Our trio descended from the rooftop hot tub back to the main dining hall, finding Io still lounging by the massive fireplace, his wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes as he read his book in his chosen stone alcove.

"Sup ma' Door," I called out, settling on a leather couch next to the fire. "How's the moon?"

"Haunted," Io replied, snapping his book shut and sliding it into his bag. "The moon-people have some serious issues with their ghost problem. Did ya guys resolve yo 'ship issues?"

"What?! W-we didn't... it's not... there weren't any ship issues to resolve!" Cinder stammered out. "We just... talked! About stuff! Normal stuff!"

"Mhmmm, sure," Io hummed knowingly, sitting up. "That's why you're glowing like a pink reactor and Vee looks like she won the lottery?"

"Joint custody, my dude," Vespera clicked merrily.

"Grats on a solid poly-ship," Io nodded, offering the Thunderbird a high-five. "Wasn't sure if it would be just Ci. Far too many Omnids these days end up lon' or bound to a dickish, controlling Clan leader."

"Ye," Vee dropped on the couch next to me, chainmail jiggling. "As a society we are extra-cooked. Omnicorps be capitalizin' on parasocial relationships. Corps like Golden Star feed everyone's data into probability engines and spit out 'optimal matches' for maintaining stronk' bloodlines via corporate mergers. Pretty sure we gonna have human-made robots satisfyin' all our physical needs at this rate. Ugh. Now I need a drink to chase away the depresso."

Io pulled a bottle of interdimensional beer from his bag featuring the tag 'Chalice's Brew' on it and an etching of an armored knight with a giant sword.

"Oi," I growled, stepping towards him and pushing his fuzzy hand back into the bag. "Slide that back where it came from."

"Nuuu," Vee whined, trying to pull Io's paw out of the bag. "Gimme! I need it to cope!"

"As your Quartermaster," I said. "I'm banning you all from drinking until there's something to celebrate."

"Lame!" Vee huffed. "I thought you were the cool kind of Quartermaster that'd let me booze up in the afternoon."

"I am cool," I said. "I need you sober. You're my Thunder-cannon. My artillery piece. My big railgun. My genius Prima Hunter Sword. My... insert dashing and dangerous birb description here."

Vee burst into snickers blushing with dark feathery spots and sparks dancing up her cheeks, giving up on the beer in lieu of my complements attack. Cinder rolled her eyes.

"Hey Ci. Do you have a fiance that I have to fight too?" I asked her curiously.

"I did. Already fought him off. Dad attempted to introduce me to my... 'optimal match'," she said. "After listening to my precog-selected-fiance drone on about some foldknob shit, I got annoyed and kicked him right through the Western wall of the house into the garden. Then, I felt that it was insufficient, broke dad's fav statue of some Omnid philosopher and beat the annoying bastard into a chunky soup with the head."

Vee whistled. "Wish I had the balls for that. How old were you?"

"Seventeen," Cinder shrugged. "Dad was furious about the statue. Mom thought it was... uuhhh... passionate. They haven't tried to 'arrange' anything since, placing their hopes on Lance and hoping that I'll chill out enough to meet a boy in school and become a Hearth Keeper like my mom someday."

"And they just... let you get away with that?" Vespera clicked her beak in amazement.

"Yeah," Cinder said. "I'm not a firstborn, so I don't have to carry on the Nova legacy or whatever. Plus, unlike your family, mine actually listens when I say 'no.' Sometimes it takes violence to get the point across though. A LOT of violence and breaking statues and skulls."

"Glad that I avoided getting my skull smashed in with giant stone heads," I grinned.

"You came pretty close," Cinder squinted at me. "You're just lucky that you look so fragile and harmless. If you were an Omnid I'd already have killed you at least twenty times, you damned smol persistent chuppy."

"Speaking of violence," Io suddenly sat up straight, his large gray eyes fixed on our trio. "I sense death."

