It took a few days before they managed to defeat a group of scouting barbarians without ruining their faces. The problem wasn’t that they were difficult to defeat but that they ran away too quickly.

So much for their vaunted courage, Yuriko complained. But then again, most of the barbarians were killed with a single blow. Two if she missed with the pebble. Up close, in melee, they weren’t much better. She could easily disable them, but then, the other members of the scouting group would try to dogpile her. She wasn’t keen on getting up close and personal with their stinky and hairy chests.

So, if she attacked at range, they ran away, and if she tried to fight them in melee, they ganged up on her instead. They were all bigger than she, so there was no real leeway. It wasn’t until she fought off her instincts to deal lethal blows that they managed it.

Desire copied the faces of three barbarian scouts. They weren’t Iron Skin tribe members though. Gwendith identified them as members of the Fleetfoot Tribe. They were scrawnier than the Iron Skin, but only in comparison. They were wiry and lean, with long limbs and thick calf muscles. Their ears looked slightly longer and pointier than usual, and their front teeth noticeably bigger.

All told, this was the fifth group of scouts that Yuriko and the others killed, a grand total of a hundred and twelve individuals. More than twenty had escaped, which meant that her description had likely circulated amongst the tribes. Gwendith and Desire had not engaged in battle so hopefully, the tribes would only think that they faced a singular foe.

It was another layer of protection, hopefully.

Anyway, after Desire copied the barbarians’ features, there was no more use for them. Yuriko wasn’t sure what to do though, as she didn’t want to just kill them in cold blood. Gwendith took matters into her own hands and kicked them off the cliff. The look of savage hate on her face stunned Yuriko, but on second thought, that was to be expected.

Desire wove her disguises, taking her measure of Yuriko’s Animus twice in the process. She insisted that she needed Yuriko’s personal Animus and not just the distilled Chaos from Fri’Avgi, smacking her lips when she extracted the lumens from her. Gwendith’s scandalised mutters only made Desire’s smirk widen. For her part, Yuriko just let it be.

Of the three, she was the only one tall enough to pass off as a barbarian man. Desire had to make her and Gwendith’s illusion disguises taller. Their heads were on the level of the barbarians’ chest, which meant they shouldn’t speak out lest they catch on that the voices didn’t come from their mouths. As for the scouts, they continued to look for a path but didn’t have any luck so far.

A week after Yuriko and the others arrived back in Rumiga, the three of them hurried to the entrance that Gwendith knew. Yuriko had tucked her hair into her overcoat and had released her Animus storage. She felt vulnerable, honestly, but she wouldn’t abandon anyone to bondage like this.

Gwendith led them into a path that wound down the cliffside and entered a cavern that looked much like their shelter, except this one led deeper into the mountain. The tunnel sloped downwards gently, almost imperceptibly, and was lit only by bioluminescent moss. She could smell smoke from torches though, but it was farther inside.

The entrance was manned by a couple of guards. Sleepy, lazy guards, as it turned out. Even with the danger she and the others represented, they were taking their ease. Though, from how straggly they were, maybe they weren’t blooded warriors and were instead, novices given chores. The guards didn’t even give them a second glance. He just snorted and waved them through, muttering a few words in Ikash that Yuriko didn’t recognize. Gwendith stiffened though.

“What did they say?” Yuriko whispered when they were out of sight.

“They asked if we found the runaway wench.” She answered through gritted teeth.

“You, I presume?” She didn’t need to see the other girl nod to know.

They followed Gwendith deeper into the tunnels, and it didn’t take more than ten minutes for Yuriko to realize that she was hopelessly lost. They had gone through more than a dozen intersections, tunnel splits and mergers, and the only reason she knew they were still headed in the correct direction was the slope. The tunnels also rose and fell, but they had generally been headed downwards.

They crossed several caverns, some bigger than a town square and others barely larger than her bedroom back in Aerule Garden. The caverns were usually the barbarians’ resting areas and were lit by smokeless campfires and smoky torches.

“We’re close to the kennels now,” Gwendith murmured.

Yuriko had seen more and more barbarian women in the tunnels. They weren’t bare-chested like the males. They wore soft hide tunics, dyed in colourful patterns, as well as ivory jewellery, mostly bracelets and anklets, and necklaces. They didn’t have earrings or finger rings though, and no body piercings. It was impossible to know from which tribe the women were from though, as they showed none of the physical characteristics that the menfolk did.

Which probably meant that none of them had Geists.

Power was strictly kept from the females, and while there was no blatant disrespect, the womenfolk readily deferred to the men. Their faces would not look strange in Faron’s Crossing or Rumiga City, which made her wonder if all of them were once a part of the Empire or the Federation.

She learned in History Class that the barbarians were aboriginals. They had lived here in Rumiga before the Empire arrived, but since they lived in the far north and mostly away from the temperate zones the Empire claimed, there had not been any aggression on either side. Things had changed in the last century though, and for some reason, the barbarians started raiding southwards.

A group of barbarian youths barged into the cavern that Yuriko and the other two were crossing. They yelled excitedly at them and waved for them to follow. Not wanting to look out of place, Yuriko trailed behind them and tried to mimic their excited expressions. She only managed to ask Gwendith what was going on after a few minutes.

“Chaos Investiture,” Gwendith murmured. “I don’t know what that is though.”

