Ravish Me, Oh Great Wizard King!!!

The mead party only lasted an hour. 

Erick and Mira dismissed the scouts and went off to plan whatever strategies they were going to pull off.

Daran gave Ziggy a meaningful look. Ziggy nodded and ported off to Topaz Academy.  Professor Farley and Professor Jonesbarry deserved at least a final word of warning before all hell broke loose.

Meanwhile, Jana went out to the jungle floor looking for Theo.  What was he doing hiding in the jungle when there was work to be done?  She still had to show him off to Katrina at the MagiKat Coffee House!

"There you are!"  Jana called out.  Theo thought he was being clever, hiding behind the rocks.  Did he forget so quickly that Jana had a nose too?

Theo looked up.  He was writing something on a scroll.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm determining the distance and space that I need to port as close as I can to the train station without getting caught."

"You're going back to rescue the primates aren't you?"

"Yes."

"I'm coming with you."

"It's too dangerous."

"You need me."

"I don't need you getting hurt."

"Why?  I'm just rescuing them.  I'm not training them for anything."

"How are you going to talk to them?  Only the Overlords know how to do that."

"Are you telling me that you're an Overlord?"

"No," her amber eyes sparkled.  "But I know of one."

????????????

Outside the MagiKat Coffee Shop, Theo stood in the shadows of the alleyway between the coffee shop and a Magik Bookstore.  Jana had dragged him all the way here and she would not even let him inside. 

There would be too many people with curious eyes, she said.  He was too oddball looking, she said.

He sniffed.  As if she was not just as oddball and curious to look at. 

"You know you can't go without a guide."  A voice spoke up behind him.

Theo smiled. 

"Alfric, you old dwarf.  Why are you following a young couple on our first date?"

"What the hell kinda date are you on that your girl dumps you in the alleyway?"

Theo's shoulders shook with mirth.  "You know how Jana is.  Sometimes she's a kitten and sometimes…"

"Yeah.  Sometimes she's a tom cat." 

The men laughed for a moment. 

"I know that railway system running under Topaz Mountain.  I can get you through the maze of hallways quickly.  Otherwise, you'd be wandering around for ages."

"That wouldn't happen.  I'd be following my nose."

"You'd be with a couple of women.  I am a Commandant General and a Wizard First Class."  Alfric turned to face Theo.  "I can help you protect Jana."

Well, Theo couldn't argue with that. 

Theo leaned back against the wall of the alleyway and narrowed his eyes. 

It had been ten minutes.  Jana better hurry up or he would walk inside, to hell with looking like an oddball…

"We're here.  Let's go."  He heard Jana's hushed voice coming through the alleyway.  His pupils dilated to take in the two women coming towards him. 

They were both pantherans; two lionesses filled with natural grace and a warrior stance that could not be faked. 

Jana was breathtaking in her wild untamed beauty. 

The older one looked distinguished with the silver streaks on her brows and the sleek Overlord bodysuit on her body. 

"Katrina, this is my man, Theobold.  And that's Commandant General Alfric Hobart."

Katrina eyed Theo with intense curiosity, completely ignoring the Commandant General. 

"My, my, my.  I never thought in my life that I would say this, but you really are a devastatingly gorgeous man.  If she hadn't told me you were a bogwarg, I'd completely forget about that tiny minor detail."

"Keep your heat down, cat.  The bogwarg is a married man."  Alfric snickered. 

Theo opened his mouth but could not find any witty comeback to either Katrina or Alfric so he snapped his jaws shut again. 

Behind Katrina, Jana was trying hard not to double up with laughter.

"Katrina, did Jana brief you on what we are about to do?"

"Yes.  I've been told I'm supposed to be an ape whisperer.  I'm not just coming along as decoration you know."

"Nope," Jana laughed.  "The decoration would be Theo."

"He is indeed a pretty boy.  And you did say he was built...like a beast?"  Katrina looked him up and down as if he was a piece of meat. 

Theo looked away in deep embarrassment.  This conversation was going way out into the weeds and he needed to bring things back to where he could control the situation again.

"If we're done with the preliminary introductions, let's just get there quickly."  Theo cut to the chase.

Alfric nodded.  "Everyone follow me."

He muttered a power command and opened up a portal. 

This one transported them directly inside the chamber that Theo had seen the primates enter. 

He and the pantherans immediately sniffed the air. 

There was no doubt that there were a huge number of primates that had just been in this area not too long ago.  Their stench filled the atmosphere to overwhelming nausea. 

Alfric made a motion with his hand. 

He led them through a series of long, dingy greige hallways with countless brown doors and intermittent corridors branching away on either side. 

The hallways extended deep into the side of the mountain and after a while, everyone except Alfric was completely lost. 

At various junctions, Alfric would pause to reorient himself.  Then he would indicate a hallway and the group would follow him as quickly as they could. 

Theo's ears and nose were on full alert the entire time.  He was fully expecting a group of mages to assail them from any direction, but so far so good.  There was no one in the corridors.

Alfric kept shunting them from one hallway to another until they eventually found themselves staring at a set of steel double doors with no handles and no levers. 

"Bingo." Alric whispered.  "They hid the terminal behind these doors and that crazy maze we just weaved through."

