Cora emerged from the undercroft of the calcified fortress at a dead run as around her the dark and fearsome tunnel gave way bright daylight. The remains of the oak door that had separated fortress tunnel from the outside world flashed by her peripheral vision, barely hanging off of a single bent hinge after Sally’s bulk had hit it at speed.

Behind her, the rumbling was reaching a crescendo. Things were collapsing beneath the calcified fortress. The foundations, weakened from Sam’s insane plan and further destroyed by the lich king’s retaliatory strikes, were breaking and coming down, burying the dungeon passages under countless tons of mountain rock.

“Hah,” Pearl said from where she hovered in the air next to Cora’s ear. “Take that you big meany! Sam dropped another mountain on ya!”

“Keep going,” Cora managed to gasp out through gulps of slightly-too-sour air. Was there something off about what she was breathing right now? She couldn’t tell if it was that, or just the raw terror that was still boiling in her gut.

Close. That had been so close. She could still feel those slimy magics on her skin where the lich had gripped her, could still see the world going dark as the foul energies had ripped at her health bar.

She could still see Sam, stepping up to the lich, his face set and his eyes aflame just like they always were when he had some mad plan in mind that he was only half-sure would work. Gods and shades, he probably didn’t even know what he looked like when he got like that–

She shook her head, clearing the image away. Now was not the time for that. Now was the time for running. She should be concentrating on that. She shook her head once more and focused on placing one foot in front of the other.

Then she immediately had to twist and fling herself to the side, bleeding off her momentum to avoid slamming face-first into a giant oak tree, probably one of the relatives of the door Sally had just blasted through, planted in the soil outside the fortress along with dozens of its fellows. She felt her shoulder clip the trunk, and the hiss of her metallic skin against the rough bark of the wood was just abrasive enough to set her teeth on edge.

Ahead of her, Sally had stopped and was looking around in confusion while the little halfling–who Cora was not yet prepared to categorize as ‘not undead he just looks like that’ stalked forward and glared at the trees like they had done him an offense.

“Okay, we’re out,” Sally said, hefting the still-unconscious Sam further up on her shoulder–well, one of her shoulders. “Now what the hell do we do?”

“Give me a moment,” said Giichi. “It has been… some time since I last took this route. Things appear to have changed just slightly.”

“Wait.” Sally turned to glare at the small creature. “I thought you said you knew this place. How long has it been since you’ve been out here”

“Seventy years, give or take,” Giichi said. “Now silence. I must think.”

“Seventy years?” Cora blurted, then turned to meet Sally’s similarly aghast gaze. Beside her, Pearl fell backward off her shoulder, then had to struggle to get back into the air.

“Seventy years???” the little fairy squeaked. “How old are you?”

“So in other words,” Sally growled, “you don’t have a fucking clue what you’re doing.”

“Young lady–er, young thing–I am always perfectly cognizant of my actions and their eventual end. I know precisely what I am doing. But,” the ancient creature frowned and turned to look at the trees again, “time makes fools of us all, it seems. I require but a moment to get my bearings once more.” The ancient halfling managed to sound testy despite Sally looming over him.

Cora opened her mouth to say something, then froze as something behind them–far off in the distance and clearly separated from them by several walls but by the sound of it not intending for those circumstances to remain in place for very long–howled.

Cora did not remember the times previous when she had been incarnated into the world. She assumed she had once had a body that had been formed just for her from the Essence, but she had been in this form–that of a Pacifista golem, an ancient order of healer-monks devoted to protecting their fellows through the gentle arts–for barely a month now. She was still getting used to having a real body, with nerves and blood–or whatever it was the Pacifistas used for blood.

And she was still getting used to the feelings that went with it. The heat in her chest when she looked at Sam for too long. The lightning in her head when battles started, and life and limb were at stake. The warmth when she was with those to whom she belonged and who in turn belonged to her, just enjoying one another’s presence.

And now, the shock of ice up and down her spine at that noise.

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It was high-pitched and discordant, like a trio of banshees all trying to sing their hunting calls in different keys. It rose above the trees and scythed into the air itself, like a hacksaw across violin strings. If hell itself had a throat and a voice, this was the sound it would make when it summoned forth its armies to march at last upon the world of the living.

“That can’t be good,” Pearl said.

“Time’s up,” Sally declared. “We’re running again.”

“The necrohounds,” Giichi said, sounding surprised. “Astounding. I would have calculated that the lich king would have been incapacitated for much longer after the child dropped a mountain on him.”

“I imagine he’d prepared a counter-move or two after the last time Sam did that to him,” Cora said as she started moving again.

Giichi blinked. “After the last time he what?”

“Dropped a mountain on the lich,” Sally said, then reached down and plucked Giichi bodily up by the torso with one huge hand. “Running now.”

The small forest surrounding where they had emerged from the Calcified Fortress was not particularly thick, but the trees–a mix of oak, ash, beech, and a half-dozen other varieties Cora didn’t recognize–were numerous and the canopy was thick above them, casting shadows and hiding all manner of tripping hazards and clingy scratchy branches. And, it seemed to Cora as she dashed headlong after Sally, that she was finding each and every one of them.

