Around the world's imagined corners, the troubles of the Mageocracy toiled on and on. From the Isle of Man to Kandahar to the Great Australian Blight, folk wrestled with predicaments large and small, be it an intricate Mandala sealing a too-short skirt, or a strategic one poaching Mermen in the Baltic Sea.

Ten thousand kilometres from where Humans fought the Manx and Dwarves fought the Murk, lay the mystical mount of Huangshan. There, Ryxi, the unrecognised oldest scion of the Yinglong, wise beyond human comprehension, mulled over the final verse of the Huiwen, a twenty-nine by twenty-nine character rhyming verse that could be read forward or backwards, horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

For almost two centuries, Ryxi could not find the time to compose his palindrome masterpiece. Golos daily attempted to rob or mate with the goats, carps, and various offerings Ryxi cultivated for their Father's abode. Whether or not the Yinglong subsumed said offering was no business of his, but as Lotus Peak's majordomo, he refused to shirk from his divine duty.

In the year since the Calamity came to Huangshan, much had changed in his changeless home. Ayxin, the oppressive brother-now-sister, Father's favourite, had gone down into the lower realms to nest. Ruxin, who had been away for several decades, recently came to announce that he had found a peak in a place called Nagaland and would not be returning. For good measure, their 'eldest' had also taken Golos with him, which was _guzen_ to Ryxi's ear holes.

_Thank Father's feathers!_ Ryxi rejoiced. From being pummelled by an iron-willed Ayxin, a pea-brained Golos and an overbearing Ruxin, he was free. With Father dreaming in the Unformed Land, he could do as he pleased.

Sharing his serene sentiment, a pearl of limewater fell from a waxy pine-needle. On impulse, Ryxi's dragon-whisker _maobi_ danced across the silkscreen, flowing like water, moving of its own accord.

Opposite his pavilion, a peak ten-millennia in the making stood solitary as his Father's austere self. On his serpent-tongue, he savoured the scent of midnight frost melting into morning dew, dripping as the pines bowed, a chorus of scholars paying homage to the White Serpent ancestor.

"Ten thousand clouds, ten thousand streams,
Here I lie, an idle Snake,
Roaming green peaks by day,
Coiled by cliffs, slumbering peacefully
From juniper to juniper, springs to autumns,
Free of heat and disturbance, my genteel mind.
Sweetness in solitude, needing nothing,
Silent as the autumn river's—"

_SCHWING!— THUNK!_

A murderous shard of glimmering iron, spinning at such velocity that it ignited the air, passed between one rising crag and another. Mid-flight, the mana enveloping the projectile forced it to curve around the arc of a vibrating pine before striking a granite rock face.

"SHATTERING SWORD!"

On impact, a shard of metal almost as tall as Ryxi's human form erupted into a thousand fragments of spiralling alloy, stripping the cliff of every inch of plant life.

With a slow and agonising rumble, the granite began to split, no longer capable of bearing its top-heavy trees. In front of Ryxi's very eyes, the object of his versification crumbled then crashed down below, setting off flocks of startled avians.

With a snap, the bamboo brush in Ryxi's hands snapped in half.

"… Lulan!" Ryxi called out. Just when he thought he as finally alone! Why was it so hard for a snake to find peace? "Lulan! Why are you still here?"

"Shifu! You called?"

With a resounding " _Clang!"_ of clashing iron, the dashing figure of a sword-woman leapt from the Shan-Shui landscape onto the pavilion, as vibrant as a brushstroke. Where she landed, the jade tile fractured, sending tremors of despair through Ryxi's otherwise slow-beating heart.

"Shifu!" Lulan bowed. "I am rushing the practice you set before I return to Shanghai. As I'll be absent for a few weeks, I've added the missed training to my existing schedule. I'll master the Third Form soon! I promise!"

Ryxi recalled that indeed, it was he who had given her a grandiose speech about adhering to his training even if she died. It had only been a month, but already the human girl was showing progress. The Sword Art of Huashan was one of the Five Schools during the Song Dynasty for excellent reasons. What made Ryxi nervous was that, while the style's original creators emphasised on the philosophy of "tapping reeds like Dragonfly, strike like plum blossoms"— this Lulan wielded the gentlemen's sword like a butcher's cleaver, especially now that her internal techniques, corrupted by forgetful time, was repaired by Ryxi at the behest of Ayxin and Ruxin. To her credit, though Ryxi could trap the limber Kenshi in a Mist Maze for all of eternity, he would not want to fight the girl head-on.

"There's no need!" The White Jade Serpent of Lotus Peak wept over his paint-speckled silk from the mid-Ming period. He could magic the blemishes away, of course, but as its creator, he couldn't unsee the imperfections. "Won't you be late for Ruxin's quest?"

"No, Shifu! I shall use the Flying Sword technique you taught!" Lulan willed a hovering slab of sword-shaped iron into being. "I can make it to Shanghai in three hours if I use Body Reinforcement."

Ryxi winced. Just the thought of Lulan slinging through the air, leaving contrails of disturbed mist made his scales ache. He was a serpent of delicacy and ethereal grace, as were the Sword Arts he taught. If so, how did he manage to train up a female Golos?

"Then go." Ryxi sent out a gust to send Lulan drifting into the peak. "I'll disable the Mist Maze. Don't return until your earthly duties are done!"

"What can I bring you from the human world, Shifu?" Lulan shouted as she drifted down the mount. "More paintings?"

Ryxi paused. There was something he wanted.

"Lumen Crystals!" he called out. "Moving pictures! Bring me all the moving pictures!"

Ruì Li, advisory to Director Marong of the House of M, personal assistant to "he who must not be named" and General Manager of Gwen Song's estates in Shanghai, could scarcely believe she stood now as an equal to Professor James Ma.

Her folk were a family of farmers labouring in the Canton Frontier until her father got a position as a machine operator. The income from that fortuitous position was enough to put Rui and her brothers through the municipal high school, an endeavour in which Ruì excelled, receiving a scholarship to attend Canton University. At the NoM college, Ruì once again proved herself a prodigy, ultimately landing herself in Fudan, with a bright future as an accountant at a Mage-owned firm in the bright and shiny southern capital.

At Fudan, she met Professor Ma, her mentor.
Who introduced her to Gwen Song, her boss.
Gwen then introduced her to Director Marong, a merchant-prince from Burma.
Then, while touring working the House of M, Marong brought Ruì before her backer's backer.

Before the age of fourteen, Ruì could not recall speaking to a Magus. Now, she trafficked with a deity.

Lord Ruxin, as Marong had called the giant with stag-horns and white hair, was Miss Song's celestial investor. Ruì recalled bowing so deep her forehead almost touched her shoes. What else could she do? She doubted crawling on all fours would make the Land God like her anymore. As Gwen had said— for an NoM, being useful was more endearing than being slick.

After she explained her relation to Gwen, Lord Ruxin asked for the present state of Gwen's holdings, now his equity.

With the sagacity of one reading her palm-lines, Ruì had launched into a torrent of numbers and statistics, projections of expenses and anticipated revenue, threats, weaknesses and stakes.

"A hundred and forty-six thousand, sixty-seven-four-fifty HDMs, Sire!" Ruì had called out with her clarion voice.

"Annually?"

"Last quarter, Sire!" The Land God ranked higher than a king, and so Rui took a title often used by actors on period, Lumen-screen dramas.

"I like this one," the stag-horned giant had mused. "That all?"

"No, Sire!"

"No?"

"That amount is Quarterly, for the Tonglv Canal, and the fund itself. Milady's investments additionally include land from Phase 2, both residential and commercial investments. At her discretion, I've made investments on her behalf in the local service industry. Our secondary portfolio recorded an earning of sixteen-thousand-five-hundred HDMs last quarter."

"Marong?"

"Yes, Sire?"

"Keep this mortal safe."

"I shall, my Lord." Marong stood quietly to one side.

"… we've also made tertiary investments…" Ruì recalled continuing like a stuck lumen-recorder. Bathed in that august presence, she couldn't stop for fear of peeing herself. "Eleven per cent of all stage one equity has been diversified into stocks of companies servicing Tonglv. Since the full operation began in April, the tertiary portfolio has seen an increase of seven-hundred-and-ten per cent…"

When finally she was forced to take a breath, the Land God appeared well-pleased.

"Tis a rare day a mortal could please me so," the voice boomed from the jade dais. "I shall reward you. For now, you may go."

"But Sire." Ruì realised that at some point, so much adrenaline had flooded her spine it had ceased to flop. "That was for Tonglv, Sir. I haven't told you of Milady's Centurion holdings…"

Twenty minutes later, the Land God's laughter filled the palace. "Good! Good—"

"B-but, Sire." Ruì was on fire. If she died right now, her parents would be proud knowing it was the result of spontaneous combustion while facing down a Mythic being. "There's still Milady Gwen's branding payouts— and I've yet to cover the Jade trade…"

The Land God's presence had flooded the chamber— then Ruì knew no more.

"Ruì— hey, Ruì! Focus."

Ruì shook herself from the intensity of her recollection.

"Any idea why we're being summoned before the Tonglv triumvirate?" James Ma stood with his arms crossed, flanked by two assistants, both Government-assigned bodyguards. Since becoming the head of the auditing tribunal, the former professor had entered the Party's Secretariat department with a provisional rank of Inspector General. "Lulan? Do you know?"

Behind Ruì, there stood a now-famous Mage Ruì could call a friend. Lulan Li of Huashan, a compatriot of her Missus Boss' and a student of the Land God's lesser minion.

"I've been told to protect Miss Ruì." After a few months of absence, Lulan's face had lost some of its puppy fat. The Sword Mage, Ruì felt, appeared like the keen edge of a blade. "From Shifu's telepathic conversations, I think it has to do with Gwen."

"Ah—" James Ma nodded. "So its come at last."

"What has?" Lulan cocked her head. "Gwen's out of reach. What can they do to her here?"

"It's not Gwen they're after, but her assets here in Shanghai." Secretariat-Inspector Ma pursed his thin lips. "I guess that resolves one mystery. I guess it is in the nature of Clanners to step on their toes. Unlike us scholar-bureaucratic families, the Clans are well-set in certain compulsions."

"I don't understand." Lulan appeared as confused as ever. The mana in her pupils smouldered like tempering iron. "Are we under attack?"

She made a one-handed chopping motion.

Ruì grew instantly nervous. "Please calm yourself, Miss Lulan. Miss Song is very wise. Also, we're in the Fung's building right now."

