Magister Song's stay in Auckland. Would you be so kind as to contact Lord Holland and deliver my cousin's goodwill gesture?"

Following his rhetorical question, Mātaatua's mien returned to its impassive, intimidating state. "We're far from London, Magus Huang, but I still read the papers. Why should I trust you or your mistress in delivering this rare and undeserved prize? Have you not done enough for our Faction?"

"Lord Thomas is but one of the many admirers of milady. Their grievance is no more serious than a lover's spat—not that they're lovers, despite what's been widely circulating." Richard made up his mind to gift the man a few editions of the METRO. "Besides, a foe of only yesterday makes for easy friends when a common crisis lies in ambush, don't you think so, Magister? The Frontier is a large and wealthy prize, and Magister Song is a Frontierswoman. Her friends and home lie here in Oceania. She holds privileged knowledge of the troubles to come. And as a survivor of Sydney, she understands very well her priorities."

"A Dragon Turtle, you say?"

"One that could rival Lord Golos," Richard lied with relish.

"That's one bully Spirit you're selling, then." Mātaatua's tone softened.

"The bulliest," Richard assured the man. "And it fought our Mythic-Dragon trained Transmuter to a standstill."

"Is that impressive?"

"I was certainly impressed." Richard beamed with supernatural confidence. "And this is coming from me, who watched our Magister Song choke a Soul Flayer with her dainty little hands."

There was a brief moment of silence; then, the Ta Moko Enchanter tensed up. "You're very well-spoken," the Magister looked at him unhappily. "Has the Grey Faction offered you membership yet?"

"I deemed myself unworthy of the offer," Richard confessed to his greatest sin, humility. "By my Astral Soul, this one is content as a Magus secretary under the sky-smothering wings of our Magister Song."

The two men regarded one another.

"Tell me, boy—is she a good Chief?"

"A boy from the Frontiers could not beg for better," Richard replied.

"I see," the Maori Chief seemed satisfied with his answers. "Very well, I will deliver your message through our secure channels. Should Lord Thomas accept…"

"We will have the Spirit ready for taming," Richard said. "The Lord will need to supply a retinue and the necessary resources. We're only equipped for repelling the Shoal."

"Understandable," the Magister said. "Leave me your Glyph. I will contact you as soon as we receive word."

"Understood."

"How would Magister Song like to be paid?" The Military man asked, then thought better of his curiosity. "—No, don't have to answer that."

"That would be between Lord Holland and Magister Song," Richard revealed nothing as he patted himself on the back for a job well done, simultaneously sending out his Empathic feelers for Lea's mark, which he'd left on Gwen. "I dare say, Chief Mātaatua, that our Magister will have her work cut out for her."

On the other side of the formal room, Gwen mulled over the second act of the _Third South Sea Conflict_.

The soprano was Gwen herself, around whom the city's brass encircled. She was joined by her aide-de-camp, Aria Ravenport, who introduced each of the Maguses and Magisters, ofttimes appending their names with juicy little details of which Faction her admirers belonged.

Opposite and in opposition stood the leadership of Auckland Tower, headed by the silver-haired Tower Master Esther Hildebrandt, a contemporary of her Master's for almost two decades, flanked by Te Wherowhero, Auckland's Maori Paladin.

Yue naturally represented Sydney, joined here and there by Melbourne and Brisbane Tower's representatives.

Over the last few hours, Gwen quickly realised that she had vastly underestimated the scope of Cambridge's Magisterial trial. The naive part of her had anticipated something of a repeated Wellington involving a top-down attack on the Shoal, supported by the might of Auckland Tower.

Instead, the atmosphere in the converted Officer's Mess reminded her of the unpleasant disarray her Master had concocted in neglecting Sydney's political infighting.

Presently, the praise had dried up, and the discussion in the room had moved from the crystal clarity of victory at Wellington toward something mired in mud.

"We've reached an acceptable parity," one of the Magisters Aria had attributed to the local Grey Faction was leading the charge. "Thankful as we are to Magister Song, let us not lose our heads. A Mermen Tide is something to be outlived, not repelled. Magister Mātaatua's Magma Element might be boiling over at the prospect of harvesting more Core from the Shoal, but at what cost?"

"Hori has a point," another voice affirmed the first. "The Shoal's lost its momentum, and now we have Magister Song on our side. Auckland can and will survive this Shoal, just as its survived every other invasion. The Expedition from London will arrive in six months to relieve us even if the Mermen does not retreat."

"Aye, Auckland isn't Sydney—even if we win, the cost to our sorcerous resources will make our next stand against the next Shoal nigh-impossible," another voice echoed the sentiments of the first.

_Zero escalation_ , Aria had informed her, was the predominant view of the Grey Faction in Auckland. When properly repaired, a well-run defence war was a profitable venture in materials and experience, meaning many in Auckland held the fragile hope of coming out of the invasion stronger than before. Their longing, Gwen supposed, wasn't without merit, for Gunther had proven beyond doubt that Sydney had emerged from "The Fall" stronger when it was under Henry's stewardship. _And_ Gunther was now Sydney's sole benign dictator. If the same could be achieved for Auckland, what was not to like?

To deploy herself into the Shoal—and to have her fight with her back against the Tower, would absolutely constitute an escalation of the zenith degree, triggering the trickling tide into a sea sprout of fish flesh.

Of course, the militants were adamant that repulsing the Shoal would ensure a decade of peace for Auckland, not to mention opening up enormous swaths of the South Sea to fishing and explorations.

"Facing the Shoal is inevitable," the lonely voice of a Militant adherent had paid little heed to the Grey Faction Mages as he spoke with Gwen. "The South Sea Expedition will need to Purge the region from here to the pole regardless. It would serve your purpose better to conduct the Purge while the Tower is active."

"Tua, need I remind you that the Tower is a defensive structure?" Te Wherowhero shot down the man's suggestion that they should park the Tower atop the Shoal and let Gwen get to work.

"You would expend the lives of our Mages to disperse a Shoal that would leave anyway?" The Greys weren't having it insofar as the city's warmongering went. "Give it two months from now, and it will starve. A Shoal of that size has to feed, and there's only so much food between the coast and the Barrier Islands for Merman to forage."

"Every Merman we let live today will return twenty-fold!" the Militant snarled at his contemporaries. "With Magister Song on lease to Auckland, we have only this opportunity."

"Sure, _we have Magister Song_ ," a Grey Faction Magister mocked the man. "But who will pay for the Tower's expenditure? That's millions of HDMs, Tua. _Millions_. Will your Faction pay for it? Are you even able to? Even if you sold all the Cores you harvest, will it be enough? What about the damaged port? The ships we'll lose? Who will pay for those? Mātaatua? Your bosses from Sandhurst? From the Shard? How will they compensate Magister Song for her time?"

The party, Gwen sighed, was becoming bothersome. She understood very well that this too was a part of her training as a Magister, but she felt sickened by the redolence of fungi in the room. So many words were being spoken, and yet so little was done. It was a stark difference from her experiences in London, where the folk she had crossed wands with all possessed the power to make the changes they desired. Lord Ravenport was one such example; the Lady of Ely was another. The Chinese got their shit done, one way or another. Hell, the Dwarves she had met could commit to action within minutes or fist-fight for consensus. Even with the Elves, refutations were firm and final, allowing her to make alternate plans.

But this was word vomit, conflict without resolve, kicking the can down the lane.

_I should take a trip up to Sydney._ Her mind wandered in the midst of her polite silence. _I should visit Almundj._

When finally, the droning debate became something resembling white noise, Gwen looked around the room to see what her friends were doing.

Yue was the wisest of them, for she was gone no sooner had the arguments started, immediately securing a place for her followers closest to the seafood buffet.

Richard was floating beside Mātaatua, laying foundations, while Petra and Lulan stood by their lonesome selves, projecting such palpable auras of desired solitude that none dared to approach.

"War is money," the representative from the Greys made his case. "We're not rich enough to sink the current Shoal and afford the next one. No hard feelings, Tua."

"Is that your opinion, Tower Master?" the Militant Factioneer scowled at Gwen's host.

