4.35 Task Force

“It’s time,” Jori said, fighting down the excitement rising in her chest. Finally, they were going to do it! Nuros’ servants were going to die—some of them, at least. They would have to hit them hard and fast and disappear before Nuros could respond. If a greater demon ever found their burrow, they were dead.

But that wasn’t going to happen. They were in the middle of nowhere, buried under a cliff and soon, this entire place would be warded up to the horns to prevent detection. For all she knew, it might be the first place anywhere in the hells to enjoy these kinds of protections. K’Thanizar herself wouldn’t know where they were, never mind Nuros.

Maladzhoth and Xoryath, like her, were watching the timepiece she’d mounted in the main hall of the burrow—the part that had been the original cave where she and Ed had stayed before they’d killed the blood fiend, Tallash.

“Are you sure?” Maladzhoth asked. “Shouldn’t they already have summoned us? What if they—ack!” With a squawk, he disappeared. A second later, Jori felt the summoning ritual take hold, yanking her down into darkness after him. 

When her vision returned, she was standing in a familiar room and looking up into a familiar face.

“Dayle!” she cried, leaping up, flapping her wings and clapping her hands in delight. “You’re coming, too?”

He grinned, scratching at his stubbly chin and shrugged. “Heh. I always told Ed I’d follow him to the hells and back. Didn’t think he’d collect for true, but I’ve always wanted to travel. It’s good to see you well, Jori.”

“I did not ‘collect’, you volunteered!” Ed protested from off to the side with a hint of defensiveness. Dense, herbal smoke rose from his pipe—he’d done at least one of the summoning rituals himself. “Everyone here did.”

They were in the break room at the Underkeepers’ Headquarters in the Undercity. Xoryath and Maladzhoth were on either side of her, looking around curiously at the other people standing around them. Unlike her, they hadn’t left their summoning circles. There were two solicitors, a few guild mages, four underkeepers and a handful of people Jori assumed were adventurers. One wore heavy, runed plate and another had leather armor that smelled like pain and anger. That one would be a berserker, she was sure. Bernt’s belt hadn’t smelled so angry, but it had a similar sort of… presence?

The most surprising face in the small crowd, though, was that of a familiar dwarf. Syrah stood with the other adventurers, her expression grave. When she noticed the imp looking, she gave a tiny nod in greeting and mustered a thin, humorless smile. Jori waved.

At the tables behind them sat branchmaster Ambrose from the Adventurers’ Guild, great mage Iriala, Fiora and Solicitor Radast.

“We’ve got the strike team organized,” the archmage continued, turning to Jori. “But we’ll send the guild mages over first to start on the wards. Do all your people know what’s happening?”

Jori gave him a thumbs up and grinned broadly. “We’re ready!” 

What he was really asking was whether any of her demons would panic and attack the strange mortals popping up in their new home. But she’d made sure everyone knew what would happen if they weren’t respectful, so that wouldn’t be a problem.

Ed grunted approvingly and extinguished his pipe, making it disappear inside one of his sleeves.

“Alright,” he said, addressing the room. “We’ll try for three summonings to get everyone to the other side. Just like we talked about. Everybody, grab your demon!”

Dayle stepped closer to Jori and she seized his robes rather than letting him grab her arm. She imagined it wouldn’t be very comfortable to have a huge human gripping her. Her concerns were validated when a familiar-looking guild mage seized her other arm, fingers wrapping entirely around it and squeezing uncomfortably. She glared up at him, but he didn’t seem to notice. 

Grumbling to herself, she pulled them back a step so she was standing back in her summoning circle. The warlocks chanted something under their breaths and purple light flashed twice as Maladzhoth and Xoryath disappeared, bearing their charges home. Then Jori felt herself drop back into the darkness, hauling her two charges with her.

Finally, the servants of Nuros would know what it meant to threaten her.

***

Bernt sat quietly in his room and focused on his mana network. Papers lay in a haphazard stack on a small table—notes both old and new detailing everything he knew about elementals, sorcery in general, and his own development so far.

As he’d expected, the bit of termite clay could also be “awakened”, turning into a fire elemental with the right application of sorcery and a firm push of his will. It, too, had dissolved into his spirit, restoring the portion of himself that went into the spell and adding something extra. It was an unexpected breakthrough, but one that he didn’t really understand yet.

The new power he’d consumed, both from the materials he’d eaten and these “awakened” elementals, was contained in his spirit. He could feel that his mana network had more “substance”, for lack of a better word, but he couldn’t detect any difference in his spellcasting. He needed to find a way to apply it—to make his spirit grow and form new channels on its own. 

Jori had described this as an involuntary process that happened to her, but she treated the way she consumed souls much the same way. He wanted to contact her to ask about it, but he was still hesitant to do it. They were foreigners here, from a country that was, in a sense, fighting their empire. The Duergar would surely keep them under surveillance by scryer, and Bernt couldn’t be sure that their mages wouldn’t recognize what he was doing somehow if he formed his portal to nowhere.

Besides, there were only two possible options, Either he needed more power, or he needed to find another trigger, like he had for “digesting” magical materials after eating them.

So far, nothing stood out.

