CHAPTER 4 : Rivermoore: A Minister’s Duty (Part 1)

"…There they go."

As Rivermoore's concert let fly the opening salvo, the exit from the kingdom to the third layer was defended by several upperclassmen—and Guy's squad. Lesedi's orders prioritized survival rates, and that meant keeping a solid team posted there. Even if the undead swarmed them, they should be able to hold out until help could arrive.

"I hope they're okay," Katie whimpered, pacing back and forth. "Urgh, I wish we could be there…"

"Relax," Guy said, putting his hands on her shoulders. "Our skills are more suited to defense, and we don't know how the assault will go. Securing a retreat path is a vital role."

"Unh, sorry," Marco said, hanging his head. "I too slow…"

"This is not your fault, Marco! Thanks for using that big body of yours to keep us all safe! You've been a huge, huge help!"

Katie quickly put her arms around his big leg. Having the troll with them might diminish their mobility, but few things could match his defense. Marco guarding this location meant the front lines could focus on the battle at hand.

"…Win this thing, Oliver," Pete whispered, eyes on the expanse before him. He did not ask his friend to stay safe. On that front, mages simply kept the faith.

"Progressio."

Khiirgi's chant activated the pre-prepped magic circle, and dark-red growths—somewhere between vines and trunks—reached up from the ground, lifting her body skyward. Oliver momentarily feared these were some beast's tentacles, but on closer examination, they were clearly rooted in the soil.

"Uh, are those plants?" Yuri asked incredulously.

"The soil here, though…"

It was difficult to believe. The magic particles here were agreeable to the undead but offered no boon to anything vegetative. Guy's tool plants would not grow, and Oliver had yet to see a single weed growing anywhere in the kingdom.

But the answer to his query came from Lesedi's bountiful knowledge and experience. As she bounded up the vines after Khiirgi, she yelled, "Undead plants?! You clearly love nothing more than defiling elf sorcery, Alp!"

"Haaa-ha! I'm bucking against repression! This has no place in nature, so back home it was forbidden, profane!"

Khiirgi rode the vines higher, cackling, as still more came after Lesedi, as if they had minds of their own. But Lesedi's pursuit was relentless, dodging, parrying, or using them as footholds to propel herself after her quarry.

"But I can't dismiss those stipulations out of hand, either. These unnatural acts do turn the elementals against me, and that makes things rather difficult for an elf mage. Yet, I can't help but feel that is also a curse, binding the elf race to that moldy naturism. Are you with me there?"

"Nope. Don't give a shit about your home life!" Lesedi snapped, hurling lightning.

Khiirgi canceled it with the oppositional element, still monologuing.

"Even when I was at home, I was always wondering. Elves have an inherent aptitude for magic, far greater than humans. We lag behind on reproduction and environmental adaptability, but our long lives more than make up for it. So when the ancient wars were fought over domination of this world, why did we lose to you?"

"Bad strategies. Inadequate supply lines."

"Haaa-ha! That's what I love about you! But I have another theory. It was not a matter of preparedness—it was their attitudes that were lacking. Elves could not match humanity's pursuit of sorcery, lacked the arrogance to trod roughshod over every principle and doctrine. They hesitated to even take a step in that direction! No wonder that fallen god loved them more than humans."

Her speech was taking on a solemn vibe, yet Lesedi was still slicing her way through the onslaught of vines.

"Even the word Alp was once used by the ordinaries in one corner of the Union to describe elves in general. They believed we were child-snatching monsters. Was that the result of human propaganda? Or was that based on actual historical events? I don't know the truth, nor do I care, but I loved the idea of an evil elf. As we are now, that notion is more a blessing than an insult."

The fully grown vines had Khiirgi suspended at their apex. She had her hands folded before her chest, like an actor on a stage.

"I am an outcast elf. Drawn to the immoral, beguiled by my desires, I was driven from my home and washed up at Kimberly. My parents lay together, two virtuous elves—yet the product was the devil you see before you. If there is any meaning to that, I'd call it a sign. A reminder that our species is trapped in a dead end, in need of guidance to the next evolution."

Her lips twisted. Her sorcery had begun in isolation back home, her path discovered during her wanderings in the world of man.

"Immorality and the profane are my calling! I am an Alp! Khiirgi 'Avarice' Albschuch!"

Khiirgi's undead plants were still growing. New vines cropped up, pushing her and Lesedi higher and higher until the ground beneath was like a veritable tír forest.

"Hrm. They grow as fast as we mow them," noted Nanao.

"Our damage can't keep up with their speed. At this rate—"

Before Oliver could finish, a blade shot out of a vine's shadow, aimed at his back. He spotted it, dodged, and fired a lightning spell to counter, but to no avail. It fled to a different shadow right after the attack. In the last battle, it had used the bone birds above, but now it was using Khiirgi's forest.

"The quantity of shadows is only increasing, and its advantage with them," said Oliver.

"Should we head up, too? I'm pretty good at that stuff," Yuri offered.

"No, ascending could let the zahhak target Ms. Ingwe. We've gotta take it out at ground level."

Bearing both the situation and their role in this fight in mind, Oliver looked at his companions. When he could find no way to proceed, Nanao's and Yuri's instincts often prevailed.

"This is our second battle with this foe. What are your observations?"

"Um, well, doesn't seem like it can stay in the shadows all that long. Ten seconds max?"

"And the traversal between the shadows is hardly swift. No more than walking across the surface at least."

Even as they fought, both had been carefully analyzing their foe. Watching the shadows around him, Oliver nodded.

"Agreed. And I'll add that there seems to be a minimum size requirement on the shadows it passes through. It uses its own shadow to retreat but must use existing shadows to emerge. Which gives us a lead. Clypeus!"

Inspiration struck, and Oliver cast a blockade spell, creating a wall not far behind them. As yet, it served no purpose, but that was the plan. Just like Nanao's fight with the dragoon. If their foe could not be beaten in one move, then multiple steps would do.

"Lock a location, find the moment, drive it there. Follow my lead."

"Gladly!"

"On it!"

"Hfff!"