Judging from the lack of hinges on the door jambs, the only way to open those doors had to be either via a remote, mechanized system, or some magikally controlled Command.   

He inspected the doors. 

There was no way to muscle through these doors, as heavy and sealed as they seemed to be.  But what kind of a wizard would Alfric be if some simple locked doors kept him from the other side. 

Alfric threw out his hands and spoke the Unlock power command.   

"Mashangjiehsuo!" 

There was a click indicating that the doors had unlocked.

"Heh." Alfric muttered under his breath.  "They never changed the magik locks.  Still the same old default password from two-hundred years ago."

Theo laughed.  "It saved us from having to break the doors down."

They slipped through the opening and found themselves within the bowels of the cavernous expanse of the train depot. 

The ambient temperature was at least ten degrees cooler inside the depot. 

A stream of moving air was blasting from above them coming through a series of boxy vents running above the exposed reinforced steel beams of the terminal's stark bare metal girder. 

The force of the blasting air whipped their hair and clothing into a tumultuous disarray of wildly flapping appurtenance. 

Theo sniffed the air. 

His eyes scanned the area as he scoured the place for signs of life, but other than the usual tiny critters around the periphery of the room, he could not smell any of the primates.

"The air ducts have taken much of the primates' scent away."  He pointed to the air ducts above them.  "I can still smell them but it is not as intense as before."

Finding no obvious sign of danger, he waved them forward. There was no doubt that this was the terminal that had taken the primates out of the area. 

"From the auratic scans of this place, there's nobody here right now.  The primates have been transported away, either to Andalusia or Azure." 

The group followed him toward the center of the depot, moving in careful measured steps.  There were no windows in this dark behemoth industrial terminus but there was plenty of light coming from the naked bulbs protruded from each junction where the beams criss-crossed each other. 

The place looked like an impenetrable fortress. 

Alfric eyed the internal support beams and the framework of the building.

"This place was originally built by dwarves, but it looks like they've done a lot of major renovations and upgrades throughout the centuries." 

He pointed at the bare riveted steel columns rising high above them.  The columns met at the top of the domed ceiling, bowing at the crest and then plunging in a perfect arch toward the opposite wall of the depot. 

"See all that?  This architecture is definitely not dwarven."

He peered into the darkness.  "They sure could use a good clean-up crew though.  Whoever is running this station needs to get some soap and water to this place.  It's a disgrace."

The darkened interior did much to hide the grimness of the exposed structural beams and duct work running the length of the depot's interior, but it did nothing to hide the fact that the place was turning decrepit. 

The grime and the greasy gunk was ground into the very pores and crevices of the depot.  The mottled, grey concrete floors and walls were pitted, their surfaces cracked and fractured in long jagged dark lines running the length of the train station. 

There was even a sour funk of ancient machine oil which permeated the air and clung onto everything that passed through its hallowed grounds. 

The group continued walking until they reached the terminus point of the station. 

"I don't see any train."  Jana breathed, stating the obvious. 

This was an end node.  Aside from one set of shiny tracks starting from where they stood and running down the center of the terminal, there was no sign of a train of any sort. 

"It looks like they've taken the primates away."  Theo's eyes flashed anger.  "Alric, do you know where this train goes to?"

Alfric nodded.  "There are only two tracks that I am aware of that connect to Topaz station.  One goes to Andalusia and the other...the other goes to Azure."

"I've never heard of Azure before."  Katrina said.

"Azure is the world known as Earth by its inhabitants.  You're not supposed to know anything about it."  Alfric coughed politely.

Katrina shot him a disgusted look. 

Jana clacked her fingernails together.  "Why are there no trains from any Ashryan cities to Topaz?  The closest we were able to get to was Jasper."

"There was supposed to have been a train adjourning this one coming from Amethyst but that tunnel was only partially built before it got abandoned due to infighting between the king of Topaz and the king of Amethyst." 

"What could possibly make them fight against each other?"  Jana asked.

He shook his head.  "They were both self-proclaimed King of the Southern Realm and neither wanted to acquiesce to the other. 

The big difference was, while Amethyst was still connected to the rest of the empire via the city of Beryl and her train station, Topaz got isolated. 

The station between it and Jasper had gotten destroyed by Shari the oak tree, and to the north of it is a huge desert which ends at the shores of Aquamarine Lake.   

"But this one must have been built to connect somewhere."  Jana pointed out. 

In answer, Theo took hold of her hand and interlaced their fingers.  The subtle incessant sounds of Jana's clacking fingernails stopped. 

"Yes.  Jasper."  Alfric laughed.  "Unfortunately, we thought we could build a tunnel through the roots of Shari, the oak tree.  Sadly, within a matter of years, Shari had sent roots down into the structures and destroyed the linked train tunnel between Jasper and Topaz.  Once that happened, there was no more connection between the two cities. 

Topaz became isolated.  Without any way to get supplies from either Jasper or Amethyst, it had to turn to Andalusia and Azure.

"So this is the result.  This station was originally built by dwarves but continually maintained by Andalusia and Azure." 

Jana shook her head.  "That's two rescue attempts Theo and I have attempted in one night and neither of them have been successful."

"Well, like they say:  Things usually come in threes."  Theo sighed.

Jana snarled a response that did not need words to decipher.