Vysala stumbled out of bed and climbed up the ladder to the attic. “Zaria, if you have a mimic lick me awake again, I swear by the Deathless Mother’s rotting tits I will-” she paused when she saw that Zaria wasn’t there. Instead, there was a ladder. Zaria laughed as Vysala glowered at the ladder before climbing. “Zaria, if you-”

“I heard,” Zaria said. “Do you have a preferred method of being woken up?”

“I prefer to wake up to a lover kissing my neck, but I’ll take literally anything other than a monster’s tongue,” Vysala growled, looking around. “Can see you were busy last night.”

Zaria nodded, gesturing. On top of her roof, she’d constructed a simple tower. It gave her a better view of the battlefield for easier targeting of spells, and also let Vysala sit up here safely. “Better than a patio. I also made a few more unlit Ovens below. If I advance mid fight, I can light them and spin up some new mimics. Probably more moon crossbow mimics for me.”

Vysala nodded and looked over the lake that had formed almost overnight. The river they’d dammed had, by some rough calculations by Zaria, a flow rate of close to a hundred thousand cubic feet per second. With the basin and the dam, that had accumulated over the last twenty-four hours into a massive body of water, just waiting for Zaria to unleash it by breaking the dam’s barrier. Maw and Broil stood on the boulder dam, the former spamming his acid attack into the water, the latter sending waves of ash into the improvised lake. Some crossbow mimics also sat there, firing bolts into the water.

“How do you intend on letting it fall?” Vysala asked. “I mean, if you just pull one rock, it’s not going to go rushing downstream all at once.”

“Good news. It doesn’t need to. Look at the dam.”

Vysala did and whistled. Along the dam, hovering over various rocks, were over four dozen miniature images of Celon. Exactly one over, in fact. Forty-nine of the needed fifty.

“Took me a few tries to get Celon’s buff out of the list of options,” Zaria said. “I’m glad those buffs are random and not dominant-moon dependent, but still was a bit annoying.”

“Wait,” Vysala said. “So you plan on firing the last bolt and detonating the moons, breaking apart the dam. But don’t the bolts have to hit a living creature?”

“They do,” Zaria said. “It’s too far for us to see from here, but there’s fish and frogs and basically any small creature I could trap against the rocks there. Then I just had Rav shoot until he hit.”

Beside her, the Crossbow cooed in excitement.

“Rav’s a crossbow now?” Vysala asked.

“He wanted to help.” Zaria cracked her knuckles. “You awake enough for me to get started? The moons start fading once the bolt is about an hour old, or when the target dies, so we should move quickly.”

Vysala shook herself for a moment. “Where should I sit?”

“Right up here. I tested, I can control airflow - and water flow - up here as well. Just take that chair and strap yourself in. This might be rocky.”

Vysala looked at the chair. Zaria had built this one with two leather straps that could be buckled to make an X across the user’s chest, keeping them from being knocked loose. The chair also had a couple of straps on the side to hold the spork in place, so Vysala could keep it up here. It took the witch a few moments to secure herself. “Ready when you are,” she said.

Zaria turned to Rav.

Rav chirped and targeted the creature. He was a Seeker Crossbow at the moment, and fired rapidly. Over the night, he’d paused between shots, not wanting to kill the prey before they were ready. Now, however, his bolts came fast and furious. All he had to do was hit. At this distance, even with the Seeker’s modifications, the first two bolts missed before reaching their target.

Then the third struck home. The moons resolved fully. As they had with the Balehen, beams of light erupted from them - then struck the boulders.

Explosions rocked the valley. At only one bolt per rock, these explosions didn’t do much damage. They didn’t need to. The boulders had the full weight of twenty-four hours of accumulated water behind them. As the rocks cracked and shifted, the weight of the water took advantage of their unstable state. Pressure, long built up, overwhelmed the makeshift barrier and erupted forth. As it did, the sudden change in momentum pulled more boulders loose, ripping up the riverbanks as overwhelming force overflowed the banks, tugging dirt and stone and trees behind.

Zaria set off, running alongside the flood as fast as she could manage. At her sides, the twin mouths worked their tongues in the air like the tentacles of an octopus. The moon modification on the left mouth had given that maw pale white lips and teeth the color of midnight, and its tongue was deep purple. As it lashed down to touch the water beside her, it let loose small bursts of lunar energy that crackled with unfocused desire for life. The bird modification on the right mouth had turned it into a beak that was akin to an owl’s, and feathers spread out from where it emerged from the wall. Its tongue wasn’t particularly impressive, but testing overnight had taught Zaria the mouth’s real threat was in its bite - it could crack boulders like they were walnuts.

Vysala sat in the tower, watching this all with rapt fascination. “Do you have to have them licking the air like that?” she asked.

“No. I just wanted to show off a bit,” Zaria said with a chuckle and pulled the tongues back in. “We’ll be there soon.”

