“What do they mine here?” Julia asked.

“Marshstone, it's used for turning the local iron into Abyssal steel,” said Ebusuku, giving her an impatient look.

“I’ve not heard of it before,” Julia stated. Her understanding of the Abyssal tongue only gave her an impression of a greyish-green material that burnt hotter than coal.

“It’s formed from the decaying remains of Primordials. This plane held a civilisation of theirs before Larvae started turning into Demons,” Ebusuku answered.

{{Yum Yum, Primordials, just another form of a decaying dinosaur arse. }}

Guess that’s why it’s green, except it’s not called soylent.

{{Soylent Green is made of people. They should have been honest and called it a long pig. }}

{{The advertising would have been easy. I’ve got a long one for you. Get some long meat in your mouth.}}

Julia ignored B as she started throwing out even worse advertising slogans.

“How easy is it to burn?” Julia asked.

“Takes a lot of heat to get going, but once it's burning, it doesn’t stop even underwater or dirt, and it burns white-hot. You need a Wizard with Fire and Abyssal Affinity and the right spells to put it out.”

So no coal dust explosions. I wonder if there are seams we could set on fire.

“You refer to both Primordials and Demons as they,” said Julia.

“Oh, you’re playing the learning game as well, such a cute little thing you are,” Ebusuku squealed, turning back into the original ebony form Julia had seen from her.

“You’re done with disguises,” Julia stated, shaking her head at the smirk on Ebusuku’s lips.

“Word will have got out. Let them know they’re going to be dying.”

I can live with that.

{{You hope. }}

Julia released the Àluga Succubus form and slid into her ivory-skinned beauty. Even as her shape solidified, the tiara of horns blurred from existence. A quick check with a formed mirror showed the flames, now only pinpricks of light burnt in her gaze. They vanished as Julia turned her eyes into featureless black orbs, relying again on True Sight to perceive. The long locks of hair shortening to fuzz after she considered them for a moment.

“Kill them all and let the Abyss sort them out,” stated Julia. Long curved blades formed along her forearms, and jagged brutal ridges rose from her shoulders and down her legs. Deep blood-red scales sheathed the rest of her form from below the chin, covering down to her toes, leaving her almost sexless in appearance, only the contours of her body implying gender.

“Now you’re learning,” Ebusuku said, with no sign if it was for the appearance Julia had taken or her words.

All notifications off.

Jagged teeth showed as Julia almost smiled. Flames of shifting blackness appeared along with the scales when Ki Armour activated and Ki Infusion drew in Spatial Mana.

A moment later, they appeared at the nearest mine, where its shaft dug into the hillside. At Ebusuku’s signal, Julia charged in among the work crews hauling loads of the marshstone from within. A dash and a slide took Julia under a Dretch. She left flesh and blood falling to the ground in her wake. Ki Movement, coupled with her Quickness, pushed her faster than the Demons close by could follow.

Even as Julia lept a minecart to open another’s throat, Ebusuku lashed out with a spell that made the air itself scream in pain. Unconfined chaos turned matter in its path into paradox. Demons burst apart in blood, bile, butterflies, and other erratic things on the edge of the blast. A stray frog lasted a hop before it exploded into flames. Within the killing field, everything else simply ceased to exist.

She wants lots of contract completions.

As a kick deflected a dying Dretch, Julia aimed at the mine’s entry before letting Spatial Mana fill a Lightning Bolt’s form. The Spatial Bolt tore a jagged gap in reality as things exploded from its path. Demonic screams among those fleeing rang out, those caught in the blast already dead. Scattered pieces of bodies coated the interior of the tunnel—the acidic odour of blood thickening the stillness of air within the mine. Even as the first of the debris splattered from the stones, the mine guards responded.

Gold armoured Kralcí came rushing down from the defences around the mine. The same strange headless entities she’d first seen atop the Pyramid. Squads of four peeling off from their platoons while others stayed in place, their focus on the exterior. The multiple arms of each Kralcí were grasping guisarmes, readying them as they rushed, the curved blade of the polearm sporting spikes along its back. Its makers designed the hook, forming its tip to catch and pull foes off-balance and leave them vulnerable on the ground.

The mine defenders had been keeping watching atop broad stone walls that protected the shaft’s work area. Even as they streamed towards Ebusuku and Julia, the main gates of the Mine closed in laboured movements.

