[41st Year of Foresai, Middle Fire Month, Day 3]

The thumps of the wagon were anything but gentle. The jerking motion it created threw Tina back and forth, slamming her into the sides of her barrel again and again. One of the wheels was busted; by feeling its rhythm over the past several hours, she figured it was the right rear one.

You’d think they’d bother to fix it.

She had counted six voices in the last four hours and forty-seven minutes: a driver, who sat almost directly in front of her; another man who sat in the passenger’s seat, who to her eavesdropping, was some sort of alchemist; as well four caravan guards who seemed to cycle distances from adjacent to the cart to ten paces away. Further along, there seemed to be a seventh man who ran far ahead of the group, the cart occasionally stopping at the behest of what the conversation would suggest was a hand signal. She knew the time to be exactly four hours, forty seven minutes thanks to a timekeep Evileye had lent; this, in addition to a compass, a vial filled with an alchemical substance that glowed when shook, and a wand. They had borne east-northeast for two hours, then turned sharply southward, and eventually, dead-east.

We’re far off the highway at this point, over two miles. I don’t even know what’s out here.

Renner had given them a square on a map, stating simply that there was an Eight Fingers’ storehouse somewhere within its bounds, and that they ought to find and destroy it. When asked for any additional details, Renner had muddled the waters further by clarifying that the whole structure was likely underground. How she knew any of this was - as always - a mystery, but it was enough for Lakyus to get that wild-eyed look of a huntress, and thus it was enough for Tina. Eager as they were, actually finding the store was going to be tedious. Each member of the team made some suggestion; Evileye’s an aerial scout and Gagaran’s straightforward sweeps were dismissed out of hand, and though Lakyus’ proposal of finding and tailing an Eight Fingers transport wagon seemed the most workable, it was Tina who made the leap to simply hiding in its cargo. Less walking overall, with the boon that she would likely be deposited straight into the store room.

It was thus that eight hours prior, with the aid of a generously paid local cooper, Tina and Tia had been sealed inside barrels labeled saltpeter and brine respectively. Evileye, keeping herself invisible through the process, had set the pair on a stack of other cargo at a known pickup point for the courier network, a farmhouse run by the Smuggling division. Thus, Tina had been picked up and loaded onto a wagon; of course, the bastards had to both split her from Tia on a separate supply wagon, and worse, set her in upside down, forcing her to do no small amount of contortion to right herself. Curled into a ball to fit into the confined space, Tina repositioned herself to read the time and direction, shaking her light before observing the instruments. As she was getting a new bearing, the cart suddenly came to a halt.

“Hark, name and business.”

New voice. Gateguard?

“Ray Undra, supply shipment.”

“What do you have?”

Change in tone, definitely Eight Fingers.

“Two crates of salts, two barrels of brine, as well as a keg of distillate; two crates of Laira bulbs, though the rest of our space is full up with the stems. Oh, and a replacement alchemist for the one you lost last month.”

“No shit? He’s gonna run the weights and measures? Good, we’ve been having one of our guys handle it for now, but it'll be nice to get a professional pair of eyes on it. Happy to meet you, I’m Illian.”

“Ield Forthright. Happy to be working with you.”

I thought the only polite criminals in this country were noblemen and merchants. Didn’t think they could be alchemists too.

Tina listened to their pleasantries a little longer, counting voices as a few others joined in. After a time, the gate on the back of the cart swung open with a shrill creak. Plodding footsteps followed, with bales being thrown over the side and crates being dragged out, until Tina felt her barrel get lifted out of the bed.

New man. No grunt, strong. He must be a bruiser.

A stout dip meant her bearer was on the ground. She was carried over the shoulder in her barrel for a time, passing some threshold as she steadily descended. Rounding a corner, she was set down with a bang, and heard the sounds of other crates and barrels being placed as well. She checked the time.

Sunset ought to be happening now. I’ll let it get darker.

—

[41st Year of Foresai, Middle Fire Month, Day 4]

Tina waited near to midnight before deciding to slip out. Checking the timekeep, she rearranged her body, giving herself space to draw her blade. She flipped it around upward, feeling for the seam in the barrel. Jamming her knife right through the seal of the lid, she sliced through its circumference, careful to keep her offhand always bracing the now-loose piece of wood, lest it fall on her head. Lid now severed, she pushed it gently upward - and took her first glimpse of the night. It was dim, but Tina winced anyway as her eyes adjusted from the black of the barrel.

