Despite the looming threat of the so-called Protector, work continued within the Underworld.

A few things had changed. They were focusing on smaller areas that could be built up quickly while under plenty of protection. Lookouts patrolled constantly. Drills kept the guards on their toes. Zullie had even taken to cycling through everyone on guard duty, ensuring that they could all cast at least one lightning bolt without passing out.

Not everyone had passed that little test but at least those who hadn’t now knew that they needed to be sure that their lightning bolts would be debilitating or else they needed to not use the magic at all. It also let them set up every patrol so that at least two people capable of casting the lightning spell were in each group.

They had seen two more of the creatures. The same, carapace-covered tall monsters that all shared the same mind. So far, they had done nothing but stand and stare, watching the portal. Arkk was content to let them for the time being. They weren’t attacking. As far as he could tell, they weren’t gathering their forces to marshal an attack.

They simply watched.

The being he had spoken with said that exploring the world would put him in peril. Perhaps, as long as he didn’t leave the portal, they would leave him alone. He would have to leave eventually but for now, he could hold back on seeking that source of power.

Savren thought they were curious more than aggressive, not that he still had an active connection to their gestalt. He was still trying to sort through his thoughts and pick out what he remembered about them before passing out following the mind reading ritual. Arkk had apologized for putting him through that.

Savren shrugged it off. It, according to him, had been one of the most fascinating experiences of his life.

He had used different phrasing.

With the guard in place and no apparent danger in the immediate future—on either side of the portal since Hawkwood combined with the Duke’s men had managed to stall the Evestani’s relentless march—Arkk was experimenting.

A lot of things didn’t work in the Underworld due to the completely magic-saturated air. Ritual circles spontaneously activated, making them dangerous to be near unless specifically designed for this world, scrying failed, and gorgon couldn’t seem to petrify anything. Not even regular human volunteers.

He used a metal rod to draw a ritual circle into the orange dirt of the Underworld, sketching out a circle. A fist-sized glowstone from the fortress sat in the center, one dim and relatively lifeless. It had been completely dark before bringing it through the portal, but that had been several days ago and it was still practically black.

Glowstones stored magic and emitted it slowly in the form of light but they typically had to be mined deep underground in solid rock, which would keep their stored magic from leaking out. It was possible to charge them, but not easily. The average spellcaster would collapse from exhaustion well before even a small glowstone started glowing enough to function as even a middling light source. Glowstones weren’t uncommon but they weren’t common either, which was why most villages and even larger burgs had a plethora of candles, glowstones were only used in wealthy merchant homes and keeps.

Glowstones of a purity that would work for magic wands like the one Zullie used were even rarer and charging them up once the stone’s magic depleted was nearly impossible. That Zullie had one at all was something quite special.

Until now, hopefully.

Arkk drew out the ritual circle carefully, ensuring the venting components were drawn in well before any parts that would direct or control the magic. He worked from the inside out. Every little mark went down with hesitance. As soon as the array was complete enough, the ambient magic would activate it.

Sure enough, after one more swipe of his metal rod, an illumination coursed through the lines in the dirt. Arkk quickly dragged the rod through the dirt, finishing the component he had been working on. The glowstone in the center started brightening, its faint violet light turned intense.

Arkk didn’t stick around to watch any longer. He dove behind a sheet of metal set up just to the side of the array and covered his head with his hands.

And waited.

And waited.

He didn’t hear any snap, crackles, or pops. No explosions either. That was… good?

Arkk didn’t move from his position of cover. First, he looked down on himself with his Keeper link. That afforded him a view over the metal barrier.

The ritual circle was fully illuminated and, within it, the glowstone glowed a brilliant and almost white light. But it wasn’t exploding. On the opposite side of the circle from him, a slightly dimmer green light puffed with regularity. Like Old Man Kenton smoking his pipe after a hard day’s work in the fields, clouds of green flew up into the air. The motes dissipated after drifting a short distance, spreading back out into the ambient air.

