by Demi Harper
He laughed when Varnell’s eyes widened. “Yes, I know all about those too. Where do you think she got the inspiration from in the first place? She would never have come up with Beast Cores on her own. She has a noble spirit, but lacks imagination.”
Beast Cores?
Tiri felt her head would burst with all this new information. She had questions upon questions, theories upon theories. But it seemed she’d run out of time to ask them.
“It may dismay you to know that I have sent my avatar in pursuit of her. Your final agent, Lila Mornier, shall interfere no more. You’re done, sire. We’re done.”
Lila? No—
The tramping of boots echoed down the stairs. The chemspheres at the top threw shadows of marching figures approaching.
Varnell spun to face the armored warriors descending the stairs. “What is the meaning of this?” he roared.
Tiri expected the soldiers to cower; to grovel for forgiveness, to express their deepest apologies for daring to disturb the great Guildmaster.
It was as if they couldn’t even hear him. They marched across the study, four warriors in total. The first one grasped Varnell’s arms and yanked them behind his back. The second advanced on him with a set of manacles. Once they’d shackled him, they forced him toward the stairs.
He cursed, spitting and protesting. The vehemence in his voice made Tiri wince, and she kept waiting for the entire room to explode with devastating magic. But Varnell did not conjure so much as a spark to defend himself. He truly was afraid of drawing his patron’s attention.
“Power truly is pointless when you find yourself unable to wield it in times of need,” said Gardos conversationally, as though reading Tiri’s mind.
She dragged her eyes from the struggling Guildmaster, then started at the sight of the second pair of warriors standing right beside her. She flinched back as they reached for her.
“What are you doing?” Surprise made her voice high and girlish, but she was too outraged to care. “What have I done?”
“You, Tiriani, have committed the greatest of sins in this world where one’s stability and wellbeing are entirely reliant on ignorance.”
She gritted her teeth as her hands were wrenched behind her back. “What?”
Gardos tutted. “Put simply: you know too much. Your potential interference with my plans is a risk I cannot—will not—take.”
“So you’re a tyrant, then?” she spat, twisting in her captors’ grip to glare at the statue concealing the dark gray Core.
“Far from it. You will both be imprisoned, yes, but you’ll be well taken care of. I shall release you once my work is complete.”
“What work?”
He paused, then said, “You already know too much; what’s the harm in telling you a little more?” She had to fight not to roll her eyes at the classic villain monologue. “My work, you ask? Mela K’or, of course. Varnell seeks only to free himself, is too cowardly to pursue anything more.” His voice darkened. “But the tyrant needs to die. I know him well enough to guess he’s been building up his own army; if, as Grimrock says, the purple Core was a night elf, then Melakor has infiltrated the underground city of Uldrazir and now leads the night elves. Eventually they will rise to the surface and spread a plague of indoctrination just like he once did as god of the light elves. They must be stopped. They must all be stopped, and his influence utterly purged.”
The absolute conviction in his tone left her chilled. “You’re speaking of genocide,” she whispered. “You want to wipe out an entire race just to eliminate one man?”
“I have done it before. What do you think happened to the light elves’ ancient empire in the first place?”
She gaped silently, unable to muster a response.
“It is as your Guildmaster said. I am no God Core.” Pause “I am a War Core. And soon we will go to war.”
Now she saw it. The warriors who’d arrested Varnell had been under Gardos’s direct control—as had the guards that allowed her to slip past into the prison and rescue Coll, she realized. He’d been watching and manipulating this entire time, waiting to learn the truth—and confirming that Varnell could not act against him—before making his move.
What she’d just witnessed was a coup. Gardos ruled the Guild now. And he was going to force them into battle with the dark elves, who were themselves under the influence of a malign entity.
“This is an adventurers’ guild,” she told the Core. “Not a military camp!”
The Guild’s warriors and rangers were trained in warfare, sure. But they were dispatched to take care of things like goblin uprisings, bugbear rebellions, and the occasional rogue wyvern or demon infestation.
Not all-out war.
“Sweet, summer child.” The smirk in his voice made her clench her bound fists. “The physical classes within these walls are my denizens. This guild is whatever I want it to be.”
At some silent signal, the blank-faced warriors began to pull her toward the stairs. As they passed the statue, in a moment of desperation she lunged for it, hoping to shoulder the plinth and knock both the bust and the gem to the floor—as Gardos had seemed to fear when she’d threatened to do so earlier.
But Tiri was no warrior; her captors’ heavy gloves gripped like iron, and she was marched past the statue, her opportunity gone. She spat at it instead.
“How rude.” Gardos’s voice had now turned cold. “Since I am no longer feeling inclined to spare your feelings, I will inform you I have another contingency to prevent Mornier’s meddling. As a warrior of the sword pact, Collson Rutherford is one of my sworn denizens. Before he left my Sphere, I designated Lila Mornier as ‘hostile’. He will be compelled to destroy her on sight.”
The horror of it all—of Lila somehow surviving the terrible fate they’d abandoned her to, knowing she’d been left to die, and now Coll being forced against his will to kill her—was too much.
