They followed her to a particular spot at the crater’s edge, where she snapped her fingers and caused an opening to form, a doorway to a spatially impossible place. Within the crater, which could be no more than fifty meters across, there was an entire pavilion paved with blackstone and filled with Pateirian architecture rendered in that same material; there was even an artificial river running through the place, the everpresent mist and the colour of the water making it clear that it was being fed by a subterranean spring.

Gunnar squatted down at the edge, peering into the river, dipping his finger in it, and tasting the water.

“This is Secondary Spring water. How?” he uttered.

“She fit an entire pavilion into a fifty-by-fifty meters crater and you question how she tapped a Secondary Spring?! The only reason jungle-side springs go untapped to begin with is that all the equipment would be claimed by the forest in mere days!” Yvonne countered, aggressively gesturing at the surroundings as she spun around, ending facing her husband with an indignant stare.

Gunnar gave her an innocent smile: “Ah, right.”

In the span of that exchange, Red had crossed one of the two bridges over the stream, going over to a nearby pagoda, whose perimeter was sealed by a seething, angry barrier.

She warned the others away: “Do not try to pass it, I know not what it may do to one other than myself. Jorfr, throw the mask through.”

He did as asked, in the brief moment it took him Red had shed her cloak and pulled the mask from her face, letting out a relieved sigh as she stretched in place, making no effort to conceal her near-nude state. Zef’s attention was drawn to two things: Firstly, there were noticeable differences to her chitinous armor plating; its patterns had shifted, it looked a fair bit more ordered, less disfiguring. Secondly, her hair was shorter, about shoulder-length, though it retained the same “princess” cut with flat bangs that ended just above her eyes.

She raised a pillar beneath the mask just to pick it up, the pillar crumbling the moment she grabbed the mask by one of its hooks, extending the mantis-blade of her right arm. Her horns resonated and the blade’s golden edge became shrouded in northlight; she brought it to bear against the mask, and lo, the accursed artifact screamed as she forced her blade through its material. One could see motes of purplish magic escaping, only to burn up in the empyrean flame of her magic, with a few managing to reach the barrier, where they too burned away in bursts of purple flame. Soon, the mask’s many hooks were severed one after the other, and subsequently she cut it in half down the middle, then halved the halves in the same way, and then cut each of these quarters into four pieces each until naught but a pile of metal shards was left. Finally retracting her arm-blade, Red made a pit open up in the floor and threw in the shards, taking all three of her personal subcores and arraying them in a triangle formation above it.

Tethers of northlight formed between them as Karmesin formed panels of blackstone and moved them into place around the formation, creating a shape akin to three overlapping octagons to contain the three cores, with longer guiding panels in the same arrangement forming a barrel. The whole assembly pointed downwards, into the pit.

“Tsk… Not enough…” she hissed, gesturing with a hand.

A fourth core flew out from deeper in the pavilion, rocketing through the barrier and taking a place above the three cores, forming a pyramid. The containment base reshaped to accommodate the fourth core.

Out from the construct’s maw erupted a deluge of northlight so brilliant it cast its kaleidoscope of colour upon everything in the surrounding area. There was screaming; Zef couldn’t be sure if it was the air, the mask, or the beam itself.

HYPERCRITICALITY SIGN

LIGHT OF TOTAL ANNIHILATION

CRIMSON COMMAND: FUSION VOLTEKKA

The next moment, it was over; the pit had been made thrice as wide and who knew how much deeper, and the focusing apparatus crumbled into nothing. With a gesture from Red, the subcores scattered; one flew off to its place deeper in the pavilion and the three others arrayed themselves right behind Karmesin, two floating just above her shoulders and one above her head. Another gesture made the pit seal itself.

Zefaris considered what the mantis had done to grow this much since their last encounter, whether it was the result of refocusing on cultivation for some time or whether she had done something truly extreme. It would’ve been hypocritical to think that it was implausible.

Red stepped out of the pagoda, and not waiting another moment walked deeper into the pavilion.

“Come. The bodies are in the central sanctum.”

“I must ask - by which way did you come to Borea?” Zefaris prodded.

“The Long Road. I should ask you the same,” Red answered curtly, as if she were annoyed that she had arrived earlier than them, or perhaps that they hadn’t crossed paths before now.

“Was it not consumed by storms and swarming with Ankhezian war-beasts?”

“It was. They were not an obstacle to myself, though I cannot say that it was a foolish choice to take whichever alternate path you took.”

In the center of the pavilion stood a sizable abode, and in front of it bodies were laid out side by side on slightly elevated slabs.

Each and every one of them was a Hulson or another known member of the previous expedition.

“They are ours, all,” Gunnar acknowledged grimly, turning to Red. “What is your ransom, mantis-woman?”

“Oh, nothing terrible, worry not,” she smiled.

Her words rang true.

Karmesin demanded a variety of goods only available in the city, from basic to luxury, viciously disparaging the trading habits and attitudes of the jungle-dwellers she had to deal with.

“You truly have grown into your Lady Karmesin persona,” Zefaris couldn’t stop herself from remarking.

Rolling her eyes, the mantis shot back: “You dare say such things looking like that, Ms. Snow Devil?”

Turning her attention to the rest of the expeditionary group, she continued: “Regardless of the body retrieval, I saved your sorry hides from Eisengeist. Were it not for I, all of you would count among the dead. You owe me this much. This…”

She gestured to the corpses.

“...Is a courtesy, out of respect for the honorable dead.”