Xerxes put his lamp down momentarily to draw his longsword, which he rested on his shoulder before picking up the lamp again. “Are you going to send the Abhorrent in first? Or keep them behind us to watch our back?”

“They’ll scout,” Gandash answered. “I’d rather they be the ones that set off any traps or run into any enemies.”

“That means one of us should be responsible for keeping an eye on our flank,” Xerxes said to Bel. “Me, or you?”

“Me,” Bel replied, drawing an arrow and fitting it loosely to her bow, then keeping it in place with one hand while she resituated her lamp in her other hand. Bel was great at hand-to-hand fighting, but like many Balatu healers, she had been trained to avoid melee clashes whenever possible.

“I’ll take point behind the demons,” Xerxes said. “Gandy, you’re our brains and our summoner. You need to stay safe in the middle.”

Gandash grinned slightly. “Alright. Let’s go.”

Xerxes followed the two Abhorrent as they crawled into the tunnel. The way their pallid bodies glistened in the lamplight made his skin crawl, and he kept his nose bunched tight in an attempt to fend off their malodorous aroma. It didn’t do much good.

The ground was packed dirt, and from the look of it, had seen recent traffic. There was no gathering of dust that one would expect in an abandoned tunnel. The walls, made primarily of dirt and rock, had occasional sconces for torches, with one or two containing actual used torches. The Abhorrents’ long, spindly legs made faint thumping sounds as they walked along.

After going in about thirty feet, the tunnel bent to the right. The Abhorrent made the turn, and then Xerxes stuck his head around.

“There’s a room here,” he said, proceeding.

Gandash followed. “Bel, why don’t you stay at the turn while we check out the room. Keep your eyes on the tunnel entrance.”

“Okay.”

Xerxes lifted his lamp to distribute its light more widely. In his immediate vicinity, he saw sturdy wooden workbenches as well as a bookshelf, a rug, and a desk with a chair in front of it. There were candles everywhere, unlit.

“I only have a few more seconds with the Abhorrent,” Gandash said.

Xerxes walked forward more quickly, hoping to illuminate the extent of the room before the demonic conjurations vanished. Keeping his eyes averted as he skirted one of the monsters, he extended his arm until the light touched something at the far end of the room. Something made of wood. A framework of some sort.

“I think this is as far as the room goes,” he said. “It isn’t very big.”

Light slowly slid over the wooden structure as he neared it, but before he could make out much in the way of details, he heard a sound from behind him that resembled a piece of paper being crumpled into a ball, mixed with something like the slapping of a dying fish.

He looked over his shoulder to see the Abhorrent being sucked away into vortexes of pure darkness. Within seconds, they were gone, taking their stench with them. Despite knowing that they would be powerful allies if any sort of fighting broke out, Xerxes felt better having them gone.

“That’s not very long,” he commented.

“Yeah,” Gandash replied. “I can only summon them for a couple minutes with Spawn Duo.” Following Xerxes into the large room, he swept his own lamp around as he examined the place. Having moved in a slightly opposite direction as Xerxes, his lamplight showed more work benches, including one that seemed designed to store tools.

“What is this place?” Xerxes said, continuing to move so that his lamp illuminated the large structure at the end of the room. The thing was clearly massive, reaching all the way to the ceiling, at least six or seven cubits overhead.

“Obviously a workshop,” Gandash said, stepping toward the bookshelf.

Xerxes spotted a gear, and his nostrils flared slightly. Gears were the most obvious sign of illegal machinery, but they weren’t necessarily an absolute guarantee that something nefarious was going on. For instance, timepieces, the creation of which was highly regulated, weren’t illegal as long as they didn’t have more than three gears. And other crucial bits of machinery that were necessary for a well-functioning society, such as grain mills or water pumps, often made use of rudimentary, interconnecting parts. It was only when the machinery became too complex that it became dangerous.

As his lamp revealed more of the wooden structure, Xerxes’ hand tightened on the handle, and his eyes widened.

There were definitely more than three gears here. A lot more.

In addition, there were pumps, pulleys, tubes, and other mechanical parts, all intertwined inside of what looked to be a frame nearly twice as wide as it was high. In the middle of it all was the largest of the gears, which had to be at least three cubits from end to end.

“Gandash, are you seeing this?” Xerxes said.

Looking back, he saw that his friend had been examining the contents of the bookshelf, and was only now turning in his direction.

“Oh,” Gandash said. “Oh wow.”

He put down whatever document or book he had in his hand and turned to face the huge machine.

Xerxes looked back at the tangle of equipment. He noticed a table inset into the huge machine, atop which lay a contraption of suction cups as well as a harness of sorts. “What the hell is this thing?”

“Something illegal, that much is clear,” Gandash said, stepping across the workshop to put his hand on the side of the frame.

“We probably shouldn’t sit around studying it,” Xerxes said. He faced his friend. “This is the kind of thing that will get continents razed to the ground by the Nergal. Even entire planets. I say we report this to Captain Ishki immediately. Even if we have to wake her up.”

“Agreed.” Gandash started walking back toward the room’s entrance. Xerxes followed, keeping a tight grip on his sword.

As they got close to Bel, she said, “What’s in there?”

“Some kind of technological thing,” Xerxes said. “Lots of gears and stuff.”

“You’re kidding me.”

Gandash shook his head. “No. No joke. We need to get back into the castle and tell the captain right away.”

Turning the corner, they hurried down the tunnel and toward the mouth of the tunnel. The entire way, Xerxes expected to hear something from behind him. Some creak or noise to indicate that they hadn’t been alone in the room after all. Or perhaps something from ahead. A cough or a laugh that would prove they’d been watched.

They heard nothing. They emerged from the tunnel and walked past the boulder. There, they stopped for a short moment to look back.

“Guys,” Bel said, “it’s actually happening. What we talked about before.”

Gandash slipped his hands into his pockets, a cocky grin covering his face. “I knew I should have negotiated ahead of time in case this happened. Now we’re going to have to submit applications and all that.”

“It’s just paperwork,” Xerxes said, also grinning. “How much you wanna bet that this time next year, we’re in a college in a higher starisle?”

“Not likely,” a voice said.

All three young mages spun and looked toward the source of the sound, a location on the wall that surrounded the small courtyard. A figure stood there, face obscured by the shadows cast by the moon. However, his voice was distinct, and there was no questioning who he was.