Dungeon Keeper Ami [Sailor Moon / Dungeon Keeper] [Story Only Thread]

[Pusakuronu]

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 busing 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…”

 

[Pusakuronu]

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 a 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?"

 

[Pusakuronu]

The underground train station resembled a widened tunnel section, its greater diameter offering enough room for four parallel tracks under the curved ceiling. Two of them, both occupied by one stationary train each, were dead ends. On the other two, the short, armoured wagon that carried the dungeon heart rumbled past. It slowly descended into a tunnel that led deeper underneath Salthalls. From the ceiling descended a steel gate as thick as a man’s torso and sealed the passage, muffling the sound of the thunderous heartbeats that emanated from the wagon.

Meanwhile, the occupants of the other trains continued disembarking and moving towards a much larger, rectangular hall that merged with the enlarged tunnel at a right angle.

An open hatch as wide as a barn door revealed a crouching dragon squeezed into a compartment. Its large, scaly head emerged from wagon onto the crowded platform, prompting a few startled cries from orcs and goblins who had to jump aside. The head on top of a sinuous neck swung left and right like a pendulum as the dragon gawked at his surroundings, jostling some of the passers-by.

A goblin, pushed over by the impact, started to complain before she squeaked in fright and rolled aside. A clawed foot stepped down close to where she had been, and the entire wagon started tilting sideways as the dragon shifted his weight. About halfway emerged onto the platform, he suddenly froze as his eyes were drawn to the brightly lit balcony set high in the reception area’s back wall.

Ami was watching her disembarking underlings from a throne framed by attention-grabbing blue banners that cascaded down the wall. She heard the indistinct muttering from below become louder and more irritated when the dragon stopped. Her troops didn’t appreciate being cooped up in a train for hour and hours, and they didn’t hesitate to loudly voice their frustration when somebody blocked the way.

“Mercury! Jered!” Cathy’s voice distracted her. The blonde swordswoman emerged from a door in the back that led to the staircase. Winded from the long climb, she was breathing heavily, but that didn’t slow her down at all when she threw herself into the arms of the brown-haired man standing close to Mercury’s throne.

“Glad to see you too,” he replied as he returned the hug.

Cathy let go after a moment and turned towards Ami, her smile giving way to a raised eyebrow. “I’m surprised you are here already. I thought you would be arriving once your dungeon heart was settled in.”

“Oh, I had it stop for a moment when it was close enough to the city to maintain my territory in order to transport myself,” Ami explained. “That’s why the trains slowed down for a short time.”

“Ah, I must have slept through that,” Cathy replied.

“Lucky you,” Jered sighed. The wavy bangs hanging into his face couldn’t hide the dark circles under his eyes. “I can’t believe I’m now wishing that I had travelled trapped in a small box filled with horrible monsters instead of one full of children.” He raised his arm, swung it slowly in Ami’s direction, and pointed a finger at her. “It’s your fault my life stopped making sense!” he whined teasingly.

Ami shrunk back a little and blinked at him. “I, um, I suppose children can get a little excitable when they are bored?”

“Or when the walls suddenly start rushing past at insane speeds,” he commented.
He was referring to the second half of the trip, when the slow tunnelling machines had met up and moved out of the way. At that point, her trains had finally been able to move at full speed down the finished tunnel, becoming too fast for the dwarfs to threaten them.

“Once the kids stopped being terrified, they became curious. So did their parents,” Jered continued, shaking his head with a pained expression. “So many, many, many questions.”

Behind him, Cathy put a hand over her mouth as she tried not to laugh. “Speaking of questions, Mercury, is there a particular reason why you are personally supervising your troops’ arrival?” she asked, her tone becoming more business-like.

“Yes. I want to make sure that they are really paying attention when I lay down some ground rules,” Ami replied. She was particularly worried about the goblins and their short attention spans.

There was a loud clanging noise as a reaperbot walked into the railing of one of the bridges leading across the tracks. Case in point.

Cathy nodded approvingly. “It’s certainly going to make more of an impression coming from you than from me.” She paused. “Do you want the vampire bats out of their crate for this?”

Ami hesitated. “I actually have no idea how they will interact with the aquifer above. Best to keep them as bats until we figure it out,” she decided.

“I see. I’ll have to adjust the guard shifts and rotations accordingly.” Cathy reached into her backpack and pulled out a few sheets of papers with rows and columns covered in her handwriting. She held them out to Ami. “Here, let me know if there’s anything else you want changed.”

Ami read through the detailed schedules and occasionally made suggestions, usually where the allocation of warlocks to scrying and research tasks was concerned. It took long enough that the trains had emptied and its occupants assembled below the balcony when she was done.

She handed the papers back to Cathy, took a deep breath, and stood. Hoping she could convince her troops to behave, she approached the railing with an expression she had copied from one of her stricter teachers.

On the ground floor, the crowd had split into several groups that were idly chatting among themselves, separated mostly by species. The orcs with their pink skins and bright white manes stood out almost as much as the four towering dragons. Green was the predominant colour, as goblins, followed by trolls, were her most numerous minions. The tentacle monsters were looking a little ill too, adding even more green tones than usual to the sea of bodies. Colourful warlock robes contrasted sharply with everything else, making them the most distinguishable of the human and near-human employees. Recognizing at a distance whether a slender figure dressed in leather was a dark mistress or a dark elf proved much harder.

The chattering died down when Ami approached the railing, and she tried not to let her unease show as hundreds of eyes focused on her. “Everyone, welcome to Salthalls,” she greeted, her voice boosted by a simple spell. “Food, drink, and comfortable beds are waiting for you, so I’ll keep this short.”

The crowd produced a few cheers and a mutter of general approval.

“First, there will be no looting and pillaging,” she declared.

The hundreds of faces staring up at her lost their cheerful expressions, and the excited atmosphere gave way to a disappointed silence.

“That’s bullshit!” someone protested in a gravelly voice.

Ami had been expecting some opposition and turned her head to stare directly at the orc who had spoken up. “Is that so?” she asked. He wasn’t hard to pick out of the masses. Those with more developed survival instincts had immediately stepped away from him upon hearing his shout.

