The sun had set several hours ago.

The streets were mostly dark, with only about one in every six streetlamps still lit. Sanchi had asked about it while setting out for this short journey, and apparently, the reason for that was because oil was in particularly short supply as of recent.

Somebody had been buying up and using all of it.

And he was visiting that somebody right now.

Interestingly enough, the closer he got to the factory district, the brighter it became.

In fact, inside the factory building that had been designated as the meeting place, it almost seemed daytime.

For one, lamps and torches, stationed at regular intervals, provided much-needed light for the few humans on the night shift.

The orange-red molten metals and glowing blue eyes of the steel puppets making up the majority of the manpower provided an unusual hue to the light, giving the inside of the factory building an otherworldly feel.

Sanchi stepped inside and began walking down the production lines.

This is an efficient setup. He thought to himself. Very little wasted movement.

The workers, human and steel puppets alike, didn’t even glance at Sanchi when he passed. Instead, they churned out their work with a steady diligence that Sanchi could only admire.

Even in his youth, he’d never been able to focus on a single thing for any real length of time. It was only during his performances that the rest of the world melted away. Only then was he able to fully focus.

Once he made it to the center of the factory, he turned and raised his head to stare at the raised office.

Standing near the railing was a large, steel figure, devoid of a face or any other particularly distinguishing features.

Seeing it, Sanchi smirked and slowly strode his way around the periphery of the factory and up the stairs until he was face to helmet with the steel figure.

“Look at you, Kau. You went through quite the growth spurt!” Sanchi dryly joked.

“Yes, apparently posthumous growth is all the rage nowadays,” Kaukau’s voice sounded from the steel figure.

Although the steel frame was about the size of an average human, it was far taller than Kaukau’s usual dwarven form. Clearly, he’d taken advantage of the opportunity to grow a few inches.

Or a few dozen inches.

“It’s a good look for you,” Sanchi ribbed. “A lot of improvement, especially…”

He waved his hand in front of the steel helmet. “...In this area.”

“You were always an ass.” Kaukau’s steel form shook its head. “Still, I’m glad you’re here. It’ll make my plan all the more viable.”

“Mmm, is that really the only reason you’re happy to see me?” Sanchi teased.

After what felt like eons, Kaukau finally relented. “Fine. It is good to see a familiar face.”

“There it is!” Sanchi stepped forward and wrapped the steel man in a bearhug. “I knew you missed me!”

“Let me go or I’m going to fall on you.”

“Damn, fine!” Sanchi released his captive and backed off. “How heavy is that new body of yours anyway?”

“A few hundred pounds. Maybe close to a thousand.” Kaukau shrugged. “It’s not important. Now that you’re here, you can help me carve runes into it to make it lighter.”

“...Yay.”

***

Each of the steel man’s parts was laid out on a workbench as Kaukau’s spiritual form stood by, tirelessly watching and critiquing.

“Look, Sanchi. If you make the lines that big I’m only going to be able to fit three sets of runes on each of the limbs, and we need at least four. I’m going to need everything I can get to take down the layer’s boss.”

“Alright, alright! I’d be doing a lot better if you weren’t here annoying me. I’m capable of carvings as simple as these, thank you very much.”

“Tch.”

Several moments of silence passed as Sanchi carefully carved another set of runes into a steel arm.

“Say… is anyone else on our layer? And…” Kaukau started.

“You’re wondering which layer you were sent to, aren’t you?” Sanchi grinned as he looked up from his work. “This is the third layer.”

“Dammit!” Kau cursed. “I had a feeling, but really?! That’s all they thought of me? I thought I’d at least make par!”

“Awww, I’m so sorry, little Timmy! You almost did it! I believe in you! You’ll get there next time!” Sanchi dodged to the side as Kaukau’s spiritual form entered the steel body and tried to backhand the bard’s face.

“Alright, alright. You’ve had your fun. It’s time to get back to business.” Kau waved a steel hand towards the door to his office.

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Once inside, Kau once again released his spirit form from the steel figure.

“It’s good to see you, Kau.” Sanchi grinned as he took a seat. “You have no idea how pissed everyone was at Tori after the battle. I swear Sweet was going to kill him.”

“Tori? Why Tori? Karasu was the one at fault, no? Him and those weird guys,” Kau asked.

“Oh yeah, those guys who referred to themselves by numbers turned out to be clones of some sort. Some bloke from Boom and Sweet’s generation.”

“Damn.” Kau slowly nodded. “No wonder they were so powerful. But still, why were they mad at Tori?”

“Well… at the end of the day, he was the one who was supposed to keep Aarde safe. That he allowed Karasu to get away with so much under his beak was an incredible failure on his part. That being said… Karasu’s not having the best time either.”

Sanchi began to chuckle as he continued to relay what’d happened in Boomtown after the battle on the plains. “See, I don’t remember if you were still alive for this, but apparently Karasu had made two clones of himself.”

“I did indeed see one of the clones… but I did not see the other. Truth be told, I would like to pick his brain as to how he achieved that. I would not have thought that cloning or recreating the body of a bird god would be possible. But what’s so funny about it?”

Indeed, Sanchi was still chuckling to himself as he imagined Kaukau’s reactions to his next words.

