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?”
There, fixed.