"What kind of death?" I asked.

"Don't know," he said, gray paws kneading under the robe. "Something shifted. Someone somewhere said something, sent death after us. Multiple deaths. Not nice ones. More than one vector. Vectors. All directions. Multiple end futures. All leading to our deaths. Don't have exact details. Just a very nasty sense of looming doom about all of us. Plus... a terrible catastrophe. Oh wow. This is huge."

His antennae twitched wildly, gray eyes turning to stare at me.

"Great," Vee groaned. "And here I was hoping for a nice evening with my lovely new 'ship. When's it coming?"

"Soon," Io said. "Thirty minutes tops. Whoever it is that desires our demise is quite effective at it, making sure we don't get away. Potential dead-ends blooming all around."

"Can you like be any less vague?" Vespera demanded.

"Alas," Io shrugged apologetically. "Disaster sense doesn't work like that. I do sense quite clear intent to kill me. The feeling is very, very strong. It's muted though, foggy... which suggests that our enemies are trying to be clever and are using heavy anti-scrying wards. Too bad that basic bling doesn't work on Death Moths."

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"Shash!" I barked loudly.

"Yes, M'Lord?" The Assassin materialized beside me, making Cinder yelp.

"Got a company of competitors coming in hot to take us out in thirty," I said. "Options?"

"The Guild has several defensive measures. Shall I banish the pub clientele, seal all doors and activate the wards?" Shash's obsidian eyes glinted.

"Yes." I nodded. "And get everyone who can't fight into the vault."

"The vault M'Lord?"

"Yes," I said. "Trusted people are more valuable than gold. Everyone who is ready to fight for me and our Guild should get their ass over here. I've extremely deadly weapons to distribute."

I pulled Lance's bag from my shoulders and opened it up.

"We should leave," Cinder said, her feathers shifting through nervous grays. "If someone's coming to kill us..."

"Leave to where?" I asked her. "Do you perchance own another criminal-operated Citadel somewhere else? Other than the the Abystall dungeon, this place is our best option for survival. Right Io?"

The moth nodded.

"Can't we just fly out?" Cinder asked.

"And abandon my people?" I arched an eyebrow. "I don't think so! These murdery asshats are obviously my competitors. They want a Guild war? Fine! I'll give them a Guild War they won't forget!"

I turned to my Assassin. "Shash? Who's the fastest and most skilled mage on your team who can sense air currents?"

"Yomik Peeps, M'Lord," the Assassin replied, summoning the man quickly to where we stood. "He's a wind mage."

"Yomik," I handed the thirty-year-old, gray-blue-tinted mole-man Lance's bricking wand. "Once everyone is out of the pub, use this to permanently seal the front door with an extra-thick layer of stone. Make sure that the seal is airtight. Also, run around and seal any cracks or air holes. I want the Guild airtight like a ship in thirty minutes or less. Leave the door to the roof functional, but make sure the stone forms a seal over the edges. Got it?"

"Yes, M'Lord," Yomik bowed. He grabbed the wand from my hand and ran off.

My team stared at me, trying to guess what I was planning to do.

Shash was barking more orders through his Voicecast bracelet. More mooks and Guilders materialized in the room.

Vespera was already in the bag, pulling magisteel armor, shields and swords out.

"Alex," Cinder addressed me with a desperate look. "You can't just start a Guild War!"

"Can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs," I grinned, accepting the hexasuits and weapons from Vee and handing it to my mooks. "Besides, they started it. We're just defending ourselves."

"With what army?" Cinder demanded. "We have what, twelve people here on top of our team?"

"Fifteen actually," Shash corrected. "Plus the kitchen staff. Podop's quite formidable with his strength-amplifying Kitlix."

"See?" I beamed. "We've got a small army! Don't worry, this place just has to hold out for half an hour tops."

"Why?" Cinder fretted.

"'Cus, I've got something they don't have," I grinned at her.