“So Sweet killed a Karasu clone, right? Guess what she did with the body.”

Kaukau’s immediate inclination was that, surely, Sweet would have saved the body for him to dissect once he returned… but Sanchi’s mirth clearly said otherwise.

Then, his mind naturally turned towards Sweet’s penchant for gluttony and he instinctively knew that the terrifying notion that had appeared in his head was true.

“She… didn’t… no way.”

“Yep. She ate him. Well, his clones.”

Kaukau’s spirit form squatted and reached backward to take a seat in his chair, but he fell through it and the floor below.

“Dammit, forgot I left my shell!” He slowly floated up through the floorboards, clutching his head. “So did… she eat his clones in front of him?”

“Yep. Not only that, she roasted his clones in front of him too.”

“How sadistic of her.” Despite his words, Kaukau grinned from ear to ear. “I would have given half my library to witness Karasu’s reaction.”

Sanchi sat in silence for a few moments as Kaukau imagined Karasu’s panicked screeches and angry cawing.

Eventually, he shook himself out of imagination land and turned towards Sanchi. “So if you’ve been here for a few weeks already, I assume we will need to wrap up soon?”

Sanchi pulled a device out of his satchel and showed it to Kaukau. On it were two circles which were still about halfway overlapped. “We have about two weeks before the deadline. Just enough time for us to check the prison for any other comrades and leave.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?” A pit began to form in Sanchi’s stomach.

“Sanchi…” Kau’s countenance, as translucent as it was, darkened. “I was imprisoned for months before I was able to break out, and the officer of this layer was the one responsible for much of my pain.”

He looked into Sanchi’s eyes. “When one has a corporeal form, it limits the pain they are able to experience. You see, at a certain threshold, the body turns the mind off to protect its owner. In spirit form, however…”

“No such protection exists,” Sanchi finished Kau’s words for him.

“Yeah, alright.” With barely a moment’s hesitation, Sanchi slammed his palm on the table and stood up. “Fuck it. You want revenge, right? We’ll get you your goddamn revenge, and you know what?! I bet roasted kitty tastes real damn good.”

“We’re not going to eat the officer. I just want a little bit of payback, not a dimensional war. By the gods, Sanchi. What were you thinking?!”

“Sorry, it just, I mean. We were talking about Sweet eating Karasu and—”

“Yeah, like that’s not going to bite us in the ass later? I’m sure Karasu’s pals are already plotting their own vengeance.”

Sanchi shrugged. “Alright, alright. We won’t eat the damn cat. So what are we doing, then?”

“Most of the cats on the third layer, including the officer, live in an area on the north side of the plane. I’m going to raze their homes to the ground.”

“Isn’t that just going to make them take over another territory to call home?”

“Sure. And that’s why I’ve given the people of this city the capability to produce the weapons they’ll need to fight against whatever remains of the cats when I’m done with them.”

Sanchi sighed. “Fine, fine. You’ve thought it all through. There’s a town to the south that I’d like for you to supply with the blueprints for the magic weapons, though. And maybe a few crates of the things themselves.”

“Oh?” Kaukau chuckled. “Let me guess, you found a cute lady while you were looking for me?”

“That obvious, huh.” Sanchi sheepishly grinned.

“You’re a bard. Womanizing might as well be part of the job description.” Kaukau floated back into his steel figure, which then marched towards the doorway.

“I hope you’re not too sleepy. There’s much I have to show you. I have been a very busy dwarf.”

Sanchi stood up as well, and followed. “I expect nothing less from you.”

***

“By my grandmother’s fat toe, Kau. How did you get all this made in such a short amount of time?!” Sanchi shouted.

There was a veritable army of steel puppets standing shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the large warehouse building Kau had just led Sanchi into. Lining the walls were countless crates of weapons and explosives.

He continued. “You weren’t kidding about razing the north side of the layer, huh. This is… a lot.”

The understatement of the century, to be sure.

“Almost a quarter of these weapons are mana-based weapons. How did you manage to get so much mana?” Sanchi asked.

“Simple, really. The coffers of bandit lords I subjugated were, apparently, quite full. The city’s population is also very dense, likely due to their ability to cheaply create such vertical structures.

“It’s not that the people living here don’t have mana, they just do not have the ability to harness it. For them, it might as well not exist. But of course…”

Kau twiddled a finger between himself and Sanchi. “You and I know that it does. Every living being has mana, it is part of their very existence. Thus, I simply engraved a few mana suction runes in a room and put out word that we were paying people to sit in it. Word spread around town that we were—”

“Perverts?”

Kau scowled at Sanchi. “Yes, such rumors were passed around at the beginning, but some brave souls were willing to take the risk. Once they earned their money and spread the news that it was a legitimate transaction, participants came in droves.

“The result is what you see before you. Enough mana to lay waste to an entire small country,” Kau continued as his voice turned somewhat sinister.

Sanchi shivered as he scrutinized the large vat of pure magical energy in front of them..

Just what did they do to him?! Sanchi wondered as he turned away. Kau’s always been a bit strict, but this… this is borderline psychotic.

Still… if vengeance is what he wants, as his friend, I will assist.