The instant he was in one-step, one-spell range, Albright swung his blade down from on high. Ames thrust forward, aiming for his wrist, but he'd predicted that and shifted his swing to strike her athame. The force behind the blow nearly unbalanced her, and a backslash from below came close—

"Hahhh—!"

A blow designed to overpower her guard, but she put her left hand to the blade itself to block it and absorbed the momentum, launching herself backward. Albright grunted and abandoned his pursuit. She'd used his strength to right herself, the resulting posture a marked improvement.

"Hmm, you've got some moves," said Albright. "Shrewd use of your shrewish frame."

"Worn out already? Then let's take it down a notch," Ames replied, striking a mid-stance.

Albright snorted. "Your taunts miss their mark. Why should I close in?" With that haughty remark, he raised his athame high in an intimidating stance. "Scamper on in—I'll be here to crush you. Ideal way to handle rodents."

"Hardly, as I shall not scamper."

Returning snark for snark, Ames moved out, her blade searching for a chance to slash the tomcat's throat.

"You 'ave yet to amuse. Try a little 'arder, eh?"

"You did not just say that, you li'l prick!"

"Our boss works us like frickin' dogs!"

Ames's teammates were relentlessly swapping places, and Rossi was weathering the storm, looking underwhelmed. He was clearly getting under their skin, but what did he care?

"I suppose it's better than your league match. Fine, I'll play a round."

Rossi abruptly leaned forward. They assumed it was his patented roll and leaped back—but Rossi maintained that unbalanced lean. Yet, this was no lunge, either—he slid along the ground, passing between the girls before they could react and tapping their backs with his knuckles.

"Wha…?"

"H-how did he…?!"

"Koutz fencers prance upon land or cloud. I am getting the 'ang of it, no?"

He turned, smirking. The Ames duo came after him again—but theirs was not the only battle raging here. Albright faced one, Rossi two—which meant the remaining three were on Andrews. Although in practice, he was facing more than twice that number.

"…Between the corporeal and shadow splinters, eight sure is a crowd," said Andrews.

"No point holding back here," commented one Mistral splinter.

"We'll make it quick!" said another.

From the get-go, they were going all out with the splinters and transformations. Mistral had assumed the fight would hinge on buying time to make the splinters, but to his surprise, Andrews had hung back, watching him work.

Now Andrews glanced around the eight approaching figures—

"Impetus."

"Whoa?!"

"Yikes!"

The gust hit not from the fore but from behind, pushing hard against the Mistrals. Andrews's eyes caught how they moved.

"I see. Impetus!"

Before they could even try to dodge, a blade of wind sliced the two corporeal splinters in half. Andrews backed off a step, dodging the counterspells, and glanced over the six remaining foes.

"At this range, shadows won't fool anyone. The corporeals might—but while three of you recovered your footing by adjusting your center of gravity, the splinters righted themselves a beat too late. You should have matched them."

"…Not likely."

"And leave ourselves exposed?"

It was easier to distinguish splinters from the real thing on impulsive movements than calculated ones. Andrews had taken advantage of that and left Mistral gnashing his teeth.

"Since you don't want anyone spotting the differences, you have a bad habit of holding off on spell usage till the last second. You had the numbers advantage, yet you let me make the first move. If you've had time to make proper preparations like your previous match, that would be one thing, but—on a chance encounter like this, it's obvious your tricks aren't fully meshing with magic combat."

"Damn, hit us where it hurts."

"You're tearing us a new one!"

With fewer splinters, they changed formations. A momentary shift in focus—and a lightning bolt hit them from the side. They tried to leap back but couldn't fully dodge.

"Gah…!"

"You're a serious man, Mistral," Andrews intoned. "You're paying me too much attention."

Left arm numbed from the bolt, Mistral swore, glaring at the source. Rossi grinned back, having fired a spell between the Ames duo. The two girls quickly backed off, regrouping with Mistral.

"Sorry! Couldn't pin him down!"

"Rossi pisses me the hell off…!"

"Don't worry," Mistral assured them. "I messed up first."

He gritted the teeth Ames's slap had loosened. And he had been too focused on Andrews's advice to watch his surroundings. Lots to work on, but he'd have to beat himself up in the postmortem after.

"You don't get to the finals for nothing, huh? But we've had more than our fair share of screwups!"

Mistral raised his athame, whipping up his team's spirits all the while. His teammates and Ames's put their heads in the game.

Watching them all from the back, Tim ground his teeth. With his casting hand down, he couldn't even heal himself. He had a pouch full of poison, and the virulence of it was eating away at him.

"…No poison on hand I can use against kids without a wand. Goddamn. I came prepped for the big guy, and it bit me in the ass."

"Awooooooooo!"

Fay let loose a howl before shooting forward and tackling one of Bowles's teammates. With both legs phased to werewolf form, his speed was fully bestial charge. Spencer barely blocked the blow, but he was nonetheless steadily forced back.

"…Ngh…! You're really going for it, Mr. Willock! I ain't into being on the receiving end of this violence!"

"Funny—I'm the same."

Fay flashed a grin, pressing his animalistic advantage. It looked like a one-sided fight, but from behind, Stacy could tell Spencer was handling things well—he was half pretending to be on the ropes, making it look like he was barely blocking, trying to bait Fay into a swing too large.

"…Huh. So you can move," Stacy said. "You should have done that in the match."

"We meant to!" Bowles wailed. He swung his athame, and Stacy batted it aside into a counterthrust. Their duel was playing out at one-step, one-spell range, with Chela watching over it from a distance.

"…I see. A pair of aces, with you as the commander. That's your team's true style."

"An honor to be noticed and recognized," Rodney Quark said with a sigh. He was facing Chela at casting range. "If you hear anyone dissing our previous match, maybe drop a word? They're better than that would suffice. At this rate, our marriage prospects are slim…"

In the league match, Andrews had spotted his hiding place and taken him out early, giving him no chance to show off.

"That does sound urgent," Chela replied, wincing. "If you can down us here, I promise we'll spread the unvarnished truth. Will that do?"

"Splendidly, Ms. McFarlane. I'm so glad we could come to an agreement."

They abandoned conversation and went back to their spell duel.

Some distance away, the three supervisors were glaring one another down. Team Bowles was overseen by a seventh-year from the old council camp: Elise Cuvier.

