Only Villains Do That

“This is far enough,” Velaven announced. “Any higher and Nazralind will be in danger.”

That suited me fine, as the truck had already been struggling on the steep uphill road. At least it was a road, but Truck-kun was designed for 21st century pavement and this mountain highway had been medieval before going without repairs for a century and a half. I brought it to a stop, set the brake, and killed the engine, then hopped out while the others went about the more involved process of doing the same. That meant Zui had to clamber off Aster’s lap and out of the cab, followed by Aster, and then finally Velaven, who had been sitting in the middle but seemed to consider it a matter of protocol not to enter or exit from the same side as the Dark Lord.

Now that the truck was no longer moving, Naz heeled her gwynnek over to us, grinning irrepressibly as usual.

“Aw, is that it? No more nice cushy ride in the magic truck with the hot air and seats like sculpted feather beds? Poor babies.”

“Childish jealousy isn’t a good look on anybody, Naz,” Zui said sweetly, “no matter how familiar you are with it.”

“Hey, I’m the one out here wearing my arse raw in a saddle, I’m entitled to make fun.”

“That would be so much more compelling if we didn’t all know you loved that bird more than your own arse,” Aster grunted, already retrieving our artifact weapons from the rear compartment. They kind of rattled around in that cavernous space, but there’d been no place to cram them in the cab with all four of us in there.

“It’s true,” Nazralind agreed, leaning forward to stroke Newneh’s head. The gwynnek chirped smugly under the attention. “She’s my best girl, the only one like her. I can always get a new arse.”

Everyone paused, turning to stare at her.

“Do…these things that come out of your mouth make sense inside your head, before they start to leak?” Zui asked.

“Hey, I’m a big picture gal. You can’t get bogged down in the details.”

“There.” Velaven had taken her bow from Aster and now clutched it protectively, staring upward. “They’ve spotted us. Probably long since. It’s a certainty they have never seen anything like Truck-kun before.”

“That’s true for us all,” Zui agreed.

Banish Delivery Truck. Sending Truck-kun back to whatever interdimensional nexus it came from, I followed Velaven’s pointing finger to see the shapes circling high above us. At that altitude, they could have been birds—like vultures, given the pattern in which they were flying. Thanks to our dark elf guide, though, I knew what they were. Considering how much bigger they had to be than any bird, they must be incredibly high up. Far above the peak of the mountain.

“You can get real good altitude this close to the edge of the island,” Biribo said, as if reading my thoughts. “The protections over the isle are less robust.”

I turned to him, blinking. “What?”

“C’mon, boss, why do you think nobody just tries to fly across the gaps and skip landbridges? Richer countries already use hot air balloons for observation and signaling. The islands themselves have stable, normal weather because of the Goddesses’ protection, same reason they’ve got fresh water. Out beyond that? It’s just atmosphere all the way down to the core. It’s basically a constant hurricane out there; the updrafts could fling your ass clear into space.”

“Hm.” Good to know, I suppose. It hadn’t even occurred to me to try to build a zeppelin or something; now I wouldn’t have to waste effort on it. “Velaven, you said they attack by dive-bombing, right? From that height they could make us giblets on impact.”

“They are also cowards, Lord Seiji,” she replied, “and very territorial, which means only the alpha would venture to strike, while the others yield to her. And she won’t, now. I was concerned they might go after Nazralind out there alone, but they are unlikely to challenge a group this size until we enter their domain. There, it’s only the alpha we’ll need to subdue; the rest will fall in line.”

“Alphas aren’t a thing,” I sighed. “Seriously, this has been amply researched on Earth. Most of the animal species with a pack structure don’t actually organize themselves that way, and people categorically do not—”

“Boss, you’re talking about research that was done on humans on another planet,” Biribo interrupted. “So far, Velaven hasn’t said anything incorrect about harpies. If I change my mind I’ll let you know, but for now I advise listening to her.”

