"Ramming speed!" Lei-bup commanded his kin in the engine room to punish the behemoth's whirling turbine. Thus far, their run of luck had persisted, for the ship's instruments had been made for "NoMs".

Upon the horizon, the floating island of hulks amassed by Biplipodoofu laid sprawled like a timid mermaid, arms-wide and ready to receive the Laioming's violent intrusion.

"Warriors of the Great Shoal!" Lei-bup stood opposite the cracked glass of the forecastle bridge, in his hand, a can of Spam, polished to a golden-glean, was held aloft. These were the remaining vessels of flesh from the Pale Priestess' pilgrimage on Turd Island, one of the few that now remained. "Comrades of the Shoal! Lend me your strength! Give yourselves so that all may attain our promised land!"

From above the sea's surface and below, Lei-Bup's call to a higher power traversed through the multi-kilometre swarm of swimming bodies, fuelled by the mental energies of some million-strong Mermen desiring delivery from the tyranny of the ocean's savage freedom.

“Weee—Weeee—“

“Gweee—Gweeee— Gweeee—“

“GWEEE—GWEEEN— GWEEENGH— GWEEENGH—“

_CRASH!_

In the fashion of tectonic plates colliding, the thrumming bow of the Liaoming kissed the rusted metal of the wrecks that made up the upper segment of Blightreef and gifted its unflattering name.

Straightaway, a quaking shudder ran through the super tanker's internal structure, followed by the ear-splitting din of metal scraping on metal. A resounding crash flooded the cabin as the momentum of the ship transferred forwards, casting Lei-bup against the console; after which the Liaoming pushed through.

A modern ship with only a decade of service, the Liaoming resembled an iron claymore, crumpling the rusty origami of time-collected flotsam. With barely a hint of resistance, the tanker penetrated the Merman port of Blightreef, travelling so far "inland" as to cleave the wreck-heaped island in twain.

"Comrades! Drop the anchors!" Lei-Bup knew the opportunity had ripened.

Below, the shoal's twin Ningen beasts, each an expanse of dumb muscle, tugged on the ship's tethered anchors. On the crumpled forecastle deck, hawsepipes holding three tons of Dwarven dark-steel discharged its coiled cargo, screaming red hot as its "M" shaped weight-ends plunged below.

From Blightreef, a school of Hammerhead guards, rising to strip the white-blubbered Ningen of their flesh, instead met with the unimaginable force of two descending blocks of metal some ten-metres across. In the anchor's passing, a bloody hole appeared in the shoal of slavering sharks as if by sorcery, with the sizzling chain further decimating their numbers by the dozen.

Lei-Bup's minions cleared from the listing ship. The Liaoming itself bit into the water with a violent splash; then, as the chains reached their constrained length, it rapidly began to sink, lead by the crumpling bow.

Inside the bridge, the supertanker's instruments sparked and fizzled as the ship traversed in a direction it was never designed for, bursting into arcane flames. When the sea rose, the storm-proof Wall of Force around the bridge lasted only thirty seconds, dashing Lei-bup and his fellows violently against the newly pressurised cabin.

Banishing the stars from his eyes, Lei-Bup wiped sticky blood from every orifice as the whitewater washed into the bridge's interior. By all measures, like the others, his mistake should have been fatal, his bone and muscles reduced to a pulp.

Yet, fuelled by the faith from the Elder Being's million-strong servants, he could feel his organs mending even as his lungs switched from air to water. In one hand, he still clutched his can of crushed Spam, while inside his torso, fragmented ribs quickly reformed.

“Weee—Weeee—“

“Gweee—Gweeee— Gweeee—“

“GWEEE—GWEEEN— GWEEENGH— GWEEENGH—“

The cries of the shoal vibrated through the water, conjoined with the warping lament of deforming metal to drown out all sound. Once past the waterline, the supertanker plummeted, dragged by the Ningen and its twin anchors, sending containers, crates, cranes, and bits of sheet metal racing toward the seafloor.

"Praise be to the Pale Priestess!" Lei-bup's command vibrated through the Geat Shoal.

"Praise!" ten thousand faithful answered.

"Praise be to the Shoggoth! Hear us! Pale Priestess! Deliver unto us ascension!"

"Praise!" a hundred thousand voices echoed.

"Praise be to the Elder ones, who art Mother and Father!"

"WEEE— WEEE— WEEE—" A million howling beings of the deep swirled around the city of Blightreef, their collected volume sending bits of coral and old barnacles from the jutting spires. "GWEEE—GWEEEN— GWEEENGH!"

Where Lei-bup pointed the momentum of the faithful, the city's defences were likewise whipped into a frenzy. The elite guards of the Kraken, the two dominant Clans, the Tigermaw and the Hammerhead Shark-folk, were rousing the population to defend their lord. The problem though was that since the arrival of the Great Shoal, Lei-bup had been peppering the city with propaganda that all would be equal under the Pale Priestess. The idea itself was absurd, at least for Mermen living under the shadow of a higher-life form— and yet, Lei-bup's ascension was living proof that there was some truth to his promise. Under the watchful gaze of the all-seeing Elder Gods, Lei-bup promised that tyranny would be a thing of the past, and all who laboured would receive their share of fish and sea.

Initially, thousands of Mermen, drawn to the allure of food dispensed by the Great Shoal had joined Lei-bup. But following a violent and rapid crackdown from the Kraken's Elite Guard, the Bightreef's proletariat was forced to relocate into the city's coral interior.

"WAIT FOR THE KRAKEN TO SHOW ITSELF!" Lei-bup howled from the inundated bridge as the last of the instruments fizzled. "Blo-bup! Fu-bup! Get ready to overload the Shields! Fear not for thy Cores, comrades! The Pale Priestess Protects! As one, we art fodder! Together, we art Leviathan!"

_Would his kin survive?_ Lei-bup could only hope that they too had faith.

Under his feet, the supertanker shuddered; what little automated defence its superstructure still possessed withdrew until only the engine room and the Shielding Core remained operational. Somewhere within the ship's bowels, the fellow cultists of Lei-bup, his blood relatives, Blo-bup and Fu-bup, turned the dials on the instrument panels until their Cores were on the verge of splintering like overheated glass.

"The Priestess preserves!" his men answered over the spluttering, water-logged intercom Glyphs, amazed that their High Priests' words seemed to resonate within their heads. Each by each, they produced their cans of Spam and held the shiny metal close to their chest, where their Cores were beginning to unravel. "For the Shoal, comrade!"

"For the SH—"

A howl of tortured metal twisting and bending as the sinking tanker passed the halfway mark resounded. This deep, the micro blood vessels on Blo-bup and Fu-bup's fishy face erupted as the pressure from the descending hulk mangled their fishy forms. Even as the world turned dark, they held their cans of Spam, for they were the survivors of the Shoggoth's descent. They alone out of the thousands had endured! Such a thing had to be providence, Blo-bup and Fu-bup believed, for there existed no explanation for their continuance other than the especial care of an all-powerful creator.

“GWEEE—GWEEEN— GWEEENGH— GWEEENGH—“

The Great Shoal's chanting hammered at the hull.

"The KRAKEN COMES!" Lei-bup's voice was the last thing the cousins heard. "Comrades! Let none retreat! The Pale Priestess is _watching us!_ "

The Kraken Biplipodoofu was an old monster.

To say that it was as old as Dragons would be an understatement, for things in the deep aged very slowly and drank deeply from the Elemental Plane of Water, allowing their powers to grow as unfathomable as the ocean's depth.

A century ago, he had arrived at Blightreef to claim it for his own. The city had been a raider's den then, consisting of nought but jutting crags of deep-sea coral sheltering shoals of Tigermaws and Hammerheads caught in perpetual conflict.

The reason for their conflict was Blightreef itself— for beneath the city was a ley-point where the continental shelves met, so abundant with mana that it had attracted the aimlessly drifting form of Biplipodoofu, an emerging master newly set out from the Abyssal Trenches.

Initially, Biplipodoofu had been wary. Tales of Dragons ruling the eastern seas had always circulated in this part of the ocean, and though Biplipodoofu did not think itself inferior, it also knew that Krakens were no match against an existence as ancient as the sea itself.

Thankfully, Krakens were patient schemers. After a decade of lurking, Biplipodoofu was appalled to find that no Water Dragons ruled these waters. It was as though these creatures who owned vast tracts of the ocean in the long dark had no interest in these shallow but rich waters.

It was a prospect which suited Biplipodoofu just fine.

Once the Kraken's mind was made up, Biplipodoofu moved on Blight Reef with brutal efficiency, quelling the tribal conflict between the shark-tribes. As a superior existence, he had invited their leaders to negotiate— then crushed the Chieftains into cankerous globs of mutilated pulp in front of their kin.

Over the next century, Biplipodoofu built on the existing city. With his tentacles dipped into the ley-line, his form grew massive and bloated, accumulating far more power than his still-wandering brethren. Naturally, greedy challengers presented themselves— Deep Whales, Titan Jellies, a Mindweaver Lungfish— twice he fought off older Krakens, absorbing the Essence from his victims to bolster his power.

Then came "The Madness".

Biplipodoofu, far wiser than the simple-minded Mermen thanks to the knowledge baked into his genes, knew it to be Dragon Fear. The Kraken had felt Dragon Fear before, but this was different. What he now experienced was the insane rage of something primordial, hailing from a time when the oceans were still unfilled; when the Kraken-kind still wallowed in their abyssal pools of ancient brine.

Never had Biplipodoofu been more thankful that his Core was bolstered by a century of feeding on the mana node. While his minions rampaged, the raging torrent of rippling mana merely filled him with violent agitation, causing Biplipodoofu to crawl from the depth to exercise an unbidden impulse for ultraviolence.

When he emerged, the usually clear water was hazy with fish blood, salty with spilt guts and churning with white flesh. His shark-troops had gone wild with terror and were marauding through the metropolis of millions, indiscriminately murdering as they went. Everywhere, every fish from the flat-bodied Manta-folk to the slender-waisted Hag-kin fought fin and claw in an orgy of destruction.

Biplipodoofu did his best to save the city from eating itself into extinction, but even with his powers, he managed only to quell a minor quadrant. As for the rest— Biplipodoofu despaired as his subjects emerged from coral and crag to commit mass murder-suicide.

In the aftermath of the Madness, Biplipodoofu had sent out his feelers into the surrounding waters. What surprised him was that all the Mermen Kingdoms had launched a Holy War against the Humans.

For the next few decades, Biplipodoofu defended his domain from privateers. A curious thing that happened was that ships— sometimes steered by Humans and sometimes as abandoned jetsam, began to collect above the city, driven by some unseen current likely responding to the ley-lines.

