Fortress Al-Mir

“There is a problem.”

Arkk let out a small sigh, looking up from his desk to find Ilya wearing a grim expression. “Of course there is. Did Evestani manage to get a shipment of supplies in? Did they figure out the teleportation rituals and are using that to either attack or resupply? Or maybe the protectors have decided they’ve suffered our presence in the Underworld long enough…”

The grim look on Ilya’s face shifted to one of consternation as she folded her arms. “If you would calm down for a moment, I could tell you and you could stop panicking over nothing.”

“Right. Sorry, I…” Arkk shook his head, leaning back in his chair. “Sorry. You were saying?”

“The scrying team, during one of their periodic sweeps over the Cursed Forest, noticed a dragonoid flying overhead. They noted it as an anomaly but it wasn’t doing anything and there is nothing on the surface that would be visible from the air, so they didn’t report it right away. That changed when, an hour later, it was still there, now circling in what looks like a search pattern.”

Standing, Arkk said, “We’re moving to the scrying room.”

He didn’t give Ilya a chance to protest, teleporting both of them instantly.

Dragonoids were humanoid dragons. Beastmen dragons, essentially. They were rare, mostly because they wound up hunted down whenever they showed themselves. According to stories he had heard and what he had learned himself since becoming a mercenary captain, dragonoids, when spotted, were immediately targeted by the greater Kingdom of Chernlock with all kinds of bounties going out on them. Otherwise, villages and even whole burgs tended to go up in smoke.

They didn’t like humans, demihumans, or other beastmen. Just dragons and other dragonoids. Near as Arkk could tell from a few scattered testimonies and reports, they blamed the other races for the decline of dragons. Given that it was the Calamity that caused the decline of magic and magical species, Arkk doubted anyone but the traitor gods were at fault.

Unfortunately, this was something he had to deal with. Especially because Sylvara Astra’s stated mission at Elmshadow Burg had been to hunt down a dragonoid suspected of working with Evestani.

The Master Inquisitrix was currently unconscious in a medical prison on the lower levels of Fortress Al-Mir. Zullie, as the most adept in wielding the Flesh Weaving spell, had done the best she could to fix up the damage caused by that golden-eyed avatar. Even with that, nobody was sure if the inquisitor would wake again.

The scrying room of Fortress Al-Mir was a small room with dim violet glowstones embedded in a maze-like ceiling. It was a recent construction, one made only after the war had started when he realized that they needed people watching outside the fortress at all hours of the day. He only had two crystal balls, both left over from the original fortress, and had eight people assigned in shifts, trained to look through them. Non-combatants, beastmen mostly, recruited from the refugees who nonetheless wanted to help with the war effort.

Ilya, though slightly jarred at the sudden location change, recovered quickly enough and waved Arkk over to a half-flopkin, Harvey. The beastman sat next to a tall pedestal topped with one of the crystal balls, long bunny-like ears lying flat down the back of his head.

“Is the dragonoid still there?” Ilya asked.

The flopkin nodded as he adjusted the view in the crystal ball. “It started circling over the north end of the forest, near Smilesville. So far, it hasn’t attacked the burg, nor can we find any trail of destruction that might indicate where it came from.”

Arkk leaned close to look into the crystal ball. An act that startled the poor flopkin. He hadn’t noticed Arkk’s appearance in the room.

“Arkk, eyes,” Ilya hissed, making Arkk blink.

On Arkk’s second blink, a faint red glow vanished from the surroundings. “Sorry,” he said.

Inside the crystal ball, a winged humanoid drifted about. For a moment, Arkk thought she was entirely cloaked in a thick white wool. Like a flying sheep. A closer look revealed that suspicion false. The white gleamed in the sunlight. Hard facets caught and reflected light. A slight misting trailing behind the moving dragonoid reminded Arkk a great deal of the effects of the ice marble, constantly outputting an aura of cold. In this case, rather than an aura of cold, it was probably ice shavings from the dragonoid, falling into a mist-like cloud in its wake.

Arkk couldn’t tell exactly how big the dragonoid was. It was high over the Cursed Forest, making it difficult to see its size relative to anything on the ground. That said, its wings were massive in comparison to its body. If Arkk assumed that its body was average for a human, one roughly his size, its wings would have stretched from one end of the canteen to the other. At least three body lengths per wing.

