Leon and the tree sprite had an alliance. He didn’t think too hard about it, but neither did he entirely trust the creature. He’d spent too long on the watch out for such beings back in the Forest of Black and White, and those old instincts, while almost forgotten, had shown themselves to still be quite strong after arriving the Prota Forest. Still, he was enraged at the kidnapping of his people—for the second time—and at Apati’s betrayal and attempted extortion. He was going to cut his way down to the enchantment control room and vent a little on Apati, and if the eighth-tier tree sprite wanted to tag along for the ride, then he was all for it.

At the very least, he could envision this ending in a way that left both him and the forest’s tree sprites parting, if not on friendly terms, then at least relatively amicably. If they could allow him peace enough to plunder the research facility, then that would be ideal, but if not, then there might even be a possibility for a longer lasting partnership there…

But those thoughts weren’t fleshed out as Leon began running for the hole carved by the cerebral root that he’d used to enter the research facility only a few hours earlier. Unfortunately, when he reached it, he found that the hole had been sealed.

“There was a passage here,” Leon said, and was about to elaborate when the tree sprite simply knelt, and the earth opened. The ease with which it used earth magic was astounding, and Leon could hardly feel its effects in the atmosphere surrounding them.

Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, Leon jumped down the hole, which terminated right at the hole he’d carved into the facility wall. What awaited him on the other side, however, wasn’t an empty room, but a room with three more labor golems holding Alix, Marcus, and Alcander, and one of Apati’s green orbs of light hovering nearby. His retainers were thoroughly restrained, but they hadn’t been gagged, so Alix called out as soon as Leon appeared.

“Leon! Over here!”

“My Lord,” Apati insincerely said as Leon hopped into the room, his three retainers looking quite relieved, not a trace of fear anywhere in their expressions, “if you won’t listen to reason, then perhaps—”

Before Apati could finish, Leon had already moved. Lightning blazed through his body and he moved faster than the mortal eye could track. In barely more time than a flash of light, he’d sank his blade deep into the bronze chassis of the nearest golem, which had restrained Alix. As soon as his Adamant weapon pierced through the bronze, he let loose with his power, destroying the core workings of the construct. Given his careful studies of the two labor golems already in his possession, he knew just where to strike.

The golem fell, rendered inert, and Leon launched himself at the next, dealing with it as quickly and efficiently as the first and released Marcus from his captivity, though not yet his restraints. The third, instead of moving against Leon, simply wrapped Alcander in its massive arms and began to squeeze. Leon was about to move again when a root exploded from his point of ingress and wrapped itself around the golem. The construct was subjected to the same punishment it was about to subject Alcander to, and the root was far stronger, crushing the golem like it was made of a thin sheet of aluminum rather than thick bronze.

“Gah! Fuck!” Alcander cried out as he hit the ground. Leon, lightning still coursing through his veins, wasted not a second in freeing his retainers from their bonds.

“Is everyone all right?” he shouted.

“Good to go, boss!” Alix replied. “They didn’t hold us for long!”

“Right,” Marcus added. “Our weapons were taken, though we still have our… magic…”

Marcus went quiet as Leon noted movement over by the hole in the wall, and when he glanced that way, saw the tree sprite being hoisted in, borne aloft by a twisting mass of thin vines that set it down almost comically gently within the room.

“Watch out!” Alcander shouted as his hands lit up with fire. Marcus and Alix, too, conjured their magic, with Marcus’s hands and eyes glowing with white light, and golden lightning sparkling around Alix’s hands and forearms.

“It’s fine!” Leon roared, stopping all three before they could do anything rash. “Right now, the tree sprites aren’t our enemies!”

The three looked at him like he was crazy, but he glared back. All still had their helmets on, so he couldn’t communicate privately with them, but he hoped his demeanor got through, even if he was, himself, wearing a helmet that obscured his face.

“For now, we need to focus on finding the others,” Leon said. “I don’t think it should be that difficult, but still, follow me.”