"I expected as much, but your sister really doesn't attack," she said to Gwyn. "Is there a constraint upon her, or are you just playing it close to the chest? Which is it, Sherwood siblings?"

"If it was the first, we'd hardly answer. And if it was the second, the answer will only come out if you back us into a corner. Either way, you're wasting your breath, Cuvier."

"So unsporting, Spellstrings. The melodies you play are far more eloquent."

Cuvier's wand wavered, and the first syllable of a spell crossed her tongue. Gwyn's response had already begun. That syllable narrowed down her spell selection, and with decisiveness matched by few even in the upper forms, he could often get a counterspell off first, but—

"Frigus!"

—as he focused on the enemy before him, a fireball descended from overhead. Shannon spotted it and canceled it with the oppositional element, but the foe behind that surprise attack was far above. A trio of brooms wheeled in the sky. Gwyn frowned.

"Spells from that height? And accurate despite the brooms' speed, too… Team Liebert?"

"Pretty cool, huh? They caught my eye in that last match. All three are fine, but Ms. Asmus in particular will be an excellent pawn. Let my promising juniors get a taste of victory's nectar."

"Not happening," Gwyn said, dead serious. "We're too busy looking after our own little brother."

Cuvier smirked and aimed her wand.

Team Horn and the zahhak were still battling in the shadow of the undead plants. They chiseled away at each other's nerves, exchanging breathless blows, and at last Oliver spied the moment he'd been waiting for.

"Time to seal the deal, Nanao!"

"Gladly!"

Nanao braced her katana at the hip. On the breath before her chant, Oliver and Yuri leaped together.

"Gladio Ferrum!"

A doublecant severing spell shot beneath the boys' feet, slicing through the trees around like reaping wheat. Their base undone, the unnatural trees began to topple, but since the cuts matched the angle, the direction of that fall was preordained. All three members of Team Horn were soon out of the landing zone, but the zahhak had no need. It simply ducked into its shadow, waiting for the collapse to complete.

"It dove! Fortis Flamma!"

"Fortis Flamma!"

Oliver's and Yuri's flames ignited all the fallen trees. Ordinarily, fresh timber didn't make good kindling, but the reversed attributes meant the undead plants went up with a sinister dark-red flame. But what mattered here was not the burning lumber—but that those roiling flames coated the entire area.

"…Fire's blocked every escape route," said Oliver. "Only one place it can go. Only one shadow a yard across it can reach within ten seconds."

The fallen trees were covered in flames, and the zahhak could not escape that way. The wavering flames disrupted the remaining shadows, making Shadow Crawl itself difficult. Under those limited conditions, the zahhak had few choices, and the time limit on the crawl itself meant it could not stop to think.

The zahhak found a shadow within that ten-second range and popped its face out to take a breath. In that one defenseless moment, all three athames bore down.

"Yes, there. Tonitrus!"

"Tonitrus!"

"Tonitrus!"

Three bolts all struck home, and the zahhak fell over. They hit it with another round to be sure, but it didn't budge. Certain the beast was felled, Oliver let out a sigh of relief.

The groundwork had paid off, leading their way to victory. Reduce the zahhak's options with the burning trees and lead it to an exit of their own devising. The final shadow it emerged from was beneath the wall Oliver had made with that blockade spell. Their foe assumed it had chosen that spot itself, but they had led it there.

"Yuri, grab the bone fragment. Ms. Ingwe! Ours is down! Expect cover fire from below!"

The fight was still raging up above. Lesedi was almost dancing through the air.

"What, already?" Khiirgi gasped. "That was a pretty powerful creature!"

"And they're the top of their year. Four against one. Wanna beg Rivermoore for more backup?!"

"No, no, I have my own."

Even as she spoke, two more students swooped in on brooms. Seeing Albright and Andrews, Lesedi clenched her jaw.

"Team Andrews? They got through our side, then!"

"I've got good kids on my side, too. Haaa-ha! Four-on-three. More fun to come!"

Khiirgi let out a cry of glee, but Lesedi's voice grew quiet.

"…I've been meaning to tell you something, Khiirgi."

"Mm?"

"You're a powerful mage. One of the top ten fighters in the seventh year. On combat alone, I can still match you, but on the total magic package—you've got me beat."

"My, my! Where's this coming from? You're making me blush. Not often you shower me with compliments."

The elf put her hands on her cheeks, looking bashful.

"Don't get ahead of yourself," Lesedi said. "My point is: You've got a fatal flaw that pulls the rug out from under all your raw talent."

Khiirgi blinked and looked at the juniors around her.

"Oh? My, my, my."

Andrews and Albright grinned. The disguises covering their faces fell away, and the true faces beneath emerged—Mistral's teammates.

"On to us already? Here's a message from our leader."

""Payback's a bitch—and so are you.""

Both fired staggered spells, the first of which Khiirgi canceled with the oppositional element. The second, she dodged with a leap from an undead tree leaf, easily moving herself out of harm's way. But this was mate in five. To avoid the third spell Lesedi fired at her feet, the elf was forced into a Sky Walk.

"This is what avarice gets you."

Lesedi kicked off the undead plant herself, Sky Walking in close. Khiirgi waited till the last second, then double feinted into a second Sky Walked sidestep. Lesedi's kick caught only empty air—or appeared to, but her sole trod firmly on the void. Khiirgi winced, realizing her mistake. She'd already used both Sky Walk steps—but Lesedi had one remaining.

"Get it yet? Your flaw's quite simple. Nobody fucking likes you."

She had her quarry right where she wanted her, and the Hard Knocker went into a spin kick. Khiirgi had no other choice but to use her left arm as a shield, yet Lesedi's kick went through that bone and shattered against the Alp's ribs.

"Success," Mistral muttered upon receiving word from his companions. Andrews and Rossi were still fighting them—but at that, they paused.

"Then our fight is done. Thanks for playing along."

"Ooh, caught that lady unawares, eh? Wish I 'ad been there."

Rossi's spirits immediately soared. He was outright whistling.

"She disgraced me first." Mistral scowled. "And I'm none too pleased about having the opportunity handed to me. Aren't you old-council camp?" he asked Andrews.