Lamp somewhere; if it's near, it's hooded, otherwise set around a corner.

Tina slowly rose, keeping care to hold the lid above her. Peaking her eyes over the lip of the barrel, she saw no one. She was on a bottom shelf in a storeroom filled with boxes, the ceiling strutted with wooden beams. Raising out higher, she saw the walls of the room were not daub, but bare earth.

So this place really is underground. Four by two paces, only one and a half high. One exit, front-right of me. Get to the surface and tell them I’ve found it.

Tina drew herself out fully. The wooden plank above - the next shelf in the unit - gave her no more than a handspan in clearance, though she slipped out with ease. Now crouched on the ground, she returned the lid to its place on the barrel and began to take a thorough approach. Leaning to the side, she spied the contents of a crate, seeing it was filled with chalky and crumbled stones.

Lime. So this is the chemical warehouse.

Footsteps. Tina immediately dove behind the crate, interposing it between her and the exit to the room. She listened intently as the sound of creaking wood rose in volume.

One set of footsteps. Floor here is packed dirt, but the hall has wooden floor planks. Can keep a good bead on him.

The footsteps got louder. Suddenly, the light from the dim lamp in the hall was overwhelmed, the silhouette of the crate she hid behind sweeping across the wall. The guard had passed by the entrance to the room, the fiery lightsource he held casting shadows through the space.

He’s passed.

Tina turned round, leaning around the side of the crate, before abandoning it as cover and dashing to the door. Standing flush against its frame, she peered out into the hall beyond. The corridor was thin and short, moreso a tunnel than a hall. It was comfortable for Tina, though she suspected even Lakyus would struggle to navigate it, much less fight in it; for Gagaran it would be outright impossible. The way right continued for only a pace, before a sharply-sloping staircase took the ground away and faded into the gloom. Shifting her body closer to the edge, she slowly curled her eyes, head, and back around it, peering down the left. She saw the back of a guard.

Leather armor. Lamp in his right hand. Shortsword bucked to his right. Left-handed fighter. A man, though he’s short for one.

Between the thin seams in his body’s silhouette, she could make out parts further in. The tunnel sloped downwards in that direction, a new entrance on both sides every five to six paces; she was able to see six before the darkness grew too thick. Finding the static lightsource that had lit her room earlier, she found that her earlier assumption of it being a hooded lamp was correct: it hung from a hook in the wall four paces to her left. Directly across from her was another store, counting a total of eight rooms. She realized immediately why Renner wanted this place scourged.

How many reagents are they storing here? No, wait, they had an alchemist. Are they manufacturing here? The first guard here mentioned something about him running the weights and measures. Weights and measures of what? Why would they need an alchemist for that?

She watched as he continued walking down the hall, measuring six paces away, then ten, then sixteen, then twenty. The light he bore illuminated the entrance to room after room, she eventually being able to count six on each side. Once he reached a full twenty-two paces away he stopped, and rather than turn round, turned directly to his right, and walked. She swallowed involuntarily.

He’s not going into a room, he’s going down another hall. This place is much larger than I thought.

Tina proceeded to wait, counting the seconds before he emerged again. Forty-four seconds passed before she spotted the flicker of flame again in the distance, and she watched carefully as he walked round the corner, confirming he was the same guard and observing his walking pace.

The hall must go off another twenty paces in that direction. Is he the only guard running this circuit? He might be.

She slipped back deeper into the room, behind her earlier box. She waited for him to pass the entrance to her storeroom again, watching him stop and turn round at the stairs. As he walked away this time, she darted back to the door, looked round to confirm he really was continuing off in the opposite direction, and slipped out of the room rightward. Taking care not to step on the wooden boards - which to her luck had been laying haphazardly - she bolted up the stairs. The tunnel became noticeably more earthen as she ascended, reaching the top to find a short landing, and what seemed to be a cramped foyer to the store.

Two by one.

Swiftly sweeping her vision, she spotted what she figured was the exit, an iron-gate. Through its thin bars, she saw the starfield beyond and felt the gentle cool of a midsummer midnight’s air. She got close to it and gently pushed on it. It was locked, the mechanism built into the door itself. Fumbling her hands around the other side, she realized the tumbler was bidirectional, and that the lock was without a way to actuate it keylessly.

