Shalkar.

The Sky Garden.

One of the motivators for Slylth Alexander Morden to leave his mother’s elementally enriched abode was the opportunity to travel the world and witness its many people and landscapes. In his eyes, the journey was ordained—for the bored Magi Morden had laid the foundations of Slylth’s curiosity for a century.

Therefore, though he was cloistered in a home of polished HDMs, Slylth held many romantic notions for the world outside Sythinthimryr’s domain.

However, having a hand in creating a world wonder was not a part of Slylth’s plans.

Nor was the impromptu meeting now taking place in the abode of his older “bro”, Golos.

“I would have never imagined you would interested in anything beyond that realm of eternal ice…” a well-muscled, twin-horned and red-headed woman spoke with an amused tone at a creature who was her polar opposite, a Hvítálfar with silver hair and skin the hue of wind-swept ice. “How long has it been, Illaelitharian? A thousand Radiant cycles?”

“These are strange times,” the Hvítálfar Druid replied as though in a trance, his face both emotionless and not his own. “But who would miss such an event? Besides, this one was the first to consent, do not you recall?”

“We all gave explicit consent.” Slylth’s mother addressed their small gathering with an acknowledging nod. “The credit isn’t yours alone. Right, Tyfanevius?”

Their third laughed, putting the matter to rest.

Slylth felt an uncharacteristic shiver run up his spine.

He was, for the lack of human adjectives, in august company.

The foremost, but not the oldest, was his mother, who had decided to arrive unannounced out of the blue, walking from a portal as casually as anything. It was a feat made possible by Slylth, whose attuned Core allowed his mother to both locate and traverse to her child with ease and without stirring the city’s magical alarms.

Facing her was the Hierophant Master of Illhîwenthiel, having made his journey through the invitation of Tryfan’s Trellis Gate. The Hierophant’s attendance was superficial, for Illaelitharian’s psyche rode the Elf’s immortal body like a Dwarf in a Strider Golem.

Besides the duo, watching the banter with amusement, was his kindly uncle, the Great Tyfanevius, “riding” his favourite Vessel—Primarch Vulmari of Tryfan. Compared to the Frost Dragon’s Vessel, the Arch Druid was capable of containing far more of Tyfanevius’ personality, one whom Slylth had come to know intimately in their discussion of Gwen Song.

Compared to the triumvirate, the owner of the Bunker’s Sky Garden, the scion of the slumbering Yinglong, was reduced to a good lad standing in a corner with Slylth, holding a tray of steaming tea from Fur Peak in the hopes that the Elder Dragons weren’t too insulted by their unkempt bachelor’s pad.

Once again, Slylth reminded himself that all three had arrived unannounced.

Perhaps they did not wish to take away from Gwen’s transcendental moment of metamorphosis.

Or perhaps, Slylth deeply suspected, they were keen on seeing their investment bear fruit. Tryfan, he knew, was “all in” for their latest agent of the Accord. That was why Lord Tyfanevius was here—to deliver the results of the vote put forth by the members of the Axis Mundi. Likewise, Lord Illaelitharian was here because he was a vocal member who, together with his sister in the South Pole, desired to see the girl become the sword held at the throat of those who dared to pollute their Sacred Trees with decay.

But he wasn’t sure why Uncle Tyfanevius had invited his mother to come in person.

Sure, he had been teaching Gwen, and the two had gotten a little intimate at times, what with all that shared Cognisance—but it wasn’t as though the possibility of a carton of eggs existed…yet. Even if it did, he lacked a domain of his own, and it would be beyond shameful to be behold to Gwen, a landed Drake.

“Will our nebulous sisters from the Woods that Wend be watching?” Lord Tyfanevius asked the blue-skinned Hvítálfar. “I wouldn’t know, but you at least enjoy the neutrality necessary to negotiate with them.”

“They will not. And Our positions are unchanged,” the pale Elf replied without emotion. “Our Lady of Frost remains unattached to mortal concerns. What happens now… is a matter of balance and vengeance—”

“Ah yes, of course. Balance,” Slylth’s mother remarked with great mirth. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, this is our way since the primordial days.”