“Hm.” I looked at Velaven, who had that blank, serene face on—not a flicker of resentment or smugness at this byplay. It was hard to get a personal read on her, with how self-contained she was, but all things considered I was just as glad she was putting so much effort into being on her best behavior. It hadn’t yet escalated into morale problems, but there was definitely a contingent around North Watch who were vocally unhappy with her presence.

I couldn’t blame them.

She didn’t seem bothered by my lack of faith, but on the other hand Velaven was a bit distracted at that moment gazing at the view. It really was something to see, this vista from Dount’s only mountain, perched up on the northeast edge of the island. The khora forest was spread out beneath us like a blanket, with North Watch a clear interruption in its multicolored grandeur. In the very far distance to the southwest, I thought I could just make out the shape of Gwyllthean on the horizon, or at least the walls and towering palace in the center. Velaven was looking south, though; the view in that direction really brought into perspective the huge scope of the lake there, which I’d known was nearby but never actually laid eyes on. This also provided my first actual glimpse of Shylverrael.

I knew the city had been created by a Goddess-bought miracle, like the capital of the Lancor Empire, and that was really the only explanation for something so magnificent to be in a shitscape like Dount. It was perched in the center of the huge lake, looking like it floated on the water rather than occupying an island, which for all I knew might be true. The city was a breathtaking spectacle of slender towers, delicate arches and buttresses, with gardens featuring actual greenery on multiple levels of its rising terraces. All of it was crafted of unidentifiable (from this distance) materials in silver, white, and some refracting substance like mother of pearl. In the morning sunlight, Shylverrael gleamed like the moon and stars brought down to earth.

Now that…that would do nicely for a proper capital for my Crusade. I just had to convince the inhabitants, that was all.

Aster let out a whistle, also gazing at the distant dark elf city, and Velaven finally turned away from it, setting out up the old road again. The rest of us fell into step alongside her, Nazralind keeping Newneh to a walk that matched our pace.

“Harpies are, to put it most generously, unpleasant creatures,” Velaven lectured as we hiked. “It comes down to the fact that they are powerfully antisocial. Put any other race of people together and they will begin to develop a common culture, then make scientific advancements, in a process that accelerates over generations until some catastrophe reduces them to a lower level. Harpies do not cooperate, period. They won’t tolerate the presence of anyone except other harpies—and that only at a distance, on mutually hostile terms, in relatively small numbers. They keep their daughters around just long enough to teach them to speak and hunt before evicting them from the nest. There are no families as such. The group up there are currently seven individuals, with one alpha who is the best fighter and therefore takes the lead when they are confronted by Shylver emissaries. Never forget that the only calculation in their minds with regard to us is whether we are too powerful to confront, or weak enough to eat. There is no middle ground.”

“How come the dark elves even send them emissaries, then?” Zui asked, huffing slightly with the exertion in her heavy coat. The autumn had taken a sudden turn for the unseasonably cold in the week since the Goblin King had perished. The Fflyr were accustomed to the climate here and simply bundled up, but it turned out goblins tended to stay underground especially during the winter, the caves being notably warmer. Incorporating them into the Dark Crusade meant there were a lot of them suddenly on the surface, and they weren’t enjoying the weather at all.

“We cultivate their presence here,” Velaven explained. “If we posted a formal guard on the site, it would draw attention to the fact that there is something here we value. Leaving the harpies in place, preserving their population, serves to protect the mountaintop from interlopers without creating interest. As far as the King’s Guild knows or cares, the peak contains nothing but empty old ruins, fully cleared out long ago, and monster women who are not worth challenging for it. It is a rite of passage for the Queens of Shylverrael to come here in person and make them submit to her.”

“Think your successor’s done that already?” I asked.

Velaven’s lip curled in a curious expression somewhere between a grin and a sneer. “She will be fully occupied for some time yet getting control of the mess she’s made of my city. Eventually, she will have to, or risk losing important support, but I do not expect her to venture out of Shylverrael at least until spring.”

