Sparks flew from the red-hot iron as the hammer struck it repeatedly, some of them travelling far enough to strike the smith’s leather apron. The muscular, copper-skinned dwarf paused suddenly and raised his head. With a frown, he rested his hammer on the anvil and pulled down the face-wrap that kept his long, bushy beard out of the way. “Hey Rom, are you hearing that too?”



Across the smithy, right next to a rack full of almost-finished swords, a dwarf so young his beard was barely more than a brown fuzz looked up from his work. The apprentice lifted the knife he was sharpening off the pedal-driven whetstone in front of him. Without the grinding noise, the smithy was much quieter, and he turned his head left and right as he listened. “Some kind of sizzling, yes?” he asked after a moment. He looked down, at the worn stone floor covered in filings. “Below?”



“It’s coming from the pumps,” his master said, his expression darkening.



“Oh,” Rom said in a small voice. The sweat that formed on his brow had nothing to do with the heat in the room. He knew there were pipes that conducted pressurized magma passing below.



“It sounds almost like a boiling kettle,” the master smith continued, still frowning. He walked out the open front door, gesturing at his apprentice to follow. “Come, give me a hand here!”



Rom obediently hurried after him. Outside, he found the old dwarf pulling at the ring attached to an iron hatch in the front yard’s floor.



With combined efforts, they managed to pull it open. Warm, humid air blew into their faces from the square maintenance shaft.



“Not good. Everything should be dry down there,” the smith growled over the now clearly audible sizzling and dripping noises. “Those weird tremors from earlier must have caused a leak somewhere.” He crouched and reached for the ladder.



“Wait!” Rom called out. “I’ll go! I learned a spell to protect myself from the heat from my previous master,” he said.



“Are you sure?” the older dwarf asked, a hint of worry in his bronze eyes as he looked at his apprentice.



“Yes, it’s going to be safer for me than for you,” Rom said. “If there is boiling steam down there, I’ll merely get wet while you, well…”



The smith stared at him for a moment before he nodded cleared the way. “If you insist. Don’t try to fix anything, just find the problem and report it to me. And be careful!”



“Of course, boss.” The metal of the ladder felt warm under Rom’s hands as he descended into the narrow shaft. He never liked working in the maintenance tunnels, since they were tight and the air down there smelled stale, but he liked the idea of an explosion beneath the smithy even less.



“I’m at the bottom now!” he shouted as soon as his feet touched solid ground on a four-way intersection. “The noise seems to be coming from tunnel three,” he added after a quick look at the painted signs.



“Understood. Don’t take any risks,” came the answer from above.



Rom walked towards the source of the sizzling and dripping noises, ducking his head to avoid bumping against the tunnel’s low ceiling.



Thin clouds of steam wafted through the upper part of the corridor, slowly drifting his way. His imagination saw twisted, ghostly shapes wherever they glowed under the dim lights of the magical lanterns. Reassuringly, they condensed into mere water that dripped down on him wherever they brushed past cooler stone.



Rom wiped the liquid off his brow. With his protection spell, the hot drizzle was more refreshing than annoying, and it cleared his thoughts. The old geezer above would already have been forced to stop at this point.



Rock vibrated under his feet as he got closer to the pumps, and the steaming puddles rippled constantly. Where was all the water even coming from? To his senses, the surrounding stone felt solid and unbroken. Nevertheless, the source of the hissing noise was in front of him. Great gouts of steam and liquid were shooting from a small crack in the wall.



He sucked in a sharp breath as he realised it wasn’t a gash at all. The water was appearing out of thin air, boiling into existence around one of the wards against evil on the local mana conduit. The complicated symbol had to be extremely hot if the liquid was turning into steam upon contact.



He stared at the masterfully shaped medallion, tracing its clean and precise lines with his gaze. It was the ugliest thing he had ever seen in his life. With a snarl, he raised the pincer-shaped claw at the end of his right arm, eager to smash the offending ward to bits.





Above the rune-inscribed terraces of the casting chamber, the air crackled and popped as it oscillated between various shades of blue and violet. Robed wizards stood in small groups between meandering inscriptions and freestanding pillars, frowning up at the protective dome and wrinkling their foreheads. Near the outer walls, dwarven soldiers shuffled their feet as they watched the magicians, occasionally glancing at their officers as if wishing for orders.



On one of the cut-off pillars towering above the magical diagrams, Mengolin’s expression grew darker with every breath. “It’s still weakening! Hurry up with that node!” Raising a hand that glittered with jewel-encrusted rings, he pointed at a circle of wizards holding hands.



