Azaadi stood in a finely decorated room within Inuvik City, looking down at an elegantly crafted table upon which a large map of the Trurok region lay. The map contained several circled locations, each with a date from within the past few years written next to it. The most recent date was from over a month ago, and was scribbled next to a circle around the Triple Lily plantation.

At this moment, another person entered the room, dressed in white robes adorned with black lightning that matched the clothing worn by Azaadi.

“I’ve brought you some food, Senior Magus Azaadi,” he said respectfully with a small bow.

“Hmm,” Azaadi replied, not breaking his focus on the map before him.

Taking that as an affirmative response, the man turned back and ushered in several servants, who came bearing several different plates of food, from simple fruits and finely prepared vegetables to choice cuts of meat.

They also brought in several small stands for the food, seeing as the table in the room was fully taken up by the map. As soon as the food had been arranged around Azaadi, the servants all quietly left, bowing fearfully to the Smoke rank mage before leaving him.

“Senior Magus Azaadi, Master Silla has issued an order recalling all Wisp rank disciples to Mount Silla in order to stand watch during his breakthrough. He intends to enter closed-door meditation one week from today,” the mage said once the servants were gone, bowing slightly and extending a wooden transmission tablet towards Azaadi.

Without a word, Azaadi reached over and grabbed the tablet, closing his eyes as he examined the information contained within that had been magically delivered all the way from the Lightning Corp headquarters.

“Very well. You may go,” Azaadi said after a moment.

“Thank you, Senior Magus,” the mage said, bowing and leaving.

After his departure, the room returned to the complete silence of before, save for the sound of Azaadi absentmindedly reaching over to grab some of the food and begin chewing on it. His gaze once more returned to the map of the Mage Hunter’s exploits.

His subordinates may have been recalled, but Azaadi had not received any orders. Silla didn’t need the protection anyway – they had thoroughly rooted out any possible enemies from around his mountain in preparation for this day.

So instead, Azaadi would continue hunting for the one who killed Tulimak. His closest friend, a man that was like a brother to him. All he had to do was find the Mage Hunters.

Atop the roof of the building, directly above the room Azaadi stood working in, sat a large metal bird. As the conversation came to a close, it took off into the sky, flying in the direction of a rough, steep mountain on the horizon.

***

Cho arrived in the skies above the Mage Hunters’ unnamed mountain. Normally, some combination of the eight Mage Hunters, including Mei, were present at the peak, but today Levin saw no one there. They hadn’t mentioned leaving for a mission, so he assumed them to be inside the expansive cave they had turned into a home.

Levin needed to speak with them, but Cho would lose connection going underground this far away from Levin. So, he employed the same solution he had when spying on Triple Lily – input a set of commands, then let Cho fly on its own. As long as he programmed the route to come back into his range eventually, Cho could go anywhere. The only downside was Levin couldn’t receive any data until it came back.

It was normally quite nerve-wracking for him to drop the connection to Cho. It was even more nerve-wracking to send it into an unmapped cave, since all Levin could tell Cho was “go that way” and “don’t crash into walls” and hope the auto-pilot would take care of the rest. But Cho was a tool designed for the open skies, so this twisty and cramped cave was a place with a high likelihood of trapping Cho.

Fortunately, Mei was inside. She would know to drag the bird outside if it went on the fritz. So Levin felt no concern when he sent the bird flying into the thin crevice in the ground, screaming “I have news to report!” on a repetitive loop.

***

Uki was surprised when her normally quiet cavern was suddenly filled with the echoing sound of Levin’s voice. They normally met at the peak of the mountain, where the Hunters trained, and Levin’s avian familiar had occasionally been waiting for them up there. He had claimed it to be impossible for Cho to meet them underground, and she had simply accepted it. It made sense a bird would be difficult to coax underground.

“So if he sent it all the way in here, he must have something important to report,” Uki thought.

The seven other residents of the mountain joined Uki in following the cries coming from the bird, which were retreating back out of the cave. Soon, they found themselves outside on a cool, clear day. Uki checked that everyone was here before turning her attention to Cho, perched above and looking down at them through steely eyes.