The patrolman must have the keys, no time, he’d be able to see me here, and I can’t kill him without knowing if there are others to raise an alarm. I have sixty seconds tops.

She shot her hand to her side, sheathing her blade scrambling to retrieve her lockpicking kit. Finding the tightly rolled leather bundle, she unfurled it to reveal a number of tools. Eyeballing the width of the lock, she snatched a pick and a tension bar. The slit was thin, she raised her tools and pressed them in. She suddenly seized, stopping with the tools a hair’s breadth away from contacting the metal. A shallow cut symbol had been carved into the lock body, she not noticing it until the last possible instant.

Spellbomb. Symbol is lighting. I think that’s “Hadad.” Only five characters. My defuser can handle that. Fifty-three seconds.

Tina looked back to her bundle, exchanging her pick for a cylinder the size of her thumb. Its sides were engraved with an uncountable number of miniscule markings, each marking set on one of six rotatable rings. Lining it up with a symbol on the lock, she pressed the face of the cylinder onto it and pressed a button on its other end, hearing a hiss of air as the device sealed to the lock’s surface. She swapped the hand holding it to her off, before carefully rotating each ring, hearing near indistinct clicks as she did so.

“H”… “HA”… “HAD”… “HADA”…. “HADAD.” Thirty-nine seconds.

She closed her eyes and looked back, pressing the button as she did so. She cringed from the flash, able to see it even though she had turned away. Opening her eyes, she blinked twice to restore her vision, before pulling away the instrument and returning it to her kit. Turning to face the lock, she could see the spot where the symbol was glowing a dull red, the markings wiped clean. Returning her pick and bar back into her hands, she slipped them into the lock, finding five pins inside its tumbler.

Thirty seconds. One is set. Two is set. Three is set. Four is Set. Five is set.

Tina pushed with her tension bar. The lock didn’t turn past a hair. She tried again and failed. Resetting its position, she tried again.

Twenty-one seconds. Shit, the counterpin on One is pick-resistant. It’s a spool, have to be careful… Got it. Fifteen seconds. Two is set. Three is set. Four is set. Five is set.

She tried again. It did not budge. She saw an orange haloed-silhouette waver the periphery. The guard was far closer.

Eight seconds. Shit, I can’t- No, wait, it's bidirectional. Four and Five will set like Two and One. Five is a spool counterpin too. Come on… Got it.

She rapidly undid the lock, opening and bursting out of the gate. It did not creak, she blessing the fact that Eight Fingers took care of its facilities. Flipping round, she closed it just as swiftly, reaching through the bars to grab her bundle from the ground and tools from the lock. She swiftly made out into the night air, diving headlong into a thicket of grass. She waited, concentrating on the sounds of his movements. The hum of cicadas nearly drowned the sound of distant footsteps, those ending a few seconds later.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

He’s stopped. Don’t come upstairs, you bastard. You didn’t notice a thing.

The silence persisted for another seven seconds, only broken by the creak of a wooden board. This told Tina she was safe, and that the guard had returned to his regular patrol route rather than ascending and checking for the cause of the noise. She flipped onto her back to look at the place she had just emerged from. It was a hill, sharply sloping up away into darkness. She realized the store was built in the lip of a natural overhang in its side, descending under it. Turning round, she saw she was at the edge of a thicket situated in grasslands, a standard expression of the pastoral vistas around this part of the country. Tall grass like this always spurred an inner satisfaction in her; plenty of cover. What was less satisfying were the two guards patrolling it.

Two guards in the field; one is fifteen paces away, other is twenty. Lucky they didn’t see that flash. Shortswords and lamps, leather armor.

Tina decided to creep round the edge of the hill, the landmark mound being the only arboreal bastion in site. Circumnavigating it took her over a hundred paces distance, spotting one other guard on a separate patrol route, as well as a wagon, which she presumed was the one she rode in on. She could spot no stables, however.

Keeping four guards on staff at once. Estimate from the size of the facility that there are another four I haven’t seen. Shit, eight total on site? Expensive, but reasonable. I should let the rest of the team know where I am.