“Left,” Ebusuku snapped.

Julia had just registered the word when energy exploded across the stairs on the closing gate’s left. The troops and stone alike melting under the force released.

“Right,” acknowledged Julia, already casting an altered Shock Blast. The force erupting from the focal point, spraying golden scales and flesh from their bodies as Spatial energy struck. Injured Kralcí continued onwards over the dead, falling at their feet. Untouched squads jumped from the stairs and split between them both.

{{Out? But what about the middle?}}

Bolts loosed from the wall at Ebusuku, she cut away in a blur of blades. While those at Julia, True Sight showed her bracer’s stealing momentum from them, and they dropped from the air.

A rush took Julia towards the nearest Kralcí, the guisarme’s blade whistling as it cut towards her. With a swaying motion, Julia slipped under the arc of its attack. Already committed to the strike, it staggered forward as she struck. A foot lashed out to drive a spike from its base deep into its thigh. As it went through armour, it bloomed within the flesh. Bone and metal twisted and broke. The spike having become a bladed anvil and crashing through it to the ground.

As it fell towards her, Julia grabbed the horns extending from its shoulders and wrenched its body onto another foe’s hooked strike. Blackness draining the life from it to repair a wound, a third opened in her side. Its hook caught and yanked on her as it dug into her side. When it pulled and twisted, the Kralcí staggered off-balance as all resistance fled. The haft suddenly was thickening as Julia’s form vanished to envelop it. The substance of her flowing up the haft to flood across its arms and body. Needle spikes extruding within her, digging beneath scales to drive through flesh and bone. When she reached its other side, her form flexed and opened it front to back. Flayed skin and shredded meat left dropping from the bones.

{{I feel like some pulled pork right now. }}

The memory of food probed at Julia’s awareness as she dropped flat beneath a strike aiming to pin her to the ground. Protean didn’t change her shape but simply reformed her. Between one blink and a next, Julia went from leaning back to standing before her foe. A knee strike broke through its closest forearms and the haft as more enemies came in fast. A blazing hand struck against already broken bones. Ki Strike carried it hard through flesh and amputated the limb in its wake. A flurry of whirling motion took her among its reinforcements. As the spikes and snapping jaws bristling from her back tore armour away. Punches, strikes and kicks scattered broken foes. Though others stood their ground with weapons, claws and horns, to pull or pierce her flesh, her injuries were sealing even as they began with stolen life refilling her.

Wave after wave flowed from the walls, and even Kralcí set aside massive crossbows and joined the melee below. Foes weakened, then dropped, but were replaced within a breath. Explosions of light and sound ripped along the battlements. The destruction Ebusuku left encouraging foes to attack Julia instead, just to stay away from certain death. As damage mounted beyond her ability to heal or steal, Julia heard a voice snap.

“Down,”

As Energy Drain stole from yet another enemy, Julia dropped flat atop blood-soaked bodies. True Sight showing her the darkness arcing above her. A blade of pitch night, searing through foes and stone alike. As she rose to her feet, she dropped the severed arm she held.

“In,” Ebusuku ordered, as another spell form sent explosions racing along the battlements.

Julia didn’t stop to question, just let Teleport shift her location, and suddenly stood deep in the mine tunnel. She watched as Ebusuku appeared close to the entrance, and a wall of black stone sealed the light away.

[Combat Summary:

Lesser Dretch x 42

Kralcí x 95

Kralcí (40%)

Demonic Shards gained: 82.2

Racial Level Up! x4

Total Demons returned to the Abyss: 96

Total-Experience Gained: 353,324

Monk: +142,382

Succubus: +142,382

Succubus Level Up!

Wizard: +68,600

Ki Movement [J](23->24)

Lightning Bolt [Ad](23)

Silent Storm [M] (28->29)]

{{What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is my own. }}

Greedy Guts!

{{Must have pulled pork! }}

Gross!

{{Gut Salad, Yummy, yummy. }}

Really?

{{ Dirty dicks, done real deep. }}

The tempo of the words letting Julia know what song B planned to mock.

Don’t do that to AC/DC.

{{Okay mum. }}

“Wasn’t that fun? You have a lively imagination,” Ebusuku said, affectionately as Teleport brought her to Julia’s side, “Let their Wizards screw with that. We’ll see how many miners we can butcher in the meantime. Don’t go to the stronghold again till you learn to mask the energy of your form. You were empty of energy when I met you. The difference will make you a target even the blind Castellan would notice.”