Ideally, of course, Bernt would have preferred to continue testing. The concept of consuming materials by bringing them to life was very promising—not least because he wouldn’t have to eat them. More than that, though, he was reasonably certain that he’d already stumbled on the answer to the elemental’s question. He just couldn’t test it enough to be sure.

If he was right, this “awakening” magic required the target object’s existing magic to be compatible with the spirit of the caster to some degree—probably the exact same degree needed to consume it effectively. The reason being that, in both instances, he wasn’t just casting a spell on the material. He was trying to connect it to his spirit and impose his will on it directly.

For all the magical expertise that the elemental had, it was new to the material plane and to non-pyromantic magic in general. Where it came from, compatibility simply wouldn’t be an issue. Besides, it was a creature of sorcery—one who practiced magic instinctively. It was possible that it hadn’t even consciously considered how magic functioned on a technical level. At least, not until it had sampled Bernt’s memories. 

So, the obvious answer most likely was the correct one. If only he had a few more materials to test his theory with. Maybe something non-elemental, like a divination or a force material. But to get something like that, he would need to leave.

He’d stayed and worked in the rooms that the Duergar had given them for over a full day, but he was starting to get restless. Being stuck here reminded him of being imprisoned at the Peaks.  He wanted to get out there, even if only to walk around a bit. Four days wasn’t a long time, objectively speaking, but it was different when you were the one who couldn’t leave. 

Still, he was determined not to screw this up. Jesra wanted him to keep his head down until he could testify—provided they let him do so at all. He could do that, but he didn’t have to do it here, necessarily. Not as long as he didn’t draw any negative attention to himself. Jesra didn’t have any formal authority over him, and the others had gone out to get the lay of the land a bit—maybe they would know where to get what he needed. For that matter…

Rising from his chair, Bernt left his things behind and went looking for Estrid.

The druid was sitting in the common area with her back turned to him, chatting with Elyn and Ina as she manipulated some kind of vine she had growing out of a pot in front of her. It grew unnaturally quickly and twisted around itself, forming irregular shapes as it went. They quickly grew distorted as the plant continued to grow, but Bernt recognized a few of them anyway. 

They were runes. It was still far from functional, but with practice…

“Bernt!” Ina greeted him with a toothy grin. She was carving slices off of some kind of tuber with a knife and eating them raw. “I hope you’re not here to play with your food again. Did you know they sent someone to check on us? Jesra had to talk Taresh out of launching an investigation to figure out who made those mushrooms. He thought someone tried to poison us.” 

Estrid’s vine unraveled, falling into a more natural shape, down over the lip of the pot and on the ground. She glanced in his direction, then picked up a cup and took a sip as though nothing had happened.

“Did you figure out your… whatever you were doing?”

Bernt grinned. “I did! Or, I have a working theory. I was actually wondering if you could help me out… You went up to those gardens again, right? Do you think you could—”

The door burst open and Minister Jesra stepped inside. She was wearing black and gold robes in a much more formal cut than she’d traveled in. Just outside stood Ambassador Taresh and Dalbrand, who wore the same military uniform as always, but it had clearly been washed and starched recently.

“Ah! Good,” she said, eyes locking on Bernt. “Queen Zorgrun has invited us to meet her, and wishes to speak to our witness to King Grundrik’s aggression. That’s you. Are you ready?”

“Now?” Bernt choked, fighting down a sudden panic at the idea. He’d just wanted to go looking for magical materials in the gardens. His robes were dirty, and while they were in better condition than they had been a few weeks ago, they were still a little frayed at the hem. He hadn’t even bathed!

“Yes, now. Come on!”

Jesra didn’t seem concerned about his appearance, which was some small comfort. Maybe he wouldn’t be held to the same standard as her. He wasn’t officially representing Besermark. Still, he looked shabby compared to the others. 

They walked quickly through the enormous building, led by Ambassador Taresh down a corridor, past several guards and into a much broader hallway lined on either side with dining establishments of various kinds. Some served full meals, while others sold snacks to hungry passersby. A few looked like tea or coffee shops, though Bernt noted as they passed that whatever beverage they preferred down here smelled a lot more earthy than their counterparts back home.

It was like a bustling market street, except that it ran through the middle of a building. And this was just one floor – presumably one of the less crowded ones. Bernt tried to imagine how many people lived here, in this building, the other towers in the cavern, and whatever portion of the city was carved deep into the solid rock beyond. It was hard to conceptualize the size of a city in three dimensions, much less its population. 

“Queen Zorgrun is the ruler of the Igneous Dominion,” Jesra said as they turned out of the hallway into another much quieter corridor, passing another group of guards. “That’s the portion of the Duergar Empire we entered before, a little ways above and east of here, directly under the Phoenix Reaches. It’s small, but wealthy, and its proximity to Kostrom gives her quite a bit of influence on the Empire’s politics. At least, that’s what Taresh here tells me.”

“And she’ll help us?” Bernt asked. “Will they fight King Grundrik?”

Jesra snorted. “Not for our sake, no. But that’s why you’re here.”

Bernt blinked at her in alarm, but she went on before he could ask what that was supposed to mean.

“You are going to tell them about Grundrik’s demons. I doubt they really need to be convinced that Grundrik is the aggressor – I imagine they know him very well. You’re here to corroborate that, yes, but it’s about more than that. You need to show them that Grundrik is a threat to them.”