Like herself, the Tower Master had remained silent while her subjects played out their parts. As the first among equals, her presumed neutrality was the correct position to assume. In many ways, Gwen was learning very shockingly just how peculiar and tyrannical her Master had been in his tenure as the "Master of the Ten".

"Magister Song," Hildebrandt turned to Gwen for an answer. "What is the Shard's preference?"

It felt strange to Gwen that though she was Henry's heir, her position beside Aria Ravenport acknowledged her as the voice of the Shard. By now, she was well aware that her default position in the eyes of Auckland was an expensive insurance policy—one Auckland loathed to claim for fear of next year's increased premium.

She gave the room her best smile. If her only recourse were to wait for Nyrlesvinyr to come to her, she wouldn't complain. However, she had plans of her own.

If Auckland were anything like Sydney, there would be work here that only herself, as a London Magister in the Frontiers, could do. From what she had seen of the Golems and the conditions of the city's Militia, somebody somewhere was making HDMs hand over fist. Thereby, for the success of her expedition in six months and to build enough trust in Auckland to deal with the fallout of what she might find on Mount Erebus, she must exercise a different kind of power.

"Well—" her voice bounced from the enormous pane of glass overlooking the bay and the Shoal below. "I am perfectly happy, whatever they may be. If not offence, then allow me to aid in _every aspect_ of Auckland's defence _."_


For a Magister-tier practitioner of fiscal cultivation in London, the fact of the Tower allowing the Greys to leave the meeting to reconvene on a later date was tale-telling evidence the leadership was drunk on peace.

Gwen wasn't upset. After all, the same had applied to Sydney as well. Before the Mermen Tide, her home had been left alone to develop its enterprises for two decades without a major catastrophe. Henry Kilroy had never neglected the city's defences or its economic development, but in hindsight, her Master had failed the secret courts of the human heart.

On paper, the assumption was that the Militant Factions went to war with their urgency and disciplined adherence to duty and sacrifice during active campaigns.

Assuming all survived, the Greys transmuted the spoils into profit, ushering forth rapid reconstruction and investment, replenishing the Militant's reserve forces.

And somewhere in between, the neutral parties of the Middle Faction ensured that neither Faction grew bloated with ambition, keeping the political status of a Tower in flux.

In Auckland, that balance no longer existed, and from the looks of matters, the Greys had grown corpulent in recent years.

Gwen found the imbalance curious, for even in London, where the Duke of Norfolk himself was both the capstone officer of her Majesty's Royal Forces and the presumed voice of the Grey Faction, its members upheld a profound humility as state-sanctioned merchants. Comparatively, the Greys in Auckland wielded their HDMs like a gavel, bopping whoever dared to protest with the daring arrogance of landlord to lessees.

As an outsider looking in, Gwen could see the imbalance as clear as day, but for the residents who had passively allowed the matter to transpire? She only hoped the Tower Master and her Paladin weren't complicit.

Whatever the case, for Auckland to survive the Shoal while remaining in the black, she would need to deploy her unique position as a London Magister and a loathsome hand of the Shard.

At tea, she had proclaimed her duty to oversee _every_ aspect of the war, including its logistics.

The Magisters had gone silent, and the Tower Master had exhaled what she hoped was a sigh of relief. Paladin Te did not protest either, meaning the suddenly stifling atmosphere had been left to simmer until the jubilation of victory at Wellington had entirely evaporated.

Then, in full public view and with the natural arrogance of a landed aristocrat, she had requested that a level in the Tower be made ready for her _office_ , then demanded from Tower Master Hildenbrandt exclusive access to the Tower's sanctioned records.

"Absurd!"

"She can't do that! Can she?"

"We're a sovereign, federated state!" Protests had erupted like Clam-selling Mermen from the seashore. "Besides, she's from the Shard!"

"I see no reason we can't trust the Saviour of Wellington," Paladin Te Wherowhero had quailed the protest with a deep and resonating grunt. "Tower Master?"

"Magister Song is the sister of Lord Shultz." Esther Hildenbrandt had given a supporting verdict. "Lady Aria Ravenport has informed me that Gwen also has the support of the Duke of Norfolk and the Marchioness of Ely. Furthermore, Magister Song is the one who oversaw the Tonglv Canal in Shanghai and the restoration of the Kachin, Nagaland, Yangoon, and Manipur Frontiers. She turned around the failed finances of the Fire Sea at Shalkar, and she is also the mastermind behind the Isle of Dogs Redevelopment project…"

The Tower Master had filled the room with her projected aura as she spoke. Esther Hildenbrandt was no Henry Kilroy or Gunther Shultz, which dulled her presence in Gwen's eyes, but she was nonetheless an old Magister with decades of collated sorcery to back up her claims. As a renowned Abjurer and the teacher of Whetu, she possessed many merits others could not begin to match.

"… in my mind, none here can match her achievements in the field of civil service, nor her prowess as a War Mage. Besides, have you all forgotten Henry built this Tower? Why would his Apprentice mean us harm? As the Auckland Tower's executive, I ask that Magister Song take on the role of a provisional Assistant Administrator for the duration of her stay in Auckland. Is that a possibility, Magister Song?"

Gwen had done her best to feign humility.

"I am young and inexperienced," she confessed to a sea of blank and worried faces, pausing for effect. "So I must abstain…"

The faces grew hopeful.

"…from my faults… and listen to the counsel of Master Hildenbrandt. I can see from your hopeful faces that you've buckled this duty onto my back, so I will endure the load to lessen your burdens."

The faces grew dour.

"Worry not, friends. I am sure everyone here has done their very best for Auckland!" Gwen had given the crowd her biggest, brightest, most effervescent smile. "Trust me, and we'll show you how we debit and credit in Cambridge! Rest assured, good folk, no waste will be left unaddressed!"

The applause that followed had been resounding, though any auditor could tell there was no heart.

Look at the grim faces behind the clapping palms meeting in prayer; Gwen wondered if anyone was dumb enough to have a go at her. Indeed, with enough HDMs as motivation, folks could be inspired to do anything. The same truth was valid for both this world and her old one.

And that was why Gwen now paced through an empty quadrant of the Sky Tower's sixty-fourth Pocket Space, organising workspaces with her team from Cambridge.

Looking at the Mages borrowed from the Cambridge and the Ravenports going about their familiar business, Gwen was beginning to deeply suspect either Charlene or the Duke had expected this to happen. Somehow, despite their diverse skillsets, her team of alumni all had experiences in public service, whether at the Shard or Oxbridge, and most were familiar with account keeping to boot. Still, she had requested additional aid, as they would need more men and women than that to sift through Auckland's receipts.

_WEEEEEEEEE—EEEEM—_

She was in the middle of setting up processing stations and drafting up additional personnel from London or Shanghai when a reverberating thrum travelled up the floor through her stilettos and gave her a mild migraine.

The Tower's Resonance Field was now active.

"Magister Song," Aria called from the window, beyond which the party from Cambridge afforded a clear and uninterrupted view of the Shoal further out to sea. "Another skirmish has begun."

Her team approached the floor to ceiling panes as one.

Two streams of the froth-laced sea were slowly hugging the sheltered bay of Auckland like the writhing underside of a giant squid.

When the tentacles came close to the Shielding Stations, a portion of the Mermen Tide disintegrated, boiling the blue sea until countless bodies floated to the top. At the same time, ripples of disturbed resonance flashed across invisible panes, spontaneously generating arcs of plasma to strike the bubbling surface.

As more and more floating carcasses piled on top of their predecessors, the hazy shielding grew warped until, some five or six minutes since Aria first drew her attention, the stations closest to the Mermen fizzled.

"Whoa-whoa-whoa," one of the Cambridge Mages muttered. "Is that normal? We don't see that back in London."

"They're just overloaded," Petra assured them. "It'll take a few hours for the core to cool—"

_DING!_ The Message that bloomed beside Gwen and her combat team of Richard, Lulan and Petra was the _red_ of catastrophe.