I glanced up at the winged shapes circling overhead. We were still some distance short of the mountain’s peak, but they were definitely moving along with us. So far, Velaven’s predictions had been correct: they were obviously interested, but just as obviously unwilling to attack a group this size. And that was with them clearly having no idea what they were dealing with. If they understood Blessings and how many we had between us they’d probably be in hiding already.

The mountain road was steep, but not unmanageably so; as befit the sole peak on a mostly flat island, it was neither tall nor craggy by the standards of mountains, a weathered old nub rounded by eons of erosion to a status that would’ve been a glorified hill in Japan. Having taken the truck most of the way up, we reached the gates of Velaven’s ruins in only minutes more after disembarking.

What had once been a gate loomed ahead, a towering outer wall stretching to either side of it. From the road below, it looked like a natural formation, a sudden cliff marking off a plateau just below the mountain’s peak itself; the canyon yawning right in front of us was identifiable as a gate only by the decrepit masonry built into its sides. The broken protrusions of old hinges were still visible, with one enormous door that looked for all the world like it was made of stone lying flat on the ground to one side of the path, half-covered by creeping moss and thorny red vines. Of the other there remained no sign at all.

We all looked warily up at the circling harpies, who had descended lower, before stepping inside.

The plateau was a courtyard; natural as the walls looked from without, on the inside there were shaded galleries supported by columns carved into their base. Either the whole thing had been carved out of the living rock, or a little natural valley had been expanded into this shape. Regardless, it was not large, and was currently strewn with old bones and windblown rubbish, an acrid stink of rot and feces clinging to the air. Directly across from the fallen outer gate was a much taller one, set into the face of the mountain itself. These huge stone doors stood slightly ajar, but they were still intact, looking for all the world as if they could be pushed shut or all the way open—by a four-meter-tall bodybuilder, maybe. I could tell from this angle that in addition to their incredible height, these ancient doors were at least half a meter thick.

That was all the impression I had the time to take in before I got to meet my first harpy. She came plummeting right out of the sky, slamming into the ground directly in front of us with a force that made the rock itself tremble faintly. I had to respect the durability of a creature who could pull that off without breaking both her legs.

Newneh hissed and puffed up her own feathers, but fortunately Nazralind kept her under control and the harpy opted to ignore the gwynnek.

“Well, look who comes crawling back! Little Queen Velaven. Did you bring me these morsels as a gift?”

The rest of my group readied weapons, but I just tilted my head, considering. Of course, they couldn’t understand her; the harpy spoke Savin.

“I’m in charge here,” I stated. “You’ll speak to me.”

Gleaming black eyes shifted to focus on me. She was… Yeah, honestly, this creature wouldn’t be a potential Enjoin target. No great loss as they lacked any political power and the only magical attribute I could gain from harpies was their telescopic vision—nifty, but I could compensate with my trusty spyglass. She had scraggly bird legs and wings for arms, with a spray of feathers instead of hair; her plumage was a deep royal blue with brown and black markings. The human parts were terribly underfed in appearance, though, and her face was long, craggy, and surmounted by a wickedly protruberant beak of a nose that made her look like a racist caricature of a white person.

“Really, really?” The harpy made a show of looking up up and down while licking her lips. Her tongue was longer than a human’s. Around her, the other six of them settled to the ground a respectful distance away, leering at us and raising their wings in an obvious puffing-up gesture to make themselves look more intimidating. “Stringy, but you’ll do, you’ll do. Nnn. You’ll make me a healthy egg and a hearty meal, once—”

Immolate.

I didn’t feel great about coming into their home to push them around, but threats like that helped assuage my misgivings. As the harpy’s menacing soliloquy dissolved into flames and screaming, I had a moment to consider that there were more layers to this interaction than Velaven had implied; a truly savage creature who didn’t know how to do anything but attack would’ve just done that, not stopped to tell me about it first. At the very least, harpies understood verbal intimidation—which meant they’d know better than to waste time doing it to a prospective meal. This was a lot more than just an animal that could talk.

But then the other six harpies tried to take off in a panic, and I rapidly Immolated each of them. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the spell effect to die down.