Tyfanevius’ avatar chuckled. “Aye. If that’s what the Lady believes, I shall pursue no further. But regardless of your intentions, brother—welcome to the mortal world. We shall all live through interesting times in a few hours—then you can decide if neutrality is possible.”

While Slylth pondered the cryptic nature of Lord Tyfanevius’ prophesy, the Dragon gestured for their host.

Slylth’s Big brother, the Thunder Dragon Golos, approached like a busboy, his transmuted face shiny with a sheen of nervous sweat.

“While we wait, let this one tell you about his Father’s ploy with our Regent,” Tyfanevius bid Golos to sit. “Cousin Yinglong was the first to see potential in the female, and by the Great Tree, he played her like a magnificent lute. I believe we can learn a lot from him, though our cousin is now wearily dreaming the long dream. Alas, this whelp’s words shall have to suffice.”

The Thunder Dragon sat like a child, though his hulking humanoid figure still towered over the slender Elves.

To Slylth’s shock, the great Emerald Dragon of Tyfan looked his way.

“Come, Slylth. Serve the tea,” Tyfanevius urged Slylth forward with a voice he could not resist. “You’ve also been with her for a while now. Speak of her thoughts, child. Tell us what she hopes to achieve with her World Tree.”

Shalkar.

The auditorium.

For Shalkar’s guests, the rock-hewed stadium unfolded like a colosseum of antiquity, a three-sixty concert hall with a lid that opened like the aperture of a camera, filling the dull, ingenious interior with warm, inviting light from a cloudless sky.

In an elevated box seat, the Lord Mycroft Ravenport sat with his daughter, Charlene, and a bevy of big-name cameos who had heavily invested in the IoDNC, watching the spectacle below.

His gaze, however, was more keenly interested in the other box seats, particularly the box to his right, reserved for their Regent’s family.

The most eye-catching member of that box was a pair of women. The first was a red-haired witch whose moniker in her youth was the “Scarlet Sorceress”, appearing resplendent in a carmine dress that trailed the floor of the Dwarf-hewn seating. Her partner was an Asian lass with dark-cropped hair just above her shoulders with a chalked fringe that informed Ravenport of her liberal use of Elemental Ash. Together, the presence of the sorceresses was so large that the casual observer, having their eye drawn to them, would not have noticed the two men who accompanied them.

The first was an ancient Enchanter with honeyed skin and a devious twinkle in his eye, excitedly remarking at the Rat-kins’ song and dance number below. Ravenport knew the man only from the dossier on Gwen Song, and so paid him no mind.

The second was a large but relaxed figure hiding behind his wife, a Radiant Mage with control over his elemental presence tuned to such precision that he could exact the opposite effect of his kind. This man, Ravenport knew, was his counterpart in the south, the infamous Master Gunther Shultz. Once, the man was heir to an infamous legacy—now, he is known only as The Morning Star of Oceania, Tower Master, and chief Apprentice of the late Henry Kilroy.

That Gunther Shultz was present, Ravenport felt, would be far more shocking for others than for himself. After all, they were in the same positions of power—and their absence from their work place meant that many plans were on hold, judgements put on wait, and the revolution of their little worlds slowing to a halt. Yet, both understood enough of Gwen’s World Tree and its altering of the social-political sphere of Human influence that they had to be present.

As a representative of the Mageocracy, The Duke of Norfolk was here as a witness and certifier. The same could be said of the other dignitaries, each chattering in their transmuted, elevated boxes hand-picked to segregate rivals and foes, affording each the privilege of plotting in private.

HO—! We erect our altar in the name of life!

Kee-! The Pale Goddess comes! It’s time to Harvest—!

Spread the seeds—Rat-kin! Spread the maize

the cucumber—the pumpkin—the beans—

HO—! Under the great Banyans

Kee—! From hearth to farm—to distant lands—

The Duke’s thoughts paused for a moment when a curious phrase seemed to have translated itself into the Rat-kins’ rendition of the Song of the Seasons, which he was positive had never existed in the lyrics reported by the Ministry of Demi-Human Affairs.