"Gogo, it's time for work. Let Dede know he's up." Gwen announced to the air, informing her frolicking Wyvern and duck from their temporary abode in Coromandel, some fifty kilometres from the incursion. With Golos away, it was up to Dede to keep the turtle honest, and though her duck was no match for the Demi-Dragon, it spoke in her stead, thus ensuring obedience. "Petra, can you check up on the stations and see what you can do?"

"Understood, Magister."

"And Aria, keep an eye on the Factioneers while we're gone." she laid out her orders. "Record everything. If anyone complains or dares refuse our request for receipts—or BURNS them—"

"Tell them to complain to Caliban in person." Aria gave her an affirming nod.

"… and tell them the Duke of Norfolk is always watching," Gwen appended her aide's conjecture. "Maybe gift them a small photo portrait of her majesty or something. Remind them that compliance and forgiveness go hand-in-hand, while each degree of obfuscation will only dig them deeper into bankruptcy… and worse. The Frontlines are always hungry for more Mages."

"Understood." Aria took notes. "Shall I pursue our staff requests from Shanghai and London?"

"See what London can offer first, then Shanghai." Gwen glossed over her workload for the coming months. "Double the pay and guarantee their safety. If they're wasting my time to help with an assault as lightweight as this, I feel we'll be reclaiming a lot more than we can spend."

The "invasion" of Auckland lasted two days and would have consumed a week were it not for Gwen and the firepower, firepower, and firepower of Yue Bai. Supported by the Sky Tower, Gwen and two Flights of Auckland's Mages had taken up a Forward Operating Base on the northern Barrier Islands closest to the Shoal, which allowed them to create chaos in the flow of Mermen bodies cascading southward from both the east and west. Yue and her team had taken up the forts in Stony Batter on Waiheke, frying the Mermen as they crowded the shallows and made landfall en mass.

During the lulls, Gwen teleported back to the Tower to check on the progress of her auditing team, deeply suspecting that the Greys were using her work with the Shoal to keep her busy and away from the transaction records. Of course, she was far too wily to be easily distracted, which meant Golos, Ariel and Caliban were given the lion's share of her labours in reducing the advancing chattel to chowder.

The closeness of their areas of operation also meant that she could meet up with Whetu and Yue, who never seemed put off by the endless massacre of Mermen, and could down seafood by the tray at lunchtime without a single hint of hesitation. As a testament to her fortitude, the Fire Sorceress often showed up bearing crab legs and lobster claws the size of people.

When finally the Sky Tower's Diviners had announced that the Shoal retracted its tendrils, the city's defenders raised their burnt wands to the sky, exhaling ragged cheers of relief. Richard and Petra were exhausted, with Lulan fairing only a little better thanks to her unique style of mana cultivation. As for Gwen, the brimming vitality cramming her innards was more potent than drinking a dozen espresso shots.

Within the last fifty hours, she had seen both Auckland's glory and its failures. Doubtlessly, the city's morale was well-groomed by Master Hildebrandt, for its militia was paradoxically both hopeful and desperate.

And without a doubt, the militia manning her forward operating base was well supplied and provisioned. However, when she detoured to Yue's battle station, she saw a clear and unequal display of either favouritism, incompetence, or outright kleptocracy.

For instance, there were six "amplifiers-forts" on Waiheke, each housing a minimum of two platoons of men, forming a defensive line of fighting staff plus two squads of support personnel. However, the furtherer a Mage wandered from Yue's home base in Stony Batter, the scantier their equipment became.

For instance, Gwen's NoM militia squads utilised a random assortment of elemental wands. Additionally, for every tenth man, an Evoker acolyte manned a portable Spellsword array capable of laying down rapid-firing Scorching Rays. Likewise, her men and women wore magically-enhanced body armour, and their bandoliers carried crystal cartridges for their weapons AND healing, antidote, and fortitude potions.

When Gwen flew in to support the island's middle region, an inlet called Onetangi, she was shocked to find the militia fending off the Mermen at melee range, using roughly-built, elevated palisades to afford the reach of Shock Spears wielded by unarmored soldiers. It was the sort of thing she had only seen in rural Shanghai, with the local "people's militia" fighting the Frogmen, while here was the midst of a full-blown tide, with an active Tower overhead!

When she found their squad leader, an Abjurer Sergeant, the man readily complained that the Tower had left them inadequate resources—but understood the shortage to be endemic and, therefore, "such is life".

Gwen had left the man two crates of potions and a pair of her Lightning Hounds the size of horses, then Messaged Aria to affirm her findings.

"Magister Song," her aides' report was prompt and immediate. "You were right, and I've compiled some interesting data for your perusal. The manifests match, but the inventory outgoing shows symptoms of missing parts and plant equipment. There are also entire shipments on loan but never returned."

As Gwen suspected, something had begun to rot at Auckland's heart.

Someone far less skilful and ambitious than Eric Walken was playing silly bugger politics in this time of crisis, believing that NOW of all times was the ripest moment to loot supplies and canvass power.

Thankfully, due to her quick demoralisation of the Shoal's assault, she had several days to spare, which she spent organising her staff and putting them to the task at hand. Unlike the monotonous career of Frontier Mages, the overeducated Cambridge graduates were multi-talented and overtly arrogant, making them excellent at collecting information and coercing documents and records from Auckland's middle-level Maguses and Mages.

Gwen watched the filing chamber grow day by day, filling her shelves with rows of data slates and manuscripts. As for the mood in the Sky Tower, the hot topic very quickly shifted from the "Saviour from the Shard" to the "Imperialist Dog-botherer."

Not that Gwen particularly cared.

Whatever goods these kleptomaniacs had hidden in their bellies, in front of the Devourer—all shall regurgitate their share.

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

By the twelfth day since her arrival, the Shoal once more initiated an assault. That same morning, she received the news that her guest, the man with the Golden Blood, Lord Benedict Thomas of House Holland, had arrived to rouse morale on the "Front".

Of the lord and the fishes, Gwen chose the latter, venturing out into the bay to dissuade the Shoal's tentative tentacles from molesting Auckland's shores.

And so it was that the orange-haired heir of House Holland found the Devourer in the middle of a feeding frenzy, her Da-peng armour dripping with wasteful droplets of excess Void.

"Magister Song." The lordly ginger was alone, though Gwen had no doubt the man had bodyguards who could appear in a split second at the slightest sign of danger. "You look ravishing as always."

Gwen ceased conducting the carnage below and allowed Caliban to take over the swarm. "Lord Holland, how lovely to see you again. Lovely English weather we're having here in Auckland. Doesn't it make you feel right at home?"

As was the preference for Mermen attacks, the sky was densely overcast and threatening to pour. When the actual downpour occurred, it would induce the full weight of the Shoal's present attempt at breaching Auckland. Ergo, her job was to break the Shoal's momentum before that happened.

Gwen pulled back the cowl of her Da-peng garb to reveal her flushed face. The young lord's eyes lingered a little longer than he would have liked before moving to take her hand.

Now facing the lord, she offered a mid-air curtsy as instructed by Le Guevel. The young lord briefly passed his thin, bloodless lip over her gauntlet, concluding the exchange.

"Though I have longed for another meeting, Magister Song, I must confess that my interest this time is the Dragon Turtle," Benedict Thomas carefully chose his words. "That said, to support your efforts, you have my full authority as gifted by the crown."

Despite his elite upbringing, Thomas was curt, polite, and to the point, all points that scored well within Gwen's expectations of a good LinkedIn profile.

"Where are your men?" Gwen looked past the man to the space behind him. "The Lord of Holland doesn't travel solo, does he?"

"They're making sure of the rumours." The young Lord inclined his chin. "Your aide reported discrepancies and that the Greys are to blame? To undermine the military in an active war zone—that's a fatal offence. If true, I could skewer a few of the Greys on pikes, go home and still receive a medal."

"Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves," Gwen rectified the man's bias. "Of course, numbers don't lie. The Greys are doing very well, and the Militias with ties to the Grey Market have the least losses. Once we follow the paper trails to their natural conclusions—or missing filings, as it were—we'll know who to bring in for questioning."

