Pricci Destrie stepped out of the gate and looked around, squinting at the bright sunshine and glacier mountains surrounding a picturesque lake valley. Both of her missing arms chafed with phantom pain, the magitek appendages feeling inferior even if they moved almost as quickly as her real arms once had. Alas, the healers could not bring what had been severed so completely.

She was feeling very irate. For days now, Lord Burgundy had shamed her failures, threatening to fire her for incompetence. Pricci knew that she had not been incompetent, she was fighting against an exceptionally dangerous, resourceful group of enemies. She could not even snap back at her Master, because she was a lowborn and Burgundy was a High Lord of Shandria.

Her team was now missing two reliable hunters. Faemonger and Corrosionist were dead, their lives lost at Rimzadria Estate.

Enthraller looked exceptionally gloomy when she stepped out of the gate after Pricci. Chameleon was likely somewhere nearby too, invisible. The replacement pair that joined her team recently - Searcher Kombolsh and Striker Opporr looked tense as they stepped out of the gate onto the forest floor.

Pricci turned to Searcher Kombolsh, a tall, mustached mage in black robes.

“She’s here?” Pricci demanded.

“Slave Remicra is here somewhere,” Searcher nodded. "The pulse is weak, but she is definitely here."

“How close?”

“Scrying the wilds isn’t easy, especially if there is magical interference and there is a lot of interference in these mountains,” Kombolsh shrugged. “She is or was here… very recently, somewhere nearby… about a thousand feet at most, I reckon.”

Pricci flexed her metal arms, resisting the urge to snap at Kombolsh. She looked around, not seeing any dragon slaves. Maybe the damned runaway was hiding behind a particularly fat tree, somewhere closer to the blue lake.

“Lead the way,” she ordered.

The Searcher nodded. He stopped at a tree and picked up a hair from it. The hair was crystalline and red.

“See?” Kombolsh pointed out. “This is her hair.”

Striker Opporr’s yellow and black spotted face twitched as she sniffed the air.

“The air here is very stale,” the lynxkin commented. “It smells of death.”

“The wilds are dangerous,” Enthraller nodded, shuddering ever so slightly as she looked around the valley.

“Does your voice work against beasts?” Striker asked.

“It does,” Enthraller replied. “Charisma actually works better against weaker minds. Unless it is a very high level beast, we should be fine.”

“There are no high level beasts in this valley,” Searcher commented. “There’s nothing living near here as far as my scrying tells me...”

Pricci exhaled. Maybe this mission wasn’t going to go tits up. Maybe she could actually catch the runaway dragoness this time.

Enthraller’s leather boot crunched over a broken branch and something glittered ahead.

“Halt!” the Overseer tensed up, sensing danger. Sparks of glitter suddenly ignited all around them, like a massive tidal wave of colors rising from behind the trees. Pricci’s sharp eyes focused on one of the sparks. It was a metal bug.

Pricci’s eyes grew wide. The metal bugs were everywhere. There were tens of thousands of them, buzzing all around. In moments the gargantuan swarm encroached upon the five.

“Do not hurt us! We are friends! I beseech you!” Enthraller sang, but the bugs did not stop, did not comply with her order. The damn things had no eyes, no ears.

Striker’s hand flashed, swatting one of the closest bugs out of the air.

“It smells dead,” the lynxkin snarled. “These creatures are unliving constructs!”

“Faray!” Pricci growled into her bracelet as thousands upon thousands of metal bugs beset upon the hunters. “Gate us out! Now!”

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A gate flashed into existence behind the five hunters. Enthraller screamed as the insects engulfed her. Pricci grabbed her and pulled the defenseless woman to the gate. She could barely see where she was going. The damned colourful insects were everywhere, small metal feet attempting to claw out her eyes.

“Retreat!” She barked and choked as several metal bugs got into her mouth.

Pricci rushed through the gate with a flailing, bug-covered Enthraller in tow.

Striker was already inside the gate. The lynxkin was covered in bugs head to toe. She hissed in pain and moved like lightning, her hands flashing as she pried metal bugs off herself and crushed them with her dark claws.

A flickering figure leapt out of the gate. Chameleon flashed from male to female body as bugs tore at his flesh. She was crying as she rolled on the floor, trying to pry the bugs off to no avail.

Princess realized that Searcher was still out there, didn’t make it out. She rushed towards the gate to grab the mage. The swarm of bugs was already pouring through the gate, filling the barracks, crawling on the floor, ceiling and walls like a sparkling wave.

Waymancer Faray screeched in horror as the bugs reached him. The gate snapped shut as he lost focus.