“This forest is within the borders of Phyrexes,” Giichi said, his voice wobbling as Sally sprinted with him under her arm. “It is separated from the rest of the city by a high stone wall that has been magically reinforced. Ordinarily I would have taken us through one of the gates into the city proper, but given the current predicament…”

“Right. Guards, gates, big-ass wall. Got it.” Sally growled, and Cora glanced up to see her sister’s face scrunch up in thought–and wasn’t that just an unsettling visage–before it cleared up and she glanced down at the halfling in her arms. “There’s a city on the other side of the wall all around?”

“Ye-es,” Giichi hiccuped the word as Sally leaped across a large root in her path.

“Perfect. Point me at the least-populated part.”

“Seventy years ago, it was that way,” Giichi pointed.

They ran in that direction. Behind them, the necrohounds’ baying reached a fevered pitch.

“I think that means they’ve found our trail,” Cora said calmly despite the storm of terror raging in her gut.

“Probably,” Sally agreed. “Hey Saggy,” she glanced down at the halfling, who blinked and looked mildly offended. “You got any fancy rune-shit to keep them off our trail?”

“Yes, but I would require several dozen minutes of quiet to enact it,” the halfling said. “Which I do not believe we will get.”

“You just leave that part to me.”

Cora glanced up at her sister again, wondering if Sally actually had a plan or if she was just putting on a brave face. Either way, her sister seemed fully committed to something, and given that the only other option Cora could see was some sort of full-frontal assault on an already-alerted guard force while hauling around an unconscious Sam and a whatever-Giichi-was at the same time…

She sure hoped Sally had a plan.

They reached the wall not long after, and Cora felt her heart sink in her breast. The thing was massive. It must have been fifteen feet high, and from the look of the stones she could see she guessed it must be at least half that thick. There was no way Sally could break through something that thick, even in her new form.

“Good,” Sally said, looking at the wall. “Sounds like they’re closing in on us. Alright,” the huge red woman took a deep breath, then turned glowing-coal eyes on Cora. “Come on sis, grab ‘hold of me.”

Cora blinked. “What?”

Sally opened her two remaining arms and beckoned Cora to step into her embrace. “Snuggle up, sister. We’re going over this thing.”

Cora stared at Sally. “You can’t be–”

She only got the first syllable of the word ‘serious’ out before Sally darted forward, wrapped her arms around Cora, and jumped. Light surrounded the huge woman, and Cora felt the tell-tale buzz in the air of mana being expended. The rest of the word turned into a wordless scream in Cora’s mouth as the ground flew away from her at speed. She felt her stomach plummet into her heels, and her wide eyes watched as they crested the wall with ease, arced over nearly ten feet of width, and plummeted over the other side.

Sally’s feet hit cobblestones on the other side, and the stones shattered. The glow around her faded, leaving her breathing hard but with a grin on her face that showed off every pointed tooth in her head.

Cora found herself staring at Sally as her sister let her down onto the cracked street.

“What are you?” she asked when she could find her voice.

“I don’t know,” Sally said with a grin that showed off entirely too many pointed teeth. “But I like it.”

Cora snorted before turning away from her sister and taking a quick look around. They had landed in an .. The only word for it was ‘alleyway’, though to her mind that always conjured up narrow sordid avenues behind bars somewhere. But this alleyway was big enough to drive three carts abreast down. It was well-cobbled, and had stone walls on both side. The one behind them, and another in front, beyond which she could see the tops of what she could only call mansions.

“Huh,” Giichi said, frowning from under Sally’s arm. “Those were not here seventy years ago. This was a market district. Some of my finest reagents came from here.”

“Yeah, gentrification’s a bitch,” Sally rumbled, glaring around. She was actually tall enough to see over the wall, Cora noticed. Whether through sheer luck, divine providence, or just excellent timing, the alleyway was deserted and there were no prying eyes to watch their progress. Stil, even without witnesses, it was unlikely that whatever those horrid necrohound thingss were would be thrown off the trail for long. Just enough time for them to find one of those gates through the wall Giichi had mentioned, and then they would be running again.

Unless of course the halfling could make good on his boast that he could render them untraceable somehow.

“Alright,” Cora said, forcing breath into her lungs past the fear still raging in her chest. “That bought us a little time. What do you need now?” The last question she addressed to the halfling, still slung under Sally’s arm.

“A small workspace and a flat surface, preferably indoors, preferably secluded,” the halfing said almost immediately.

“Right.” Cora looked around again. Her eyes fixed on one specific mansion in the distance, a low ornate affair barely visible over the high stone wall. “That way,” she said, pointing.

“What’s your thinking, sis?” Sally asked as they started forward.

“Breaking and entering,” Cora said.

“Oh goody, I’ve always wanted to try that,” Pearl said, grinning.