"Gwen is 'Magus Song' now, from what I've learned. Ruì is right though. You shouldn't bare your fangs just yet." Ma regarded her puzzlingly. "I can foresee how this might go, but I don't understand why you're both here. They could have sent for the audit report you and I have provided."

"I am Miss Song's legal proxy for some of her investments," Ruì explained. In truth, she couldn't fathom why she'd been sent either. Her orders from Director Marong had been to simply answer the Tonglv Triumvirate's questions to the best of her abilities and with complete honesty. According to Marong, things would somehow work out, and that Lulan was merely there to keep her safe. As for what purpose she served, Ruì knew her place.

In a Mages' game of 'Go', NoMs were less than spell-fodder.

Dai Fung had always thought that the line of Fung would end because of his screw up, such as a hot-headed exchange with a Secretary's scion, and not with his father's lofty ambitions.

Beside him, the Tonglv triumvirate lounged in the glass-walled boardroom atop the Fung corporate building.

Internally, Dai's guts were performing pirouettes.

For months now, he had attempted to persuade his father, the Governor-Secretary of Nantong, to relent on recovering Gwen's share of the Tonglv project. An iron-clad agreement from Pudong Tower aside, he had gotten a glimpse of what lurked behind the Void sorceress' bottomless portfolio while working for the currency-witch and knew Gwen's backers consisted of more than a humble Party-Secretary Yeye and a Hospital Director Nainai.

"You look nervous, xiao-Fung." Tu Guangshao of the Shanghai Economics board toked on an ivory length of "Double Happiness", filling his lungs with flavourful mana.

Dai did his best to smile.

"Your boy's still got feelings for the traitorous harlot?" Magister Quin Chen, the Party official overseeing the Tonglv project, had grown fat since the end of phase one. With profits from the projects rolling into the Party's coffers, he had been paving his way upward, hoping that one day, he too would sit upon the Central Committees. "She was something, eh? Those legs— the very best of east meets west. Haha, to be young..."

Dai briefly envisioned punching the man's teeth in.

"Dai, control yourself!" Usually, his father's voice sounded to Dai like a whip. Presently, Dai could hardly hear the noise coming from the head of the table. "— Good. They're here."

With a sucking sound, the massive, double-door entry to the executive boardroom unsealed itself.

Two doormen held the panes while their guests, Secretary James Ma, overseer of the Tonglv Audit Committee, and Ruì, Gwen's personal-accountant, entered the room on clicking heels. Behind the NoM, Dai caught the familiar face of Lulan Li, the Sword Mage from Huashan, famous in all of China thanks to the IIUC broadcasts. Were it not for the fact that she had disappeared of late, her darling face would be plastered all over Tonglv's billboards.

Across the floor, Ruì stood demure as a mouse.

Though the NoM's parents were peasants, Dai had since learned not to demean the girl's talents. What she had, he sorely lacked. It was a stern lesson he took to heart, for though Gwen was now absent, their old crew, Effi and Terence, now worked for Dai. Additionally, he now had a whole contingent of NoM accountants working under him, reporting to him the undercurrents flowing beneath the Fung's auspicious exterior.

That was also why Dai knew the Fungs were in dire straits.

As Gwen had long anticipated and Ma had warned— it was in the very nature of the Clans to eat the grass around their hutch to fatten themselves. Were it not for the absurd volume of HDMs filtering into the company; the Clan's coffers would have long been hollowed out.

Or, a more disturbing insight interrupted his thought. Were it not for Gwen and the mass of crystals flooding into the Fung's coffers— their Clan would have remained the mud-Emperors of Nantong and not have leapt onto that precarious platform called Party politics.

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It was a calamity in the making— the higher one's rise, alas, the harder the impact, and in Dai's opinion, the Fungs of Nantong had soared far too close to the Central Committee's five-point celestial star.

Opposite from Dai, he could see Ruì was terrified, which was a natural response. Beside her, James Ma's demeanour was one of amusement.

What did Fudan's ex-professor know? Dai desired more than anything to find out.

From the hands of servants, precious tea from Fur-Peak greeted the guests and hosts. One for each, but none for Ruì. Dai's lips twitched. With a stern glare, he commanded another cup to be made available.

"Please help yourselves," his father began, ignoring Dai's actions. The Patriarch did not appear bothered by the fact that James Ma seemed unfazed. "Since we are all here, I will waste no time. For some time now, we have entertained the architect of our Tonglv Project, Magus Song. As the granddaughter of Committee Chair Guo Song, she was someone we have placed great faith in bringing continued prosperity to the State and the Party."

James Ma said nothing.
Ruì stared at the table, avoiding the Patriarch's eyes.

"However," Shen Fung continued. "It is without a doubt that Gwen Song is no longer that young lady of the House of Song we so admired. You've all seen the broadcast of her receiving her title from the IIUC. Gwen Song! Of Cambridge! A travesty of loyalty and piety! She has forgotten her roots! You've all seen her bearing her crimson mantle, smiling as she held the hands of her British hound masters."

James Ma nodded.
Ruì studied the woodgrain.

"Allow me." Tu took over. "Tonglv— is a critical infrastructural component for Shanghai and the Party. As a representative of the Economic Activities Committee, I cannot— will not— allow a foreigner partial ownership of the Canal. I have already communicated this reality with our Regional Development office, and have a secured Secretary Jiang's compliance. We have additionally obtained confirmation from London that Gwen Song is in league with the capitalist-imperialist Ravenport. Thereby, for the good of Tonglv, for the people of Nantong and the motherland itself, I declare that the triumvirate will rescind the contract given to Miss Song, and withdraw the single percentage stake of the Canal's Class-A shares."

Their opponents remained silent.
Dai quaked.
It was happening!
Why wasn't Ma up in arms? He desperately looked to his father, only to be met with a dead-eyed command to remain silent.

"Of course, we are not without guilt," Magister Chen added his piece. "We too, must take responsibility for misplacing our trust. The Tonglv Committee will repay Miss Song for her losses, based on the price at which she originally acquired the shares."

Ruì suddenly looked up. "Lords and Sirs. The original shares are worth less than a thousandth of what Tonglv is currently trading."

Shen Fung furrowed his brows. "You are not here for input, Miss Ruì. You are here to execute the order we have delivered. James, what say you?"

"A fair deduction." James Ma inclined his chin.

Dai held his breath.
Something was coming.
He could feel it in his Astral Body.
It was only natural that Ma was unimpressed. Gwen had said that she had planned for this eventuality. He had even forewarned his father, but who in Shen's lair of nepotistic favours had bothered to dig deep enough to uncover what favours Gwen had trafficked? Dai had looked into it himself and turned up nothing— not a mote! Something— someone— at Pudong, had obfuscated Gwen's financial activities. Was it James Ma? Or someone higher?

"Sirs." Ruì humbly bowed her head. "I can't process your command to rescind Miss Song's shares. That is not within my given privileges."

A round of snorting sneers answered the NoM woman. To Dai's growing anxiety, Ruì no longer appeared so intimidated.

"All you have to do." Tu's patience for NoMs was non-existent. "Is take these contracts…"

The man slid over a thick stack of papers.

"... And inform Miss Song she needs to sign them."

"I can't do that—"

"Miss LI!" Magister Chen raised his voice. "You forget your place! Do you know who we are? What we stand for? You are not the Devourer of Shenyang!"

Lulan moved to stand beside Ruì. The Sword Mage was like a sheathed blade, waiting to be drawn.

Dai heard his father laugh under his breath. Shen Fung did that whenever he grew annoyed or angry. The idea that an NoM woman, an accountant at that, was telling them she would not execute their order was magnitudes beyond what he and the two fat men beside him could stomach.

"Ma, control your underling." Tu turned to the professor.

"She's not one of mine." Ma shrugged. "Besides, she's right. There's nothing Miss Ruì can do for you."

"Then you do it," Tu growled. "You're on the committee. You can bring us her asset report and execute the transfer once she signs."

"I can't do that either." Ma shook his head.

"Why not?" Chen's tone grew dangerous. Since Chen was an inner-Party official, Dai guessed, the professor-turned vice-secretary was less wary of Ma like the others. Moreso, Chen had always been jealous of Ma, a squib, who had received more power from the Central committee than he. "You can't shield her, Ma. It'll be the death of you. I'll have you and that accountant there charged with treasonous activities."

"Hahahaha…" Ma began to laugh. Dai baulked. It was a rare day that a squib mocked Mages. Such carelessness was suicide. Ma had even left his bodyguards in the lobby.

"Have you gone mad?" Dai watched his father stand to point an accusatory finger. "Ma, what did the girl give you?"

"It's complicated." James Ma shook his head. "Ruì, care to clarify?"

"Miss Song no longer owns any of the assets you wish to reclaim," Ruì explained slowly and meticulously, as if to children. "I can't process the rescind order even if the legalities allowed for such a thing. What doesn't belong to Magus Song cannot be returned."

Following Ruì's words, a vast silence descended.

Dai closed his eyes, then slowly reopened them.
Everything remained in its place— this was not a bad dream.
He knew Gwen would not have let things lie as they were.

"Your mistress must have made out like a mountain bandit." It was Shen Fung, Dai's father, who first broke the silence. Having received the warning from Dai, he knew well enough that Gwen had cards left in play. "No matter, let the records show what revenue she has absconded withal. We will recover every HDM, mark my words."

"… I am afraid that's not possible." This time, it was James Ma who spoke. "I oversaw that transfer a month or so back. The young lady received a sum of exactly ZERO HDMs. No Shares, no warrants, no dividends. Nothing."

"Bullshit!" Tu slapped the table so hard the mahogany trembled. "I would have known!"

"I passed it upward." Ma's lips curled with pleasure. "Maybe the transaction was authorised, maybe not, I am just an auditor. My only role was to ascertain Magus Song's total assets at the moment of transfer."

At Ma's deflection, the trio's attention returned to Ruì.

"Magus Song now owns no assets in Tonglv, or in Shanghai itself..."

Dai inhaled as the air grew suddenly thick. As for what came next, there were three very angry, surprised, and frustrated Magus-tier casters in the room:

Shen Fung.
Tu Guangshao
And Chen Quin.
The four bodyguards from the Fung Clan as well had at least one School of Magic at the fourth tier, in addition to their Clan's secret arts.

The mana pressure exerted by the sheer hostility of the Mages was enough to compress the air around the poor NoM accountant like a wall. Very quickly, Ruì's face filled with blood. Without an Astral Body of their own, NoMs could easily asphyxiate from the aura exuded by an upper-tier Mage.

"Who now owns the sorceress' shares?" Shen Fung demanded.

