Kenji stood solemnly at the head of the boardroom table, a position which technically belonged to Stefano even though he remained in deference to Mr. Ikeda.

“Randell, my friend. You have let me down. Why did you not come to me? Why not seek me out instead of foolishly acting on your own?”

Randell Leaflight stood opposite his friend, his face a blank mask. He had seemed shocked, when he came in the room and saw Kenji standing formally at the table’s head, reminiscent of their strategy sessions as they had formulated the ideas for this company back in its early days. Randell’s visage had briefly flickered to anger before being overcome with the stone-faced neutrality that he was well known for and would have been easy for anyone but Kenji to miss.

“If you do not speak, how can I understand? Without you providing context, your actions speak only of stubborn pride. Is your pride worth your life? All our lives? If this counterfeiter is even a fraction of the threat that the others believe it to be, then does the situation not warrant prudence?”

Randell said nothing. Kenji sighed.

“If you will not speak to defend your actions, then you leave me no recourse, my oldest friend.” His tone became stiff and formal as he carefully enunciated every syllable of what he had to say next. “I must ask you to resign your position with this company.”

Those last words finally managed to crack the stony facade, as Randell’s face twisted in a snarl of anger and hurt. “Ask ME to resign?!” He shrieked, all semblance of self-restraint fleeing his features.

Before the half-elf could say his next words, the world around them twisted, distorted, pulled and tore open with a sound like a thousand plows furrowing the earth in unison.

Kragathor finished inscribing runes and ritual circles into the stone walls of the cavern he had constructed. He called forth a small group of minions, led by Shifty, to deal with things for him in accordance with his earlier instructions. He stationed them around the hemispherical bowl dug out of the cavern floor.

In Old High Draconic, he spoke a brief incantation, triggering the magical formations he had prepared — his voice filling the massive space and reverberating like thunder off a mountain’s peaks. Magic circles sprang into the air, glowing in reds, greens and blues. The air itself began to shimmer and twist and distort. Then, with a sound akin to tearing cloth amplified a thousand-fold, a sprawling campus appeared in the center of the cavern, the bowl filled with transplanted dirt, trees, and steel and glass buildings. Astonished and terrified mortals wailed and screamed. Some collapsed insensate, while others futilely sought cover. More sounds of distress came from within the buildings, as more of the mortals came to understand their dire predicament.

Kragathor surveyed the buildings and their contents. Such thin walls and paltry wards could not hamper his all-seeing gaze, not even the mysteriously complex formation around the Server Room. Good, they were right there. His new treasures.

“I, Kragathor Tenset Malevolous, hereby lay claim to that which I have summoned. Should any being decide to challenge my claim, you are welcome to stand before me and try to convince me otherwise.” As he spoke, windows shattered, and the mortals began to whimper and cry on the ground, futilely covering their ears. A concrete guard shack that was the closest building collapsed under the sonic assault that was the ancient dragon’s voice.

Stefano, Kenji and the board members looked at each other, fear etched on their faces. Even Randell seemed suddenly embarrassed and contrite. The crystal scrying pane that simulated an outside window now shone with the unfamiliar landscape of an enormous cavern covered with scrawled magical formulas. Where the replanted forest should be starting stood a line of demihuman and lower humanoid monsters.

Stefano scrambled to think. To figure out how to steer events toward the least terrible outcome that was now achievable.

Curse that abyssal fool, Randy’s condemned us all, he thought before shoving his personal feelings aside to start assimilating information and strategizing. He began to move toward the crystal scrying pane, ready to manually control it to get a better look at the situation.

“1-A, get Kenji to the vault in the Server Room. Safeguard him at all costs!” Stefano barked out, forgoing his usual distant respect for the sake of expediency. For all he knew the slightly shorter utterance might mean the difference between Mr. Ikeda surviving or not.

His aide snapped to attention and was already dragging the stunned young man from the room before the second sentence left Stefano’s mouth.

This was the worst-case scenario, amplified a hundred times and made even worse. What had prompted this? This was surely too quick of a reaction to result from Randy’s idiocy. How was it even possible? Teleportation on this scale was said to be outright impossible.

As Stefano began to swing the scrying pane’s point of view to show another direction bringing a monstrously huge form into the frame, the floor beneath his feet began to rumble and vibrate with a terrifyingly loud noise that, while too loud to properly hear, managed to convey its meaning directly into his mind without difficulty.

“I, Kragathor Tenset Malevolous, hereby lay claim to that which I have summoned. Should any being decide to challenge my claim, you are welcome to stand before me and try to convince me otherwise.”

He barely paused in his survey to register what the absurdly large, very red dragon had said. Numerous people had been caught outside, and he could see them cowering and writhing on the ground, holding their hands over their ears. A guard shack near the dragon had collapsed outright. He had no time to pray to the gods for the safety of the people within.

He withdrew the sending tablet from his pocket, an early version of something they’d planned to release next year to the general public. Another of Mr. Ikeda’s brilliant ideas. He tapped the sigils for the head of security, and for the on-site medical staff, and began directing them to the worst affected so that they could organize and send their own people quickly and effectively.

The sounds of the terrified and the injured were transmitted through the scrying pane, but he had no time to pay them any heed. He had to do what he could now. He could be haunted by the sheer horror of it all later.

“I challenge your claim!” A tiny, familiar voice shrieked out, carried through the divinatory tool.

“What? No. No no nonono.” Stefano whipped his head around and saw that in his hyper focused state, Randell had slipped from the room unnoticed. Talon and Wizzlefidget had followed Stefano’s lead, employing scrying panes of their own to help direct the rescue and relief teams.

“Nononono, you fool. Please don’t tell me it’s you. You idiot bastard thrice condemned to the abyss, you can’t be this stupid!” Stefano whispered fervently to himself as he panned the view in his own crystalline window around until a familiar golden blond head appeared, standing defiantly in front of a small crowd of fearful looking people as if interposing himself between them and this monstrous threat. A sense of dread filled Stefano as he watched the massive head shift, directing its two enormous amber and gold orbs that it called eyes to focus on the tiny little man that stood in opposition to overwhelming might.

The dragon snorted. “Anyone else?” It asked, its tone strangely soft as the wisps of ash that used to be Randell Leaflight, the half-elven Vice Minister of Public Relations for the Virmo Company and Stefano’s less than friendly rival, drifted lazily away in the tepid air currents of the cavern.