His eyes widened in surprise as he suddenly found himself isolated, surrounded by a ring of unsympathetic faces and expectant grins. His head darted left and right like that of a trapped animal looking for an escape route before he dropped to his knees. “I didn’t mean to-”

“Strange,” Ami interrupted him, her voice drowning out his own. “I don’t remember seeing you here while I conquered this city.”

The orc whimpered as she kept staring at him for several seconds.

Finally, she moved her gaze away from him and swept it over the crowd, trying to make eye contact with as many of her underlings as possible. “I’ll keep this very simple. I,” she pointed her thumb at her chest with a wide gesture, “conquered the city. I claimed it. It is mine.”

This time, there were no protests from the crowd. Some were nodding nervously.

“You don’t get to steal my things,” she continued. “You don’t get to destroy my things.” She made sure to keep frowning while she swept her gaze over her listeners once more, waiting for her words to sink in. “Thus, no plundering and no pillaging. You will, however, be paid a victory bonus!”

A few goblins jumped and thrusted their fists in the air while shouts of approval echoed through the room. The warlocks reacted to her announcement with polite clapping, as well as a stray jet of fireworks from a staff.

Ami pretended she didn’t notice the orc she had singled out slink away during the commotion. She raised her hands and made a shushing gesture. “Next point,” she shouted, and the noises died down. “There are still temples of the Light active in the city.”

A few bloodthirsty shouts came from below. One troll bounced his hammer against the ground rhythmically, producing a metallic drumming noise, and a few goblins chanted, “Burn! Burn! Burn!”

“You will leave them alone,” Ami ordered loudly. “Ignore them. They are useful to me.”

Confused looks and gaping mouths revealed misshapen teeth Ami would have preferred not seeing. A moment later, the monsters started exchanging looks to see what the others thought of that revelation.

Before the grumbling could start, she stretched her lips into a wide grin, trusting more in the lighting to hide its fake nature than in her acting skills. “For now.” She added in a flat tone, as if it was the punchline to a joke.

A ripple of understanding went through the crowd, and the tension dissipated as creatures chuckled.

“Finally, the other inhabitants of the city,” she said, relieved about clearing another hurdle. “If you spot strange creatures you don’t recognise, then avoid them. Most are insane, and many have strange powers you can’t handle. They are bound to my dungeon heart, so just leave them be. They are not your problem.”

Her underlings shrugged or nodded, but aside from a few intrigued looking warlocks, they seemed to accept her words.

“Told you that phrasing would work,” Jered whispered. “Imply that youma-wrangling is dangerous extra work, and your minions will lose all interest.”

Ami internally agreed with his assessment, but didn’t visibly react because she was still addressing her audience. “Likewise, if you see dwarfs, don’t attack them. They, too, are mine. In fact, don’t attack anything that doesn’t attack you first. That will keep you out of trouble.”

A few of her employees looked a little apprehensive but didn’t voice their objections.

“If that makes you uneasy, just remember that anyone who isn’t supposed to be here has to first get past thousands of mutated dwarfs to reach you,” she dismissed their concerns. “That’s all I wanted to tell you. Now go to your new quarters, celebrate and rest!” She swung her arm to the side, and the large portcullis blocking the exit swung open. “Just follow the very obvious signposts!”

“Oh, you learned from a certain general who was unwilling to ask for directions?” Jered commented with a grin.

“Wait, Jadeite got lost guiding the civilians to their quarters?” Cathy asked.

The dark general had arrived with the rescued villagers at Salthalls a few hours ago. Their trains could move faster than the slow, armoured dungeon heart transporter, and sending them ahead of the troops had simplified the disembarking process.

“You were with him, Jered,” Ami sighed as she walked back to her throne and let herself drop onto it. She closed her eyes and massaged her forehead. To be fair, she found it hard to navigate the maze-like tunnels and alleys too, and she had a complete map of the place in her head. “I’d have sent an imp to guide you earlier if you had just contacted me.”

“Well, excuse me for being busy keeping people from wandering off and for expecting him to actually know what he was doing. Besides, the civilians seemed to enjoy the sightseeing tour,” he replied with a shrug. “Dwarven architecture is quite something.”

Ami nodded with a weak smile. “It certainly is. I’m hoping to have a closer look myself once I have a little free time.”

“Say, when was the last time you had a rest?” Cathy asked with a concerned expression. “You look as if you are having trouble keeping your eyes open.”

Ami straightened. “I’m awake. Just dealing with placing the dungeon heart as we talk,” she explained.

“That doesn’t really answer my question,” the swordswoman noted as she put her arms akimbo.

“Well, it was…” Ami trailed off. When had she last slept? Not today, not yesterday. The day before, perhaps? That seemed wrong, too. “I’m fairly sure it hasn’t been longer than a week yet,” she admitted after a moment.

“Right. Go to bed,” Cathy told her. “If there was an urgent crisis right now, you wouldn’t have given the troops some time off.”

“The dwarfs-”

“Won’t be catching up with us for at least a day or two,” the blonde interrupted. “More than a week at least until they can bring a force large enough to pose a credible threat.”

“Besides, I don’t think they will bother us down here,” Jered commented, shaking his head. “Strategically, it’s not worth the risk. The city is already lost, its main export is rock salt, and there’s no Underworld portal around. Mercury won’t be getting any stronger if they let her keep it. On the other hand, an assault would have at best even odds to retake a dead city in exchange for losing most of their military.”

“I think so too,” Ami agreed easily. Assuming – as her opponents would - that she used the youmafied citizens as defenders, she would have close to forty thousand soldiers. Nimbadnur could field less than three times that, which would make assaulting a fortified dungeon a costly and desperate proposition. They’d also have to worry about her just turning the invaders into more mutants.

Jered scratched his head. “Then what’s there to be concerned about? Assassins sneaking in?”

“Famine,” Ami replied. “This city is a major population centre, but the vast majority of the dwarfs live in the countryside. The closest villages have already been abandoned, and more people will flee when the news that Salthalls has fallen spreads. I doubt the surrounding Duchies have enough food reserves to handle a massive wave of refugees.”

Cathy and Jered fell quiet for a moment, shifting uneasily.