These hulks smashed together, sometimes sinking to form new reefs, otherwise joining the flotilla until they became a small island unto itself. On these wayward ships came Humans, which at first Biplipodoofu tried to eat, though he felt offended by their fibrous tissue. Interestingly, the Humans held no hostility to Blightreef and instead informed his sharks that they were willing to trade, facilitating something Biplipodoofu had not ever considered before— the ability to harvest exotic goods from the surface.

"Bring me Crystals," Biplipodoofu commanded the Humans, who said they hailed from the Greys. "And earthly morsels of every kind. I will trade you the Cores and flesh of my slaves."

And so, despite losing his century-long labour to the Madness, Biplipodoofu prospered, feeding on succulent things abducted from beyond the shoreline. Crystals of all elements, the flesh of strange creatures from plains and mountains, grains and produce from the Fae Folk filtered into Blightreef. Biplipodoofu also traded for food to expand his city, for the humans had mastered a means of generating endless grain, a feat Biplipodoofu could not replicate underwater. For this, the Kraken praised his wisdom, for the bilateral beneficence was a difficult scale to balance.

The Mermen hatred of Humans was a palpable thing, for their ancestors spoke of giant nets, fathoms deep and kilometres across, that would rake the seabed. Indiscriminately, these would abduct the fish folk's warriors, females and children to be dismembered on the Human's giant tankers. Others told tales of madness derived from the passing ships armed with "Shielding" that decimated their reefs, rupturing their eggs, or drove their young ones to suicide. All who lectured of the Humans wished for their destruction, a sentiment that Biplipodoofu had manipulated to unite the city.

To keep the facade, Biplipodoofu had asked the "Grey" Humans to send him prisoners. These he fed into the city's gladiatorial arenas, places were the Mermen merited out the savage justice of the sea.

For thirty-odd revolutions after the Madness, all had proceeded swimmingly— until the arrival of this "Great Shoal".

At first, the Kraken paid them no heed. A swarm of this size was no real threat to himself, especially when he discovered that their leader was a Mermen of the lowest order known as Lei-bup, a coast-dwelling mud-skipper!

If Biplipodoofu's parrot beaks could form a smile, he may very well have smiled in the guise of those Grey Human traders.

What was Biplipodoofu? An adult Kraken-kin! The sole surviving spawn of a million eggs! How many siblings had he consumed, how many monsters of the deep had Biplipodoofu bested? Even faced with the hard-headed Dragon Whales' warrior hunter-killers who pursued his kind for sport, Biplipodoofu had prevailed, strangling the son-of-a-drake to death by crushing their deep-diving lungs!

As for the coastal Merman, Lei-bup was an existence who could not match one sucker-fang on Biplipodoofu's two-dozen tentacles. Why should he worry about a shoal lead by such an insignificant being? Even if one of his guards filleted the minnow and presented Lei-bup with that Human flavouring— wasabi, it would lack sufficient taste.

And so, Biplipodoofu had kept one eye open as he watched the events unfold above.

His only thought was that this incoming shoal, with its diversity of ocean-kin, could revitalise Blightreef and give him more parts to trade to the "Grey" Humans. That was why, even as the "Great Shoal" began their blasphemous chanting, Biplipodoofu kept his calm.

That is until his precious port of smashed-up human ships erupted.

"BLOPUPUPU!" Biplipodoofu swore, sending such shockwaves out from the undercity that his guards instantly perished from the pressure.

His ink-sacks quivered with inconceivable fury! It was one thing to fight him, teeth against beak, hot fin against slimy tentacle, but the port was Biplipodoofu's livelihood, the source of his joy! How dare this Lei-bup touch what doesn't belong to his stunted fins!

The rush of raw and rare emotions coursing through Biplipodoofu tore his city apart. As he rose from the depth, Blightreef's districts shattered, entire columns of coral apartments toppled as Biplipodoofu's demi-god body slithered upward, ready to eradicate this "Great Shoal" and crush its insignificant, worm-like leader.

"GUARDS!" Biplipodoofu's order rang out, rousing the city's inhabitants. "Consume these invaders! Banish them to the deep! Feast on their females and young!"

Around his city, the "Great Shoal" had formed an enormous ring of silver, neither attacking nor retreating, merely chanting some strange, eldritch cry of "Weeee—" an alien syllable that made Biplipodoofu's scarlet skin crawl.

“GWEEE—GWEEEN— GWEEENGH— GWEEENGH—“ The chants grew louder.

The Kraken raised its enormous eye toward the murky surface above.

Something was coming.

_A ship!_ Biplipodoofu recognised the silhouette at once. He could tell from the currents that it was falling rapidly toward his city.

THIS MUD-DWELLING BOBBIT WORM! Biplipodoofu abruptly understood his mistake; he had misread his enemy's goal! This Lei-bup was trying to destroy his city! That which now fell was what the Grey Humans called a supertanker, a Human-made thing larger than Biplipodoofu himself! If such a mass crashed into his city, his operations would be ruined! All the time he had spent building up Blightreef to service his every whim and pleasure: the breeding pits, the gladiatorial arenas, the endless games of inter-feuding that pleased his mind to no end, it would all cease to exist! Blightreef would become just that, a blighted reef!

Biplipodoofu grew so furious that a gush of hot ink polluted the seawater in his vicinity.

No! He would not let the mewling minnow have his way!

With one push, Biplipodoofu surged upward, his powerful body displacing the water so rapidly a torrent of air bubbles formed. Within his majestic, carmine body, his Kraken-blood burned blue and black, commanding the ocean currents to obey his command. With all his strength, Biplipodoofu was confident; he could turn the ship's falling trajectory and thwart this Lei-bup!

"BLUBLBUFU!" Biplipodoofu growled as the ship's anchor pierced his shoal of minions, turning dozens of warriors into chowder. Following behind was the enormous shape of the tanker, approaching as though it were a steel-wrought Leviathan, trailing bubbles even as it disintegrated. Two Ningen, as dumb as they were pallid, broke away and fled for the protection of the ring of invaders, pursued by hundreds of his sharks.

"CURRENTS! OBEY ME!" Biplipodoofu imposed his will on the incomprehensible mass of water surrounding his being.

An invisible nova formed around the Kraken as the stowed mana within his Core grew to encompass the region of his being. The arcana held in his ancient blood boiled within his dilating veins, sending his six-hearts into a pulsing frenzy.

Unseen currents tormented the space between city and ship.

Down the tanker came and up the Kraken went; an immovable force meeting the unstoppable object.

Lei-bup felt the trajectory of the tanker shift and so knew that the eye of Biplipodoofu was upon them.

With the cries of _Weee—_ still bouncing inside his head, he prayed that his ploy would strike true and that the ship, with its resonating crystal, would crush the rising Kraken.

When their opposing forces met, a skull-splitting groan of twisting steel resounded. If the Liaoming could feel agony, then its sinews were now being wrenched from its bones.

Lei-bup felt his spine shudder. The Kraken was deflecting the ship!

It was impossible to imagine that such a feat was at all possible, even for the Pale Priestess. As robust as her Emissary of the Elder Ones could be, this was a supertanker of unimaginable weight bearing down like a mountain! How could one creature, even if its age and size were on the tier of ocean royalty, overcome the blunt physics of overwhelming mass?

Seconds later, Lei-bup received his answer. With a deep, metallic moan of overstressed metal, the Liaoming began to fall apart, its internal structure finally failing from the abuse.

Lei-bup prayed for the second stage of his plan.

The resonance from the Shielding Core, now close enough to be felt by their targets, thrummed and thrived, sending the city's defenders into a crazed frenzy. The organised shoals of Tigermaws and Hammerheads either fell apart or were dispersed as their members attempted to get away from the Core shredding agony of Abjuration magic. If the city's forces could be mitigated, Lei-bup hoped, then they could focus the Kraken.

From the bridge, Lei-bup could see the immense form of Biplipodoofu squirming in fury from the vibration. He also knew the respite was temporary, as soon as the ocean water flooded into the engine room, the resonator would cease its function.

After that, the Kraken would feast.

In the end, the shoal's path was pre-ordained.

"COMRADES, HEAR ME!" He called out to the teeming masses. "THE TIME HAS COME!"

With the golden can of Spam held high, he poured his faith and belief into his next words. "PRAISE YOG! CALL HIM! OPEN THE GATES!"

From around the city, the encircling shoal moved with the fluidity of a living thing, tightening their circumference. From his vantage in the crumbling bridge, Lei-bup could see that vaguely, the Great Shoal had obeyed his will and formed the Mandala he had meticulously recollected.

On their journey through the sea, he had attempted many times to call forth the Shoggoth, to plumb the depth of the Pale Priestess' craft. These were the times when the shoal had consumed sea tribes too stubborn to convert to the great commune, putting no less than ten thousand heretics to the trident. Yet, each time, Lei-bup had failed— and in those times, he wondered if his lack was to blame, or if some other arcane mechanism was involved.

Now, there was no more room for doubt.

With the Great Shoal joined and the city rising to resist their existential deliverance, all now followed the rite of summoning. This time, the Mermen gulped, how many of the faithful would give their lives for the Elder Ones? How many in the shoal truly believed?

Lei-bup steeled his faith. Maybe that was the point. Without a baptism of blood, how could the faithful be weeded from those who followed merely out of fear and self-preservation? What the Pale Priestess desired was absolute loyalty; what the Elder Things wanted was the commitment of both Core and Essence. Take himself— had Lei-bup not given up his tribe to be so anointed? Why should these neophytes be spared?

“GWEEE—GWEEEN— GWEEENGH— GWEEENGH—“

The ebb and flow of faith rose and fell.

Outside the bridge, the battle began.

"PRAISE!" Lei-bup cried out. "WEEE— WEEE—"

The waters of the Blightreef grew gradually pink as the great wheel of teeth, fin and claw met the city's defenders in savage disharmony. His school of the devoted, having accustomed itself to the resonance for many days, crushed Blightreef's howling, rag-tag marauders. The heartening sight lasted only a few minutes, for even as the shoal constricted its foe, the Liaoming choked on its Siren's song, then died.

Outside the bridge, the Kraken was now physically diverting the ship from its city. It was searching for him, Lei-bup knew, for that was how the creatures of the sea fought; minion-against-minion, leader-against-leader. In this regard, Lei-bup was a dishonourable coward.

A massive "W' shaped pupil passed the window.

It's multi-cloured, metallic-seeming iris abruptly focused on the fish hiding inside the small metal cage.

Knowing the end was nigh, a strange calm overcame Lei-bup.

The desperation he had felt a moment ago gave way to an indescribable certainty.

The Priestess was watching and listening, Lei-bup discerned. Something was happening.

Even as the bridge collapsed and crumpled under the Kraken's tyrannic strength, Lei-bup sat back in his captain's chair and directed the Great Shoal, correcting its course, ensuring that the circle remained accurate to the summoning Mandala.

Outside, with one swipe of a mighty tentacle, a thousand faithful fishes perished. Against the cracked and ruptured windows of the bridge, a great eye pressed itself upon the frame, its meniscus lens bulging against the jagged borders.

