“We have to clear this entire hive, from top to bottom,” Briggs declared without compromise. “If the virindi have secreted away more eggs, they can potentially raise one into another queen. We wipe the entire place clean of everything.

  “Magos, fill it in as we go.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  ------

  Disks lifted everyone back to the top of the jump, and then I sealed off the top with ten feet of stone, just to make sure nothing was going to get through easily again. Briggs, Kris, King Borealean, and the Mick led the way out, and I trailed behind this time, filling in as much space as I could in the hive while keeping up with everyone else.

  The cleaning was two-pronged, Briggs and Borelean taking half the forces and going in one direction while Princess Kristie and the Mick led the rest in the other direction. I could only follow one of them, but I made sure to keep my Visual File open so I didn’t block off any important routes that would trap the other group, and I could always stay down longer than anyone else, In addition, once rooms were cleared, I didn’t have to fill them in, just make sure they were washed in vivus and the tunnels and any other openings into them were sealed off.

  It still took all night to rotate through the whole place, tunnel by tunnel, making sure nothing was missed while we carved through the olthoi ecology and destroyed it piecemeal. Nothing was allowed to survive, from the acid pools for the larvae to the over-sized mushrooms to the viscous glowing food basins. Everything was torched, everything was carved and set to vivus… and, if they were real, they were all salvaged, too, as olthoi carapaces made useful armor and components for Olthoi Slayer Weapons.

  The dozen virindi guarding other egg and larva chambers died forever, too.

  -----

  “Well, Adso?” I asked him. We were camped out near the northern end of the Plateau, shutting down another one of the olthoi Dungeons here. The Hea were actually taking care of many of them, proving their bravery while a couple Knights went along with Vivic Weapons to Seal off the Spawn Points and shut the Dungeons down permanently.

  The landscape spawns were also evaporating, soldiers under King Borelean’s command fanning out and clearing them, marking them, Sealing them. The high-Level Dungeons with the virindi storing and building up more Hollow Lightning Olthoi had been our first stops, suitably epic rampages against overly tough olthoi and equally tough and annoying virindi.

  Annoying bastards we were happy to get rid of!

  Adso, Master Oswald’s right-hand man, moved in next to me around the fire there. I passed him over some coffee, and he took it without comment. “Not used to others being able to tell when I am there,” he admitted, taking a sip, and then accepting a rolled burrito as well.

  “Stealthing a mage is the primary way to kill them. Funnily enough, most mages know this and take steps against it,” I replied. “The rest of the team is welcome to come in, too.” I waved a hand at my Disk, and more coffee and a whole platter of burritos popped up.

  The others out there sighed and materialized out of the darkness, riding the Disks that had popped up behind them so they could sit down.

  White and blue sparklies went down the line of them, chasing away a few days of grime and B.O. on each of them. Adso sniffed himself, grunted, and grabbed another burrito with Mage Hand, the first one having vanished already.

  “We found the Dungeon,” he said softly, but his dark eyes held immense satisfaction. “Three of them!” he added under his breath, studying my face for my reaction at the unexpected number.

  I tilted my head back and looked up at the sky. “Well, fuck.”

  All four Scouts smirked, which faded at my next words. “Nuhmudira had a base under the Plateau for at least ten years,” I informed them in return.

  “What!” Sabritha blurted out. “We checked the town at least once a month!” she protested vehemently.

  “But did you check the Pit?” I asked her, and her mouth clamped shut.

  “No. Once we ascertained there was no Portal at the bottom, the place lost all importance after it came into the world like all the others,” Adso stated, reviewing their own actions over the past near-score of years.

  “They expanded up under the Plateau after using the Pit as a base of operations, although I’m not sure why. I can imagine that having a base right under your noses that you were checking on regularly was part of it all.

  “You can be irritated, but your Master wasn’t too happy to learn that she was that close to Stonehold all those years, and he didn’t catch her there, either.”

  They all sighed, and chewed burritos in disappointment at themselves. “Is the Master entertaining himself?” Adso asked knowingly.

  “I did say HAD a base under the Plateau.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  They all got that expression on their faces. “I take it the witch got away again,” Adso murmured.

  “Naturally. She has no idea what powers Master Oswald commands, and wisely doesn’t want to find out. The Raven Hand makes convenient expendables she won’t miss to stop him in the interim.”

  “She must be running out of a lot of them,” Sabritha commented wickedly.

  “I’m sure they’ll be greatly missed,” I said with a straight face, and nobody believed it at all. “I didn’t feel any great movements of magic and none of you are dead, so I’m assuming you played the better part of valor and withdrew discreetly.”

  “Master Oswald might want to try out an infiltration simply to test his skills, but none of us believe we are adept enough to get through a High Empyrean’s defenses,” Adso responded for them all without ego.

  “Then you are indeed well-trained.”

  “Are you going to investigate?” he asked, glancing at the Skeeters at the neighboring fire, who’d all noticed them, but I’d waved them off and they made no efforts to interrupt us.

  “I might come in the second wave, if Princess Kristie thinks she needs help.” Which she might, but that all depended on how secret Gerraine thought his bases were. “Bringing me along means she needs some magical muscle, not help being sneaky.”

