Fortress Al-Mir

“Excellent work, keep it up,” Arkk said, leaving Sylvara and the rest of his research team.

Following the information Sylvara acquired from the Abbey headquarters, they were well on their way to creating an actual weapon against the Heart of Gold’s avatar. They were utilizing both the flowers and the hammock from the Eternal Silence’s domain. Judging from early trials, the hammock was going to work better as whatever catalyst Sylvara needed. Arkk didn’t care much what they used so long as it worked. And so long as they didn’t have to go back to that plane of existence again.

Three people had fallen asleep there. Today, half a week later, one still hadn’t woken up. He seemed to be having fits in his sleep. A nightmare that he couldn’t quite wake from.

It was… disconcerting. Not the kind of place they would be building a long-term outpost like the Underworld. Even if they could get the portal open permanently, it was just too dangerous. That wasn’t going to stop Arkk from investigating other realms if he could. As soon as Savren was done lending his expertise to the anti-avatar project, he wanted the warlock trying to use the ice marble to figure out how to access the Permafrost’s domain. It wasn’t his first choice to venture to but, at the moment, it was their only other hard link to one of the god’s realms.

Everything was falling into place. Leda’s tower was nearing completion, the Prince had not killed Katja yet and had, in fact, responded to a letter Arkk sent, and Zullie’s other projects were progressing well. The Evestani army, accompanied by the Eternal Empire, was still on its way toward Elmshadow. If not for that, everything would have been perfect.

Arkk strode down the corridors of Fortress Al-Mir. With everything going seemingly well, he decided to physically walk. Just to keep up with his efforts toward connecting with his employees.

Perr’ok passed him outside the canteen, waving Arkk down with a raised hand. “We’re ready to equip another twenty with shadow armor.”

“Really? Already?”

“The boys are getting better at working that forge.”

“Excellent. Speak with Dakka. She’ll know who to equip next.”

“Is she here or at Elmshadow?”

Quickly checking in on Dakka’s state, Arkk said, “Here, for now. Sleeping in her quarters. Probably best not to disturb her this very second.” A lot of those who had gone to the Eternal Silence’s domain had been sleeping a bit more than usual these past few days. Arkk hadn’t been feeling too exhausted himself, but Ilya had barely been able to keep her eyes open for the first day and a half.

It was getting better, thankfully. That was just another reason to avoid that domain going forward. If they did need more flowers or hammocks, they would be getting in, grabbing the item, and getting out as fast as possible. The less exposure, the better.

“Any luck fabricating armor for… less bulky bodies?” Arkk asked, raising an eyebrow. He would have loved a set for himself. But it was all sized for orcs.

Perr’ok shook his head. “Sorry. Agnete tried to make some other molds but… something about her magic just doesn’t work with the Shadow Forge. I tried my hand as well but didn’t get anywhere. Testing takes up work time on the forge, so I could put more time into it. It will delay the next batch of armor, however.”

Arkk hesitated. The chance of having some human-sized armor for himself and his other employees was tempting. But it was only that, a chance. It could be a complete failure or it could take an extended amount of time. If he had to weigh a distant hope against getting another squad of orcs outfitted and ready to go now… “Focus on orc armor until everyone has a set. Then experiment,” Arkk said.

“We’ll see if we can’t get the next batch out even faster.”

“As long as it doesn’t sacrifice quality,” Arkk said, clapping Perr’ok on the shoulder as he moved past the head blacksmith. “Good work.”

Fortress Al-Mir was feeling fairly empty these days. Much of his fighting force, including Richter and his soldiers and battlecasters, were out at Elmshadow. Roughly six hundred men in total, including some fresh faces recruited from the survivors of the burg’s occupation. In comparison, Al-Mir had a mere hundred stationed in its walls.

