The vent was three feet tall, and dark. Aloree crawled on ahead of me. I followed behind, my sword Swelfalster in my right, the club in my left, barbed wire wrapped around them both and dangling between them.

"We must follow the air currents," I said, "and turn towards the wind. The vents will widen closer to the source."

A few seconds later, the air flow cut off. "NOW they turn it off? It's worse than when someone takes the last piece of bread just as you get hungry for another!" Aloree said. Soon, she stopped. "I'm at a junction. Left and right feel the same. Which way to go?"

"We'll just have to pick. Right!"

She crawled on and I followed. After what felt like moments, but must have been minutes, she stopped once more. "There's a drop ahead of me. What to do?"

I hacked off a piece of the barbed wire with the blade of Swelfalster, and tossed it forward. It was slightly more than half a second between the it rolling off the edge and clinking below. "It should be a shallow drop. Lower yourself down."

There was a clank as Aloree's feet hit bottom, and a bit of clanging as she poked around. "There are no openings big enough to get through. It's worse than cheese trying to squeeze through a cheesecloth!"

"Nothing for it, we have to turn around. Grab my hand." I put my weapons aside and lowered my hands, softly drumming on the side of the vent to help her figure out where to grab. She got my right, I grabbed her hand with my left, and I pulled her up as she clambered up the vent side.

Now I took the lead as we clambered through the vent, pushing Swelfalster and the club ahead of me, hoping we had not lost enough time for the guards to get a ladder and follow. As we clanked our way through the vent, I saw our time was up--light shone on the wall at the junction ahead of us, becoming brighter and brighter.

I raised a hand to signal Aloree to stop, hoping she could see it in the backlighting, then crept up to the junction as quietly as I could, Swelfalster at the ready. It wasn't too long before the guard's head popped into a junction. One quick thrust of my blade into his skull, and it was over.

I quickly poked my head into the junction. No guard behind him, but a light further down. The dead guard held a loaded crossbow in his right and a glowing orb in his left. I put down my blade and my club and took these, and rolled the orb to Aloree. The light lit up her golden hair like fire ringing the sun. "Put it out," I whispered urgently.

Aloree's face scrunched up in a look of concentration--or constipation, perhaps--and the light winked out. I held the crossbow at the ready, peering over the dead guard's corpse at the approaching light. Just as the next guard came into view, I let fly at his head and scored a bolt through his eye. He groaned, then stopped moving.

"Light again, please." The light winked back on, and I detached the barbed wire from my club and my sword. Making a few quick incisions in the side of the vent with Swelfalster, I wound the barbed wire all around the tunnel the guard had come through, stuffing it around his body and into slits in each of the vent walls, hoping to make a barrier that would persuade any future comers that we were someone else's problem. I stuffed my sword and club in my belt, left the empty crossbow, and crawled onward, happy to now have a source of light from the beautiful girl following behind me.

A few turns later, the vent widened, and we were able to stand. We broke into our fastest speedwalk, keeping as much stealth as we could without losing speed. We ignored all the side branches, and after a while, came to a central chamber with a ladder.

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"The higher we go, the further an escape glider will take us," I commented. In my copious scouting prior to our capture, consisting largely of getting former guards and workers of the Black Citadel drunk whenever I encountered one in a tavern, I had learned that they used the same emergency-escape system as we used back home: gliders to fly out upon in all the higher rooms of the tower in case of magical assault upon the tower base. The gliders could double as fast-attack craft to get the drop on any unwary sleeping besiegers during the night.

Aloree stuffed the glowing orb into the cleavage of her top. "After you, my love."

I began my climb. Aloree followed behind. Just then the airflow returned, this time with the force of a hurricane. The noise drowned out any attempt at conversation. I raised my hand to the next rung and struggled upwards against the intense wind. Aloree, shielded from the winds by my body and seeing my struggles, gave me a push by my rump. I grinned at the familiar contact and pushed onward.

Rung after rung we climbed against the gale. Push after push on my rear, until I no longer thrilled at the contact but thought at the bruises I would have on my backside and the aches I felt in my arms. Eventually we neared the top and my eyes peered over the edge. A windmaker lay before me, blowing air into my eyeballs with a force that made me squint. The large cylindrical tube was covered in glowing, pulsing runes.

I held onto a rung with my left and pulled out Swelfalster with my right, gripping the hilt of the sword as hard as I could, knowing if it blew out of my hand, our chance was lost. I swung it up, over, and around, and the blade bit into the runes. Mana sparked from the tube and into the sword, and the winds finally died down. I clambered over the edge and gave it a few more hacks.

Aloree joined me at the top as I surveyed the dead windmaker and pondered which way to go. I recalled the bragging of a drunken artificer in a tavern of the source of the Black Citadel's production advantages: a mana core far superior to the limited mana collectors used in other kingdoms, that would output mana limited only by its control circuit, rather than capping out at the limit of the ambient mana found in the high-up winds. Perhaps he had been in earnest, for surely no mere collector could have powered the strength of this windmaker.

Looking around the edges of the windmaker, I saw a mana conduit, and pointed. "We'll follow this line to its source. If we take down their power, they'll be in enough confusion that we might succeed at getting away, even during daylight."

We proceeded, taking one of the side passages on the landing, and came to a vent. Peering through it I saw a guard, and raised a hand to signal Aloree to stop. At a moment he appeared distracted, I leapt out, and began my fateful combat.

I'm sure you remember how it came out. I killed him, got a deathblow from his hidden companion, finished off the second guard, sent Aloree off on the escape glider, blew the mana core, and died. Perhaps the near-limitless mana supply has something to do with the disappearing magic-users, and the attempts to torture Aloree's true name out of me. Perhaps it's how they powered the thing.

My brother, if my dying words reach you amidst the mana flash from the core explosion, rescue Aloree. Help her however you can, for I have given her my life. Let's go back a little further.

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It is the custom of our family to send our princes on dangerous missions. If we die, well, our brothers will learn from our dying words. If we live, we'll be properly blooded. Either way, we'll better understand the sacrifices made by those under our rule.

It was my first mission out of our borders, and it seemed simple enough. Enter the territory controlled by the Black Citadel, disguised as a wandering trader, and learn all I could. Figure out how the place had become so powerful, so quickly. Buy people drinks, offer trades, perhaps drop one of my letters of introduction on local artisans who may control promising magitech, and attempt to recruit them for our side.

As I walked down the road to the next town, I sighted ahead of the next crest of the hill a wagon... and another to its left, and another to its right. A cloud of dust above showed vigorous activity. I stepped into the woods and made my way closer, out of sight.

As I approached it was more and more obvious that the circle of wagons before me was under attack. Still I remained unseen in the trees. I watched for hidden sentries, and crept closer. I saw a man atop a hill standing before the circle, shouting orders to his underlings.

Two of his underlings were returning from the wagons dragging a beautiful girl with golden hair, screaming her head off. They had wide grins on their faces as they brought her to him. No, I thought, this just won't do. I rushed out of the woods at the leader, my sword held two-handed.