Tina made it nearly to the opposite side of the hill. She had found no other entrances, nor hidden trapdoors as escape hatches. Out of sight of the three guards, she broke into the field at full speed, quickly dashing a full eighty paces into it. Satisfied she was distant enough, she mentally fumbled for a message link on instinct before remembering that Evileye had not cast one; rather, she had given Tina an entirely different set of instructions.

Oh, yeah. How do I do this again? Evileye really didn’t give many details.

Tina looked at the heavens above. The night was bright, nearly a full moon, the sky painted with a dense starscape. She was not gazing idly; rather, she was searching for a specific star.

The star at the end of the dragon’s tail… the star at the end of the dragon’s tail…

The sixteenth had shown that their enemy possessed a modicum of arcane confidence, with both a lich and three mortal casters among the assaulting force. This had made Evileye wary of magical wards and drogues, thus she had insisted on doing this particular operation without message spells, lest they be caught and trip arcane sensors. Her workaround was the wand she had given Tina. Following the gentle curves of the vault’s galaxy, Tina spotted the star she was looking for, a bright and vibrant one glittering at the end of a constellation.

There it is. Draw and speak the words, right?

She drew her wand and held it out, straightening her arm and aiming up. Bringing her eye in line with her arm, she made sure the point of the wand touched the star. Muttering the incantation so quietly as to not part her lips and thus ruin her aim, she finished speaking, and waited. Nothing happened; no pulse from the wand, nor spew of motes from its end. No ring of magic appeared.

Wasn’t there supposed to be some kind of flair?

She pulled away the wand, uncovering the star behind it. It was no longer white, but red. She blinked a few times to confirm to herself it wasn’t a trick of the eye. It really was red.

…What did she have me do?

She took a step back involuntarily, and the color of the star shifted, growing more orange. This made her pause, and she stared for a time in wonderment, before drawing back more slowly. The color shifted deeper into the oranges, though the further she pulled back, the less it changed.

It’s not gonna stay like that, is it?

She stared, in astonishment, for a few seconds more before remembering herself. She brought her eyes down to earth, swiftly stowing the wand and drawing her blade.

Clear out the rest of the patrols. Light sources. Break back in and kill the guard inside. If the men from the cart are here, that means seven more. Six bladesmen and one alchemist. With that star… changed like it is, it shouldn’t take them more than thirty minutes to arrive now. Let’s see if I can’t get this place cleared before that.

—

Lakyus blinked, not believing the sight before her eyes.

“How many like this?”

“Twenty-two, Evil Boss, but there are two larger rooms way in the back that account for roughly triple the floorspace of any of these. One is just more storage, but the other has a lot of weird equipment in it.”

By the will of the Still Mere.

The size of the place was unbelievable. From a distance, the entrance wouldn’t have been visible. At the day’s zenith, the only thing someone would see would be a hill with an overhang. Get closer, and a small hole would reveal itself in its side, a single locked and trapped gate leading into a tunnel that contained material wealth beyond the accumulations of all but the wealthiest merchants.

Salt, saltpeter, lime, brimstone, antimony, arsenic; brine, vinegars, solvents, oils; aqua regia; aqua fortis, vitriol, sal ammoniac; soaps, fats, tallows, bouillon even - what possible use could that have? Powdered cinnabars, powdered slate, powdered… anything; laira bulbs, stems, latex, leaves, roots; ajina, enkashi, mandrake, nyukuri, galgen maennlein; isolated phlogiston, red, white, blue, yellow, orange aspect salts; fluxes, so many earthen fluxes and… and… so much else.

Lakyus turned down the tunnel’s length, counting room after room; she caught Evileye as the arcanist returned from its other end. She had yet to walk its length, but Tina had assured her it bore deep into the hill. The scale was sickening.

All of this can’t be used for production, right? This is so much. Is all this what goes into Black Dust? That can’t possibly be right. Is this what Renner meant by “adulterants”? Why do they have the rest of the plant? Don’t they just need the bulbs? Maybe they process it all, and that’s what the rest of this is for. They would go to this length? Be this prudent and thrifty in the production of drugs?

“Weird equipment?”

“Yes, Evil Boss; there was some alchemy gear, some large scales, and what looked like a grindstone but like… more of a tub. I’m not sure how to explain.”

“Evileye, did you see what she was talking about?”

