If the Academy Vulcanus could be said to have a heart, it was the magma chamber lying deep beneath it where, officially, master pyromancers could go to meditate upon the nature of fire, emerging stronger for it. And all of that was true.

Unofficially it was where those seeking to become Chosen of Qrilotesh performed the Rite of Empathy. Where, in a single moment of perfect unity, the two’s thoughts and souls would merge, only to part changed by the experience. Qrilotesh with insight on the mortal condition and a pair of eyes she could watch from. The mortal with power and knowledge over fire and earth that they could not have obtained in a hundred lifetimes.

Amara Sunwalker had not yet lived a hundred lifetimes, but the vampire was venerable nonetheless. Not ancient of days as many of the Necropolis’ senior mages could claim, but by pyromancer standards she was old. More importantly she was powerful already. It was one of the reasons she’d been permitted the Rite.

Not because of her power, but because, in spite of it, she’d never coveted power for power’s sake. Her skills and strength came from a love of fire magic, no more and no less.

That had admittedly been an impediment in its own way. Qrilotesh had no great love of pyromancy, she was pyromancy, and while her character was not without flaw – despite what many of Vulcanus’ senior leadership insisted (notably those who weren’t Chosen) – narcissism was not amongst them.

Before she’d been forced to flee Vulcanus, Amara had spent ten years in the chamber. One of the longest Rites on record, and to no success. In that time the vampire had acted as sage and guide to many a mage looking to improve, until three of her colleagues and a pair of hired assassins had tried to murder her in (ironically) cold blood.

Intending likely to cover up the death by throwing her into the magma below. It would have been close to the perfect crime if it had worked. The temperature in the chamber was enough to have droplets of rock running down the walls, a single slip in concentration would have been enough to consign Amara to fiery oblivion. Doubly so from her vampiric nature.

Vampires burned hot and burned fast. A fact Amara had exploited ruthlessly in her latest misadventure. Spells to stop ignition were as much child’s play to a pyromancer as spells to accelerate it, and in the battle against the Cult of the Ardent Wildfyre (not to be confused with the Cult of the Argent Wildfyre, or the Cult of the Ardent Wyldfire) the vampire had burned her right hand to ashes to empower a spell that had burned through the retinue of Charigris’ Speaker, incinerating wards and warriors alike, before duelling the speaker themselves.

That had proven a near-fatal mistake. For all her prowess, for all her experience, the Speaker of a wildfire elemental had proven a foe beyond her. The man had been so stuffed full of magical fire that he’d been flaking into ash in front of her.

Fire magic could destroy many things, but even it could not burn to death fire magic. At least not normally. Her vampiric nature had allowed her to lend some of her unnatural hunger to her own mana, able to devour mana from others spells to fuel her own.

It had been easily her deadliest technique. But it turned out that wildfire elementals knew hunger every bit as well as vampires. She’d used it once, just once, only to have her own trump card thrown all too literally back in her face.

If that had been all then perhaps her ego could have taken it. But it had been an article of faith that elementals were close to indestructible, their power immense, and Charigris had been, most likely, the second most powerful elemental Reath had ever seen with all his stolen power. So watching him die had been every bit as faith-shattering. That a friend had sacrificed themselves to do it even more so.

After that, for all she’d been orders of magnitude more dangerous than an elemental merely capable of reducing the continent to a barren, ash-strewn waste, Tza’rahlitzek had been an anti-climax. For all her evil, for all her power, it hadn’t felt personal. At least until Erebus died.

She wouldn’t have been able to explain it, but after all she’d seen the enigmatic necromancer do it just hadn’t occurred to her that he could lose. No matter how outmatched, outnumbered, outclassed somehow her former student had always managed to eke out a victory, and once again he had. But how pyrrhic and bitter a victory it had been.

They’d conspired afterwards, those few who knew, in the brief time they’d had. Grappling with the same problems currently driving Ackeron to the point of madness. Reath lay undefended, even more than the Head Gardener had known. Thusly they’d sworn never to reveal that Erebus wasn’t just waiting in the Hells to swoop in and save the day, and they’d sworn to grow strong enough that when the time came he wouldn’t be needed to.

