Yes, the extraordinary richness of La Réunion’s environment can be written off as a consequence of its emplacement and its history as a fertile volcanic island. Still, I wonder… If we had the Magi-tech, I’d look around for a ley-line on this island.

“Journal for the year 1983”, Roland de Hautlieu, Overseer of the Saint-Denis Manufactorium,

Someone was already there when Damien arrived at the Primary Power Distribution room. As per protocol, he'd slipped on a heavy protective smock in the room's antechamber, hoping that its heat wouldn't wake up Halla, who was snugly harnessed on his chest. The pale glow of the reinforced Mana-lines notwithstanding, the place was too dark to recognize the intruder, prompting Damien to cast a quick Light cantrip. The bald man in front of him was busily adjusting the mana flows powering the wards of the Bastion. Damien hesitated, torn between the urgency of his task and the manifest importance of the man’s. He didn’t reveal his presence before the bald man took a small break, sighing and pulling a flask from his vest.

“Sir?” Damien said, attempting to attract the man’s attention with a doubtful voice. He knew he’d seen the man somewhere, but couldn’t quite place him.

“Ah, the young Damien de Carné.” The man turned, apparently nonplussed by the boy's intrusion. “We haven’t been introduced, I believe. I am Virgil Trencavel, Senior Enchanter, minoring in Divination. Earth Element, not that it matters most of the time in my specialization.” He lifted an eyebrow, examining the sleeping Halla in her harness as he spoke. “The Overseer asked me to monitor the consumption of our HDM reserves and to expect your arrival.”

“I’m sure I saw you somewhere...” Damien began asking carefully, wary of a ruse. Was that a man before him, or an exceptionally intelligent shape-shifting Merman of some kind, sabotaging their defense? Damien felt an unreasonable bout of paranoia but decided to temper it with politeness. There was no reason to antagonize the man.”I know almost everyone who lives in Saint-Denis, at least from sight… May I ask where you usually work? I can’t seem to recognize you.”

Virgil softly laughed. “Ah, that would be because you’ve never been invited to my main employer’s home, which is where I live. Most of the time, I’m employed as the butler of the mayor’s Mansion, young Damien. However, I am sometimes recalled to the Manufactorium to assist with my area of expertise, which is the care of complex wards. I pride myself in the sensitivity of my Alarm-trigger wards in particular if you must know,” he mused, winking at him. “Although I recently learned that they have some failings, notably a worrying tendency to not trigger when the warded material is sublimated and the primary octogrammic triggers dispelled in the same second.”

Damien’s mind raced. The man wasn’t hostile and had proven without the shadow of a doubt his identity. He looked frankly amused. However, he was working for Jules Addington. Could he be trusted? He decided to take the risk. Even the mayor would know not to throw the city’s defenses in jeopardy in the middle of a Merman attack, and doing so would stretch his underling’s loyalty anyways unless he was completely unhinged.

“I heard from the Overseer that you might have a few helpful ideas,” the butler said. Now that he was looking for it, Damien could see the white gloves the man was wearing -in the middle of summer, too!- The man noticed his oblique look toward the out of season accessories and smiled. “Do not worry, those gloves are very useful. Worth the heat and the odd looks. Observe.” He knelt and began tracing a basic Magic Circle on the room’s transmuted-rock ground, slowly but surely.

“As you can see,” He explained, “my gloves are enchanted with Mold Earth and a customized spell of my invention, Crystallize Mana, that drains my mana reserves to produce a thin layer of mana crystals, comparable in conductivity to HDM's. A handy way to reshape mana conduits and draw Magic Circles,” he bragged, finishing his Circle. “Now, what did you have in mind, young man? I was informed that we needed a way to take care of that corpse-snatching thing”

Roland arrived at the Primary Power Distribution room, expecting the young Damien and Virgil to be well on the way to propose options to help against what the Mage Wings officers had dubbed the Black Sludge phenomenon. He had just finished his checks of the Bastion’s Wards and its main weaponry, a network of turreted, centrally powered Rods of Lightning Bolt that sat on top of the ramparts. Instead, he found a convoluted Mandala, at its center being… Damien's Spellsword embedded in a Meditation Circle."

“Thanks for the help, Virgil.” He addressed the visibly tired Diviner-Enchanter first, who accepted the Overseer's thanks with a stoic nod. He had evidently finished laying the Mandala’s foundations and was now indulging in one of his more irritating habits, frantically throwing snake-spine dice to divine the results of his work via his personal Augury while Damien was fiddling with his sword’s Enchantments.