“That’s- that’s an unpleasant thought,” the swordswoman said after a moment, crossing her arms. “But can you really do something about it?”

“At the risk of sounding callous, it’s not your job to deal with it,” Jered pointed out. “In fact, any dwarfs you take an interest in will just run away harder. This is a problem for the dwarven rulers to handle.”

“I know that!” Ami snapped. “But I can try to arrange a cease-fire agreement so they can do something useful instead of preparing to fight me!”

Cathy shook her head, looking a little irritated. “Yeah, because they are clearly going to jump to the negotiation table immediately when they were unwilling to do so before.”

“Give them some time to get used to the idea that they can’t get rid of you,” Jered added. “The best thing you can do right now is to get rest so you’ll be thinking clearly later.”

“But I can already draft plans and…” Ami started to disagree, but trailed off under the combined disapproving stares of her advisers. They might have a point.

Right now, Tiger, with the aid of imps, was doing a good job managing the youma-dwarfs. Jadeite’s presence scared the more dangerous and animalistic ones away from the civilian complex, and safety tests for the de-youmafication treatment were in progress. Trying to rush those would defeat their purpose. This was one of the increasingly rare occasions where nothing urgently required Ami’s attention in the immediate future.

She let her muscles relax and slumped against the backrest of her throne. “Fine, maybe you are right. I’ll take a break after I finish setting up the dungeon heart and get Duke Libasheshtan’s report on the state of the Light temples.”

---

Two trolls and an orc pressed their foreheads against the red-veined floor, shivering as they knelt at the bottom of the stairs leading up to Mukrezar’s throne. Droplets of sweat glistened on their bare backs, reflecting the light of the flames shooting from the deep fissures surrounding the main path.

Above them, the towering backrest worked into a horned reaper’s stylized grimace scowled down at them. Its fanged expression was almost as fearsome as that of the Keeper seated underneath it.

Aside from the chattering of the minions’ teeth and the crackling of the flames, all was quiet until Mukrezar’s fist thudded against his armrest. The pink-haired elf leaned forward, eyes narrowed into crimson-blazing slits. “I appear to be short one tied up and crippled fake Avatar. Explain yourselves!”

The creatures before him almost broke their knobbly noses as they grovelled harder against the unyielding ground, unwilling to speak up and draw his undivided attention.

“Answer me! You, the mottled one!” A single finger stabbed forward, singling out the troll whose green skin showed patches of lighter colour.

Reluctantly, the underling raised his head out of the tiny puddle of sweat that had formed around his forehead. “Wasn’t m-m-m-me, Master! Just t-t-turning winch!” he squeaked.

Mukrezar swatted lazily at the air before him, and an invisible force struck the mottled troll with a whip-like crack, forcing his head down and bouncing his chin off the floor.

“I don’t want to hear excuses. I want to know why tonight’s entertainment isn’t ready to be slowly lowered head-first into a vat of heated fat,” Mukrezar said. “Alive, that is. There’s really no point doing it to a corpse. Orc, you tell me!”

The white-maned warrior glanced briefly at his whimpering companion, who was spitting out teeth, and jumped to his feet.

“Y-yes, Master!” he said, saluting. “Reporting that the prisoner s-s-slipped.”

“He slipped,” Mukrezar repeated, raising his hand and wriggling his fingers. “Go on, elaborate. How exactly did a man unable to move under his own power slip?”

The orc gulped. “W-well, we wrapped the chains around his shins as usual and suspended him above the pot, but then Zogig thought that for this special occasion, we should get the fresh human fat from the kitchen.” He paused, pointing at the troll picking up his teeth.

The Keeper waved dismissively. “Sensible. Go on.”

Shuffling his feet, the pink-skinned soldier gulped once more. “Err, yes, so we left to fetch it, but he, well, kinda slipped out of his chains and broke his neck in the empty pot.”

Mukrezar growled. “I see. You bungled attaching him.”

The troll who hadn’t spoken yet looked up as if stung and waved his hands defensively as he protested, “No no no no! We d-done it all right and proper! Is your fault for cutting off his feet!”

The other minions cringed and turned to stare at him with wide eyes.

Three slap-like noises echoed through the room, quickly followed by cries of pain.

“Quiet, you miserable wretches! Do you have any idea what you have done? He may have been a fake Avatar, but the real one still shares his senses! I was going to gloat at him! I had this entire taunting yet soul-crushing speech prepared! The masses would have loved it!” Mukrezar complained, sighing theatrically.

“Indeed, your Wickedness,” the butler imp agreed as he stepped out from behind a demonic statue. “Especially the part where he consigns a loyal, trusting follower to brutal torture and death each time he hands out one of those plagiarised rings.”

The pink-haired Keeper raised an eyebrow. “You think so? Not my favourite passage, but admittedly one of the better ones.”

“Actually, I was referring to the moment where his corpse would transform back into a sheep,” the Butler explained as he stroked his moustache.

“What?” Mukrezar’s eyes opened so wide they resembled blank crimson discs for a moment. “I was about to monologue at a common barnyard animal?” He trembled with rage, the scar across his nose standing out more as his face reddened. “How? My rings can’t do that!”

“I would never insinuate that you stopped when your designs were barely functional, your Brashness. Again,” the butler replied. “Also, your minions are sneaking away.”

The trio froze in mid-motion when Mukrezar’s stare snapped back to them. The orc stood precariously balanced on tiptoes while the two trolls were still in their kneeling position, but further back from the throne than they had started.

“Ah, yes. Off to the torture chamber with you,” the elven Keeper said. With a shooing gesture, he made the three disappear, and then let himself slump in his seat. “The stupidity of it all…”

“You did achieve your primary objectives, your Sulkiness,” the butler pointed out as he approached the throne, carrying a bottle of wine and an empty glass on a tablet.

“Indeed, I should focus on the bright side. Another potential mantle creation site destroyed, its defenders massacred, and a volcano rigged to explode! What more could I – nah, this isn’t working!” Mukrezar threw up his hands in disgust and slumped even deeper, almost sliding off his throne. “Butler! Tell me something that will cheer me up!”