"Our families are. But our priority now has to be victory in the combat league. If we're dragged any deeper into the election back fighting, it'll effect our performance."

Andrews was clearly highly annoyed to have been brought here at all. His frown deepened.

"And on a personal basis, I'm against this approach. President Godfrey demonstrated his character in the senior league prelim. That may have allowed Mr. Rivermoore to catch him off guard, but his choices at the start of the match also ensured minimal student casualties. The old council is merely reaping the benefits—and that's a pathetic way to win an election. How can they inspire any kind of following like that?"

Perhaps in his first year—before Richard Andrews met Oliver and Nanao—this would not have occurred to him. But he knew better now. He knew both victory and defeat could be achieved the right way and the wrong way.

"The old council needs to prove themselves. Show us who they are and how they'll lead Kimberly in the future. The best way to do that is to go up against President Godfrey in peak condition and win. If they did that, no one would complain."

"Exactly. Who wants these dull cowards 'olding sway over our lives, eh?" Rossi chimed in.

Then Andrews glanced up, receiving a message via the mana frequency from his flying familiars.

"Ms. Khiirgi sounded the retreat. We'll have to invent an excuse. We're done, Albright."

"One minute. Haven't yet crushed this shrew."

"Not so fast," said Ames. "I have a wild beast to dispatch."

"Go, go, Jaz!"

"The Jazinator!"

Albright and Ames were completely ignoring the spirit of things, entirely absorbed in their duel. Tim glanced at that—as Mistral healed his hand—and laughed.

"Least you're having fun. That's how Kimberly kids should be," said Mistral. "Still, pull out for now, Ames. I'll ref your fight with him later. You can go at it all you like once you're back on campus."

This proved enough to make both sheathe their blades. Watching them reluctantly back down, Tim thought: If that's all it takes to stop them, this generation's a lot better behaved than mine.

"Tch!"

"Eeeeek…!"

"KYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Team Liebert had been circling on their brooms, dropping spells on the teams below—but now a griffin was hot on their heels. No one on their team was really a skilled flier, and they were ill-equipped to handle a beast built for aerial combat. Chela glanced up at that and smiled.

"…I see Lyla's here. Isn't Katie so nice?"

The perfect reinforcement. Katie's team might have been tasked with securing the escape route, but she'd also been poised to send her griffin out as needed. The ideal foil to Team Liebert's long-range-spell bombardment.

"…Without support from above, we're sunk…"

"Not yet…!"

And with their backup gone, Team Bowles would have to handle things on their own. Fay's charge and Stacy's and Chela's spells weren't making that easy. Their formation was a classic one vanguard, two rearguard, but since the two casters didn't hesitate to land spells dangerously close to Fay himself, his headlong charges never left him exposed. The strategy hinged on how tough his werewolf form was and the rock-solid trust that lay between them.

Team Bowles was being pushed back but grimly hanging on—and then hands clapped down upon their shoulders.

"Good effort. If the situation allowed it, I'd love to let you finish things…," Elise Cuvier said. She'd cut off her fight with the Sherwoods and regrouped with her juniors. "But I'm afraid that's not an option. It's time to retreat, children."

"Whuh?"

"We're still good to go!"

"I know you are, but this one dumbass dropped the ball elsewhere." Cuvier sighed. "There's no use pressing for results now. It's time we backed off and regrouped."

Bowles and Howell swore, and Chela lowered her athame.

"Then it stands as a tie," she said. "Perhaps not quite what we agreed on, but I shall share word of this anyway and tell people the true Team Bowles was formidable."

"…I love you, Ms. McFarlane…," Rodney whispered.

Their nerve-racking spell exchange had clearly worn him out. His team hopped on their brooms and flew away. Elsewhere, Team Liebert had also turned and fled.

Only when they were well and truly gone did Stacy lower her blade…

…and a new voice echoed over the momentary calm.

"Awww…I'm too late?"

They spun around and saw three figures riding on broomback. They came in for a landing some twenty yards away. Chela narrowed her eyes, appraising the new arrivals.

"…And who might you be?"

"Hiii, Ms. McFarlane! I don't think we've, like, talked much before?"

The girl in the center stepped forward. The axis of her stride was unsteady, rocking back and forth. Each line she spoke rose in pitch at the end. Those traits rang a bell.

"You're in the finals, aren't you?" Stacy said. "Team Valois, I believe? Your friends have bailed already, but are you still game?"

"I wiiish! But we're under orders and stuff. So I'm just saying hello! We'll see each other in the finals, yeahhh?"

Ursule Valois let her head flop sideways, big, round eyes locked on Stacy. Chela and Fay both grew uneasy and stepped in front, hiding Stacy behind them.

"You're so, like, tight-knit," Valois said. "That's why I despise you guys. You and Team Horn and Team Andrews! Just watching you all makes me want to barf."

"Huh?"

"…?"

This one-sided revulsion just baffled them. Valois's eyes bore down on them, revealing no emotion. Her voice was equally flat.

"It's nothing personal, y'know? And I don't care about belc or dragrium, but, like, if I don't win, that'd kind of…suck? So I'm just gonna trounce you all. Let Team Horn know, yeah? Okaaay, we're done here."

She spun on her heel, hopped on her broom, and flew away with her teammates in tow.

"…What's her problem?" Stacy said. "She came all the way here just to say that?"

"Perhaps she was issuing a challenge before the finals. Her team remains an enigma," Chela replied, not having gleaned much from this brief interaction.

Stacy nodded and put it out of her mind, poking her servant's back. "Fay, you holding up?"

"Just getting nice and toasty," he said, as if he never got tired.

Shannon headed toward them, and Gwyn called out, "Rivermoore's undead are gathering. Keep your wits about you—the real fight has just begun."

"…Hnggg…!"

The kick Khiirgi had soaked sent her flying downward in a diagonal line but she managed to snag a branch of an undead plant with one hand—only to be hit with spells from Oliver's team below.

"Progressio!"

Cornered, a spell echoed from her lips, and the dead trees around her reached out, wrapping her in a sphere. An emergency escape at a high mana cost. The enhanced branches fended off follow-up blows, but within, Khiirgi was coughing up blood.