They were activating one of the chamber’s still functional power nodes, coaxing mana from the intricate crystal patterns with their chanting. Light poured from the designs on the ground, growing in intensity until the spellcasting dwarfs were only visible as dark silhouettes surrounding the glow.



“You reported that the Dark Empress was gone!” the accusing voice of Countess Zasod came from the crystal ball on the marble pedestal in front of him.



“Well excuse me for assuming that his Grace’s plan worked when she disappeared from all magical forms of tracking!” the court wizard snapped in irritation. He currently had little time to spare for the last remaining noble above the rank of baron, who was technically in command of the city.



“Stop! You are making things worse!” a female voice shouted from somewhere close, interrupting the Countess’ reply.



Zasod’s brow furrowed in disapproval as she spotted Ambassador Camilla in her so-called uniform that was too revealing to be decent. The blonde fairy was hovering in the air a few metres past the railing, her beating wings humming loudly.



“Explain, quickly!” Mengolin ordered. If Camilla had flown up here to interrupt them, she likely hadn’t done so on idle speculation alone.



“Melissa down there-” she tilted her head towards her sisters, whose tall, slender silhouettes were unmistakable among the sturdier dwarfs, “says that the dome is fading faster every time you activate another of those mana nodes!”



The countess and the court wizard exchanged a look of horrified comprehension.



“Contaminated mana supply!” Mengolin blurted out.



“The attack is in the mana!” Zasod said at the same time.



The court wizard raised both hands over his head, his flowing robe fluttering from the rapid motion. He waved his fingers, and an attention-grabbing red flash lit up every corner of the chamber.



Heads turned in his direction, some of them squinting from the glare.



“Close the nodes! Do it now!” Mengolin shouted, amplifying his voice to thunderous levels.



Camilla winced and covered her ringing ears. She lost a metre of altitude before she recovered from the noise, and even then, a faint vibration in her bones remained. The resonance didn’t fade. It grew unpleasantly in strength, making her bile rise, and she realised that it was already too late.



The centre of the dome broke with a sound like shattering glass. The jagged hole rapidly increased in size, its edges fragmenting into fading splinters as it sped outwards in an expanding circle.



At the same moment, the eight columns of green light stabbing towards the ceiling lost their colour. Clear pillars of icy water loomed in their place, standing still for a single moment before succumbing to gravity.



The wizards around the nodes shrieked and shielded their faces as the freezing water crashed down on them. Within moments, the pressure hammered all of them to the ground, and the roaring flow swept them along as it cascaded onto the lower platforms.



Mengolin gaped as a partially submerged sleeve turned a sickly yellow and its buttons expanded into a field of metallic scales. He could no longer tell where the garment ended and its wearer’s skin began.



More of the drenched wizards changed, partially concealed by clouds of flying droplets and mist. Limbs bent at unnatural angles and silhouettes stretched and distorted into shapes that were only approximately dwarf-like.



“Monsters! They are turning into monsters!” one of the soldiers gasped.



By now, everyone had started shouting, pointing, and fleeing from the onrushing water. The few unassigned wizards were running about, trying to reach higher ground or casting protective spells.



The fairies were flying above the flood and shooting pink blasts from their palms. Where they struck, the ground buckled and turned into tooth-shaped spikes.



From his elevated position, Mengolin could see that they were trying to raise a semi-circular dam around the resting wounded.



A slimy arm shot towards the flying girls like a frog's tongue, growing thinner as it elongated. With a wet slap, three boneless fingers wrapped all the way around a slender calf.



The surprised fairy managed half of a startled shriek before the arm contracted and yanked her down, driving the breath from her lungs. Water fountained high into the air as she splashed down in front of the monster.



"Mengolin! Mengolin, answer me!" Countess Zasod demanded. She was hard to understand with all the frightened shouting, splashing, and clanging that echoed through the room.



He grabbed the crystal ball and ducked behind the pedestal, unwilling to wrest all of his attention away from the chaos below. Here was an opportunity to do something useful. "Yes, my Lady?"



"Report! The wards are going crazy all over the place, and I need to know what's going on!"



That, at least, was a question he could easily answer. "The casting chamber is no longer consuming most of the contaminated mana, so now it can reach the entire city. Also, it turns people into monsters."



Something big and hairy hopped past his platform and dropped back out of sight. There was a thumping noise, and a wizard’s chanting turned into frightened screams.



"What?” the countess shouted. “Did Keeper Mercury open a breach into the Hell Below?"



"Sadly, I can't entirely exclude the possibility," he answered after a moment of thought. It would explain where all the evil energy was coming from. "She couldn't have dug into it, but she might have opened a portal. However, our wards should have stopped the corrupted magic from spreading much farther.”