"Show me those files," Tu demanded the ring on Ruì's finger. "We'll get to the bottom of this. If your western whore of a mistress thinks she can jilt the Tonglv Economics Committee, she's in for a very long and unpleasant surprise, and so are you."

Dai desired to act, but it was Lulan Li who stepped forward in his place.

CLANG!

With a single swing of her arm, a massive blade wider and taller than her body materialised from thin air. The blade-metal sliced the space between the triumvirate and the panting NoM and squib, instantly severing the pressure. At the same time, the single block of whetted alloy split clean through the century-old conference table's arm-thick lumber, then cleaved deeply into the reinforced concrete.

Dai's heart leapt to his throat.
Sword Energy? Sword Ki? Ken-ki?
What ancient power was this? The building itself was protected against higher-tier destructive magic and built on a ley-node! Abjuration, Transmutation and even Fengshui reinforced it! To slice into the concrete like butter— what man could erect a Shield to withstand a strike like that?

His father was making a terrible mistake! Things were spiralling out of control!

"… INSOLENCE!" Shen Fung raised a hand to command the guards. As one, the Clan's elite members drew their wands.

Tu's frustration was also at his limits. With a snarl, the hypocritical patriot Earthen Mage called upon a dozen rods of iron projectiles empowered by British magic, enabled by an American-made wand.

Chen, ever the scholar, took two steps back and inexpertly worked on his cowardly Illusion.

Every hair stood on Dai's body.
Gwen would never send someone like Lulan to die a dog's death. His father might not believe it, but when Dai had chummed with Tao and Mina, the siblings had revealed that Gwen's IIUC excursions had netted her patrons, allies, and debtors from all over the world. He wasn't sure if any of them could pressure the CCP, rival the Party in power, but Gwen was the girl who liberated Shenyang, fought a Lich! No matter his father's confidence, or Tu's bribes, or Chen's delusions of Party grandeur— it was entirely possible Gwen had the eye of someone in the politburo. What if that was why she saw his admiration only as a distraction? There was someone else, maybe, a Party Secretary, or a European prince, who could be her amorous sponsor!

"Father— NO!" Dai knew it was now or never. He had to gamble everything. If Dai failed, he would be excommunicated by Shen, removed from the line of succession, chased out of Nantong. But if he succeeded and his guess was right—

Then the Nantong Fungs might still exist tomorrow!

Bodily, Dai leapt in front of Lulan and Ruì. "Patriarch! You're making a terrible mistake!"

"Dai!" His father growled like a Water Ghost. "Get out of the Mao-damned way, you ingrate—"

_DING!_

A blooming Message spell exploded beside Shen's, Tu's, and Quin's ear, visible to all. For those in the know, they perceived it to be a missive from the Party directorial office, delivered through the elevated channels occupied by the Confidential Communications Committee.

Dai watched as Shen Fung looked at his son, at his partners, then lowered his hand.

_DING!_

The spell tolled on, demanding public redress.

His father touched a finger to his wrist. "Wei, send it through."

Without ceremony, the Message resounded through the room. The voice that broadcasted itself was strange to all but the three who oversaw Tonglv.

"Mister Fung. I humbly ask you and your men to stand down when my men arrive. Should there be a confrontation, I have given full authority to my proxy to deal with you as they see fit…"

Dai did not know the voice, but from the way his Father's face turned instantly ashen, he could guess to whom it belonged.

Secretary-General Miao Yang-Bò!
He who oversaw the Central Commission for Discipline and Inspection! The unseen-hand, holding the leashes! The watcher who watches the watchers. Who else could bypass his father's web of alliances? Who else couldn't care less for Tu and Chen's cocoon of favours?

"… take a seat. Do not fret. Your deliverance will soon arrive."

Magister Chen found an executive chair and sunk into the luxurious leather. He clutched his chest with one hand, while the other supported his torso so he could remain upright.

Tu too had turned the colour of ash as he mopped the sweat pouring from his head with the palm of his hand, adding to the stains on his rapidly yellowing collar.

Dai met his father's eyes.
An adage his father often sprouted in Dai's youth came to mind. "Do no evil in the bright day. Fear no evil in the night."

The CCDI had appropriated the same ancient aphorism as its eight-worded motto. "Curb desire at day, fear no knocking at dark."

Sure, Gwen was fleecing the Tonglv project hundreds of thousands of HDMs a year, but she did so legally. Could the Fung Clan say the same? Could Tu? Or Chen? How bottomless was their greed, that they could not stomach losing even one-hundredth of the money Tonglv made?

And now it was all too late.

Like a man exhaling for the last time, the double doors opened once more.

Shen, Tu and Chen all rose to greet the inspector sent by the CCDI.

When they saw the familiar face, the blood drained from their bodies once more. Chen grew so weak that he even sank to the floor and had to be helped by a guard.

"U-uncle Jun!" Dai blurted out when he met the man's eyes. "You're here? But…"

But of course.
Tao and Mina had mentioned in passing that Miao Yang-Bò spoke to Gwen during an incident involving her Father's wedding in Hangzhou. Behind Jun were other members of the CCDI, staff with absolute loyalty to the Party apparatus, bound by Geas and indoctrinated from childhood.

Before Dai could bow and scrap, another figure entered the room.

A woman.
No, Dai reminded himself. A goddess.
If Gwen was beautiful, then this vision of loveliness was the single most alluring being he had ever beheld in all his years. It wasn't so much her hair, her vivid eyes, the flawlessness of her skin, or the stature of her svelte figure— it was that her presence grew beyond what humanity could engender. She was otherworldly: that was all Dai could fathom as her aura filled the room.

"Shishu." Lulan bowed from the waist.

Master-Uncle? Dai's jaws clenched reflexively. It took a second for his mental faculties to process the archaic title, and when they did, he understood that he was in the presence of a being whose bloodline hailed from a time when the Fung still fished with sticks and stones.

"Lord Ayxin." Shen Fung held out his hands in a bygone, dynastic act of supplication. "The Nantong Fungs welcome the scion of the Yinglong to our humble abode."

"Greetings to Lord Ayxin." Tu quaked.

"Greetings to Lord Ayxin." Chen did his best to retain what dignity he had left.

The guards fell to one knee. Ruì was already on both knees, though the girl knelt to one side, in the manner of a vassal.

Dai's face violently filled with blood.
Like observing the end of a contentious game of Go, the final checker-piece fell into place.
Secretary-General Miao.
Jun Song.
Princess Ayxin.
Lulan Li's Master-Uncle.
Ruì— awed but unsurprised.
James Ma's great gloat.
Gwen's absent assets.

_Mao's balls!_ Dai felt as though his mana channels were about to erupt. He lacked a mouth but was full of desire to scream and howl.

GWEN SOLD THEM OUT TO A DRAGON.

That's why Secretary-General Miao was involved!
A Dragon! The Huangshan princess! That she owned a portion of Tonglv meant that a mythic now held a mutual interest in China's infrastructure! The old dogs in the Party were paying tithes in all but name to the master of southern China's rice bowl! Since the inception of the CCP, the Party had struggled to create meaningful dialogue, and now, thanks to Jun— or Gwen— and Ayxin, they had it! Praise the Three Gorges!

Across the room, Dai could see that his father must have reached the same conclusion. For a moment, their eyes met, and Dai saw in the usually imperturbable mien of his esteemed father, such despair and self-loathing that his heart instantly ruptured.

"Vataka!" Ayxin gave the command. "What gall you must possess to threaten one of my brother's employees? AND one of our disciples? I could flay your souls and not quail a mote of our family's anger!"

Dai allowed his body to fold.
The triumvirate who had not knelt crashed to the floor, not so much that they could not resist Ayxin's Dragon-tongue, but that they dared not. With the CCDI even now securing the building and Jun, the uncle of the very girl whose shares they attempted to usurp watching like a hawk, they knew there was nowhere to run, that a teenager had outplayed them all.

"How dangerous is human greed, to desire more than you deserve," Jun remarked. To Dai, the war hero appeared younger than in the posters he recalled. "Ruì, Lulu, why are you kneeling? Professor, please get up. Ayxin?"

The Dragon-fear relented.
Ma and his men retrieved themselves with Jun's aid. Jun took a stroll around the cleaved table, whistled, patted Lulan on the head, then reached Dai.

Dai looked up.
"Get up, Mister Fung."
With great unwillingness, Dai stood.

"Don't fret." Jun's hand on his shoulder possessed the weight of mountains. "Gwen told me about you. And we've also seen how you've followed her advice in governing Tonglv— curbing nepotism, fully-auditing accounts. Well done, xiao-Fung."

Dai choked. "My… my father."

"Will live, thanks to you." Jun's amiable mien may as well be the risen sun, melting the winter ice. "Those other two, however, will be taking a trip to Nagaland. As for Patriarch Fung. We'll be mining his memories, delicately, so that he will recover in time. That said, a dozen years in Stasis goes without question. An example must be made."

"Nagaland?" Dai mumbled over his words. "Father? Stasis? Why?"

"Bribery of Party officials— fermenting dissent, conspiring to form a party-within-the-Party. Disturbing the peace. Profiteering from Party infrastructure. Misuse of public funds. Tax Evasion." Jun sighed. "Gwen left the Fung's something amazing. Was it not enough? I don't know whether to praise or scold her for the flood of Penal Mages now serving in Shenyang. Tonglv might seem like an ascension to most, but to me, all I see is an enormous rat-trap."

Behind the two, the Dragon goddess muttered something in a language Dai could not understand.

Tu's whimpering ceased at once— not because the man had grown a spine, but because he had become entirely rigid.

It was Stasis— an upper-tier multi-school magic Dai had only heard rumours of existing. A spell that held one's body frozen in time, or managed a visual facsimile, while horrifyingly, left one's mind free to think and wonder. In Tianlanqiao, the spell required two mandalas, powered by a ley-line connected to a multi-storey structure.

"Mao, please, I have a family. I have grandchildren…" Chen whimpered as Ayxin approached. "Please, princess, have mercy, think of your children. Have compassion—"

"Vataka!"

_THWACK!_ Chen slammed himself wetly against the floor so hard that when he once again lifted his face, it bled from every orifice.

Without expression, the Dragon-Princess performed the same rite.

"You two are a reparation gift." Ayxin's face was without expression. "Don't worry; your family will be going with you. Every one of them that has benefited from the hoard you stole from my brother, will answer in his Jade Court."

Dai dared not glance at his father's shivering form. Instead, he addressed Jun once more.

"How… could the Party just surrender its citizen like this? They misappropriated funds. They didn't hurt anyone."

