I didn’t politely take down the virindi Wards and alarms on the entryway of Martine’s Retreat. I kind of blew them violently apart and set them on spellfire, so that whoever they were linked to was going to get a headful of pain and squealing feedback.

Yes, we were here. No, we didn’t care if you didn’t like it. Yes, you’re welcome to send somebody after your last investigatory team vanished before reaching their destination.

The Mick had given Kris and I a quick briefing on what had used to be down there.

Candeth Martine, the Prodigal Isparian, had been an Aluvian who had been experimented on by the virindi, increasing his intelligence and ability to use magical energies to levels equal to the mightiest of the Empyreans or the virindi themselves. He had gotten free of them, had some adventures, misadventures, and eventually been overcome by the things that had been done to him. Add in the corrupting and mindbending by Gaerlan, a traitorous Empyrean who, it turned out, was the one responsible for sabotaging the Portal to the olthoi homeworld and keeping it open long enough for the olthoi to both flood through with a force, and later on dig a path through the dimensions to follow their Mother Queen here, and he’d had a tough go of it.

Martine was supposedly long dead, killed when confronting Gaerlan in his Elemental Citadel, but without True Death and vivus to seal such a deal, it was entirely possible he could return. As a mortal-origin creature at the level of the more powerful Empyreans, he was a clear threat to the virindi, and his questionable sanity at the best of times made him a true wild card among the power players of Dereth.

The virindi had likely all been happy to see him and Gaerlan taken out. Which didn’t mean both were gone forever, given the circumstances, and nobody knew if Gaerlan’s prison was at all secure after the Fall. He hadn’t been seen, but then again, he was an Empyrean, and pretty much all of those were dead…

The odds Nuhmudira’s daughter Xunidira had not found her mother by now were probably pretty small. Their reunion was no doubt interesting, as both were manipulative bitches looking to get something out of the other, and with doubtless little love lost between them for the doing.

That they’d both be hungry and eager for the magical knowledge I bore was a given, and with Nuhmudira’s reputation, she would stop at very little to get it for herself.

It was a big reason why I had restricted most of the non-Artificing knowledge to Good people exclusively, and they came with Geases and Oaths designed to prevent people from giving the knowledge away in the event of coercion, blackmail, or temptations… all of which had happened, my somewhat shaken students had informed me, although likely multiple forces were behind it all.

Kris and the Mick’s utter removal of the spotters and trackers of the Assassin’s Guild had likely removed some useful pawns from her service, and the fact he knew so many of the surviving members of the Radiant Blood, the Society she had founded for Isparians First! (ba-dum tish), didn’t help her get any closer to us.

One of the things the Town Crier in Qalaba'r had remarked was that Xunidira had also come through that place, looking for her mother… and the undead had let her pass.

Didn’t that bode poorly.

All of which somehow led us to here, the personal Dungeon that Candeth Martine had erected in Rithwic, where in his derangement he had proclaimed himself King of all the Isparians, arrogant in his power and superiority.

Why the virindi had blocked the place off was a mystery, as the Mick had related that there was little of value inside the place. Mostly there were people who had lived in there under Martine’s protection during his deranged phase when he was attacking the smaller towns that had ignored his rulership, and stayed there as convenient even afterwards.

The only thing of note in the whole place that the Mick was aware of was the Prismatic Stone, a variant of the Elemental Stones we already had samples of that gave the Weapons they were mounted in Elemental Slayer.

That was not a reason for the virindi to be so worried about the place. Clearly they thought there was something more important in the chambers of the Dungeon that had materialized, and didn’t want anyone going in to investigate.

Naturally, we were intent on doing just that.

I wasn’t worried about traps at all. Kris’ Null would handle most of the magical ones, even if I didn’t see them well ahead of time, and the non-magical ones she’d pick out with her tremblesense and be able to jam or tell us how to avoid them. Sama Rantha had made her name in the Game as The Tip of the Spear for being utterly fearless about the advanced scouting position for Fellowships, turning what could be arduous dungeon crawls and slogs into fairly rapid progress and straight-up fights as she led her party members around all the tricks and traps that were in the way.

That didn’t mean I didn’t keep a flight of Shards up the whole time, of course. If the virindi had occupied it with others of their kind, we’d be fighting, there was no doubt about that.

Eventually the sloping ramp leveled out into a stone-walled room Shaped by magic out of the rock of interdimensional space, lit with magical torches and actually fairly cozy in terms of temperature. Directly ahead of us, the passage became a series of arched-dome rooms, vaguely Arabic in feel, with tables and chairs waiting for courtiers to sit and relax while waiting for their chance to meet their ruler.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The chamber ahead led off in all three cardinal directions. The Mick had remembered most of the people who lived here being off to the right, so that’s the way we went, skipping the entry hall for now.

There were two more hall extensions as we moved west, all with passages to the south and the larger room there, then a short hallway that turned into major hall going south, and another domed chamber beyond where someone was standing attentively.