Zui edged closer to Aster’s leg, looking appalled by this display, which was the correct reaction. The rest of us were a bit more inured to it; I certainly wasn’t having any fun, but I’d seen it way too many times to be shocked anymore. Velaven might have been watching sheep grazing in a pasture for all the expression on her face. Pretty typical of a born politician, though it made me wonder whether she was truly that insensitive to other people’s suffering or just felt the need to put up that front.

“Stay down,” I ordered as soon as they were reduced to smoking and shivering, the flames out and flesh intact. “You will sit here and listen until I’m done with you. Anybody who tries to fly off without my permission becomes a comet. You want to experience that again?”

“No! Not again, never,” babbled the alpha harpy, cowering before me with her wings protectively covering her face.

It could be one of the sweetest, most satisfying feelings in existence, having one’s enemies trembling in terror at one’s feet. I felt none of that now. Nasty as these harpies had been in our very brief acquaintance, I had no real beef with them. If anything, I was the asshole here.

“Good girl. Now, who’s in charge here?”

Black eyes peeked out from between pinions. “You. You are in charge.”

“Exactly. These are the rules: I will come and go from here as I please. As will these women with me, and anyone else they or I designate. You will not interfere with any of us. Play nicely and we’ll not bother you, either. You will also not speak a word of this to the dark elves, or anyone else you may encounter. As far as all others are concerned, we do not exist and were never here. Understand?”

“I understand! We understand!”

“Break the rules,” I said, coldly and deliberately, “and by the time I finally kill you, you’ll be begging me to.”

“We understand the rules! No one will tell, I swear I will not let these geese speak a word!”

“Attagirl.” I paused for effect, giving her four beats to welter in what real intimidation looked like, before finishing. “You can go.”

All seven harpies exploded off the ground, flapping away as rapidly as they could, which was impressively quick. After putting a safe amount of altitude between us, they all swooped around behind the peak of the mountain and out of sight.

“Impressively handled,” Velaven murmured. “I doubt any Queen ever cowed them as efficiently. Come, let us not tarry.”

She led the way straight toward the cracked door into the mountain, the rest of us following in silence.

The door stood open just slightly, or so it seemed from across the courtyard, but up close the true scale of the construction made itself apparent. This “crack” was wide enough for two of us to walk through side by side. Even Newneh had no trouble getting in.

We found ourselves in an enormous and pitch dark space, roughly cubic in shape and a good three stories tall. It was empty of all except some ancient rubble and trash, the stone walls engraved with angular, geometric patterns which had no purpose I could see except decoration. Aster was the first to light up her aura, followed by Zui and then me. As the light spread we beheld that the stonework was, for some reason, blue. And it was definitely the stone itself; there was no sign of any chipping paint, and all of the numerous points where bits had broken off were a deep cobalt blue all the way through.

“Aw, c’mon,” Nazralind protested, “do you have to? I was really enjoying having that goblin dark vision!”

“How else is Velaven going to see?” Zui asked pointedly. “Or Newneh?”

“…oh. Right.” She belatedly ignited her own glow. “Speaking of Newneh, gwynneks aren’t much for going underground, as a rule. This is pretty spacious up here, but are we gonna have trouble as we go deeper? I don’t care how intimidated they were, I’m not leaving my girl alone around those damn harpies.”

“So long as she is able to navigate stairs, it should not be a problem,” Velaven said. “Dungeons are made to be spacious throughout. Barring the odd secret passage or hidden treasure chamber, every space within was presumed by its designers to be a venue for battle. Lord Seiji?”

I was still standing by the door, staring at the towering crack of morning sunlight. “Mm. I don’t…like how that went.”

“Harpies—”

“Yes, I remember what you said,” I interjected before she could repeat it. “And I don’t doubt that that was the only way we could have handled it. God knows I’ve met enough people on this dumpster of a planet who’ll only talk sense after they’re shown the alternative is burning alive. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“Good,” Zui said emphatically. “Don’t you start liking shit like that.”