“Damien, what are you trying to do exactly?” Roland asked, beginning to investigate the Mandala’s main Circle, noting warily that four Mana conducts were drawn halfway toward the Primary Power Distribution. Finishing his investigation, he gave an approving look to his pupil. “Yes, this should work, though both your Astral Body and your Astral Soul would be under significant mana-stress. You forgot to include Barr’s Reinforced Limiters on your conduits, young man…” he glanced one more time at a focused Damien, who wasn't listening at all. “Did you put on some weight?” The protective blouse the young man was wearing had a noticeable bulge that hadn't been there last time he saw his protégé.

Sheher was getting tired. The first few waves of Mermen, even if they were ridiculously numerous, had been trivially easy to destroy. They had quickly managed to put in place a cadence of charges and spell-volleys that allowed the fish-men to step on the harbor, only to end up with a harpy’s claw, an orcish ax or a chunk of magma in a vital organ before they could assess the situation. However, the situation swiftly changed when the thing they began to name “Black Sludge” appeared, associated with incoherent whispers that had disastrous effects on the few Militiamen who had joined the fight. At first, they treated it as an annoyance. That mistake cost them a pair of Barmak’s bodyguards, which were subsequently reanimated. As soon as they understood what had happened the pair of black, shambling abominations were destroyed by the enraged Chieftain’s hand. Then, the Sludge began to move on its own. At this point, the Harpy story-teller decided to begin singing her Aria of Rime

Barmak gnashed his fangs, then let out a war-cry loud enough to make the incoming Mermen, a wave of a hundred local clown-fish Mermen he was well used to fighting, waver long enough for him to decapitate a row of them with a crescent-shaped strike of his sword. He had enough of his boys around him to tug at their strength and grow in height and strength, reaching a height of four meters and the power to break down the common Wall of Force with his bare fists if necessary, even with the two he’d lost, whose bodies he’d been forced to destroy. The small Mermen didn’t concern him, and the feat wasn’t aimed at them, but at the Black Sludge that had been accruing under their feet. He had only pushed it back slightly, he noted, disappointed at his lack of effectiveness. Over his head, the Harpies' Azad had decided to pull out the big axes. The song she was singing in Auran was filling even him with cold rage, and he didn’t even understand the tongue! Moreover, now that he was taking a better look, some parts of the oozing sludge were beginning to flow more gradually, as if… A smile uncovered his fangs. She’d frozen it! All the dark, oily matter under her had been frozen solid by her show of force, the air around the harpy becoming chilly enough to force his bodyguards to leave the area of effect of the Harpy’s magic or risk third-degree frostbite. The harbor’s waters were gradually solidifying too, burying the incoming waves of Mermen. The Chieftain prepared himself. There would probably be a response to Sheher’s tentative neutralization of their enemy's most deadly weapon. “Ah, here it is,” he mumbled. One more squid’s tentacle caked in sludge rose from the water to grab the quay’s stones. This one, however, didn’t belong to a roughly humanoid Merman. It was as thick as him, riddled with holes oozing with the dark liquid. Barmak parried the first hit, but the abomination was heavier and stronger than him. It lost half of the flesh that was left on its tentacle to the smoldering blades of his sword and ax, but it slapped the Chieftain away from the fight.

The Colonel Ignace Raynaud was deeply concerned, and increasingly furious. He’d immediately identified the being that had come to reinforce the Mermen’s assault; it used to be a juvenile Kraken, still far from its adult size, when whatever the ooze that was infesting all these Mermen had killed it and took it over as a host. He knew he could destroy it, but, to his mounting frustration, the Spell he’d have to use was the one he’d kept in reserve to clean up the noxious sludge that was being trailed around all over his town by the blasted fish-faces.

“Alright, that’s enough,” he screamed, both vocally and through his Emphatic Link. “Sinoe, Morden’s Blade!”

In his Familiar’s hands, an over-sized Vorpal Sword of white-hot rock appeared. The weapon looked like an enormous executioner blade in the hands of the empowered Oreade, who was now a full four meters high. So far, she had limited her mana consumption by merrily throwing Magma Blasts. With the Sword in hand, however, she took action instantly, manifesting a jet of Magma under her feet to jump and cut apart the tentacle that Barmak had maimed. The ooze didn’t animate itself this time. Whatever the mystical unifying will that was moving it was, it apparently couldn’t resist the concept behind Morden’s Blade: a Vorpal sword to cut anything apart on the Prime Material, be it a Dragon’s scales or the neck of a Troll Chieftain. Very soon, the Colonel thought grimly, Sinoe would plunge it in the rotten heart of the construct of flesh and unknowable magic before them, breaking the Mermen’s assault, and leaving them without a countermeasure against the oily ooze. He and the lava Nymph were powerful, and the spell had been taught to him by a peerless tutor, but he had no illusions on the state of his mana reserves. The Kraken’s destruction would mean that he was going to be unable to use his Signature Planar Beacon to immolate their main problem, he grimly realized, and no member of his Mage Wave would be able to replace him for either task.