“As you wish.” The smartly dressed imp poured a glass of wine and proffered it to his master. “I expect you will be delighted to hear that the dwarfs finally suffered a major defeat and lost one of their larger cities to a Keeper.”

Mukrezar sat up straighter. “Hah! Someone finally got one over those hairy, drunk zealots? I’ll drink to that.” He emptied his glass in one go, contemplating. “Keeper Mercury’s work, I assume?”

“Indeed. The Dark Empress conquered the city of Salthalls, co-opting its magical infrastructure to transform everyone within the city into strange monstrosities,” the imp said, a wide grin baring his teeth.

“That’s hilarious!” Mukrezar laughed. “Now I’ll have to come up with something even better, or I might start to feel a little inadequate here.”

The imp smiled up at him innocently. “Indeed, your Enviousness. However, may I point out that you might have a little trouble performing a ritual whose power requirements rival those for creating a new Avatar’s mantle?”

The glass in Mukrezar’s hand shattered as he suddenly clenched his fist. “And just like that, it stopped being funny.” He shook his hand, getting rid of the bloody shards stuck inside. “But seriously,” he groaned, “Is there any chance that it wasn’t the city covering most of the ritual’s cost? She is a freak of nature with a ridiculously unfair amount of magical power, after all.”

The butler shrugged. “How should I know?” He raised his tablet just in time to block the thrown wine bottle aimed at his head. “More importantly, can you risk assuming that it was her, rather than the city?”

Mukrezar plucked the last splinters from his hand and healed his cuts, all the while keeping his eyes closed and staring straight ahead. “Going by the fact that I would be a cloud of smoke and ash if I tried channelling that much magic, I can’t,” he muttered sourly. “Arrgh! Now I have to add a whole bunch of nigh-invincible fortresses full of booze-guzzling vicious midgets to my list.”

In the centre of the path, amidst the fire-spewing fissures, a circular section of the floor shook. Rumbling, it rose to the height of a table while its surface changed to turn into a map of the dwarven lands.

He jumped off his throne and strutted down the stairs, approaching the newly raised platform. “Salthalls, Salthalls, ah, there it is.” His thumb approached one of eight glowing castle-like shapes and squished it flat. “Not so invincible as they appear. Yes. I have a good feeling about this.”

“That’s what you said last time, just before the glacier hit,” the butler commented.

“I choose to attribute that to mere bad luck. This time will be different,” Mukrezar said and snapped his fingers. A swarm of bearded beer barrels sprouted from the map around the marker he had just flattened. “The dwarven troops are busy with Mercury and not defending their cities, for one. Hmm. No doubt other Keepers will also try to take advantage of this vulnerability.”

“Some opportunists softening the enemy up first will only make things easier for you,” the butler said, drumming on his tablet with his three-fingered hand.

Mukrezar scratched his head. “Well, maybe. We are talking about the dwarfs here; they have a reputation. Too many losses early on and reinforcements might dry up.”

“You could try not losing so many minions, your Wastefulness.”

“I prefer to keep my options open,” Mukrezar said as he marked the Underworld portals nearest to the dwarven cities. “Which means I’ll have to bring in some actually competent subordinates for this, not just the fodder.”

The imp tilted his head to the side. “Where are you going to find some of those?”

“Some of the more experienced recruits seem promising. Keeper Reebald, to start with, showed some excellent creative thinking with his combination of pressurized barrels and bile demons.”

“Yes, but the Avatar got him.”

Mukrezar frowned. “That’s too bad. Oh well, Keeper Lavaine had a much larger force tripping over their own feet chasing her while she wiped out isolated villages. She’s ripe for a promotion.”

“Avatar got her.”

“Curses! Then Keeper Mir will have to-”

“Avatar got h-”

A bolt of lightning from Mukrezar’s finger interrupted the butler, making him twitch uncontrollably. His moustache puffed out from the static.

Mukrezar sighed. “You’d think equipping a bunch of idiot followers with dungeon hearts and ordering them to stir up trouble would result in at least some battle-hardened survivors!”

“Keeper Tagleos counts by that criterion, your Short-Temperedness,” the butler noted, unperturbed by his smoking suit.

Mukrezar stared at him blankly. “Tagleos, who’s Tagleos? Oh, the rat fetishist. That one’s actually still around?”

“The benefits of minions with a short life cycle who are willing to work for cheese, I assume,” the imp said with a shrug.

“It’s a start,” Mukrezar decided as he returned his attention to the map, focusing on the Mercury symbol he had planted at Salthalls. “I hope the Dark Empress appreciates all my hard work against her enemies.” He looked over his shoulder at the butler. “Think I could send her a bill for services rendered?”

 

[Pusakuronu]

Ami and Tiger were having breakfast together in a small chamber that overlooked the palace’s courtyard. However, the dishes with eggs and poultry currently went ignored because the crystal ball resting on the table between the girls proved much more captivating.

Tiger had dressed sharp for the occasion and replaced her corruption-eroded Sailor Mercury uniform with something that showed off less of her black-striped skin. The combination of red loincloth, metal bikini, and assorted bits of shoulder and leg armour that formed the modified reaper outfit looked right at home on her muscular frame.

In contrast, Ami was still wearing her somewhat wrinkled pyjamas. The faces in the crystal ball were familiar enough that she didn’t mind not looking her best.

Within the orb, Mrs. Mizuno was listening to Tiger with rapt attention, the cup of coffee in front of her forgotten. Without the red-tinted light of the rising sun falling in through the window, her face would have been pale as a sheet.

The adopted youma, in full control of the conversation despite Ami’s half-hearted efforts, was currently updating their mother on the situation at Salthalls.

Ami listened with mixed feelings. While she wasn’t exactly eager to confess to her mother that she had accidentally conquered a city, leaving the explanations to Tiger wasn’t optimal either.

“…and she even got the Duke on our side by-” she glanced out of the window, at the crowd several floors below, and lowered her voice. “By doing something I’m not supposed to talk about in public. It involved both of them alone locked in a room for a few hours, though!”

Sailor Mars, sitting to the side of Mrs. Mizuno, choked on her tea.