“The same wards she crushed on her way down?”



That was a point he hadn’t considered. The realization felt like ice water running down his back, and for a moment, he feared he had been splashed. “My Lady, you must get yourself to safety while it's still possible! Try to reach a temple, or better yet, leave the city!"



"What if the priests protected an expedition to shut down the portal instead?" she asked, moving while she talked. There was a strange patch of ice growing on a flower pot, which she gave a wide berth.



A pair of clawed green hands reached for the edge of Mengolin's platform.



“I would advise-” the court wizard paused to shoot a bolt of lighting at the grasping limbs. When the climber let go, he continued “- smashing her dungeon heart instead. If there really is a portal, she needs to power it somehow.”



“I’ll consider your suggestion,” the Countess said. “May the Light keep you safe!”



The crystal ball went dark.



That was a tall order, Mengolin concluded as he took stock of his situation.



Monsters were everywhere, stirring up the ankle-deep water as they moved towards the two dozen or so dwarfs who had climbed onto the higher platforms. Claws and multi-coloured blasts of magic rattled their shield wall, and it was only the air support from the three yelling, crying fairies that kept the swarming attackers at bay.



Well, if he wanted to make it out of here, he had his work cut out for him.





Ominous shadows crept over the bookshelves and the ornate desk in Torian’s office as his floating candles moved in predetermined patterns. Droplets of red wax rained down like blood, turning into fading mist before they could stain the crimson carpet. In the flickering candlelight, it almost looked as if the gargoyle statues climbing the towering backrest of his chair were moving.



Torian himself sat behind the massive desk, the lower half of his face eclipsed by the glowing crystal ball in front of him. As the impressive centrepiece of the room, he exuded an aura of power, wisdom, and danger appropriate to his position. At least he liked to think so, because he had spent more time getting his office just right than he was willing to admit.



To his mild annoyance, the Corruption had gotten to his gargoyles, and now they were too cute and curvy to be properly intimidating. To his much greater annoyance, the carefully crafted arrangement was completely wasted on visitors who insisted on rudely standing behind him and looking over his shoulders.



Cathy leaned in closer, resting her weight on the left armrest of his chair and denting the wood with her armoured gauntlet. “How does staring at that,” she scowled at the scene in the crystal ball, “help us figure out what’s going on?”



At first glance, it appeared as if the orb was displaying the sun. A small hill of ice glowed so brightly that the box-like building it had buried remained a dark and indistinct silhouette. An aquamarine tornado of energy swirled around its slopes, reaching up to the cave's ceiling and whipping debris across its walls. Jagged, crack-like inclusions of pure darkness spread outwards from the ice, pulsing and growing larger as they melded with the maelstrom.



He wished she would just let him think in peace if she had nothing of value to contribute. “You have, of course, a better suggestion than watching the place we saw her last?” he asked, not bothering to hide his annoyance.



“Send someone over there to find her!” the swordswoman demanded.



“Completely pointless,” he answered immediately. “Even if we could safely teleport someone over there, they wouldn’t be able to do any better than directly scrying on her or using her dungeon as a link to locate her.” Both of those methods had failed, which raised some disturbing questions. They were almost infallible short of divine intervention, as far as he knew.



“We are pretty sure she’s inside that building,” Cathy said, tapping the crystal ball where it showed the ice-covered boxy shape. “We could try talking to her through the walls!”



“Provided we could somehow survive the raging torrent of magical energy around it,” he pointed out the huge, glaring flaw in her otherwise valid idea. “Besides, I’m becoming more and more convinced that everything is going exactly according to her plan.”



“Excuse me, but you will have to explain that one to me,” Snyder's voice said from somewhere to the right of his desk. The redheaded acolyte was kneeling on the ground, pulling up the eyelid of a prone imp and waving a shining finger left and right in front of her huge black eyeball.



The imp’s chest was rising and falling slowly, but her eye didn’t show as much as a single twitch in reaction to the light.



“I fail to see how a complete loss of communications, comatose imps and inert traps – all without a single hint of warning and while we are besieged by a hostile army – could be part of some grand master plan,” Snyder elaborated.



“Indeed,” Jadeite agreed. He stood to Torian’s left; arms crossed over his open jacket, and was looking at the warlock with a hint of curiosity.



If there was anything satisfying about this situation, it was the fact the rest of the inner circle had been kept in the dark too. “Operational security,” he stated. “The Empress wanted to avoid even the possibility of there being a leak. Perhaps her plan leaves her vulnerable, which is why she is concealing her location.”



Cathy and Jadeite exchanged a silent look, and the former shook her head.