"Blegh…! Hurts every time you kick my guts in. I had an arm in between to soften it, but my ribs are still pulped!"

"I was trying to snap your spine. You want more?"

Lesedi landed on the sphere, stomping it. Khiirgi wiped the blood from her lips with a smirk.

"…Let's not. I mean, I'd love to keep going, but Leo would be furious. He might already have it in for me," she said. "Whatever! I managed a minimal delay, at least. Can't exactly bring everyone here for a full-on brawl. The rest is in Rivermoore's hands—I'll have to go home and let our adorable Percy chew my ear off."

"Glad to hear it. Mow this lawn first."

At that demand, Khiirgi shrugged and mouthed a chant. The magic circle fertilizing the undead plants lost power, and the vegetation quickly withered away. They had always been an entirely unnatural growth and could not survive long outside their highly specialized environment. When the collapse reached her, Khiirgi slipped out of the sphere and sped away on a broom.

Watching her go from below, Oliver asked, "…You sure we should let her?"

"No telling what'll pop out if she's in real trouble. And for once, she actually controlled herself. When she's being really vicious, it's far worse than this," Lesedi replied with a snort.

This was only a taste of the elf's true strength—a thought that went right past shudder into cringe.

Then a voice called Oliver's name.

"Noll!"

"Is everyone okay?"

His cousins and Team Cornwallis. They came in for a landing, and Mistral's teammates joined them and Oliver's squad. Lesedi quickly took control.

"More teams should be joining us shortly, but they'll have undead on their heels. Stick to the plan. We'll be splitting into offensive and defensive teams, but first, let's rework the squads a bit."

With that, she turned directly to Gwyn and Shannon.

"Sherwoods, I want you with Team Horn on the invasion crew. Wish I could go myself, but Khiirgi wore me out, and I'd better not fight Rivermoore like this. If you've got fuel left, take over."

"Can do." Gwyn nodded.

"Hee-hee-hee! We get to be together, Noll!"

Shannon happily put her arms around Oliver from behind. With them on board, Lesedi turned to the others.

"Then I'll take over supervision on Team Cornwallis. You'll be with me on defenses. I'm expecting good things."

"Hmph. I assumed I'd be on invasion."

"Stace, let's not fight this one," Chela urged. Stacy had her arms crossed, but her half sister had figured out the logic behind the assignments. "I doubt they'll be putting any other third-years on that team."

Lesedi nodded heavily. "McFarlane's ahead of me, but yeah, the invasion team'll be the three members of Team Horn, plus three upperclassmen. Soon as Tim gets here, I'll be having him join you to complete the squad. From here on out, one upperclassman won't be enough to mind three of you."

Balancing offense against defense, accounting for the situation at hand. If all other squads were here, maybe she'd have chosen differently, but the old council's disruptions would have most of them arriving too late. Since this plan hinged on speed, late arrivals would have to get put on defense.

Then Tim flew in with Mistral and Team Ames in tow.

"Sorry! Screwed up and got bogged down!"

"You're the last member," Lesedi spat. "Spare me the excuses—make it up inside."

With that, the invasion team was complete. They took a good look at one another, and Lesedi made the call.

"Our mission lies on your shoulders. We'll keep your escape route open—go get Godfrey's bone back!"

All six nodded. Nanao's entire body was positively aglow with ardor—and Yuri's eyes shone with a gleam every bit as bright.

"…They're in."

Naturally, Rivermoore was well aware of their movements. He'd been sharing his familiar's eyes, but he cut that loose and strode away.

"You're going out yourself, Cyrus?" the coffin called.

"The Sherwood siblings and the Toxic Gasser. Can't leave them to the ghouls. At least Hard Knocker's staying out…"

His voice sounded grim. He'd fought them all before and understood just how tough they could be. As did they—this was a fight between people who knew each other's bag of tricks all too well. That would not make things easy.

"We'll begin as soon as I've taken care of them. Be ready."

"Okay…and good luck."

Rivermoore rarely looked this tense, and Fau solemnly watched him go. She knew this would make or break things but felt no anxiety. He'd promised to return, and she could not imagine him breaking that vow.

They were headed belowground, so the first thing they had to do was secure an entry point. Since this was Rivermoore's domain, he could open a door with a single spell, but uninvited guests would need to force their way in. They'd laid out a magic circle and were watching the center bore its way down.

"…Shannon," Oliver said. "One thing before we go farther."

"? What is it, Noll?"

Shannon smiled at him, and he pulled a bone fragment out of his pocket, laying it on her palm. It was the fragment Yuri had been holding on to.

"We recovered this from the zahhak. I'd like to see the memories in it, if we can."

"Do we need to?" Tim said. "We're at his workshop! More clues won't do shit for—"

"I'm in! I wanna see!"

"Then so shall I!"

Yuri's and Nanao's voices drowned out Tim's doubts, and that made Gwyn chuckle.

"If they insist, let's take a look. Shannon, keep it quick."

"Mm. Okay."

Shannon held up the bone in her hand, closing her eyes. Silently, everyone placed their wands on hers.

He'd been in the workshop all morning, organizing a huge mound of bones. After a solid two hours of labor, something started bugging him.

"…?"

It was too quiet. She hadn't said a word this whole time. They'd talked a bit when he awoke that morning, but since then, his talkative friend had been laying low—and once that dawned on him, Rivermoore got up and moved over to her coffin.

"…Hey, what's with the silent treatment? You finally learn how to play dead?"

He rapped the coffin with his knuckles. Still no answer. He snorted, assuming she was just in a bad mood. He wondered why but decided he'd better work out first if she was angry or depressed. He leaned closer—

"Someone's pulling my arm, a ray of light, dark, cold, cold, cold, I don't want to be here anymore, I don't care if it's fire, I need light, give me back my shape, a form, a form, the smell of soil, the feel of the wind, I can't remember anything—"

"!"

This torrent of words proved his notion had been terribly optimistic. He put both hands on the coffin, his face up against it.

"Fau, I'm right here!" he called, desperation in his tone. "Hear my voice! Don't let those thoughts drown you!"