"I FOUND YOU!" the Kraken's voice was enough to shatter the windows that remained.

Lei-bup did not feel the need to answer the Kraken.

Around them, the blood-frothed waters churned. Distinctly, as before, he sensed the connection between worlds weaken. It was a familiar feeling, that strange vertigo which only creatures living on land could genuinely comprehend.

In the end, "sacrifice" was the key.

Only in the madness of ultraviolence could the Shoggoth be conjured. Only bathed in belief could Shub-Niggurath's will be known.

Only then would Yog send forth its Emissary.

Only by blood would the gates conjoin.

When the sea outside the shattered bridge suddenly darkened, Lei-bup opened his eyes. Bewildered by the rift in the Planes, the Kraken's eyeball swivelled in its socket.

"On the contrary, Master Biplipodoofu," the High Priest spoke with a faint, toothy smile at the ink-jetting Kraken. "I fear our Lord and Saviour has found YOU."

Llyn Alaw.

Gwen recalled too late that a Shield could act as an umbrella, and so employed an Extend Range meta-magic to create a semi-dome that encompassed both herself and Golos.

Gingerly utilising Conjure Water, she washed her mouth, then hosed themselves free of the fishy downpour.

With her barrier in place, the roaring storm of blood grew muted, though all around them, the howling WEEEE— seemed to defy all applications of Abjuration.

"I've got nothing to do with this," Golos assured her. "Calamity… when did the Quasi-Elemental Plane of the Void become inhabited by fish?"

Forcing herself to ignore the "tinnitus", Gwen concurred that Golos was not the culprit here. What she couldn't guess was why an enormous eye, now torn to shreds, had flooded the entire dais with its milk-white internal juices. Paranoid, she searched for her spectators, conceiving through their absence that Brown and company must have retreated to safety.

"Golos, cover me." Gwen knelt to check her summoning Mandala.

In her studied eyes, the etched Glyphs were all in place. It made sense, for that was the reason why she had summoned Golos before the Shoggoth. If her drawing proved faulty or warped by some strange, unknown phenomenon, Gogo would have failed to materialise. Nonetheless, for insurance, she injected fresh mana into the Mueller-Burbank Octogramic Sigil that governed the contractual aspects of the Mandala, finding her inscription without flaw.

"Okay..." Gwen tsked. If the summoning was perfect, why was her Planar Ally spell raining blood and fish? Was bread or locusts going to follow? "This doesn't make any sense…"

"Calamity, your Shoggoth has descended," Golos spoke using their Empathic Link, for the WEEEEE— was unceasing. "I think it was in the middle of dinner."

Girl and Wyvern both looked out into the sorcerously-lit clearing, where piles of the Shoggoth's tendrils, some studded with eyes but mostly armed with lamprey lips, coiled like soft-serve ice cream onto the Triffid grove. The instant Shoggoth and Triffid-tree made contact, an explosion of ectoplasm splattered forth, covering an area about the size of a football field, smothering the strange, alien jungle.

Now that Gwen had time to take it all in, the scene around her was surreal beyond belief.

First, the milk-pus from the ruptured eye that emerged had painted the lake-forest white. Then, the pelting, pellet sized blood-rain had turned it pink and scarlet. Belatedly, like cords of clotted blood, the Shoggoth's tendrils hung from the heavens, where even now the portal into the Quasi-Elemental Plane of the Void vomited up its grotesque, formless body.

"Shall we go up?" Gwen asked after a while, finding that there was little else she could do. "I've yet to see Shoggy in its entirety."

Golos agreed; though the Wyvern's booming affirmation grew mute against the raging WEEEE—

_Ding! Ding!_ Another Message spell bloomed beside her face, though answering the damned thing was impossible. Both inside her head and as a physical manifestation, the howling voices drowned out all thought.

"I CAN'T HEAR ANYTHING RIGHT NOW!" she shouted back into the Message spell. "TALK LATER! SHOGGY IS DANDY! I DON'T KNOW WHY THERE IS FISH!"

"Are they going to believe that?" Golos asked with a snort.

"God knows," Gwen answered through their mental link. "I sure as hell don't. Flight!"

Gwen rose into the air with her Wyvern, keeping them shielded and protected from the soft archery of offal. "Look—"

From up on high, she could guess that the gobs of red flesh pelting down belonged to one creature. She had no idea what it was— but there were bits of tentacles, intestine and stranger things. The most remarkable piece of ejecta was the now perforated meniscus lens that covered the "W" shaped eye.

Gwen grew gradually confident that this was no fuck-up of her making. The Void was an unpredictable Plane, and no one knew what existed beyond the veil. Maybe the Shoggoth was wresting with another resident, and she had caught it in the middle of a throwdown? After all, Void Calamari was no less horrific than the lampreys she summoned. Both were aquatic-looking, slimy and phallic, and both had sucker-disk mouth-things. If the Triffids were engaged in a blood-soaked orgy and her spectators were braying, bellowing, and writhing, chanting "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!" that would be someone else's story.

But nothing of the sort happened, and her Shoggoth seemed in perfect health. She couldn't vouch for the hundreds of thousands of fish-bits that were falling, but that giant eye that had appeared was similar enough to the smaller squid eyes that her Shoggoth usually sported.

The question then, was why the strange chant? And most importantly, why the fish? Was it because she was guilty about Mermen otoro? Maybe next time, she should think about salad.

Just as well, she formulated answers for her detractors. "I am the student here, you're the Masters..." she would say to them, why would a group of researchers ask an eighteen-year-old-girl with no more than four years of formal education under her belt to rationalise a world-first Void phenomenon? Was she supposed to interrogate her Shoggoth?

"It's growing larger still." Golos brought her back to the present.

Gwen concurred. Her Shoggoth now covered the span of the lake and was rapidly expanding as it digested the verdant Triffid forest.

Now and then, a living Triffid emerged to challenge the thing, only to be smothered by ethereal tendrils armed with gibbering mouths. These bit into the Triffid, taking it apart in the manner of an elephant overpowered by floating maws attached to an endless stomach. Further on, a Hydraffid burst forth, attempting to defend its portion of the grove, only to be tenderly devoured over ten-odd minutes. The Shoggoth wasn't fast, but it was fastidious. Against monsters, its toothy apertures rivalled Golos' chompers. For the thorn-walls, it first applied the sticky ectoplasm, then unleashed the main body's multitude of mouths. All the while, intermittent eyes appeared and disappeared, swivelling in their pockets of grey goo, searching for prey.

Where the Shoggoth passed, only bare rock slimy with semi-clear discharge remained. Gwen had half-a-mind to descend and examine if Triffid spores remained but felt compelled to observe her creature's progress.

Over the next hour, the discordant Gweeegn— Gweeegn— Gweeegn— faded, as did the rain of blood from above. Gwen thanked the Sleeper of R'lyeh that her prediction came true— that upon her Shoggoth exiting the summoning rift, the natural elasticity of the Prime Elemental Plane would weld shut the ethereal tear, cutting her creature from siphoning the mana it needed to remain manifested.

"I am back," Gwen once more addressed the Message spell. "The noise is gone. How's everyone?"

"… Gwen? Are you alright?" it was Brown who answered. "You've given us quite the fright."

"I can imagine," Gwen replied as jovially as she could muster. "For the record, I was in no danger. Moreover, Shoggy is taking care of the forest as planned."

"We can see that." Brown paused. "Any notion why the rain of blood? You're not a Necromantic Blood Mage, are you?"

"I hope not. I believe Shoggy was in the middle of lunch," Gwen answered honestly. "There's so much we don't know about the Void and what's living in it."

"That's God's truth." Brown hesitated. "Are you in control?"

Gwen willed the Shoggoth to pause its hunger. When no response came, she reported her finding.

"No control, I am afraid. Limited Identify Friend-Foe is the best Shoggy can manage."

"I see. We'll keep observing. Once enough of the island is clear; secondary operation will begin. I'll keep you informed."

"Roger that." Gwen watched the Shoggoth's expansion. Thus far, the absurd growth rate of the creature remained unabated. Was there that much vitality in the trees? Gwen doubted it. Earlier, Caliban had reported great dissatisfaction for the thorn wall. If so, how was it that her Shoggoth was so vigorous? Even as a laywoman, Gwen understood that the volume of materials needed to fill ever-larger spaces was exponential. To cover so much forest so quickly, just how much life were the Triffids leeching from the land? If so, then she could see why the Elves had demanded a Purge.

"Even the trees are fleeing." Golos chortled. "You really are a Calamity."

Gwen eyed the regions of the island that remained untouched, feeling a tiny tingle tickle her conscience. Now that the rain of seafood and the high-pitched wailing ceased, the susurration of the Shoggoth's murderous march was madness-inducing.

So the creatures did know fear, Gwen pondered the strange display. What would this world's Vegans say if they could see that even weeds understood despair?

"Let's give Shoggy a hand." She eyed her Wyvern's potbelly, suddenly wishful for enterprising distractions. "You can get some exercise, and I can gather some spare change."

The blood made it hard for Lei-bup's gills to function. The gory "air" felt so thick, especially when mixed with the ink from the Kraken.

All around Lei-bup was an impenetrable murk— not for lack of light, but that he swam in a thick soup of death, foetid with floating particles of Mermen, Kraken and ectoplasm.

Was he dead and now afloat in the primordial stream of life? Lei-bup starkly meditated, until something moved in the dark. A tentacle drifted in and out of sight, appearing and disappearing in the ectoplasmic gloop.

His lidless eyes attempted to focus, but there was nothing to be seen past the length of his own hands. When he churned the water, bits of fish-lip, tissue, and an occasional eyeball came floating by, propelled by some unseen current.

"ARRRRGGH—" In the uncertain distance, someone screamed, then its fearful cry was abruptly cut short.

"O Emissary! Mercy—" Another voice howled out its guts. There was a sound of bones crunching, then that too fell silent.

Lei-bup attempted to tap into the Great Shoal as he had done so before.

"Comrades..." he paused when a renewed pulse of vertigo washed over his trembling body. In the murk, something moved, parting the waters, drinking-in the chowder of dismembered carcasses.

An eye appeared, about the size of Lei-bup himself, with a "W" shaped iris yellow in the middle but emerald nearer the edge. There was something familiar about the colour— something that Lei-bup felt he should recall once his mind returned to clarity from the madness that now strangled his throbbing, frontal lobe.

Two more eyes appeared.

Then three and four, all moving independently.

In a minute, a dozen eyes, each swimming in ectoplasmic spheroids of vaguely organic strips attached to prehensile tendrils, gazed at Lei-bup as if caressing his quaking soul.

The High Priest swallowed. In his hand, the crumpled can of SPAM felt hard and cold, not at all the relic he had upheld to be the light and the truth.