Thomas gave her a smirk. "Lovely. By the by, I brought the men you requisitioned as well. Nineteen volunteers from the Isle of Dogs. Charlene said you needed them in a hurry, so I arranged priority transfer at Heathrow."

"That's very nice of you." Gwen paused mid-sentence as a jolt of vitality hit, making Thomas gulp. "—One second. I've caught something."

"As you were, Magister." Thomas retained his impeccable manners by drifting out of conversation range, just in case Gwen needed to shield up.

"GURRRWARRRR—RRRRGH—!" Some hundred meters from the talking pair, the sea erupted, vomiting forth an enormous manta ray half the width of the Sky Tower's circular flight deck. With a great flap of its hydrodynamic wings, the gargantuan manta took flight, making headway toward her general direction.

Thomas whistled.

_SCHWIIIING—!_

_SCH—SCHWIIIING—!_

Without prompts from Gwen, seven swords, each larger than Gwen herself, whistled past herself and the space between her and Thomas, momentarily lighting up their faces with the passage of weighted steel polished to a mirror shine.

The blades struck flesh some fifty meters away, burying themselves to the hilt in the meat of the advancing skyscraper.

The manta's combat prowess as a troop-carrying battering ram was formidable, but Gwen knew it was taking flight as an act of desperation. Already, there were no less than six Camry-sized lampreys attached to its fins and undersides, busily wearing down its vital regeneration to burrow past the cartilage and liquify the manta's delicious organs.

A second later, Metallic Sword Bursts erupted across the manta's flanks, causing its trajectory to falter, raining down gory chunks of stringy white meat.

Through her Empathic Link, Gwen commanded Golos to stay put, wondering if Thomas the Steam Mage would act the gentlemen and put himself in harm's way to protect the "lady" on his lips.

Forty meters...

Thirty meters...

"Magister…" Thomas gave her a gentle cough and a look of consternation. "The creature isn't dead yet."

Apparently, she was no lady—and neither did Thomas feel like playing the gent.

With another flap of its giant wings, the manta issued forth a dozen jets of water from its underside, propelling it upward and forward with the momentum of an otherworldly spaceship. There was no howl, no pain-fuelled battle cry, just the sound of whirling water buffeting the air as the manta hoped to swallow the Mages whole.

"Golos!" At a distance of a dozen meters, Gwen gave the command.

Her Wyvern appeared at once, abandoning the distant rumble of a sonic boom behind it as it struck the manta perpendicular to its gills. The spectacle was artful ultraviolence, for no sooner had the Draconic ball lightning exploded in a crimson blot of pink impressionism did Golos' tail club concaved the building-sized manta's gut into a sudden "U", causing the creature's innards to erupt from its upper back like a burst water balloon.

Stepping slightly ahead of Gwen, Thomas twiddled his fingers, instantly manifesting a wall of turbulent air to swirl away the incoming shower of scarlet sea spray.

Now a limp blanket the size of a soccer field, the manta began its inevitable descent.

Side by side, Gwen and her guest watched her Wyvern fly away with what was presumedly the Core. A few moments later, the airborne troop carrier fell into the Shoal, slicing the roving tendril of Mermen troops in twain with a wall of water a dozen meters tall.

"Where were we?" The man offered no words of honeyed praise. "Oh yes, I've also brought the supplies Magister Mātaatua requested."

"You have my thanks."

"Might I ask a question?"

"Sure," Gwen said as she swept her mind over her array of Lampreys. The Shoal was in a panic, meaning without interruptions or the command of a higher-order Mermen, a rout should soon be in the works. "Shoot."

"Why are you helping us?" Thomas asked. "The Militants, I mean. I thought we were at odds."

"I am helping _Auckland._ " Gwen met the man's eyes. "I am a Magister of Her Majesty's Commonwealth, am I not? Are you not the same?"

"I can't fault that answer." Thomas' smile grew wry. "But I can't help but feel you've laid a trap for us. You've cultivated an impressive reputation after the collapse of the Barlow Group. The old families are dredging the household coffers to put up the Northern Expedition."

"Ah, how is that going?" Gwen asked. "I know it's been less than a month, and you don't have to tell me if the information is privileged."

"It is. But you possess that privilege as a leading Magister of the Southern Expedition." Thomas appeared thoughtful. "I can tell you that the Breaker Carrier has already arrived on Greenland and that we've settled into the old fortifications there, the ones build before the Beast Tide."

"Any Fire Elementals?"

"There's always Fire Elementals," Thomas said. "But if you're talking about that rumour of Elementals attempting to change the composition of the Prime Material, then we're seeing some weight to your conjectures."

"That's not good news." Gwen was genuinely surprised the upper echelon of this world could be so accepting of something so unknown. Was it because of the Elves? Or was it that, in the absence of political culture wars, Climate Change could remain in its purest incarnation—an arithmetic chain of factual cause and effects? "I am happy someone's taking it seriously, though."

"Yes, the Expedition is taking the claim seriously," Thomas assured her. "How could we not? We were immediately attacked the moment we made landfall. The dense southern shrublands had been reduced to ash, so there was no possibility of an ambush—but we were still damn surprised to be suddenly swarmed by Ember Sprites in an arctic Black Zone!"

"They burned the trees?" Gwen felt her chest tighten. "All of it?"

"A lot of it. I am guessing they used the old woods to enrich the lack of Elemental Fire" Thomas confirmed her fears. "There was soot as far as the eye could see. Even the snow was black slush. I don't know how extensive the phenomenon was due to the smoke and smog obscuring reconnaissance, but it's safe to say at least our quadrant was entirely consumed. We were in the middle of launching Recon-in-Force when your Message arrived. I burned a Contingency Ring to return to London. Father prepared the supplies for Auckland, and now, here I am."

Gwen felt a ping of envy. _Burning a Contingency Ring to avoid the week-long travel?_ When could she amass enough materials to exercise the Steam Mage's sense of priorities? Still, the picture the man painted for her wasn't looking very nice for the scenario she had in mind. From her Planar knowledge classes, she knew with absolute certainty that changing the elemental composition of a Prime Material region required a disproportional volume of mana on a scale unimaginable even to Elemental Monarchs. However, what if the heralds of the Fire Sea only wanted to crinkle the status quo? What shockwaves could a tsunami of such a scale engender? Would they even know, or were they merely poking the bear to see if it would swipe at the cages, gambling that it would break loose?

"Did you find the Hvítálfar grove?" Gwen asked, recalling her final briefing before she left. "The one Tryfan dubbed the Frost Tree of Lhîweth."

"No luck, not even close," Thomas spoke while admiring the carnage below. "Considering the resistance we are experiencing, even if we bulldoze forward with the Centurion MKIIs, it'll take weeks."

"You have Aerial Battle Wings with you, don't you? They can't fly out and check how things are faring at the tree?"

"Battle Mages don't make Forward Operating Bases or account for logistics for the eight thousand men and women surviving in a Black Zone," Thomas retorted with the tone of an instructor. "Even with aid from the Order of St George and the Knights of the Garter, we're having trouble mopping up the Undead."

Her heart grew still. "There's _what_ now?"

" _Undead_ Mermen." Thomas raised a brow. "They crawl forth from the slush and soot and ambush our patrols. That's the reason why we're thinking of pushing through a corridor with walking barrages. You weren't told?"

"I wasn't privy to that detail." Gwen thought of Erebus and Antarctica. She had at least five months before the converted Battle Barge assigned to the Southern Expedition could make its way to New Zealand. If so, what did that mean for the Planar balance there? What if the changes in Antarctica weren't the actions of natural forces but malicious actors? Would her Dwarves, the Mages from Manipur, and the troops assigned by the Shard be enough to deal with the Undead? Unlike Thomas' Northern Expedition, her's was a fact-finding mission. Even with her forces and the Raven Guards onboard, their expedition was two and a half thousand souls.

"I am sure Charlene will make provisions. If she mentions the Undead, the Ordo Garter can be very generous in mobilising the Purifiers of the Chalice."

Gwen could only nod.

The South Pole, the unknown aftermath of a major volcanic eruption, suspicions of Spectre, the Great Tree of Illhîweth, and now the Undead...