Damien had finished his Working. Roland and Virgil were beyond livid at the risks he was taking, but they’d just received word that the front urgently needed a solution against the sludge, that was only held back by Sheher’s song of bitter cold. This was the only reason they didn’t physically restrain him when he partially dismantled his Spellsword’s enchantments to link the Shifting Cores directly to the Meditation Circle. He took a long breath and took his place in the center.

“Please, do keep in mind that once you begin the spell’s channeling, you cannot simply stop it.” Virgil reminded him. “You will have an opportunity to stop the incantation every thirteen spell-cycles.”

Damien acknowledged the warning, not bothering to ask what would happen if he ignored it. The answer was self-evident: the uncontrolled pulses of mana would be forcibly injected in his Mana Gates, ruining his Conduits and discharging in his physical body. With some luck, something of him would survive. He squashed the morbid thought by circulating Ember mana in his body, finding the Element’s calm-inducing, peaceful influence to be salutary in this particular situation. “I’m ready, Roland. Don’t worry, I’m sure I know what I’m getting into.”

The old Enchanter activated the external array, deriving the best part of Saint-Denis’s HDM mana-reserves from his fixed Lightning Rods, immobilized too far from the fighting to be of use, into Damien’s Meditation Circle. There, they were redirected into the Cores in Damien’s hands, which were supplementing his insufficient, immature Gates in the task of converting the pulses of pure Mana into Elemental Mana the Enchanter-Conjurer could channel. The churning flows of Elemental Mana didn’t stay long in his Mana pool, which was filled to the brim almost instantly. Damien desperately emptied all his reserves as they filled, cramming every mote of Sun-fire and Ember in his Spellsword’s main Mandala, the naturally-occurring version of Summon Minor Elemental that he’d taken from a Crowned Boa and tinkered to suit his needs, painstakingly associating Fire Ant Cores to it to regulate the untamed magical phenomenon.

“Conjure Empowered Elemental Swarm.” He murmured, more to reassure himself than to actually cast the spell. He’d made himself a component of it, and dearly hoped he wouldn’t be burned out in the process, but he had only minimal amounts of control over it, as Virgil had reminded him. As he had hoped, dozens of fiery Ant-Elementals surged from the blade, guided by his will to seek and consume every manifestation of the being called Timingila.

First, they swarmed over the captured Infiltrator-Mermen inside the Manufactorium. Timingila’s whispers finally ended when the animated corpses/prisoners were touched by the Sun-fire Ants. They then spread over the Bastion, preceded by warnings from Roland to not stop the insect-shaped Elementals. Once they’d explored every nook and cranny that could be infiltrated, a line of hundreds of ants made a beeline for the harbor.

Meanwhile, Damien was struggling to keep his Astral body from imploding. As long as he stayed conscious and didn’t let his Conduits, Channels, and Gates reject the mana they were offered, he would be fine. However, the task was becoming more difficult. His Gates, in particular, on account of his relatively low Elemental Affinities, were being damaged, the raw mana too dense to be transformed into Damien's Elemental Mana before another pulse arrived. Damien panicked. His heart was a drum in his chest, pumping Druidic Essence into his Astral Body as quickly as his Half-Elven flesh could produce it. It wasn’t enough, Damien despaired. His Gates were going to break down before his Elementals could reach the harbor to immolate the monster's -Timingila’s- many manifestations. Just as tears of impotent frustration began to flow from his eyes for the second time that day...

A baby’s cry resonated in the chamber. Against Damien’s chest, another Half-Elven heart was beating. Halla had awoken, still in the harness Manon had made for her. She was so light and small in her sleep that the three Enchanters had all but forgotten her in their feverish preparations. The baby’s tears stopped as quickly as they’d begun, as Halla began to let out a wonder-filled laugh. Damien felt something familiar coming from her. The boy and the baby’s heartbeats synchronized. The infant had but a drop of Essence in her body, but it hardly mattered. Once it touched Damien’s, he felt as if he had taken leave of his body.

Halla and Damien’s Essence were the same. The boy knew it the instant they touched. However, there was a greater source of this power than either of them, close by. In the strange synesthesia that the world had become, Damien saw and felt the river of life-force under his feet, pregnant with the scents of the island he’d lived all his life on. He heard neighs, caws, rustlings, and foul bubbling noises in the river of power. Then, someone spoke.

“You have succeeded, Blood of my Blood. The Eater of the Dead has retreated.”