"O Emissary of the Elder One…" Lei-bup stood paralysed, unable to move their merest fibre of his being. Was his faith sufficient? How much of the Great Shoal remained apart from himself? Would the miracle of the Deep One's mercy happen for the third time? A dozen questions raced through Lei-bup's fishy brain as his eyes swivelled in their sockets.

"How may your humble servant serve?" he begged of the eldritch manifestation.

The eyes came closer.

Lei-bup forcibly reminded himself that he should welcome oblivion, for only past the Void's veil can a fish be one with the body of an Elder Being. Such was the sacrifice the all-consuming ones demanded; it was not Lei-bup's intent to deny his patron.

Feebly, he raised the Spam, then sunk to his knees.

"O Elder One." Lei-bup's lips trembled. He wished that like Humans, he had eyelids, for thanks to the spiritual vitality gifted by the Great Shoal, Lei-bup had no doubt he would be eaten alive. "Your servant is ready."

Even now, somewhere out in the blood-dimmed muck, intermittent cries of guttural terror, together with the sound of flesh rending flesh tested his resolve. Slowly, gingerly, the tendrils approached to touch Lei-bup's pancaked tin of spilt Spam.

The Merman froze.

He finally recognised the unique colour of the eyes on the Shoggoth.

_She was watching all along!_

Before his mind could recover, Lei-bup found that his vertigo ceased.

"O! O! O!" Lei-bup wept salty tears, his excretions mixing with the bloody brine. He understood at once that the "Gwen" must have intervened ."O Pale Priestess, your servant is undeserving…"

For some time, Lei-bup remained kneeling, holding the SPAM in his hand. Gradually, the seawater regained its clarity; the gore, the ink and the ectoplasm either sunk or were blown away by the ever-cleansing currents from the Elemental Plane of Water.

Like a new-born, Lei-bup emerged into Blightreef, standing atop the shattered bridge overlooking the devastated city. His heart was whole, as was his being. No doubt now existed in his mind.

The Kraken was no more— that much was obvious. Its sole bone stood stabbed into the sodden seafloor like a tombstone. Elsewhere, one of its eyes, partially devoured, floated like a jellyfish's umbrella cap through the pink-tinged water.

Beneath his confident gaze, one by one, the survivors emerged.

"High Priest!" a shout cried out. It was Jinka, the warrior Chief of the Claw Clan. The peerless fighter had three limbs left, though they would eventually grow back. To Lei-bup's amusement, he wore a necklace of Spam polished to a glean. "Did we succeed? Did we defeat a Master of the Abyssal Trenches? We WON?"

"Was there any doubt?" Another cry drifted in with the freshwater. Karasin, the Bluefin Strider Captain, arrived with a dozen of his men. By some unfathomable stretch of arithmetic, they appeared unscathed by the Shoggoth's passing.

"I believed—" Karafin held an empty can of Spam aloft. "I consumed the flesh of the Pale Priestess, and it gave me strength and protection."

"Hooo!" his riders howled in turn, reeling their sword-fish mounts.

"AH—" Jinka slapped his carapace. "You mollusc! I should have thought of that!"

From up on high, Lei-bup's echoing laughter rang out. "I too, had misunderstood. The Priestess had given us the gift of flesh to consume originally, hahaha… To think I've kept these last few tins as a memento of our meeting."

"High Priest!"

"Chief Jinka!"

"Captain Karafin!"

"Lord Lei-bup!"

From here and there, from under the ectoplasm and the flayed carcasses; from the murk at either end of the city, from buried alleyways and collapsed coral apartments, hundreds and thousands of survivors belonging to the Great Shoal began to emerge. Together with Lei-bup's folk were the stunned inhabitants and the surviving Shark-folk. As their worshipful gaze converged upon him, unexplainable strength flooded over Lei-bup's body. From his earlier exhaustion, Lei-bup felt buoyed by an overwhelming vitality, as if the mana in his body was trying to escape the confines of his Core.

From the fore of the sloped forecastle, Lei-bup rose.

It wasn't even a conscious effort. The acolyte of the Pale Priestess simply ascended until he floated above the stark-white shape of the Kraken's bone-Core, behind of which the supertanker similarly stood, thrust into the seafloor, a testament to Lei-bup's conversion of Blightreef by right of might.

"Comrades!" Lei-bup's voice swept through the city, piercing every blockade and barrier. "Who among you still has doubt?"

The proletariat's answer, Lei-bup was glad— required no voice to be heard.


"Forward Observer has confirmed Divi-Loc on Target." The comm-Glyph crackled from the disruptive flow of Negative Energy inundating the airwaves.

"Confirmation Received. _Fire for Effect!_ "

Gwen braced for the explosive exit of artillery shells; what energised instead was the oppressive hiss of compressed mana from inscribed Creature Cores.

From the Bangor basecamp, a Fire Team of hulking Crusader MK V Artillery Golems unleashed the latent energies stowed in their churning mana engines. The granite bluffs of the peninsula glowed brightly as a Daylight spell, turning the dark waters aquamarine. Like comets, a dozen streaks of spellfire arced toward the heavens, then simultaneously erupted over the twitching mass of the bloated Planar monstrosity.

Next came the anticipated roar, followed closely by multifoliate roses of blooming plasma materialising over the glistening form of the Shoggoth. An expanding stink of foetid steam followed, cascading from the cold cliffs as the hot mist mixed with the frigid sea air.

Gwen felt her organs tingle. Her empathic link with the Shoggoth transmuted little else other than hunger or satiation, yet even so, she suffered the sensation of a thousand tiny ants stinging her skin.

Beside her, Magister Brown observed the instrument panels mirroring her health, as well as the status of the amoeba-like Shoggoth.

"Prepare a Cold Round," Major Halifax instructed the artillery team.

"How is it?" Richard took hold of her shaking shoulder.

"Please don't touch me right now." Gwen winced, retreating a step, then exhaled audibly to express her discomfort. "I should be glad Shoggy doesn't possess pain receptors."

From the firing line, tubular crystal caches ejected from the munition case with a hiss, landing red-hot on the sandy basin. The skilled Golem crew then slid home fresh cartridges, this time armed with Elemental Ice, into the spellshaping chamber.

"I think this one is going to sting." Gwen circulated what Essence she managed to recover in four hours.

"Divi-Loc Confirmed!" The Fire Control officer shouted over the intercom. " _Fire for Effect!_ "

An insidious hiss of compressed mana escaped the wands' super-cooled tips as the forcibly compressed Evocation raced from Bangor toward the Shoggoth's still-crisp body. At its highest point, the spells erupted, forming enormous but ephemeral Mandalas.

From these arcane fireworks, the mana manifested into spells.

The grey heaven roared, then a hail consisting of crackling ice the size of small cars pummeled her Planar Ally, erupting into frost novas on impact.

Gwen quaked as unbidden goosebumps rose and fell all over her body. If she had worn a dress and not her bodysuit, she would have seen the muscles under her skin spasm.

"I don't think Shoggy likes the cold," she informed Brown. "Max, I need to sit down."

"Shaa!" Caliban coiled into a seat.
"EE-EE!" Ariel provided the blanket.

"Thanks, boys."

"Something to drink?" Brown motioned for cocoa from their assigned aides.

"Good idea." On a side table, Gwen produced a mug and a bottle of Maotai, then began to unstopper the bottle with her shaking hands.

"Allow me." Petra unscrewed the lid, unlocking the Glyph-seal. Before she poured, she looked to Brown.

"It's fine." The Magister nodded.

"Phase one reduction of mass by twenty-five per cent!" The FO's voice returned over the intercom. "Area of Effect clearance at eighty per cent."

"I understand you feel terrible, Gwen. That said, I am glad that conventional arcanistry is working." Brown took the bottle from Petra and poured Gwen a mugful. "If we can stop your Ally by upscaling mundane arcanistry, that's good news to you."

"How is that good news?" Gwen slammed down the Maotai in two mouthfuls, flushing her cheeks pink with vitality. "Wouldn't that mean Shoggy isn't as useful?"

"On the contrary." Brown refilled her cup to half-full. "That makes it far more useful."

Gwen cocked her head. "You mean, I'll prove less of a danger?"

"And thereby live your day to day life in less danger," Brown clarified. "Not only that, assuming the same base matter services both your Ally and what we've observed from Sobel, then your Master's Ex-Wife's Spirit, Familiar or Ally isn't insurmountable. It proves an important point— that Sydney was a confluence of unfortunate circumstances and not a forgone conclusion."

"The Black Sun," Gwen recalled the terrible orb that had dominated the horizon. "I don't think it's a Shoggoth. I remember it being ethereal, almost intangible. But yes, I can see the similarities."

"A different spell, of course, and a different creature," Brown concurred. "But data is data. The more you know, the more prepared we'll be. I have no doubt Spectre is planning their next disruption."

"Target size reduction, sixty-per cent." The FO's report followed the second volley.

Gwen wiped the excess liquor from her lips. She felt better, though the nastiness from seeing her Shoggy's slow death remained no less acute.

"Finish it with Lightning Rounds." Not far from the observation post. Major Halifax gave the command.

Gwen looked sourly to her spectators. Presently, her audience of Magisters from all over Europe relaxed in a bunker-pit overloaded with Lumen-caster projections. Some appeared amused; others studied data slates; a few cast careful looks toward her general direction.

_Crack-BOOM!_

Over the horizon, a Tempest Strike blue with crackling discharges abruptly banished the darkness. An eye-blink later, Gwen almost jumped from her seat as bolts of electricity sundered her Shoggoth, rendering it tendril from tendril, exploding its ectoplasmic exterior and boiling its multitude of eyes in their gooey sockets.

Panting in tune with the Lightning raking over the landscape, Gwen swallowed the air in gulps, her fingers straining against Caliban's slick, obsidian body.

"Gwen— cut the link," Petra worriedly warned. "You look like you're about to burst a vein."

"It's fine," Gwen grunted. "I brought Shoggy here, so I'll damn well see it home. Tell you what though, after all this, Snowdonia better be fucking amazing."

Within the Department of the Interior, Mycroft Ravenport was the first among equals, and so naturally was the first to lay his hands on the latest biometric and spectrometric data on Gwen Song, the Devourer of Shenyang.

Unfortunately for Mycroft, the privilege came burdened with responsibilities, which was why the Duke of Norfolk had not seen the interior of a bedroom for almost forty-eight hours.

On his desk, Morrigan had laid out every tidbit of information he could gather on the Mageocracy's hopefully sane Sobel. Heavy was the head that wore England's crown, and with matters escalating so quickly, he suspected it would soon demand answers from its eyes and ears.

It was a report the Duke of Norfolk dared not deliver to his superior unless he possessed complete confidence.

For several days now, once his official duties were done, the fastidious Duke had locked himself away in the cold office, feeding the Sprite that governed the Mageocracy's secrets. Sooner or later, Ravenport had anticipated, interest in the girl would reach the highest authority.

