They were swimming. Deep in the underground lava-flows, heading to the source of the waste dump’s lava lake. And Sun was going slightly nuts.

This far down it wasn’t really swimming. More dragging yourself forward inch-by-inch, wrestling with churning flows of molten steel. She wormed in Dorian’s wake, which made things easier, but still it hadn’t even been an hour and her arms were screaming at her. Her legs were screaming bloody murder too. Her lungs were crying, squeezed like shriveled grapes. She wished desperately that she could heave in a breath—just one!—but last time she gave in she got a lungful of molten rock, retched it out, felt like she was melting, burning alive from the insides and the outsides at once. And the feeling of strangling smallness, too, like she was being squeezed tight in the fist of a giant—jostled, crushed, shoved from all sides—closing in, closing in, closing in, CLOSING IN—

And that was only the swimming. Then there were the sounds. The pitiless grinding groan of the currents. The slosh of steel. And the roars—whales?!—she didn’t hear them as much as feel them, vibrating through the magma, through her bones, chattering her teeth, watering her eyes.

Still she forced on a grin. Made the muscles stick there, and hold.

One stroke at a time! I’ve got this. I’ve got this! One, one, one…

Meanwhile, on another parallel and much less pleasant track of thought—

FUCKFUCKFUCFKCUFKCUFCK—

She was aware that she was having a bit of a panic attack. Which was quite common for her. Nothing to panic about, she reminded herself! The irony was not lost on her. A basic life skill, useful as a skillet in a kitchen, was acting. Like slipping into another person’s brain, if only for a few moments, so all of the HOLYFUCKINGSHIT the world screamed at her and the FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK her body screamed at her would shut the fuck up!

She wasn’t about to crack. Or freeze. Her brain felt brittle and split open, cracked like a nut. One half—actually, a lot more—was losing its shit. But a tiny part of her also registered that it could be worse. It had been a lot worse, in the past week alone.

That was when she really let it show. When her brain was fried so bad her feelings started seeping into her voice, coloring her mask, wrestling control of her limbs—

Very very bad.

This was not that.

This was fine.

This was just fine!

She was going to be JUST FINE!

***

Ahhh…

Dorian was oh-so-grateful for times like these. He stretched out his arms as he backpedalled, grinning, feeling the currents down his back like the hands of a masseuse.

If infants could feel in the womb, this must be a little like that. He could drift here forever, luxuriating in the warmth…

…

…

A minor revision, actually. Maybe not forever…

A little itch prickled at his mind. They were getting close, close to the lake, close to the starting line, and excitement rose to a low boil. He turned back rightside-up. Being splayed on his back was nice in spurts. A life lived that way, taking Fate up the ass? It’d make for the most mundane form of existence imaginable!

It was also how most creatures in this Multiverse lived all their lives. He was frankly at a loss as to how they could bear it.

Take a breath. Then the run begins! It always begins.

He stopped, pulled out a tiny artifact shaped like a conch, pressed it to his mouth.

“How’s it going back there?” he called.

“Great!” came Sun’s voice. Cheery and eager as ever.

“Excellent. You ready to climb?”

“Ready as can be! Say the word.” By her tone she was ready to take on the world if it came to it. He grinned. Say what you will about the girl—and he did—but she brought an infectious good spirit, a helpful thing in a plan. When she wasn’t shitting herself, that was. Weird how there was no in-between.

These tunnels were not bugged with arrays, nor was most of the journey up to the Lava lake. It was not unusual for Lava Whales to pass through, after all, nor eels, nor dragons and the like.

Those creatures, on any other journey, would’ve attacked by now. But Sun’s cloaking really was quite excellent. He really ought to invest a little more in her cultivation, now he thought of it. Cloaking was only the basic skill of her Bloodline. The Seventy-Two Transformations were named that way because its users could transform into—at its highest level—almost anything they wished! Part of the reason Grandpa Wukong was so devilishly hard to nail down was that the old fart could be a fly one instant and an elephant the next. In all their duels he never managed it…

They were coming up to the proper chute now.