“What did you find?” Uki asked.

“An order was just given to the Lightning Corp Wisp ranks to return to base. Silla intends to begin his breakthrough in one week. And it looks like Azaadi is continuing the hunt for Mei.”

“Really!?” Miki exclaimed. The others looked similarly stunned.

“Ordering them all back means he’s giving up on controlling Trurok. The struggle for power between the other mage groups might kick off sooner than we expected,” Takt said.

Uki put a hand to her chin, considering this information. This was a little sooner than she had expected, but not by much. Most of her plans would still work. Now comes the difficulty of selecting the correct course of action…

All Uki wanted was to put an end to slavery in Trurok. And in order to liberate them from the mages’ clutches, the power of mages in Trurok would need to be shattered. For years she had been organizing raids to chip away at the mages where she could, but more importantly to amass a force of emancipated men and women who would be willing to fight back when the time came.

And that time was fast approaching, but calling up the people the Mage Hunters had helped over the years wouldn't be enough to seriously fight back against mage armies. And so the core of Uki’s strategy to take over Trurok was to force the major mage powers into confrontations against each other and then mop up the remains. If the Smoke ranks living in Trurok could all kill each other in war, her path to victory would be laid bare.

However, in Uki’s eyes, a bloody civil war between the mages was unlikely. There would be a power struggle to gobble up the Lightning Corp’s territory once Silla left, but it would be very unlikely any Smoke ranks or even peak Wisp ranks would die in such a war. Instead, Uki foresaw a number of minor conflicts ultimately ending with Inuvik Academy enforcing largely the same borders that had existed before Silla’s wave of conquests.

It was all because of Inuvik Academy. With one mid-stage and two early-stage Smoke ranks, the Great Clans and Lightning Corp remnants would be loath to challenge them outright, the opposite of what Uki needed. Which is why she had asked Levin for his help in striking a blow against them. If the Academy were to be weakened, the Great Clan Smoke ranks would likely make a move, like sharks smelling blood in the water. No mage lived long enough to become a Smoke rank without being both cautious and opportunistic.

As for Azaadi, Uki had little concerns anymore about their ability to deal with him. It was important to take him out of the picture now, since once Silla disappears Azaadi would certainly switch from offense to defense. And he was at the mid Smoke rank, like Panai, so it would be much more difficult to force him into a lethal confrontation. Fortunately, he was already hunting them, so they just needed to lure him with sightings of Mei, and –

“I have a plan,” Levin said.

“Oh?” Uki looked up at Cho.

“We attack Lethridge.”

The Mage Hunters stared up with shocked expressions on their faces. Except Miki, who seemed excited, and Mei, who didn’t seem to be paying much attention.

Takt was the first to speak out. “Ridiculous! You want us to assault one of the most heavily-fortified locations in all of Trurok? It’s a death wish!”

“I thought you wouldn’t help us fight against Inuvik Academy, Levin?” Uki said.

“I changed my mind.” Levin’s tone was inscrutable through the artificial voice of Cho.

“I’m glad. Your help will be useful. But an attack on Lethridge is not what I had in mind when I asked for your help. Like Takt says, that’s far too risky,” Uki said.

Hers was a long term plan. To strike at weak, exposed locations and grind the mages down slowly over years by fueling the fires of civil war with clever strategy and opportune moments. Now that Silla and his ambitious, indomitable strength was leaving the picture, Uki could imagine the passionate, liberated youth of Trurok eventually wresting control away from the remaining Smoke ranks, all of whom were quite advanced in years.

But not if she tossed all her best people into a meat grinder.

And yet, she had to admit that the ability to seize upon chance was vital to their long-term success. They wouldn’t be able to win without a few critical blows, which would certainly entail equally critical risk. And here, far earlier than she ever could have envisioned, was one of those lucky chances. Maybe.

“What makes you think this is possible?” Takt asked.

“If Lethridge’s rune array was out of the picture, could you raid the place?”

