We finished the keep a week and a half after the concert. There were simply too many elves working on it for even the massive, fortified structure to take too long. We had mages and earthshapers to make and cure the concrete along with almost a hundred elves devoted to the task of converting the bog iron we found in the swamps below us into high-quality steel.

The keep itself was a three-faced structure whose outer walls were smooth and almost black, glittering with obsidian shards. It rose almost forty meters above the ground, with the angular meeting of two walls facing the outside of where the eventual settlement would lie.

Much of it felt naked: while the raw look of the concrete had a certain attractiveness to it, most of its exterior was supposed to be clad in wooden beams and hung with gardens and vines. It had few windows, and these were narrow, built for defense: one could tell just by looking at its sheer concrete walls that the structure had been built in fear.

Deep gouges in the stone around the keep made our ditch, and our waterworks flowed through the ground around these, pipes that connected the nearby river. These were also temporary—the pipes wouldn’t last a year—but at least we had water on hand without having to carry it.

Altogether it was a bleak affair, but it served our needs. The keep stood where the walls of our settlement would soon meet, and it overlooked a bare stretch of rock where the settlement would eventually sit—once we’d excavated.

Still, it was built high, and from its ramparts and roof one could look out at the mists above the swampy great forest below us, or up at the crinkled, tree-covered terrain leading up the face of the Skytusk. The inside of the keep, at least, was slowly growing into something homely: furs and rough-hewn furniture, broad firepits and bone-carved dishes and tools could be found in every room.

Once the keep was done and my caution was somewhat assuaged, many of our laborers and artisans could be set to other tasks. A steel scaffold was constructed hanging out over the cliff’s edge, and a sail-powered lift was made to hasten the quarrying of limestone and the gathering of iron, as well as the coming and going of our hunters, who still killed in the swamps almost freely.

A small structure was cut out of the cliff’s edge, one with numerous levels that allowed the mages and wildhearts to perform experiments in the second mist layer, growing plants and casting spells as they needed to.

The long strip of barer, moss-streaked rock that ran along the cliff’s edge became the site of many raised garden beds for the wildhearts to test Mirio’s vines. The archdruid himself was often missing, patrolling far from the settlement as part of the task I’d set him to.

All the while, Luthiel’s judgement loomed. I knew that if I could have postponed it until after my ritual, until after every elf in the colony was watching a miracle happen before their eyes… but I couldn’t. Hassina had forced a date, and it was close at hand to her great accomplishment on the mountaintop, not my fulfillment of my promise. Surely she would argue for the harshest of punishments, death or exile, and surely it would be soon, when she was held in highest esteem by the elves.

My thoughts on the coming judgement threatened to grow to consume me, but I couldn’t let them: there were too many other things to attend to.

For one, I had a hunt coming. Fireesha surprised me one morning, coming to me after the day’s council to present me with a cloth-wrapped bundle.

“We’ve been busy with a lot of the work around us, naturally,” she said. “But I took the time to make you this—a simple enough enchantment that should raise the rank of one skill while opening up one of your others.”

She unwrapped her gift: it was a girdle, one made of layered strips of leather that had been stitched and bolted together, then decorated with some of the scales they’d taken from the beast’s hide. I took it, examining it with the verse:

[Aziriel’s Girdle of Might]

Binding this item will grant you the [Might 17] skill.

This girdle has been fashioned from the hide of a six-headed hydra. It naturally repels filth and cleans easily, and if damaged it can be repaired with healing magic.

[Might 17]

Components: [*Primeval 5] + [*Body 3] + [Body 3] + [Body 3] + [Body 3]

+ 60 [Agility], [Strength], and [Aegis]

“It’s beautiful,” I said, taking the girdle. “More than beautiful. Thank you, Fireesha.” I grinned. “I’ll be sure to put it to use.”

The fact that enchanted equipment had its own skill cores meant that the belt would give me a higher level of the pure [Body] skill than I could otherwise get with rank 3 keys.

But more importantly, it was another piece of equipment that had enough aspect to bear a strong enchantment, not just a temporary one made of two rank 1 keys. Using another one of my bindings for a real skill, not a temporary placeholder, meant that I could replace my actual [Might 14] skill with anything I liked.