The endless loop went still, and a feeble voice came back to him.

"Ah…ah…oh. C-Cyrus? W-was…was I…?"

"Yes, that's right. Talk to me, not yourself."

Grabbing the tail of sanity as it floated toward him, Rivermoore pulled as hard as he could, bringing her back to his side. Her voice quivered with confusion and fear, but her words had meaning once more.

"I—I had…a really scary dream. You were gone. I kept calling you, but you never answered. I waited, but you didn't come back. Th-that was a dream, right? This is real?"

"I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere, and I won't leave you. No matter what."

His vow came in a low, steady tone, and he repeated it again and again. Each time he said it, she was a little more like herself.

"Heh…heh-heh. I didn't know you could be this nice, Cyrus. Are you sure you're not a dream?"

"I could make it a nightmare. What if I painted your coffin pink?"

"Augh! That's it—this is real! I remember now! I'm a piggyback ghost riding you around. No point in going all groggy! I got work to do!"

She spoke with her usual cheer again and was back to mouthing off. But the chill in the pit of Rivermoore's belly remained. Until he'd pulled her back, she had very much been a step away from succumbing to the darkness permanently.

The relentless flow of time was like a spear prodding at his back. He'd always tackled his duty with urgency, but now he needed a huge leap forward, one that would make his prior efforts seem like a snail's pace.

He knew what to do. He made what preparations he could and went to see for himself—see what mages usually first encountered on their two hundredth birthday. For better or for worse, anyone who delved to the fourth layer of Kimberly's labyrinth earned that privilege.

"…Plans have changed. I don't have thirty years," Rivermoore said, athame in hand, facing a pitch-black shadow.

Every instinct in his body told him this was a terrible idea, but he forced those thoughts away, aiming his wand at the thing that had slain his great-grandfather.

"Show me how high this wall is. Congreganta!"

His memories grew fuzzy from there. How had he fought? How had he escaped? Rivermoore himself was unsure. The next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap in the marsh on the third layer, in the throes of a crushing depression.

"Cyrus! Cyrus, are you okay?!"

When he dragged his aching bones back to his workshop, the coffin greeted him with a fretful cry. The channel between their ethers meant she already knew what had happened.

"…Relax. If this was fatal, I'd have died on the way here."

Rivermoore crumpled to the floor. He looked like he'd been through the wringer, but there were few external injuries. It wasn't his body that hurt—these wounds were in his ether. A state you'd never wind up in fighting a beast or another mage.

"Don't be insane! Even the dead's hearts can stop, you know! Why would you go fight one of those things?! You knew you stood no chance the second you first laid eyes on one!"

She sounded ready to cry. Catching his breath and enduring the pain from his ether, Rivermoore answered, "…The day of the old man's two-century passage. You remember what he asked me?"

"…? The thing about getting further? Of course I remember. You were so confident…"

"Yeah. Naturally, I meant it at the time. But thinking back, that answer was rehearsed. I said I could surpass him, but how much did I really believe that?"

""

"Part of me knew he couldn't come back alive that night. I'm sure I don't have to tell you, but necromancers are ill-equipped to ward off death's embrace. Our skills are little more than a systemic list of tricks to skirt the rules of the world and keep the dead moving. No matter how much you advance the art of necromancy, it does you no good against death itself. I believe that's why, despite the long history of the Rivermoores, we've produced no long-lived mages."

"It's not like you to be this gloomy, Cyrus," the coffin's voice echoed, consciously choosing to remain upbeat. "One little loss got you down? Then let me promise you this. You're just depressed. One thing went wrong, and you're letting it get under your skin. Sleep on it, and you'll be right—"

"I can't afford to waste a night!"

His voice erupted over hers. Fau gasped. No matter how bad a mood he'd been in, no matter how many frustrations he'd faced, he'd never once let his emotions lash out like this before.

"Fau, give me your best guess. How long do you have?"

"!"

"Every coffin but yours has gone bad. I'm sure Great-Grandpa knew it. Our duty would run out in my time," he told her. "Determining the means to banish that thing is the one way I have of surpassing the old man. But fighting one made it all too clear. It's not enough—neither my talent nor the time I have left."

Fau couldn't find the words to argue that conclusion. How could she? She was the one putting this time limit on him. But she'd read something else between his words.

"…Cyrus," she began. "Were you hoping to do more than your mission? Hoping to bring me back for good? Has that always been—?"

She heard his teeth grind. He knew he lacked the power, but still that wish smoldered within him.

"It's just not right. Why won't this world let that happen?"

The memory ended, leaving them blinking.

"…See?" Tim groused. "Just a bunch of shit we were better off not knowing."

"I thought it was very educational!" Yuri exclaimed. "It all makes sense now!"

Before them, the magic circle had finished its task. A hole bored ten feet through the center of the ground, a cavity yawning beneath.

"Ready, Noll?" Gwyn asked.

"Yeah. Let's do this, Brother."

Tim swept past them both, jumping in first. The others soon followed. They fell through darkness for a solid five seconds, then used a deceleration spell to land softly.

They glanced around and found themselves on a staircase descending still farther into the depths. The walls were covered in countless bones, human and magic beast, lit by the flickering glow of candles, their empty eye sockets staring back at the intruders.

"…Catacombs," Gwyn growled, clutching his athame. "A graveyard beneath the kingdom of the dead—sounds bizarre."

"Looks almost like a museum," Oliver said. "And an oddly quiet one. Doesn't feel horrifying."

The visuals were certainly striking, but he sensed no loathing or rage from the cadavers around. They had the same aimless emptiness as the undead above, although these had been properly placated and were resting quietly. Oliver was intruding upon their rest, and it made him wish to leave them undisturbed.

"Doesn't change what we're here to do. C'mon."

Tim led the way down the stairs. The Sherwoods smoothly took the rear, with Oliver, Nanao, and Yuri in between. For a while, the only sound was their footsteps.

After a minute's descent, they reached a set of doors, and rather sturdy-looking ones. Tim raised his blade to burst through—but before he could utter a spell, the doors opened on their own.

"Magnus Fragor!"

Open or not, Tim still fired a doublecant burst spell through. Flames and smoke belched out. Brushing those aside with a gust spell, the Toxic Gasser threw himself inside, the others on his heels.