“It feels different, though,” I continued, more quietly. “Cutting down the powerful is one thing. Using that same power against people who’re eking out a bare survival up here in the wilderness… That just feels like playing right into the same broken, shitty system we’re trying to topple.”

“Dark elves, naga, and all four types of beastfolk present on this island are only here because Dark Lord Yomiko brought them down from Savindar,” Velaven said, her expression again inscrutable. “Less than two centuries ago. In that time, all have developed their own unique cultures. Harpies were here long before that and they are still fluttering around naked, gnawing on bones and assaulting whoever they can catch alone. There is virtue in considering the perspectives of others, Lord Seiji, but part of that is recognizing who is not worth trying to talk to.”

“How often do you check on them?” Zui asked suddenly. “And how closely? Do you only interact with the harpies when you need something, like to remind them who’s in control?”

Velaven’s forehead creased just faintly as she considered the question, clearly smelling a trap but not quite sure what kind. “Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering, how certain are you that they aren’t just showing you what you expect to see, so you don’t get curious about their business and try to crack down on them?” Zui shrugged, turning to examine the doorway opposite where we’d come in, the only other exit from this vast antechamber. “That’s what goblins would do. It’s the tried and true strategy for surviving underneath a more powerful and generally assholish culture. In fact, isn’t that exactly the trick your people are playing on the Fflyr by keeping the harpies up here in the first place?”

Aster and Nazralind raised their eyebrows in unison, turning their heads to gaze expectantly at the dark elf.

Velaven was too poised to stammer, but there was a telling moment in which she could do nothing but stare blankly down at Zui before she found a response.

“Interesting questions, all. If you wish to institute reforms, Lord Seiji, that is of course your privilege. The religion of our local naga is almost entirely Yomiko’s creation—accidentally, in her case, but such is the influence a Dark Lord can wield. I would caution you only to be wary of unintended consequences. I know nothing of the world you come from, but in the history of Ephemera’s empires, the greatest crimes have been committed in the name of civilizing various small groups of people who did not ask for anyone’s help.”

Yikes, was that familiar. It definitely wasn’t just Ephemera.

“Interesting questions, indeed,” I murmured.

“We should face no peril in here, but let us hasten nonetheless,” Velaven said, setting off toward the opposite door. “The descent is not short, and there is always more to do.”

Nazralind did have to dismount at a few points, but overall Velaven was correct about the spaciousness of the ruins. She led us in a direct course—well, as direct as possible, considering how many winding passageways we had to navigate, but Velaven at least seemed to remember the way, never hesitation or having to stop and get her bearings.

I occupied myself mostly with examining our surroundings as we passed. This place was weird—remarkably intact for abandoned ruins, but cavernously empty. And blue, let’s not forget the blue. Most places that have been occupied by people and then abandoned are either left full of junk or falling apart. Aside form some miscellaneous chips and scratches in the stonework, though, no major damage appeared to have been inflicted here. There was very little trash or other refuse left, either, merely a few dropped items here and there that nobody had bothered to carry away. The ruins hadn’t even been bothered by animals; we saw and heard evidence of crawns, rats, and spiders, but anything bigger than that would’ve been eaten by harpies if it tried to cross the courtyard, and evidently the big doors up top were the only entrance. And, of course, it was blue. Why the fuck was it blue?

“Biribo, what’s this made of?” I asked at one point as we emerged from a descending staircase into a long gallery with water running through a trench along the side. There seemed to be multiple water sources in here.

“It appears to be some kind of rock, boss.”

“Thanks. Thank you for clearing that up. What would I ever do without you?”

“Hey, whaddaya want from me? I’ve told you I can only perceive shapes, not chemical composition!”

“What the hell kind of rock is blue?”

“Several, in fact,” said Zui, “but not this shade of blue or this consistently. This isn’t natural.”

“The dungeon is dead now, but at one time nothing about the structure was anything but artificial,” Velaven said from the head of our little column.

“So I’m guessing it was indestructible or something when it was all properly magicked up,” I said, running my fingers over a chipped section of the wall. “This looks about as solid as mundane stone now, though. Wonder why the goblins never tunneled into here?”