Vysala nodded. “Any luck with last night’s scrys?”

Zaria shook her head. “I got a better idea of the layout of the camp - when half the people are snoring, it paints a really good picture based on relative distance - but that’s it. No luck contacting Cestmir either - I have to actually be in range.”

“Damn the luck,” Vysala said. “Well, I guess everything can’t go our way. Did you at least manage to see the frog creature thing?”

“I got a glimpse of it,” Zaria said. “The legacy dungeon is larger than we thought, and it was wandering the halls. Not a frog, that’s for sure. At least, not mostly” It had been only the briefest of glances as a mass raced past a doorway, its skin seafoam green, but she’d distinctly made out the overall shape of something vaguely feline and far larger than any of Zaria’s mobs. The only thing that made her certain this was the same thing were the heads - she’d definitely made out three, and had noted goat’s horns on one of them, but the other two had been too shadowed - although bulges in the center head did suggest a frog’s eyes somewhat. Its tail had also been shockingly long, too.

She relayed all this to Vysala, who shuddered. “Damn the luck. It’s probably a Chimera, then. Thank all the gods and their naughty bits that it’s just a Servitor.”

Zaria cocked her head. “Chimera?”

“One of the dungeons that’s working with the Reclaimers. The most feared Silver dungeon on the continent. The Chimera Dungeon, capable of spawning horrific amalgamations of animals. It’s said he has a world boss that has an elephant as its base form, but is such an abomination it terrorizes entire villages. His name invokes terror among lower tiers across the Edgelands. Before the Fissures, there was talk of putting him down. Hells, even during the Fissures, there was still talk of it because of his actions. His name is-”

“Lidivah”, Zaria said alongside Vysala.

Vysala cocked her head, perfectly mirroring Zaria’s earlier expression. “You’ve heard of him?”

“I did. There was a message about him. Hang on.” Zaria pulled up the Dungeon Instructions. Her core was safely indoors, so she just read it aloud to Vysala.

It says here - starting with the relevant passage, for full context - ‘The efforts of the Chosen Seven sealed the worst of these Fissures and stabilized them enough. Fissures will still appear. They have become permanent features of our world. Efforts to cease their appearance are strictly prohibited, because doing so could weaken the protections in place and cause them to become unstable and dangerous again. The same goes for efforts to suppress their appearance.

Some of you will be tempted to defy these edicts. Lidivah, this is you in particular, but also to other Cores. You will think there is a path to power in this. Rest assured, that is not possible. You saw how unstable things got.’”

Vysala nodded. “That’s Lidivah. He went after the Fissures hard in the early days. Sought to contain them - wanted to find a way to force them to produce Fissure Cores endlessly with them. He also - don’t ask me how, that’s a very well kept secret - took over a Bronze Celestial Citadel core. Samarinel. No one even knows if Samarinel is still alive, or if Lidivah is puppeting his Citadel like Samarinel is an undead Core.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “Now that we know what the Reclaimers are doing, it suddenly makes sense he decided to stop trying to murder everyone and play nice with one group.”

“I was afraid you would say that. Let me guess. His dungeon is right next to Cal’borah, too?”

Vysala laughed in relief. “Thankfully, no. Lidivah’s dungeon is to the south of there, by a good bit. It’s been years. He might have been able to dig a tunnel to Cal’borah, but… actually, it’d be closer for him to tunnel to where we’re going.”

Zaria nodded. “We’ll need to secure this location. Once we’ve cleared it out, I mean. We’ll send word back to the Coven and let them know, and they can come and claim it. I’m guessing Lidivah, for all his terror, can’t attack the entire Coven?”

Vysala snorted. “Please. He’s dangerous, but he’s still Silver. He’d never attack a Guild directly. Even Cestmir would hesitate to go up against that kind of strength.”

“Good to know. So we just need to make sure we hold the Legacy Dungeon long enough to beat Lidivah’s tunnel.” Zaria checked her map again. The front wall of water was getting close. “I’m not sending the mimics with the water anymore. Change of plans,” she said. “Armor makes the candlemen too heavy. We’ll let the flood do its work, then come in once the worst of the water has washed through. Mostly.” She switched to telepathy.

At her command, the crate mimics and Maw leapt from her porch into the rushing water. Mimic tongues lashed out, wrapping around Maw’s powerful arms, and the stronger boss mob used his singular central foot to propel himself in the water like a dolphin’s fin. The speeds he was capable of were impressive - the boss took to water like he was made for it.

Vysala glanced behind them and nodded. Already, much of the landscape they’d left behind was a muddy marsh as water spread out in all directions, with the bulk flowing downhill. “I’m ready,” she said. Rav crawled over to her and slid up her back until he could nestle in the slot in her armor, then cooed in her ear. “We’re ready,” Vysala amended.