Dorian tapped his Interspatial Ring. In there, stacked in a heap, were Lava Whale carcasses. Dozens in all. Enough to temporarily clog even a lava lake’s flow.

Time for step eight.

Execution!

What a lovely word, that. Accurate, one way or another.

***

“893 - 541, Ice Phoenixes!” proclaimed Guard Rast, leaning on his staff. Above, a thin stream of toxic waste dribbled down to the bubbling lava lake.

Tark gave him a long-suffering look. “C’mon. That’s crazy talk.”

“What?” said Rast innocently. He was very much not serious. He just liked poking Tark.

“Did you forget the Ghosts have Perangian?”

“Please. That coot’s six decades past his prime! His joints are held together with paste and prayers. He can’t dive a tenth as well as he used to. Henathon Three-Eyes will blow him off the field.”

“He’s still as creative a controller as there ever was,” said Tark stubbornly.

“Says who?”

“Me. Says me. I say it.”

“Please.” Rast was enjoying himself. “Even if he was in his prime—which he very much isn’t—he’s one player. Who’s he got around him? Street-sweeps and hucksters! I swear one of ‘em tried to sell me a broach the other day.”

“C’mon, man. That’s just disrespectful.”

“Name me ten Ghost players.”

“…”

“There you go,” said Rast smugly. He turned to the third guard, a weathered old gargoyle. “And you, Pline? Any thoughts?”

“No.”

“What? You too good for it?”

Pline just grunted. “I’ve got better things to do than watch folk put balls in holes.”

“Like what? Drinking? Whoring? Off to the Royal Auction, are you?”

A joke. The Royal Auction happened once a moon cycle, and no guard—not even an Elite guard like them—would ever sniff the entrance. None of them could afford so much as a ticket.

Pline grunted again, said something in that grumbly raspy soft voice of his that got all garbled up in his tones. Rast took it to mean something like ‘None of your damned business.’ Most of what Pline said circled ‘round to that.

“Tch.”

Then Pline frowned, repeated what he said, and pointed. “See that?”

The lake had started to overflow at the edges. All manner of horrid black gunk, and a cloud of qi sizzling above it like a tiny thunderstorm. Toxic residue.

“Oh, Hells. It’s not clogged again, is it?”

“Looks like it.”

“Fuck…”

The overflow spread at a startling pace. Luckily for them the waste was so dense it was more apt to build high than build wide. A small mound of goop was piling up at the center of the lake.

And luckily for Rast in particular, it was nearing time for the end of his shift! The stench was enormous at the best of times. He couldn’t imagine how awful it’d get now.

“I’ll put in a report when I get off shift,” he said breezily.

“What about us?” said Tark, wide-eyed.

Rast gave the tower a squint. “At the rate it’s going, pray you’ve got good plumbing at home. And a big tub. And a shitton of soap.”

Then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, the flow thickened. Threefold. At once.

“What the fuck.” Tark threw up his hands.

“It’s the Alchemists dicking around again,” grunted Pline. “Happened two days ago too.”

***

“Ready?” said Dorian. Just to make sure.

Sun nodded. “Let’s go.”

And up they swam.

Five minutes to reach the surface of the lake, pawing through increasingly toxic strata of magma. By the time they were near the top it was all gunk. He had some Darkness in his Bloodline—and had the protections of his scales besides—and even he felt it chafing. The antidotes Sun had cooked helped a little, but still…

They had to get out of here. Fast.

Soon he hit the bottom of the makeshift mountain.

“Alright,” said Dorian into the conch. “Do it.” Up ahead they were hitting the edge of where Sun had calculated the anti-cloaking spell spread. If it detected anything the guards would know. And they’d be fucked.

So they uncloaked. After so long cloaked it felt like stripping naked with predators nearby.

Then, flail by flail, he dragged himself up the waste mountain.

The most precarious part of their plan was quickly approaching. The chute itself was thirty strides up the mountain, and no matter how thick the stream was there was no chance they were making it that far without a guard noticing. First climbing twenty strides up the insides of a shit mountain, then swimming the rest? Significantly more doable.