Jun cut him off before he could finish. "HDMs? Is that all? These are men who have fed on the flesh of their fellow citizens, young Lord of the Fung Clan. As of now, almost a million of our people are reliant on the canal for their daily rice. From the meanest peddler to Ma's senior auditors, the seasonal labourer to our Committee Chair. Your father— Tu and Chen, though they have not maimed anyone personally, they've done untold harm to tens of thousands. Because they wanted more power, Crystals meant for investments bled out from Tonglv. Hundreds of thousands of workers, maybe more, were underpaid or not paid at all. How do you think those luckless workers in the Districts survived the winter? How about their starving wives and daughters? Because of their unnatural ambition, goals went unmet in phase two, land sold for cheap to their friends and families. But what about the jobs those sales were engendering? The workers whose wages were paid for by the project profits? What of Tonglv's municipality, who never received the land tax? Who could keep the Districts running on hot air? Fresh food, clean water, books for the children, Awaken Crystals! Are these not lives in themselves? No, they may not have killed anyone— but fractions of a hundred-thousand-lives were lost."

Dai nodded.
Could he have stopped his father?
Tonglv was the infinite rice cooker Gwen had filled for the Clan of Fung.
It was a golden goose that laid Mithril eggs, conjured from thin air— but for the Clans, one goose wasn't enough. What Jun said wasn't arcane. The Grey Ghost's mantra from Mao's Red Book was a lesson all knew but few heeded.

"Dai!" Shen Fung's final words rang across the boardroom as Jun's men politely bound his wrists. "Son, save the Clan!"

Looking at the queerly familiar silhouette of Ayxin, Dai felt such regret that he had fallen for that vision of loveliness at the House of M. If he had controlled himself then— if he had walked away—
He was the one who had invited Gwen into the Fung's midst.
And sure, Tonglv had elevated the Fung Clan to lofty heights of late.
But what goes up, must come down.

And now, the Fung Clan may never rise again.

Evening.
The Nantong-Shanghai Expressway.

Against Jun, Ayxin lounged on the Drake-skin leather of the palatial German automobile the government had provided for her outings.

She was in a delicate mood, one she seldom showed to her companion, feeling a discontent that only rose to the fore whenever Jun or someone discussed the matter of Gwen Song.

Her lover still held enormous sentiments for his niece— fatherly feelings, as familial as his filial respect for Klavdiya. Yet, they caused Ayxin untold upset. Consciously, she attributed her burgeoning emotions to her gradual humanisation. To understand Jun, his family, and to provide for a family of her own, she had allowed herself a gradual increase in mortal sensations.

Jun, for example, had a preference for excessively spiced food— a habit he professed to be weaning from thanks to her revitalisation of his Ash-tainted senses. As for Ayxin herself, she had no preferences other than for what Jun preferred. The mortal foodstuff in the lower realms had the Essence value of dust compared to the creatures fed by her Father's occupancy. To that end, she had made demands to Ryxi to supply their meals.

"Ayxin…" Jun turned his head to kiss her forehead. In his eyes, she could see her visage reflected, a sight that well pleased her. "Do you think Gwen planned for all of this? If she did— Mao help us, that girl is inhuman."

"No," Ayxin refuted all credit to Jun's slithering, green-eyed niece. "Ruxin is the one mastering the claim."

"Oh thank Mao," Jun exhaled, laughing nervously. "Of course, that makes more sense."

Ayxin turned away, suddenly disquieted.
Had the Calamity planned for any of this?
Surely her eldest was the master behind the puppet?
If not—
Ayxin observed the goosebumps rising on her bare thighs.
Jun was looking as well, though likely for entirely different reasons.
A curious thing, Ayxin wetted her lips; unlike her Draconic-form, her human body possessed a mind of its own.


"Chin up!" With a finger, Magus Keridwen Le Guevel teased her student's profile until she achieved the desired limberness. "My dear, you have an enviously inviting neck."

"That's not ominous at all." Gwen mindfully swallowed, tracing the wandering digit with her eyes. "There aren't any Vampires in Cambridge, are there? Square jaw, smoky eyes, sparkles in the sun?"

"One could hope," Le Guevel cooed. "England isn't the untamed Eastern Reaches. I wonder, though. You would make a wonderful diplomat, with such tempting veins, rich with the unclaimed blood of a virgin."

At the V-word, Gwen stumbled forward, her left foot tripping on her four-inch heels, the ball of her foot landing on her instructor's shoe.

"Oh my god…" Wincing in sympathy, Gwen made a face. At six-foot-something, she was not light like Elvia. "Keri, are you alright?"

"I am… fine," Le Guevel's mouth spoke without moving.

"You're sweating…"

"And you need to keep your chin up— Mind your expression, dear." Magus Le Guevel recovered through sheer force of will. "You're not Devouring. You're dancing."

Gwen did her best to put on a felicitous expression while her instructor attempted to regain her mobility.

"This time, follow my lead." Her tutor took Gwen by the fingers. "Chin up— poise is the point of the cotillion. We'll get you into a corset and petticoat soon, kitten."

"Er… please don't." Gwen rigidly swung her limbs, at once thrilled and horrified by the prospect. To her chagrin, her upper body and lower body appeared to possess separate nervous systems. "How is this so hard?"

"Be patient, dear. As with Spellcraft, you'll get there."

"Why is this necessary again?" Gwen sighed. "Isn't this sort of thing outdated?"

"The cotillion? Outdated?" Magus Le Guevel snapped back indignantly. "Exclusivity is the point, kitten. Besides, how do you expect to spend your days and nights in high society? Show off your crates of HDMs? Compare Magic Items? God forbid you debate politics in public! A good mixer, pussy cat, is diplomacy! Be it a quadrille or a tango or a grand waltz— they'll tell you more about a man than any words. If your horizontal fandango is as uncoordinated as your vertical waltz—"

Gwen snorted.

"Do you doubt our lesson, young noviciate?"

"I wouldn't use so strong a word." Gwen shook out her stiff arms. "I get it. But it's not Mind Magic."

"So you do doubt." Le Guevel snorted back. "Take my hand. I will show you. Are you familiar with the box step?"

"I might be." Gwen met her instructor's fingers with her own. Le Guevel's sinews were taut like piano wires, expert and in control, a stark contrast to her own.

"Let's begin." Le Guevel led her forward, placing a palm so intimately against Gwen's tapered waist that Gwen's face grew flushed. In the next moment, when the illusory-music began to play, student and instructor stood skin to skin, an inch apart, with Le Guevel's breath warm on the nape of her exposed neck while around them, a vague Blue Danube lulled from bar to bar. At first, her steps continued its confusion, but once she fell in rhythm with the tempo, her body felt far more natural.

Le Guevel's unorthodox lessons continued.

"From the subtle tremors of your partner's hand, you may sense their sincerity. This close, you can feel the rush of heat under their skin when they lie."

Once the Waltz got going, Gwen felt as though caught in a trance. When was the last time she danced with someone in either of her two lives?

"Good… now that we are joined at the hip— answer a question for me."

"Go on." Gwen allowed her body to follow its instincts. Was it the human touch she craved? It had been weeks since she took her dose of Evee.

"Kitten. Are your feelings for Miss Lindholm the result of indiscriminate longing for companionship?"

Gwen retreated a step, tripped over her ankles, then overcorrected by pulling on her instructor and swinging her right foot forward.

"See how easily you can unbalance an opponent?" the Illusionist spoke through clenched teeth.

"... Sorry about your shoes."

"You should be." Her teacher studied the ceiling, her expression unflappable. "They're Parisian."

The Isle of Man.
Fort Nook.

The Angel of Douglas, famous on Vid-cast, would have preferred being roasted in the interior of a Manx effigy to her present assignment.

Never in all her eighteen years of life had she ever entertained the notion that someone was better off staying dead on her operating table. The very idea that leaving a woman to bleed out from a Serpent Curse could prevent unimaginable miseries had never occurred to Elvia before— and now that it did, she suffered for it.

Perhaps if Gwen were here, her savvy friend would know what to do, come up with an endearing excuse. Herself was woefully equipped to deal with the demands of her present dilemma. After surviving GOS, after the bullying and the hazing and the alienation, after Mathias and Red Peak and the Yinglong; she had thought herself fortified against the Wildlands.

But not, apparently, against the depth of human depravity.

Even now— this very instant that she worked her magic, a part of her wanted to snuff out the life pressed between her forefinger and her thumb. It would be so easy, a little push, a nudge, and the suffering sinner would face the highest court of justice. But just as likely, her present patient could be innocent and ignorant, like her.

The dissonance was enough to drive her mad.

"Sen-sen, Kiki, we're done here." Elvia raised her bloody hands. "Nurse, clean up. Sergeant Smith should wake up in an hour."

"Yes, Dr Lindholm!" Her trio of assistant nurses obeyed without question. Unlike at GOS or Nightingale, numbers were the only thing that mattered in a field hospital. For Elvia, her accumulative success had gained her respect, adoration and faith.

A worship she had welcomed with complete innocence until she found the mangled Manx boy outside the fort. Now, every near-cadaver that passed through her station made her question her credo. Nonetheless, she instinctually healed each of her patients, knowing that the responsibilities of a physician were intrinsic. She was not judge and jury, and she would not be the executioner either, even if she suspected their crimes.

"I'll be making the rounds," Elvia informed the guards as she passed, inviting winsome smiles and wholehearted salutes. Her Spirits, the sauntering Sen-sen and her gliding Alraune, likewise received benedictions in the form of Prime Element LDMs harvested from the isle's interior.

Outside the triage tent, Mathias was already waiting.

"Elvia." Mathias appeared to have not slept for some time. The young Knight's eyes were sallow despite her vitality-infusions. Her protector too had suffered from the burden of knowledge. "I've just come back from the Brig. They've rounded up more of them since this morning."

"Manx Tree-Striders?"

Mathias shook his head. "Civvies, both men and women. I heard the militia gloat about the Colonel's latest ventures. They say she raided one of their Grots."

"Kiki!" The petals on Elvia's Alraune grew scarlet.

"Where's the Colonel now?"

"Out foraging, again; she should be back in the evening."

Foraging— Elvia shuddered. If only she knew what that meant the first time.

Elvia attempted to weigh the pros and cons of her desired action, but her head was a scrambled mess of wants and wishes, preventing an informed decision. But then again, it didn't matter. She would follow her heart first; what was the alternative? Leave the locals to suffer needlessly?

Very quickly, she made for the lower reaches of the encampment, where new Manx prisoners were covertly fed into "The Brig". From the courtyard, she crossed the murder holes, passing by Mages who stopped to wave. Once down the cliff face steps and through the carved out line-break, she and Mathias arrived at a secondary court levelled from the hillside by ancient Earthen Transmuters. Though the fort's upper tier was new, the structure itself was a chimeric mess of encampments from each of the "Manx Wars" spanning the centuries.