"What's that?" Cinder asked.

"Biological weapons," I said.

"WHAT?" Cinder choked. "When the shit did you... Wait, full stop! Did you bring something... from Earth?! How did you even get... biological weapons?! Did you steal something from the Frontenachii, is that it?! M–Alex, you can't release that stuff out here!!!"

"Pffff nah. See, after you guys went back into the cold tunnel," I said. "I climbed down the rope ladder into Abystall dungeon and filled all of Lance's dimensional bags with lovely, glowing mites."

"You did WHAT?!" Cinder barked. Everyone else in attendance stared at me like I was mad.

"I went down into the dungeon and filled every bag I had with mites," I grinned. "It wasn't hard at all–they were attracted by the magic inside the bag. Harmless to me but deadly to anyone with magic. They're perfect biological weapons."

Horror, shock and fear-filled eyes stared at me from all sides.

"Oh," Io announced. "I see what I've been sensing from the beginning. It's YOU! You are the cause of everything!"

The moth pointed an accusatory, fuzzy, gray finger at me.

"Obviously," I grinned. "I was the catastrophe all along. Surprise!"

"M'Lord," Shash choked. "Those things are dangerous. Very hard to get rid of, impossible if they spread out enough. They will definitely spread..."

"Everywhere," I said. "Across all Undertown. This place could use a bit of a spring cleaning, don't you think?"

"M-mar... Alex!" Cinder shook me. "You can't just... release Duskbloom mites into Undertown! They'll kill everyone!"

"No they won't," I shook my head. "This far from the dungeon, they're a mild nuisance at most. You guys were covered head to toe in them and you didn't die. The mana loss from them is small and slow when their numbers aren't big."

"But they will..." Shash began.

"Multiply," I said. "Propagate. Spread all over. What would happen then? Go on, think about it. Extrapolate. Speculate."

"Chaos," Shash said with a frown. "Panic. Lockdown. Every strong or wealthy mage in Undertown would be forced to either leave or find ways to shield themselves with cold runes. The bastards upstairs will likely block the tunnels out with dimensional magic, barrier wards and cold runes, charging an arm and a leg for someone to leave. Their Seers and Precogs will learn of the danger quickly. They will act fast - many of the tunnels already have magic seals on them that detect incoming stuff like Duskbloom."

"Correct," I said. "Which will give us a week of panic to take over all of Undertown. I don't deal in half-measures. I don't deal in half-assery. Full assery, all the way! Act before anyone can do anything."

"That's... that's genocide!" Cinder protested.

"No, that's good use of pests," I corrected. "Everyone will be too busy fighting and fleeing the bloom to stop our takeover."

"Alex!" Cinder yelled. "You can't! We can't..."

"Sorry babe," I grinned, tapping out a sequence on my ID tag. "Too late."

"W-what do you mean too late?" Cinder yelped.

"Give it about twenty seconds," I said.

"Give WHAT twenty seconds?!" The Quetzi-girl growled, hounding me, her face lengthening and becoming more draconic. "ALEX!!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

A series of deep, thundering booms resounded across the floor of the cavern, dust falling from the ceiling.

"W-what the shit was that?" Cinder spun, letting go of me.

"That was a new, bigly fissure opening up," I said. "Fissures, actually. Between Abystall dungeon and Undertown. I just used a Voicecast command to remote-detonate the biggest fifty beast cores from Lance's collection set into what Yulia and I determined were the weakest, thinnest sections of cavern walls between the dungeon and Undertown. The bloom will spread out carried by the warm wind coming from the dungeon now. There's nothing anyone can do to stop it now."

"YOU!" Io's finger pointed at me even firmer, grey eyes blazing with an accusatory look.

Vespera's beak was wide open.

Cinder looked like she was going to murder me.

"M'Lord," Shash breathed out. "That was... incredibly ruthless."

"Ruthless?" I grinned. "I'm just getting started."