If it was larger than a human… it could possibly reach from one end of the temple room to the other.

“An hour ago, I thought it was just flying through the area,” Harvey said. “Something to keep an eye on but not to worry about. Now…”

“Search pattern,” Arkk said, repeating Ilya’s words from earlier. “It is too much of a coincidence. That dragonoid is looking for us.”

“If there isn’t anything visible from the surface, can we ignore it?”

“That isn’t quite true,” Arkk said, holding his chin in one hand as he peered at the icy dragonoid. “There are the hidden entrances near the burgs and then there is the entrance to the false fortress.”

“The hidden entrances are hidden, aren’t they?”

Arkk shrugged. Reaching out, he let a touch of his magic brush against the crystal ball. The image within fizzled as he took control, readjusting the viewpoint to the hidden entrance outside Stone Hearth Burg, Arkk stared at it from the overhead view. It was an old-looking shack. “We’ve had to build them up since I have people actively visiting the burgs to collect letters and other information,” he said. “They don’t really look different than a farmer’s tool shed, but that might be enough to catch our guest’s notice.”

“So, plan?”

“For now, keep watch on it every so often. Let me know if it does anything unusual. I’ll have the lesser servants drag some shrubberies over the few trap doors we have.” He looked over to Ilya. “Have John stop by the Stone Hearth garrison and see if they have any more information on dragonoids, how to take them down, and whether or not this particular one has had any reports about it.”

Dragonoids were powerful. Although the Calamity had rendered them sterile, they retained their personal magics. Much like gorgon, they had innate powers. Guessing based on this one’s appearance, Arkk guessed that they were dealing with some kind of ice dragonoid. Agnete might work against it but, at the same time, she was particularly vulnerable to the ice marble. If she found herself at a similar disadvantage against this dragonoid… Well, he had to hope that lightning or petrification would work.

Master Inquisitrix Astra had likely intended to use her purifier to counter the dragonoid. The Jailor of the Void’s avatar was dead now, nullifying that possibility.

Perhaps she had alternate solutions? There was an old village adage about putting eggs in one basket, though he wasn’t sure that a prestigious inquisitor would have heard that one.

“Keep up the good work,” Arkk said, patting the flopkin on the shoulder. With that, he teleported down to the medical prison.

Hale, watched over by a pair of gorgon guards, stood hunched over the Master Inquisitrix. She muttered under her breath, moving her hands in a circular motion that Arkk associated with the Flesh Weaving spell, though not quite right.

The two gorgon, Vissh and Jann, stirred at his sudden arrival. They quickly settled back down without a word once they realized who he was. Arkk didn’t say anything either, simply watching Hale work.

It was… strange. Hale twisted and pulled at the stump of the inquisitor’s dismembered arm, stretching it out into something resembling but not quite matching her other, intact arm. She wasn’t just mending flesh, knitting it back together, but instead created flesh. Arkk could see the muscles coiling together, tighter and thicker than a human arm should be. Bone cracked, spaced apart, and fresh material filled in the gaps, elongating it. Fresh skin rolled over the top, though even that was wrong and different. Thicker than normal. From all the injuries he had seen on his employees, Arkk would have likened it to orc skin rather than human skin.

The whole process was probably not very pleasant for Astra. It was a good thing the woman was unconscious.

Hale cut off the spell when the arm was roughly the same length as Astra’s other arm, sealing it off just before where the hand would be. Hale stumbled back, sweating profusely from her brow. She moved to wipe her forehead on the sleeve of her white tunic, only to catch sight of Arkk.

Her eyes widened. Taking a trepidatious step backward, she bumped into Astra’s cot and shot a quick glance at the woman like she was wondering if it wasn’t too late to undo what she had just done.

“How did you do that?” Arkk asked, stepping forward to inspect the fresh arm.

Zullie was far more adept than Arkk was at the spell and even she hadn’t managed to regrow an entire arm. Minor differences aside—it felt more like holding Dakka’s arm than a human’s—if it worked… There were several in his employ and among the refugees who were suffering from large injuries that Flesh Weaving hadn’t been able to help to this extent.