Opposite Fort Nook's hillside, Elvia could see the Port of Douglas. During the 14th century, the original fort served as a bastion for English forces under Henry V. Together with Avalon on the isle's north-east, and Fort Erin nearer the isle's south, the triple locale serviced London's sovereignty.

The Brig was divorced from the main encampment, located in a part of the fort that few would visit. Were it not for the boy and Mathias' subsequent enquiries, Elvia would not have even known it existed and would have blithely restored every monster that came her way.

"Dr Lindholm, Ser Rothwell." The guards at the grated gates stood to attention. Their faces were friendly, but their body language spoke of wariness. "This area is out of bounds."

"But not to one executing duties as a member of the medical staff." Elvia gave them the most charming grin she could muster, fighting the self-loathing and wondering how Gwen dealt with bad people so readily. "Please open the gate. Cleanliness is Godliness. I'd hate to treat you all for infections."

The guards' mien took on complicated expressions. "Ma'am, the Colonel has given an explicit command to bar you from entry."

"Why?"

"It is dangerous for an august personage like yourself to visit the Brig. These Manx, they're animals."

"And the Angel of Douglas can't be aiding and abetting an enemy," the younger of the guards, a corporal, repeated something he must have heard from a higher up.

"I am afraid he's right." The senior of the two scratched his nose. "You're a member of civ-staff as well. You need permission. I am sorry, Doc."

Elvia looked to Mathias.

"Corporal." Mathias stepped forward. "As a Knight of St Michael, I have extra-special powers of inspection regarding her Majesty's armed forces. As such, I shall now exercise—"

_Aarrrrrrgh— Aarrrrrgh—_

The cry that came from below was barely a whisper. The walls were thick stone reinforced by rebar. Whatever happened beyond the rusty portcullis, occurred in darkness, out of sight and out of mind. That was the purpose of the Brig.

Elvia grew momentarily paralysed by that terrible sound. "Mattie, tell them to let me in."

"Ma'am—" The guards placed their hands on the pommel of their wands. "There is no—"

"LET ME IN!" Before Mathias could speak, Elvia felt the heat rise in her chest. With her Essence-enhanced senses, she could hear the scream again, and to her chagrin, she knew the owner. It was the Manx boy. God damn it! God damn these bottled spiders! These abortive devils! How could they?! "Sen-sen!"

"Sen!" Her Ginseng Sprite obeyed without delay, impairing the pair with a crash of fear so poignant it may as well be liquid.

The men vomited, reduced to jelly as they prostrated on the floor. Facing the miserable cretins, Elvia erased all conflicted feeling of guilt. For the "Fear" to truly work its wickedness, the user had to infuse the aura with harmful intent and emotion— and right now, she was anything but a walking Tower of fury and vengeance.

"Elvia." Mathias stood in her way. "They're just following orders."

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

Elvia did not agree. God gave all men the infinite faculty of choice, and these men had made theirs. "Sen. Take the gate down."

"Sen!"

The ground cracked. A dozen tendrils as thick as Elvia's waist sprouted from the diminutive Sen-sen, forming a bizarre and disproportionate spectacle. Once the Ginseng dug in, it took only two tugs for the metal to warp, then for the gate itself to be wholly removed from the Warded walls, resulting in a shower of zig-zagging mana.

"Assuming there's a next time." Mathias watched while Kiki subdued the guards with a sting to their necks. "Let me cut the gate. At least that would be repairable."

Saying nothing, Elvia entered the horridly dank stairway leading downward into the Brig. Once a medieval castle, the fort's under-chambers previously served as storage. It was built from dark stone naturally resistant to magic, especially the kind wielded by the Druids of the isle.

"I'll lead." Mathias pushed his body in front of her. Elvia nodded. There was the likelihood of physical traps in a place like Fort Nook, with its history of perpetual war going back millennia and more.

A level later, the Knight's worries had been proven false. There were no flesh-turning Warding Glyphs. There was, however, the mercenaries.

_Spak!_ The sound of a Magic Missile pinging off Mathias' Armour of Faith resounded sharply in the corridor.

Ahead of Elvia, her Knight growled. Mathias appeared calm on the surface, but his biometrics spoke only of fury.

"SMITE!" The Knight glowed briefly golden as the spell struck. The impact was followed shortly by the sound of a shattering shield, then the muffled thunk of a body hitting the floor.

Around the corner, the Knight's victim came into view. A middle-aged Mage, one of the many recruited by the Colonel, a "volunteer".

"Healing Word!" Elvia made sure their assailant lived to pay for his crimes.

"This way." Mathias pointed to the door from which the merc had emerged.

Inside was another guard; one Mathias politely dispatched— though that was no business of Elvia's.

She ran instead to the hog-tied silhouette in the cell and tore the tendon-like ropes with her bare fingers. When the boy came into view, Elvia's blood curdled.

Presently, he was naked and unconscious, breathing in alternating rhythms of fast and slow. His arms and legs, and the area near his ribs, were covered in little black scabs. His head was shaved bald, and worst of all, the long, tapered ears the Manx had inherited from their Elven forefathers had been hacked down to the stump.

Elvia's fingers trembled even as Mathias audibly swore, infringing on his oath.

_A week ago. A WEEK AGO!_ She and Mathias had found him below the fort, in a pile of indiscriminate trash. The dying boy was covered in the same wounds from neck to groin. Disturbed, Elvia had healed the boy then and there, inadvertently saving his life. She and Mathias had argued, then they allowed the boy to flee.

Afterwards, Mathias had made enquiries, and that was when they found "The Brig". The same knowledge revealed why the Colonel had earlier arrived at Elvia's operation table riddled with arrows, why three-dozen Manx, two Druids among them, had risked and lost their lives to ambush the Isle's commander.

Beside the boy, on an old, rickety table laden with rusted tools, Mathias picked up the boy's file.

"It says here..." The Knight's tone could crack the stonework. "There has been a confession. A confession that the Manx had stolen from the granary, from the fort itself, from the townsfolk. It says there's going to be an armed rebellion, and that in a month, there will be an all-out war against the kingdom. It says here that the boy is a spy, a scout."

"Bastards!" Elvia bit back the bitter beginnings of seething tears. She willed Kiki to inject the boy with a dose of pleasant dreams, then with the greatest delicacy, she infused the Manx child with a vivifying surge of Essence-laced Positive Energy.

The boy stirred, awoken by the bone-scraping itch of mending flesh. When the scabs fell from his body, Elvia could see that this time, there was no restoring his ears. The cartilage was sawed off. There would be no intervention without higher magics.

The boy fought to open his eyes. When they finally did, his orbs were full of vacant violence, when he opened his mouth—

Elvia gasped.

The boy's teeth, or the lack of it, turned her stomach.

"Calm Emotion! Bless!" She blasted the boy with twin fortification, one for the mind and the other for the body.

_"Deirfiúr!"_ The boy spoke sloppily, bewildered by his surroundings, his eyes swimming in their sockets. The Calm Emotion had hidden the horror, but lucidity brought new terrors to his waking mind. _"Deirfiúr! Deirfiúr!"_

"What's _Deirfiúr?"_ Elvia looked to Mathias, who had a Translation Stone.

"... _sister."_ Mathias swallowed.

"... Mathias..." Elvia could no longer think straight. Quickly, she doused herself with Sen-sen's latent Essence, flooding her conduits with a tolerance she could not otherwise possess.

"I'll go on ahead." Her Knight volunteered. Spellsword in hand, the warden of St Michael's Oath proceeded down the corridor, moving out of sight, hollering for who else was left in the Brig to give themselves up.

Inside the small cell, Elvia asked her Ginseng to bundle the boy in a nest of tendrils. Kiki sprayed the corridor with neurotoxins in case more of the island's militia arrived.

Furiously, she turned her mind over and over, trying to think of a way forward. If there was one solace, it was that thanks to Gwen's uninvited vid-cast, her present reputation had her high on an unwanted pedestal. A dozen senior Maguses like Fitzgerald and even the Colonel herself owed her their health. It meant that no matter the Colonel's rage, she would have to weigh her options before confronting her.

What must she do to expose the isle's commander? Elvia queried herself. The confession the boy had signed made him an enemy combatant. There would be duplicates, even if Mathias burned the folder. If the Manx boy were human, the Tower would afford him certain rights, but as a demi-human—

Elvia glanced at the vacant boy, restored but for his teeth and ears. The Manx, with their olive-hued dermis, came in colours ranging from sweet birch to chocolate mahogany. Their eyes, much larger than a human's, were fox-like and vivifying, not unlike Gwen's. With their high cheekbones and petite mouths, the long-living demi-humans appeared younger than their years.

_Subhuman,_ according to the Colonel— but _human_ enough for Elvia to hate her own kind.

But feelings aside, her present dilemma remained. She had effectively broken into the isle's private prison and attacked its men. How could she turn this around? What would Gwennie do?

_Ding!_

An urgent Message came from Mathias. In between the warded walls, Elvia could hear the distinct sound of her Knight's Radiant Rays scorching the stonework, as well as the familiar din of rapid spell casting from his opponents.

"Follow me, stay close." Elvia placed the half-conscious youth between herself and Kiki, sending Sen-sen to lead the way.

Past the muggy, low-ceiling corridor and its ancient stonework, she came upon the guard's quarters. Within, Mathias had subdued the mercenaries by slicing their drinking table in twain, along with the wine and the cans of bully beef, scorching the cards and the gambling chips with his Radiant Aura.

Elvia could see that her Knight shook with barely contained fury. His armament, a suit of Faith-laced Mage armour empowered by a minor Relic of St Michael, glimmered on and off like a bulb.

With her arrival, Mathias stared so hard Elvia was half-way tempted to bestow a Calm Emotion on her companion. Numerically, the diagnostic overlay of her enchanted eyes marked the young man's hypertension as well-past two-hundred. "Blackguards! Traitors to the Mageocracy! The honour..."

_Honour?_

Elvia sighed. She moved past Mathias, past the four singed Mages standing with their faces to the wall, then looked into the dozen or so cells spanning the lower reach of the makeshift dungeon.

The first two cells held victims of harsh interrogation. The third held something far worse.

"Don't look!" Mathias was still far too overprotective.

Elvia recalled the story Gwen once told of her finding such a scene in the lair of a Water Ghost chieftain. What Gwen tried to narrate, her diagnostic magic told her far more than she could ever desire to know. The Manx female would live, that much she could ascertain— for the mercenaries' cruel sport, as well as the extorted confession, a live victim was necessary.