“Tiger!” Ami shouted, feeling her cheeks heat up. “It’s not what she makes it sound like!” she said in the direction of the crystal ball, waving her hands. “I only worked a metal that can’t be shaped by evil people, which the troops mustn’t know! That’s all!”

Completely ignoring Ami’s reproachful glare, Tiger pointed at the transformed dwarfs outside. “Anyway, that’s why all of these guys are working for us now,” she finished.

Mrs. Mizuno blinked, visibly at a loss for words, and turned towards Ami for confirmation.

Ami nodded. “Yes. It was an accident,” she mumbled. “I promise we are going to turn them back to normal as soon as possible!”

Sailor Mars angled her head to get a better look at the youma assembled in the courtyard. “And there are really thousands of them?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“Up to forty thousand, according to Duke Libasheshtan,” Ami replied. “We aren’t sure how many people managed to flee before it was too late.”

“This… this is all quite a lot to take in,” her mother said. She looked straight into Ami’s eyes and asked, “Are you really all right, Ami? You nearly died! Multiple times!”

“I’m fine, Mum,” Ami hurried to assure her, “I was possessing a golem body, so nobody managed to hurt me.”

“Still, I can’t help but worry,” Mrs. Mizuno sighed. “Even if you aren’t injured, all of this stress still isn’t good for you! For a moment, I almost didn’t recognise you!”

The young Keeper managed to suppress a wince. She was still in Sailor Mercury form even though she wasn’t wearing her uniform. Tiger had activated the crystal ball and then addressed her as Ami, shattering the identity-concealing effect of the transformation. “Ah, that- that’s probably the lighting?” she suggested, pointing at her eyes. “With the red glow, my face looks different than what you are used to.”

“I- I suppose so?” her mother replied, tilting her head to the side. “It’s actually rather alarming, by the way. That glow can’t be good for your eyes.”

“She’ll be fine, she spends most of her time in a golem body for safety anyway,” Tiger came to her sister’s aid. “Of course, she also abuses that ability to go without sleep for days.”

“Ami…” Mrs. Mizuno said, sounding disappointed.

“I only do that when it’s necessary!” Ami defended herself. “I take a break when I can afford to. In fact, I just had a good night’s sleep.”

“Did you sleep well? No nightmares?” her mother asked.

“None,” Ami answered honestly, gently shaking her head. She had expected to spend the night tossing and turning, but apparently, safety and exhaustion ensured undisturbed slumber.

“Good. That’s good, I think.” Mrs. Mizuno paused. “At least I hope it is. I’m no psychologist, but after everything that happened, I feared…” she trailed off. “Are you absolutely sure you are feeling all right Ami?” She stared into her daughter’s eyes as if trying to see into her mind.

“Actually,” Tiger interjected as she waved a hand through the space between the crystal ball and Ami’s face. “Things aren’t as grim as they look at first glance.”

Sailor Mars scowled. “Everyone in the city got turned into youma!”

“Yes, but that also means everyone became very resilient. It’s hard to deal actually life-threatening injuries to a youma,” Tiger replied.

Sailor Mars nodded. “Isn’t that the truth,” she grumbled under her breath, speaking from experience.

“You are saying that casualties were low despite all the chaos and infighting?” Mrs. Mizuno asked, sounding sceptical but cautiously optimistic. She hesitated, her eyes darting back to Ami for a moment. “Do you have some way to confirm that even without knowing exactly how many people are missing?”

Ami nodded slowly. “My imps are supposed to collect corpses they find. So far, they haven’t retrieved anything larger than a rabbit,” she said. “It’s not complete certainty, but I’m taking it as a good sign,” she continued, trying to sounding upbeat.

Sailor Mars looked indecisive for a moment, but then pressed on and asked, “What if the dead youma simply turned into dust?”

Ami shook her head. “None of our test animals did.”

“I’m relieved to hear that the… the takeover was relatively bloodless,” her mother said. “You already have so much to deal with. This is all a lot to take in.”

“W-well, things are actually looking up, Mum,” Ami said, trying to alleviate her parent’s worries. “Despite everything, I may be safer right now than I have been at any point since arriving in this world. That means I can finally focus on fixing things. If everything goes according to plan, the dwarfs should be back to normal within one to three weeks,” she said with a smile.

Sailor Mars leaned in closer, looking interested. “You already have a cure?”

“One derived from animated chicken soup!” Tiger said, grinning widely when the comment earned her confused looks from within the crystal ball and an annoyed groan from Ami.

“One step of the procedure involves transforming the patient into living liquid,” the latter explained.

“What?” Sailor Mars shouted, staring at her incredulously.

Mrs. Mizuno simply stared with a puzzled look. “I’m not sure I heard correctly,” she said.

Ami spent the next few minutes explaining why the liquefying, filtering, mind-restoring and exorcism steps were necessary and how they led to a cured dwarf.

When she finished, Mrs. Mizuno was massaging her temples. “I’ll be the first to admit that magical healing is completely outside of my area of expertise, but I have severe misgivings about just plucking pieces out of a body, even if they grow back.”

“You can think of it as magical surgery, if it helps,” Ami defended her method.

“I can see the similarities, Ami, and therefore I’m concerned about accidental brain surgery,” her mother replied. “What happens when the malignant pieces you remove are part of the brain? There could be permanent damage to the patients’ mental faculties.”

Ami shuffled her feet. In a small voice, she answered, “We can’t be certain, but we don’t think that will happen. At least, we have strong evidence that, between youma magic and divine healing, it won’t be an issue.”

“That evidence is?” Mrs. Mizuno asked in a tone of voice she usually reserved for questioning ill-prepared trainees.

“Mengolin,” Tiger answered before Ami could. “He’s a mutated wizard who’s more algae than dwarf. When he turns his head, the inside of his skull sloshes and rustles. No brain, still sane. Well, mostly sane.”

“Actually, I sent him into a temple to get that fixed,” Ami informed her sister. “She put both hands together as she continued, a little embarrassed. “Um, I assume it worked, because he’s refusing to come back out and yelling about how I’m not going to deceive him again.”