Her plate was feeling a little too full.

Beside her, Thomas alternated between studying her contemplative face and the raging battle below.

"The Mermen are routed," the man said after a while. "Between been eaten by your Void beasts and the Mermen-you-know, I'd prefer the latter."

"Caliban, Ariel, Gogo, pursue and scatter, hunt down the ones on the shore," Gwen gave audible commands for the benefit of her guest. "If you run into any trouble, immediately retreat inland."

Gwen mulled over the logistics of maximising her forces for when Charlene arrived on the carrier.

While Thomas loudly marvelled at the autonomy of her creatures. The aftermath took just over an hour, which was enough time for Thomas' men to clean up the Mermen that had made landfall and rejoin their Major-ranked noble.

"Alright, thanks for waiting, Thomas," Gwen announced the conclusion of her operation, gathering Lulan and Richard to her side before finally addressing the patient Benedict Thomas of House Holland. "Let's go see that Turtle of yours."

The taming of a Wildland "Spirit" was no easy feat.

For pedestrian creatures, a Mage could slaughter enough of them until the higher powers of arithmetic deemed them worthy of a Spirit-imbued Core. It was the most common manner by which Mages acquired Spirits, though such a tried and true method had a significant imperfection.

The shattered Spirit would possess little to no Ego.

Of course, common Mages, especially those in the Frontier, preferred such a Spirit, for Spirits without a robust Ego were obedient, pliant, and cheap.

Higher-order Mages, especially Conjurers, harkened after the Holy Grail of Spirits with unblemished Egos. These were far more difficult to obtain, for no Elemental worth the trouble of befriending would prefer existential symbiosis over simple extinction. And if one added additional prefixes like "Draconic", even London's Magisters would grow desperate for the opportunity.

Therefore, Richard had devised that House Holland could not help but take up the offer and owe her a debt that arguably would take enormous endeavours to repay.

"This is Zippy," Gwen introduced the monstrous Dragon-faced alligator snapping turtle of the South Sea with a casual gesture. "Zitusphyr was what the Turtle Prince called him, but I think Zippy suits him fine."

Thomas flew around the turtle, tracing a spiral path as he inspected the goods. When he returned to her side, the man took a suspicious gander at Dede and then tossed the duck an enormous, fist-sized block of raw HDM. "He's beautiful."

"Damned, right." Gwen made a move, feigning a slap on the turtle's top shell, feeling every inch like Mario trying to hawk Bowser Jr at a slave sale. "This bad boy can fit so many Steam Bombs inside his Spirit. You'll be Purging Greenland of the Undead in no time."

"This is the human?" Zitusphyr raised a tired eye to regard the young Lord Holland. It radiated Dragon Fear, not that Gwen and her companions cared for it. "A mortal?"

"I art no _mere_ Mortal," Thomas introduced himself in acceptable Draconic. "Our House has a pact with thine cousins of Elemental Fire, so I am no stranger to thy traditions or thine kind."

_Oh-ho?_ Gwen glanced at the man. Now that's a juicy bit of information. Did that mean the Hollands had an alliance with _Sythinthimryr?_ The ancient Red with her nest of kin in Carrauntoohil, the natural circuit breaker for the Wild Hunt's yearly adventures? If so, what kind of Pact? A defence one? A Vessel? Whatever the case, it made sense that the noble families of the Mageocracy had those connections; else, Evee and herself would be true anomalies worthy of dissection.

Zitusphyr wasn't the most intelligent of Dragon-kin Gwen'd seen, but even so, the creature tilted its head with scepticism. "You would challenge this one for the Rite? For life or extinction?" The turtle growled.

"For dominion and obedience," Thomas affirmed the turtle's question. "Thou art mine now, young Zitusphyr—but let us not forsake the old ways. We shall entertain a contest with our Astral Souls. Should I yield or perish, Magister Song here shall free thee from bondage to return to thy kin. Should this _mere_ mortal best thee—thou wilt yield to me and be my shield and companion until mine end of days."

The Dragon turtle turned to regard Gwen's posse of menacing Mages and magical creatures. "The human speaks true?"

_So you want freedom. After all,_ Gwen held back from mocking the prideful turtle. "Yes. I will allow— _WHOA!!!_ "

_SNAP!_

A sonic clap from the Dragon Turtle's suddenly distended tail struck Thomas—or more accurately, a Steam Clone with the likeness of the Holland heir, exploding the mirage in a burst of pale mist.

Gwen felt bedazzled, both by the speed of Thomas' Dimension Door, which was a Specialist variation that left behind life-like visages in Steam—and at Zitusphyr's low, animal cunning. If it was herself, she would have bought into the belief of Draconic honour and may have even taken a hit, assuming Zippy had the gonads to sucker-punch an Old One's Vessel.

The re-materialising Thomas was not only unharmed but armoured and helmeted.

"A low-blow, dear beast," the Mage's body began to bleed streams of Elemental Steam as he spoke, his silhouette growing more obscured with every word. "Come, Zitusphyr! I'll tame you if it's the last thing I do!"

As to what followed, Gwen held little interest.

Her trade was done, her favour was called, the supplies were delivered, and what Thomas did with the turtle was wholly his business.

As she drifted serenely from the unfolding war zone of Elemental Steam, Dragon Breathes and ricochetting shards of "Force" from Thomas' Signature Magic, her mind once more turned to the Tower's affairs.

Richard re-materialised beside her, and Lulan Misty Stepped into view.

"Gwen." Lulu licked her lips at the action below.

"Are we returning to the Tower?" her cousin asked.

"Yes," Gwen affirmed Richard's suspicions. "Now that Lord Holland is here to shoulder the heat... it's time to balance the accounts."


Though Gwen possessed perfect faith in Thomas' show of goodwill, she nonetheless detoured past the lesser defence nodes as her party returned to the Sky Tower. The young lord's politicking was within expectations, which was to say she felt let down by the tunnel vision of the Faction-minded Mages.

_Is it because I am a stranger to the fact?_ She considered the conditions of the city besieged by bipedal fish. If she were a true native, would it be possible for her to feel so removed from the ingrained politics of the state?

Whatever her feelings, Thomas had gifted potions, HDM cartridges and a wealth of Wands to the militia—but only to the ones whose commanders were closely aligned to the Militants. In the young lord's mind, he was tipping the favour of the balance back to the "norm", which was good—but the act was hardly magnanimous nor served to counter Auckland's deeper problems of unclean hands.

If she were in Thomas' position, she would have confiscated and re-balanced the sheets, giving each team equal treatment, bolstered with a resounding speech about fighting fish on the beaches. Then, with coercion from the Shard and a little help from either Caliban or Golos, she would have re-rostered the NCOs of each Militia platoon to disrupt the status quo of favouritism.

Her first return stop was the Officer's Mess, for the nourishment of vitality wasn't the same as the full-bellied warmth of a hearty meal. In times of peace, the kitchen operated only at lunch and dinner. In their present state of war, the staff worked around the clock with rotating shifts. Richard was a staunch believer in Fish and Chips, Lulan's was for fried rice, while Gwen herself was partial to the honest protein of Auroch Steak. As for Petra, she wholly organised her timetable around her team's repair and maintenance of the Shielding Stations.

Gwen studied the mess' inhabitants as they ate, noting that her party was alternatively hailed, sidestepped, and glared at by nervous Mages coming and going from their duties. Perhaps it was the Da-peng suit, but Gwen felt like a bit of a bird being paraded for a captive audience.

By now, her popularity was far from when they'd first drifted in from Wellington, but Gwen didn't mind. Auditors, like their cousin tax collectors, had no friends except among colleagues. And to folk other than Te and the Tower Master of Auckland, she was both.

"Petra," she faxed over a Message to her Enchanter. "We're heading over soon. Shall I bring you something?"

"I'll be fine. I've got rations," Gwen's Mind Mage replied through the pulsing orb. "I'll need to return and finish once new supplies arrive via the ISTC. The Glyphs here are positively ancient."

"In a good way?" Gwen asked. It was a bit hard to tell when it came to Glyphs whether older was better.