Zui snorted. “The Shylver, that’s why. They basically never showed up except to make threats and demands, which still makes them better neighbors than the Fflyr because they’d leave us the hell alone when they didn’t want something specific and also paid for what they took. But yeah, dark elf rules included not tunneling in certain directions anywhere near their business. Nobody really ever minded; we all assumed they had some kind of underground aquifer under the mountain here. Accidentally draining that fucking lake into Kzidnak would wipe most of it out in an afternoon.”

“That was also a concern, yes,” Velaven said, mild amusement lightening her tone. “But also, the privacy of our business. You are the first outsiders to see this place, or even be made aware of it, in well more than a century.”

“I can’t believe I never knew this existed,” Aster said, her tone a nuanced blend of frustration and wonder. “I never… Not even a hint, not a rumor. This is Fflyr Dlemathlys, we have stories about everything! How did I never know there was a dungeon on Dount? Naz, did you know anything about this?”

“Oh, there are lots of old stories about lost dungeons, moving islands, hidden fortresses…” Nazralind shrugged from her perch in Newneh’s saddle, absently stroking the gwynnek’s feathers. “Just that, though, stories. I may even have heard something about a dungeon on Dount, but I mean… Who believes stuff like that? This country’s folklore is a bottomless swamp, but nobody really thinks any of it’s real. It’s all just… cultural flavor.”

“And that is how you suppress information,” Velaven said, giving me that significant look she did when trying to teach me something about statecraft. The habit was annoying, but her insights so far seemed useful so I chose not to criticize. “It is a thing not easily done, especially in a culture like Dlemathlys, wherein a library is deemed as essential to a household as a fireplace. To snuff out a story is a hopeless prospect, be it history or rumor. The method, then, is to swamp it in so many competing accounts that the truth cannot breathe. The doctrine of your Radiant Convocation is simply that of Lancor’s Radiant Temple, plus justifications for the Fflyr racial hierarchy and enough Dountol and Fflyr folklore to obscure the country’s true history. Ah, finally, we are almost here. These steps are steep; descend with care. This is where the bird is most likely to have trouble, Nazralind.”

“Nah, gwynneks are great climbers,” Naz said lightly, dismounting to better lead Newneh into the aperture toward which Velaven now directed us, which seemed to be just a narrow flight of descending stairs curving out of sight. “Very dextrous feet, and they can use their wing joint claws for extra balance!”

“If a khora falls in the forest,” Zui asked in a sententiously pensive tone, “and Nazralind isn’t there to blather about how awesome gwynneks are, does it really make a sound?”

“That’s pretty big talk from somebody who’ll never be too big to spank.”

“I’m so glad the girls are all getting along,” I said sweetly to Aster before preceding her down the stairs.

This staircase, we quickly discovered, was an actual spiral. It was also steeper than the stairs we’d previously encountered, which meant our descent was direct and fast. At this point I had no idea just how deep we were under this mountain, but I suspected it was close to ground level or even deeper, maybe even around the same altitude as Fallencourt.

I was quite surprised, then, to emerge into daylight.

The architecture of this place where the final staircase terminated was at least familiar after our sojourn in Kzidnak. We stepped out of the final stairwell into dim sunlight, the doorway opening onto a ledge in another of those inverted ravines that existed underneath Dount near the edges: the ceiling arched upward to form a craggy, stalactite-riddled cathedral roof, while there was no floor at all but the swirling mists and muted flashing of the planet’s core, infinitely far below. The far end was open onto a vista of the endless abyss, near the edge of which was located this canyon’s surprising architectural addition: a sort of inverted tower hanging from the ceiling, made mostly of that weird blue stone with accents of what looked like oxidized copper and a downward-pointing “roof” of the same material, complete with a long spire. Directly in front of us, a bridge extended straight from this ledge to the wider area at the top…uh, I mean bottom…of the tower, the space just before the metallic roof.

An uncovered bridge. It had safety rails, and in fact tall barriers of decoratively perforated metal that rose above my eye line. But still…uncovered, arching across the bottomless abyss.

