Someone was insistently knocking on the temple's door hard enough to rattle its stained glass window, and showed no intention of stopping.
Gnashing his teeth at the thought of the centuries-old artwork taking damage, Brother Momuz rushed over, unlocked the door, and yanked it open. He breathed in deeply, ready to unleash a tirade about respecting priceless masterworks on the offender.
A bright light shone right into his eyes, forcing him to squint at the grossly obese visitor who was wearing a yellow helmet with a lamp in its centre. No, wait, it was actually just an imp standing behind a large metal pot.
The only reason he didn't slam the door in its ugly face was that it probably would resume knocking.
"Oh. Another delivery?" Sister Tosid's voice came from behind him.
With a metallic screech, the pot slid forwards as the imp kicked it over the threshold.
Momuz barely managed to pull his sandaled feet away before the heavy cooking utensil could slam into his toes.
The pot came to a rest but continued shaking on its own.
He glowered at it, and then at the imp, deeply unhappy with the situation. "Is that another chicken? Why is it in a pot? The previous ones were in wicker baskets!"
The imp tilted her head aside and stared at him with her large, pitch black eyes. A moment later, she fished a large scroll from her backpack. Baring her teeth in a mischievous smile, she ignored his extended hand and threw it at his face.
He made a startled noise as the roll of paper bounced off his head. Before he could complain, the imp was already running off.
Snickering, she crossed the bridge leading over the decorative pond outside and hopped over the line of colourful discharges where holy ground held off the expansion of the dungeon beyond.
"Brother Momuz, are you all right?" Sister Tosid asked from close behind him, sounding worried.
He let the angry scowl fade from his face. "Yes, yes, I'm simply annoyed by that vile little creature." He opened the scroll and added in a resigned voice, "Let's see what this says."
At least the handwriting was neat and easily readable. Nevertheless, he paled and swallowed. "It's from the Dark Empress herself. Says she personally modified the chicken in that pot."
Sister Tosid nervously tugged on her sleeves and lowered her voice, "Is- is it really acceptable to do this? It feels..."
"Treasonous?" he completed her sentence with a dark look. "We do have orders from the Duke himself to find a cure using all available resources."
She looked at the ground. "Yes, I know, but it kind of feels like skirting the edges of the law," she admitted.
"We will simply have to trust in his judgement and in the Light. He was here in the temple, so he shouldn't be under outside influences," he replied. However, he secretly mirrored her concerns. There was no denying the fact that some degree of collusion with the Dark Empress was happening.
For the sake of the victims disfigured by Mercury's magic, he could temporarily set aside his concerns about the lawfulness of investigating a potential cure. Helping them would be worth it, even if relying on a Keeper's aid made him feel as if he needed to scrub himself clean. Besides, he didn't actually dare to refuse her requests, especially since he'd soon have to worry about food...
They carried the pot past the pews and close to the large altar that vaguely resembled a huge anvil covered in gems and gold-filled engravings. It was the safest spot for experiments, as evil magic would be greatly weakened in its presence.
He placed the pot down within the tiny pen made from overturned pews that they had used for previous chicken experiments, and shook his head when Sister Tosid reached for the lid. "The note says to read all of the instructions before beginning, so let's see. Huh."
He waved her closer as he quietly read the key points out loud. "Only cure insanity when subject is fully healed... it has redundant organs... it regenerates lost mass..." His eyebrows shot upwards as he reread the words before him. "The thing is liquid?"
The female priest blinked and looked into the pen. "Wait, that's a pot of chicken soup?"
The container rocked and shook, making clanging noises.
"Very angry chicken soup," she amended.
He finished reading the note and put his hands on the lid. "Aside from the delayed insanity cure, we can use almost the same procedure as before. The only weird thing is that we are supposed to chase the creature around a bit until it has left behind all of its solid parts."
"That sounds simple enough," Sister Tosid said, though the dubious look she was giving the limited room within the pen somewhat contradicted her statement.
"Well, no choice but to give it a try." He unscrewed the lid with a deft motion.
At the pot's bottom rested a reddish, transparent liquid with irregular chunks and veins suspended within. It went unnaturally still the moment light fell on it. An instant later, it contracted into a ball shape and launched itself upwards.