“Why the advice?” Julia question, allowing a touch of curiosity to show.

“I don’t want the challenge to end with her ripping you apart. The Lady despises challenges, especially in her nest. I get to ask a question. Are the scales part of your skin or on top?”

“Part of the skin, just like a serpent’s scales.”

“Lovely.”

Ebusuku blurred, and Julia looked on as her form took on the scaled, spiked shape Julia had opted for the attack. Though, unlike Julia’s smooth scales, the ones Ebusuku used looked themselves jagged enough to open flesh just by brushing past someone.

With the tunnel blocked, the weight of darkness within had settled upon them but didn’t hamper her True Sight. The main tunnel was some six metres across and eight metres high, providing plenty of room for even the massive form of Wenga or Skëll Demons. Ahead, shouts and snarling voices seemed to show the place was being pulled back from complete Chaos. Having sensed or heard the attackers, the Demons wanted to flee, yet a power held them tight.

“Almost a hundred years of maturation drawn into you so quickly. I’d be jealous if I hadn’t long ago reached my peak.”

“Why did you never raise a cult?”

“Why would I? Do you plan to?”

“Mortals are unpredictable. Is there a plan they wouldn’t change or put their stamp on?” Julia asked, a brief smile twitching her lips. The dedication and belief that Eivor had shown still left Julia at a loss.

Ebusuku smiled wide in apparent delight and paused as if considering her words. A few moments later, her fingers flickered in hand sign.

“Don’t Ascend to the Lady rank. Not without enough Power to destroy her. She will have them hunting you for eternity if you do. I doubt anyone can remember the names of those in the Sisterhood making that mistake in the past.”

“If something like that happened, would your Progenitor benefit?”

“That depends on what happens to the contents of a Chamber,” Ebusuku’s gestures took particular care, stressing the last word, but their past conversations made it clear what she meant.

I’ll need confirmation that it’s what I think she means or something else hidden there? The block had protections in place that Naz’rilca forced me through.

“Blood in particular.”

“Sometimes Blood can be hard to handle. It holds onto much that touches it, seals to it, in more ways than one. The final bloodstain needs scouring from existence, and its Mistress likewise removed. Have you finished recovering?”

“Soon.” Julia signed, waiting for the injuries she still felt inside to seal and worked to recover some Mana and Ki.

A few minutes later, Julia nodded and followed Ebusuku deeper into the mine as she immediately started moving. The pace rapidly increased, and soon they were flying through the main tunnel. A wave of noise greeted their entry into a massive hollowed space. A large shaft some twenty metres or more sank deep into the ground. They found Miners arrayed with a thin layer of guards around it, their focus on the entrance. Bellowed orders from behind the lines made it clear who was in charge.

A massive centipede-like Centaur thing, its upper back three metres from the ground, easily eight metres long. Its lower half covered in a hardened shell that oozed thick fluid, while its upper body was a heavyweight human with oily, bronzed skin. Long flabby arms, with fat fingers ended in amber claws and its head, was a nightmarish thing. Discoloured and sickly bronze reptilian scales covered its flesh above the shoulders. Protruding faceted eyes, shining a violent yellow, were set all-around a circular maw filled with jagged fangs that sat within the centre of its face.

[Name: Isèlulèko

Demonic Species: Greater Babhïkishæ

Class: Slave Master / Torturer / Priest

Level: 14 / 30 / 40 / 40

Health: 6,088

Defence: 127

Faith: 58

Magic: 154

Mana: 3015

Combat Skill: Bite [Ad] (45), Claws [Ad] (41), Rotting Discharge [M] (4), Trample [Ad] (48), Whip [M](2) - Various Blessings

Details: The Babhïkishæ Demon spawn from deep marshes in the central continent of Àluga, primarily held by Set. A former disciple in life, it has devoted its new existence to the service of Set. It combined the Slaver and Dominator classes at level thirty into the Prestige class of Slave Master. ]

The bellowing mine supervisor opened its mouth again, not noticing when Julia appeared behind its head. Teleport having put her far behind the defences the guards had been setting up. Eyes exploded as a fist drove through its skull. Though she’d seen plenty of death, it didn’t prepare Julia for what came next. As the front of its upper body flopped to the ground, it was already a rotting mess of goo. Left behind was a clean stump and a new body erupted in its place. Even as it started upright, the lower body scampered away, causing dozens of clawed legs to spark against the stone. As it blurred away with incredible speed, Julia only just managed a single kick along its side. A glimpse as it raced away showed beaded eyes set upon its haunches. Its long end raised and maw set across its rear spat a stream of yellowish fluid to coat her legs. Pain erupting uselessly from wherever it landed as it ate quickly through her scales.