However, there was no one to ask, not even Morrigan, who was overhead exploring the spectacle and its various preparations, so Ravenport watched on.

The next part served to honour another Demi-human group central to the existence of Shalkar—the Horse Lords of the Northern Steppes.

Though the Centaurs were traditionally against the notion of agricultural settlements, Gwen’s taming of the Death Worms, together with her contributions to the constant food crisis of the region, seemed to have earned her a sort of kinship with the Şöpter Shamans steering Temir Khan’s rulership. In their present configuration, Gwen’s relationship with the Centaurs eerily reminded Ravenport of the late Czar’s alliance with Khans of the past, utilising the free-roaming Horse Lords as a sort of controlled natural disaster that patrolled the city’s borders.

“HA—!” A great howl reverberated across the auditorium as the Centaurs entered, a hundred riders of the Khan’s elite Khesig honour guards, each topless and oiled, vividly tattooed with the dull glow of Şöpter blood magic.

The temperate in the enormous open-air chamber instantly soared, causing the cooling Glyphs to whine and shudder. The smell of horse, which Ravenport enjoyed as a skilled rider, was not nearly so wonderful when the Duke could see the gleaming muscles steaming with sweat, streaming from the Adonis-bodies riding in tandem.

Charlene’s eyes positively glowed as Ravenport dispelled the scent with a localised cantrip. The Horse Lords performed several laps, then began a war chant in a voice so deep that, together with their rumbling hooves, they placed the audience in the midst of a thundering storm.

Then, a female voice, a Şöpter wielding an exotic dulcimer, began to vocalise a soaring song that somehow pierced the dull drum of hooves clattering on the arena’s transmuted floor.

Under the blue yonder, there are no walls

Grass is long, horse is strong

Our foals watch the livestock

We ride

We ride

To the great sea of the east

We ride

We ride

To the great hills of the north

We ride

We ride…

… Our banners ride through rivers deep

Our banners ride up mountains high…

If anything, Ravenport agreed; their girl knew how to put on a show. Even experienced as he was, the combination of Şöpter blood magic, the white-maned singer and the acoustic-defying enchantments of the dulcimer was enough to engender visions of valleys and hills, freedom and conquest in his cynical mind.

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Nonetheless, some elements of the folk song had prevented him from a full immersion. After all, not long ago, before Gwen came to this place and built her shining city, the bipedal Şöpter were livestock—and the Rat-kin, once known as the Tasmüyiz, were less than livestock…

How wonderful abundance can be… Ravenport noted the races’ cooperation with interest. The lack of it made animals out of men, while plenty crafted civilisations out of beasts.

The bone-deep thrum continued. Ravenport seriously considered hiring a dulcimer-trained retainer for the estate.

“Milord…” the silent voice of The Morrigan echoed through Ravenport’s mind.

“What is it?” he answered back through their empathic link. “Trouble?”

“Beyond belief.” The Morrigan sounded like she was panting—though her psychic ravens lacked the physiology to be taxed by such mortal concerns. “Milord, do you recall that report we had on Yekaterinburg? In particular, the unexplained absence of Magi Igor Sakharov?”

Ravenport felt his neck grow uncharacteristically cold. “Go on.”

“The crows are detecting a very large signature to the north-east. Something is drawing an incredible volume of power from the ley-lines there—I suspect its coming here.”

The Duke of Norfolk glanced at his unknowing daughter and the crowd marvelling at the Centaurs’ performance below.

Only one object could draw the amount of mana Morrigan reported between the Caspian Sea and Vladivostok.

A very large, very Brutalist object constructed by the man responsible for the safety of the million-strong citizens of Yekaterinburg. But could he trust Shalkar to be its destination—? As opposed to, say, a jaunt to the safety of Siberia, the exiled home of Europe’s surviving Necromancers.

If their subject were not Gwen Song, he would have certainly believed that Yekaterinburg Tower was extricating itself after its local “resources” were harvested.