He yanked his head backwards, too slow to avoid the gross, slimy liquid splashing all over his face.
"Ah, I suppose straining the chunks out with your beard works too?" Sister Tosid commented with a nervous laugh.
Momuz clawed at his beard ineffectually as his fingers simply passed through the liquid. "Less terrible jokes, more help!"
"Right! By the Light, sleep peacefully!" she intoned, and a tendril of blue light snaked through the air, connecting her index finger with the slime on his face.
The thing went limp and stretched out into a long, sticky thread as it flopped unto the floor. Somehow, it stayed in one piece even as it splashed into a shape that reminded him of a splatter of vomit.
He grimaced, all too aware of the wobbly chunks left behind in his beard. The sensation made him shudder in disgust. The weight of the fleshy tumours and root-like tendrils lessened as part of the dirt disintegrated into dust. Unfortunately, some blood and bits of offal remained behind. "Urk, the smell!" he complained, feeling bile rise in his throat.
The slime on the ground undulated slowly, presumably still asleep.
While Momuz was wringing out his beard, Sister Tosid had procured a mop and started shoving around the viscuous ooze. The liquid held together well, leaving no droplets behind. However, the solid bits and pieces that swam within gradually stuck to the floor and came loose.
"Do you think the solid stuff is mutated tissue that didn't transform properly?" she asked, watching the deteriorating remains.
"That would make sense," Momuz agreed as he used his sleeve like a washcloth. He frowned at the mostly inert slime on the ground. "I'm more concerned about that thing's pustules though. Ugh."
Ugly boils and bumps were growing on the ooze's surface, giving it a diseased and plagued look.
Sister Tosid instinctively edged away even though there was no realistic chance of contagion, given the altar's proximity. "It might be growing back lost mass?" she guessed after a moment.
"Regenerating on its surface, rather than where it was hurt?" Momuz asked, dubious.
She shrugged. "Well, it's a liquid. I don't see any wounds, so it probably doesn't care where it lost stuff."
He paused as he considered the idea, and then threw up his hands in disgust. "Bah, I don't even want to consider how much magic is necessary for that thing to stay alive."
The slime in question eventually stopped looking sickly as its surface smoothed out.
Sister Tosid used her mop to slosh the monster around some more, but there weren't any more pieces coming off.
"I think it's ready," Momuz said. "Do you want to do the honours?"
"After you," Sister Tosid declined. "I'm still un-slimed and would like to remain that way," she added, sounding slightly smug.
He looked down at his stained vestments and hands, grumbled, but accepted her logic. He squatted down, hands glowing as he muttered a diagnosis spell and poked the oozy puddle.
The liquid felt surprisingly warm, and apparently suffered from extreme exhaustion. Its anatomy was utterly incomprehensible but alive.
He could feel the mostly water-flavoured magic holding it together. There was also an uncomfortably large helping of evil, ice, and corruption mixed in.
Shuddering in revulsion, he watched his healing magic stir up the insides of the being, moving liquefied parts to different locations for reasons he couldn't discern. "It's done," he announced when he sensed that there was nothing more for him to do.
"Well, time to restore its sanity, then," Sister Tosid said as she proceeded to sweep the slime into a bucket. Carefully, she raised the container up onto the altar and inclined it until a tendril of liquid dribbled down onto the consecrated surface.
The bucket in her hand shook as the tendril whipped back into the main mass and the slime woke. With a loud slurping sound, the ooze rose and sculpted itself into the shape of a chicken. The transparent, red-tinted bird peered over the buckets edge curiously, wobbling with each jerky move of its head.
Both priests looked at each other and joined hands, ready to exorcise the evil magic afflicting the creature.
Oily black streaks shot out of the bird and burnt with a bright flash. With bulging eyes, the chicken wobbled and stretched, and then it fell over.
"Did it work?" Sister Tosid asked as she stared down at the feathery, normal looking bird in the bucket.
Momuz reached down and grabbed the hen, who feebly batted her wings. The light of a diagnosis spell seeped from in between his fingers. "It feels healthy enough," he concluded in a disbelieving tone. "There's a few remaining issues, but nothing life threatening. Some more healing spells and she'll be fine."
