Within a small chamber, King Ral of Nimbadnur sat at an undecorated wooden table. Across from him stood one of the various rank-and-file wizards whose name he didn't bother remembering. The hooded mage had his hands on a brightly glowing crystal ball, which projected his shadow onto the script-like wards engraved into the walls.
Both wizard and king were showing identically incredulous expressions as their eyebrows crept towards their hairlines.
"She WHAT?" Ral broke the silence as he shouted at the crystal ball in front of him. Within the transparent orb, the image of Duke Libasheshtan cringed. "My Liege, I know it sounds unlikely-"
"Unlikely? Try impossible!" he interrupted.
"I beg your pardon, but she was able to work the adamantine," the Duke repeated his preposterous claim. "I saw it myself. You are aware of what this means, naturally."
King Ral nodded gravely. "Yes. Yes indeed." He understood perfectly that there were several possibilities, some of which he could discard due to the gold-patterned marble pillars visible behind the Duke. Since he was inside a temple, he could be neither an imposter nor an illusion, and mind control or possession could be excluded too. "It means that you were completely taken in by her deceptions, Thol!"
The Duke flinched. "My Liege, I understand that this is a tempting interpretation, but there is proof! Simply scry on the adamantine box to observe its damaged wall," he suggested.
"The box hidden under ice? The box whose interior doesn't show any damage? That box?" With each question, his voice became more acidic.
Duke Libasheshtan seemed to shrink. "The hole is under the mace that's sticking to the wall," he explained.
"Which, surprise, means it can't be seen," he replied, crossing his arms.
"It exists! The wall is punctured! It has to be! She couldn't have escaped otherwise," Duke Libasheshtan insisted.
"Unless the trap never closed properly," he pointed out dryly as he managed to regain his calm. He shouldn't direct his anger at the confused Duke, but at the monster who had caused him all this trouble. Poor Thol looked as if he had aged years in the past few hours.
"But we were completely cut off from the outside," the Duke pointed out. "Even scrying didn't work on us!"
"What's more likely, a Keeper piercing adamantine or said Keeper finding a way to block scrying?" he asked. "One who has been temporarily unscryable in the past?"
The dwarf in the crystal ball grimaced. "But I could sense the seal hardening..."
"Thol, you have to face the facts. The Dark Empress and her illusions deceived you. I'm sure that if one of the priests were to check you for magical residues, he would find quite a number of them."
"From the potions I imbibed before our confrontation," the Duke protested stubbornly, shaking his head. The King sighed. "Enough," he said. "I do not have the time to keep arguing with you. Try to shake off Mercury's influence and don't cause any more damage," he half-ordered, half-pleaded.
"But-"
The dwarven ruler leaned heavily on his cane as he rose from his seat and addressed the wizard, "Sever the connection. You may go rest; I won't require your services in the immediate future."
"Thank you, Sire." The mage let the light within the crystal ball fade with a relieved expression. He bowed deeply, and a few beads of sweat dripped from under his hood onto the floor.
Ral turned without a word and approached the chamber's exit. He parted the jingling curtain of wards that covered the door and pulled it open, and the noise of heated discussion assaulted his ears.
"-at the limit! If I had a way to recharge the flywheels faster I'd already be using it!" Duke Alnisalath, a rather large dwarf with a greying beard, shouted down at the much shorter Duke Cattenor.
Seated just to Alnisalath's left, the slender dwarf leaned away from his neighbour, grimacing as flying spittle landed in his short-cropped hair.
"You are both morons!" the rotund Duchess Ducimezar shouted as she slammed both fists onto the table, causing their goblets to jump. "Why are you discussing logistics when she can just do to our army what she did to Salthalls?"
The white-haired Duchess Lalimush stared unhappily at the wine droplets that had landed on her map. Her wrinkly hand rose and made a rude gesture in the other Duchess' direction.
At the same time, a wad of paper flew over the empty chair reserved for Duke Libasheshtan and smacked Ducimezar right in the forehead.
Duke Omerreg gave her a flat look as she turned towards him with an outraged expression, his arm still raised from his throw. "Read the damn reports, will you? Countess Zasod did-" He stopped as he noticed the King returning to the meeting. "Your Majesty," he greeted, rising from his seat.