“No!” Pricci pawed at the empty air. “Open the gate! Open it, you imbecile!”

“I can’t focus! Help!” Faray flailed, fighting off the sparkling critters that tried to carve apart his face.

The Overseer let out a growl of pure hatred, crushing the bugs that kept on attacking her. She knew that Searcher Kombolsh was already dead, that it was too late to retrieve the man, that by the time Faray could open another gate, she would find only bones. Their best Searcher was gone and with him any hope of quickly tracking down the damned runaway dragoness.

Somehow, the Overseer had been outdone once more, lost another hunter. Burgundy would not be happy with her.

Thousands of metal bugs all around, attacking everyone in sight.

A doomsday bell began to ring atop of the tower as the ward detected the myriads of small invaders spreading out across the entire Estate. Deeper in the barracks, soldiers were swearing and other hunters were making noises of surprise as the bugs began to nip at them. A maid screamed a few floors below, dropping a pan.

This was an unprecedented disaster.

Pricci cursed Remicra, hoping that wherever the runaway dragoness was, she was suffering greatly, being severely abused by her new vile master.

Knowing the Shandrian Lords, the accursed blacksmith was likely stolen by some clever asshole and was currently being made to work to death in some deep, dark, windowless dungeon smithy where no scrying could reach her.

. . .

The late afternoon sun cast a warm hue over the city, as Dave and Remicra walked together through the labyrinthine streets of Shandria. Dave, clad in a relatively mundane gray cloak, blended seamlessly into the bustling crowd.

His companion, on the other hand, was resplendent in full-body, glittering magisteel armor. Remicra's new armor set was adorned with anti-scrying runes Dave copied from the memories of Archmage Rim. The magisteel-clad dragoness looked akin to a brilliant gemstone amidst the throng of people. Her bearing, coupled with her polished armor, lent her the air of a noble knight beyond reproach, a figure of awe-inspiring grace and power.

With leisurely pace the couple navigated the vibrant marketplace, the air thick with the mingled scents of late summer flowers, meats, exotic spices and freshly baked goods. Remicra's eyes barely visible behind crystalline slits, were alight with curiosity and wonder, as she swept over the array of colorful stalls.

The dragoness was visibly excited to acquire new tools and trinkets for herself. She paused as her armor-covered fingers trailed over the delicate craftsmanship of a silver hairpin at a stall and then caressed the intricate design of an engraved dagger. Her excitement revealed every aspect of her personality, from the fiercely independent warrior to the gentle, contemplative soul hidden beneath her armored exterior.

As the couple meandered through the twisting alleys, stopping at various shops to examine their enticing offerings, they resembled a rich noble and her personal assistant mage out for the day.

"I cannot believe it," Remicra murmured in hushed reverence, standing in a pocket of calm within the city's restless heartbeat. "Here I am... actually out, walking the city streets.”

Dave smiled at her. "That's what you get for not believing in me or yourself," he teased.

"Bah," Remicra brushed his jibe aside with a wave of her hand. Yet her lips hidden beneath the rune-covered helmet betrayed her true emotions, curving into a tender, authentic smile. Their eyes met in a shared moment of silent celebration. Her armored fingers wrapped around Dave’s hand, an affirmation of their shared triumph.

“I do wish we could sit down at a cafe,” she whispered. “It would be nice to feel sunshine on my scales.”

“We will,” Dave replied. “Perhaps not today, but I promise you that we will. I’ll do everything to make it happen.”

“I… believe it,” she nodded.

“Took you long enough,” Dave laughed.

“You’ve done everything you’ve promised me thus far. Every single Gods’ damned impossible thing,” she uttered, barely believing her own words. Being daringly affectionate, Remicra linked her arm around Dave’s. “Let's buy some steak and head out to the wilds! I wish to test my armor against a worthy challenge.”

“Sounds good,” Dave replied.

Remicra smiled.

A week ago, as the blacksmith collected magisteel for her armor, she noted how the bugs devoured a huge wyvern that attempted to land near the lake for a drink of fresh water. When she was done collecting magisteel, she had cut off a large section of her long hair, spread them in a path leading down to the lake. Then, she tied the remaining bundle of her hair to a rock and chucked it onto a metal island, beneath the biggest hive of the metal bugs.

She was hoping that Overseer Princess was enjoying dealing with millions of metal-dungeon sentinels.

Lord Burgundy would have to burn through all of his hunters just to get anywhere close to the azure lake. The dungeon that Dave discovered had been a perfect bear trap for the Overseer.