And now, humbled, she sat in the magma chamber once more, the slowly regrowing stump of her hand cradled, malformed, in her lap as she tried to read Qrilotesh’s thoughts and mood from the surface of the magma below.

It wasn’t easy. Especially given the running battle in the tunnels outside the chamber.

A surprise attack shouldn’t really have been possible. No geomancer could tunnel into Vulcanus unnoticed. Like most major magical institutions shadows were tightly controlled and mirrors were downright banned.

Technically a direct point-to-point teleport was possibly at the moment, if only because weeks of bombardment had crippled most of the wards. But there was a reason that teleportation was seldom used out of obsessively cleaned and meticulously scheduled rooms. Most people refused to ever be teleported after witnessing their first telefrag.

To teleport directly into Vulcanus would be an act of desperation. The cults risking their best mages on a roll of the dice. What she could sense in the tunnels was more of an army.

She could guess how they’d been smuggled in. While Vulcanus went so far as to search anyone hoping to enter the inner areas of the academy for mirrors, obsidian could be very reflective. It would not take much effort for one of the pyromancers working there, many of them from the elemental cults originally, to polish up one of the tunnels and escort in a hoard of soldiers.

And therein lay the problem. The real reason that Vulcanus hadn’t simply swept aside the opposition. Not the optics, not the morality, but that the ancient institution was no longer a united one.

It wasn’t so surprising that there were traitors present. For all that there were people who’d worked for Vulcanus for decades who’d broken faith, the truth was that the great bastion of pyromancy had failed them first. Had failed indisputably, and far too often fatally, to protect the weaker cults.

Had been infested, subverted and blinded by a hostile power. And perhaps most damning of all, it had not been the Academy Vulcanus that had paid the price for that failure.

Even Amara, who had committed dark deeds in her centuries of life, find her resolve wavering. Killing was relatively easy if a person was convinced they were in the right. It was much harder to raise a hand in violence when undeniably in the wrong.

It was also a hell of a lot harder to tell friend from foe, and when Amara said some of the arguments she’d had recently had been blazing that wasn’t metaphor. The only good news was that the one thing all factions seemed to agree on was that Amara was a hero and, at least for now, above reproach.

So that was the situation, a divided Vulcanus, an invasion force snuck into the tunnels and a conflicted vampire listening to the fighting as she tried to commune with a frustrated volcano.

By the sounds of things, the battle had devolved into a melee, so many heat wards in close proximity meant they’d melt the tunnel on top of each other before their spells did anything. There were a few surges of temperature, brief flashes of intense heat that told her someone was trying nonetheless to collapse the defensive magics with a lightning spell, the idiot.

Part of her wanted so badly to just give up on the Rite and weigh in, to help her people out in their darkest hour. But how would she even know who to fight? Could she even kill them when they might well be right that Vulcanus couldn’t be trusted to protect them anymore?

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As the thoughts crossed her mind she felt it. That same feeling of helplessness, of indecision, guilt and impotence. Forced to watch not from lack of power but having so much of it it would be trying to cook a marshmallow in a blast furnace.

It was important not to focus on the feeling, to just stay relaxed and let it slowly resonate. She’d had too many near-misses with the Rite to panic or hurry. Just allowing her focus to stay on the fight she wanted so badly to stop, to seethe with frustration and ignore the sensation as two minds melded into one.

Finally.

*

Of the many teachers of esoteric magics that Erebus had sought out over his long life, Weaver of New Tales, arachni, mage and habitual trouble-maker, had been the first, and of the many unusually powerful travelling companions he’d picked up, practically by accident, she had also been the last.Oh and they’d also been married.

It was probably odd that that had been the least important aspect of their relationship. Not that the marriage had ever been consummated, or even could have been. Just a polite political fiction to allow Erebus to learn the rare variant of umbramancy that her Great Web practiced, and Weaver to start a years-long feud with Great Ariadne over her increasingly insular attitude to the world.