However, with his knowledge of the girl’s alarming capacity for attracting trouble…

“Charlene,” he tapped his daughter’s shoulder, dismayed at her breathless lips. “Stop staring at the Centaurs.”

“Er…” Charlene’s usually pale face grew pinker in an effort to conceal her fascination. “My interest is cultural. I was Captain of the Equestrian Club, as you know.”

“Enough. When is Gwen’s performance?”

“After the Dwarves,” his daughter answered. “The program says between four to five.”

“Hmm,” Ravenport pondered what defences their Regent might possess. There was no doubt her Dwarven Golems were charged and ready. The Khan is also likely on alert, and there’s the Thunder Dragon overhead, and most of the Londoners will fight if he demands it. But… is that enough to stop what’s coming? Somehow, The Duke wasn’t too worried. “Charlie. You see that box over there.”

“The one with Alesia DeBotton?” Charlene glanced quickly to their left. “Yes.”

“Go there and tell that man sitting behind the Scarlet Sorceress I must speak with him. We’ll meet outside, out of sight.”

“The man?” His daughter’s eyes focused, and then her voice filled with awe. “… My God, that’s Gunther Shultz!”

“Yes, good.” Ravenport prodded his daughter. “Go now… and tell him that we’ll probably be seeing an erstwhile ally soon… riding in the flying Necropolis that is Yekaterinburg Tower.”

For the first time since its construction in the sixties, Yekaterinburg Tower blinked out of the Prime Material into the Astral.

It was a feat that Magi Igor Sakharov found ironic, for when he had stood in the capacity of her Tower Master, the sword-shaped battle station had never left its mooring to shore up Russia’s distant colonies.

The reason wasn’t because there was no need. Rather, the cost for a Tower to rescue a mere ten-twenty thousand citizens besieged by Magical Creatures or Undead Tides was too high.

And so, in the many decades since Magi Igor Sakharov received his title from the Mageocracy, he had never exercised the core function of the system he had a hand in constructing. For three decades, as his body wasted away and his mind grew minutely more feeble with each sun cycle, he had been left wanting. Yet, Moscow desired nothing but the status quo, wanting only the immeasurable profits from the city’s mines. He was their Iron Wall, or so the propaganda went—and a wall was exactly that—static—unmoving—silent.

And now that he did move the Tower, Sakharov had to confess that it was exhilarating.

So damned exhilarating… Sakharov steadied himself. Such volatile emotions were a part of what he would shed like a second skin upon completing this final task.

A task he had not at all anticipated.

In the timeline of his design, after sacrificing a million souls to pad the cost of constructing his phylactery, he had two, perhaps three years to consolidate the materials and knowledge necessary from the old Masters of Juche. With the Urals now a Black Zone, he had foreseen that Moscow’s existential blindness to failure meant there would be no opposition to his inevitable descent into immortality.

At least, that was the plan he had agreed to with the Ljósálfar who had sold him the necessary ambition to cross the final threshold of his Humanity.

The path to Magical supremacy is long…The Elf had intimated. But human life… so short…

Yes, Sakharov was a respected hero, scholar, leader and Magi—but he was also mortal.

His early years fighting for Humanity had left large, irreparable scars on his Astral and physical body. Then, the Great Purges exercised by his nation had left more knots and ills on Sakharov than he could count. And finally, with the greatest title a nation can bestow upon its heroes, Sakharov was told that he had done enough.

ENOUGH?! Sakharov had felt positively enraged. He was a Magi! He had completed the circuits that saw Towers take to the air! He had contributed singularly to Humanity’s progress because he wanted to see conquest and dominion! He wanted to see the Horse Lords flee in the wake of his Towers! He wanted to see the Undead Necropolises reduced to smouldering craters!

But then thirty years came and went—and all Sakharov received were a mountain of medals in precious metals, enough to make a jewelled sarcophagus. Honour? Achievements? These damned Muscovites were trying to bury him with it!

Taking deep breaths, Magi Sakharov contained his rising ire.