What he had not anticipated was that the girl could foment trouble so swiftly and without warning, that circumstances surrounding her person would be a season of many storms, sweeping up plots and sucking-in unwilling bystanders.

Tonglv— Mycroft Ravenport's head throbbed. He wished that he too has such a gift that kept on giving.

When the girl's Wyvern had arrived with her latest Draconic blessing, even Mycroft had to raise both brows. A Magister-Magus team, enslaved under the thumb of an eighteen-year-old student? Not even the Exeters would have the privilege of enjoying such an abundance of human resources. The only saving grace Mycroft could consider was that none of her helpers were Combat Mages and that their primary function would be aiding her administration of the Isle of Dogs. Thereby, as a compromise, the Tower was willing to take a gamble for the sake of stable trade with Manipur, Kachin, Nagaland and Yangon.

Ravenport grumbled. The Interior Department's initial dismissal of Tonglv had been his mistake, one whose debt he was paying even now. The girl's apparent 'blood relations' to the Nagaland's new regent had unfortunately escaped the Mageocracy's operatives. That and the fact Gwen Song was serving as the Vessel of a being most certainly NOT the Yinglong, as proven by reports regarding Elvia Lindholm's induction into the Order of the Bath. According to the stories that survived pre-Sobel Sydney, the only Mythic to make its contact with the girl was the Rainbow Serpent, a connection even Mycroft found difficult to believe.

The Dream Serpent was something that existed before humanity possessed the means to communicate through language. The ancient snake had been a ruling deity of the land down under since before the emergency of Necromancy, Faith Magic or even indigenous Shamanism. Ravenport was no Hvítálfar Spirit Sovereign, but he was confident in his knowledge of sorcerous affairs.

Who could forge a contract with that?
Not even Henry Kilroy could manage such a thing.
And if she did— then she mustn't be human. Conversely, Mycroft had non-ambiguous evidence that the girl was indeed born in Sydney, that her father was Hai Song, a Salt Mage, and the woman whose womb bore the girl was a merely Tier Two Fire Mage of no renown. With Morrigan's blessing, he had traced the girl's lineage to Harbin's Frontier from since before the Great War in Dynastic China as well as pre-colonial Indonesia.

Thus far, nothing impressed the Duke of Norfolk.

_Ding! Ding!_

The crisp ring of newly arrived data blossomed carmine, signifying its urgency.

"Morrigan, if you please."

His scarlet-clad companion burst into a shadowy flock of aberrant, many-eyed crows.

When she reassembled a few seconds later, one of the crows held a crystal-chip in its beak. Held between her bone-thin fingers, Morrigan scanned the data cache. Within the Sprite's expanding pupils, words and images rapidly flashed across a depthless void.

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The edge of her mouth curled.

"Morrigan—" Ravenport raised a finger in warning. "Not now."

"Who would demand the Goddess of Secrets to forgo such a morsel?" Morrigan's tone grew mocking. "You must grant me the privilege of first-to-know, that was in our contract."

Ravenport sighed. The more blood he fed the indentured Goddess, the more her original personality emerged.

"Fine, I want a full analysis."

Happier, Morrigan demurely stood in her corner of the office, her eyes half-closed, her vast mindscape stretching across the near-infinitely volumes of reports daily filed into the catacombs below. It took several minutes for the Sprite to digest her latest 'morsel'.

"Now…" Ravenport slotted the returned data crystal into his desk. "Let's see…"

The first to appear were lines of biometric data pertaining to the girl's vitality fluctuations. On the graphical display, the vital pulse sprinted across the X-axis with the regularity of a light jog until it struck the moment of truth. There, the spectrometer's readings jumped ten-fold at its peak, then rapidly fell below the mean blue line.

"A lesser Mage would have died," Ravenport said to himself, thinking aloud so that Morrigan could hear. "The mark of a Vessel. A powerful one at that."

But an Elder being's Vessel took decades of service to mature. To his knowledge, the Hvítálfar's seeded Arch-sorcerors, be they Druids or the lauded Spirit Striders, took centuries to gain the tier of trust necessary to channel so much raw vitality from their sponsor. There was one exception, and this was if the Essence required barely tickled Gwen's patron.

Was her Patron the Rainbow Snake then? Even if Mycroft suggested it, he felt, few among his peers would believe it. How would one communicate with such a being? Would a creature as ancient as the stars even care for the fleeting life of a mortal? The same would imply Mycroft showing especial consideration to a dust mite he found clinging to his boot.

Mayhap if the girl was a long-awaited Spirit Shaman or a Dream Singer with a dozen generations of inter-breeding— or if her mother was a Vessel herself who bore the Spirit child of the Mythic, then there could be such a connection.

"Her father, Hai Song, is rumoured to be quite the gigolo. The mother, by all accounts, could be unfaithful," he related to Morrigan. "What's the possibility that she's not their child?"

"Less than one per cent," Morrigan stated flatly. "Such indiscretions would contradict all existing data."

"Could she be a Changeling?"

"There exist no records of illicit activities from the Fae in Sydney."

Nodding, Ravenport activated the recordings.

First came the funnel cloud.
Then the rain of blood and guts.
Then an explosion of milk-white pus from a giant eye.
Then the Shoggoth's tendrils descended.
The girl and her Wyvern then bantered while massacring Triffids.
Afterwards, she sent the creature away and returned to Bangor.
From there, she squirmed atop her Familiar while the Golems expelled the Shoggoth until, with a final spasm from the jittering lass, the Shoggoth forcibly returned to its original residence.
In the aftermath, the peninsula of Angelsley smouldered, stripped of all life. If one discounted the coaxing of Druids and Plant Mages for the next decade, it would remain a useless, uncultivated, barren plain.

The Necromancy-seeming phenomena aside, the mission was a resounding success.

On a separate Lumen-caster, he checked the girl's spectrometric data.

For a while, the only sound in the room was Ravenport's increasingly strained breathing.

Upon comprehension of the event's spectrometric data, Ravenport's brows grew deeply furrowed. Gingerly, the Duke of Norfolk poured himself a glass of the Navy's stoutest rum. He needed something substantial to take off the edge; else he would pollute Morrigan's ears with language too foul even for the slave-Sprite.

First things first, Ravenport told himself.

"That's a Kraken's eye," he dictated the facts to Morrigan.

"… I believe this is specifically Biplipodoofu's eye." Morrigan's reply sent his blood pressure well past his physician's recommended threshold. "Your Faction's sea trade with the beast is well-documented. As is the beast itself."

Ravenport almost spilt the half-drunk glass across his velvet-draped office. "Biplipodoofu? How? WHY?"

"Insufficient data."

"How do you—"

"The chroma-scale of a Kraken's iris is unique to individuals." Morrigan sounded amused. "They are like Human finger-runes. Besides, if you would examine the sub-reports, you will find that the residual mana signature given off by the eye matches our records by seventy-three per cent."

"But the blasted thing's in Blightreef! That's eight— no, NINE thousand kilometres away as the crow flies!"

"Physical distance is no object if conjoined through the Summoning Portal of the Planar Mandala."

"This makes no sense. Gwen can't be summoning Biplipodoofu—" Ravenport gazed up at the intricate ceiling. Finding no answers there, he laid down the class. "Can she?"

"She cannot. That possibility does not exist within the current field of data."

Ravenport circulated his Negatively tinged mana until the annoyance in his mind grew blunted.

"Who do we have in the region?"

"We can draw on Singapore Tower's resources, or we can issue a quest to Seoul or Tokyo."

"Do it. All of it."

"I shall inform your peers at the Foreign Affairs Ministry."

"There is something else." Morrigan extracted a series of readings from the crystal scripts. With a swipe of her hand, the Sprite cleared the recording from view. "I believe this should be of interest."

Ravenport's eyes quickly scanned the spectrometric reading.

"Faith Magic?"

Morrigan leaned in. "Not ours. The reading indicates rudimentary Shamanism. Its wavelength, however, is comparable to a large-scale congregation."

"Interlopers then? What is it? Witchcraft? Voodoo? Uto-Aztecan Blood Rites? The Deepsea Kingdoms?"

"The signature isn't anything we have on record."

"Then find out! Keep filtering through the records! I want all mentions of Gwen Song on Faith Magic, Mermen, and her 'other' talent. Keep your crows on Lindholm and get me reports from the Order. If its Faith Magic, Lord knows if her companion is involved."

"I shall. In the meanwhile, what will milord report to her Majesty?" Morrigan's lips, bright as ruby petals, formed a winsome grin. "How will the Duke of Norfolk steer the talented Magus Song? Will you be chaperoning her in Snowdonia?"

"Questions, Morrigan?" Ravenport's tone grew annoyed. "How unbecoming for someone in your portfolio."

"Tithe." Morrigan gently smacked her lips, ignoring her Master's demand. "Your commissions make for thirsty labour."

With a nick, The Duke of Norfolk unceremoniously filled a mithril goblet about the size of a thimble. "This and nothing more. You're drunk."

"I wonder how the blood of a Vessel tastes…" Morrigan licked her lips. "One with so many secrets."

"Don't," Ravenport cautioned the Sprite. "Lest you violate your Greater Geas."

"Haha, who said I was going to aid her?" Morrigan's tingling, bell-like laughter rang out. "What's the harm in having a little side-dish?"

She's drunk. Mycroft furrowed his brows. Lately, he has been using the Sprite to excess. In his opinion, it didn't help to have Morrigan restore too much of her independent personality. Studying her eyes, he measured the cost of keeping Morrigan active versus postponing the answers he sought. There was already enough mischief with one Gwen Song, he groaned. God forbid he would have to wrestle an ancient Undead Celt into obedience as well.

"This place is fucking amazing." Gwen had little else to say when Trawsfynydd dawned on the horizon after a mere hour. As they had to skirt Snowdonia's borders, the duo had made a loop around the domain of the Elves to soak in the sights.

Her demeanour was genuine; Wales, as it existed in her memory, was the end product of a thousand generations of agrarian cultivation terraforming the primal forests of the pre-Roman Celts into rolling tablelands.

In her present world of magic and monsters, no Human industry dared encroach on the land of the Hvítálfar. Rather than the gridded geometry of pasture or sheep or cattle, old forest as ancient as the landscape itself stood pristine and virginal, untouched except to service accessibility.

According to Brown, Trawsfynydd served as a transitional point, an overlap between the Hvítálfar's domain and the classic Kingdom of Britannia.

What surprised Gwen more than anything was the scale of what her instructors reverently termed the "Sacred Forest of Light", for she was confident the eternal Elf home could be traversed in under two hours.

In the Amazon, when the locals had spoken of Svartálfar, or "Dark Elves", she did not doubt that somewhere in that continent-spanning forest existed these legendary Demi-humans.