“Any idea where to start?” Marcus asked as he and Alix fell in beside Leon without question. Alcander took another moment, but eventually, after a hard look at the tree sprite who trailed behind Leon, he, too, fell in.

“They can’t have gone far,” Leon said. “The teleportation enchantment was made kind of ad-hoc, and the power supply of the research facility, while not depleted by any means, isn’t infinite, either. So they can’t have been teleported far. I’m guessing they’re somewhere else here in the facility.”

“That… might be harder said than done,” Alix observed as they emerged in the hallway and saw for themselves just how intact everything was. The hallway stretched for a long distance, and the projected murals and artificial sky were quite breathtaking, Leon knew, but he urged them onward anyway.

“I don’t think it’ll be that hard, actually,” he said. Before anyone could ask what he meant, they all heard a muffled explosion in the distance and a flash of orange light emanate from around a corner ahead of them.

Without a word, all five began running forward, with Leon and his retainers moving as one, while the tree sprite continued to lag behind. Leon didn’t think too harshly about that, as he didn’t trust it entirely, either, and this way, they wouldn’t have to worry too much about Apati ambushing them from behind.

In a hurried tone, rushing to pass on his information before Leon jumped into another fight, Nestor said, [These golems are likely keyed into your power, Leon. They probably won’t attack you, no matter how much ‘Apati’ tries to get them to. Your friends, however…”

As Nestor finished, Leon rounded the corner at the intersecting hallways and finally saw what was going on: the three remaining Evergolden mages were battling a single labor golem, and doing quite well. One of them, a wind mage, was flying around above the golem, constantly striking at its head with compressed wind strikes, doing a surprising amount of damage for so gentle an element. Another was hacking away at the golem’s legs with a blade of light, while the final mage was hitting the golem with fire.

The labor golems, while durable, weren’t built for combat, and just as Leon started charging in their direction, the golem fell to the ground.

“Friendlies coming up!” Alix shouted as Leon’s group approached. The Evergolden mages swung to face them and relaxed slightly, but went on guard once again as the tree sprite made its presence known.

Leon immediately told them of his impromptu alliance, and while he didn’t think they liked the thought, they still minutely relaxed when the tree sprite made no threatening moves.

When everyone had accepted their situation, Leon said, “I know the way to the control room. From there, we should be able to search through the entire facility for everyone else, assuming they weren’t teleported somewhere along the way.”

The strongest of the three Evergolden mages, the sixth-tier woman with wind magic, simply replied, “Lead the way.”

Leon smiled, appreciating their professionalism, and then turned around and began running, everyone else on his heels. He tensed up slightly as the Evergolden mages ran past the tree sprite, but apart from some suspicious looks and clear lack of trust, they ran past it with little argument, to his relief. Once again, the tree sprite took up the rear.

As they ran, Leon traced his steps as best as he could, moving around some of the more destroyed sections of the research facility constantly on the lookout for any more of his people. So, when he was leading them down another long corridor and heard the sounds of distant fighting, he noticed.

On their route, he needed to go straight through a large atrium, but the fighting was coming from another corridor off the right. Without hesitation, Leon turned and ran towards the fighting, and none of the others said a word.

The fighting was coming from another room filled with cerebral roots that Leon hadn’t cleared out on his first run through the facility. Anna, her snapper, and Anzu were dealing with that oversight, as well as another labor golem.

Leon charged into the room ready to slaughter everything that as attacking his people. However, the tree sprite had suddenly lunged forward, surpassing everyone else and projecting its magic at the roots. The tree sprite took control of them, and they suddenly became as docile as flowers. The labor golem, on the other hand, wasn’t so easily taken care of. It was being pressed up against the wall by Anna’s snapper while Anzu kept beating his wings at it, gouging out chunks of bronze from its reinforced frame with sharp blades of wind. Anna had been covering them from the roots, but as soon as they were taken care of and she saw Leon, she turned and fired off a scorching ray of light at the golem’s head.

The golem wasn’t destroyed, so Leon charged and, in an instant, impaled his sword right through its neck, sending his lightning surging throughout its body, frying everything it touched, destroying delicate machinery and obliterating enchantments.