And all of this was the work of the Colonel. The same platinum-haired, blue-eyed Colonel who had publically commended her, kissing her cheeks! Now the thrice-damned demoness was once again out there, foraging for the Manx— all thanks to Elvia.

"… I'll melt this place to magma." Mathias' fury came across in a silent Message. "Evee, the shame… it's too much. How could this happen? We're long past the Beast Tide, and yet, these Mages are worse than the Beastmen. Now we know why the common folk can't ever be in command!"

Elvia had no answers for her Knight-companion. She wasn't Gwen, who could fathom everything. What she did have, however, was the beginnings of an idea that only she could enact. As a famous no one who belonged to no House, no Faction, and whose patrons paid only in lip service, she was free— free and unindentured to do what was necessary. What was the worst that could happen— could they send her to another Frontier to heal the needy? Restore the NoMs?

Thinking of her attention-loving partner, an idea coalesced.

"Mattie," Elvia spoke while Kiki kept the guards dreaming until kingdom come. "Are the reporters still in Douglas?"

"Reporters?" Mathias did not comprehend her purpose. "If they are, they'll be at the port, drinking at the Sea Shanty."

"Get Dominic." Elvia willed Kiki to do her thing. "Contact the base, sound the alarm. Tell everyone to bring everyone. Every lumen-recorder…"

Realisation dawned on her partner's face.

"Evee— I can take care of this. I swore an oath to uphold what's good. The militia can't fault me without infringing on the Knights' Code. But you…"

"No, it's fine," Elvia shook her head. She was involved now. "Who needs an 'oath' to do what's right?"

Elvia activated her Message Device as well. She had no idea who was in cahoots, nor did she care. The horrors here must be brought into the light.

The Message spell chimed. Elvia greeted the man responsible for her presence on the isle.

"Elvia?" the sound of Magus Fitzgerald's gravelly voice sounded concerned. "What's the matter? You sound upset."

"Sir," Elvia needed no acting to voice her rioting emotions. "I need you to come down to the southern end of Fort Nook. I found something, and I need your help."

The Lord Earl Marshall of Britain was in the middle of a meeting when the news broke that the timed Warding Glyph regarding Tonglv had erupted spectacularly.

Outside, mid-conversation with his agent in Hong Kong, a second Crow from the Fifth Cabal arrived with developing events from the Isle of Man. Thanks to their man there, Dominic Lorenzo, the Foreign Service had gained twenty-four hours to frame the narrative before the news-cycle struck.

Unfazed, the Duke of Norfolk communed with his officers, then reclused himself to the executive suite reserved for the Lord Marshall of England, deep within the tiered halls of the Westminster Palace.

Once seated, Mycroft cooly massaged his temples, relaxed his brows, then settled down to think.

That the communists' capitalist venture would implode had been within expectations.

Conversely, the Isle of Man was an ongoing headache. There was nothing like conflict close to home to burden the population with war fatigue. Now, the sentiment would only sour.

On the surface, the two events would appear separate.
But beneath the beneath, Mycroft could see the interconnected ley-lines.

For Shanghai, what his agents had failed to foresee, was that a teenage Void Sorceress would rope a family of Mythics into managing a portion of Tonglv's revenue stream. That and her patron was Ruxin, newly minted Lord of Nagaland, Kachin and Manipur, the offspring of the mythical Yinglong. To complicate matters, with Yangoon's Tower underway, his Faction considered Ruxin a vital ally for regional stability.

As for the twin-Spirted troublemaker in Fort Nook spoiling Colonel Tarleton's stratagem, the same sorceress was responsible.

How was it all correlated? The seemingly disjointed nature of what should be interconnected was what grated on Mycroft's nerves.

With an outreached Mage Hand, Mycroft punched an unseen Glyph. The cold air circulating the room thrummed, coalescing until it formed a vague, female silhouette. Ravenport closed his eyes and calmly meditated, wary of the Negative Energy flowing underfoot, feeding the Mandala etched into the ancient woodwork.

Across from the Marshall's table, nearer the centre of the room, the shadow of unlife grew substantial, birthing red cloth like velvety wine from an open casket. Atop the fount of falling fabric, a white face blossomed, wreathed in braided strands of crow-black hair.

"My lord." The female figure bowed her head.

"Morrigan." Ravenport dipped his chin. "I require clarification."

"Of course. Your tithe?"

The Duke of Norfolk extended his hand, from his palm, a single orb of sanguine blood drifted forward. Tenderly, the spectre parted her mouth, resting the droplet on her wanton tongue.

"You should cut down on the sugar." The phantom licked her lips. "Very well, by oath and hearth— How may I serve?"

Ravenport gathered his thoughts. His thrall-Sprite had little patience for matters outside its domain.

"I want everything gathered by the Crows, foreign and domestic, on the subject of Gwen Song, correlated with the Tonglv Project in Nantong. Search array should be between 2003 to late 2004. Process the reports in order of incidence, add keywords for the Dragons of Huangshan— Yinglong, Ayxin, Ruxin, Golos."

"Gwen Song. Understood."

Like rich wine soaking into the corduroy carpet, Morrigan sunk unto the Mandala, burrowing into the vaults beneath Westminster Palace, where a million shelves housed the unfathomable volumes necessary in running an Empire as broad in scope as the Mageocracy.

It took the phantom only fifteen minutes to return.

One by one, the reports opened themselves for Ravenport's convenience, held in a semi-circle before and above the Duke in the manner of an orchestral pit surrounding a wanded conductor.

Each by each, the dossiers appeared unenterprising.
Together, they were enough to construe a fanciful tale of events unfolding first in Nagaland, then Yangoon, then Nantong and Shanghai. After a focused hour, Mycroft concluded that the Mageocracy needed to invest more analysts to evaluate the intelligence filtering in from Hong Kong and Shanghai. The Communists had censored much of the information surrounding the Dragons of Huangshan, but the tale-telling facts had not been missed— only disregarded.

In hindsight, was the girl's involvement coincidental or explicit? If the latter, when had she begun to sow the seeds of change? Around the time of the IIUC? Or earlier?

"Morrigan, arrange the dossier via chronology and region, start with Shanghai, then Yangoon, Kachin, Huangshan, Dalian and finally Shenyang."

"As you wish."

With hindsight and a dozen hovering files floating around him, Mycroft Ravenport tentatively appended the missing connections.

"… Morrigan, bring forward all articles with mentions of Gwen Song."

The scarlet phantom performed as was told.

Mycroft Ravenport sighed.

The emerging pattern told an unlikely tale. How could a single human Mage bring about such radical change? If Gwen Song rivalled Sobel, and if Kilroy still worked behind the scenes, then maybe, he was willing to entertain the possibility. But according to these reports, the girl had no political backing, no Factional membership, and no more than a dozen spells, none above the sixth tier.

What was the source of Maxine's confidence? What of Gunther Shultz, was he involved? Now, he had to make good on the promise of finding the girl an apt instructor, the means for which lay in Snowdonia.

Mycroft felt a peculiar thrill as his gaze swept over the levitating reports. A part of him detested the scandal of being humbled by so young an opponent. Another part of him welcomed a skilled adversary, one whose potential, adequately directed, could bolster the Mageocracy's upward momentum.

Out of habit, his skeletal fingers drummed the ancient oak of the brass-bound Griffin-hide throne. Curiously, his rumoured bastard was settling into London wholeheartedly.

According to Morrigan, the girl held unnatural affections for Fort Nook's troublemaker. Concurrently, the Order of the Bath was closely following the healer's performance on the isle. If so, regardless of the Knight Elector's decision, he could put in a petition to have the girl inducted.

There was also the girl's first cousin, Richard, presently studying at King's College. Like the Cleric, the prior Prince's candidate, an ambitious young man with a steady hand for Crow work, was a seed worth cultivating.

Additionally, according to Cambridge, yet another family member was on the way. What had prompted the memo on Petra Kuznetsova was the girl's prior history as a Red Ghost in training from Moscow Tower, a femme fatale abandoned by the late "Master" Popov.

Finally, there was Dominic Lorenzo, soon to become the girl's confidant.

A secret smile touched the Duke of Norfolk's lips. There was undoubtedly much work to be done.

"Thank you, Morrigan. That will be all. Please keep a bird on our Void Sorceress at all times."

"Understood." The spectre dissolved. Gradually, the secret room regained its previous temperature.

Tonglv.
Communists.
Dragons.
Mycroft Ravenport finally relaxed.
The lass was a hellcat to be sure.
Just as well, fortune and success made for snug collars.


Cambridge.

Maxwell Brown, Professor of Advanced Spellcraft Theory at Emmanuel College, inspected the adjacent laboratory he had vacated for his new colleague, "Meister" Wen. For a while now, he'd been in an ebullient mood, ever since their schooling of the Void Sorceress began in earnest. As a member of the staff responsible for grooming the university's premier show pony and the Mageocracy's future workhorse, Brown considered himself a holistic devotee to the Omni-Mage known as Gwen Song.

On the subject of Void Magic, Gwen was a fount of untapped potential, providing answers for so many questions Deathless Kilroy had left long neglected for want of materials.

Answers to long-held enquiries such as how did Sobel grow so powerful and so quickly found a sterling reply in the rapid rise of Gwen from a mewling Evoker to ravaging a city. Likewise, the confounding question of Sobel's survival in the intervening years was now an answer free for the men of Spellcraft to plumb.

Deathless Kilroy! An existence for whom Maxwell Brown held the greatest ardour! One of the original architects of the later-day Mageocracy! The progenitor of the Towers! The maker of the witch who had reversed the Crown's downward spiral!

There was little wonder that the metaphysical child of Sobel and Kilroy should stand at the apex of the specimen pile.

After Sobel's initial success in subduing the Coral Sea and the Saurians, the Mageocracy had madly scrambled to secure more of her kind, hoping that each could turn the tide where Pax Britannia had been washed away by the Magical Beasts and demi-humans erupting in every province.

The first of the Mages to grace Brown's spectrometer had been an adolescent Evoker from Mumbai, retrieved by a Frontier survey team and brought to London for study. Brown's predecessor, Magister Alex Fleming, had been the one to receive the caramel-complexioned youth. Compared to now, it was surreal to recall that he too had been a bright-eyed Magus shoring up his doctorate.

As expected, their precious specimen had been handled with a silken cord, well-loved and fattened up before they began the rituals. It had been disappointing then, that their sorceress had become inert before her third set of Magic Missiles. Undeterred, they waited for the girl to recover, painted her a picture, then did their best keeping the permanently anaemic sorceress upright and casting.