“Aw, come on,” Nazralind whined, reflecting what we were all thinking. “That’s just unnecessary, is what that is.”

“This is what we came to see,” said Velaven, calm as ever. “Personally I would not begrudge anyone who declined to make the crossing. It’s not strictly necessary for all of us to visit the core. In fact,” she added, turning to me, “it isn’t necessary for any of us to go further, in person, save for curiosity’s sake. I’m afraid there is little left to see. By now you should know what you need to about the scope and arrangement of this place, my lord.”

“Not quite,” I said, keeping my own expression even only through the power of showtime; the prospect of crossing that did not make me feel at ease. “But most of the rest will require the work of actual surveyors to nail down. Still! I didn’t come all this way to quit right before the end. You girls stay here if you want, I’m just gonna have a quick look.”

They didn’t, of course, because that was a challenge and they all knew it. And I knew they knew it and wouldn’t back down from it, just as I knew they were all going to make me pay for this later. I sauntered right out onto the bridge, feeling the warm wind grab at my coat. Obviously, I did not reach for the handrails, despite the fact that the path itself was no wider than a suburban sidewalk and that breeze was stiff enough to jostle my stride. It was a relief to finish the crossing and step into the chamber beyond.

This was quieter, not being open to the wind; there were large windows, affording an awe-inspiring and terrifying view of the endless expanse beyond, but they were filled with glass. Well, something transparent, anyway. I gave the murky lack of a horizon no attention, focusing on the sole object in this circular chamber.

Directly in the center, from floor to ceiling, stood a hexagonal crystal pillar nearly a meter thick. At both ends it was capped by pale stone fixtures so obviously reminiscent of Spirit altars they had clearly been designed by the same mind, though these were also braced by frameworks of some gleaming metal too pale to be steel, and completely untarnished by decades of exposure. The pillar itself was broken and mostly gone, only jagged ends emerging from its housings above and below. Assuming the remaining fragments were representative of the whole thing when it had been whole, it must have been stunning. They were a pale blue, and glittered from within as if the insides had somehow been carved into intricate facets.

“Damn,” Zui said from just to one side of the door, where she had cleared the way for Nazralind and a frazzled-looking Newneh to be the last ones in. “I mean…just, damn. A lot has surprised me in the last few days, but I gotta say, I never imagined I would live to see a dungeon core in person. Even a busted one.”

“So this is the thing that makes a dungeon…a dungeon?” Stepping forward, I carefully reached out to rest my hand against the broken crystal. No reaction; it felt like any other piece of rock.

“It controls everything,” Biribo confirmed. “Spawns the monsters, resets the traps and puzzles, oversees the dungeon Spirits—and before you ask, boss, those won’t even exist with the core broken, they’re not like normal Spirits. Crucially, it also conjures and distributes all the loot.”

“Are they…durable? You said Spirit altars are basically indestructible.”

“Dungeon cores are kinda the reverse of that, boss. As you can plainly see, they’re not physically impervious, but there’s zero chance of a core getting corrupted or otherwise fucked with by Void arts, or anything else. For one thing, they have a lot more personality, initiative, and the capacity to defend themselves. Hard. Remember, these things can conjure traps and monsters out of thin air. Enough brute force can power through all those defenses, theoretically, but the actual intelligence of the core won’t passively submit to corruption the way Spirits will.”

“That makes me wonder how the hell somebody managed to break it in the first place,” said Aster.

“Not just someone,” Velaven replied, staring up at the broken dungeon core. Some actual feeling had seeped into her expression now that she seemed lost in thought, a kind of mournful anger that made her suddenly seem a lot more relatable. “A Hero. Satoshi Hara. You all know of Hara’s Sin as the destruction of the landbridge to Savindar, but that is only the lesser half of it that the Convocation has permitted to be remembered, because there is no way to hide or forget such a thing. On that dreadful day, he assaulted this dungeon and destroyed its core, forcing all the forces of the Dark Lord, Shylverrael, and Savindar to divert their attention here. It was while they were distracted with this battle that the destruction of the landbridge was carried out.”