Even the refugees had mostly departed. With Evestani having been pushed back, the villages west of the mountain range felt a little more secure in their positions. That combined with the dawn of spring had villages a little more willing to accept additional hands for tending fields, collecting lumber, and anything else that needed doing. Fortress Al-Mir still housed about a hundred and fifty flopkin, who made up the largest single group in the refugee section of the fortress, and about a medium village’s worth of humans, demihumans, and other beastmen.

It was a wonder how much gold he saved not providing food for over a thousand refugees.

“Arkk.”

Turning, Arkk found Kia standing in a doorway, fiddling with one of the many piercings in her ear. Her eyes were off to one side, not looking at Arkk directly.

“Is Claire…”

“She’s alright,” Arkk said quickly. “Have you not seen her since she volunteered?”

“I did a… week or so ago? She could barely get out of bed.”

Arkk nodded his head. “There was a bit of an after-effect that had her dizzy whenever she did anything. But I understand she’s adapted to it a bit more now. Do you want to see her?”

“I don’t know…”

With a small sigh, Arkk teleported himself and Kia down into the lower levels of Fortress Al-Mir. They appeared in front of a heavy door covered in various runes, all of which were inactive at the moment. They were originally intended to keep the rest of the fortress safe from Claire should anything have gone amiss with Project Liminal. Now, they were unnecessary.

Arkk thumped his knuckles against the door. “Claire?” he called. “Are you in?” He already knew the answer but felt it was polite to ask anyway.

Kia stood back, looking like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be present at all. Arkk didn’t know what had transpired a week ago, but the last time he saw them together, they had a bit of a fight. He could easily see that there was some lingering awkwardness. At least on Kia’s half.

A translucent afterimage of Claire appeared at the edge of the door before it opened, leaving her looking like she was poking her head through the metal. The door opened just a crack as the afterimage solidified into Claire. Her sharp blue eyes flicked from Arkk to Kia and back.

“Morning,” she said with an exhaustive yawn large enough to make Arkk wonder if she hadn’t managed to sneak into the Eternal Silence’s domain.

And… it was actually late afternoon.

“Demon problems?”

“Not yet,” Arkk said. “Hopefully not ever. The Prince responded to one of my letters in a most cordial manner, thanking me for my and Company Al-Mir’s efforts against Evestani thus far. I am hoping that is a positive sign. Though he did have a few words to say on my ‘attack’ on the Duke’s manor… I’m still trying to decide whether or not to claim that was an imposter from Evestani or just a misunderstanding.”

He had the return letter half-written up in his quarters right now.

“I… see. Then perhaps a test against the avatar?”

Arkk shook his head. “I have some plans for throwing a few things in Evestani’s direction. Partially to slow them down and give us more time to develop weapons, mostly to see what may or may not be effective against the avatar’s magic. You are part of those plans, but they aren’t quite ready yet.”

She nodded her head, afterimages bobbing up and down before the rest of her head. Watching her short brown hair split apart into various afterimages was somewhat nauseating, but Arkk kept his expression firmly neutral.

“We’re here because Kia was wondering how you were doing.”

Claire’s eyes blue eyes flicked over to Kia. Her expression didn’t change at all. She simply said, “Better.”

“You haven’t been out of here at all,” Kia said with obvious concern in her voice. It was probably the most genuine emotion Arkk had ever heard from the dark elf. “You aren’t…” Kia’s eyes narrowed as she turned a glare on Arkk. “She isn’t here against her will, is she?”

“She opened the door on her own,” Arkk said quickly, absolutely not wanting to upset either of the dark elves. “She is free to go anywhere she pleases now that Zullie has confirmed that her state is stable.”

“It’s fine,” Claire said with a faint sigh. “It’s safer down here.”

Kia frowned. “Safer?”

Rather than answer her, Claire went for a demonstration. An afterimage of her hand appeared through the door, punching through it. Unlike when she peeked her head through, this time, the door started falling apart around her wrist. The metal simply came apart, as if made of millions of individual granules that had simply been pressed together into a flimsy sheet. By the time her actual hand caught up to the afterimage, there was a completely clear hole in the door for her arm to occupy.