"Mind your postures, grave robbers. Do you not know any visitation etiquette?"

Inside was a vast hall, with multiple ascending staircases as wide as the one they'd come down, placed side by side. The warlock's voice rang out from the top of the stairs, at the far end of the hall. Cyrus Rivermoore.

"Here already, Rivermoore? No undead welcome?"

"Wish I could have offered one, but I didn't want you spilling poison all over my workshop. So I decided to handle you here."

All six braced themselves, but the warlock snorted.

"I hate to ruin the enthusiasm, but this isn't a fight. You've come this far, so you have two choices."

The walls behind him began to tremble, and something vast and white burst through the stones: a jaw lined with teeth each as big as a man, twin horns like steeples, and sockets like pits into the bowels of hell. A sight so sinister, Oliver's skin broke out in goose bumps.

"…Is that…?!"

"A behemoth skull," Gwyn said. "He dug it up on the second layer a while back."

"That took me a while," Rivermoore said. "But it's the holy body of a divine beast. The soul's clinging stubbornly to it. Couldn't handle it as materials or a familiar, so I had to make it guard the place. Didn't think I'd ever need to use it."

The giant jaws yawned open, a sea of smog swirling within. Oliver gulped.

"You know what will happen here," Rivermoore continued. "It'll breathe on you. Being undead reversed the element, but it still has the power of the age of divinity. Do any of you know how to stop that?"

That breath could easily fill this room. There was no way to dodge, and even if all six joined forces to block it, it would tear through them like tissue paper. Tim swore. Aboveground, he would have had options, but down here, they were out of luck.

"Like I said: choices. Make yours. You can all die here, or you can drop your wands and surrender. And to be clear—retreat is not in the cards. If you take one step up those stairs, the breath will follow you. Your deaths will be all the worse."

"You son of a—"

"Tim!"

Gwyn stepped in, stifling the Toxic Gasser's rage. Tim gritted his teeth. It took him a long moment, but at last he hung his head.

"…I ain't dumb enough to miss when I'm beat. Fine! We're done. Out!"

Defeated, he dropped his athame. Rivermoore's brows twitched.

"How obedient. I thought you'd squirm a lot longer."

"Bitch, I've got kids with me. Can't go buck wild like I used to."

Tim flopped down on the floor, legs crossed, glaring up at their foe.

"If you'll allow me some sour grapes—you're a damn good student, Rivermoore. You're still watching my every move, and you've got the high ground and the wind at your back, perfect poison foils. You come at us with these unique techniques, but you've got the fundamentals down, too."

"I don't have time for this. All wands on the floor, white or metal."

Rivermoore clearly didn't believe Tim had actually surrendered. He wasn't letting his guard down until everyone was disarmed and unconscious—and well aware of that, Tim kept talking.

"That's why I already ended it. Or did you think I couldn't predict all this?"

That was when Rivermoore spotted several tiny creatures wriggling on the wall behind him.

"!"

"""""Impetus!"""""

Before the warlock could react, the scorpions ruptured the cysts on their backs—and the squad below kicked up a gale away from Rivermoore. They'd been downwind from the get-go—this accelerated the existing wind flow, and the mist of scorpion poison threated to envelop the warlock above.

"Tch—!"

Escaping that forced him to leap to the fore. Tim snatched his athame, bounding to his feet and racing up the stairs with his team on his heels. Rivermoore dispatched the mist with a spell, but the gap between them was gone—he was now at the center of the stairs, surrounded.

"Yo, you sure you should be all the way down here?" Tim taunted. "Don't this mean your precious divine beast breath'll hit you, too?"

Avoiding the mist had put Rivermoore in range of the undead behemoth—and an attack here would take them all out together.

The scorpions were—of course—Tim's familiars. He'd expected a trap that took advantage of the close quarters and sent them around ahead of time before they came rushing in. He'd fired a burst spell through the open door to cover their advance, letting the scorpions scuttle around the outside walls and across the ceiling before the smoke cleared, sneaking up behind Rivermoore. There was a concealment effect on the familiars to keep them from being spotted on the way, but even then, Tim's performance had kept Rivermoore's attention on him.

With six athames pointed his way, Rivermoore sighed.

"…You just don't appreciate how nice I was being. You that desperate to turn this into a death match, rabid dog?"

"Damn straight. Was I unclear? I came here to kill your ass dead."

There was a vicious gleam in Tim's eyes—and every bone displayed on the walls sprang to life. Oliver gulped.

"Suit yourself, Toxic Gasser," the warlock said, grinning. "I'm all out of magnanimity. You and your poor juniors will rot away right here."

"Ha-ha! Bring it!"

Tim sounded downright delighted. As they stood poised to begin their dance of death—they heard a hiss. Something at the far end of the room was melting.

"?!"

"Whoa, Mr. Linton, your poison's awesome! Even a sturdy door like that goes down in nothing flat!"

That tone didn't fit the scene. Yuri had gone off on his own and was standing below the behemoth's skull, where Rivermoore had first appeared. The door before him had collapsed in a puff of smoke, revealing the passage beyond.

"…Mr. Rivermoore," Oliver said. "You're a powerful foe. Especially on your home ground."

He was picking his words carefully. The battle hung in the balance, and Yuri had slipped out ahead—and those two factors offered them a third choice.

"But our goal here is not to defeat you. All we care about is recovering President Godfrey's bone. You know perfectly well we have no reason to stay and fight."

As he spoke, Yuri stepped through the door, waving back at them from the far side.

Rivermoore frowned. "…You believe you'll get anywhere groping around in the dark? My workshop is hardly that small. Can you find what you seek?"

"That, I don't know. But we're in a hurry, so our search will be rather reckless. Who knows what damage we'll do on the way. What if something that matters got hurt?"

Oliver let that line hang. The more a mage pursued singular magecraft, the more they stood to lose if their workshop got raided. Especially when preparing for a major ritual. It would be impossible to put that out of mind and focus on the fight at hand. That was why Lesedi had told them ahead of time—their target was not Rivermoore but what lay behind him.

"…Is that a threat?"