There was a delighted squeal from Sister Tosid. "It's a working cure? Oh, oh, I can handle the rest, I'm not feeling as drained as usual!"
"Maybe that's because it was already in the right shape?" he speculated, also feeling elated by their success.
However, Sister Tosid suddenly froze and paled dramatically. "W-wait, one of us will have to meet with the Dark Empress to report this, correct?"
The echoing boom of an explosion shook the underground. Moments later, a thin jet of water burst from the curved rock ceiling, ripping loose a chip of stone. It bounced off the boring machine below with a metallic ping, barely audible over the noise of the drill. Rock groaned, and water gushed everywhere as the cracks widened. Within moments, larger stones rained down on the train-sized machine, their impacts hard enough to knock it out of alignment. Water was already pooling around its wheels when the ceiling caved in completely, crushing the engine under rock and flooding the tunnel.
Ami's view of the ruined machine was lost as her last imp teleported out of the area. Instead, she saw the narrow corridor she had been walking through for the last twelve hours. It ended only a few steps ahead of her, but an imp was digging through the rock at the same pace she was advancing. A second worker was claiming the newly excavated space, producing brief flashes of aquamarine light that revealed two more imps fortifying the walls.
"My apologies, your Majesty," Torian's voice intruded into Ami's thoughts. In her Keeper sight, he was glowering at a crystal ball that showed mud-covered dwarven soldiers high-fiving each other near a small village. "We were expecting their attack closer to the stream up ahead. There was an unpredicted aquifer, and with us not knowing the positions of their hero gates-"
"Don't worry about it," she interrupted. "Successfully defending a tunnel outside of my dungeon's area of influence was unlikely to begin with," she assured him.
Which explained why she was down here in a tiny dark corridor so deep underground that sweat turned into steam from the ambient heat. Her imps could claim territory up to sixty kilometres out from her dungeon heart or from herself. Thus, by travelling said distance from Salthalls towards Highroot Mountain, she almost doubled the length of the tunnel section that was part of her dungeon territory while still maintaining her claim on the city.
The dwarfs knew that she was moving, of course. She had detected multiple attempts to scry on her so far, but she didn't think her opponents would attack her directly. Why commit forces merely to chase her away when it was harder than assaulting her new railway tunnels?
Case in point, they had gone for the tunnelling machine currently outside the borders of her territory. It implied that they understood Keeper distance limitations and could somehow detect her -- admittedly noisy -- digging operations.
Without Keeper transport, her ability to deploy defenders was limited to having youma teleport them in, especially if she wanted to avoid damaging the tunnel. A few ice golems couldn't really do much against a more numerous enemy willing to bypass them in order to damage her equipment first.
She hoped the dwarfs were satisfied with their easy victory. After all, she didn't want them to keep looking and finding the second boring machine digging a tunnel at a greater depth than the first. The noise of the collapsed tunnel above flooding should mask the sounds of its drill. If the dwarfs found it anyway -- well, they would be surprised when they encountered its defences.
The ice golem body she possessed kept moving on its own, carefully putting one foot in front of the other and brushing its left hand against the wall in order to maintain uninterrupted contact with her claimed territory. This allowed her to focus her attention on working remotely.
She looked up a map, taking note of her current location and updating the positions of her boring machines. "Jadeite?" she contacted the dark general mentally. "You can drop the glamours; one of my tunnels has been spotted."
"Understood. We are proceeding to the critical phase, then?"
"Yes. Please make sure the civilians stay calm, this will be an unfamiliar experience for them," she told him.
At the top of Highroot Mountain, the airships anchored to the looming citadel fell out of the rainy sky one after the other. Their huge, elongated silhouettes came apart from the top, canvas flaking away as if it was burning up. The metal ribs underneath shattered as the vessels started to fall, breaking up into smaller and smaller pieces. Remnants of the gondolas disappeared last, leaving only the anchor chains to plummet into the depths.
Baron Sodnil grinned widely has he lowered his telescope. "Impressive work!" he complimented as he gave the slender man standing next to him a pat on the back that made him stagger. "Much faster than last time!"
