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Your machete flashes out as you rush the Cerulean Guards. You and the herald exchange a dozen cuts and parries, fighting in a circle back toward the window as your allies engage the other soldiers. Stralchus must have taught him, as he's brilliant, daring, and familiar with all the formal parries, maneuvers, and defenses. The mystic really has provided his elite soldiers with an excellent education in classical fencing.

You kick him in the groin, bash his head against the brick wall, and throw him out the window.

Most of the Cerulean Guards, you see, are already dead; the rest, seeing the herald so efficiently dispatched, flee down the steps.

The sun rises, banishing the strange polychromatic shadows, as you reach the level just below the summit.

"We're so close," Control says, looking up the final stairway.

"The sun lens will be guarded," Vecla says. "How do we get the rest of the way up?"

"We could–" Alexius starts to say. But then Therko just roars, grabs a dead soldier's shield, and charges up the steps. There's an explosion of fire from above; all you can do is follow him. You reach the top just in time to see Therko smash his burning shield into a guard with a red cape and a fire lance. The lance misfires, barely missing an artillerist. Then Therko hurls his burning shield at a cannon. The flaming wheel hits a pyramid of wooden barrels.

"Is that…gunpowder?" Vecla asks.

"Very good, Vecla," Control says. "It is indeed–"

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