“Why Coll?” she whispered, hardly even aware of what she was saying. “You said your avatar—”
“Will exterminate Mornier if it encounters her first,” the Core confirmed. “But one cannot have too many contingencies.”
“You don’t need to kill them. Please. You don’t need to do any of this!”
She struggled against her captors as they dragged her up the stairs after Varnell, to be thrown in their cells for stacks knew how long. She had to warn Benin and Coll. But she was as powerless as the former Guildmaster.
She shouted more entreaties down into the study. But Gardos was silent, and the last she saw of the Librarinth was the demonic bust, teeth bared in its mocking smile.
Sixty-One
Lila
Benin
Unlike Benin, Lila Mornier did not flinch as the emberfox’s orange glow finally revealed her face. Along with the scars from kobold weapons were those from older battles, long healed before their expedition ever began. But what stood out most were the ones around her neck: a string of circular marks, puckered and burned-looking, like acid scars but in a pattern similar to the spiky suckers on a giant squid’s tentacles.
And her left sleeve hung loose. Empty, he realized.
The image of the creature wrapping itself around her flashed before him again, and he heard her screams following him as he fled.
“How are you still alive?” he whispered. “We saw you… we saw it…”
“You saw me paralyzed and about to be eaten alive by a tentacled abomination?” Her voice was coldly conversational, but her eyes were wide and bloodshot, her grin forced. “Funny story. When Varnell’s little friend Grimrock realized I was Guild, he called off his scaly dogs and let me go. But not before that monster made a meal out of me.” She gestured at her empty sleeve.
Benin swallowed, tasting bile. He couldn’t imagine the agony she must have suffered, paralyzed and half-eaten alive.
“You know Varnell sent us down there to die?” he said.
“Please. I’m not an idiot.”
“Then presumably his ‘li
ttle friend’ was meant to be the one who finished us off. Why would he release you?”
She gave a lopsided shrug. He noticed she kept glancing up at the summit behind them, as though waiting for something. Benin’s shock at her unexpected appearance gave way to suspicion.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
She frowned, looking suddenly confused. “I…” Then her face cleared, and her eyes focused on his once more. “I’m here for the Core. My master wants it.”
“What? You’re still working for Varnell, even after everything he’s done?”
“Varnell? No.” Her face lit up beatifically. “I serve the Lord of Light.”
Who?
If there was one thing he’d never had the ranger pegged as, it was a religious fanatic. Eyebrows raised, he glanced sideways at Coll, expecting to see him wearing a similarly incredulous expression.
But the warrior wasn’t looking at him. His attention was fixed entirely on the woman in front of them. In fact, he hadn’t moved since the moment he’d caught sight of her.
At first Benin thought he must still be in shock from the revelation that she had risen from the dead. Then he saw that Coll’s entire body was shaking.
“Coll?” He reached a tentative hand toward the man’s shoulder, but stopped just short of touching him when Pyra began to growl. The emberfox was backing away from Coll, her hackles raised like red-hot spines.
Lila frowned at the warrior. His fists were clenched so hard it was a wonder his knuckles hadn’t burst through the skin, and he was grinding his teeth in a way that made Benin wince.
“Coll?” he said again, warily this time. “You all r—”
The warrior exploded into violence. Like an overly taut bowstring finally snapping under the strain, he lunged at Lila, unslinging his hammer and bringing it down with the strength of both hands.
Her eyes widened. She ducked and flung herself to the side, narrowly avoiding the deadly blow, but Coll was already raising the weapon for another.
“What are you doing?! Coll! Stop!”
He continued to attack like a man possessed. His hammer was a blur, whistling as it swung through the air in a vicious chain of sweeping strikes. With each swing Benin flinched, expecting Lila’s head to explode. He should have known better.
Among the Guild’s physical fighter classes, rangers were renowned for their skills in archery and other ranged combat. It was in the name, after all. But above everything else, their true strength was in their incredible finesse. A well-trained ranger was as hard to hit as a greased dragonfly.
Every swing whistled harmlessly through empty air, a split-second too slow. Not a single hit landed, though her heavy breaths indicated Lila was having to work hard to stay out of the weapon’s path. Benin had no idea what he should do—obviously Coll should be restrained, but it also didn’t seem like Lila was here for totally innocent reasons either. He considered casting Lightning Lash to restrain them both, but Coll’s metal armor might cause him to accidentally harm his friend rather than just holding him.
It was moot, since they were both moving too quickly for him to risk intervening.
As she threw herself to the side yet again, she thrust her arm out. Magic stirred the air as she incanted, raising the hairs on the back of his neck.
Vines burst from the stony ground. Thick green-brown tendrils snaked up Coll’s legs. Writhing and twisting, they held him fast within moments. Coll hardly seemed to notice, still fixed on his target; when he did realize, he brought his arm back as if to throw the hammer in Lila’s direction, but the vines reached for his arms too, freezing him in that pose, wrapping his fists so tightly Benin doubted he could release the hammer even to drop it.
He hadn’t known Lila had levels in druid as well. Just when he’d thought nothing else could surprise him this day.
