Zack turned to Bayei "I need you to tell me what you know about the layout of this mountain city. I can't make heads or tails of any of it." From what he had seen thus far, there was nothing flat. Sloping hallways rose into vertical walls covered in indents for handholds. Even what passed for flatground here was actually really uneven.

The gray skinned woman said "I'm not sure what you mean, but even the little children of my people learn to climb as well as they can walk. We have to make full use of what limited space we have." then she vertical jumped eight feet into the air and grabbed a small hand hold in the ceiling and swung herself into a hidden room.

After some clattering, she came back several minutes later wearing a whole different set of black gear. Knives were strapped to her forearms, thighs, chest, and shoulders. The woman was loaded. But for some reason they had extra thick handles. On her back was another contraption of hers. It looked like a black disc and had what looked to be folded arms on it's top.

Zack had to walk behind her in order to observe the machine further "How do you control this thing?"

One of the mechanical arms unfold and grabbed a knife, flipped it into the air and resheathed it "I use my metallokinesis skills to trigger levers within the device in order to get it to move as I want. And by the way, I call it Hiyjib. "

A grin appeared on his face at the name "Akmadouric's army is all about using abilities in creative ways in order to maximize value, or so I've been told. They are going to love you when you get there."

Bayei had a grim look on her face "To actually escape this prison. It's more than I could have ever hoped for."

"Then why did you make all that gear?"

"Compulsion control. Might as well make something that could save my life one day. And with Taelon energy being heavily restricted to the upper classes, it is the best I can do."

Zack cocked his head to the side "Then what about all these?" he motioned to all the little robots running around her home.

She shrugged "Wind-up toys."

"The machines in my world run on electricity, which is something entirely different from Taelon energy."

"How many types of energy are there?"

Zack shrugged "I've only been to a handful of dimensions and from what I understand, the multi-verse is...bigger than what anyone can imagine."

Bayei brought out a map of the mountain city and told him everything she knew about it's security. The patrols on the lower levels were few and far between, but the guards stationed towards the entrance were equipped with a much more serious loadout. The body armor of the Tsilfri Sentinals's was designed for mobility. Their plated suits were made of a supposedly unbreakable metal fiber and their weapons included a Taelon energy pistol as well as several debilitating devices. Nothing got in or out of the mountain city without going through them first.

Bayei asked "Do you have any idea how we are going to get past killers who have trained to combat giant monstrous beasts?"

"It's a big mountain, there are multiple entrances. So I'm thinking we could have Hroyd cause a disturbance at this entrance" He pointed to the entrance on the eastern side and said "Then we make our move on the northern entrance."

Bayei asked with a confused look on her face "Who is Hroyd?"

"He's my invisible friend." It was a cruel joke to play on her, but he let her doubt his sanity for a few seconds before summoning the Kulabv warrior right in front of her.

Instantly knives appeared in her hands and in the hands of her mechanical creation.

Hroyd raised his head to protect his vitals while making his fur hard like iron while Zack waved his hands and yelled "Wait! He's a friend."

Bayei shook her head and lowered her weapons "You startled me."

Zack knew that such an overreaction was a symptom of PTSD "Hroyd is an eidolan, he's a different form of life than you and me. If he doesn't get killed outright then he can just enter the spiritual ether and reform himself."

"The what? Okay, but what if he does get killed?"

"Then I gotta pay Akmadouric to revive him. Which is surprisingly cheap even though it takes awhile."

Hroyd decided to get back on topic by asking "What about killing people during this operation?"

Zack frowned in thought for a few moments "Mostly I'd like it if you disabled them. But if you have to kill a few of them that's fine, it's not like it'll be so traumatic that Akmadouric would have to manually piece their consciousnesses back together."

Hroyd's nose twitched at Zack's coldness "Isn't that a bit harsh?"

Zack shrugged in indifference "It's their punishment for accepting what goes on during the festival."

Hroyd argued "They do it out of necessity." but Zack could sense indifference in his attitude.

Hroyd stalked through the cavern of the mountain that housed an entire city. After spending an unknown great length of time in a world...no...universe that had been bent into a never ending network of tunnels, just seeing the sun again was uplifting. And going underground again during these missions...was an annoyance.

Augmenting his hearing to it's maximum sensitivity, he could hear the patrols climbing around the dimly lit cavern. The Dirske patrolmen moved well along the walls, but they didn't have claws capable of digging into the rock for a better grip. Hroyd waited at the top of one of the ledges for one of the patrolman to finish their ascent. He grabbed him with a hand that enveloped the Dirske man's whole head in order to keep him quiet before slamming him on the ground to knock him out and carried him away to stash the unconscious body in a dumpster. Then went on to dispose of three more patrolman in much the same fashion.