An instant later, the four other dukes followed his example. Lined up on the side of the table closest to the readied hero gate, they stood with their heads respectfully inclined.
King Ral's gaze swept over them, lingering for a moment on the gap where Duke Libasheshtan should have been. "At ease," he said, approaching his own throne at the head of the table.
Wooden chair legs scraped over the ground as the nobles seated themselves.
"My discussion with Thol was less than satisfying," he began, absently stroking his beard. "He is physically safe within a temple-"
A few of the expressions along the table brightened.
"- yet his mind remains thoroughly compromised by whatever the Dark Empress did to him," he continued, dashing the rising hopes. "Consider him lost to the enemy for the time being."
"For someone like him to break so quickly..." Duke Alnisalath said, shaking his head sadly.
The others looked uneasy, perhaps imagining such a thing happening to them.
"That said, have you made any progress while I was occupied?" Ral asked, not expecting much after the previous display. Marshalling troops faster in response to an unforeseen catastrophe was difficult when one had already been doing so at top speed before.
To his surprise, Duke Omerreg nodded and picked up one of the scrolls before him and shoved it in his direction. One of the advantages of using the hero gates to meet in person, rather than wasting limited scrying ball capacity on communication. "In fact, this is a report on one of the leads you had us investigate. The human Baron Leopold confirms that Keeper Mercury had the opportunity to interrogate him, though he remembers no such thing happening during his kidnapping."
With a loud bang, the King's fist struck the table, making wine spill from shaking goblets once more. "She played me for a fool!" he exclaimed in sudden anger. "She knew! She knew all along!"
"S-Sire?" Duke Alnisalath asked, looking hopelessly confused.
The King gritted his teeth. "Baron Leopold acted as the bait in the trap that killed Keeper Bartholomeus," he hissed. "Mercury knew to expect an adamantine box and incorporated it into her plans!"
Unlike his frowning fellow nobles, Duke Uzolgim looked thoughtful. With a hesitantly optimistic tone, he said, "Sire, I believe this may be good news."
Ral focused on the haggard, black-bearded Duke in surprise. "How so?"
"Don't you think it explains a lot about how she managed to pull off her attack on Salthalls?"
He met the Duke's expectant gaze with a confused look. "You may have to elaborate a little. Not everyone here has studied at a magical academy."
Uzolgim paused, his hand absently starting to adjust the clasp of his purple cloak. "Ah, yes, pardon me. Normally, a magical ritual of the observed magnitude and duration would be impossible to conduct in enemy territory, due to being too vulnerable to interruption. However, if she was expecting the adamantine trap, then she could have arrived with the intent of keeping it from closing and using it as shelter -- all while keeping us blind to what was really going on!"
"That makes a disturbing amount of sense," Duke Cattenor commented.
"It's the kind of convoluted and deceitful plot she is infamous for," Duchess Ducimezar agreed grudgingly.
King Ral groaned. "So she couldn't have done it without me." He sighed and turned to Duke Uzolgim with a nod of understanding. "The bright side, then, is that she cannot do it again."
The other nobles suddenly sat straighter, as if a great burden had been lifted from their shoulders.
Duke Alnisalath pushed aside the stack of papers with drafts for evacuation strategies. "Looks like we won't be needing those."
"Wait, can we be certain she can't do it without the adamantine box?" Duke Cattenor cautioned.
"Reasonably so," Duke Uzolgim replied. "She's still busy trying to establish control over her victims. That means she couldn't do it directly with her ritual, which indicates a lack of precision -- likely the need to work through a tiny gap in an impenetrable barrier."
"Well, I'm convinced," Duke Omerreg said. "Doesn't really change that we need to reach and destroy her as soon as possible."
"I still say we should attack right now!" Duke Alnisalath suggested. "The forces besieging her dungeon could take her by surprise since she's busy elsewhere!"
"Nonsense, that's completely out of the question due to her ability to turn people into monsters," Duke Cattenor objected.
"We have countermeasures! Like most people here, I actually read my paperwork," Alnisalath said as he glowered at Duchess Ducimezar.
King Ral had skimmed the report in question. Before fleeing through a hero gate, Countess Zasod had recovered some of the adamantine wards that had been used against the invader. They provided a bubble of safety against the contaminated water, repelling it. Unfortunately, the repulsion went both ways, which made crossing larger bodies of water rather impractical.