The girl perished halfway through the team's second specimen, also a girl-child, this time from Hong Kong.

By then, Oxbridge's researchers had learned through corroborating evidence that Void Mage manifestations deviated from the norm. From Germany, France and the USA, all participants seeking to craft their own Sobel discovered that, whether kept in check or left to roam freely, no methods existed in the Imperial Spellcraft System to maintain a Void Mage's health.

To make matters worse, Tokyo University proved that even when denied the learning of Spellcraft, the Awakened struggled to survive puberty. Instinctually, the Void Mage grew increasingly unstable until, whether through mental infirmities or mana leaks, they imploded.

Contrastingly, an LMU specimen kept at lower tiers managed to live longer— surviving until her thirties in '97. The proviso was that the Void Mage did not exercise spells above tier 4 and did not use their powers often. That and a carefully arranged diet of Wildland cuisine had kept the pampered sorceress alive. Regardless, her Astral Soul grew more porous than threadbare linen, proving both functionally useless in battle and a drain on resources.

Undeterred, the quest for knowledge continued. In parts of the Mageocracy's domain less concerned with optics, eugenic programs fathomed the possibility that mutations, variances and freak accidents may stabilise the bloodline. Again, failures proved the norm, while success was a rare and unreplicated bird. To Brown's knowledge, a certain Meister Bekker from London Imperial, formerly of Pretoria, had succeeded in distilling a self-sufficient Void Mage with a comparable lifespan to normal Mages, possessing the potential to one day tap into the upper tiers. He had submitted a specimen request— but was denied.

Comparatively, Oxbridge's final, unenterprising specimen was another young woman, one living out her peaceful days in Lucy Cavendish. From the very beginning, poor Gracie had struggled with the simplest spells. Her School of Magic Affinity was barely past two, and the girl's talent emphasised on Illusion, making even the simplest physical magic a death wish.

Perhaps he could arrange a meeting? Brown wondered. Maybe Gwen had something to offer her inferior counterpart.

Stepping up to the window in the old court, Maxwell Brown relaxed by taking in the tranquil Eden-scape of the Duck Pond. Watching waterfowls was a habit many of the colleges' senior staff developed throughout their years of tenure.

In his opinion, Cambridgeshire's wintertime only made the Duck Pond more beautiful. Well-pleased, Brown smiled to himself, filling his nostrils with the sterile scent of still-wrapped equipment, musty with a hint of salt from transit by sea.

Roslyn-Marie Wen.

Magister Wen's enrichment to the corpus-knowledge of Void Magic had been incidental. Her contribution, such as Gwen's profound ability to thrive through Void Consumption, was a freak accident of coalesced opportunities. Brown could only be thankful that during her time in England, the Magister had been well-trained in the Spellcraft Method. Her submissions on Gwen's growth had been a boon to the Void Magic community, a fact significantly contributing to the decision of awarding the much-undeserved title.

Once the "Meister" arrived, she would spend her time lecturing and teaching, as well as experimenting on the specimens the rest of Europe was sending Oxbridge's way. Thanks to Kilroy, the pursuit of the stable application of Void Magic had held a constant interest in the academic community. Now, after Sobel and Gwen's sterling performances, the tree was bearing fruit.

As a bonus, he would concurrently mentor the curio known as Spellcubes, a project Wen had all but abandoned after dedicating her time to the study of Void manifestations. The newfangled Enchantment, modelled after the same patterns used by Dwarves to craft Spellblades, was now the domain of Petra Kuznetsova, Gwen's cousin. As a thesis, the theory was sound. However, the overt disadvantage of the Spellcube system was the onus placed on the Enchanter, as well as the difficulty of teaching the spell to non-tertiary educated Mages. That the NoM manufactoriums could not even begin to replicate its spatial-encasement pre-shaped mana significantly limited the spell's viability.

Still deep in thought, Brown browsed the scene below with benevolence. On a beautiful, cloudless day like this, the snow sparkled, the waters refracted the clouds above, and it was only the ducks' frolicking that cast ripples into the sublimity—

"Oh my…" Brown came closer to the window.

Down in the courtyard, where a clear-cut, snowless path met the outskirts of the pond, he was bearing witness to an incredible sight.

First, there was that lone mandarine duck the pond entertained, now somehow half the height of a student, roving the grounds as though it owned the Crown land.

Then, there was a Kirin— Gwen's Kirin, roaming freely beside the duck, kicking up a fuss at the students.

Finally, there was the Void worm, Caliban, slithering to and from between the two creatures, appearing as though wrought from obsidian-glass.

Refracted against the window, Brown watched as they had cornered what looked like a first-year female student against the snow-line. Elsewhere, senior students stood, watching the show.

The duck quacked, flapping its wings and flashing the lass with its rainbow underside. Terrified, the girl threw a fistful of LDMs at the trio of creatures, then quickly retreated behind the second years.

Next, the Kirin approached. The mewling it made must have been thrilling, for the students instantly formed a ring around the creature to pat and molest its fur before awarding it everything from LDMs to HDMs to a ham-sandwich. The Kirin's name, Brown recalled with delight, was "Ariel". For a chimeric-Draconid, the name was apt, for its etymology drew from the language spoken by the Elementals surrounding the Sea of Fire, meaning the "Lion of God".

After the Lion of God came the Void fiend, only the watching students now scattered like seeds blown by a wicked wind, escaping from the hissing creature as though frightened deer in Peterhouse's park. Compared to "Ariel", the professor had doubts as to how the serpent's name came about. In the same Elemental tongue, the closest etymological link would be "Kalib", a term that inferred "yonder dog" or more precisely, "that which God has denied a human form". Again, the name was apt, but how could a Frontier teen possess such esoteric knowledge?

Maxwell credited the girl's late master once more.

As for the duck, the student body had come to call it "Dede". The meaning was a mystery. There had been a poll, and the name stuck.

Either way, Brown felt thoroughly impressed. According to Wen, Gwen Song had summoned these creatures when she was fifteen. When creating Familiars from the nebulous stuff of the Elemental Planes, one needed to have a complete understanding of what one sought. To bring into being such incredible monsters while so young— it spoke loudly of the profound lengths Kilroy had gone through to ascend his priceless specimen.

"Aeee!" the shrill screams of youthful females filled the courtyard.

Magister Brown refocused on the scene below.
Now the duck was chasing a student— a different one, round and round the pond.

"Damned duck! Desist in your vulgarity!" Another student, one who must have been an admirer, raised a hand in warning. "Last chance, fowl fiend!"

Brown furrowed his brows.
Students being harassed, attacked, maimed, accosted, robbed by the ducks was a well-honed tradition of the college. But a student stupid enough to attack the college's ducks? Now that was a crime worthy of a visit from the Praelector.

"Magic Missile!"

Brown snorted when the student released the lowest spell he knew; mindful at least, in using the non-elemental variation, meaning he could avoid reporting to the discipline committee.

"Quack!" Brown almost spat on the glass when, to his and the student's surprise, Dede swatted the Magic Missiles from the air with one sweep of its wing, then promptly delivered a broken-nose to its assailant with a resounding snap from its beak.

Maxwell Brown baulked.
Who the hell recruited this spell fodder? The duck-abusing imbecile! How much of a bookworm must the boy be if he couldn't even shield up to defend against a God-damned duck!

That said, Dede had certainly fattened up of late, supernaturally so.

Below, the boy rolled in agony, saved only when the girl he had been trying to help dropped a fistful of HDMs. Activating a suite of reinforcement magic, she bodily lifted her abortive white-knight in a princess carry, making for the infirmary.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Turning on his heels, Brown left for the pond.
Had a Blackguard been experimenting with his beloved ducks? The scowl on his face grew more intense the more he thought about the possibility. These were the college's waterfowls! Emmanuel's pride and joy! His ducklings!

When he reached the courtyard, he rediscovered the trio under the giant willow overlooking the pond, where Dede, Caliban and Ariel had pooled their loot.

"What the devil?" Brown activated a localised Scry from the Old Court's entryway.

"EE! EE!"
"Hissa!"
"Quack!"

The beasts were— Brown felt his world spin— splitting the loot!

Dede nudged the crystals with its beak.
One for itself, one for Caliban, one for Ariel—
Brown counted the HDMs and LDMs.

"Dede knows arithmetic?!"

The trio of creatures each took their share; Caliban in its mouth, the Kirin in a cloth pouch under its neck, and Dede gobbling the lot.

Quickly, Brown approached.

"Dede! Dada is here!" he called out endearingly, thinking kindly of his and the drake's history. Nervously, the Void snake and the Kirin drifted a distance away, likely wary of the man who had tortured their master to near madness.

A prideful Dede waddled up to Brown's crotch.

It had been weeks since Brown had paid appropriate attention to his avian companions in the pond. Such was the weight of his labour for Gwen, burdened atop of his usual teaching and marking duties, that he had hardly slept. Nonetheless, since the rainbow duck had appeared with regularity, he had thought all was well.

"By the Nazarene!" Brown now realised something had gone awry. "Dede, you're... positively monstrous!"

The drake was now larger than a swan, and Cambridge was no stranger to Wildland swans! Gone was the cuddly, waddly duck. What faced him now was an apex avian that could wrestle a sea eagle.

Calming himself, he activated the magic he had advised his Void student. "Commune!"

"Dede..." Brown's expression grew serious. "Who did this to you?"

"Quack!"

"A woman."

"Quack!"

"In a dress..."

"Quack! Quack!"

"She fed you... her j-juices?" Brown's scalp crawled. What a sick, ill-minded monster! The college had surely fallen if such a degenerate was left to roam the campus. "Dede, who is this woman? Do you know?"

"Quack! Quack! Quack-Quack—Quack!"

"Yesterday?" Brown cocked his head, silently humming the strange tune Dede was barking out. "All your troubles... was furtherer away?"

Maxwell Brown's brows furrowed. What the hell did that even mean?

Not far, a Kirin and its companion snake fled for the safety of Deer Park.

Ollie Edwards felt that Gwen had received a dose of her own medicine when, during their luncheon, they heard the name Elvia Lindholm play across the cafe's lumen-caster. At first confused, then enthralled, his House-sister bolted upright from the lounge chair, halfway spilling her coffee.