Arkk waited another minute, just to check that the venting was working properly. Slowly, he stood and looked with his own eyes.

Glowing glowstone. Venting motes of magic. No explosions.

Good?

“Zullie,” Arkk called, standing and backing away a bit. “I think I got it.”

The witch, hunched over her own ritual circle well across the empty desert from Arkk, stood and adjusted her rectangular glasses. Her ritual circle was an attempt at getting the teleportation circles working in this world. Even if they just wanted to head to that nearby village again, it was a fair walk away. The idea that they could be ambushed by the Protector en route made the idea of teleporting straight there all the more appealing.

So far, she hadn’t been having any luck. The teleportation circles normally inscribed a mirror of themselves at the destination location to form the spatial link. Here and now, that distant inscription wasn’t working at all.

Although slightly more annoying, Zullie figured that manually drawing out the destination circle would work. However, that would require someone to trek out to the destination to do it. Better than nothing but…

Arkk shook his head and focused on his project as Zullie hurried over. Stormed over, more like. He made the cautious judgment not to ask how her teleportation circles were coming along.

“I think I got it working,” he said again as she stepped up alongside him.

“It hasn’t shattered this time,” she said with her teeth visibly clenched. Definitely not the time to ask about her project. “That’s an improvement.” It sounded like she had to fish that compliment out of her throat with a hook and ended up snagging her stomach on the way.

“I didn’t quite get the assortment array in place before it triggered but it seems to be working properly enough.”

“Didn’t I say to carve out the assortment array early on so that it wouldn’t be a problem?”

“I did that in the first few but…” Arkk gestured around him where the shards of other test glowstones were scattered around the outside of the circle. “I decided it was the least important component based on… ahh.. was it Razlegram’s theorem?”

“Razzlegere,” Zullie said, somewhat absently as she stalked around the circle. She used her own rod to, carefully, adjust a few markings on the inside of the ritual. The puff-puff-puff of the venting motes of magic steadied out into a smooth stream. The overall brightness of the glowstone in the middle dimmed along with it. Not enough to bring it down to a normal level, just enough that it didn’t look blinding.

“That looks better,” Arkk said, hoping the compliment in return might improve the witch’s mood. “Think this will work more permanently?”

“Possibly. Let’s see if we can extract the stone intact,” she said, stopping next to the metal shield that Arkk had hidden behind. Leaning up against it was a pair of long metal tongs that looked like oversized shears with flat pads on one end. She picked them up, stopped at the edge of the circle, and glanced back. “Actually, you do this.”

“Me?”

“Oh, don’t be such a baby. I’ll put up a projectile shield,” she said, turning and handing the tongs off to Arkk.

“The one that we can’t see through.”

“That thing is bright as the sun.” It wasn’t. “You’ll be able to see it.”

“Alright…”

A few uttered words from Zullie and the shifting haze of her projectile-blocking spell swiftly surrounded them. It was a good idea, Arkk had to admit. The whole reason for the metal shield was because these things tended to spontaneously explode. So, squinting at the bright light through the haze, he stretched the tongs out of the swirling sphere and grasped at the glowstone.

It took three tries but he managed to move it out of the circle and set it carefully down near the shield.

Zullie, kept up the shield for a moment longer as if worried that the glowstone would suddenly destabilize. When it didn’t, she dropped the shield and cautiously stepped closer. Taking the tongs from Arkk, she prodded it a few times, shrugged, and then picked it up with her bare hands.

“Oh. That’s a bit warm. Looks good though. Really good.” Her earlier irritation wasn’t anywhere in her tone. She started grinning. “You know what this means?”

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“More magic wands. Maybe some capable of casting Electro Deus?”

“No. Well…” She paused in thought. “Maybe. But I wasn’t even thinking like that. No, these can power large rituals in place of people. Get a dozen of these and we could run that ritual again without other people—”

“We are not running the ritual again,” Arkk said.