But then again, Gwen reminded herself as she breathed in the heavily oxygenated air— Lorien and Murkwood were both blips on Tolkien's imaginary map. If she drew on the same rationale, then it made sense that both vertical living and a sparse population meant there was no need for lavish land holds.

"It's lovely, isn't it?" Ollie Edwards, a student of Elven Magic and a man very much in need of rest after negotiating passage for Gwen's train of trans-planar migrants from Tonglv, had been chosen to chaperone the Void Sorceress.

Her only regret was that Richard and Petra could not come with her— and though she had considered forgoing her "R&R" as a show of solidarity, neither of her cousins humoured her. Overhearing her indecision, Ollie Edwards had reminded Gwen that Lady Grey had arranged an opportunity for her at Trawsfynydd to meet with a potential instructor.

"What do you know about this place?" Gwen inquired of her companion, who flew beside her via a pair of Boots of Flying on loan from Peterhouse. "You study Elven Magic, don't you?"

Ollie's face was unusually happy.

"My lineage has a mote of Elven blood." The young man brushed a hand past his thinning hair, now turning slightly grey.

"You're partly Demi? Do you have a Core?"

"Ha!" Ollie snorted. "You know, it has been years since someone asked that question. No. Nothing of the sort. Its miracle enough that whoever inherited the blood could engender progeny, much less talent tied to the Elder blood. Folk in my family just have a bit more Affinity for Air and Water, and we age a bit slower. My great grandfather isn't even at the higher tiers, but he's been kicking around since before the Great War."

"Have you been to Snowdonia before?"

Her Praelector shook his head. "I haven't even been to Trawsfynydd. I did grow up with tales of Snowdonia constantly in my head, though. My great-grandfather sang of it constantly. There's this limerick he passed down through the generations. The legend goes if I ever get lost in Snowdonia, I can use it to orientate my bearings."

Gwen looked at Ollie, saw that the boy was earnest, and so felt the tug of curiosity. "Alright, let's hear it. You know me and orienteering. Also, last time we were travelling, I sang the Dwarf song."

"You want to hear it now?"

"Would you rather sing this thing in Trawsfynydd? What if it's like a children's song and the Elves think you're a simpleton?"

"Who said I was singing?" Ollie's tone grew defiant.

"House Brother—" Gwen gave Ollie a grin as bright the newly risen sun over the tranquil waters of Lake Trawsfynydd. Her eyes grew large and vivid as she stretched the vowels of her long-winded plea. "Can you humour me? Your House Sister is asking so nicely."

Her Praelector studied the forest, his cheeks rouged with unbidden heat.

For some reason, Gwen was reminded of what Hanmoul had said about Ollie having a thing for her, and as hyperbolic as the Dwarf's assertion could be, she cautioned herself against overmuch teasing her Praelector. Perhaps to dispel the awkwardness, Ollie quickly delivered his promise in a minor key, demonstrating a talent befitting a retired member of King's Choir.

"Gwydir! Ay know there's no
forests lovelier than ours,
And fairer hills and loftier Fae,
And grots more full o' flowers,

And boskier woods more blithe with rain
And misty with birds' adorning,
With sweeter throats than I could sing
Their prayers to the trees each morning

By Talwaenydd, O tempest-worn,
Or Gwydir's everlasting glory,
To Garmon, where the dead are buried,
and Merlin once told his story,

East by mountains where Arthur dreamt,
Of Pendragon's host defiant,
Llanrhychwyn's mound a molehill seems,
A Dökkálfar to a giant.

By Snow, Senny, Dovey and Dee,
Edw, Eden, Arwen and all,
Taff and Towy broad and free,
From the highest branch, the waters fall,

By Pont Pen-y-benglog, Dulais and Daw,
Look for the tree on Glyder Fawr
Small is the mirror of Llyns' bath,
West to Croesor, follow the path

O Carnedd Llewelyn, King of the oak,
Thy Heron's Head has long been broke
A bit of stone with seaweed spread
North where gulls weep in Llanfairfefed.

Unseen by men, lay the woods that wend
By Golden Grove' neath Nant Gwynant,
And on the ley, the Alfa sing all day,
They never, ever— age away."

Ollie's voice traversed clean and crisp, as expected of a boy graduated from the world's foremost choir. The way the song sounded reminded Gwen of her Dwarven rendition of Mountains Deep, but the song Ollie called "Alfar's Way" wasn't a forlorn hymn of sorrow or diaspora; instead, it was a ballad of remembrance and joy.

"Sounds more like a poem than a song." Gwen played the words over again in her head. "Also, I have no idea what most of those words mean. Is it Old-Elven? My Ioun Stone can't make heads or tales of the landmarks."

"The land names are. Also, I fear its off-key, as I can't replicate some sounds without the help of Sylvan Lyres," Ollie said sadly. "What do you think? That's the best I can do."

"You did a wonderful job. But, hows that supposed to help anyone orientate Snowdonia?"

"I think." Ollie pursed his lips in thought. "The song teaches Humans how to pronounce the landmarks when they ask for directions."

Gwen burst into laughter.

"It's true." Ollie joined her mirth. "You try saying 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyll' without your stone."

Gwen wagged her tongue clumsily, making a series of spluttering gurgles.

Ollie looked away. "That reminds me, your translation stone allows for both Hvítálfarian and Träälvorian?"

"Sylvan too," Gwen affirmed her polyglot supremacy. "It was my Master's."

"Good, we can avoid any awkwardness if that's the case. Follow my lead after we land. There's a process involved in identifying ourselves."

As the two crested the final hill, the misty haze fell away, revealing Trawsfynydd with its rolling arboreal tree-scape and its sky-mirroring lake. The township itself was a mix of Human and what Gwen presumed to be Sylvan buildings, with the latter worked into the trees with the likeness of large, bell-shaped lanterns formed from pliant wood. In stark contrast, the human buildings were Nordic cabins with a stone base and slat-wood walls in ash and pine, appearing squat and geometric.

"Now that's my kind of fantasy," Gwen let loose a Gwenism. Drawing in the frigid air, she began her descent.
Finally, four years and then some into her transmigration, she would soon be vis-a-vis with handsome Elves worthy of Tolkien lore.


"Magus Song, Magus Edwards, welcome to Trawsfynydd."

The second Gwen and Ollie alighted onto the soft grass, a pair of Elven women, flaxen-haired and graceful, buzzed from canopy to ground as though descending from a painting.

The fair-haired pair was tall, as tall as Gwen herself if she wore her pump heels. Their figures appeared elongated, gracefully so, but with a hint of the uncanny that differed from the Dwarves' well-proportioned squatness. For one, their graceful necks were so long as to be lofty, while their arms, when at rest, could almost rap their knees with their fingers. The tunics they wore were immodest even by Gwen's standards, consisting of diaphanous layers of gossamer that reminded her of Dragonfly wings, beneath which the contours of their well-toned physique spoke of agility. As she anticipated, the Elves possessed ageless, elfin miens, markedly hinting at the aesthetics of Haute Couture. Likewise uncanny were the High Elves' golden eyes— breathlessly striking, but refracting the light in the form of pearlescent metal, akin to the chroma of a Jewel Scarab.

In totality, the fair Elves' allure was distinct from Evee's adorability or Petra's sensuality; theirs was a beauty that was stark and intimidating, like gazing upon the perfect symmetry of a Golden Orb Weaver.

Gwen glanced at Ollie, other than his high cheekbones; the one-sixteenth Elf was definitively human.

"Your ladyships, we hail from Cambridge," Ollie instructed Gwen to bow. "I am Magus Edwards, and this is Magus Song. I believe we are expected."

"Your eminences are indeed expected," the leading Elf responded with a curtsy. Their articulate limbs both spindly but agile. "Allow me to introduce ourselves. My name is Sanari, and this is Zestari. We are your assigned guides. Welcome to Trawsfynydd. May I show you the way to your assigned cabin?"

The Elven women gestured toward the general direction of the lake, and the duo followed.

Gwen studied the women with the intensity of a spectrometer, scrutinising every detail. Ahead, her foremost host wore a halter-top tunic-dress. From Sanari's posterior, she could see its many layers of semi-rigid silk being tethered by invisible threads, allowing the fabric to extend seamlessly past the Elf's long legs while still affording ample mobility.

Was there a market for Hvítálfar cuture? Gwen did not recall such a thing in London.

Her hostess, Sanari, must have felt the intense inspection, for she turned to express her discomfort by meeting Gwen's eyes.

Gwen cleared her throat.

"Lady Sanari, is there a place here that sells the dresses you're wearing?" she asked casually, thinking that perhaps, she should pick up a set for all her girls in London and Shanghai, especially considering the breadth of her trade network. From what she knew of Tao's peers, theirs was a market with far more Crystals than common sense.

"Of course." Sanari grinned, though Gwen found the expression uncanny. "We have a crafters' hall where those willing to trade with Humans may bring their wares. Trawsfynydd is, foremost of all, a trading hub for our peoples."

Satisfied, Gwen allowed her eyes to wander.
Here and there, rows of individual residences, literal "Air BnBs", lined the treetops overlooking the water. There were other Elves as well, gardeners in their olive overalls, officious looking sorcerers, guards in beetle-carapace, and hosts and hostesses in attires akin to Sanari and Zestari, accompanying Human guests.

Nearer the semi-circle township's epicentre, the foursome passed cafes, restaurants, and the trading hall. The experience, Gwen felt, was meticulously manicured. Here and there, the smiling ash-blonde Elves reminded her of Stepford men and women in a curated utopia. As impressive as it was, Trawsfynydd was no more representative of Elven culture than St. Regis at Bora Bora was representative of Polynesians.

The foursome then travelled in silence for a while longer until they reached the base of an enormous oak at minimum four-storeys tall, crowned with a verdant bower about the width of a large field.

"Here we are." The women curtsied once more, their dresses fluttering in the manner of translucent wings. "Please follow."

Ollie took flight, as did Gwen once she renewed her concentration.

Atop, the canopy cabin turned out to be a plurality of smaller rooms that created the semblance of a larger structure. The central, open cabin with its sloped, bell-shaped room served as a living room, with its interior adorned with ornate Sylvan furniture that favoured curved edges and crested, floral flourishes. To Gwen's mind, the Elf hotel was a stark contrast to the geometric, art-deco design preferred by the Dwarves, unique in its nature-inspired philosophy. From the central 'pod', pathways floored with large-leafed, semi-translucent plank-ways lead to what she presumed were the bedroom, a separate sunroom, and a final chamber with a higher elevation that offered a broad view of the lake.

"The meditation room is the highest point of the lodge, perfect for harnessing mana, among other things."

"Trawsfynydd occupies a ley-junction," Ollie aided the women's explanation. "It is abundant with Elemental Air and Water. In the early morning, we should be able to see the silhouette of Glyder Fawr and its world-topping tree at Tryfan."

Gwen looked out the window.