“Figures.” Tiger shrugged and turned back to the crystal ball. “The important part is that he’s thinking without a brain. His youma magic is compensating for the missing parts, somehow. Now, since corrupted parts of a transformed dwarf’s brain are effectively useless, magic must have already taken over their function. Therefore, they can be safely removed.”

Sailor Mars scratched her head, while Mrs. Mizuno was blinking rapidly with a blank look. After a few seconds, the adult woman sighed. “The more I learn about magic, the less I understand it. How does it do what it does? How does it even know what to do?”

Tiger shrugged again. “It just does. Not thinking too hard about it helps.”

Mrs. Mizuno gave her a pained look. “That attitude offends my inner scientist.”

“I know exactly how you feel, Mum,” Ami commiserated.

“Yeah, she’s absolutely terrible at working glamours on her own,” Tiger confirmed smugly, “unlike her much more talented sister.”

Ami swallowed a comment about the orange-skinned youma being very much an expert at not thinking things through. Instead, she said, “In any case, I have to trust Tiger’s judgement here. I can’t experiment on sapient beings.”

“I agree completely,” her mother said. “Perhaps you could start with curing only those people whose heads are clear of tumours? You might discover alternative options in the meantime.”

“That’s my plan,” Ami said, nodding.

“Ami, there’s one part I’m not getting,” Sailor Mars said. “How do you plan to cure thousands in just a few weeks? If I understood you correctly, Jadeite needs about an hour to safely turn someone into a slime, and you can’t manage the spell yourself.”

“Oh, that,” Ami said with a smile, relieved at being asked a question she could answer easily. A sheet of paper and a pencil appeared before her as she prepared to show off some math. “It’s very simple actually, look here…”

---

Limul woke to the sight of two female faces staring down on him. He recognised Mengkun, the nervous-looking priestess from one of the local temples, but the human woman was unfamiliar to him. Strangely, it was Mengkun who was shivering when it was the human who looked as if she should feel cold. The long strands of black hair dangling down onto her chest did more to preserve her modesty than her barely-there outfit did.

He paused. Shouldn’t he be embarrassed or outraged at the sight? The expected emotions stayed suspiciously absent, and so did the alarm that such a realization should entail.

“He’s awake,” the insufficiently covered human said, addressing someone he couldn’t see. The priestess at her side glanced in the same direction and started shivering even harder.

He blinked. Instead of going black, his vision went blurry and red-tinged for a moment. That wasn’t normal either. How had he ended up in this situation?

The human leaned forward and waved her black-gloved hand in front of his face.

Unimportant. The last thing he remembered was his Keeper-Empress casting a spell on him. He blinked again. Since when did he serve a Keeper, and why didn’t he care that he did? He’d always thought of himself as a righteous, law-abiding dwarf.

The hand approached his face, prodding his skin with an index finger.

Oh, wait, he knew the answer to the first question. He had joined her a while after her dark magic had turned everyone into monsters, shortly after fighting his former comrades for control of the nourishment zones became unnecessary, but before he’d gotten bored and returned to his guard duties out of habit. In addition, every part of that recollection should have had him screaming in horror and revulsion, but somehow it didn’t.

The digit stabbed through his cheek with a curious absence of pain. It started moving in a spiral pattern, making weird slurping noises.

At this point, he intellectually knew that he should be doing something about that. Yet, he simply didn’t feel alarmed enough to bother.

“Monteraine, stop that,” a young voice he recognised as belonging to the Empress said. “You are interfering with my scan.”

The now identified human withdrew her finger from within his face. A trail of reddish goo stuck to the digit, stretching out into a thin thread before it came loose and snapped back to his face. He was reminded of a spring snapping back into shape.

Monteraine turned to Mengkun. “He’s completely senseless. Great job messing up a simple calming spell, midget!”

The white-clad priestess took a step back. “I-I did not! I made it as strong as I could!”

Oh, so he wasn’t feeling anything because of an emotion-suppressing spell. That made sense. He could definitely understand why they thought he could use one of those.

“Perhaps that’s the problem?” Empress Mercury said from somewhere behind him.

Upon hearing her voice, the priestess flinched and let out a whimper through chattering teeth.

The Empress sighed. “Perhaps you could use that calming spell on yourself, Sister Mengkun?” she suggested. “Not at full power, mind you.”

“Do as she says,” Duke Libasheshtan’s voice came from the same direction. Why was a noble like him present and apparently cooperating with the Dark Empress? Why was the priestess still complying with his orders despite this obvious corruption? As a servant of the Light, she should be holding herself to a higher standard.

“We still need to get the patient ready to talk to us,” Mercury said.

Monteraine stopped waving her fingers in front of Mengkun’s face, earning herself a frown from the no longer shaking priestess. “Very well, time to put him back to sleep before I cancel the current enchantment,” the sorceress said. Thimbles of purplish light formed around her fingers as she pointed her hand in his direction.

Dread wasn’t an emotion Limul could feel right now. If he could, he would have felt motivated to dodge the thin purple ray that cancelled the spell preventing him from becoming upset.

---

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” The patient sat up from the bed so fast that his liquid upper body whipped forward, elongating and thinning as the momentum stretched it.

Ami started in surprise, having expected a more muted reaction. It seemed as if Sister Mengkun had gone too easy on the calming spell this time. She lowered her head in sympathy. Still, she would count herself lucky if that remained the greatest problem with the curing procedure. With practice, the priestess would eventually get it right.

She also figured that the spell was at least partially working. The patient, called Limul according to the priestess, was hugging his knees and curling up into a quivering ball. It was far from optimal, but still much better than panicked flailing about with stretchy, whip-like limbs.

“NO! NO! NOOOO! LIGHT, WHY?” the liquid youma yelled between pitiful sobs. “I’M A MONSTER!”

“Soldier, pull yourself together!” Duke Libasheshtan barked in a voice used to command. “Your behaviour is unbecoming of a member of the Guard!”

On reflex, Limul jumped to attention with a picture-perfect salute. It was fortunate that the bed sheet covering his body adhered to his liquid skin, as putting clothes on a slime had proved impossible. He stood still for a moment, but then his right eye started twitching when he noticed that the fingers of his balled fist were merging into a single whole.