{{Cool, you caught its money snot. Or acidic demon poo! Someone got a hazmat suit?}}

As the scales and skin across her legs went slithering from the muscles, Julia acted fast. A thought drew fluid and rotting flesh within Inventory before tossing it towards the faces of nearby Dretch. Mere droplets sent them writhing to the ground, screaming and clawing while ripping their faces apart. Julia felt a token force of Will strike against her own, only to slide helplessly away, leaving a pitiful echo of pain in play. As chanting started, Julia took a chance, willing Dominion on as she crushed down on the fleeing Babhïkishæ, pushing via Stimulation the agony of the inferno within her aura.

While the inhabitants of the chamber began screaming, a humanoid figure rose out of the Pit in the chamber’s centre. Wings of shifting, sullen flame beating from its back held him aloft. Though shaped like a man, it looked as if flayed alive. Metallic red spikes the brightness of arterial blood jutting from every muscle covered him from neck to foot. His wings flared as blades that seemed made of blood appeared within his hands. His lurid green eyes were flashing with power untouched by her Dominion, yet unable to battle it in turn. Still, the strength of a Dread Gaze tried to crush her mind, yet its impact staggered her for only an instant. A tentacle loop fell in place when he moved at her, a noose yanking him towards Ebusuku. Even as he braced in midair, she was already upon him, holding herself wingless before him as blood bloomed where her swords struck across his body.

[Name: Setka

Demonics Species: Named Îthèmba

Details: These entities originated as petitioners of Set whose deeds earned them direct transformation into fanatical Demonic servants. Memories of their mortal lives are but faint echoes, but they remain dedicated to establishing Set’s goals. The faithful treat their commands as extensions of his will.]

Dominion had hitched but then firmed the uninjured Dretch around her dropped in pain. As Ebusuku screamed in delight, Julia ran towards the thrashing Isèlulèko. Its clawed legs were ripping flesh from Demons falling around it as it fought against her will. Leaping towards its back as she drew near cost a sharp lesson. Six legs supporting its long end lifted from the ground, raking across her body as it coiled in desperation at her approach. A snorting sound was enough to prompt a transformation, and yellow fluid went spraying through where she had already passed. Julia landed with dancing steps, its shell cracking with every strike of metal spikes. The barbed tips based upon the Nox, ripping and breaking the surface as Ki and mana burst through its body.

Tendrils lept forth in a spray and struck as spears from her flesh. Each landing amid those tasting the agony from her memories. Held in painful rapture and suffering, they were unaware as Ki and blackness brought their destruction before its hunger moved on. The stolen health quickly sealing still open wounds as Julia kept moving in time with its twisting motions. Her Demonic ballerina shoes tearing Isèlulèko’s stone-like shell and putrid flesh apart. Rancid blood spraying with every rapid striking step and screeches piercing the air as thrashing it threw itself into a roll. In desperation, it fell towards the pit, yet Julia gave it no mercy.

When its side hit the ground, she shaped a brace to hold it. Rows of steel I-Beams struck down, bursting impossibly from the tendrils. Ki wrought force, enabling them to pierce deep into the stone before her will bent them into staples clamping into its back. Feeling the limits of her Protean strain against the tons of creation, Julia rode it's now helpless yet still thrashing form. With mounting effort from her extended form, tendrils retracted from the injured or now dead. Whether it was a reduction of mass or complexity, it quickly eased the strain of keeping the beams in place.