Desire’s gasp drew their attention, and Yuriko asked the Chaos Lord.

“It’s when one of my kind pours power into a mortal,” Desire whispered. “It will make the mortal exponentially more powerful, but it will kill the Chaos Lord in the process. Or rather,” she shook her head, “they will merge with the mortal’s Anima. Their minds and memories will merge, but more often than not, unless the Chaos Lord is significantly stronger, the human will emerge ascendant.”

“Do we try to stop them?” Yuriko asked.

“It's in the Grand Hall,” Gwendith muttered. “There will be thousands of them there.”

“Shouldn’t we slip towards the kennels instead? Do what we have to do?”

Or not, Yuriko shook her head. They would be noticeable if they didn’t go. She said as much and the others agreed. They hurried down the passages and after nearly an hour, arrived at a cavern so huge that Yuriko was under the impression that they were in the open air. The place was well lit and even had an orb of light burning brightly near the ceiling.

Pillars dotted the space, large enough that it would take a dozen men hand in hand to encircle it. There was a raised dais in the centre, and she could see four powerfully built men sitting on horrendous chairs made out of ivory. More throne than chair, really. One of the men stood and gesticulated wildly, spittle flying from his lips as he roared at the crowd.

The barbarians cheered, clapped, and stomped their feet, and it had clearly been going on for quite a while now. However, she only heard their noise when they entered the cavern. In the tunnels, it had been quiet.

The three of them leaned against one of the pillars, watching the speech and celebration. After every screaming proclamation from the man, a chieftain, Yuriko guessed, the crowd roared back with approval. A glance at the chamber exits revealed that even more barbarians were streaming inside. Thankfully, the chamber was large enough that they didn’t have to squeeze against the other musky bodies. They also couldn’t risk getting revealed here and someone brushing up against Gwendith’s or Desire’s nonexistent muscly arms would do just that. So, she stood right in front of them while they leaned against the pillar.

Eventually, the man finished talking to the crowd. But then, the other chieftains, one by one, made their own speeches. Desire tugged at Yuriko’s arm in the middle of the third one’s speech and whispered, “I’m running out of Chaos.”

“Oh,” Yuriko muttered. Most of the barbarians had their attention riveted on their leaders but that didn’t mean nobody looked in their direction. Yuriko put her hand over her shoulder as if she were scratching an itch near the base of her neck and extruded a mote of distilled Chaos. She worried that the other Chaos Lords might sense it, but they weren’t on the stage.

She felt Desire’s lips suckling on her fingertip and she focused on extruding one mote at a time until the other woman released her finger. By that time, the fourth chief began his speech. Thankfully, he must have been tired of listening to his colleagues so he kept his short and quick. The rest of the crowd didn’t mind it though, so maybe the monotony of being stuck inside a mountain had an adverse effect on their morale.

It was only then that the Chaos Lords appeared. They came out of another tunnel, and the barbarians moved out of the way. Not only that, they crossed their arms over their chests in salute and bowed. Some even knelt down on one knee!

Yuriko and the others mimicked the movement but she observed them as they walked toward the central stage. They looked completely human, practically indistinguishable from Imperials. In fact, the only reason they stood out from the barbarians was that they were smaller and more slender.

There were four of them, and like any other Chaos Lord she saw before, their features were otherworldly, perfectly symmetrical, and as flawless as a constructed body could be. Or rather, they wouldn’t look out of place in Aerule Garden with her Mishala clanswomen.

All four were male, and their faces were expressionless. Blank, as though there was nothing behind those eyes. Were they…? A quick glance at Desire showed her the Chaos Lord was frowning.

The four Chaos Lords matched up to each of the chieftains, staying about a pace apart. Each pair clasped each other’s right wrist in a manly greeting, but they didn’t release their grips even after a couple of minutes. Instead, they stared at each other’s eyes. Their Animus glimmered and the barbarians’ formed beastly silhouettes behind them.

A stocky beast with two horns in a row on its roughly equine face, a white-furred wolf, a white bear, and a creature whose twin horns branched out into nearly a dozen points. The Chaos Lords glowed with their own power, hues of light to dark green. Then, the Animus and images started to merge.

Yuriko was seized with the powerful impulse to attack. She must stop this before the ritual is completed! But, if she did, then the entire chamber would probably turn on her, and the task to rescue the captives would become that much harder.

So, she bit her lip and restrained herself. Besides, perhaps the strengthened chieftains would provide a challenge.

Almost as soon as she made that thought, she froze. Damien loved challenges and so did she. But was she that foolish to let an enemy grow stronger just so they’d put up a better fight? Flashes of memories poked at her mind, of Damien doing just that. None of them backfired though, and they did provide him better sport. Except for the last… one?

By the time she got a hold of herself, it was too late to do anything. The merging was complete. The four chieftains were kneeling onstage, but their Geists were growing. The two-horned beast just grew more massive. The multi-pronged one shimmered and seemed to split into two or three. It wasn’t clear how many, and Yuriko had the feeling that even the chieftain didn’t know. The bear grew bigger and more muscular, and the wolf was suddenly covered by a blizzard.

A ripple of ambient Chaos washed through the crowd, causing those near the front to collapse on their knees. The ones in the outskirts took this as a sign to leave, and the three of them went with the flow. In about an hour, they moved down empty tunnels.

“We’re close,” Gwendith murmured, eagerness suffused her voice.