  They were shuffling a bit, obviously wanting to ask something. “Yes?” I prodded gently, refilling all their mugs of coffee with a gesture.

  “Did she really kill Lady Aerefalle?” Sabritha whispered.

  I just snorted. “Master Oswald told you he was promised the kill on Rytheran, right? Think that might have been for a reason?”

  All assassins had their pride. Master Oswald might no longer be taking money for his kills, but the times he’d failed his kills had to weigh on him, and he definitely wanted to prove he could still operate at the highest levels… and go beyond what he had ever dared to accomplish in the past.

  Killing things that threatened the mortal world was the highest level of service, and popping them off with a blade from the shadows was as valid as fighting them openly in the light.

  If a hoity-toity princess-born like Kris could take out Aerefalle, a true master who’d come up through the streets could definitely take out Rytheran, right?

  Well, if he could master some really good Dispels to get around Wards and magical defenses, yeah, he could, as well as the Divs to sense them in the first place. Stealthing past undead who could feel life energies was a thing, as well…

  That was as far as I was going to say anything. “Do you know where Rytheran is?” Adso asked.

  “According to the Ambassador at Candeth Keep, he has moved his base of operations to the Heiromancer Halls near Fort Teth. It is probably one more reason why Hea Arantah is here and has started pulling his people out of the Overlord Fortress near there. There are now a LOT of undead in the area, and they are not allies in the slightest.”

  “He doesn’t believe you were involved in her death?” Adso was impressed.

  “He has testimony from many, many of her servants as to our whereabouts at all times. Indeed, we had just finished heated combat with the Behemoth at the time she died, and could not have been involved in whatever happened with her death. The obvious conclusion is that a traitor used the distraction of our presence to strike at her and slay her while her defenses were down.”

  “Well, obviously,” Sabritha snickered, then frowned. “Hey, what about Master Oswald?”

  “His lack of interest in Master Oswald indicates that Master Oswald’s trips to Aerlinthe in the past were not unnoticed, which I indicated to him was probably true. He doesn’t have the magical ability to escape the notice of Aerefalle on her island, and he obviously wasn’t there. It’s likely all Teleporting arrivals and departures there are noticed by the Wards in place… or at least, they were.”

  “That was probably true in the past, then, too…” Adso realized softly.

  “Recalling there, entering the Dungeons or exiting them through the Portals… yes, Aerefalle was probably aware of them all. Isparians never surprised her on her island, yet clearly she was surprised.”

  “And I imagine Vivic Weapons have gone missing here and there…”

  “Unbelievable that there would be such treachery among loyal Isparians, right?” I replied in another flat tone that drew more snickers. Vivus was only a threat to us in making it very difficult to Resurrect, but that was it. To the undead, it was an end to their eternity… and yet, it was an ideal weapon that could be used to finally and completely settle festering grudges that had accumulated across millennia.

  The Smiths who were selling them to the undead were doing so for great prices and resources we wanted. The Freebooters wanted to corner that market, of course, and were rather vexed that they couldn’t.

  The vast majority of Vivic Weapons were Named Weapons, which only retained their magic if their owners paid goldweight for them to make them permanent… and thus worth the time to steal. Thus, most warriors used goldweight to make defensive talismans and the like, not to upgrade their Weapons, and oddly enough, the knowledge of how to Runecraft Vivic Weapons had only been released to a few specific people, most of them lugian master smiths who wouldn’t tell a soul about how to do such things without royal permission.

  “Do you think Gerraine is in any of the Dungeons?” Adso asked quietly, a more professional question.

  “He is the true leader of the undead, Rytheran and Aerefalle were merely his visible hands. The chaos has forced him to personally intervene here and there among his followers. The Gelidites are taking the opportunity to contest his authority, and among Eternals, that is the only real coin there is.

  “No, I don’t think he’s actually in any of them. Kris will confirm that, which doesn’t mean we can’t close them down. The fewer places he has to retreat to, the better it is for us. The undead have at least fifty dimensional strongholds that were forced out into the open at the Fall. He is doubtless using at least one of them, one that Isparians have never seen or investigated before, and he can doubtless run like smoke if need be… probably off Dereth entirely, if it is required.”

  “So the only way to kill him is by complete surprise…” Adso murmured, shaking his head.

  “And with a soul-cutting Weapon that can overcome the method keeping his soul here in the first place, as well as punch all his personal Wards and Contingencies. There’s a lot that has to go into such kills.”

  “And yet Aerefalle died.”

  “Yes, and the undead don’t want to believe she has died… except her very Keep fell, and that has never happened before. So, just maybe…” I trailed off neutral schadenfreude.

  “It really can be done?” Adso wondered aloud, referring to more than Aerefalle.

  “Undead are either blind or ignoring how much reality really doesn’t like them, unnatural as they are. Their strength transcending that which they had in life means they don’t consider the possibility that their vulnerabilities can be just as powerful.

  “Just relax. Kris is departing the talks with Arantah to get your personal reports and will be here shortly.”

  Oswald’s Scouts nodded and grabbed more burritos with practiced patience.

  ============================

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