'Time to make myself known.' Hroyd decapitated one of the Dirske patrolman and sunk his teeth into his buddy's shoulder before the the third man could react. The last one drew a Taelon energy pistol and aimed it at Hroyd to fire. A long orange stream erupted from the pistol and burned into Hroyd. The Kulabv warrior's whole side turned to pain but it was still within his threshold for what he could endure. He intentionally let loose a howl anyway for the whole upper level cavern to hear.

Flashing his bloodied teeth before diving down a vertical shaft and reentering the spiritual ether.

Zack listened to the survivor yell through his headset communicator "Code 32! Code 32! The other two members of my squad have been killed!"

Zack only heard bits and pieces of what the guy on the other line said "What!? There's....no breach...any...entra...imopossi..."

Another voice said "Comms check. Is anyone missing?"

While the patrolmen did their roll call and rattled off several more codes that only they knew about, Zack asked "I don't suppose you know what all of their codes mean?"

Bayei said "No idea, but if I had to guess then they probably think that Hroyd is one of the beings from the lowlands."

Hroyd's disembodied head appeared and said "Very conveniant for us." not that Bayei could hear him.

Zack said "They will be running around the lower levels looking for him." a group of eight patrolmen climbed down the shaft that Hroyd had disappeared through "Which means they will have less manpower at the checkpoint. But the question is: What are the other actions they are taking? I mean, I heard about five other codes when their orders were being given."

Another group descended down the shaft and Bayei said "Let's move. We gotta be quick."

Zack summoned Hroyd and they both climbed atop his wide back. They grabbed onto his fur and rode. The Kulabv warrior thundered towards the checkpoint. Bayei drew her knives with all six of her arms and threw them at the guardsmen in a volley of razor sharp metal, hitting all of the guardsmen before they could even aim their Taelon energy pistols at the snarling apparition charging right at them.

Hroyd leaped onto a guard booth to gain hieght advantage and the two humanoids on his back jumped to the sides. Limbs flew as the checkpoint was ambushed from the opposite direction that the guardsmen expected to defend. The orange streams of Taelon energy blasts made the rock they hit glow a dull red, giving the whole entryway a slightly hellish hue. Zack flung his body from side to side using his telekinesis, dodging the fiery beams and feeling the heat from the near misses. The battle ending almost as quickly as it began.

They left the interior of the mountain to see the dark night's sky was still out, the two white moons in the waxing part of their cycles. The stars shone brightly through the thin air. Bayei slowed her step to look at it for just a moment but then caught herself and started running with the group again.

Zack looked over at Hroyd as they fled to see that his whole side was bleeding "Oh shit, are you alright?"

Instead of answering Hroyd sent his pain over their weak telepathic link. Pain filled Zack's being, feeling it's intensity from outside of his own body was stranger than he would have believed. He quickly closed the bridge between them.

+1 maximum willpower energy

Shaking his head Zack said "Okay, fine. I'm sorry you had to go through this because you are beholden to your contractor."

Hroyd released a sigh he had been holding tightly "It's nothing. Pain is the way of a warrior's life. But damn do those things eat into flesh very quickly."

Bayei said "Taelon energy is extracted from red fire, and then broken down to it's most pure essence. Those pistols use it in a compacted form and as a result, it shoots a dense stream of heat and kinetic energy."

Zack asked "Then why do they need to turn people into goo if they have such deadly weapons already?"

"Because that type of Taelon energy has additional properties, making it far more powerful."

A rock falling from the cliffs above them caused them all to turn, and dread overtook all three of their faces. A metal dragon stood over them, it's thirty foot wingspan spanning towards the edges of both sides of their vision. Glowing orange veins coursed throughout it's dark silver body that clearly had muscles underneath it's scaled iron skin.

Bayei screamed "They released the golem! Run!"

The dragon golem's eight foot toothy maw opened and there was a red glow in it's throat in preparation to launch it's own Taelon fire blast.

Hroyd scooped up both of his companions and dove off the mountainside. The trio fell and the cold air whistled past them as they accelerated downward.

The dragon looked out over the ledge and a ten foot in diameter stream of orange flames expelled from it's mouth. The air itself was burnt to a crisp and loose rocks on the side of the mountain fell all around them. But the blast's reach wasn't long enough and dissipated.

Bayei yelled over the wind "Now I get to die by an eight thousand foot drop instead of by flame!"

Zack yelled back "People have survived falls from this high up before."

Hroyd spoke as he normally did since his voice easily carried "Don't worry, I'll be on the bottom and provide a cushion for you both. But just remember Zack, you owe me for this."