And I knew what I wanted… for now. I found Hassina that night and got my skill keys from her, replacing the [Might 14] that I’d built with a skill core with [Earthen Might 14]:

[Earthen Might 14]

Components: [*Primeval 5] + [Body 3] + [Earth 3] + [Earth 3]

+ 54 [Strength] and [Aegis]

You can sense earthen substances more easily with your gaze, and extending your claim and gaze through such substances is easier.

Simple enough, but every part of it was useful. Because [Surge of Might] could only double my physical attributes, the extra 60 [Strength] and [Aegis] from trading [Might 14] for both skills would be doubled when I needed it to be.

I needed the skills. Once Luthiel’s judgement was done, I’d be going forth to hunt something powerful enough for my ritual—and my plan was to do it far from the colony.

I was looking forward to the fight. I had new skills, and all of them would work in concert with one another—whether I chose physical force or lightning, my [Blood Pool] would come to my aide by bolstering my [Surge Pool] or my mana.

[Surge Pool] was restored by channeling mana into the skill anyway… and I had far higher [Channel] than last time I’d fought anything without lightning.

That night I sat up in the keep and ran my fingers across the carvings of my bow, looking over my skills and attributes and feeling the thrill of anticipation.

?—Your Skills:

G: [Sable Grace 20]

G: [Primeval Power 30]

0: [Primeval Mana 14]

2: [Avian Grace 14]

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4: [Air Magick 14]

6: [Primeval Mana Hide 14]

8: [Earthen Might 14]

10: [Surge of Might 14]

15: [Wild Bond 14]

20: [Lightning Magick 14]

25: [Elemental Power 14]

30: [Surging Power 14]

B1: [Aziriel’s Pale Furs]

B2: [Aziriel’s Pale Fangs]

B3: [Aziriel’s Girdle of Might]

B4: [Aziriel’s Matchbow of Windborne Missile Conjuring]

?—Your Attributes:

331 [Aegis]

294 [Agility]

177 [Strength]

180 [Channel]

150 [Focus]

249 [Source]

110% [Primeval Resonance], 55% Base

2490/2490 Mana, 64% Primeval

100 [Blood Pool]

100 [Surge Pool]

A week later I was working in the archive chamber when Mirio came to me with a troubled expression.

“Some of our earthseers have sensed more digging,” he said. “It’s not coming from a direction we’d expect.”

His expression worried me. I set aside the papers in front of me and stood. “Tell me.”

“Well, we’d expect anything from the surface to be coming toward us by digging parallel to the cliff. These are coming from the direction of the peak.”

“Something is burrowing toward us from beneath the mountain.”

“Yes—two tunnels are being dug. Each of them is a kilometer away, now. Neither looks like it will intercept the colony.”

I nodded. It was better news than if they’d been coming straight for us, but whatever it was might change course once it sensed us. We were difficult to sense at a distance because of our enchantments, but that wasn’t going to stop something that passed close by from wondering about the strange terrain even if they couldn’t detect the elves, here.

“Get as many earthseers as you can probing the rock around us,” I told him. “Call back anyone that you need to.”

An hour later, Mirio, Luthiel, and Zirilla had all returned to the settlement, and we’d met at the mountainside point of the keep’s battlements. It was Zirilla who brought me more reports.

“They’re still digging, and we don’t know for sure that they’re coming our way. We keep finding more, though.”

“More what?”

“More diggers. In every direction. The good news is they’re not all coming toward us, but there’s definitely something going on down there—something spanning a very large area. Mirio says they’re all insects, legions of them digging round passages through the stone.”

My heart sank as my thoughts went back to the sleeping hive of insects that I’d encountered on the first day. They’d carved round tunnels that had seemed just large enough for one of them to crawl along every part of their surface at once.

“Call our hunters in and ready the defenses,” I said. “Let the colony know that we’re on alert and pull in everyone who’s working further than a minute away from the keep.”

From our place on the battlements, I watched as my orders were followed—psychic messages meant that almost every elf I could see was heading our way within only a minute.

A few more minutes passed, and then it came.

Converge! Mirio said suddenly. It was more a singular thought than an actual word, one delivered in a rapid panic. I obeyed the command, mustering my mind to add my psychic strength to our collective, following Mirio’s guide along with a hundred other elves as he directed a single, focused pushback against something else.