Not that she hadn’t understand her honoured ancestor’s caution. Trapped in the Underreath, their survival assured only by the secrecy of the Great Web from the living shadows that hunted them.

But understanding something was not the same as liking it. Weaver had never quite fit in in The Great Web Beneath, her almost rainbow carapace stood out too much and she was far too impulsive to ever be considered for scout training, and there really was no other way to explore the outside world.

Thus her joy had been almost immeasurable when the outside world had decided to come to her instead. For all that she’d been Erebus’ teacher, it had been her asking most of the questions.

Until, with the same abruptness the mage had entered her life, he’d left, not returning for forty years. Not long by the metrics of necromancers. More than a lifetime for most arachni.

Old age was a terrible way to die for the spiderfolk, and was one of the reasons cannibalism had still been actively practiced in the Great Web Beneath. It beat the alternative. As the spiderfolk aged they got steadily larger and larger, far beyond anything mere biology could hope to sustain, their magicka being used just to keep them alive.

Except magicka was a limited resource. Even in a mana rich environment a body could only produce so much of it. As time dragged on an arachni would lose all capacity for spellcasting, every droplet of power needed just to keep them alive, breathing getting harder and harder, their carapace getting heavier and heavier, until at least they either suffocated or were crushed under their own weight.

Weaver could already feel it, not the weight or suffocation, but something analogous to shortness of breath when casting, where mana that should be there simply wasn’t. Diverted to keeping her alive.

Likely she had decades left, easily the most powerful caster the Great Web Beneath had produced in generations, but she was no Ariadne. The last Ariadne, first scion of Ariadne, in an unbroken line back to the first curse, was the size of a small elephant, undead besides and could still have duelled Erebus’ companions to a standstill.

No, she was no Ariadne, and certainly no Erebus. Of the four conspirators that were Erebus’ surviving companions, she knew she was the weakest. She was also the first to arrive in Seruatis as planned.

It had been expected. There was no epiphany or power she knew to seek to grow stronger like Amara. No authority over her since her banishment like Natalya. And she hadn’t been actively expelled from reality like Lana.

Getting into Seruatis was borderline impossible for an arachni unaided. While most people could walk through the barrier with no worse than feeling depressed and nihilistic from the manaless air surrounding it, an arachni would be sucked dry. Which was why there’d been a (not-very-)welcoming committee waiting for her.

She hadn’t recognised any of them beyond Ariadne and one of the gods that had fought Tza’rahlitzek (Nemmy if she recalled correctly). Between them they’d managed to put enough mana into the air that she’d been able to cross the knee high wall that was all that poked through the ground of the grand apparatus beneath.

The welcoming committee was seven strong, a man tattooed to such an extent that when he opened his mouth to speak she could see ink-scribed runes on his tongue, Nemmy and Ariadne, obviously, an olive skinned man with eyes that seemed to be made of pink, glittering smoke, a woman who’s face was shrouded by a hood (not that that made a difference, darkness might as well be daylight to an experienced umbramancer) and an eyeless domino mask. How she was able to navigate Weaver couldn’t even have guessed at.

Of the remaining two one was a dryad, a conclusion she’d only been able to reach from the resemblance to Holly. The roughness to the skin and the bark-like hue, though she had no idea what tree she’d been spawned from.

Now mushrooms, she could have given lectures on identifying mushrooms, but there really weren’t many trees in the Underreath. Or more accurately, any.

If Weaver were honest she was astonished by just how broad the variety of living things was on the surface, from the grass to the trees to the bugs to deer to the one griffin that had thought she’d make an easy meal. It turned out griffin was very gamey and just a little acrid.

In the Underreath what remained was highly specialised and highly predatory, except for the mushrooms – which were only mostly predatory.

The final person was a man in two parts, literally, his face split vertically down the middle, one half gaunt, unhealthily pale with bloodshot eye and scowling so deeply Weaver doubted he could smile if he wanted to, the other half dark skinned, plush cheeked and almost-smiling, somehow the expression just wouldn’t quite take. The entity glaring up at her balefully from his wheelchair, the duality broken by the intensity in his eyes.