A glance at the fighting pair found blood spraying from Ebusuku’s blade and told a one-sided story. Even though Julia had made no exception to her aura, Ebusuku fought unaffected. Julia pressed her will hard against Setka. The impact causing a flailing Setka to glare her way, but with Julia already intent upon him, her Will brushed his strike away. Its blade of dripping blood fell away with its hand cutaway in its moment of distraction. With a flicker, it suddenly vanished, and Julia recognised the teleportation. Danger Sense’s shrill, and Zen State’s intuition slid her to one side, his strike with the remaining sword still severing an arm. Its edge blurring towards her so fast Zen State could only determine where its next hit had already struck. As his blade parted flesh and cut bone, reality folded with Spatial Mana and spat him onto Ebusuku’s strike. The severed head was dropping one way even as Ebusuku’s kick sent the body another.

A relieved breath she didn’t need to take let her taste burning flesh, sizzling Julia rose to her feet in a flowing motion. The ooze along her captive Demon was as quick to eat through scales and flesh as its spray had been. Snarling oaths, she cast more of herself and its fluids across those crushed by agony to the ground. Julia felt blood flowing across her face even as the wounds healed, her severed arm melting in the ooze nearby. In a focused moment, her spikes dug a latticework through flesh. Her Willpower still crushing Isèlulèko, blackness drank its life away and flooding her with health. Only when it was dead did Julia pull back the steel that formed its cage. Pulling the two tons of steel back within her, let a relaxation ring throughout her form.

Julia kept the aura crushing on the Demons and, pushing through the sense of their struggles, joined Ebusuku in their slaughter. Ebusuku was giving her a pout once they completed the butchery.

[Combat Summary:

Greater Babhïkishæ

Cambion x5

Lesser Dretch x 60

Named Îthèmba (5%)

Lesser Wenga x4

Demonic Shards gained:14.4

Total Demons returned to the Abyss: 34

Total-Experience Gained: 150,288

Monk: +75,144

Monk Level Up!

Succubus: +75,144

Death Strike (15->16)

Silent Kill (7->8)

Dominion [Ad] (26->27)

Ki Armour [Ad] (37->38)

Ki Infusion [Ad] (47->48)

Protean [Ad](29->30)

Stimulation [Ad] (18->19)

Inventory [Ap] (7->8)

Torturer base class unlocked for future selection.

Executioner base class unlocked for future selection.

]

Yeah, fuck off.

{{That was fun. Can we do it again? }}

If we do, will you stop bugging me to fuck something?

{{Maybe! If you pay the butcher’s bill for some of the shit that you keep sealing into boxes. It’s crowding my living space.}}

Julia felt something press hard against the calm of Zen State for a moment.

{{This one’s ripe to burst. Want me to tell you its label? I’m disappointed that it’s not repressed sexual hunger. }}

{{It’s just dull guilt!!!!!}}

I didn’t ask, and I know I’m worried about them both. That won’t go away till I find out what’s going on.

{{Not the only thing you’re feeling guilty about. }}

Why do you keep carrying on about sex?

{{All those sensations in one fun package. What’s not to love! }}

{{We’ve only got memories from past lives. None had this flexible body. }}

“Shall we go down?” Ebusuku asked, clearly already having dismissed the dead.

{{Oh yes, please, her first.}}

With Zen State reminding her of Setka's blurring speed, she placed the points from passing another threshold with Monk into Quickness before she nodded.

The central pit led far beneath the earth and broke into the top of a vast cavern stretching out in all directions. Long pillars wrapped in runes supported a high arc ceiling, giving an eerie cathedral feel. As Julia took the outlines of broken skulls and bones among the greyish-green forming the floor, it became a mockery of the dead. Everywhere she looked, Demons were still hacking away, breaking up desiccated corpses. Her mind picked out a body whose skull seemed almost human, except for the metre long mosquito-like proboscis where the mouth should have been. The hollow of its gaze seemed to draw her own even as a Dretch’s pickaxe came down on it, crushing the bones into powder.

“Kill them all.”

Ebusuku’s hand sign was clear, and looking over the labouring Dretch, Julia extended the Dominion again and used Stimulation to extend something unknown to Demons. When sleep-like oblivion pressed, those caught within it dropped as if boneless to the ground, while others spooked and scattered like blowflies shooed from a corpse.

“You get the paralysed ones. I’ll have fun chasing down the rest.”

Ebusuku pointed, and spears of lightning longer than Julia’s body leapt from her side. They left but an afterglow lingering behind as they drove with flesh burning force through rows of demons.