“I did. It’s not a tub, but a solid mixing vat for bulk production. This warehouse- er, ‘storage-hill’ is where they’re making the solid reagents for later manufacturing stages.”

Evileye’s interjection was well-timed, she having gently floated through the length of the complex in search of signs of abjuration spells. Thus, like Tina, she had seen the full breadth through to the furthermost places below the hill. Lakyus quickly dubbed it too narrow for herself to navigate, instead relying on her fellows to convey the horrors deeper within.

“What do you think?”

“I was right, there are drogues here.”

Magical wards? Is she serious?

“How strong were they?”

“They were cast at the second tier, so nothing significant. The rune on the gate lock, however, was third tier.”

“They have someone like that on hand?”

“That lich is still out there, but this is supposed to be a Narcotics Division facility, right? Think about the Black Night, they had casters there. Eight Fingers can simply afford such services like this, hire wizards. There was that alchemist here, so perhaps the leadership is more enlightened when it comes to hiring experts. Perhaps they keep some abjurers on retainer, even.”

Why would they work for Eight Fingers? How could one stand to do so? It’s not like they’re disaffected children with a father slain on the fields of battle unwittingly roped into doing the work of local gangs. They’re professionals, aren’t they?

“Why would they-”

“Work for criminals? Jobs through the Magicians Guild can be unstable. It’s expensive by its nature, volatile in its demand. Magic has its off seasons - or in the case of this Kingdom, off centuries. Something like Eight Fingers offers stable work. Laying and maintaining sensors, trips, alarms, and the nodes in between. Even spellbombs need upkeep.”

“It’s not as if you resort to such things.”

“Lakyus, my circumstances are vastly different. I am not a wide-eyed wage-to-plate young journeyman scraping by with only the spices I can conjure to then hock. I can go a month between meals, withdraw from the world and lair wherever I please. There are many who never dig deeper than the first and second strata of magic. What jobs are there for them? Penning the same scrolls over and over again? Working with an artificer to create something like a magical lamp? Yes, that’s work, but so is this. Who knows how many sites they cover. It is a life of travel and continual income. That’s more than most could ever hope to aspire to.”

All that, and the answer is money? Greed? Why not work for overhanded people? Petition your services to a house, start your own magical apprenticeship, or anything equivalent. Anything but siding with those mudborn men. How wicked of them. I don’t want to think about this now.

“You mentioned a bulk production of reagents. Why do it en masse, and why do it here?”

“Though they have several rooms stuffed to the brim with it, Laira isn’t actually processed at this site. They’re doing it at their brewing facilities, so to speak, and that means they need to export supplies to those sites.”

“You’re saying it’s a resilience measure?”

“Exactly, if you need a crate of cinnabar, one of saltpeter, and one of lime, only to then crush and mix it, it doesn’t make sense to ship each reagent individually.”

“One box of mixed components gets stolen-”

“Less dust.”

“One box gets stolen of unmixed compounds-”

“No dust. Exactly, which is the problem they’re trying to avoid here. It would have been clever, except we found the source in their distribution network, and we can destroy it.”

I ought to thank Renner for the information about this place, but I'm struggling to see how. I do wish to destroy this syndicate, or destroy its membership, but it’s not as if I can do that yet. When she said cripple, she really just meant cripple, didn’t she?

“Tina, what was your count?”

“Ten total. Eight bladesmen, a monk - probably ex-adventurer - and an alchemist.”

“So they had ten stationed here?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure how many they wanted here - but probably less than ten. The alchemist was supposed to stay here, but the rest were harder to figure out. They had a bunch of straw mats laid out in the living space, but I'm pretty sure most were there for the caravan who was staying here tonight.”

“Minimum complement?”

“I don’t see how they could fit more than twenty- er… minimum complement?”

“Yes, the least amount of men they would have stationed here.”

“Four, at least - including the alchemist. That’s what their patrol pattern suggested at least.”

They would value this place at four men? All this under guard by four men? A wealth greater than most merchants will ever hope to spend in their lives all under the guard of four men, one of which may not even be capable of combat in the first place. Are they that reckless or that wealthy?

“Evileye, how much do you think this is all worth?”

“I’m a sorceress, not a merchant.”

“Right, but, can’t you make spices? Salts and things?”