He reached the top. Gods, it stinks. Gods, it burns—everywhere! He went all this way by qi-sense alone. And now he sensed a thick cloud of falling qi above him. The chute, water splashing to the mound.

Its thickness—and the absurd toxicity of the qi waste it made—had the effect of making the cloud extra thick, a Rotflower Brew special. It also masked his and Sun’s auras nicely.

He was at the top now, gunk splashing down onto his head. Breath held all this time. Eyes shut. Quick as he could, he threw the Javelin up the middle of the stream. It anchored itself inside the chute. It made a little splash down the sides as it went—but shit was splashing everywhere. The auras of the Empyrean Guards was so palpably close now. If they looked up and paid even the slightest attention in this split-second they’d see him.

He yanked on the rope. He went straight up the middle of the stream—

—and he was in.

Stood at the mouth of the chute, perched at the very edge, mere strides away from the first wards, and waited for Empyrean fury to smite him from below. There had been a fair splash…

Nothing, thank Heavens.

Sun was much easier, since she was much smaller. He let down the Javelin and yanked her up. There was a minor splash and she came through, gasping and shivering, wild-eyed, so patchy and burnt she was more skin than fur. She looked like she’d narrowly survived a hurricane, and a wildfire, and an earthquake. Possibly at the same time.

He frowned. “You holding up?”

She blinked. Then her eyes were big and bright. “Oh, this? Barely feel it!” She grinned. “Let’s go!”

Which was patently ridiculous, but now was hardly the time to point it out. The wards glowed white. Open. If they timed things right, the changing of the guards was now over. These wards would soon snap closed.

Less than five minutes to get through….

Sun had studied the aura of the guards’ badges for days. Now she spread it across them as they walked. Dorian held his breath as they went up to the edge of the ward—

—and through. Not a ripple. Aura mimicry, the same way Sun had bypassed the Bloodline wards in the Torchdragon’s nest.

They ran on a ledge, the gunk river roaring mightily beside them. Headed to the other end of the tunnel, to the second ward awaited. Dorian could hear, to his surprise, the thump-thump-thumping, the faint clamor of voices, echoing down the dimly lit tunnel.

“I must say,” he said. “When you first suggested all this I thought we wouldn’t get past step two. But it’s… actually working! I’m pleasantly surprised. Good job, kid.”

“Aww. Well thanks!” Sun scratched her head. “I was a bit nervous going into it too, honestly! Usually I like to leave a little more margin for error. If we got the timing even a little wrong—we’re fucked!”

“Every good plan needs a little luck.”

Not far now. Less than a hundred strides, and he could see the last ward checkpoint, and the ladder behind it leading up. Up to a street, if the chattering was anything to go by.

Which was, naturally, the moment a boot stepped down from above. Onto the ladder’s highest rung.

Dorian and Sun both skidded to unceremonious halts. They watched in mute horror as the guard descended, seemingly oblivious. Full-fledged Empyrean.

Dorian’s skull was about to explode. There wasn’t supposed to be a guard now—they’d timed the patrols!

‘Wasn’t supposed to be.’ What a silly notion. Just… unlucky.

Some niggling tiny voice in his head—that voice screaming all this while that no plan could go this smoothly—sulked bitterly in his mind. But he could hardly dwell on it now.

The Javelin slipped above him, poised to strike—

—What was he wearing?

A tailored suit. Thin glasses. White gloves. He looked like he’d gotten lost on his way to a dinner party. He couldn’t be dressed less appropriately for a sewer.

Then the guard turned, and Dorian froze. The Javelin dropped limp to his side.

“Greetings, my liege,” said Gerard, caretaker of Dorian’s doomed Estate, sixth-ranked Empyrean in the Multiversal. And perhaps the closest thing he had to a friend.

Gerard bowed, slow and deliberate as always. When he straightened there was the barest slant to his lips. Something nearing amusement. “What took you so long?”