"What do you think?" Petra sounded a bit frustrated.

Gwen guessed her cousin's impatience to mean that a great deal of jerry-rigging had been performed by any number of Enchanters on the original Glyph system over the years. A repair, therefore, wouldn't even be possible without first untangling the cat's cradle. Gwen possessed a similar system of magic in the beginning, with her Spellbook consisting of her Master's magic, her high school's teachings, Alesia's modding, Gunther's gifts, and various incantations she bought and found. However, since she had gained access to Henry's notes, much of her theory work had been streamlined by her studies at Cambridge.

"I'll send someone down with fresh food later," Gwen promised. _And a bottle of Maotai…_ which should keep Petra's Russian fortitude hail and satisfied. "See you at the factory?"

"See you soon."

"Alright." Richard pushed away his plate. The kitchen ladies always gave her cousin too much food. "Shall we?"

Her first stop after lunch would be the Manufactorium for the Wands supply to the local militia. The visit would be wholly unplanned and a surprise to the suppliers, for not even Paladin Te could have expected that she would hop from mincing Mermen to splicing spreadsheets with only a lunch break between them.

"Let's go." She folded and replaced her napkin on the empty plate. "And tell Aria to send over some of the staff. I am curious to see who Walken volunteered for the antipodes."

Auckland.

Penrose Industrial Estate.

Far south of the harbour district, Auckland's urban sprawl thinned into housing for the NoMs before transforming into the square-and-rectangle blocks marked for industrial manufacturing. As a young Frontier city, Auckland enjoyed the benefits of civil planning more than most. Compared to her' home', the city's ordered lanes were free of the chaos of London's intermittently criss-crossing commerce, Spellcraft, industrial and agriculture zones.

Atop the estate, Gwen and her principal staff of auditors arrived by Flight. The rest of her team, involving the staff with the equipment, continued to meander through Auckland's congested war-time arteries.

Black as a midnight raven, she hovered ominously above what looked to be the stocking yard, her claw-tipped Da-peng boots drinking in the feeble rays diffused by the cloudy sky above. Far in the grey yonder, she could hear arrhythmic thunderclaps, signalling that Thomas and his new turtle were still going at it, hammer and tongs.

"Magister, they see us—" Lulan twirled several metal slabs with the ease of fidgeting pens. "Some of them are running inside. Should I stop them?"

"Not with those things." Gwen chuckled. "Well. At the very least, I am glad they know who I am."

"Shouldn't they be greeting us then?" Lulan cocked her head toward Gwen, confused at her delight.

"If they welcomed us," Richard said. "Then I'd be worried. Running is a sign of guilt. I mean, do we look like Fishmen? Gwen's bird suit has graced the Lumen-caster for weeks by now."

"I see." Lulan's sword thrummed. If Gwen squinted, she could just see the outline of Lulu's bloodlust. "This is just like Tonglv."

"Not exactly like that." Gwen gave the girl an affirming nod. "But we'll see just how bad it gets. Don't baulk at the greed of men, Lulu. We're all greedy for something. The important thing to know is that there is a time and place for it. Utilised properly, _Greed is Good_."

"Greed… is _Good_?" Lulan appeared shocked.

"It is…" Gwen gave the matter a moment of thought. "...a drug of sorts. Take, for example, the vivid poppy. Within its bulb, there are equal parts medicine and poison. Virtue, if misapplied, it's a dire vice—yet vice, if rationalised, can be dignified as painkillers. We're doing that now, _don't you think?_ Back in Tonglv, all those people we sent to the Front, their associates, families and children. It's not a good feeling. On a humanitarian level, I have no doubt it's a flawed system. Yet, didn't those who stole from Tonglv know this? They did so knowing the risks, understanding they're taking rice from the bowls of the NoMs building that canal, and they did it anyway. If so, the greed we enable is merely the consequence of their free will. Greed is human nature—a perfect motivator, but _the intemperance_ of greed? In the absence of mutual profit, general good, and social advantage, I think there should always be _consequences_ to greed."

The Cambridge Mages behind her took notes.

Richard clapped. "Well said, Magister Song."

Gwen rolled her eyes at her cousin. "Thanks for coming to my TED talk."

Richard laughed, shaking his head and muttering something about a _Gwenism_ , then turned to their support officer. "What do you think, Magus Pats?"

"I think we've got company." Petra motioned toward the commotion below. "I am sensing major movements of materials in the warehouses. Mana rich, high density. An underground chamber close to the forge? Do these people take us for fools?"

"Well," Gwen regarded the gathered thong of Mages pooling into an expanding semi-circle. " _We are here uninvited,_ Pats. Cut these guys some slack, will you?"

Compared to the auditing of weasels on the Isle of Dogs, the folks in Auckland were little more than flightless Kakapos.

It took the team half a minute to confirm that the contingent of Mages below was waiting for them to land. On Petra's advice, Gwen lent her a manifested Ariel, then allowed her Enchanter to leave with the Kirin in tow. To prevent anyone from following Petra, Lulan, Richard, and five of their contemporaries from Cambridge landed near the entrance to confront the suspicious Mages, half of them holding wands.

"You're not supposed to be here, young lady," the leader of the Manufactorium spoke up at once. The abrasive speaker was a Maori Enchanter covered from chin to wrist with Ta Moko. The man was in his sixties at the minimum, as evidenced by the dried whisp of his remaining silvery hair. "This is a military installation."

Gwen wasn't sure if the man was genuinely stupid or if he was trolling her. For certain, a Magister in Da-peng armour, escorted by Mages from Cambridge, would not simply materialise without knowing their purpose.

She flashed her Sigil Glyph from The Shard. "I beg to differ. Are you the Foreman of this operation? Magus—?"

"Waaka, Wa Waaka."

"Well met, Magus Waaka. Now take me to your office or wherever you stow your accounts." Gwen took a few steps closer. "Spare the pleasantries, for the righteous has no shame."

The array of wands grew hesitant.

A few trembled dangerously, but the intent was clear for all to see. Just in case, Gwen readied her mana shield for instant invocation.

She raised her brows. “Is there a problem, Magus Waaka?”

"You don't have authorisation…" the old Mage declared without confidence. "We haven't been told—"

" _Magus Waaka._ " Gwen knew the type from her work across two lifetimes. "By the authority from the Tower Master and as her Majesty's representative of the Auckland Frontier, I _at this moment_ give myself the authority to inspect the Penrose Wands Manufactorium. Any Tower members who wish to obstruct me will answer to Paladin Te Wherowhero—but not before you answer to my aide— _Lulu!_ "

A discordant series of thrums made the gathering of Mage raise their heads.

Above them, seven slabs of metal, each deadlier than its neighbour, slowly rotated like the platforms of a rotisserie chicken roaster awaiting to skewer a flock of avian barbeque.

Gwen gave the group a moment to weigh their life choices against the shiny metal bludgeons before offering a sweet carrot. "No harm will come to those who fully cooperate. As for those who deliberately waste my precious time, the Sky Tower has only so many Stasis Pods, but _it does indeed have them_."

The crowd murmured and parted, first by ones and twos, then as the Red Sea.

"Hughes, Jackson, Caleb," she commanded her teammates. "See that those Wands are disarmed and stowed—Richard, Spencer, Phillips, with me. Magus Waaka, lead the way. Lulu, stay out here and keep an eye out for disruptions."

Gwen watched her Cambridge Mages go about removing the cartridges from the Wands. The models given to NoMs were always cartridge fed—that way, without Mages to make the ammunition, the Mageocracy need not fear the advent of quantity becoming a _quality_ all on its own. She wanted to say that the crowd had allowed themselves to be disarmed but hadn't the heart to fool herself.

With this many Mages and NoMs here, had Gwen arrived to audit the place alone, she would give the unhappy-looking Waaka a fifty-fifty chance of having a go.

As her team moved past the holding bay into the stockroom, she could feel her Divination sense swell with the excess volume of mana-fed stimulus from every common element. From its scale, Auckland's local manufactorium was well-resourced, possessing a dozen stations making up three assembly lines. The Mages within were a gathering of common Evokers, Transmuters and Enchanters, with nary a Magus among them, working among piles of polished Cores and processed components sorted into boxes.