“I keep doing this,” she said, pulling the afterimage of her hand through the door again. Even though the hole was barely wide enough for her wrist to fit in, her fist slid through as if it didn’t care at all about the piece of metal that should be blocking her way. “Accidentally.”

“You can’t control it?”

“I’m getting better.”

“At least it isn’t making you dizzy anymore,” Arkk said.

“No,” she agreed. A wide and unpleasant smile made its way across her face. “It makes me excited. I can’t wait to see what I can do in a fight.” Her fingers blurred through the door, taking away long narrow streaks of the metal as she dragged them down.

“Please don’t destroy the fortress more than necessary,” Arkk said.

Claire never looked embarrassed or sheepish about anything. She still pulled her hand back.

“Thank you,” Arkk said. He waited a moment, watching the two dark elves. Neither spoke further but neither looked like they wanted to leave each other either. “If you two would like to talk for a time, I can leave you in peace,” he said, reading the room. “Kia, the way back to the fortress proper is fairly convoluted, so if you get lost, feel free to tug on the link and I’ll move you back up.”

Neither objected to his proposal. Kia nodded her head.

Arkk teleported away. He finished his walk around Fortress Al-Mir, greeting his employees and doing his best to project an air of confidence about their path forward in this war. He was about to head over to Elmshadow to do the same there—there had been no calls for his attention for several days now and no notes left on his throne for him to read from afar, but he figured it would still be a good idea to meet with people there in person.

A tug on the link stopped him before he could. He first peeked in on Kia and Claire, figuring they had finished their discussion, only to find them engaged in a rather intense discussion that he should probably not ever admit he had seen if he valued his life. Quickly turning his attention away, he followed the link. It was far off. Through the Underworld portal and then some. Far, far further than the little outpost they had constructed around the portal archway and beyond even the village where the Shadow Forge was.

Arkk found himself staring down at Olatt’an, engaged in a fierce battle against… something. The other members of his expeditionary crew were fighting alongside him. Two of the Protector’s bodies were fighting as well. That was probably the only reason none of Arkk’s men had been killed so far.

A bright flash of light drew Arkk’s gaze back to the creature they were fighting against. It was some kind of flying serpent, long and narrow. It didn’t have… innards. It was made up of large metallic rings, joined together by flexible metal bars along their tops and bottoms. The only interior it had was made up of cogs and springs, looking rather like some of Agnete’s projects in the forge. Large poles jutted out from its body periodically along its spine, each capped with a small ball. Lightning coursed between the balls, arcing from one to the next like it was constantly casting the Electro Deus spell on itself.

One of the orcs tried an Electro Deus spell. It veered off to the side, slamming into one of the pylons without doing any obvious harm.

“There is a situation.”

Arkk jolted, surprised at the heavy voice. He turned to find the Protector looming over him.

“I’m aware,” Arkk said as he immediately teleported them both away. He reappeared in the library alongside the Protector. Sylvara jumped to her feet, not quite used to people suddenly appearing around her. Savren jolted somewhat as well, locking eyes with the Protector.

Zullie carried on dictating what sounded like a simple introductory to planar magic, probably for Sylvara’s benefit, until Arkk interrupted.

“I have an immediate need to travel rapidly through the Underworld,” he said. “Is there any possibility of getting that done.”

After a brief silence fell upon the group. Zullie, looking irritated at being interrupted, planted a hand on her hip. “Teleportation rituals don’t work in the Underworld.”

“I know. I’m asking for alternate solutions.”

“If I may interrupt,” the Protector said, leaning high over the table where one of the Eternal Silence’s flowers sat under a glass dome. “The creature came from a world-hole. There is one in the vicinity.”

“World hole?”

“A crystalline archway covered in runes.”

“They found a portal over there?”