I only sensed it for a brief moment as all of us converged—a strange mind, extremely powerful. Mentally it felt almost like a vine or fungus, something compelled by a strong in-born desire to spread in every direction where it could find purchase.

In that moment it brought all its psychic strength to bear on an elf whose mind I couldn’t recognize with just a psychic glance, and the collected elves pushed it away from its target with a focused, instantaneous counteroffensive.

“Who was that?” I asked. “Their target?”

“Anien,” said Mirio.

“Anien,” I said, trying to recall the name. I realized he was from Ellistara. “One of the children?”

But Mirio didn’t get the chance to answer—the thing, whatever it was, attacked again. Again we mustered and pushed it back in an instantaneous clash of minds, one arrow shot to deflect another.

“Zaran,” Mirio said. Another boy from Ellistara.

“What’s it want?” I asked Mirio. The archdruid was the spearhead of our defense on account of his many overlapping [Wild] skills, and this meant he’d come into closer contact with it than any of us. He would have gotten a direct glimpse into its mind.

From his place beside me, Mirio was pale. “It’s trying to domineer them. Psychically… tame them.”

My lips curled back, my mouth shifting toward a snarl. “I see. Don’t engage our defensive enchantments yet, but be ready to.”

Mirio made a quiet noise of protest. “The children—”

“Can bear the pain if it means sparing those outside for now.” My voice was cool, steady.

Mirio sucked in a breath, and I couldn’t blame him: it was a brutal, ruthless command. Even a second worth of contact with this hostile, alien mind wouldn’t be easy on our little ones—but right now, they were a much more favorable target for its attentions. We could activate the defensive psychic enchantments we’d built into the keep, but if we did it might start attacking the elves outside.

Using a collective psychic defense to cover our returning hunters would mean we’d need psychics in the field to connect us. Until then, they’d have to defend themselves with only the wildhearts and seers that we used for hunting and communication—and against something as strong as this, I had my doubts about how well they could succeed.

I wanted it attacking the elves who were close by. If that had to be the children, then so be it.

I saw Mirio’s eyes widening as the next attack came, and was unsurprised to find us mustering to defend another one of the children a moment later—again we fought it off in a moment.

“Don’t hit back, yet,” I told Mirio as he turned to me, his face despondent. “I want knowledge. What is it, where is it, how best do we hurt it? Give it as little as you can.”

Contact between their minds could result in all kinds of unwanted exchange of information—but attacking was a more vulnerable position in that regard than defending. We could let this thing flail at us, learn its weaknesses….

It made five more attacks against different children while I gave orders on the battlements, more and more elves joining us there. Then, as soon as it had come, its attacks stopped.

“The tunnels,” Zirilla said from her place behind me. “They’ve branched. They’re burrowing upward as well as forward—except they’ve turned right toward us.”

“They’re coming, then,” I said. I turned to Mirio. “Is Mishlo with the children?” I asked, naming our head healer.

“He is,” said Mirio, his expression haggard and, for once, accusatory. I could see the disgust writ on his face—I’d let the children he’d used to teach at Ellistara be our enemy’s target, and he hated me for it.

I’d already ordered more psychics to move out toward our hunters to ensure we could protect them—and I had to hope that we hadn’t been granted a reprieve because our enemy had found any of our hunting parties.

Valir was still outside, often hunted furthest from the settlement. He was a mighty psychic, but there were less than twenty elves with him….

“Lux Irovex,” Mirio said. “It’s them. They’re… speaking to me.”

My gaze snapped over to him. He looked pale.

“Because I’m the head of our psychic defense, they think I’m in charge. Do you want me to pretend I am?”

I thought for a moment. Normally I wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to deceive an enemy, but [Aegis] protected one from mental attacks as well as physical, and mine was highest. Right now I could use [Surge of Might] to raise it past 650.

And psychic defense was a matter of skill as much as power. If this thing didn’t know exactly what it was doing, it wouldn’t just struggle to hurt me… it would have no idea how.

Besides, I wasn’t sure how well he’d do in the conversation that was about to come. I wanted the archdruid to find them—I could bear the brunt of their attacks, and negotiate, myself.

“Me,” I said. “Give them to me.”