At the furthermost end of the giant warehouse, two giga-forges filled every space with the chest-thumping hiss of liquid Mithril lacing into the aluminium wand alloy. Perched like a cat in one corner of the forges was Ariel, taking up the lion's share of the worker's horror, while on the pedestal with the controller, she saw the familiar figure of Petra.

On her end, Waaka took his time, but eventually, her team arrived at an office the size of an inner-city studio. The filing cabinet was a quasi-magical device with a Pocket Dimension, no larger than a bedstand.

Gwen reached for the draws, then paused when she felt Waaka's fear whine like a kicked dog. Thanks to Caliban's innate life-sense, she could taste the man's dread like the tang of metal after licking a copper pipe.

"Magus Waaka, before we commence," she asked. "Can you affirm that you've kept all records of all transactions and that inventory has been kept reasonably up to date? Do understand that the audit will go back some time, about a decade, usually."

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

"I… can." The Maori's face grew visibly cautious.

"Good." She took a step back. In her mind, there must be excellent reasons why a Pocket Dimension played home to the files, as anything lost in the Astral Plane was effectively lost forever. As a consultant who often engaged in the auditing phase of an acquisition, she had heard all kinds of wondrous reasons why files were lost, from fires, floods, and malicious janitors, to shredders with a conscience. "Please retrieve all the files for my team. Whatever we see—is whatever I'll assume you've kept. As a friendly reminder, I'll assume that anything we don't see has been kept from us."

Waaka's expression grew rigid, making taut the fading Ta Moko on his chin.

"Nor do we have all day," Gwen reinforced her point. "From the Enchantment on that thing, I believe the filer corresponds only to a specific Glyph, yes? I wonder what would happen if I tried to open it without the correct invocation."

"What do you mean?" Waaka moved toward the cabinet with the fatalism of a man headed for a trench at the Northern Front. With a click, he unravelled the security Glyph, then quickly entered another set of Glyphs before either of Gwen's assistants could stop the man.

_A disarming Glyph?_ Gwen recognised the Sigils.

As it opened, a burst of spellfire flared from a point in space beside the draw. Then, in the next moment, more paper than anyone could have imagined gushed from the cabinet, flooding Gwen, Richard, and their aides from Cambridge, who responded with ungentlemanly remarks.

"It's an old system." Waaka smiled weakly at the mess. "We haven't emptied it for a decade."

Gwen quickly scanned the chaotic floor filled with manila folders and envelopes. Some closed, some bound, others opened with their white pages looking like splayed wings of spatchcocked hens. Despite the Magus' best efforts, some semblance of chronology remained.

So the man had too much self-preservation to destroy the files outright but not enough gonads to give over the data directly. No doubt, the time it would take to reorganise the floor would add days, perhaps a week, to the schedule of a regular audit—enough to hide something or organise a countermand.

But who was she?

She was the custodian of the Isle of Dogs Redevelopment Project! Tonglv's architect! Her Illusion School of PowerPoint™ might not possess a fully automated Excel program, but the organisation was so good Charlene paid CCs for the privilege.

Ten years of data from a mere Manufactorium? Her hounds from the isle, aided by Thinking Engines and data slates, would have the damn pile filed and calculated within the next twenty-four hours!

"Thank you, Magus Waaka." She gave a smile worthy of the Devourer, accentuated by the eldritch menace of her dread-bird attire. "And please refrain from telling me you're a busy man. You mustn't go anywhere yet. There'll be questions very soon, first from Magus Kuznetsova once she finishes her calculations—and then more from me."

Friday.

The Sky Tower was in an uproar.

Not because there was a Shoal out there threatening to engulf the city wholesale, but because two members of the Grey Faction had been stripped of their positions, and a third had faced Stasis.

At the heart of the uproar was a problem within the Penrose Manufactorium, one of the largest in Auckland. According to the auditors from the Shard, materials had been going missing steadily over the first few years of the last decade. Then when an "efficiency" reform was applied, the raw material costs had steadily climbed until it was as much as three-quarters above The Shard's market rates for the same period. Even so, an excessive volume of Wands had been retired to "defects". Yet, the materials were never recycled, nor were the Wands repaired and returned to service.

And finally, even when the Wands made it to the hands of the militia, the Core quality, the HDM cartridges, and the number delivered did not match the manifests attached.

It was a level of kleptocracy absurd enough to make Petra proud of Moscow.

In a rage, Te Wherowhero had led a group of the Tower's neutral Mages to raid one of the suspected Grey Warehouses, finding boxes upon boxes of mint-condition wands, the best Penrose could produce, kept in unassuming dusty storages.

A second raid, organised by the Militant Faction, uncovered a half-hundred kilo of Mithril, collected from shavings and other waste material, inside the deep storage belonging to the compound of one of the aforementioned "Stasis" candidates.

In the council sessions, the level of protest had reached decibels its vaulted roof never enjoyed, with Mages threatening one another with oblivion. Others demanded redress, splitting Auckland into two stanch factions of those who wished the city would cease its audits and focus on the Mer-threat against those who ordered a deep scouring of the rot that had taken root to survive the Mer-threat.

And the culprit of all this, a certain Devourer, was enjoying her allotted rest and relaxation with a blue-blooded lord currently nursing his bruised ego atop the flight deck of the Sky Tower.

"What's the score today?" Gwen sipped her freshly mixed L&P feijoa soda with gin, allowing the refreshing beverage to linger a little too long on her tongue.

"Quack!" Dede tossed a cucumber in the air, then chewed the thing in a most disturbing, un-duck-like manner.

"Advantage to me as usual." Thomas sat opposite on a deck lounge, his uniform open to expose a proud chest of orange hairs, now matted with bloody bruises and a slight concavity where he had taken a hit that dented his armour. "I am getting close. I can feel Zippy's will slipping when we duel. Maybe a week, maybe two. I want my dominion to be complete and total."

Gwen snickered. "I bet. How's the armour? Wyrm hide can't be cheap to repair."

"My Enchanter will source the materials from London. Rare mats are hard to auction for the likes of yourself, but we've got plenty of it in storage."

"What else have you got in that vault of yours?" Gwen took another sip. "Is it as rich as the Norfolk's?"

"The Holland's vault has items and materials you cannot even begin to comprehend." Thomas winced as he laughed. " _Cough_ —you know, if you had played along, you could be taking whatever you wished from it right now. I can't brag that we have the world's loot, but our House has done its share of pillaging in the last five centuries. I am positive some ingredients there won't be seen again unless certain species can regenerate from extinction."

"Or travel here again from their home Elemental Planes," Gwen reminded the man. "That's my main concern. The gods know what will come through for an excursion in the next decade."

Hearing her prophesy, Gwen's man relented in nursing his swollen abdomen. Earlier, when she had watched the young lord receive healing from his Cleric, she bore witness to the spectacle of a man howling at the high heavens while finger-sized shards of Wyrm scale were extracted. She had asked Tom why he refused to rest in the infirmary, and then Thomas told her that it was a psychic pact between him and the turtle, whatever that meant.

"You really believe that eh?" Thomas belonged to the camp of the climate sceptics who could understand the dangers posed by Spectre but not the looming spectre of double-strength hurricanes with a quadruple incidence rate. "I've read your report, but London won't have food issues either way."

"London isn't the world. _London_ will be fine," Gwen reiterated her point. "Places like Shalkar will grow far more common if lakes start drying out, mudflats become rivers or lakes, or deserts expand into tablelands. The more Fire Seas start popping up where we can't manage. The more Beast Tides will occur. That or Triffidus-infestations where only tundras had existed. When that happens, our cities will be sieged, supply lines will be disrupted, global trade will stifle, the economy will suffer, the poor will be jobless, and—"

"Alright, I get the picture." Thomas' eyes linger on what she hoped was the middle-distance of her ideas rather than her teasing pair of white stalks scissored over the chair's lip. "But you have to admit it's a bit far-fetched."

"Suit yourself." Gwen turned her chin up at the young lord. "If the Militant wants to miss the boat again and lose more money, that's not on me."