“My existence is unbecoming of a member of Guard!” he howled as he sat down on the bed with a defeated moan, head and shoulders hanging. “I’m no longer a dwarf! I’m an abomination! Worse, I’m a Keeper minion!”

“Um, at least turning you back into a dwarf can be done in an instant,” Ami spoke up, wringing her hands guiltily.

Slowly, the liquid youma turned his head in her direction, as if scared of what he would find. His entire body went rigid when he confirmed that yes, the Dark Empress was in the room and yes, she was looking straight at him. His eyes went wide, far wider than they could have if his body was solid, until they looked as if they would fall from his skull.

“E-E-Empress,” he finally managed to choke out, falling over as he tried to simultaneously bow and drop to his knees.”

“Please, get up,” she said in a friendly voice when it looked as if he would remain sprawled out on the floor, resembling a half melted wax figure. “I do apologise for the inconveniences,” she added. “You are the first dwarf we are trying to turn back to normal, and the procedure still has some flaws.”

In the back of the room, Sister Mengkun tried to shuffle farther out of Ami’s line of sight unnoticed.

“Y-your Imperial M-Majesty?” Limul asked as he looked up at her in surprise before hurriedly lowering his gaze.

“You were supposed to wake up calm enough to read all the explanations we prepared in advance,” she gestured at a small pamphlet lying untouched on the nightstand. “Ideally, you would have known that you are going to be turned back to normal before you could worry about your current fluid state. It’s just a necessary step before you can be transformed back into a regular dwarf. I intend to cure everyone in Salthalls eventually.”

The transformed dwarf, still kneeling, swallowed as he looked at his hands. His arms were drooping like wet noodles, arching at the elbows. “T-Truly? This is reversible?” he whispered, his face vacillating between disbelief and hope.

Ami smiled. “At this point, all it takes is a simple exorcism.”

His eyes darted over to the priestess for an instant before his gaze locked onto Ami’s boots again. “C-could you…?”

“Just one moment, please. I’ll need your help curing the other dwarfs too,” she said.

“Mine?” Limul answered, his shoulders straightening. “But I’m a simple soldier, not a mage. How could I possibly help?”

“Right now, you are a type of creature called a ‘youma’,” Ami told him. “That means you have a natural affinity for the kind of magic required.” She telekinetically moved the pamphlet over to him. “Please read page two, which explains the necessity of the liquid phase.”

Limul flinched as the levitating paper touched his hand but started reading as instructed. After a while, he lowered the pamphlet and said “Your Imperial Majesty? If I understand this correctly, the liquid transformation is required to remove corrupted flesh that would kill the victim during the exorcism?”

Ami nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly! However, I currently have exactly one person who can turn patients into liquid youma, and he can only manage around ten of them a day. As a youma, you have the potential to learn the technique, too.”

Limul’s shoulders slumped in resignation. “A-as a youma. You want me to stay like this. V-very well, if that is the price for being cured eventually...”

“It’s not a price,” she replied, waving her hands defensively. “If you refuse or turn out to not have the required talent, you will be restored back to normal immediately. It’s delicate magic, someone coerced into assisting couldn’t be trusted to help anyways.”

Duke Libasheshtan took a step forward. “It is, however, only a minor inconvenience. Consider this: if only two out of every ten people cured can help cure more people, then we can already cure thirty people tomorrow. If, again, six out of those thirty people have the talent, then we can cure ninety people the day after. Two-hundred and seventy the day after. Over eight-hundred the next. After a little more than a week, every citizen of Salthalls could be back to normal. Will you delay your own cure for less than a fortnight to help your people, soldier?”

Limul’s stance shifted the moment he made his decision. His spine straightened, making his slouch disappear, and he raised his head as he saluted. “I will serve, your Grace! It is a small sacrifice on the way to restoring what’s left of my honour!”

“Great!” Ami clapped her hands together happily. “Prepare yourself; I will transport you straight to your new teacher, General Jadeite. And keep the pamphlet, it will answer most of your questions about living arrangements.”

The moment Limul looked from Duke Libasheshtan back at Ami, his newly gained confidence fled him. “Y-yes, your Imperial Majesty,” he replied with a shudder that made most of his jelly-like body wobble.

She transported him to his new destination and addressed her other assistants. “Monteraine, Sister Mengkun, go prepare the next patient, please.”

The priestess bowed repeatedly in Ami’s direction as she fled backwards towards the exit, almost bumping into the smirking Monteraine in the process.

“That could have gone better,” Ami commented, looking at the empty bed. “Still, it wasn’t too bad for a first attempt. Thanks for convincing him to cooperate.”

The Duke frowned. “You do remember that we do not have enough priests to perform exorcisms on hundreds or thousands of victims a day, right? It feels distasteful to deceive him about the expected length of his service.”

“Being unable to immediately complete the final step won’t stop us from slimifying everyone,” she contradicted. “In fact, building up a backlog of exorcism-ready liquid youma could be beneficial.”

The dwarven noble crossed his arms. “Is this going to be part of one of those convoluted plans you are famous for?” he asked.

“No, I’m simply hoping that it will be politically unfeasible for your countrymen to reject a plea to let victims be restored at their temples. Which would require them to open communications to discuss the details with me,” she explained with a satisfied smile.

“Does that mean I can skip the regularly scheduled fruitless attempts until then?” the Duke asked, his expression brightening.

“No, but you can already tempt them into talking with the prospect of saving the citizens of Salthalls in the near future,” she replied, looking apologetic.

“I’m sure the part about turning everyone into slimes will make them take me more seriously,” he grumbled.

---

Duke Libasheshtan withdrew the arm he had wrapped around Umbra’s waist, splitting up the inky shape formed by their combined silhouettes. Still disoriented by the teleport, the dwarf took a stumbling step away from the taller youma.

Ami looked up from her computer’s display and down the table lined with empty chairs. As she watched, shadows peeled themselves off her two visitors and dissolved on the floor tiles.

“Empress,” Umbra said, inclining her masked and hooded head in greeting.

The Duke squinted, blinking rapidly to adapt his vision to the sudden brightness. Luminous crystal squares shone at him from all of the chalk-white walls, seamlessly integrated into the room’s geometrical engravings. After a moment, he managed to spot Ami at the other end of the room, and he turned to face her. “Your Imperial Majesty,” he greeted as he bowed.