When Leon ripped his sword free, the golem went limp.

“It’s good to see you!” Anna said, exhaustion clear in her features. She hadn’t had much magic left over after helping everyone to heal, and Leon could see that she was running on fumes. Still, she was upright and coherent, and after she glanced at the tree sprite uncertainly, she asked, “Everything all right?”

“Yes,” Leon said, and quickly filled her in on what had happened their separation.

“I’m ready,” Anna said once he was finished.

Anzu, who’d expressed his elation at reuniting with Leon in his usual way, chirped in agreement.

The snapper didn’t say anything, but Leon didn’t expect it to. It seemed good to go, and Anna wasn’t too worried about it, which was good enough for him.

Together, they moved on, their group now swelling in size.

As they ran down the halls, another ball of green light appeared next to Leon.

“My Lord,” Apati said, condescension now gone from his voice, “we can talk about this, can’t we? Like civilized men?”

“Bring my people back,” Leon ordered. “Otherwise, there will be no talking.”

“I can’t do that, I’m afraid,” Apati replied. “They’re the biggest guarantee of safety at the moment. You’re looking quite murderous, and I’m not one to fold, even when my hand isn’t looking like it’s going to win.”

Leon scowled and kept moving, intending to charge right down to the control room and finish what that cerebral root had started eighty-thousand years ago.

“If you’re not going to surrender,” Leon said as he ran, “then at least be honest! What happened here?”

“Ahh, honesty,” Apati said with what sounded like derision. “Quite the word, isn’t it?”

“I’m not here to listen to sophistry over the nature of language!” Leon shouted.

“Neither are we, you glowing anal bead!” Alcander shouted from behind.

“Your retinue seems to lack discipline, Leon,” Apati observed.

“That’s not for you to judge,” Leon spat. “What happened here?! Tell me!”

“Fine. Fine. You want to know what I did here? I’ll tell you. I did what I needed to do! When Jason Keraunos led the Clan to ruin back then, all resources flowing to this facility ceased! And we were so close to some of the greatest breakthroughs I have ever seen! Revolutions in the way we approach nature magic! The ability to grow rare materials that were beyond our ability before! Certain projects that promised to change the way we approach ascension through the magical tiers! Revolutionize our understanding of Inherited Bloodlines! We could’ve made achieving Apotheosis so easy that anyone could do it if we had more time and resources!”

“Really? That’s a lofty claim,” Leon replied, his voice dripping with doubt.

[Indeed,] Nestor said scornfully.

“But not an unfounded one!” Apati insisted. “The things we could’ve done here promised to do so much, advance us in ways that we were only starting to glimpse! But all of that was almost lost when the Clan crumbled on this plane!”

“Almost?” Leon noted.

“I took measures to ensure the work could continue,” Apati replied. “We had no direction from the Clan, and it seemed like everyone was just trying to survive as the vassals fought over what was left. We needed human test subjects, so I sacrificed all the slaves we could spare. When we ran out of slaves, we took locals who lived nearby. There weren’t many, so when we quickly ran out of locals, I started triaging our people, sacrificing those who weren’t needed so that our work could continue.”

Leon’s anger was already towering so high that he didn’t think it could grow any more. His disgust, however, was only now starting to catch up.

“And continue our work did!” Apati claimed, his green ball of light vibrating in the air with his excitement as it closely followed Leon and his moving party. “We made many breakthroughs! We learned so much once we stopped holding ourselves back and experimented as we pleased with the materials we had at our disposal!”

Leon raised an eyebrow at that statement. It rather sounded like they were going well beyond certain regulations that they had limiting their behavior. ‘Supervision? Limits?’ Leon thought in muted surprise. ‘I never would’ve guessed, coming from my Clan.’

Apati continued, “However, when our experiments started getting out of hand and escaping from our facility, we had to take some drastic measures. Our work was compiled, but destroyed when some of the upper levels of the facility caught fire and collapsed. Other physical results of our experiments were lost when what few upper levels that hadn’t been destroyed when our security failed, flooded. I’m afraid, Leon, that the only copy of the results of our work is in my hands. Or, I suppose I should say, in my head.”