Zaria flashed them a fierce grin, and then turned her attention back to her map’s visible area.

Ahead of them, at the edge of her vision, the front wall of water met the walls of the Reclaimer’s encampment.

Wooded palisades that had been built to keep out prying eyes and small forces of attackers were nothing in comparison to the might of water that was churning against them. The thick wooden beams held for just a fraction of a second before they cracked in half under the weight of the flood slamming into them, adding new layers of debris to the overall rush.

In a few places, they’d constructed watch towers. Those were heavier and had stones reinforcing them. They lasted longer - a couple even stayed standing. However, several others were pulled down by the walls they were bound to, and a couple more that weren’t quite finished collapsed easily. Men and women screamed as they were pulled from their perches, tumbling down into the water below. A man in armor on one of the watchtowers that had remained standing grabbed onto a horn and blew, the sound barely audible over the roaring waters.

The tents inside the camp were worthless against the water, but other buildings were less so. The ruins that dotted the area outside of the dungeon were made of sturdier stuff, and the stones there were able to stand up against the deluge. Even then, though, the lower levels were flooded through windows and doors.

They weren’t responding to an attack yet. Right now, this was just a calamity. There were no people rushing for battle stations. Instead, they were swimming and crying out for help. Those that were on the still standing watchtowers and within the ruins were throwing ropes down to survivors, the other ends hastily secured to anything nearby or thrown into the hands of Tank classes that could brace themselves with enough strength.

At the far end of the camp, the wall had been built atop mounds of dirt the Reclaimers had excavated and needed to put somewhere. The solid dirt, packed down by months of time and footsteps, was sturdier than just wood. It protected the back wall of the camp, keeping walls and watchtowers safely above the floodline, and it also pushed the water through to the sides. However, those that had been caught out in the open by the flooding were pulled against those hills, and ground to paste by debris and the sheer force of the water carrying it. The walls to the sides of the camp held up a bit better than the front walls that took the direct brunt of the flow. Not enough to stop them from being pulled down, but enough to slow the torrent some. There were stables behind the dirt mount, and the horses whinnied and panic.

Zaria grinned and let loose a quick spell. Like the old saying went, if life gave you horses, make horrific horse-mutant abominations full of hate.

Congratulations! You have-

Congratulations! You have advanced to Copper 4!

The fight hadn’t even begun, and already Vysala had two new levels

The area around the camp was settling down. The water was draining rapidly, spreading out around the artificial dirt mounds to go out and around the camp. It was still deeper than a man could stand, but it was flowing slow enough those that had survived could swim.

Then, as both a tank holding a rope and Vysala watched together, a tongue emerged from the water and wrapped around one of the swimmer’s waist. The swimmer just barely had a chance to scream before he was pulled under, and the surrounding water turned red with blood.

“Monsters in the water!” the watcher shouted. He’d wrapped the rope tightly around his wrist, and a woman was climbing it. As he looked down at her, and she looked up at him, the water beneath them churned for a moment.

The woman mouthed the word “help” before Maw erupted from the water, propelled by a mighty kick. His mouth was wide open, his arms spread wide. The tank could only stare in horror as the chest boss’s mouth clamped down on the woman’s waist. She shrieked in pain as Maw kicked off the watchtower, sending himself flying away with his prey in tow.

The tank reached for his sword, his eyes on the rope on his arm, but it was too late. Maw’s sheer weight, added to the woman’s mass, was far more than the tank could support, and when Maw plunged back towards the water, the tank was ripped free from the tower, falling and screaming to the water below. He landed hard, and before he could recover his senses, a crate mimic was latched onto his head, chewing happily on his neck.

Tank resistances let him struggle against it. On land, he probably would have been able to break free. But with his head being submerged and his neck underwater, he didn’t last long. The woman Maw had caught died instantly on impact with the water, her torso ripped free of Maw’s jaws - but not the part of her body the boss had bitten into.

As that happened, the first of the now enraged horses broke free of the slowly flooding stables and charged to the bank. Its tentacles erupted from its shoulder blades and lashed out at the watchtower. They weren’t long enough to reach, but as a second horse wrapped its tentacles around the building, the wood collapsed. The other two swam through the water, using their tentacles to propel themself against the powerful flow, neighing in hatred. The rest, those unmutated by Zaria’s spell, fled in terror from their mutated kin.

Screams and cries of combat were erupting around the camp. “Lake monsters” and “Lake Beasts” seemed to be the primary identifiers. As the waters were clearing, chaos was erupting.

Then someone on one of the closest watchtowers had the brilliant idea to look upstream. He saw Zaria and screamed. “Incoming house! With tongues!” With her vision close to him, Zaria could hear him whisper to himself. “What the fuck am I looking at?”

Zaria pointed her finger at him and grinned. It was time for her to show him the answer to that question.