“If these cores are so fearsome themselves,” I said, “then he not only fought that to death, but also the full force of the whole-ass Dark Crusade at the same time, and still had the leftover wherewithal to knock down a landbridge? I mean…fucking how?”

“He was a Hero,” Velaven said with a tiny sigh. “At the time, with a great deal more seniority than you have now, Lord Seiji. I know you must be frustrated by your relative lack of power and the inconsistent trickles in which you gain more, but be assured, a Champion’s growth is exponential. Dark Lords and Heroes can rise to become the kind of monsters who reshape the face of the world.”

“Hopefully not by knocking down landbridges and destroying dungeon cores,” Aster said. I looked over, surprised at the bitterness in her tone. “A dungeon! On Dount! Do you know what this would have meant? Resources! Commerce, culture… This island was…it was actually someplace worth being! And that asshole…”

Nazralind stepped over and rested a hand on her shoulder, rubbing gently. After a moment, Aster sighed and leaned into her.

“This has been the main project of Shylverrael for these last fifteen decades,” Velaven said. She came to stand beside me, reaching out to rest her hand against the broken crystal near mine. I finally moved away, but the dark elf stayed where she was, staring into the remnants of the shattered core as if she could see the past within. “We are going to buy a miracle. Two of them, in fact. Bit by bit, coin by coin, we accumulate wealth in steady trickles from the commerce that passes through Dount. Only the tiniest trickles, because we cannot afford to be discovered. So long as the Fflyr don’t think about us, it is safe to act, carefully. Slowly. Who knows how much longer it will be? But once we have enough, we will have our miracle. We will restore this core, and thus the dungeon. And with that done, and the rest of this island having forgotten the dungeon even exists, we will have sole access. Coin will accumulate much faster from delving expeditions, until we can buy our second miracle.”

“The landbridge,” I said.

She nodded, still staring at the crystal. “The Savindar Empire will not engage in an aggressive war unless a Dark Crusade is actively ongoing; the religious and cultural proscriptions are ironclad. But they will lend resources and support to a fellow Viryan state seeking to avenge and reclaim what was taken from it—particularly if that involves driving the Sanorites further from their own borders. The safe way is the slow way, but through patience and persistence, we will reclaim what was ours.”

Finally, she lowered her hand, stepping back, and then turned to stare at me. There was a sudden fervor in her eyes that almost looked out of place on her normally composed features.

“But that was before. Your presence here changes everything, Lord Seiji. No one imagined the next Dark Crusade would begin here, of all places. Now you are here, though, and plans must change. As I swore to you, this place is yours, as is all of Shylverrael and every asset it can bring to bear. My city is yet in the grip of an usurper, but this much at least I can deliver to you now.”

“You’ve already proven your worth, Velaven,” I assured her. “Even with the dungeon inactive… Well. There’s no reason we can’t fix that. Biribo, is there any way to restore a dungeon core without buying a miracle?”

“Not really, boss. Same goes for the corrupted Spirits. The Goddesses won’t have mortals screwing around with their stuff, even to fix it.”

“Then we just need to accumulate a shitload of money. I bet I can do that a lot faster than the strategy Shylverrael has been using. But for now… Thank you, Velaven, seeing all this is exactly the perspective I needed. I know how to proceed from here.” I sighed, taking another lingering look around this forsaken place, with its incredible vista and the spectacle of a whole island’s ruin embodied in this broken crystal pillar. It was the most melancholy thing I’d ever seen. “Meanwhile, we’d better get home. We can make it back to North Watch by this afternoon if we hustle. I wanna get everybody caught up; there’s a lot still to do.”

Sure enough, it was just a few hours later that I was back in my nice warm castle at the base of the mountain, in my comfortable chair in the conference room, with a fragrant mug of spicy-sweet Fflyr tea at hand, and my Chancellor throwing a book at my face.

“ARE YOU OUTTA YOUR GODDAMN MIND?!”