I watched as Crawler skittered down into the cave, intentionally moving from side to side to walk through small puddles of magma, occasionally muttering "Hot, Hot, Hot! Are you gonna do it?" as he snapped his claws together in a vaguely familiar rhythm. When he reached the end of the tunnel by the artifact floodgate, he paused above the left drain over the magma storage cistern.

After a moment, he reached in to the open drain and ripped out the hatch, throwing it to one side before he jumped into the magma, ten feet below.

I stared at the image of Crawler swimming in the magma, and heard him singing "rub-a-dub-dub" before he climbed up the cistern wall, spiking his limbs into the stone hard enough to support his weight as he climbed.

The rest of the S9 had stopped near a large puddle of magma and Burnscar had separated from the rest, moving over next to the puddle for a moment.

"Ow, damn, it's too hot. It's not really a fire. There's a little bit of oxidation occurring at the surface of it, but not enough to allow me to teleport to it easily." Someone hummed, and based on the tone, I thought it was her. "I can do it, but it would feel like a normal person being dropped in boiling water if I landed directly in magma. Very unhappy, and unable to concentrate well." After a moment of silence she continued. "There are no normal fires of any sort that I can detect anywhere in my range."

Jack's voice answered, sounding thoughtful. "So, you can detect where our favorite dungeon master has placed more magma traps?"

Burnscar replied, slowly. "Sure... sort of. I can tell where the magma is stored, but it's a bit hard to tell where some of it's supposed to come out. It's all over the place. I'm seeing pockets of the stuff everywhere, and it's all connected by tunnels and..." The voice became a whisper. "Wow. Jack, I think she created a volcano. There's a massive vertical pipe of magma going down as far as I can detect."

"A volcano, you say? Why, this is getting more and more interesting all the time. I can think of so many fun things we could do with a volcano!" He sounded excited, almost joyful. Just the sound of his happy voice made me shiver in anger, raising goose-bumps on the skin of my neck and arms under the armor and leathers. I collected that anger, pulling it into myself greedily, not allowing any to escape.

"Mannequin, Bonesaw, imagine the science projects! I think we'll call her Krakatoa if she ends up joining us, what do you all think?"

Crawler shouted out "Never say no to Krak!" and then chuckled to himself as he moved up next to the artifact hatch leading into the fortress.

If I didn't want to kill him so badly, I probably would have smiled. I hated him for trying to be funny when he should have been dying, and collected that hatred, hoarding it, distilling it.

While I was collecting that hatred, I lost track of time, briefly. Or maybe I blacked out for a second.

Bonesaw's voice spoke, sounding a little concerned. "We'll definitely need to do something to let us control her if she joins, Jack."

"I agree, but I'm sure you can come up with something." That was not a question, from the serious tone.

Bonesaw treated it as a question anyhow. "Oh, sure. But we'll have to talk about it in a little more depth if we capture her, and if it looks like she might be able to join us. No need to put too much thought into foresight when the future is so muddy."

I heard and felt the vibration of hammer blows, progressively getting stronger, until the blows stopped, and Crawler spoke again. "Jack, this is Weird with a capital W. This door looks like some kind of rock, but I can't scratch it."

"Oh, is our little Krakatoa a tinker too?" Jack was sounding a little concerned now. "Master, Shaker, Tinker? If this gets any more complex I think it'll be better to just have our fun here and be done with it."

There was more hammering, interspersed with Crawler talking. Slam. Slam. "It'll take me a minute to break out the rock around it enough for me to get a grip and rip it out." Slam. "A rock tinker though?" Slam. "Uh, that's almost as weird as chicken-based powers, Jack." Slam."I guess it's possible though. Tinkers clearly have a pretty wide range of specialties, based on present company. Maybe BamBam would be better than Krakatoa?"

Jack spoke softly, chuckling. "No, I think Krakatoa works better, but I do like the sound of BamBam. I'll remember it. Siberian. Over here please."

Their casual banter as they waited for Crawler to get through the door was maddening. Fucking murderhobos in my fortress chatting like they were at a bar over beer and peanuts discussing fantasy football draft picks. Worse than elves.

I watched as they all moved over to the trade depot. Mannequin detached himself from the group, and walked around the building. It had been unharmed by the magma.

"Shatterbird, this looks like glass. You can't work with it?" Jack's voice, inquisitive.

"No, it's obsidian. There's too much iron and other metals in it. I can do a little with very low metal content obsidian, but this stuff is so heavy with metals I can't even make it vibrate."

"I see. So, there's no silicon in the underground that you can work with any longer?"

"No, Jack. Not that I can work with, other than what I have around me right now." She paused. "There's a tiny bit that I can sense, but can't do anything to. Maybe our rock tinker works with silicon too? That might explain how they were so thorough in preventing me access. Most people forget at least something made of glass, or that has sand in it, even if they know I'm around."

I leaned forward and picked up my mug of watered strawberry wine and the red-streaked and spotted napkin sitting beside it, one in each hand. Then I leaned back, holding the mug in one hand and daubing more red off my upper lip with the other before I drank. I didn't want to ruin the taste of the wine with that salty metallic taste.

Shatterbird's voice sounded excited. "Jack, the silicon just moved forward, and then back again, about six inches, in an arc, not a straight line. I think..."

Jack finished the sentence for her. "It's something she's made. A tool. She's wearing it. Well, well. Please point in the direction of our little Krakatoa, please, Shatterbird. Let's see if Cherish can narrow down her focus."

My blood went cold. I had thought maybe she had picked up on an artifact with some sand in it that wasn't part of the construction, at first, but... I gripped my USB pendant with the bloody napkin reflexively. It had to be what Shatterbird had been talking about. I had completely forgotten that there was a silicon chip in it. I summoned Urist in a panic. I needed to get my USB pendant away from me, and start having it carried around the fortress, put it somewhere to bait a trap.

"No need Jack. One of the nodes I was watching just shifted from cold hatred to panic. I've got her isolated from the rest now. I'll point at her."

There was a pause and Shatterbird spoke a couple seconds later. "About four hundred yards that way, almost straight down, yes."

"No. No. No. This isn't the plan!"I screamed out loud as I desperately tried to come up with any idea other than the final solution lever. Bravado was one thing. Actually pulling that lever and ending myself was the last thing I wanted to do.

Jack laughed and then started to speak to me as if I were in front of him. "So, Krakatoa, you were listening to us the whole time, eh?" He clapped out loud, slowly, at a measured pace. "Bonesaw here was right the other day! That trigger event of yours must have been quite a rush! Master with brute constructs, Shaker, a little Tinker, and now, we find out that there's at least a bit of Thinker in you too. Quite the power set you have there."

After a few moments, Jack continued. "You're welcome, by the way. I hope you have enjoyed your powers. I'm afraid that there's no need to thank me though. At this point, it would be more troublesome to try to fit you into the group than it would be worth. Thinkers are such a pain, and I like my secrets. What we gave you, we will now take away."

I heard a sharp crack followed by a rumble through the stone as the artifact floodgate, still undamaged, was ripped out of its stone frame. Crawler's voice echoed into the main corridor behind the floodgate. "Knock Knock. Anyone home?"

I heard another loud crack, and felt Mannequin picking up a large chunk of obsidian and scraping tools across its surface. He then hopped on top of the depot and jumped towards the ceiling overhead. When he hit the ground, he was no longer carrying the chunk of obsidian.

I barely heard Jack telling Cherish to make me go berserk if she could as I realized what Mannequin had carved into the chunk of obsidian he'd used to jam the retracting ceiling open, so I couldn't refill the Elf bath trap.

A butterfly. Mannequin knew the theme of my power.