“Crew, prepare for materialisation,” he informed the bridge below his feet.

The men and women who had followed him almost all their lives were no longer living. Instead, they had received the high blessing from a third-generation Vampiric Ancestor who now served as Sakharov’s Majordomo. Curiously, Sakharov knew the man in life, almost five decades ago, as a promising staff officer lost to the Undead Incursion of Fifty-Six. That they would be united like this—him once more as the man’s superior, the man once more his aide, was strangely soothing to the guilt that Sakharov knew he should be feeling.

“Yes! Milord!” The crew answered, reverting to the more medieval titles preferred by the Vampiric Counts of Siberia. It did not bother them that they answered to a living, breathing human still, for Sakharov’s ambitions were greater than any Vampiric lineage. His destiny was to become Death itself, or at least, an animated facsimile of living Death—a Lich. Once his transformation was complete, Magi Sakharov would become the Lich Sakharov, a being of eternity, unbound by time, free to pursue the tender secrets of Arcanistry to her hiding places with wand and lash.

But first—he had this task to do.

Weeks ago, he had received an unexpected visit from the Ljósálfar leader of Spectre.

Against all expectations, the Elf said, a threat had risen in the east.

The threat came from the Regent of Shalkar al-Jadeedah, a wisp of a girl with connections to Elves and Dragons both—and against all reason and common sense, she was hosting a planting ceremony for a World Tree.

Sakharov baulked, another human emotion he disliked.

A WORLD TREE! What absurdity would lead a child to possess something so precious? And how could he make such a thing his own? For his quest—his transformation, the ingredient components of Shalkar—not to mention the vitality necessary to germinate the seed—would accelerate his future Lichdom to an unforeseen elevation!

For his intervention, Spectre had provided him with the necessary information to sidestep the Dragons’ ire and achieve his goal. The girl’s “New Shalkar” was a trading hub and a source of unnatural bounty. She had Centaurs, Dwarves, and a young Thunder Dragon thrall. Therefore, Sakharov’s primary objective was not rapine but to make Shalkar unpalatable for trade, to pollute her fields with decay, and finally, to occupy the ley-line to make her ambitions impossible. As a Magi, he was confident, absolutely confident, that once profitability disappeared, the Mageocracy would retreat its tentacles out of jaw-clenching instinct—just as Moscow had naturally abandoned Yekaterinburg.

Even so, Sakharov was old and wise enough to be wary.

Dragons were vengeful and greedy creatures.

He recalled that despite their extremism, the Juche’s followers did not raise their armies against World Trees of the Axis Mundi. Instead, they perverted the bodies of Mermen for the occasion, becoming accessories to assault rather than throwing themselves head-on against the irate Blooms and their companion Wyrms. After all, the primordial foes of the wizard lizards were the Elemental Princes, not mortals, especially dead ones.

To the Ljósálfar, he had voiced his concerns.

“You will do this,” the fair Elf had replied in that lyrical voice of the immortal races. “It is our Accord.”

So Sakharov did as he was told, and now they had arrived.

“Materialising,” his first officer announced to the bridge. “My lord, our legions are starved and ready.”

Sakharov took a moment to calm nerves that his men no longer possessed.

Soon, he told himself.

The Tower would descend… he would ascend in turn.

Shalkar.

The auditorium.

Gwen Song, the Regent, stood waist-deep in mana, the first of many impossible things she wished to attribute to this special day of Sufina’s “Bloom”.

Mana, as all understood, was invisible, akin to the atomic particles of gases, only undetectable unless one was versed in Divination.

For her to be sitting in a large pool of it was, therefore, a spectacle, for her Dwarves had compiled layer after layer of Runes to condense the invisible flow of mana through the ley-nodes of the world into the visible spectrum.

“Almudj…” she prayed to her Patron, thinking vividly of the rainbow silhouette asleep a continent away, on a far node of the Axis Mundi, in the watery body of Kati Thanda. Across time and space, she felt the snake's thoughts like the purring of a cat, gently vibrating against her head, sending a scent of eucalyptus through their mutual Essences so that she could taste it as she breathed.