"You're too cruel." Thomas swallowed a mouthful of bloody saliva. "I am hurt."

Before Thomas could speak again, their banter was interrupted by the sound of heels kicking up a fuss against the galvanised metal of the sky deck. The intruder was Aria Campbell-Ravenport, whose presence Gwen had been expecting.

_If Ruì was a Mage_ , Gwen mused. _Would she be in a similar position as Aria?_ China had its faults, but it certainly loved its NoMs. For the Ivory Tower she wished to construct, there would be significant resistance against the inclusion of NoM officers and managers ruling over rank and file Mages. But according to Lulan, the young woman she handpicked for the Tonglv account's management took to power like a Drake to the heavens. _Perhaps Ruxin could help?_ She entertained herself with a curious hypothesis. _Could NoMs become Vessels?_ Hopefully, the recipient wouldn't explode like an overripe cherry tomato.

"Magister Song." Aria raised her voice a titter as she approached. "Your application for Sydney has been approved. You're free to leave now, with an expected duration of a month."

"Great." Gwen stood, halted Thomas when he tried to stand, then stowed her chair and belongings with a swish of her hand. "I am on call, correct?"

"You are, Ma'am."

"And the others?"

"Mistress Lulan is free to come and go as she pleases as a free agent unattached to the Tower," Aria reminded her. "Magus Kuznetsova has vetoed her vacation and wishes to stay and study the Barrier Stones. Master Huang is happy to return with you to Australia."

"I'll stay close." Lulan emerged from thin air. Earlier, Gwen had invited Lulu to join her on the deck, but her Sword Mage was far too professional about roleplaying a bodyguard after the scare with the Dragon Turtles.

"Of course, Lulu. What's Yue doing?"

"Magus Bai's team will remain in Auckland until the threat of the tide is diminished."

Gwen guessed that Yue's attachment to Auckland and her pal Whetu dove far deeper than the casual sentimentality and duty she felt she owed.

"And our men and women?"

"They'll be on a rotating roster."

Gwen nodded, leaving the Cambridge Mages' leave to Aria's discretion. Compared to the table staff, her R&R was well-earned, for a War Mage had certain rights the Tower must respect. Since her arrival, Gwen had been on three sorties and had held back two Tides before they bloomed into full-forced land invasions. Considering her achievements, Auckland had no right to refuse her request. On the other hand, the Tower was happy to see her go while their internal accounts were balanced. Gwen's auditors would take time to take names and seize assets, and the Greys were still in the process of fighting back tooth-and-nail for every HDM recovered. Rather than focusing all the fear and negativity toward her team with her presence, it was best to send Gwen away for the moment so that when she returned, a new wave of iron-fisted accounting could be conducted on the bruised and exhausted survivors.

"I'll make a call first. Cheers, Tom. Good luck." Gwen bowed her head at the waving lord as a goodbye. "And thank you, Aria. Don't work yourself too hard, and if anything outside your scope of work happens, Message me immediately."

"None would dare to interrupt the work of the Shard," Aria assured her. "The loss would far outweigh the gains. Besides, Lord Thomas is here for a while yet."

"Indeed. Before we're rivals, we're the face of the Mageocracy," Thomas offered himself in what Gwen saw as a gesture of goodwill. "If anyone attacks your accountants, I'll ensure the Stasis Chamber is the best thing they could wish for."

Gwen thanked the man again, gathered Lulan, Messaged Richard, and then made her way toward the Divination Array. She notified Dede and Golos as well. Her duck Gwen could afford to fit into the ISTC, but Golos would have to make his way over or wait for her summons. Whatever their choices, she was happy to entertain them.

As for herself, her mind quickly flew toward the horizon of the South Sea.

Just what, she wondered, would a serpent of the Dreamtime, one that had existed since the epoch of the Thunder Lizards, know about the phantom menace of the climate crisis?

There is another reason why Gwen's company to Sydney did not include Yue or her team.

The ISTC exchange between Auckland and Sydney was just over two thousand kilometres, costing a hefty chunk of HDMs that would make most Magisters' eyes water. While Gwen could afford such a holiday, the cost for Yue and her team's transportation would have to come out of someone's pockets, and neither Sydney nor Auckland had HDMs to spare on whims and frivolities.

As the Sydney interchange was embedded within the Tower, Gwen told Richard to prepare for her visit to her Opa in Hunter's region. In the meanwhile, she paid a visit upstairs to Gunther and Alesia.

Unfortunately, Alesia was away on duty, though she found Gunther in-between meetings.

"I've been keeping a close eye on the reports. Well done on the Auckland front." Her brother-in-craft gave her a pat on the shoulder, then brought her in for a hug. "I feel Master would be very happy if he were to see you as you are now."

Gwen aided the awkward German with a returned pat on the man's broad back. "It's nothing, brother. I was just doing my job."

"Nonetheless, a pack of Dragon Turtles! And an Elemental Prince as well. _Well done_ doesn't cover the half of it." The man relaxed. "Our very own _War Mage_ , I am almost tempted to bring you back to Sydney."

"I'll be happy to return." Gwen pulled herself away, finally finding the opportunity to introduce her shadow. "Gunther, this is Lulan Li. From Shanghai, if you recall?"

"Master Shultz." Her Sword Mage bowed from the waist. "I have great admiration for your duty and prowess, Tower Master. It's an honour to meet you."

"It's a pleasure to meet you as well, Lulan. Thank you for keeping an eye on our troublesome sister."

Gunther extended a hand to shake the Sword Mage's trembling digits. Lulan grew red as a beet, unused to such an expression from a man higher in status than her Sect Leader by order of magnitudes.

Gwen amused herself with Lulan's starstruck expression of child-like wonder and awe, glad that Lulu was still capable of such an expression. "So, should I file to return to Sydney?"

"And leave your HDMs, your lord and ladies, your Isle of Dogs?" Gunther laughed, retracting his hand so that Lulan could relax. "Sydney's too small of a city for someone of your talents, Gwen."

"That isn't very convincing, brother." Gwen snorted. "Coming from the Morning Star, Gunther _von_ Shultz."

The man shook his head. "So, you'll be visiting the Serpent, then?"

"I shall. Will you and Allie be coming this time? Remember what we discussed?"

To her surprise, the man declined. "No, I prefer to let sleeping serpents lie."

"But you're my _siblings_ ," Gwen said. "And in China, Ayxin and Ruxin are pledged with the CCP or the other way around. I recently heard that Sythinthimryr from Carrauntoohil has a pact with the Hollands. You don't think having Almudj aide you would help?"

Gunther invited her to relax. "Gwen, if we wanted to contact Almudj, then your Master would have done it. Alesia and I aren't very involved with the non-Australian period of Master's life, but I still know he's an acquaintance of Demi-god beings, like the Elves from Tryfan. Don't you think they could help? Why do you think Master never asked about the Snake? What had he said?"

"He said there's no point because Almudj won't see things in the limited perspective of mortals."

"Correct, and that point hasn't changed," Gunther said. "It's been five years since you've met the Snake. Has it ever been interested in anything you've done?"

"I guess not," Gwen confessed. Other than cleansing her Yinglong's blessing, Al's chill was glacial.

"Go see your Patron." Gunther's tone grew serious. "But keep us out of it, keep Sydney out of it. If it wants something, let us know immediately. Meanwhile, demand _nothing_ , certainly not for me, Alesia, the city, or Oceania. We can't… afford the favour, nor can I imagine the cost of repaying it if it does feel generous."

"Alright, I understand," Gwen relented. "So I'll be taking just Richard and Lulu with me, then? Yes, I'll take care."

She did not believe it was a big deal for Al to dabble the pair with its love juice. Certainly, she would love to have a wonderful nephew or niece come next year.

"Take _extreme_ care," Gunther warned her while looking at Lulan. "The Snake is infamous for disliking… _strangers_."

"I'll be careful," Gwen assured the Tower Master, suddenly feeling paranoid. Are Richard and co _strangers?_ She hadn't assumed so, but now, she suddenly wasn't so sure.