"The grand trunk of Tryfan isn't visible from the lake view suites." Sanari, the senior of the two, smiled apologetically. "If you wish to see our home, please visit the canopy's lookout. There's an information centre there as well."

Gwen's lips twitched. Did Resort Trawsfynydd come with a Tripadvisor no.1 rating? She wanted to ask. Whatever happened to her high fantasy Elves? Where were the low-key racism and the snottiness? How could her Elven encounter be complete without at least one snub?

She exhaled. "Sanari, am I correct in saying Trawsfynydd is in an Elven resort for the well-to-do?"

"Trawsfynydd is a trading station and a place for arcanists of all races to enjoy rare Elven delights," Zestari assured her from a rehearsed line. "You're still in your combat suit, Magus Song. Would you like to change into something more comfortable? You as well, Magus Edwards. I can sense your weariness. Your work must be very stressful. Our world-famous day spa service is complimentary for our VIPs..."

"Stressful?" Ollie eyed his Void sorceress. "Lady Zestari, you have no idea."

Gwen ignored the jab as her fantasy continued to crumble. What she had hoped for was something akin to Hanmoul's guided tour of the Citadel, where they strolled and spoke at length about history both ancient and recent and reflected on economic and political opportunities.

Now, instead of Glorfindel the Elementalist— what she got, Gwen lamented, wasn't even Arwen, but Sanari, a concierge with the power to bestow rest and relaxation.

"AH— ah— AH—"

Indecent moans conducted through the cultivated oak of the cabin, growing fainter the further the Void sorceress' vibrato cries traversed the bower.

Underneath her towel, Gwen's pliant body quivered; her mind wild with unbidden stimulus. She could have never imagined that her first encounter with "High" Elves, the Hvítálfar of yore, would be both horizontal and intimate.

Though Sanari resembled an anorexic model from Fashion Week, her fingers were freakishly strong, possessing such strength and dexterity that Gwen felt her soul leaving her body.

"How are you so strong, Sanari?" Gwen groaned.

Her strength, Sanari explained, was because in her last 'cycle', she was a Warden. In the cycle before that, she served as a Druid of the First Circle. Now, in her eleventh "Cycle", she chose to be a caretaker at Trawsfynydd.

Gwen asked for clarification, to which her host volunteered that the ageless Elves exercised a role arrangement in which members took on different functions of Elven society during certain periods of their lives. It made sense, given that they were so long-lived. Being stuck doing the same thing for aeons was a case for mastery, but just as likely a source of complacency and boredom. From what Gwen could see of the faintly-smiling Sanari and Zestari, the women had every indication of enjoying their job. At least until Zestari paused for a brief, unprofessional instance when Ollie was revealed to possess the atypical pale, English hobbit-feet, a stark distinction to Gwen' photogenic perfection.

"O— Oooo—" Zestari was ruthless in her assault of the Praelector's scholarly body.

"This will itch…" Sanari's warning came a second before an orb of concentred Druidic mana rolled over the sole of her foot, curling her toes. "Let it sink in."

Gwen grunted, the glistening skin of her trembling shoulders tensing as the knots in her overworked body unfurled one by one, releasing an unbidden undulation of indescribable pleasure not unlike Caliban's gluttony.

"Now for the other one." Sanari arrested her other foot. "Your body is very peculiar, Magus Song."

"How so?" Gwen asked.

"You possess Essence, as we do," the Druid-warder-masseuse noted. "Are you kin to our kind?"

"I am a Vessel," Gwen confessed her open secret.

"Ah." Sanari nodded. "Well done, Magus Song. it is rare that your kind can attract the especial care of an Elder being."

"Ouch— Arrrgh—"

Gwen buried her head in her towel, her Tolkien image of Elves all but shattered by the rejuvenating mana massaging her foot. The treatment, Sanari had promised, would have her feeling weightless for weeks.

Earlier, once she had changed into something light and scant, Sanari and Zestari had invited them into the upper viewing room, then wood shaped twin spa beds. If Gwen wanted to know about Elven culture, Sanari had cooed, she may as well learn while relaxing.

"Don't worry, Magus Edwards." The bell-like laughter of Zestari made Ollie hyperconscious of his Englishmen's feet. "We have a pedicure service as well. Why do you think us Elves are so light on our feet?"

Ollie half-cried into the moth-silk towel. His skin was beet-red, both from the female hands touching his skin and from his loosely dressed companion's matching moans.

Gwen studied the woodgrains on the floor as Sanari's fingers worked its way up her calves. "Are many Elves 'Vessels'?"

"Only select individuals may attract the Guardian's favour during their cycle of service as Wardens or as Druids. Even for us, Vessels are rare and precious. You must be truly special among your kin, Magus Song."

Gwen cringed from the overt flattery but continued her enquiry. "Sanari, can you enlighten me on how the Hvítálfar see Humans?"

Ollie rose to protest her political line of enquiry, only to have Zestari arrest his neck and push his face against the towel.

"Of course, we're allies," Sanari replied. "Our kindred and yours have shared this land since before the cult of the Nazarene arrived. In recent years, I suppose things grew strained somewhat. Do not fret, Trawsfynydd is neutral ground. There are no politics here; the highest Accords protect this grove."

"So Trawsfynydd's a DMZ?" Gwen almost choked on her own saliva. "You say there's peace, but what about Ysbyty Ifan?" Gwen recalled from her Triffid briefing. "Wasn't that recent? And close to here?"

"An unfortunate skirmish. The Elders have marked it as the result of a misunderstanding. No Elf from the grove died, so the matter was forgotten." Sanari switched to Gwen's other leg. "Your kin-folk can be as fickle as the Svartálfar."

"I'll agree to that." Gwen assumed the worst, curious that Magister Greyson's tragedy was to her attendant's eyes a mere skirmish. "Another question. My mentor at Peterhouse said that I was to meet with someone here, an instructor. Any ideas?"

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

Sanari relocated her fingers to Gwen's neck and shoulders. "I can ask for you, though I have no doubt someone from Tryfan will wish to pay homage to the Devourer of Shenyang during your stay."

"You know of me?" Gwen grunted as powerful fingers kneaded her shoulders.

"We're a trade station," the Elf reminded her once more. "Information is an important commodity in itself. That and you're famous, Magus Song, not because you're the Devourer, but because you're an heir of Lord Kilroy."

"You know of my Master?"

"Most do. His death sent shockwaves of grief through the trees," Sanari replied. "Lady Sufina was well-loved as well. The ties that bind Lord Kilroy to Snowdonia are as many as the threads on a Weaver's web."

"That's... incredible." Gwen twisted her upper body until she faced her attendant. "What did Master do here?"

"He was first a student, then a friend, an ally, a teacher and finally a protector." Sanari's gaze filled with benevolence.

Gwen tightened her moth-silk robes. "Did you know my Master?"

"Not especially, no."

"Have you ever spoken to him?"

"I have."

Gwen felt her breath catch in her throat. The possibility that she and this ageless woman were connected by Henry Kilroy across species, continents and time, was beyond incredible.

"What... was Master like? Back then?"

"Young, then old." Sanari's response was abstract. "He was Human."

Gwen paused at the thought.

Thirty years was a lifetime in the eyes of Humankind but to Elves, with their lifespan at minimum ten-times that of her species, were three decades not a short sabbatical in comparison?

Sanari continued. "Magus Song, I should inform you that Lord Kilroy has an abode up on Tryfan, where the Sixth Circle commences. To my knowledge, it is untouched since his passing."

"Could I access it?" Gwen felt such longing that before she realised, she was holding Sanari's hand.

"I will make enquiries for you, Magus Song."

"You have my thanks, Sanari." Gwen's voice grew muffled. That she would find so welcoming a boon in a holiday home was wholly unexpected. "If there's any way I can thank you, be it Crystals or rare materials..."

"No need." Sanari smiled serenely. "Please give me some time."

Gwen nodded, returning her cheek to the spa bed.

"Errrrrgghnnn—" Not far from her, Ollie bit his towel. The young man rose to speak— then Zestari fell upon his shoulder blades.

Poor sod, Gwen felt sympathy for her Praelector's internal cries of alarm. Lady Grey must be working the poor bastard down to the bone.

The Council of the Ninth Circle took place near the zenith of the Elder Tree at Tryfan; a myth locale that, together with its brethren, had inspired fanciful lore-names like "Yggdrasil". Unfortunately, the Nords, though creative in their interpretation of Elven chronicles, had gendered a misnomer.

In Sylvan lore, there was no need to differentiate the "one" Elder Tree from another. All had come from the seed of the world, and all were one. To give each a name would be as foolish as individually naming the crowning branches of a world-topping redgum. To outsiders, the Elder Elves rarely gifted the truth of the World Trees, and so the subject had grown obfuscated by myth and mystery.

"Hierophant Initiate Sanari..." bowed the Wardens standing guard beside the Arch of the Triumphant. "Welcome back to Tryfan's Embrace."

"May her bloom be eternal." Sanari inclined her chin. "Where is Primach Vulmari?"

"The council awaits your pleasure in the Ninth Circle."

"Good." Sanari proceeded past the Wardens without a glance.

Above and around the Hierophant-Initiate, the liminal subspace of the Hvítálfar's home stretched upward, tapping directly into the Plane of Radiance, providing Tryfan's World Tree with an inexhaustible source of life and vitality, banishing all notions of darkness.

Sanari willed her clothes to change, its fabrics growing thicker and more articulate until it covered her arms and legs with long, flowering fabrics resembling the petals of exotic flowers found on the canopy.

Nearer the towering roots of Tryfan's tree, empathic vines growing upon the thick bark entwined, forming an emerald threshold just as Sanari passed, transporting her from the understory to the emergent layer.

Time and distance momentarily lost meaning, then the Initiate arrived upon the canopy of Elfhome's ninth pocket plane. Once past the threshold, Sanari drew in a deep breath of vitality-rich air, expanding her lungs until pain tickled her diaphragm and her head felt light. Gradually, she expelled the inferior oxygen of the exterior world.

Once naturalised, Sanari proceeded down the branches toward the meeting place of Snowdonia's apex Enclave. At the path's end, the Bellflower Hall was cloaked in pale cobalt, with its interior open-air and filled with light.

Herein gathered sat the Tryfan Enclaves' Ninth Circle Council, ready to discuss the matter of the Mageocracy's emergent Sobel.

"Hierophant-Initiate Sanari—" The gathered rose in their respective chairs; each positioned to represent their irrespective concourse of interests.

At the head of the table, bathed in light, sat the Bloom in White, her Ladyship the Tongue of Tryfan, regal in her pale, pearlescent robes, still as a statue and untouched by time.

To her right sat the Lords of the Sixth and Third Circle, Isilynor and Esta, anxious in their colourful ceremonial carapace. As the Träälvor Lords of the lower realms, their impatience spoke loudly of their limited lifespans.