“Lakyus, to make this much ex magicæ, it would take every mage in the land working for a year. They’re mining this. Well, maybe they’re making the exotic stuff from magic, but everything else? Not a chance. If I had to give a number, I’d say thousands of gold coins worth, but that’s me saying that.”

Thousands of gold in materials. Thousands of gold? Of course, how could it be anything else? This Kingdom is being rotted out, people smoking their minds away with a pipe. Of course its makers would have money. Of course they would be wealthy.

“Doesn’t seem too off.”

“Are you going to take anything?”

“No point. All this stuff is low grade, and I haven’t a clue about alchemy.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. What do you want me to say? It’s not real arcana.”

Really? Not sure how you can say that. Agh. I’m pissed.

Lakyus turned in place, sweeping her gaze over crate after crate of supplies.

This is unimaginable. This is terrifying. How many lives would this have ruined? How many people would have been hollowed out and destroyed by this? How could anyone side with Eight Fingers? It’s- It’s infuriating. I want to run the lot of them through. Every single one. I really do.

Lakyus thought for a moment, setting her hand on the haft of her sword and clenching it. She took another look at the goods around her, speculating not at the harm they could have caused, but at the blades slaked and blood shed to acquire them. Her next words were spoken with determination and rage.

“Alright, everyone out! Evileye, bury this place.”

“Got it.”

Lakyus, Tina, and Gagaran cleared out of the store immediately, dashing up the stairs and backing away from the entrance. Evileye lingered for a bit, examining the structure, before retreating herself. Stopping directly outside, she turned back to the tunnel, held out her hand, and spoke an incantation.

“Move Earth.”

A sudden splay of magic in the air. Thunderous booms came one second after another, the hill shuddering with each one. After the fifth of such quakes, Lakyus realized that Evileye was collapsing each room one by one. She heard horrible noises of beams snapping, puffs of humid earthen air that ruffled her hair, and bangs that shook the ground upon which she stood. The pattern continued, each bang resolving sharper than the last as Evileye’s magic made it closer to the entrance. Eventually, a swill of detritus spilled out of the entrance, that too being buried under the side of the hill, the lip collapsing into itself. Evileye spent another moment manipulating the ring in front of her, before letting it dispel. The hill seemed to sag slightly, before things suddenly became quiet again, only the hum of insects remained.

—

Tina had rarely seen Lakyus so visibly ireful.

Evil Boss is getting the worst of this, isn’t she? I knew a long war would be rough, but this is different. She needs something simple to clear her head, maybe a monster hunt. Simple. Not complicated for us. If only we had the time.

“Evileye, you have mana left?”

“Plenty.”

“Leave a bomb at the entrance, hopefully we can catch a few that come back to retrieve their stuff.”

That’s not something she’d usually do. Good.

“It could be a couple days before they find it. I’ll need to add a few extension prefixes to the spell.”

“Is that difficult to do?”

“No, but I’ll need to do a ritual casting. Take a few minutes.”

“That’s fine.”

“Got it.”

Evileye turned back toward the hill and began weaving more arcane forms. Embossing iridescent words in the air, she wrote each symbol carefully; they glowed and slowly faded to hide themselves from onlookers. Tina looked at her for a time, and then remembered the matter of the wand. As she approached from behind, Evileye took notice and greeted her.

“Yes?”

“That star… it’s not gonna stay like that?”

“Hm? Why wouldn’t it?”

“Can you just go around changing stars? Can I?”

“Not without that wand, I can’t.”

“But it's a spell, right?”

“Not like the ones I cast. I am an arcanist, and yes, tiered spells are powerful - like this thing is going to be once I’m done - but there are older and stranger forms of magic. Things deeper in the lore of the world. That wand is one of those things.”

“How old is it?”

“Older than me. Actually, older than anyone I’ve known - perhaps, minus the dragons. Oh, speaking of which.”

Evileye reached out an open palm, maintaining the spell’s cast with her other hand. Tina fumbled it off her side, returning it to Evileye. She flipped it over in her hand a few times, inspecting it, before raising it to the sky. Her arm went limp a moment later.

“Ah, someone else changed it back.”

“What?”

“Someone already changed back the star.”

“Who?”

“Who knows. There are plenty of beings that watch the night sky.”

Tina looked back up to the vault above. She couldn’t tell why, but suddenly the sky felt a little bigger.