“What plan?” the swordswoman asked. “What do you think she’s doing?”



Even if Mercury was keeping those two around for their power, rather than their brains, they should have been able to figure that out on their own. “Let’s see. There’s a huge whirlpool of evil magic below the city. Corrupted water appears everywhere and turns its denizens into monsters who bear a certain resemblance to the likes of Lishika, Mareki, or Umbra. Why, it almost looks as if chasing down the Duke was a convenient misdirection that let her reach a location from where she could easily corrupt the whole city!”



Cathy returned Torian’s smug smile with an expression as if she had just sucked on a lemon and then covered her eyes with her hand. “That’s what everybody is going to assume, isn’t it?” she asked.



“Well, it is rather obvious in hindsight,” Torian replied.



“Nevertheless, she can’t be doing this on purpose,” Jadeite contradicted, his eyes reflecting the pale, bluish glare in the crystal ball. “It’s just too much power for her to control. Even my body couldn’t withstand channelling that much dark power for so long.”



Torian glanced up at the curly-haired man, raising an eyebrow. “Excuse me? Are you seriously suggesting that something is beyond her Majesty’s capabilities just because you can’t do it?”



“Yes. There’s no vast difference between her power and my own as long as she isn’t drawing on her treasury,” the dark general stated confidently.



Preposterous. Torian didn’t scoff at the boast, but only because he didn’t dare anger Jadeite. To think that he considered himself a near equal of the Dark Empress! Then again, he had pulled off magical effects on a fairly absurd scale…



“You think this is some kind of convenient accident?” the chief warlock drawled, waving his palm at the crystal ball.



“It’s not convenient at all!” Cathy snapped. “We don’t even know for sure if she’s all right!”



A roughly human-shaped rock mushroomed upwards from the carpet, right in front of Torian’s desk. It cracked and crumbled, revealing the muscular form of Mercury’s sister underneath the stone shell.



“No change with the dungeon heart,” Tiger reported. “It’s still stuck mid-beat, growing neither brighter nor dimmer. No luck searching for,” her eyes briefly flicked towards Torian, “secret identity, either.”



“Well, there you have it,” the chief warlock said. “Dungeon heart still active, imps still alive, and we aren’t being attacked by angry ghosts either. She’s fine.”



“Doesn’t mean she’s not in trouble,” Cathy muttered. “And don’t remind me of the ghosts. By the way,” she leaned forward over Torian’s desk, steadying herself on its delicate surface with her gauntleted hands, and shouted towards the door “have you guys found out where the wraith-thing with the chains disappeared to yet?”



Her call echoed in the hallway outside for a moment before hasty footsteps approached.



A thin warlock with a gaunt face skidded to a halt in front of the doorway and grabbed onto its wood as his feet slipped on the smooth tiles. His shoes and legs, as well as half of his short tunic were splattered with thick, transparent slime.



Torian recognised the disgusting gunk. The huge eyeballs that Empress Mercury had repurposed for ward-breaking duty weren’t dealing well with their increased power supply. Some were popping at random, which made the scrying chamber a place to avoid if you could. One of the reasons why everybody important had gathered in his office.



“It’s hiding in a dark place, Commander,” the warlock reported, saluting. The motion transferred some of the slime from his hand to his forehead, and he grimaced.



“Hey, you got here surprisingly fast,” Tiger praised him. She was sitting on the edge of Torian’s desk, something he grudgingly tolerated because he liked not being on fire.



“Thank you, Princess, but I was already on my way,” the warlock said, bowing. “Bad news, I’m afraid. The besieging force is preparing for an attack.”



“Damn it!” Cathy exclaimed, reaching for her helmet. “They know our defences are weakened. How many of them are moving?” she asked while striding towards the door.



“All of them, Commander. Roughly three thousand dwarfs,” he reported.



“That’s twice as many as last time,” Snyder whispered, his face pale. “They are holding nothing back, and with the dungeon heart gone into cardiac arrest…”



“We will have no choice but to deal with them more forcefully,” Jadeite said in a cold tone of voice.



“What a pity,” Torian said, his sarcasm concealing his worry. Fending off that many of the burrowing, hairy nuisances without Keeper support or traps would be difficult, at the very least.



“Mercury isn’t going to like that,” Cathy disagreed, the corners of her lips moving downward.



“Do you have a better idea?” Jadeite challenged.



“I have one that might just work!” Tiger said as she slid off the desk and started bouncing on her tiptoes. “Cathy, fetch me your most useless goblin! No, better make it three instead! I’ll be right back!”



The orange and black youma disappeared under a shell of dull stone, which crumbled to dust as she teleported away.