“Hello, Fellow Humans!” the fellow’s voice rang out enthusiastically the instant he spotted us, which promptly set my hair on end. There was no way a normal Isparian would respond so easily and promptly upon seeing the first people in fifteen years.

That, and his voice had a reverb to it.

Kris reached up to rub her ear pointedly, put on a toothy smile, and just strolled over to the fellow. He looked like a Black Aluvian, with bright blue eyes and curly dark hair, with a perfect healthy complexion and balanced build. “Hello, there. Who might you be?” she asked with perfect chirpy charm and subvocals that no human should respond to at all.

I actually watched him shiver as his eyes fixed on her. “I am Josef, once assistant to Candeth Martine! No, there’s no surname. Just Josef. Don’t ask cause I ain’t tellin’. I knew if I floated enough rumors around some of you adventurers would finally come running.”

Kris’s face was free enough of guile to keep his attention, while I tried to keep my disbelief off my face. “What’s a nice guy like you doing in a forgotten Dungeon like this then, Josef?” she asked politely.

Josef began, "Now listen up, and listen up well cause I don't like taking too much time in repeating myself. It makes me waste precious air and that's not fun.”

Josef cleared his throat and then his voice dropped into a deep whisper… with a stereo reverb.

Josef continued, "A while back the boss, Martine, was planning on opening the way to Marae Lassel. A new home for people. Thing is there were people there already, like us but they grew up different. No big deal right? Well the thing is when he did his spell or whatever something else happened.

"He finished his little trick and suddenly a portal storm hit the center of the living area here. Portal energy was whipping off the walls and down the corridors. Next thing we know there's a guy sitting in the middle of the room, naked as the day he was born and about eight, maybe nine feet tall.

"He was real confused. Had no clue where he had come from or where he was, just his name. Gaerlan. And he said over and over again… ‘Is Asheron among you?’

"Now here's the rub. I know a lot more than that, but I need some help. So you help me… I help you. Take this.”

Josef gave us a sheet of paper he conjured out of nowhere. He continued firmly, “Get me the things on that list and we’ll talk. Simple, really!”

“I see,” Kris nodded slowly, taking the sheet of paper and looking down it. The Mick’s memory was pretty good, and he’d gotten most of the contents right. Kris updated them, putting the conjured list away, but didn’t bother going anywhere. “I see this is one of the things you are looking for.”

She flicked her finger, and lifted up a gleaming violet key made of some mana-infused metal.

They were largely unstable things, fancy creations of mana intended as keys to the information and item storage devices of the virindi. They didn’t work for Isparians correctly, having to be carved up and then consumed in the magical locks, instead of being reusable multiple times, as the virindi could do.

Killing a bunch of virindi had generated one of these keys when they collapsed, hastily rescued before the vivus ate it away. Hoarded stores of the keys, many on exotic keyrings carved from various golum hearts that could keep them stable for extended periods of time, had all burned away during the Fall, and nobody had any old versions of them.

Thus, another reason for ambushing the virindi patrol was to get a current Singularity Key for this fellow here! It was the final item on his list, and the only one that was actually important.

Josef’s too-bright eyes lit up, and he exclaimed, "This is the best possible thing you could give me, fellow human friend!”

He continued, "Martine likes these the most because it means that not only have you killed one of their most powerful members, but you have also found a way to steal some of their treasures.”

He managed a weak smile. "Take this.” He handed us another heavy, material key after taking the Singularity Key from Kris’ palm.

"See, I've made a life of finding information. I listened to everything and learned as much as I could. Gaerlan kept a chest in his room. In that chest must be something special. It was bright, like the rainbow and vibrant. Get what you can, he left it.

“Oh, and getting there just takes a little leap of faith.

"Good luck, fellow human friend!"

“Thank you, Josef. It is a pleasure to speak with a fellow Isparian such as yourself. Do you mind telling me how long it has been since you spoke with a fellow Isparian?” Kris asked, all chirping buttercups and sunbeams.

His eyes dimmed and brightened, as if thinking. “I do not know, Fellow Human. Some time,” he admitted hesitantly.

“Are you the original Josef, or a Martinate Simulacrum made in his image?” she continued pleasantly.

He actually blinked once, but the answer blurted out before his programming could stop him. “I am Josef! I have always been Josef!” he declared.

“Then give me your family name, Josef. You look and sound like a Torreng or a Maustwitz, but I could be mistaken. You’ve kin who are worried about you.”

If the thing pretending to be human could have sweat, no doubt beads would be breaking out. “I, I…” it stammered, warring with its programming against the living mortal spirit that was the basis of its creation. “My father was Earnel Maustwitz…” it admitted after a moment.

“We will let him know that you served well and with honor, Josef Maustwitz.”

A wide and true smile came over the sculpted face, and then slowly parted as a flick of her wrist divided the tough shell of the simulacrum in twain, the virindi energies within consumed in a flash of vivus… and momentarily highlighting the spirit of the unfortunate man interwoven with them, which closed its eyes in relief and dissipated harmlessly.