"No. I'm proposing a deal."

Refusing to wither in the face of the warlock's glower, Oliver got down to brass tacks. This was likely the sole route to ending this mess in any positive light.

"We'll be taking back President Godfrey's bone. But—after you've achieved your goal. We can wait until your ritual is complete. Our goals need not be opposed; both can be achieved to our mutual satisfaction. Correct?"

"Ha?!" Tim snarled, glaring at him.

"This meat has a mouth on him," Rivermoore growled. "You speak like you've deduced my intentions."

"You're resurrecting a coffin discovered here. And salvaging necromancy lost to time."

That certainly made Rivermoore waver.

"That's not a deduction. We know. We gathered the bone fragments from your undead, and my sister read your memories from them. Allow me to apologize for intruding on your past uninvited."

"…The Sherwood girl? Quite a stunt you had hidden up your sleeve."

He gave Shannon some side-eye, but then Yuri called out from the rear passage.

"Oliver! Let me say the rest. I've figured some things out after seeing the undead here. Mind playing along and seeing if I'm right, Mr. Rivermoore?"

"…I'm curious. Do go on," Rivermoore said, his back still mostly turned toward Yuri.

"The core of your magic is etheric bonding."

"!"

"The undead, by their nature, do not grow. You might get them to re-create what they knew in life, but once dead, they fundamentally can't learn new things. Yet, the undead you wield are full of surprises. Skelebeasts that reassemble themselves into new forms, wyverns fused with the dragoon riding them, zahhaks that bust out totally different skills in the middle of the fight—no way they could do any of that while alive. This whole time, I've been trying to figure out how you can even do that."

Yuri spoke eloquently, his voice rising and falling—almost like a song. Oliver could tell from listening: He was having fun. All peril forgotten, simply digging into the secrets of the Case of the Stolen Bones.

"And my answer: You've been joining etheric bodies. Stitching different ethers together, manufacturing new undead. Ether is closer to a being's true nature than the flesh ever will be, so if you can connect them up, alterations to the container are the easy part. To you, bones with ether affixed to them are like glue-covered wood."

"..."

"The key here is that it's bonding, not fusion. Pure speculation, but I bet if they meld into each other, it doesn't work. They'll lose their individuality, like the restless hordes do. The essence lies in connecting the undead to these etheric outlines, preserving the nature they had in life. That's why you put so much effort into managing the undead. To preserve the contours of their being, to prevent them forgetting who they were—that's why you re-created the fallen kingdom here."

Yuri broke off, swinging his athame in a circle. He wasn't casting any magic, so Oliver took this as a gesture born of heightened enthusiasm. Unspooling this mystery had him at peak excitement.

"Back to the point. Resurrecting this ghost requires a flesh equivalent to what she had in life. Naturally, there's no hope that her body would have survived the last thousand years. You have to make a new one from scratch, but obviously this can't be some slapdash puppet. If you need her to reproduce ancient necromancy, post-resurrection, she has to be capable of acting like a mage."

Yuri wasn't hesitating to break down the sorcery of a mage far beyond his capabilities. Oliver remembered the phrase "curiosity killed the cat" and shuddered. Even if Yuri had come here without a single ally, he would have done the exact same thing.

"That's why you've been stealing students' bones. Carefully, painstakingly selected mage bones assembled into flesh worthy of the one you wish to revive. And the last piece you needed was President Godfrey's bone. Which means—you're poised to attempt the resurrection ritual that's been the focus of your entire life."

Yuri brought things to a rousing close, and Rivermoore folded his arms.

"…Loath as I am to admit it, you're right on the money," he said. "But why the optimistic belief that Purgatory's bone will survive the ritual intact? Usage incurs degradation. At the least, alteration."

"But we have evidence to the contrary. The fragments of your bones we recovered from those undead have not been altered. Since Ms. Shannon could read the memories from them, that much is clear."

Yuri had clearly anticipated this question. Every scrap of information they'd acquired on the way in was a clue leading him to the solution.

"You're using ether as glue to hold the container's flesh together. With the resurrection, the techniques involved will be on a much higher level, but the principle is the same. It's easy enough to imagine that your bone fragments in those undead were that link and played a core role—if they survive intact, then there's no reason to assume President Godfrey's bone will be damaged, especially since it's just one of many. They're bound together, but not fused—and that suggests the process is reversible. Right, Oliver?"

Rattled by the pop quiz, Oliver thought for a second, then said, "I'm with Yuri. And I'd add that when we defeated the wyvern rider, we saw a portion of the creature still moving, severed from the whole. I assume that's because it was no longer in contact with your bone, and thus the connection to the ether was severed. That also suggests your etheric bonding is reversible."

Rivermoore's frown was deepening, and Oliver took that as a sign to press his advantage.

"Naturally, there's an element of risk. Our analysis is partly speculative, and it's possible the bone will be damaged for reasons even you can't anticipate. Even so—balanced against the losses both sides will incur if this fight continues, I'd say those risks are well worth taking. Wouldn't you, Mr. Rivermoore?"

Pressed for a commitment, Rivermoore's silence was weighty. His eyes left Oliver and turned to Tim, who still looked ready for murder.

"…Lesedi intentionally sent the Toxic Gasser in here to force me to the negotiating table. She always did have a knack for plays that could easily go very wrong but somehow don't."

Oliver privately agreed. Without Tim Linton's volatile nature, these talks would never have begun. Not just because his poison had opened the hole in the wall—but because his very presence here could well wreck the entire workshop, and Rivermoore could hardly overlook that. Lesedi's plan had hinged on taking his life's work hostage.

The next silence was even longer. His expression showed no dramatic changes, but there were clear signs of turmoil and strife. At long last, those faded away, and the warlock lowered his wand.

"...Fine. It is hardly what I intended, but I shall upgrade you from grave robbers to guests. In appreciation of your 'solution.'"

Despite Rivermoore's words, he looked ready to rip Yuri's head off. Yet, Yuri just grinned back, looking proud of himself. Rivermoore snorted and turned toward him.

"But you will mind your manners. This is a tomb. Respect the dead within."

Meanwhile, the turns at the front line had ripple effects on the defenses above.

"Hmm."