{{This little piggy went to market. This little piggy went splat. The one’s head looks nice and round. See if it will roll home.}}

Zen’s calmness just let Julia take in B’s remarks, even as she set about the gruesome work. Flight drifted her over the fallen as Protean shaped spears, Ki and darkness sent the essence of Lesser Dretch on. Julia was quick in dismissing the combat summary that catalogued her latest executions as Ebusuku returned. The sheer force of her Will pressing away yet another slaughter that felt as if it was trying to stain her mind. Her gaze slid off the mounds of corpses that formed the floor of the cavern before she glanced at Ebusuku.

{{Just put it with the others that need payment. You need to accept you’re a murderhobo now. }}

((They deserve neither your pity nor mercy. ))

If I don’t feel anything, how does it make me better than they are?

((You take no delight in it. Not even the sense of power and rush of survival many feel. ))

“Does it extend off under the ground?” Julia asked, wanting to move on before the thoughts threatened Zen State’s calm.

“As far as the hills extend. After the Demons slaughtered the Primordials, they just piled the endless bodies of the dead into giant mounds. The earth of the Abyss settled on them later and hid their remains till some Alchemist discovered a use for the long decaying corpses.”

“So, how far does this stretch?” Julia asked, trying to determine the millions that must have died.

“Hundreds of kilometres.”

Trillions perhaps for this plane alone?

[Abyssal Lore [Ad](14->15)

Demonic Lore [J](15->16)]

Julia just smiled and focused on a mound of marshstone before she created the Water Wall spell form and filled it with Fire Mana. As it came into existence, the line of it cut through the strange dead, and the corpses quickly grew hotter. Mana poured into it till the flames finally caught and the ancient dead burned. Sharp, acidic foulness rose into the air, tainted even the darkness about them. When the flames spread, Julia set another wall in play, and Ebusuku copied with a spell of her own. A blanket of flames lay over the greenish floor till white flames burst through it. With a nod of satisfaction from Ebusuku, they teleported away.

Their spot had changed little since they last had been here. Though a bunch of vultures pecked and squabbled as they focused their attention on the ground, just a stone’s throw away.

“Destructive little thing, aren’t you? If his forces don’t get through my barrier soon, it might become impossible to stop. Now there will be less to trade with other planes and factions to get material he needs.”

“Such a shame. I thought they would have teleported past.”

Julia let forth a very fake forlorn sigh and let her shoulders slump.

“Dimensional barriers. They prevent those unwelcome from teleporting into locations if the entrance they seal is the only one. You did well,”

“Why did you save me from his blade?” Julia asked, allowing curiosity she’d set aside out to play. Still hiding the surprise, she felt to hear a compliment coming from a Demon.

“Why should I let him have any fun?” Ebusuku asked, an insulted tone making her husky voice gruff.

“Makes sense,” Julia said flatly.

Ebusuku’s laughter rang out, prompting the nearby vultures to scatter from the ground. Their lice covered feathers falling over a crushed feline corpse they’d left behind.

“Little one, you have too far to climb before I expect you to stand on your own.”

“Not very Demon like,” quipped Julia.

“I’m only a Demon when I’m in the Abyss, little one,” Ebusuku corrected primly.

What the fuck? How does that work? Is she looking for me to let down my guard?

“Such a sceptical look. Devils see my imprint as one of them and pay me well for information.”

Julia looked at the cat’s head crushed into the earth, the circular imprint matching wounds within her memory. A fallen Demon in a warehouse, its head squashed against the stone floor. It was enough to prompt her to examine every shadow about with True Sight.

Was Lêdhins here at this camp? It looks like something matching his war mattock’s butt smashed into its skull.

“How?” Julia breathed, focusing on the vulture pecked corpse.

“It is a facet of my Proginetor’s line. You owe me a question now. What..”

“No. I meant, how did he find this spot.” Julia said, interrupting as she pointed to the feline’s body.

“Who do you think found it?” asked Ebusuku moving closer to the body and examining the ground about it.

“Lêdhins. The crushed skull looks like a strike from the butt of his war mattock.” Julia replied, knowing it was going to be inviting questions. A mental smile was twitching under Zen State as she considered what questions she could ask in return.

“How do you know what his weapon’s wounds look like?”

“That’s two questions you owe me,” said Julia, wanting to make sure Ebusuku knew she was counting them.

“Fine, just answer my questions regarding Lêdhins.”