Surprise quickly turned to alarm when more vines erupted from the path, this time crawling up his own body. He tried to wriggle away, but they held him firmly. Smaller ones even sprouted from the larger to ensnare his fingers and prevent him from casting. A snarl and a yelp behind him confirmed that Pyra was similarly restrained.
He stared around at the barren rocky ground of the trail, a fragment of professional curiosity making him ask, “How did you manage to summon vines here?”
“Nature always finds a way.” Lila straightened her cloak, still breathing heavily.
“There’s nothing natural about any of this.” His eyes narrowed. Saying the words out loud made something click into place. The strange behavior of the badgers, and of those monstrous fish that attacked during the river crossing... “Come to think of it, there’s been plenty of unnatural stuff happening these past few weeks.”
“I assume you’re referring to my dire creatures,” she said conversationally.
“Your dire creatures?”
Her smile this time was genuine, full of pride. “Nature always finds a way,” she said again, “but sometimes it needs a helping hand. That’s what the Beast Cores were meant to be. A helping hand, to encourage struggling species to flourish once more.”
“Yet you threw them at us like they were no more than cannon fodder,” he retorted. “That doesn’t sound like you’re ‘helping’ them.”
Regret darkened her expression, and her smile this time was sad. “No, but it was necessary. And once this task is done, I’ll finally be able to develop and use them for their original purpose. He promised.”
The fanatical expression was back. It sickened and terrified Benin in equal measure to see such an expression on the face of someone he’d only ever known to be logical and intelligent. Whoever this Lord of Light was, he had a lot to answer for. And just what in the hells was a Beast Core?
Full darkness fell, the last vestiges of sunset dropping beneath the horizon on the mountain’s far side. After checking he and Coll were held firmly by the vines, Lila closed her eyes in concentration.
“I saved the most special Beast Core till last,” she said, tilting her face toward the summit. “Wait quietly while we do our work. Don’t interfere, and maybe we’ll spare the gnomes. Though I’m afraid I can’t guarantee the same for you.”
Sixty-Two
Trogloraptor
Corey
At first all I could see above us were the supporting ribs of the shattered dome.
But as the last traces of orange sunset disappeared, Ris’kin’s eye picked out movement. Something was rising from the dome’s remains, as though it had been sprawled on top. Some of what I’d taken for arching metal supports now shifted, revealing themselves to be multi-jointed legs, yellow-brown and hairy.
Dire Trogloraptor Queen
Arthropod
Sensitive to light and heat, the trogloraptor usually avoids the surface, preferring to remain underground. It enters a dormant state during the daytime, relying entirely on its infrared heat-sensing vision at night.
The trogloraptor does not build webs; instead, it waits patiently for prey to pass nearby, its translucent hairs allowing it to blend into its surroundings so long as it remains completely still. Its tendency to appear near tombs, as well as its behavior of digging up and carrying away buried corpses, has earned it the common nickname “grave-robber spider.”
It had been lying up there this entire time, dormant, unnoticed. Now, hooked toes gripped the edges of the circular walls as it raised itself up to tower above my denizens, an eight-legged void blocking out the stars. I couldn’t help but stare in awe.
Unlike most spiders, I saw, this one had a mere six eyes rather than eight. They were blackish-green, tinged with a film of red. And they were focused entirely on Gneil and the acolytes below it.
Slowly, carefully, Ris’kin reached back to unsheathe the twin half-spears from the harness on her back. Adrenaline was surging through her limbs, pushing her to leap immediately upon this new threat in a whirl of snarling and stabbing. Only my will kept her from doing so; the trogloraptor hadn’t yet acted with aggression, and I was unwilling to pr
ovoke it just yet.
It just woke up to find us in its territory, I told my avatar. It’s going to want to defend itself. But it’s more afraid of us than we are of it.
I eyed its green-red orbs, its spreading palps, and above all its enormous height.
Probably, I amended.
If we could keep it calm, maybe Gneil could work his weird animal magic on the creature. Or, failing that, we just needed to drive it far enough away from the altar for me to end the exodus in safety.
Then the implications of the creature’s name hit me. This was no ordinary trogloraptor; it was a dire trogloraptor. Which meant that, like the dire badgers and fangfins, and maybe even the mole-rats, it was being controlled by some outside source. Another unnatural specimen, displaced and forced to violence.
Not only that, this was the queen. I could only hope she hadn’t had chance to hatch a brood of reinforcements, though I suspected we’d have seen them already if that were the case.
Still, time to put contingencies in place…
Satisfied that its attention was firmly fixed upon Gneil, I had Ris’kin look slowly around the assembled gnomes until I spotted the three carpenters. Recalling the structures I’d spotted earlier, I scanned the caldera until I found the most likely one. Then I sent my carpenters scurrying in that direction, followed soon after by the botanists, both protectively clutching sacks as carefully as though they contained precious crystalware.
The trogloraptor was still fixated on Gneil, standing beside the altar. It lowered itself toward him, palps waving gently, as though it was intending to greet him with a handshake, or perhaps even pick him up. My high cleric lifted a wary hand to meet it.