Duke Cattenor pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation. "We can't protect the prisoners in her dungeon. If she turns them into monsters, then our besieging forces will be hopelessly outnumbered."
"Which means we are stuck with the original plan of massing our forces and hitting her with everything. Except now we need to do so before she can receive reinforcements from Salthalls," Duke Uzolgim summarised the situation.
"The railway tunnels between Salthalls and Whitemountain have already been blocked?" King Ral verified.
Duke Omerreg nodded. "Blocked, trapped, and put under observation. She won't be using our own infrastructure against us."
"Good. What's the current worst-case scenario you came up with?" the King asked. "Her flying ships? Teleportation?"
"I have given the elves access to our hero gates," Duchess Ducimezar replied. "Their wizards should be able to deal with any flying transports."
"Right. And the teleportation?" King Ral looked at Duke Uzolgim.
"She doesn't have enough warlocks to teleport a strategically relevant amount of troops," the cloak-wearing Duke replied.
"I'm glad to hear that," Ral replied.
"Wait," Cattenor said, "what if she creates more dungeons between her current one and Salthalls and then transports her minions?"
Duke Uzolgim winced. "That's- it would be risky and expensive, but it's not impossible," he admitted in a chagrined voice.
"Oh, our wizards will love to hear that there's something else to look out for," Duchese Ducimezar grumbled. "They are about ready to keel over from exhaustion."
King Ral made a quick decision. "Duke Uzolgim, adjust the scrying rotation appropriately to take that threat into account. We will have to rely on the intervening villages to spot any troops travelling from Salthalls to Whitemountain." Untrained peasant militiamen might not be up to assaulting a dungeon, but detecting enemy troops near their village was within their capabilities.
"It shall be done."
He considered the most aggressive of his Dukes. "Duke Alnisalath, your troops are close enough to Duke Libasheshtan's lands to arrive this evening. You will be the vanguard of our army and secure the most likely locations her troops would have to pass through. Our highest priority for now is preventing her from linking her forces!"
Ami, unable to leave Salthalls without losing her local territory, had claimed one of the palace's vacant offices as her temporary workroom. The missing owner was probably a noble, given the expensive wood paneling on the walls and the size and craftsmanship of the desk. If there was anything to complain about, it was the chair's thick padding. It was so comfortable she risked dozing off if she closed her eyes and took a break.
For the moment, however, she was fully alert and concentrating on her work. Despite the outcome of her ill-fated attempt to initialise negotiations -- or perhaps because of it -- the dwarfs still refused to listen to her or to her representatives.
She sighed and tried to convince herself that, technically, she hadn't made her situation worse. They had already been ignoring her diplomatic efforts and trying to kill her before. What she had really lost was time during which the dwarven army continued gathering and approaching. In return, she had gained a dwarven city of dubious usefulness and a whole lot of additional complications. Nevertheless, there were enough demi-youma within Salthalls to keep her dungeon heart safe, if she could arrange for appropriate transport.
Her palmtop computer was open in front of her, showing the schematics of the large tunnelling machine she was designing. Trains were her most practical option for transferring people and materials between the two locations, but she had decided not to co-opt the dwarven railways. Potential for sabotage and roadblocks aside, none of them connected all the way to her dungeon. If she already had to create the equipment for building part of the tracks, then she might as well use it to construct a new, direct line to Salthalls.
It should be possible before the bulk of the enemy forces arrived. With a large drill coated in imp pick metal and a treasury-derived power source like the one used by her reaperbots, she was expecting her machine to dig through the underground at least at walking speeds. The distance between her dungeon and Salthalls was about 250 kilometres in a straight line, so about fifty hours of digging. If she used two machines and dug from both directions, they would meet in the middle in a little more than a day. Enough time for her to design a room blueprint for laying tracks, as well as the trains themselves. In addition, Jadeite was testing a few ideas for helping out with his glamour.
Best of all, she could potentially get away with this before the dwarfs noticed, as long as all the work happened in complete darkness to protect it from scrying. She should provide a distraction, too. Sabotaging their railways to slow down their approach would work, and perhaps she could use her airships to-
"My Empress? Pardon the interruption, but I have run out of test subjects," a mental message from Monteraine derailed her train of thought.