Uki sucked in a sharp breath. The answer was obvious – yes. The place was not guarded by Smoke ranks, the only people capable of inhibiting Mei and Takt.

She could immediately see the benefits of success. Not only would they gain a stockpile of valuable resources for their own use, Inuvik Academy would lose them. And without resources, brewing inks and pills was impossible. Inuvik Academy would struggle to maintain its runes, and its mages would lack the means to grow in power. The perfect fuse to start a war.

And sending Mei marching right through the middle of Trurok’s most populous city would certainly get the attention of Azaadi. They could potentially kill two birds with one stone.

Stolen story; please report.

It all depended on Levin. A man she had never met in person, who was in training to be a mage.

“What do you get out of this?” Uki asked.

“Aside from revenge? I get Lethridge’s supplies, obviously,” Levin said.

“Those should be given to us. They would be best served in the fight to free Trurok,” Takt said.

“And what will you do with them? Tell me, have you found any runesmiths or pillwrights amongst the slaves you freed? Without them, you can only sell the supplies for funds, but that would be a monumental waste of potential. No. Give them to me. If you want to tear down the mages, they’ll be much better served in my hands.”

“Very well,” Uki said. Takt didn’t look happy about it, but he backed off.

“This raid will still be very beneficial even without keeping the supplies,” Uki thought. “The only problem is if Levin ends his relationship with us after.”

She knew what mages were like. She knew how greedy they were. Uki had no trouble at all picturing a self-interested mage pretending to be their ally until he could make a major score from it. Uki felt it likely Levin would take Lethridge’s ingredients and run, and then there was no guarantee he would continue keeping their secrets. He hadn’t turned them in yet, but it might all have been a setup for this very moment. Worst case, he might even be leading them into a trap.

“Levin, can we trust you?”

Uki fueled her words with Force.

“Yes,” Levin said.

Her Force did nothing. As usual. Her powers had never worked on him, likely because his real body was miles away, but using her ability had become like second nature to Uki. She even sometimes used it accidentally. But without it, she could only rely on her intuition.

Could she really trust Levin? The fate of tens of thousands, cruelly enslaved, rested on her choice. Whether she accepted Levin's proposal or not, either choice could ultimately end the ambitions of the Mage Hunters. But she had gotten them this far by relying on her intuition, and she trusted it just as much as she trusted her ability.

“If you really can bring down their rune array, then we’ll attack.”

***

After retrieving the suite of new supplies from Lethridge, Master Pilip threw himself into the task of preparing for the next stage in the Chaos experiment. He needed to use small quantities of the resources to practice making all of the different inks required, to ensure he didn’t waste the precious materials when making the large batch the experiment called for.

For Levin, it was almost like a return to his first two weeks at the Academy. With Pilip preoccupied, there was no time for him to continue Levin’s instructions in runesmithing, and he found himself once more doing menial tasks around the lab. At least the place was far more orderly now.

And there was one more difference. Levin wasn’t going to the library anymore.

But Levin did not spend this week in idle servitude to Pilip; there was no time for that. Instead, Levin was hard at work on his plan to get the Mage Hunters into Lethridge by sabotaging their security.

His Chaos magic would certainly be sufficient to destroy the array, just like at the mines, but he’d also certainly get caught doing that. Chaos magic would completely destroy the rune array, which would be immediately obvious to anyone in the tower. Even if the Mage Hunters attacked right at that moment, Levin wouldn’t be able to return to the Academy afterwards, not as the suspiciously lone survivor of an attack that needed inside help.

No, he needed something more precise. So in the time that Pilip spent working on Chaos inks, Levin was developing a new type of runesmithing simulation from his existing models – one that could predict the effects of mixing inks.

Normally, nothing would happen. A completed ink was very chemically stable, and two mixed inks would naturally separate when settled, like water and oil. But sometimes, if the inks were just right, they would combine into something brand new and completely different. Typically something that didn’t work at all.