“No, that’s not… Just an example. Any ritua—”

“Hold that thought,” Arkk said. Someone was calling to him over the employee link. It didn’t feel like an emergency. Nobody was hurt or in a fight.

It also felt distant. Not a problem in the Underworld then. He scanned through the fortress, making sure there were no problems there, before following the link further and further away. Aside from a handful of people he had stationed in the nearby burgs for the purpose of collecting mail, Arkk only knew of one employee that was away from Fortress Al-Mir.

He found himself looking in on Ilya. She looked fine. Safe. Healthier than she had the last time he had checked in on her. His relief turned to ice as he took in the greater picture of where she was. Of why she had called for him now after having spent the last month in the Duke’s manor.

Ilya sat in a small cell, containing only a pile of moldy hay and a bucket. Red-faced and angry, she shouted something at the door. The link didn’t let him hear what that something was.

“Your eyes are… doing that thing again,” Zullie said, her voice barely louder than a whisper. A blink of his eyes and he was back in the Underworld, standing next to the ritual circle. “Brighter than I’ve ever seen.”

Arkk didn’t even bother trying to calm himself down. Lightning crackled between his fingertips, the sound of which made Zullie take a step back.

“Arkk?”

“Get a sketch of the working design to the blacksmith. He’ll make us a permanent version like that boulder drop ritual.”

“What happened?”

“I have business in Cliff.”

“Oh? Oh. Is Ilya alright? Or did something happen to the Duke?”

“Ilya is… safe. For now. I’ll decide whether or not something needs to happen to the Duke when I get there.” He turned and started for the portal after checking on the location of a few other employees. “Let Rekk’ar and Olatt’an know that they have command until I return.”

“Hey,” she said, keeping up with his furious march, “if it is at all possible, would you mind stopping by the academy while you’re in the neighborhood? We’re almost out of the spell-quality glowstones I brought with me. The academy has a bunch of depleted ones sitting in storage.”

Arkk paused and looked to her. He didn’t want to delay for a moment. He didn’t want to search through the academy to find out where the storage area was or where in the storage room the glowstones would be. There were still three lesser servants in the back of the academy, fruitlessly searching for evidence of it being a proper fortress. He could redirect them but that would still leave them searching.

“Inform Rekk’ar and Olatt’an. The former is in the Underworld headquarters, the latter is in the fortress canteen. Meet at the teleportation room.”

“I’m going with you?” She glanced back to the ritual circle test area. “What about that?”

“It can wait,” he said, turning and continuing back through the portal. Zullie followed for a few steps before deciding not to pester him further at the moment. She broke off toward the nearly finished headquarters building.

As he made his way through the Underworld—the ritual circle test area was a safe distance away from anyone and anything that needed to survive an explosion—nobody approached him. In fact, most of his employees backed away, especially the newer recruits. The guards on either side of the archway remained stiff and didn’t turn their heads toward or away from him as if afraid that doing so might draw his ire.

A small part of him didn’t like them being so afraid of him. Even though his eyes were glowing, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t Arkk. At the same time, he had to mentally thank them for their awareness. If he suffered more delays, he likely would snap at them.

As soon as he stepped through the archway and made it into the comforting aura of Fortress Al-Mir, he teleported. He reappeared in the teleportation chamber, deep within the maze of wings he had been constructing throughout the Cursed Forest. Vezta appeared alongside him at the same time, not at all surprised or upset at having been pulled away from whatever she had been doing at the time—he hadn’t checked.

“Emergency?”

“Not life or death, yet. At least not for anyone a part of Fortress Al-Mir. I need a ritual chain to Cliff City, specifically the tunnel we had been planning on using for Plan D.” He held out his hand and pulled a crystal ball to his waiting palm, which he immediately handed over. “Once that is done,” he added as an afterthought, “a teleportation circle as close as you can reasonably get to the academy.”

“Understood,” Vezta said, bowing.

He didn’t stick around long enough to see her raise her head.