That, at least, was a problem she could solve quickly. She shifted her Keeper sight to a tiny hatchery back at her dungeon. Hens and yellow-feathered chicks scrabbled in the dirt of the square pit, their heads bobbing up and down as they gobbled up the unearthed worms and maggots.
Mentally apologizing to the unsuspecting birds, she forced a spell into the pit's wards crushing it into chaotic mana, and then added a trickle of Metallia's power to the mix.
Replicating the calamity that had befallen Salthalls on a small, controlled scale wasn't difficult, but she disliked the need for animal experimentation. The dense, black fog streaked with rainbow colours spread through the tiny hatchery, and the contented clucking turned into disturbing pops and screeches.
She zoomed her Keeper sight in on the empty cages lined up on Monteraine's lab table. One by one, she transported the mutated chickens into the metal containers.
Immediately, the vaguely bird-shaped monstrosities started throwing themselves against the bars.
The clattering alerted the black-haired sorceress, who glanced over. A pleased smile appeared on her face. "Thank you, your Majesty," she said, addressing the air above the cages. "Would you like a progress report?"
"Yes, please," Ami replied. A single glance at Monteraine told her why the chickens were trying to escape.
The older woman was wearing an apron covered in blood over her barely-there dress and holding a crimson-stained cleaver. From her other hand dangled a dead mutant chicken, held by one of its four legs. Its left wing was smaller than its right, and stitches surrounded it, clearly visible through the plucked gap in the corpse's plumage.
Without looking, the sorceress carelessly tossed the dead chicken towards a large waste bin, where the salivating goblin inside caught it.
"Very well. So far, replacing mutated body parts with healthy organs has been a complete success," she said, "in as far as there were zero incidences of the transplants becoming contaminated. Long-term survival rates are still unknown, though they don't look good for the current batch of test subjects. I didn't check for compatibility in order to get faster results. "
That didn't bode well for the unconscious birds in the cages stacked against the wall. Ami regretfully made a note to have their suffering ended quickly. Perhaps their original purpose of ending up as some creature's meal would have been a kinder fate. "That's... that's valuable knowledge, but we have neither enough surgeons nor spare body parts for this to be an applicable solution," she informed Monteraine.
The sorceress shrugged. "Regeneration could solve that problem." She paused. "And provide some surgery practice too," she added, sounding thoughtful.
That conjured up a whole lot of disturbing scenarios. "Youma do slowly regenerate on their own when provided with enough magic," she pointed out. "They wouldn't need transplants."
Monteraine shook her head. "Of course, your Majesty, but the amputated parts grew back wrong for about half of my regenerating test subjects." Her expression turned contemplative. "My current theory is that the cuts were simply in the wrong place, passing through subtly contaminated tissue. In that case, just trying again in other spots once the subject has sufficiently recovered might work." She made a few enthusiastic chopping motions with her cleaver.
Ami paled and was suddenly glad that Monteraine wasn't anywhere near any unfortunate dwarfs. "I would prefer a less invasive solution. Depending on the location of the infected body parts, removing them would be fatal."
"A fair point," the sorceress agreed. "I admit I'm curious about whether or not I'm having more success with this than the Light priests."
"Well, they don't seem to have any trouble curing the corruption-induced insanity," she replied. "Unfortunately, my sister's idea doesn't seem to work as well as I had hoped. The basic idea of the youma's shape being influenced by its self-image is valid, as far as I can tell with animals."
At least, the fully youmafied chickens she had delivered to the dwarven temple had turned into proud, formidable-looking birds, which she considered a good sign. Of course, an issue remained that complicated her evaluation.
"However, mutated youma flesh -- as opposed to healthy, normal youma flesh -- stays mutated even when the youma's shape changes. Fortunately, their bodies are adaptable and can work around the mutations so this doesn't kill them." She paused. "For as long as they don't get turned back to normal."
"They can already turn them back to normal?" Monteraine blurted out, sounding almost offended.