She was reminded of Kalinda and the erstwhile Blooms’ evaporating tears while her World Tree burned and Almudj danced, splitting the sky into the sundered colours of the light spectrum.

She also thought of her Master and his body, untouched by time, presided over by a Sufina who must be feeling everything Gwen now felt, awaiting the enormous mana and vitality that would soon bring her new body into being.

And she thought, a little guiltily, of Elvia and Yue. The former had declined to come and witness her ascension, while conversations with the latter had been curt. “Your brother must die” wasn’t what Gwen had wanted to hear—but when Richard informed her that her Yeye, Babulya, and Elvia would all be absent, a tiny part of her absolutely entertained that horrible fantasy.

Against her chest, the Scale with its embedded seed pulsed.

Above, the bladed aperture of the arena’s floor opened.

Suddenly, sound flowed inward like a white surf, invading the interior of her chamber, setting the mana particle to stir and dance.

In her dress of interlocked leaves and vines woven for the occasion by Sanari, she appeared as a Druidic Birth of Venus, both hands cradling the seed pod that was her city’s future. Her hair flowed out and downwards, cascading as a dark waterfall past her shoulder to tease the mana particle below.

Lumen-recorders flashed from the forward pits where Richard had confined the international press.

From the skylight, a shaft of sunlight fell upon the mana pool and its mistress, the Regent of Shalkar, making her appear almost like a germinating seed. The roar of the crowd, Rat-kin, Centaurs, Dwarves, Humans and more, continued for several minutes before its gradual diminuendo.

Gwen savoured the silence, then began to speak.

“Thank you all for coming today to Shalkar al-Jadeedah.”

A new applause drowned out all conversation. All had benefited from her city, some saved by it, others enriched. Gwen took the opportunity to bow and acknowledge her rarer guests, waiting for silence to return.

“Every once in a while—“ she opened her oration, rising slowly until she walked on top of the brimming blue pool of liquid mana. “A revolution arrives in our world.”

She approached the side of the auditorium with Temir Khan and his Saraī Shaman, gliding across the space like a dream, her foot walking on invisible panes generated by spontaneous Walls of Force.

“When we first came to the Fire Sea, the Elemental plague had destroyed this place and its means to sustain life. Zodiam and its Brass Legion seemed insurmountable, but with the Mageocracy's and Khanate's combined might, WE OVERCAME!”

The Centaurs stomped.

The Khan offered his horn of wine.

Gwen bowed, made a mock gesture of knocking cups, and then proceeded further down the circumference of the arena.

“We saw that the people suffered, and in ridding ourselves of the Elementals, we freed the Tasmüyiz from the shackles of starvation so that once more, the original inhabitants of this rich landscape can reseed the grasslands of the Steppes.”

In waves, the Rat-kin fell to their knees with cries of “Pale Priestess!” which Gwen promptly ignored by walking past.

She paused under the section belonging to the Mageocracy’s Factioneers. Many familiar faces were here, from mentors to business partners, creditors and debtors, new friends and old.

“With my friend and allies, we uncovered the plots by Spectre, and the Elemental Princes, to uproot the weather patterns of our world. We defeated their Undead Hordes, their Shoals of Undeath in the north and south, from one end of the Axis Mundi to another!”

Charlene and the nobles of the Mageocracy rose to toast her. Gwen’s gaze swept over the faces, ensuring each felt her most sincere and heartfelt smile. She faltered a little when she noted the absence of all but her Opa in the Sydney box, but there was no stopping her planned routine.

With a gesture, the illusions put in place by her Mages sprang into being, displaying vivid projections of Shalkar’s many riches across the mana-scape below.

“When I began this city—many said it couldn’t be done. The Steppes was too dry and dangerous, and its people would prefer war over work…” She continued, her voice rich and seemingly overwhelmed by her own success. “But this is a revolution, my friends. The impossible is what we do.”

She made a grand gesture toward the auditorium, the Bunker, the Low-ways and beyond that, her city above.