The tanned, shivering and pointy-eared elf caught his balance and turned to face him with a puzzled expression. "But, but we didn't do anything?" he said, sniffling as he pulled his fur coat tighter around himself.
"What?" Baron Sodnil furrowed his brow and stared back up at the tower of black stone that remained bereft of its airship fleet. He turned back to the elf, but the bunker's door flew open at that moment.
A scout burst into the room and shouted, "Illusions, my Lord! They were illusions!"
The Baron whirled to face the panting dwarf clad in a rain-drenched hooded leather cloak. "Illusions? The flying ships weren't real?" he asked even as his hackles rose. Had the enemy not only managed to dig a tunnel, but also to smuggle out troops right under his nose?
The scout stared at him with his mouth open, a small puddle of rainwater forming around his feet in the sudden silence. "I don't know anything about no ships, my Lord," he said after a moment. "I'm talking about the monsters!"
"What? Explain!" Baron Sodnil disliked not knowing what was going on. He had the sinking feeling that he would dislike finding out even more.
"The enemy troops! They just disappeared along with the dungeon's fog! There's nobody down there!"
"That doesn't make any sense! They must be hiding, because..." He stopped as he caught movement in the distance from the corner of his eye and whirled to face the window.
The stone tower on the mountaintop was melting away like wax in a blacksmith's forge. Occasionally, something sparkled like gold in the runny mass that was evaporating into nothingness.
Baron Sodnil paled as he put the pieces of the puzzle together. As expected, his horrifying conclusion didn't make him any happier. He grabbed the elven wizard by the arm and rushed towards the door. "RUN! RETREAT! ALL TROOPS, GET OUT OF HERE NOW! Away from the mountain!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.
He hoped he was wrong. In that case, abandoning his position here was likely a career-ending mistake. If he was right, however, then the Dark Empress had just emptied out her dungeon and left herself defenceless. Which meant she was about to blow them all up with some kind of huge, indiscriminate attack before they could take advantage. Dungeon hearts couldn't move, after all.
A vehicle resembling a cylindrical tank cart slowly advanced through the new railway tunnel. It was far larger than a regular train cart, big enough that it needed to use both of the parallel tracks, and its many wheels groaned under the weight of its armour.
Flexible rubber tentacles as wide as a man's torso protruded from the sides of the self-propelled machine, giving it a caterpillar-like appearance. Some stuck to the walls, elongating as the vehicle advanced, while others remained loose.
Whenever one of the taut tendrils was stretched close to the snapping point, one of the escorting imps ran down its length and dug its pick into the block of ice that kept it attached to the wall. At the same time, other imps would rush ahead of the machine carrying one of the loose tentacles and press it against the tunnel's surface. One freezing spell later, the formerly loose appendage was firmly connected to the masonry, and the imp performed a claiming dance on the ice block.
King Ral let out a long sigh, his breath streaming over the cold surface of the crystal ball and causing it to fog over. "So," he said, turning towards his assembled Dukes. "That dungeon heart is moving while still maintaining a connection to its territory. As far as we can tell, all of Keeper Mercury's assets from Whitemountain are currently within the unfinished tunnel. Suggestions?"
Duke Alnisalath shuffled awkwardly. "They are only moving at a brisk walking pace. I've managed to get troops in position, but they can't get in. She fortifies the tunnel walls with steel wherever someone tries to break in."
Duke Omerreg shuffled his papers, nodding his head. "Oh. Yes. Naturally, she can afford to do so after plundering Salthall's treasures. What a disaster."
"Is there any chance we can amass enough troops in time to successfully intercept her?" the king asked.
"Effectively impossible as of roughly an hour ago," Duke Uzolgim stated drily. He raised his hand to pre-empt Duchess Lalimush when she looked as if she was about to contradict him. "I can state this confidently without even considering our own logistics. The area of influence extending from her own body and that from her dungeon heart will be touching before we can get in position. At that point, she can reinforce any breach with troops from Salthalls."
King Ral seemed to shrink as he let himself drop onto his throne. "Damn it all. What are we supposed to do now?"