“You don’t have a head!” Alix shouted.

“You know damn well what I mean!” Apati irately responded. Turning his attention back to Leon, Apati suggested, “If you want what I have, then how about this? I give your people back, and you guarantee my safety. Take me from this place, and I’ll give you everything that we learned here. All of it, enough information to completely change the fields of enchanting, alchemy, medicine, agriculture, and nature magic! Even advances we made in materials science! All of this can be yours, all for the price of guaranteeing my safety and my freedom!”

Leon slowed as he contemplated the problem. He’d originally come here for what he could salvage from this very facility. If there was truly nothing left, then if he killed Apati, then the whole expedition would’ve been for naught. He’d have to return empty-handed, having done nothing with his time except give the Director a few months to consolidate his position against him.

And here was Apati, sounding perfectly willing to give him everything that he’d come here for, and more. Leon hadn’t been expecting so much. If Apati could be taken at face-value, then Leon’s gains here could be immeasurably vast.

He just had to left Apati live. He just had to let the man’s sacrifice of who-knows-how-many go unpunished. And a quick glance backward at the tree sprite, whose glittering black eyes were now locked on his back, reminded him that an agreement to keep Apati alive would be to immediately make an enemy out of the entire Prota Forest once again. They had a tentative ceasefire right now, but that would come to a swift and violent end, that much Leon could predict with confidence.

[That’s a pretty good deal,] Nestor whispered.

[That’s a good deal—if you can trust this guy,] Xaphan added.

[Yes, with that assumption,] Nestor replied. [I’ll admit, though; what this man claims to have is intriguing. I wouldn’t mind getting to pick his brain—or what’s left of it, anyway.]

[You’re asking me not to kill him?] Leon inquired, his pace only slowing slightly as he turned the problem over in his head.

[I can probably whip something up to make it look like you killed him,] Nestor said. [Hit his emerald with a bolt of lightning, while also using a spell to make it look the like emerald exploded. Something like that. With enough time, I can make anything happen. If you want to take this man’s deal, Leon—and I’d tentatively recommend you do so—then we don’t have to give up anything else. We can make it look like he’s dead so those tree sprites don’t lose their minds.]

Xaphan scoffed. [It would only involve giving up honor and having to lower ourselves to dealing with this swine.]

Leon gritted his teeth in frustration. He wanted what Apati could offer him. He wanted it badly enough that he’d allowed the Director several months without him around, just so that he could come and claim what was here that much sooner.

But he also found the idea of working with Apati detestable. He trusted the man less than he trusted the tree sprites, and the idea of working with someone who sacrificed so many people the way he did didn’t sit well with Leon.

And yet, he was working with Nestor, wasn’t he? And Xaphan, a demon who wanted nothing more than to burn everything that he didn’t like. And the Thunderbird, an ancient, inhuman, divine being that conquered and killed more than her fair share, he could reasonably guess. And wasn’t he trying to rebuild the Thunderbird Clan, which had its own bloody history even without the Thunderbird around directly leading it?

Leon didn’t consider himself an honorable man. Hells, honor, in his opinion, was mostly just an excuse for people to try and force others to play by their rules – a foolish notion, in his experience.

And yet, and yet, and yet. Leon felt like he could argue both sides endlessly, and he desperately wanted both. He supposed he could take Nestor up on his deal and keep Apati alive, while claiming that he was dead. It wouldn’t be that hard to give him enough time to throw something together to ensure that.

No matter what, though, Leon had to make a decision. So, instead of allowing himself to get bogged down in indecision, he turned to face Apati as he ran down the halls, faced the glowing orb representing the entire reason he’d come here, representing enough power—or so Apati claimed, anyway—that taking over Heaven’s Eye, guaranteeing his safety among the Empires, moving on to the Nexus, and rebuilding his Clan could be trivially easy…

… and he made his decision.