They were called counter-inks – by mixing a target ink with its counter-ink, you could ruin the target. This was a field of runesmithing that was not very explored, given its limited utility, and Levin did not know any methods for crafting a counter-ink that could suit his purposes. Even the library held no books on the topic, at least none available to acolytes. Levin had only the barest understanding of counter-inks thanks to a book of Master Pilip’s, which contained a few counter-ink recipes that had been discovered by accident.

That book had proved quite useful to Levin. By making one batch of each target ink and counter-ink, he could examine what happened when they mixed. Or rather, his Y-Link could. And thanks to the toolbelt with advanced sensors from his home dimension, he could even watch the reaction happen at the atomic level. He was no chemist however, so he understood little of exactly what was going on atomically, but a good machine learning model should fix that little issue.

He was effectively working backwards. A normal runesmith wouldn’t be able to analyze the ink they were trying to counter in that level of detail, so they would attempt to figure out the ingredients it was brewed with and counter those. Instead, Levin’s simulations were groping for a chemical compound that would directly react with the ink that shielded Lethridge. From there he would try to find resources and alchemical processes that would result in that compound.

To that end he had kept his simulations running constantly since acquiring the data from Lethridge. It was tiring to leave his Y-Link engaged, but fortunately these sorts of long-running calculations could keep chugging even when he disconnected from his Y-Link. His quantum computer never shut down, even if he was away from the keyboard.

But even running constantly, Levin was worried he might not make it in time. He would only have one chance, when Master Pilip takes him back to Lethridge for the final round of the Chaos experiment. If his counter-ink wasn’t ready by then, his plan would fall through. And this was easily the single most difficult and laborious calculation Levin had ever needed to do. Even his previous runesmithing simulations couldn’t compare – all they did was improve his success rate at established formulas. Right now, Levin needed something entirely new.

And so it was that he spent a week with his simulations running. The news that Silla was soon entering closed-door meditation came two days after Levin and Pilip’s trip to Lethridge, so there was still time for the Mage Hunters to make their move. As long as Master Pilip could stick to his predicted timetable, Levin would get his final chance at Lethridge before Silla emerged.

It took Pilip eight days to learn the new Chaos recipe, one more than he had predicted. On that eighth day, Levin arrived at the lab to find one of the rare days where Master Pilip was up bright and early. He sat in a chair to the side of the room, twirling a vial of red ink in his hand. There were bags under his eyes, yet he looked ten years younger than usual to Levin.

The floor was already engraved with a rune that took up all the open floor space of Pilip’s lab. Curiously, Levin realized he recognized the rune – it was exactly the same as the first Chaos experiment, down to the very smallest detail.

“It’s not a different rune?” Levin asked. Again he wished he could read the Book of Reeds, so he could understand what Pilip was doing.

“It is,” Master Pilip said. “The ink is different.”

“Ah, right. With runes, the shape determines the function and the ink determines the strength. So this rune will grant me Chaos Source just like before, but it should be much stronger,” he thought as he sat down and prepared for Pilip to begin the engraving process on him.

"Could you show me the differences?" Levin asked hopefully.

Pilip chuckled. "No matter how many times you ask, I'm not showing you the Book of Reeds. Now sit down."

This time, it was his chest receiving the rune, seeing as his back had already been filled. This rune, Blade, did have a completely different shape from the Wave rune on his back, and he didn’t need a mirror this time to figure that out.

It wasn’t particularly large, as expected of a rune going onto the body. Pilip was soon finished with the complex design, and he stepped away, leaving Levin alone within the bounds of the rune on the ground.

Levin pulled out a small cloth, placing it into his mouth. He still remembered the rush of agonizing pain he had been hit with the first time, and fully expected another to follow. It was a pain he was willing to accept if it meant increasing his power.

He bit down on the cloth, clenching his jaw. He thought he was prepared.

He was wrong.

As soon as Pilip activated the rune, surging pain erupted all over Levin’s body like tens of thousands of white hot needles. Each flare of pain seemed to stab, dig and gouge out his flesh, ripping through him like a forest fire during a drought. He desperately wished to pass out, to experience the sweet, sweet release from the worst pain he had ever experienced. But he was not to be so lucky, and was forced to endure in agony for what felt like an eternity.