“Dakka,” he said, reappearing at the training room. The orc in question sat up from where she had been doing exercises on the floor, took one look at him, and immediately scrambled to her feet, back unusually stiff. “Teleportation chamber, five minutes.”

“Gear up?”

“That would be best. Get two of the gorgon to go with you. Zharja and Jann. You three are on protection detail. Zullie will be there shortly. Follow her directions.”

“Sir.” She nodded her head.

By the time she looked back up, he was out of the training room. He used the metal ritual rod to knock against a warm metal door.

“Enter.”

He didn’t bother opening the door before teleporting inside.

Agnete, resting on a cracked stone slab that looked a little too soft to be actual stone. The nearly molten rock deformed as the former purifier sat up. For all his urgency, Arkk had to take a moment and wonder if that kind of bed was comfortable. Then again, any normal bed would burst into flames the moment Agnete relaxed so perhaps it was the only choice. She could hold the heat in—she had done so while working with Vrox—but maybe trying to keep the heat down was worse than a molten slab of rock.

Shaking his head, he refocused, noting the way the scars on Agnete’s face started burning a little brighter.

“Trouble?”

“Maybe. Are you feeling up to an expedition?”

“In the Underworld?”

Arkk shook his head. “The Duke’s manor in Cliff.”

“Are we expecting a fight?”

“I would prefer to be in and out before anyone notices but best to be prepared. That’s why I’m here. I’m planning on going immediately.”

Agnete swung her legs off her slab, leaning over as she ran her fingers through her wild black hair. Glowing red streaks trailed behind her fingers before dimming back to the dark black. “I’m good for this,” she said before looking down at herself. “We have time for me to get dressed?”

“Call for me when you’re ready. I’ll move you straight there.”

Arkk teleported back to the ritual room. There were a series of six ritual circles for teleportation outside the fortress. Each headed off in a different direction. Two went directly to the nearby burgs, one headed west, though that one was marked with a sign reading ‘DO NOT USE’ for the time being. They had destroyed all the ritual circles in that direction to keep any possibility of the Evestani army from finding them.

The circle chain leading toward Cliff City had been partially destroyed as they hadn’t wanted any inquisitors to stumble across them. Vezta, out in the wilderness between the fortress and Cliff, was almost finished repairing the line.

A mental command to one of the dormant lesser servants that he had left in the city on their previous visit woke it from its slumber. They had come up with several plans for various situations, mostly escape routes to get away from the Duke or inquisitors.

The tunnel for Plan D dug deep underground, burrowing below the moat around the Duke’s manor. It didn’t reach all the way to the manor—they hadn’t wanted to alarm anyone too early—so it needed to be extended. The lesser servant in the tunnel promptly began eating into the rock, digging at an upward slope.

As long as they had done their planning right, the tunnel would open directly into the manor’s dungeons.

Agnete pinged him over the link just as Vezta finished the final teleportation circle at the far end of the tunnel. They couldn’t go too close to the manor for fear of warding but the walk through the tunnel wouldn’t take long. He teleported Agnete straight to him. She now stood dressed in thick boots and a black uniform similar to the one she had worn as an inquisitor. The ends of its sleeves were already smoking.

“Just us?” she asked, looking around.

“Vezta is at the far end,” Arkk said, gesturing to the Cliff portal.

“Operational parameters?”

“Rescue. I’ll explain more once we’re there. There shouldn’t be any danger before the final portal.”

Agnete nodded, stepped into the ritual circle, and flashed her magic into the ring. She vanished with a small puff of smoke, taking the heat with her.

Arkk considered waiting a moment. Dakka and the gorgon were on their way. However, Zullie had only just disentangled herself from explaining the situation to Rekk’ar. Olatt’an wouldn’t take as long but even that was longer than Arkk wanted to stick around for.

Zullie would figure things out on her own.