“And managed to activate it. The creature we fight now slipped through before we could shut it back down.”

Arkk grimaced. That was careless of them. They should have… spent weeks returning only to spend weeks heading back out with a proper force? He could see why they made that choice. But now they were in a mess and Arkk had no way to help. He could only watch.

“A working portal might work,” Zullie said, thumb furiously rubbing at her chin. “Especially with the Protector there. We can reconfigure the portals to connect to each other. I know how to do this.”

Arkk looked at her. She stared back with those eyeless eyes, with glimmers of starlight magnified by the lenses she still wore. He had shut her down earlier, not willing to risk the expeditionary party by changing the portals. With the glowstones still depleted from their excursion to the Eternal Silence’s domain, they didn’t have any other choice but to shut down the portal here and use it, hoping it would come back up afterward.

Could the expeditionary team beat the creature and survive? There were several injured already. Eiff’an was on the ground, by far the worst, with half his arm torn off in what looked like a massive bite. He would bleed out if he didn’t get immediate assistance.

The lightning coursing down the back of the serpent grew in intensity, surging forward from back to front. At the base of the metal creature’s head, it jolted down inside the thing’s body. It opened its maw, a solid jaw of sharp metal shards, and a lightning bolt as strong as some of Arkk’s strongest shot out.

One of the Protectors caught the blast square in the chest despite its best attempt at dodging. It immediately collapsed, smoking.

The Protector at Arkk’s side jolted but otherwise made no noise of alarm or panic.

One of Olatt’an’s crossbow bolts struck the side of the creature during the brief moment it had stopped to line up its lightning. It slipped between the skeletal-like ‘ribs’ of metal, jamming up one of the cogs inside it. But that wasn’t enough to bring it down.

If it fried the other Protector, they might not have a chance at redirecting the portals. Arkk assumed there were other Protectors out there, but he didn’t know how close they might be.

Arkk teleported everyone to Fortress Al-Mir’s crystal archway. “You!” he barked, pointing at a random orc on guard nearest to the portal. “Get on the other side and ring the recall alarm bells. Everyone over there has two minutes to get on this side or risk being stuck over there.”

Arkk turned away, knowing the order would be carried out. “Zullie,” he said. “Tell the Protector what to do.”

“I need to know what the portal over there looks like. The runes are like a key. We need to shift the ones here to match.”

“Protector,” Arkk said, “disengage from the fight immediately or get one of the orcs to run to the portal. I’ll be able to see it.”

“Understood.”

Arkk couldn’t hear through the link, but he could see the Protector move to carry out his order. He was pretty sure the Protector shouted something to the others. They all shifted their formation, moving to protect the remaining Protector.

Another buildup of lightning surged out of the serpent’s mouth. Livva dodged in front of it, taking the bolt on her metal armor to save the retreating Protector. Arkk swore out as she collapsed, smoking as well, but, strangely enough, she didn’t die. It was like the lightning caught her armor and decided to simply flow along it to the ground. She wasn’t unharmed. Arkk could feel the pain and panic over the link.

But she was still alive.

Another in need of emergency aid.

Arkk pulled Hale to him even as the Protector drew close enough to the portal for Arkk to see it. Hale looked around in confusion for a moment. She saw the emergency going on and steeled herself for administering medical aid.

Without a second thought, Arkk dropped Dakka in front of him as well. She was not armored up. “Equip yourself,” was all Arkk said before teleporting her to the armory along with her main team. Then, with slightly more of a second thought, Arkk teleported Kia and Claire into the room—a short distance apart from one another. They brought with them a strong stench of sweat, but that wasn’t worth commenting on given the situation.

“Claire,” Arkk said. “Are you prepared to test your abilities against a real opponent?”

Her afterimages nodded before her actual head.

“Good. Gear up,” he said, teleporting both her and Kia to the armory. “Zullie. Starting at the bottom left of the portal, the first rune is a loop with a dot in the middle…”