To the White Lady's right, Primach Vulmari, Sanari's instructor and blood-kin stood stoic and silent beside Arch-Warden Eldrin, a warrior faithfully wedded to his crow-black battle mantle.

Finally, opposite the party of Elves sat their guest from the realm of men, one Duke of Norfolk, Mycroft Ravenport, aptly wrapt in a sable garb of velvet cloth.

"Primach Vulmari, Hierophant Eldrin, Lord Isilynor, Lady Esta, your Grace." Sanari bowed her head. "And my Lady Solana— Blessed be the Flower of Tryfan."

"We art blessed," the Elves answered in turn.

The Human nodded. "May Tryfan bloom eternal."

Each member took their place on the circular table while Sanari entered its spacious centre to face her superiors.

"How is our guest?" Hierophant Eldrin was the first to speak. The outpost of Trawsfynydd lay within his jurisdiction.

"Relaxed and happy, for now. The child has asked after Lord Kilroy."

"As she should." Eladrin shifted in his battle plate. "Arch-Druid Kilroy was an honourary member of the Circle Council. It is right that his Human Apprentice should inherit his abode and receive our benediction."

"Eladrin, patience," the Primach of the Enclave, Vulmari Vagolorithil, interjected before the Warden could continue. "Sanari, tell us about the Void sorceress, what have you confirmed?"

"She's a Vessel," Sanari stated without ambiguity.

"And who might her Patron be?" Hierophant Eldrin raised a perfectly arched brow, the stag-horns protruding from his helm tilted left and right.

Sanari shook her head, indicating she did not know. "Her Patron did not respond to my probing— though I can confirm its Essence is ancient."

"Ancient? Older than Tryfan's Guardian?" The haughty profile of Isilynor, Lord of the Sixth Circle, leaned forward. "You expect us to believe that such a being married a Human Vessel?"

The round table grew silent.

"Lord Mycroft, might you provide some clarity?" Hierophant Eladrin's ageless voice drifted across the Council's august chamber.

"I fear I came here to find answers." The Human noble cleared his throat, then replied. "In Gwen's dossier, I have spared no intrigue. My purpose is to request an instructor; if you will recall. It would be both foolish and fruitless to withhold information that your august selves will discern once her training begins."

Lady Esta's eyes narrowed, reminding Sanari of the monstrous orchid mantis sometimes found in the upper canopy. "Find her an instructor, and we shall find out? Do you take us for the gullible Dökkálfar, dear Duke?"

"Then shall I tell her to return home?" Duke of Norfolk held his own against the Lords of the Circle. "Cambridge is but an hour's flight and a Teleport away."

Both Isilynor and Esta stared rapiers at the Duke.

The audacity of Humans continued to surprise Sanari, who was in her fifth century of service. With their lives so threatened by mortality, each Human act was a plunge into uncertainty, whose fruit may never be tasted by the executor. Had Sanari not volunteered to be tenured at Trawsfynydd as one of the grove's caretakers, she would have never comprehended how Humans saw the world. What differentiated Man and Elf, Sanari had discerned, was the understanding of immediacy, that strange and indescribable feeling of impending action. For some of her folk, such as Isilynor and Esta, the very notion that a decision must be made, here and now, filled them with agitation.

"Good. Return the child to London." Lady Esta of the Third Circle raised a bejewelled hand. "Sobel was an ill-bearing fruit we all regretted. Need I remind his lordship the living blight is still on the loose. Why should Tryfan risk a second Sobel? Must Lord Kilroy perish in vain?"

"I agree with Lady Esta," Isilynor offered his support. "Mycroft, you forget that your kin art mere mercenaries under Tryfan's employ. One loose monstrosity is quite enough."

"There won't ever be another Sobel." The Duke's voice took on a threatening air at Isilynor's undisguised reminder of Humanity's place within the Accord. The man leaned back, his fingers forming an arch. "Not if Magus Song receives the proper aid. If she does not—"

"Enough, Mycroft." Hierophant Eldrin silenced the Duke with a gesture. "Sanari, you've marked the child. Tell us of your findings."

A room full of golden eyes focused on Sanari. More than the scrutiny of her superiors; however, it was Ravenport's dusky irises, so grey and lifeless-seeming, that made her follicles crawl.

"Gentle Lord. Esteemed Council." Sanari once more breathed in the mana rich air. "As stated, Magus Song is the lesser Vessel of an Elder Being. Upon contact, I spoke at length to the child, eventuating in the Rite of Rejuvenation. I have found that her Astral Body differs from Human Mages, as the Essence of her being consists of chimeric additions; though the Elder Being's Essence has suppressed all potential revolt. Of these pilfered Essences, thousands exist, their tiny presences layered like sediments within her Astral Soul. When our Essence twined, there was no response from her Patron. Further examination has allowed me to conclude that her Lord Spirit does not inhabit her body, not yet, nor is there a Conduit present."

"How is she receiving aid then?" Lady Esta demanded.

"From within herself."

"A Changeling, then." Primach Vulmari touched a finger to his forehead. "You're brought us a right mess, Mycroft. Those separate, lesser Essences, I take it they're the number of lives she's consumed. Are you certain the child isn't a second Sobel?"

"— A Patron as old or older than our Guardian…" Arch-Warden Eldrin contemplated the possibilities behind Sanari's words. "A primordial being? An untethered serpent from when the world was young?"

"An answer I would like to know myself." Ravenport splayed both hands to simulate his helplessness. "The girl knows nothing, as I said. She believes that she's on an expenses-paid holiday—"

"As a reward for eradicating the Triffidus infestation," Sanari's Arch-Warden informed the Council. "Though you have your doubts, I should remind all present that Lord Ravenport has yet to disappointed us and that his continued service is necessary for Tryfan's continued bloom."

The Lords of the Sixth and Third Circle scoffed.

"A service that warrants reciprocation." Ravencroft turned not to his conversation partners, but to her ladyship, the Bloom in White. In Sanari's eyes, the act was the definition of insolence, though as Vulmari and Eldrin remained mum, so did the other members of the Council. "As Tryfan has faith in my service, so I have faith in our Elven allies not to disappoint so meagre a request."

The gathered Elves looked toward the esteemed Tongue of Tryfan.

"I do not support the instruction of the girl." Isilynor raised his hand.

"Neither do I," Lady Esta concurred. "I will, however, allow her access to Lord Kilroy's suite. His abode is within the domain of my Circle, and in his demise, death now pollutes its sanctum. Were it not for Lady Sulfina's sake; I would have had the space expelled back into the aether."

"Well, I support the child's instruction." Eldrin, Ex-Hierophant and Arch-Warden of the Enclave, nodded at Ravenport.

"As do I." The Druids' Primach cocked his chin. "I wish to converse with her Patron."

"Then your ladyship has the final word, as is proper." The Human Duke bowed.

Lady Solana, the Tongue of Tryfan, the speaker and the voice of the World Tree, first Vessel of its Guardian, parted the pink petals of her imperious lips to deliver the verdict. In her presence, the others lowered their heads.

"Eldrin, bring her to me," the Bloom in White delivered her judgment. "We shall not grant instruction as the Raven has requested— not until the child has proven herself suitable for the Accord, as her Master had been."

Sanari glanced at the Human Duke. She could see the man's lips tittering on the edge of protest, but in the end, his reverence superseded his Human capacity for rudeness.

"I obey the Tongue of Tyran." The Human Duke arched his back. "May its white flowers bloom eternal."

Sanari exhaled as the tension bleed from the room. Now, she must return to the lower realms and its foetid air to deliver the good news.

While minds multitudes older than Gwen's puzzled their heads, Gwen grew perplexed over tea.

"Elf cakes." Gwen cut into her delicate offerings, each shaped like exotic wildflowers too beautiful to be butchered by her silver knives, feeling as though she wanted a refund on her Tolkien tour. "Not Lembas Bread, but berry tarts and citrus meringue?"

"The Hvítálfar are famous for their obsession with perfection." Ollie sat opposite, so relaxed that his hair appeared thicker and his body language ten-years younger. "It was French Magisters who first introduced the idea of desserts made from flora to the Cévennes Enclave. It grew to be immensely popular among the Elves, and now they make better dessert than we do."

Unlike the often greasy pastry items that featured prominently on Human menus, the Elves' selection was much like themselves— light and airy, with a delicate texture that teased the palate.

Gwen stretched, distending her limbs like a cat's until her toes curled. The sun was warm, the air fresh, the view was a million HDMs, the tarts were sweet, the tea fragrant, and her company was tolerable.

Yet, despite the perfection of the moment, the disarming tranquillity was disturbing. Was it the quietness? Gwen wondered. She was an urbanite; give her a cafe, loud traffic, endless streams of men and women hurrying to work and a hobo ranting about Jesus saves, and she would feel right at home.

"You ever feel like something's going to happen and you just can't relax?" Gwen asked her Praelector.

"What? Why?" Ollie bolted straight at once, all signs of happiness evaporating at once. "What's happening? Did you do something? What did you do now?"

"Nothing," Gwen chided her prudish House-Brother. "How rude."

"Gwen, can't you just let up for once?" Ollie begged her. "We can't offend the Hvítálfar. Not even Lady Grey can save you from them."

"And just how would I have an opportunity to offend them?" Gwen scowled back. "Is this about what happened at lunch again? That buffet wasn't properly stocked. I swear to God—"

_Chirp! Chirp!_

A cicada-shaped bell announced the arrival of a guest, interrupting Gwen's impassioned self-defence of her gluttony.

"Come in!" she announced.

The lithe form of Sanari appeared at the doorway, her ageless face a flower of friendship. "Magus Song, I bring good tidings."

"Is this about Master?" Gwen stood in her robe. Opposite, Ollie looked like a deer caught in the path of a Lightning Bolt.

"Indeed." Sanari bowed deeply. "Our esteemed Lady, the Bloom in White, would like to speak with you in private regarding Lord Kilroy's estate."

"PUFFFFT!" Ollie spat out a half-sipped mouthful of tea all over the cakes. "The Speaker of Tryfan? The Immortal Bloom herself? Gwen, no! You— This— FU— Oh my God!"

Gwen stepped away from her embarrassing Praelector. "I am forever grateful."

"NO!" Ollie begged from below. "You can't offend her, Gwen. She's the spiritual leader of the Hvítálfar! One word from her and— look, just know that you'll be speaking with someone no less august than our Majesty herself. Your etiquette is barely passable! You haven't even passed your decorum class! You curtsy like a drunk Ork and eat like a starved Mermen, what if..."

Caught in the middle of Ollie's rant, Gwen grew uncertain.

"Do not fret," Sanari promised with a smile. "There exists no kinder and wiser being than our Lady... certainly not outside this mundane mass of the Prime Material you so called London. As for you, Magus Edward, rest assured that there exists no ambiguity as to Magus Song's attendance. To refuse would be a dire insult..."