“This is your pawn?” He snapped out to Nemmy, “I expected better from how you and the spider went on.”

“Even a pawn can do great things, especially when guided to the end of the board.” Nemmy replied with a smile, “Thank you for coming Weaver of New Tales. Had I the strength to spare I would curse you mightily, but you will have to settle for my knowledge and guidance instead.”

“...Thank you? I think.” Weaver said tentatively.

“Do not thank me.” Nemmy said softly, “My nature is not a kindly one, and my teachings run accordingly. Of your compatriots yours I fear shall be the harder role, certainly the loneliest.”

“I take it when you told us to visit here, it wasn’t for tea and biscuits.” Weaver noted dryly, “Just because I’m an optimist doesn’t mean I’m a child, lay it on me.”

“The fallen necromancer, yes everyone here knows, was an unparalleled weapon that Tza’rahlitzek wielded expertly. Those that died in the final battle with her were all similar existences, even the thrice-blighted automata. Reath lies open and undefended.” Nemmy told her.

“I knew all that.” Weaver chuckled, “Come on, skip the melodrama and get to the but.”

“Neither you, nor his other companions, alone can fill the gap his death left. And none of the remaining imperators are inclined to take an apprentice.”

“We checked.” The pink-eyed one interjected.

“However,” Nemmy continued as if nothing had been said. “you were all his teachers. Each of you masters of part of his skillset, between you you cover pretty much everything he could do bar the entropomancy. And we can teach entropy magic.”

“So you want us to do what Erebus did and become a roving band of vigilantes?”

“Reductive.” Nemmy chided, “It was never what he did. There have been hordes of heroes through the ages and the old monsters of this world have had all that time to master the art of killing them. It was how he did it. Think of how the battle against Charigris looked from the outside.”

“There wasn’t really anyone watching to look.” Weaver pointed out.

“Precisely. People woke up one morning and a threat to every life on Contemnere was simply gone, and with the hero nowhere to be seen. That last bit is your role in this by the way. It was never that he was an avenging blade, it was that people never knew where he would strike or when. He didn’t even strike that often, only a few times a year, if that. But each time a player that had lingered too long upon the board was plucked off it. What we need isn’t a hero. No shining beacon of hope. What we need is a monster that other monsters are scared of.”

“I thought you gods were trapped here. How can you possibly know all that?” The giant spider protested, feeling a shiver run up her carapace. She did not like what she was hearing one jot.

“Where do you think monsters go when they get scared?” Nemmy laughed, “It’s where we fled to afterall. That lunatic almost doubled Seruatis’ population over the three decades he was doing his rogue agent routine. The real irony it was the periods he disappeared for years that we got the most recruitment. Now that’s fear.”

“Bring it back to what you need me for. Because I’m still not seeing how this is not us just being a roving band of vigilantes.” Weaver snarked.

Nemmy paused, turning to address Ariadne soto voce, “Did he infect her with such insouciance or was it the other way around?”

“I fear the two met and the problem multiplied itself.” The undead behemoth tittered.

Nemmy rolled his eyes, “Well at least she’ll be able to act the part. No we don’t want a band of plucky heroes, we want the blasted necromancer back putting the fear of us into every destabilising influence on the continent.”

“First off I’m a shadow mage, not a necromancer, so I don’t see how you expect me to bring him back. And secondly, even if I were a necromancer, his soul is somewhere in the Hells, so I still wouldn’t be able to do it.”

“Oh it’s worse even than that.” Nemmy told her, “I imagine by now his soul has collapsed entirely. No we don’t want you to bring back the actual Erebus. An imposter works just as well. And will hopefully be easier to work with. Your magics will permit the others to hide in the ex-succubus’ shadow. Hopefully she has maintained her ability to shapechange but if not an illusion will suffice while the three of you cover his magical aptitudes.”

“That’s… insane.” Weaver replied slowly, turning so her primary eyes were on the others who had come out to greet. “Noone would ever buy it. You have to all know that right?”

“They will believe it.” The woman in the hood told her softly. “For the same reason any con works. Because they want to.”