“Duke Libasheshtan,” she acknowledged as she rose from of her chair to return his bow.

He froze for a split-second, his gaze lowering and the corners of his mouth twitching downwards briefly before returning to a neutral expression.

Following his gaze, she quickly identified the issue. While standing, a small section of bare skin had become visible between the gold-rimmed hem of her dress and the surface of the table. While the black garment felt as if it had shrunk a size, it was still at least as long as her senshi uniform’s skirt.

Nevertheless, she sat back down quickly, sinking into her seat’s thick padding. The dress wasn’t particularly scandalous by her own standards, but she still felt her cheeks heat up due to the dwarf’s disapproval. So much for making a professional, dignified impression despite the corruption effects eroding her wardrobe.

Avoiding the Duke’s gaze, she focused on Umbra’s masked and hooded face instead. “Umbra, you may leave until the Duke has need of transport again.”

The youma nodded and disappeared in an expanding wave of shadows that briefly made the lights flicker.

Walking across the impeccably clean floor tiles, Duke Libasheshtan approached the table.

“How did it go?” Ami asked him expectantly, shifting on her chair. Proportioned for a dwarf, it was too wide for her. Even with the fabric of her cloak bunching up over its armrests, she didn’t manage to fill up enough space and resembled a small child sitting on an adult’s seat.

The Duke’s lips tightened in annoyance. “Poorly. I’m afraid you won’t be talking to any dwarven diplomats today,” he replied, briefly glancing at the inactive crystal ball to the right of her computer. Less utilitarian than regular models, it rested on a silver pedestal with decorative carvings and tiny embedded gems.

Ami’s eager anticipation turned to disappointment, which she was unable to out of her voice. “Really? I admit I was expecting better news after you remained in the temple for so long.”

The Duke pulled out the chair closest to her left. “Don’t remind me,” he grumbled. “So much time wasted talking to clerks who go on and on without saying anything of consequence.” Shaking his head, he let himself drop into his seat. “Do you mind?” he asked, gesturing towards the tablet with silver goblets and a bottle, which, according to him, were a traditional staple of dwarven negotiations.

Ami pushed it closer to him, not seeing a reason to worsen his mood.

“As I said, I wasn’t able to contact anybody important,” the black-bearded dwarf continued as he poured himself a drink. He looked at Ami the whole time his hands moved, but somehow didn’t spill a single drop. “I assume there are orders to keep me from interacting with anyone in a position of power. And also to encourage me subtly,” he rolled his eyes, “to find the nearest hero gate and escape.”

“That’s unfortunate.” Ami lowered her head, frowning at her reflection in the table’s glass-sheathed wooden surface. Sighing, she reached up to her forehead to remove the weighty crown-like tiara she had put on in preparation for a diplomatic meeting.

A surprised choking noise came from the Duke’s direction. Cross-eyed, he stared into his goblet for a moment before tilting his head to the side and meeting her gaze. “Grape juice?” he asked in an incredulous voice. His perplexed expression urged her to explain herself.

She sank a little deeper into her seat. “I’m too young to drink. Even if I wasn’t, I would try to keep my head clear until I was off-duty,” she said quickly. “Anyway, I was really expecting that there would be progress with everything we are doing and with a Duke arguing in my favour.”

The noble in question shrugged. “Your mistake is assuming that my title would exempt me from the laws about not negotiating with Keepers or their servants. In fact, I have to choose my words very carefully to avoid giving the impression that I am working for you.”

Ami steadied her elbows on the table and rested her head on her hands. “Your laws are irritating. I can’t negotiate with the King personally. I can’t order anyone to negotiate on my behalf either,” she summarised her dilemma.

“They are meant to prevent non-violent interaction with Keepers,” the Duke pointed out.

Ami narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s- that’s just…” She groaned in frustration. “Do I really have to conquer the entire kingdom just to make peace?”

Paling, the Duke sat up straighter. “Please don’t,” he said in a flat voice.

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t serious,” she assured the alarmed dwarf, making him relax fractionally. “Why would anyone think those laws were a good idea in the first place?” she asked tiredly.

Duke Libasheshtan cleared his throat. “Well, it made sense in context,” he said. “Not listening to Keeper Bartholomeus would have avoided a civil war and a third of our nobles going into exile in disgrace.” His teeth clenched and he looked down, his gaze unfocused.

She paused while he relived unpleasant memories, pondering. Quickly, she made the connection between the poorly regarded dwarfs in Sirith Anlur who couldn’t work adamantine and the disgraced exiles. It figured that the only dwarfs she could potentially convince to exert political pressure on her behalf didn’t have any influence worth mentioning. “Is there really nothing that could convince King Ral that I have peaceful intentions?” she asked after a moment.

The Duke stopped brooding and hesitated for only a moment. “Short of digging up the adamantine prison, putting it on a train, and sending it to him? No. I doubt there’s anything aside from inspecting the damage himself that could make him reconsider his stance.”

“Tempting, but it would get me killed,” she replied. “Too many people would handle it to preserve the secret about my true allegiance.”

“Your minions,” the Duke said, “how much do they know about adamantine? Could you not pretend that you broke through under your own power?”

Ami briefly considered the most likely outcome. “I’m sure some of the dark gods would gleefully set them straight. Though, with my luck, I wouldn’t be surprised if King Ral believed me.”

Duke Libasheshtan didn’t smile at her attempt at levity. Instead, he slowly looked her up and down, stroking his beard as he let out a drawn-out humming noise. Just as she was getting uncomfortable under his measuring gaze, he started muttering, “Perhaps… yes, with your Empress title…”

“You have a new idea?” she asked, perking up.

“Yes. I believe it’s workable, but I will have to refresh my memory on family and succession laws relating to foreign nobility before I can be certain.”

“Why would you-” She gasped as she made the connection, and her skin tingled.

To get around her diplomatic obstacles, she needed someone who didn’t work for her and wasn’t her subject, but who could still negotiate in her name…

Cheeks burning, she jumped to her feet. “I- I’m not marrying anyone!”