"Yes, the dwarven priests have a ritual that exorcises dark magic, which returns the youmafied parts to their original state," Ami elaborated. "It's somewhat similar to one of Jadeite's Glamour spells running out of power." However, she wasn't as elated as she should have been about that discovery. Her stomach lurched as she remembered the outcomes so far. "But it only works on the youmafied parts. Healthy flesh and mutated bits -- they don't get moved into proper alignment or changed to fit, and, well, the result is rather messy."
Monteraine nodded along, mollified. "How intriguing! Could I -- no, wait, the goal is having more troops." For a moment, she looked disappointed before her expression turned confident. "Actually, I believe one of the possibilities I'm looking into could be an expedient solution for this problem." With a few deft steps, she walked over to an alcove and pulled aside the curtain separating it from the rest of the lab.
Its green-skinned occupant started and looked up from the necromantic tome resting on the pedestal in front of her. Landra brushed a strand of cyan hair out of her face as her button-like purple eyes focused on Monteraine.
"Continue with your studies," the sorceress told her.
The youma looked puzzled, but nodded and resumed reading.
Ami was a little surprised to find Landra here, but after a moment of thought and a quick look at the page, she approved of her learning some healing spells. Landra currently didn't have any special abilities of her own, unless being attractive by human standards counted. Upon closer inspection however, she spotted something horribly wrong with the elf-looking woman's left earlobe.
A small, bumpy tendril the size of a caterpillar dangled from the bottom of the large, triangular ear like a wriggling earring.
"Monteraine, what's that mutation? Are you experimenting on her?" Some anger was seeping into Ami's voice. "You were explicitly forbidden from harming anyone!"
Monteraine stiffened. "G-general Jadeite volunteered her since she's not good for much else! Besides," her tone steadied, "there's no harm done. It's an earlobe. Completely irrelevant to her overall health. People get them pierced for cosmetic reasons all the time." She waved the hand holding her cleaver dismissively, causing Landra to flinch as a droplet of blood flew towards her.
Ami breathed in deeply, trying to remain calm. The explanation made some twisted sense, even if it was against the spirit of her orders. The harm done was certainly insignificant when compared to her current problems, so she could overlook it for the moment. "For future reference, you are not to perform any experiments on non-animal test subjects. Now, what did you want to show me?"
Monteraine bowed her head. "Of course, my Empress. At first, I was planning to see if a youma could exert enough conscious control over her body to move the mutation."
Landra nervously eyed the cleaver as Monteraine waved it back and forth between her earlobe and the tip of the ear.
"But then, I noticed something interesting. Regular test subjects are just a confusing mishmash of various degrees of mutation and youmafication all blending into each other. I couldn't even begin to guess what their healthy state would look like, let alone try to heal them. However, with a full youma, it's actually pretty simple to tell what's wrong. The remaining mutations stand out similar to wounds or foreign tissue. This should make them susceptible to treatment with regular healing spells."
Ami perked up. If she turned the victims into full youma and had them healed of their mutations, then the priests should be able to turn them back to normal without complications. "How long would it take for a competent healer to remove someone's mutations?" she asked, considering the logistics.
Monteraine shrugged. "It completely depends on their extent, complexity, and location. Could be a few hours for mild cases, but most would probably take a week or more."
"Oh." Ami slumped in her seat, disappointed. Even if she assumed that all of the dwarven priests had been safe in their temples and were willing and able to help with the healing, there were around thirty thousand patients to treat. It would take years to cure everybody.
"Is that too slow? We could always just chop the mutated bits off." Monteraine pointed with her cleaver at Landra again.
The youma backed away and covered her ear protectively. "What? No cutting!"
"Oh, don't be such a cry-baby! You can grow it back! There's nothing to complain about!"
"It would still hurt!" Landra shot back, glowering at the dark sorceress.
"That falls under not being allowed to harm anyone, Monteraine! No amputations!" Ami reprimanded her, disturbed by her enthusiasm.
The sorceress seemed to shrink as her shoulders slumped. "As you wish. In that case, I have a question that may be relevant."
"Yes?"
"When you transform a test subject into a youma, can you aim towards a desired outcome?"
Ami paused. Could she influence the resulting youma's form? So far, she had simply been flooding the mutated chickens with Metallia's power until they turned into full youma. "The possibility hadn't occurred to me yet," she answered even as she decided to ask for Jadeite's advice on the subject. "Why?"
Monteraine smiled. "Oh, I have an idea that could work..."