“You and Zullie don’t use the spell right,” Hale said in a near whisper, as if worried that she would be in trouble.

She was in trouble. Not for making the arm but for working on an unconscious person without even his say-so.

“The book explained how to use it but I think you ignored that part,” Hale said, touching the tips of her fingers together. “And Zullie either doesn’t want to catch your ire… or she finds the spell less interesting than other spells in the book.”

Arkk shot Hale a look, watching her wilt. “How do you know what the book says? Zullie wasn’t supposed to let you read it.”

“She didn’t!” Hale said, stepping forward. Her twin ponytails swung side to side as she shook her head. “Zullie didn’t do anything wrong. I read the book before she was even here, back the night the orcs attacked.”

“You said you didn’t know how to read.”

“I didn’t. But you had Zullie teach me after.”

“And you remembered the words enough to… retroactively understand them? Is that what you’re saying?”

Hale looked down and shrugged. “They just kind of stuck in my mind. Especially after Zullie taught me the spell, I just… knew.”

Arkk drummed his fingers on his arm, frowning down at Hale. “Have you tried other things from that book?”

Hale shook her head back and forth.

“Good. Don’t. There are a lot of bad things in that book,” Arkk said, voice firm enough that Hale flinched. Letting out a small sigh, he bent down and patted Hale on the shoulder. “And I understand that you’re just trying to help, Hale, but you can’t just go give a human an orc arm.” He paused, considered, then added, “Not without permission.”

“You told me to see if I could help at all. I did. That’s what the spell is for. It doesn’t want to heal. It wants to make things stronger. Better.”

“It doesn’t want anything,” Arkk said.

Hale stomped a foot against the ground. “Then why can’t you do that?” she said, pointing to the regrown arm.

Arkk didn’t have a good answer for that. He knew the spell wasn’t a healing spell, even if it could be used like one. The spell wanting to do something was ridiculous. However, the spell had been designed to do something else. To someone a little less experienced in magic, perhaps that felt like wanting.

Just what was Zullie teaching the impressionable girl?

As for the spell… he would have to reread that book again. At least the section related to Flesh Weaving. A little refresher on what the spell was designed to do might make it fight him less when healing. Or… Well, Ilya had yet to regain a full range of motion because of her mangled stomach. She was walking around and carrying out administrative duties well enough but putting her in any kind of a fight wouldn’t end well. But if she could be…

No. No way would Ilya agree to have her body molded into that of an orc’s. Or anything else.

A raspy voice broke Arkk out of his thoughts. “Noisy.”

Arkk blinked. Hale hopped back, startled. Astra stirred on the cot, though she didn’t move much beyond her eyes. Those red eyes glared out, lacking focus as she tried to turn her head. She didn’t make it very far before her face twisted in a pained grimace and she squeezed her eyes shut.

“I’m alive?”

“You sound disappointed,” Arkk said.

“You would be too if you were in half as much pain.”

“Sorry. We’ve done what we could.” He glanced toward Hale, frowning again. “Maybe a bit more than we should have. But that gold ray—”

“How long?”

“You’ve been in and out of unconsciousness for the last five days,” Arkk said, teleporting a waterskin to him. This wasn’t the first time he had this conversation with the inquisitor. She usually had a few moments of lucidity each day.

Astra tried to force herself up. Unlike the last few times, she managed thanks to her new arm. “Water,” she said, voice still rasping.

She reached out to grasp the offered waterskin, only to freeze. She reached out with her new arm… which lacked a hand. Staring at it, she slumped against the wall. Arkk moved forward and caught her before she could fall off the cot.

“I… can fix that. I think,” Hale whispered. “I just needed a rest.”

“We’ll talk later,” Arkk said before teleporting Hale and her gorgon bodyguards away, leaving him alone with Astra. Looking at the woman, he took her only hand and planted it around the neck of the waterskin. “You’ve been awake a few times,” he said. “Do you remember anything?”

Astra didn’t respond right away. She tipped the waterskin back, using her new arm to help hold it up. Arkk watched, trying not to look surprised at how naturally she moved the bulky arm. It was like she had been born with it. Right up until it slipped from the end of her stump. She lost her grip with her hand.