"… That's right, Gilbert; there hasn't been an open scandal like this since the Duke of Norfolk reformed the Adventurer's Charter of England four years ago. If you recall, that incident was the result of Foreign Service allowing mercenary auxiliaries to participate in the Fourth Ashanti War…"

Before the brief interruption, Ollie had been discussing with Gwen the wisdom of allowing her Spirits to roam Cambridge, on advice offered by Lady Grey. It was a long-standing theory that more independent a Spirit could become, the faster its growth. Gwen had been stating that Lea, Richard's Spirit, should roam with the others. With Ariel and Caliban to protect her, no Mage would dare lay a hand on her cousin's Spirit— not without having to fight off a very angry Void Fiend. Ollie had been considering whether he should contract a first-year as Gwen's Familiar-sitter when Gwen suddenly grew fixated on the screen behind them.

"You're not thinking of flying to Douglas, are you?" Ollie's scalp itched.

"No," Gwen answered stiffly.

"… or Teleporting over."

"Maybe," his House-sister answered honestly.

"And leave your Dwarves to the cold?" Ollie reminded the girl of their most pressing concerns. "The first contingent of Runesmiths are due to arrive next week— followed shortly by Petra. Didn't you want to be there to supervise their meeting? You said 'Cousin Petra' would be thrilled to meet a master of the craft she has adapted for Spellcraft."

"Yes, yes." Gwen glanced at the vid-caster, her eyes cloudy with indecision.

"Why not just call Miss Lindholm?" Ollie studied the fidgeting sorceress. The girl had finally unlocked some of her more flamboyant attires, though the fabric remained demure enough for winter. Like Ollie himself, the patrons in the coffee shop stared regardless. One because Gwen was pleasing to look at, another because there was nary a Mage in Cambridgeshire itself who would not recognise the Devourer of Shenyang.

"I tried earlier." Gwen tapped her Device to try again. "See? No luck."

"I wonder what she's doing?" Ollie warily glanced at the news. The segment on Elvia had lasted barely ten seconds, the shot of the Cleric's bust had materialised for no more than four. The principle report remained centred on the going conflict with the Manx and how the newly revealed atrocity would strain any effort at making peace with the fey-blooded indigenous folk of the isle.

"I think…" Gwen began.

"Don't—" Ollie shook his head. "To remind you of the Lady's advice. You solve this one, and you'll be called to every conflict and every stalemate. There is no rest for those who give up their gifts so easily."

Gwen sighed. "You're right— you're right. Ah sweet Evee…"

"She'll be fine." Ollie wanted to pat Gwen's knees to reassure her but settled for his own. "She's got the Ginseng and Ser Rothwell, and she heals like anything. It'll take an army to take them down."

"I hope you're right." The Devourer of Shenyang sighed sulkily. "If anything happens to Evee, it'll take an army to pry me from the Isle of Man."

Elvia listened to the lecture from Dominic Lorenzo as their group made their way south with a sleepy Sen-sen nodding off by her shoulder, and Kiki swinging from tree to tree.

The info-dump had been teased from the helpful reporter when Mathias had asked, not without some manner of frustration, "What is the Manx dissatisfied about anyway? And what do they, in fact, want from us?"

The Manx's demands, Dominic clarified, was simple.
They wanted Humans to stop spreading across their lands.
They wanted their island back, the mana miasma dispersed and the ley-line untapped.
They desired sovereignty.

"The raids carried out by the Colonel and their auxiliaries forces are unprovoked, to say the least." The reporter parted the snow with a Wand of Flaming Hands, concurrently serving as a walking stick. "Its a part of a longitudinal operation in which Tarleton has been given free reins. Unlike the previous commander, who failed to contain the war, she's fresh from the Chad campaign, where the Mageocracy succeeded in removing the Bultungin— that's Lycanthropic Hyena-folk, from the Upper Niger Delta. There, she's built quite the reputation for ruthlessness. Even before that, she was well known for her involvement in the Fourth Ashanti War, for ransoming the King's captured children— one limb at a time, until their Queen lost her mind and the King lost the popular support of his noblemen…"

Elvia listened in silence. Behind her, the freed Manx prisoners followed obediently, awed by Sen-sen and charmed by Kiki. Of the six, the boy was the bravest and followed the closest. His name, Elvia learned, was "Sionn", meaning "The Fox", a moniker now diminished by the lack of long, pointed ears. His sister's name was Siofra, a somewhat literal translation from Manx, meaning "Elf-like", so named because she was uncommonly pretty, a comeliness that had done the lassie a great disservice.

Yesterday, in the aftermath of Elvia's revelations, the Colonel had arrived to disperse the soldiers, the reporters, and the dozens of locals working in the Fort. Yet, despite her whistleblowing, Elvia was neither punished nor scolded by the Fort's Commander. Instead, Colonel Susan Tarleton had assured her that the mercenaries would be trialled and punished for their crimes and that she would assume all responsibility for the actions of the auxiliaries.

Happily, the reporters received their lumen-pics and quotes, then departed together with the stickybeaks.

When Elvia demanded what was to become of the Manx prisoners, the Colonel had confided in her that usually, she would see their ashes scattered into the sea. But, as Elvia had saved her life, she would do right by her, and give her the prisoners as a reward— to heal, to kill, to keep as playthings or release into the wilderness.

"I have a war to run, sweetie." The Colonel had bitten the matter off with a smile that revealed nothing. "Now then, squirrelkin, run along."

Lacking Gwen's words and disheartened by the nonchalance shown by the other Mages, she had left Fort Nook saddled with six recently restored prisoners.

She wished— Elvia repressed her alter-instincts— that the Manx could teach Tarleton another lesson, only this time she wouldn't be there to heal the Colonel. She wished that the people in Fort Nook, rather than shying away or spitting at the Manx when she tried to find them food and clothing, would treat them any way other than as animals.

"… It's a wonder why the Manx believe we would ever leave," Dominic concluded his lesson. "This place was forfeited to the Crown by their ancestors who lost the war in pitched battles. Everything between Douglas, Avalon and Port Erin has belonged to her Majesty for five or six centuries. As far as the government's concerned, it's our outpost, our settlement, our ISTC—"

Lorenzo glanced at the Manx trailing behind them, trudging through the sleet-like snow.

"— our guests appear unconvinced."

" _Chan eil sin fìor!_ " The Manx sister of the boy, the Elf-like one, struck out her tongue at Lorenzo. Unlike the older Manx, the girl spoke enough standard English to trade with the locals. "Our people have been here since the time of the Elves! The isle has been our home since a hundred-hundred years ago! Since the old days, we have made the Stone Circles, tended the trees, grown orchards and harvested honey all over the isle. Here is our root, our home; all you have done is cut down our woods and bleed the land to harvest your Crystals. _Luchd-ionnsaigh!_ "

Elvia felt relieved that the girl had the energy to joust Dominic. It was just as well that the Manx's anatomy was human-like. When considering how much of Siofra she had to heal, how much of the girl's organs she had to re-align and repair— it was good that Siofra did not recall what the mercenaries had done to her.

Her present self-assigned quest was to take Siofra and the others home, a recourse Elvia had arrived at after seeing how Douglas' townsfolk treated the Manx. Their destination was the sky lake, a place called "Injebreck", a name Dominic Lorenzo had touted as meaning Ingi's Slope, a Nordic name, one that was undoubtedly un-Manx-like.

"If the name of your home isn't even in your language," the reporter had mocked the bronzed Manx girl. "Then how can the land be yours?"

His words seemed to upset the lass, who then did not speak again for some time.

The journey was not long. The lake was nary a ten-kilometre trek through shrub-land and low-woods, meaning they would be in and out before nightfall. Initially, the party consisted of only herself and Mathias. When Magus Fitzgerald caught wind, he and a few of the veterans she aided had asked for leave to escort Elvia on her search to appease her conscience. To no one's surprise, the Colonel refuted the men's request.

In the end, it was Dominic who volunteered to play guide.

And through Dominic, she found out the Manx lived only fifteen minutes Mage Flight away, and that the island was traversable in a few hours via the sky. What she had imagined as Wildland barbarians living in the dark and wending woods were, in fact, a stone's throw's distance from Fort Nook. Likewise, the war was waged by Humans on the isle's north, while the regions around Douglas suffered only from infiltrations.

For Elvia, the conflict was beginning to make sense— until her party arrived at the sky lake.

For a place the Manx kept calling a lake, Elvia knew what to expect; a serene pond, maybe a few ducks, reeds and fish, with possible encampments nearer the far bank. A place poorly defended against aerial assaults but sheltered against Magical Beasts.

What she found instead was a blighted plateau.

There was nothing.
No water.
No lake.
Not even much snow.

A strange sense of déjà vu overcame Elvia at once.
The terrain was desolate but familiar, especially the pale pink of the salty lake-floor, where jagged hexagonal shards of raw salt pushed through the crystalised plane. Upon closer inspection, there was water, only the brine-like liquid oozed beneath the arm-thick crust, making the surface arguably a deathtrap.

All around the lake, trees withered where they stood or died after becoming covered by permafrosts of crystals, lining the edge of the lake like grave posts. Concurrently, a strange stink of rotting vegetable pickled in sodium haunted the party's nostrils. Much less fish, there wasn't even a bird in the cloudless sky.

Past the salt, after the party plodded across the side, she could see slimes, the primordial manifestation of rot and decay, clambering the edge of the alkaline lake where the salt had yet to grow. Nearer the brine's surface, the stench grew so terrible Elvia had to cast "Aid" on the whole party. Shouldn't this be where the Manx called home? Elvia felt her heart sink. Were they fighting the Mageocracy to the death to protect this?

"Was it always like this?" Mathias suddenly spoke.

"Of course not!" a reply came from the girl. "When I was younger, our home was beautiful. There were perch and bream in the lake, and waterfowl nesting by the tens of thousands."

Elvia struggled to think that the adolescent she had thought younger than herself was in her thirties. The Manx, thanks to their Elven blood, were long-lived and slow-maturing.

"How did it become like this?" Elvia asked the siblings and their fellows. Her eyes, however, fell on to Dominic, who seemed to know the isle's history better than they.

"It happens." Dominic's response was lukewarm. "Where the fabric between the Prime and the Planes grow thin— ah, but that's a story for another time. I do believe we have company."

"Halt!" Mathias raised a glowing fist, simultaneously rising an inch into the air, cascading salt that had crawled onto his combat boots.

From the far edge, striding through the few trees that remained, a host approached, olive in their attire, olive-haired and olive-skinned, with ears as long and tapered as flensing knives.

Before her Knight could draw his Spellblade, a palpable aura hundreds of meters in diameter erupted from Sen-sen. It was Dragon-fear, only there was no hostility, at least not yet. Instead, the stifling aura served as a warning that she came in peace, offering the gift of life.

Or— if these Elves would attack her or her party— the gift of Gwen.