Arkk stepped into the teleportation ritual. The comfort of the fortress remained behind as he reappeared in a dark chamber, lit only by a few dim glowstones. The underground room wasn’t part of the fortress, it was just a waystation keeping the ritual circles hidden. He stepped out of one circle and into the next.

A dozen hops like that and he found himself in the final tunnel. It lacked any glowstones to keep it lit, leaving the long tunnel in complete darkness. That didn’t stop him from seeing either of his companions. Agnete’s smoldering scars and the embers in her eyes let him see her. Vezta’s burning yellow suns were a little more obvious, dotted all around her body.

Both turned to him upon his arrival. With his glowing red eyes, he stuck out as well.

He almost wished some of the Duke’s guards were down in the tunnel with them, just to hear them scream as they ran off. Perhaps they should drag the Duke himself into the tunnel, kicking and screaming. Alya too—he couldn’t believe that she let them lock up her daughter. What had happened to the woman who took him in when his parents died? Had she always been like this and he just hadn’t noticed in his youth? Or had she always been a snake in sheep’s wool?

Arkk was beyond livid at the moment and didn’t even bother trying to think lighter thoughts.

A swirl of flames wrapped around Agnete’s outstretched hand, illuminating the tunnel and ruining the effect. It was probably for the best. The floor in the tunnel wasn’t the smooth tiles of Fortress Al-Mir. They didn’t want to trip over the uneven rock. Especially once they reached the downward slope that would take them under the moat.

“Let’s go,” Arkk said.

As the trio walked, he explained everything that had led to this. The call from Ilya and the cell she seemed to be held inside. He didn’t know the whys, hows, or any other reason she would be locked up. Up until now, she had been treated as an honored guest as far as he had been able to tell. The sudden shift…

Could the Duke have been assassinated and now Evestani was taking over? Mind magics? Threats of that golden beam striking the city if they didn’t comply?

A thousand other possibilities ran through Arkk’s mind. All were equally useless. They would find out soon enough.

Or…

Not?

“Vezta,” Arkk said, pausing in the tunnel. “The lesser servant has hit a roadblock.”

“A roadblock? Underground?”

“Its teeth are sliding off the stone. It was eating through it just fine but now it’s like… as if I were trying to eat the rock.”

“Magically reinforced stone,” Vezta nodded immediately. “Like the walls of Fortress Al-Mir. I suppose we should have expected this. Good thing we didn’t need to use the escape route earlier.”

“We need it now,” he said through grit teeth.

The heat in the tunnel turned scalding, forcing Arkk to take a step away from Agnete. “My flames melted the enchantments off the fortress walls,” she said, burning embers looking at Arkk.

Arkk hesitated to say anything. Turning up the heat in an enclosed space didn’t sound like all that smart of an idea. He hadn’t even brought the ice marble with them—Agnete had never displayed any signs of needing it. But she was right. Her fire had melted the walls of Fortress Al-Mir during their invasion, severing the Heart’s connection to the false fortress. If the magical reinforcement here were anything similar, she would be able to eat through it.

“I’m redirecting the lesser servant,” Arkk said. “I think toward the ballroom. My only real point of reference is Ilya, though, so it could be off. I don’t want to break into the dungeons and flash boil Ilya or any other captives that might be down there.”

“Master, we might have to fight through some of the manor if we don’t emerge in the dungeons.”

Arkk nodded. He had already figured that. Between his lightning bolts, Agnete’s flames, and Vezta’s Veztaness… They would have to have something special to stop their group. They were the three singular powerhouses of Fortress Al-Mir.

If they didn’t care about killing their opponents, he doubted anything short of an army would stop them. While he did not doubt that enough reserves were reinforcing the city in case the Evestani army split apart and some detachments went through to Cliff, he doubted they would be in the manor long enough for that to matter.

“Any problems with fighting?” he asked, looking to Vezta and Agnete.

The latter shook her head slowly, flames gaining brightness and heat.

The former allowed a small smile to grace her features.

“Then let us go rescue Ilya.”