“BEHOLD—WHAT WHAT WE HAVE ACHIEVED!” Her voice filled every cranny.

The crowd erupted, but Gwen rose above even that.

“TODAY! HERE IN SHALKAR AL-JADEEDAH—WE SHALL REINVENT THE MODERN CITY!”

Long-prepared tapestries of the city as envisioned by her Dwarven designers unfurled across the arena’s walls and floors. Eruptions of colour, cast through high-fidelity Illusion Glyphs, formed into a magnificent multi-dimensional trunk that grew and grew, then began to crawl and spread through the air like feelers, spreading and splitting into innumerable numbers of branches. And from those fine bowers and branches, emerald leaves began to sprout, each minute but together in the millions, forming a great, breathtaking Banyan across the skyscraper of her glorious, illusory city.

As in a dream, the leaves rustled and fell, changing from emerald to a vivid autumn citrine.

Below, her city was bathed in gold.

Her audiences, mesmerised, reached for the surreal illusions.

“A TRUE COSMOPOLITAN METROPOLIS!” Her voice rang across the auditorium. “MULTI-SPECIES, MULTI-PURPOSE, MULTI-CULTURAL! A TRUE—“

Whirrrrr—BWOOOM—!

Whirrrrr—BWOOOM—!

Whirrrrr—BWOOOM—!

Whirrrrr—BWOOOM—!

The auditorium rocked. The mana tide below sloshed from the tectonic movements of the sudden eruptions above. Fortunately, thanks to the natural sunlight, no flickering lights or fallen strobes foreshadowed danger or instability. Nonetheless, Gwen immediately understood this wasn’t the misfiring of her planned fireworks display at night—but something more serious.

The crowd, some confused and some alarmed, looked to the open ceiling, where continuous volleys of Elemental Magma and Lightning were being delivered through the four enormous artillery Spellswords set up on the sides of the Bunker.

A section of the arena closer to the Centaurs and the Rat-kin opened immediately, allowing the Khan and his Honour Guard to venture outside and confront their potential foe. Dwarven Golems from the Hammer Guard strode into the area and formed a perimeter around herself. Their glowing quad-swords were lowered, but their visible targeting Mandalas were evidently trained upon the crowd.

A dull thrum echoed across the exterior of the dome, signalling that layered arrays of Walls of Force were now deployed to protect the Bunker and its interior.

Whirrrrr—BWOOOM—!

Whirrrrr—BWOOOM—!

Whirrrrr—BWOOOM—!

Whirrrrr—BWOOOM—!

Four more volleys of the city’s longest-range artillery sang their orisons of destruction.

Gwen’s eyes followed the arc of their trajectory into the heavens, where she could now see the silhouette of an enormous, dagger-like structure against the orange glow of the afternoon sun, creating an imperfect solar eclipse.

DING! DING! DING! DING—! Both silent and aloud, Message Spells erupted across the auditorium and its agitated audience.

“Richard!” She spoke into her own device, her blood pressure skyrocketing toward the descending meteor. “Is that what I think it is?!”

“My Regent!” her cousin’s voice blasted back, barely audible over the firing of the artillery Spellswords. “Stay with the crowd! We can’t afford any panic! Calm your guests and get them to stay put. The heart of the Bunker is the safest place by far! We’ll handle it!”

“Handle it?! Richard! That’s a fucking Tower! THAT’S THE BLASTED YEKATERINBURG TOWER!” she hissed into the Message Device while keeping her face happy and engaging. Her mind was racing through every resource available to her city. She knew the Bunker was safe, but what did they have to repeal a Tower? If that thing was to land, could they afford the war of attrition? Against her chest, against her pounding heart, Almudj’s Scale pulsed in tune with her upset.

But Richard was right.

The first thing to do was to assure her guests that they were safe and that this would soon be over.

After all—she glanced to the empty box where only her Opa waved back with a big grin on his face, oblivious of the impending crisis—after all, Gunther could handle a Tower or two… Right?… Right?