Arkk teleported it away before it fell.

Astra coughed twice, more in surprise than anything, and slowly shook her head. “Flashes. Fire. Golden light. Pain,” she said with a grimace, eyes searching the room. “This feels familiar.”

“You’ve woken a few times. Sometimes even long enough to eat.”

“I see.”

“I came here to try to wake you again,” Arkk said. “And I’m sorry for jumping right into questions but a problem has arisen and I’d like to know some answers before you lapse again. Do you remember hunting a dragonoid?”

“Is that really the most pressing issue?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But it is an issue and you’re the only one with answers. Every other problem has people working on it.”

Astra pressed her lips together, closing her eyes. She waited long enough to answer that Arkk worried she had passed out again. Just as he was about to try to jostle her, she breathed out. “A suspected dragonoid was spotted coming down from the North Sea, freezing a trail of ocean water in its wake. This was just after the war started. Normally, mercenary companies would be hired to handle it. With the war, my task force was dispatched instead. Purifier Tybalt was to detain the dragonoid.”

“He is dead, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“I haven’t. Good riddance. He was always engaging in unauthorized use of his abilities.”

Arkk pressed his lips together, wondering what might have turned out differently if the inquisitors had gotten rid of Tybalt earlier. If not for Tybalt, Elmshadow might not have fallen. Likely wishful thinking. Those golden rays had done more damage than Tybalt had.

“Anything else on the dragonoid,” Arkk asked, hoping for something.

“Given the direction it came from, it was first suspected to be a scout for the Evestani army. No idea how they would have convinced it. There were no reports of it attacking villages. That doesn’t mean it didn’t, just that the war caused enough chaos for a few reports to go missing. Based on its known flights and words from the oracles, it was searching for something.”

“I wonder what,” Arkk said, tone flat.

Him. Or Fortress Al-Mir. One or the other.

“Beyond that,” Astra continued, “I don’t know much. We never caught up with it before…”

“Elmshadow.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t suppose you have a plan for getting rid of it without your purifier?”

She opened her eyes, strands of silver-blue hair hanging over her face. “Yours not up to the task?”

“Just trying to examine every possibility,” Arkk said, leading to Astra chuckling but not saying anything else.

That wasn’t nearly as much information as Arkk was hoping for. It was searching for him. The why was less certain. Was it working with the Golden Order? Or something else? Dragonoids, theoretically, would want the Calamity undone to restore their ability to procreate along with whatever other abilities had been stripped from them. Yet they were not known to be friendly toward humans and he, despite the occasional glowing eyes, was human.

Get rid of it? Approach it?

This was his territory. He could move about at will. Just as he had done with Inquisitor Vrox at Langleey, he could confront the creature and, if things proved hostile, get away in an instant. But then the dragonoid would know he was here and, unless Agnete could fight it or it was vulnerable to his lightning bolts, he didn’t have a great plan for getting rid of it.

He was about to ask a few more questions when he felt an urgent tug over the employee link. The distance away was familiar. Someone in the Underworld. He followed it back to Zullie. After a quick check on all the guards over there—none were panicking or engaging in combat—he let out a small sigh. The last thing he needed now was for the Protectors to try to fight.

If it wasn’t an attack on their little outpost, then Zullie must have finished her task.

Sure enough, she stood next to a crate of brightly glowing glowstones. All large, head-sized rocks that had been charged up with all the ambient magic over in the Underworld.

They were ready.

Arkk made sure that Astra was steady where she sat against the wall before he stood. With a wave of his hand, he pulled a small tray of bread and beans from the kitchens. “Try to eat something,” he said, setting the tray on the cot next to Astra. “And maybe try to stay awake. You’re safe here, though please understand that I can’t just let you wander at will.”

Astra looked down at her own legs. Or rather, her sole remaining leg. Hale hadn’t fixed that issue.

“Funny,” Astra said.

“I’ll check on you again shortly,” he said, teleporting straight to the portal room.

It was time to change his plan ever so slightly. To play a little less fair. If that golden avatar thought its magic was strong… Well, it hadn’t seen anything yet.