As the rune finished and the Chaos energy came to a rest inside Levin’s body, he fell soundlessly to the ground, in too much pain to even make noise as his vision swam in and out of focus. The cloth in his mouth stopped him from drooling, but it soon became a hindrance as Levin began to involuntarily vomit while his body was wracked with spasms.

With a loud cry, Pilip rushed to his side, forcefully removing the cloth from Levin’s clenched jaw before he choked on his own vomit. Levin continued to gag and convulse as he desperately tried to regain control of his body, but the Chaos energy was rampaging through his body against his will.

It took several more minutes, but gradually the destructive energy within his body began to settle down and condense into the Chaos Source within his sea of consciousness. As it did, Levin slowly regained control of his body, though the dull ache in his gut wouldn’t go away. As he stood up and caught his breath, Pilip let out a long sigh of relief.

“Can you feel the rune?” Pilip asked as Levin appeared to return to normal.

Levin focused inward, and could now feel two runes from within his sea of consciousness, as well as the three small control runes, two for Cho and one for his analysis runes. Concentrating on the newest of them, he readied himself for a moment before uttering the chant.

“Blade.”

He could immediately tell that his words were imbued with far more energy than before. The rune activated, mobilizing a significant portion of the Chaos Force in his body and sending it shooting out his right arm. Twisting red and black tendrils flew out from Levin's hand, converging on each other to form a single solid mass that extended outward in the shape of a sword.

Unlike Wave, Blade stayed perpetually activated, continually consuming Chaos Force to fuel its form. As Levin examined the sword, feeling the density of magic that far outweighed what he was capable of previously, Pilip examined Levin’s face and body, looking for any visible changes.

“Incredible! The difficulty of the initial injection concerned me, but now you’re able to use the energy without any damage! As I thought, your body really does have the perfect constitution for supporting Chaos magic!” Pilip said energetically as he began taking down notes.

The pain in Levin’s gut had been fading, but seemed to very slightly return upon activating the spell. However, Levin paid it little mind. His focus was on all the potential uses of the spell.

“It’s much shorter range than Wave, but it remains active. I should have a much easier time defending against spells with this, as long as I practice swinging it around. Amaq, with this, I can tell that your time will soon come. I’ll make you regret what you did to Kirima,” he thought to himself.

“Let’s test it,” Levin said with determination.

“Are you sure? Your body clearly took some damage from the Chaos injection, so you should rest up first,” Pilip said.

“I need to know what I can do before we go to Lethridge again,” Levin said. “Since you’ll be busy with the third level after. Besides, don’t the Lords Magi want another showcase?”

“Really, it’s in case I get caught and need to fight,” Levin thought to himself.

“Ah, about that…” Pilip said.

Levin looked at him questioningly.

“Your first showcase was sufficient for both Blade and Bolt to be simultaneously approved. For this stage they only want me to report on any Chaos Sickness you might develop, which still appears to be none. As for Lethridge, I intend to go tomorrow. For now, let’s rest.”

“Tomorrow!?” Levin exclaimed. “We took a full month in between Wave and the second Lethridge trip! My counter-ink isn’t ready… I thought I’d have more time. Looks like tonight’s going to be an all-nighter.”

“Right, tomorrow. Word is that Silla will be entering his closed-door meditation within the week. It’ll probably take another few days to a week for him to make his breakthrough, and then he’ll leave. The Lords Magi are breathing down my neck to be sure you’re ready in time for what comes after.”

Levin took a deep breath. He was behind, but not by much. Finding a chemical compound that would interfere with the ink was easy, and he had already done that. But finding a runesmithing recipe to actually produce an ink containing that compound was much more difficult.

Some good old trial-and-error could give his models the final push of data they needed, but it would be expensive, more than he had counted on. He’d need to make a run to the store for some more supplies this evening. The money from Tulimak was already quite low, spent on runesmithing, and after this he would be broke.

But he had to push. For Kirima, he had to.