“...then Jyssa burst into the room and interrupted our discussion. Can you believe it? How rude can you be?” Jenkins asked indignantly during the tablet-to-tablet call.

 

“You’re lucky she didn’t throw a curse at you while you were distracted,” I replied. “Her magic is really potent, and we only have one person capable of neutralizing curses.”

 

“Even if she did, the Mycelium people would have saved us,” Jenkins declared. “You should have seen them, they were amazing! I knew they could feed upon dark magic, but I didn’t know they could suck it up from the surrounding area. They’re the perfect counter for a dark mage.”

“She did see them,” Bella yelled from across the stage, where she was play wrestling with George. “She hasn’t put her tablets down since the match started.”

“Oh, right!” Jenkins exclaimed. “I should have known that. How’s the image? Crystal clear, I hope.”

“It’s excellent,” I replied idly as I scrolled through the footage. “Did any of the spiders survive?”

 

“Uhhh… no. They might have been fighting the drakes two versus one, but the vast majority of them were dead before we detonated the Umbral Ash, and the remainder were critically injured,” Jenkins replied.

 

“That’s unfortunate, but not unexpected,” I muttered. “I doubt you would have been able to separate them from the drakes, even if you wanted to. How did your product test go?”

 

“Excellent! The Umbral Ash worked better than expected. Not only is the explosive stable, but it leaves a long burning residue behind! Excellent for blocking entries or exits. We can probably come up with some new tricks and traps to implement on the floors in the future to spice things up,” Jenkins declared excitedly.

 

“Uh huh, and how much do you have left?” I asked.

 

Jenkins went quiet. “Well, you see… The dungeon makes testing much safer, and we probably weren’t going to be able to watch the effect so close up in the labs, so…”

 

“You used it all,” I finished for her.

 

“Most of it,” Jenkins confirmed. “We have one or two smaller charges left, but nothing the size of the last explosive.”

“That’s fine. I’m not going to lie, I kind of expected that. You do have other weapons though, right?”

 

“Of course! You think we’d waltz in here without equipment? We’ve got hand cannons, blackpowder bombs, toxins, zapamajigs…”

“Plenty of tricks, I get it,” I said. While we were talking, something caught my eye on the recording. It passed through so quickly, I started to think I’d imagined it, until I finally managed to pause the feed on one exact frame. Although it was blurry, I was able to make out a tiny Umbral Draconid as it swooped past our defensive line and disappeared into the rafters. “Jenkins… you wouldn’t have happened to have killed a draconid after the fight, would you?”

“A draconid? I haven’t even seen something like that, why?” the gremlin asked.

 

“Because one flew into your room earlier,” I said. “You sure you don’t see one around?”

 

There was the sound of clinking, scrabbling, and shouting for a minute, then Jenkins came back to the tablet. “Nope! Not here!”

 

“Alright…” I replied, pausing for a moment as I went over the situation. “Then it probably retreated to Jyssa once the battle was over. Don’t worry about it.”

 

“Are you sure?” Jenkins asked suspiciously.

 

“Of course,” I replied. “It’s just a draconid, what could it possibly do? It’s not like it’s dangerous or anything.”

 

“Uh-huh,” Jenkins replied. Based upon her tone, it was obvious she didn’t believe me for a moment. “So what do you want us to do now? Reinforce one of the other floors?”

“No, I need you to remain there. The Mycelium people are our best counter to Jyssa, and with both her and Rogu free to continue their attacks, we can’t afford to move people around. Once they commit to an attack, I may ask you to back up one of our other teams. Just keep an eye out for now, I doubt the Black Sanctum is going to leave the lounge alone for long. I’ll try to send you reinforcements when I can,” I said.

 

“Sounds good! Don’t wait too long, though,” Jenkins replied. “I have a lot of prototypes with me, and I’m eager to test them.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance to test your stuff. Just keep watch over the lounge for now,” I told her.

 

“Alright… you know best. I’ll talk to you soon,” Jenkins said.

 

“Later,” I replied, as I hung up.

 

“What are you up to?” Bella demanded.

 

I twirled around, nearly falling off the side of the stage where I’d been perched, and found her floating just a few feet away. George didn’t appear to understand what was going on, but the way he danced around underneath Bella, I could tell he just wanted to be involved.

 

“What do you mean?” I asked, looking away from her guiltily.

 

“You know exactly what I mean,” Bella scowled. “Not only five minutes ago you told me that you were worried about Nor’goth sneaking spies into our floors, and the first time you get a possible lead, you ignore it? That doesn’t sound like you.”

“I’m not ignoring it…” I said hesitantly.

 

Bella furrowed her brow and tilted her head to the side. “You’re trying to use it,” she said. “To do what? Pass misinformation?”

 

“Well, maybe not pass misinformation, but control the information that Nor’goth has. It was easy to predict the Black Citadel’s opening moves; they didn’t have any choice but to attack the forest, and I figured they’d want to target me, but after that… things get murky. They could try and attack the lounge again, reinforce their vulnerable floors, or attack one of our other floors,” I explained. “But if I could convince them that attacking the lounge wasn’t worth it, that’s one less option to worry about.”

“You could throw some misinformation in there to convince Nor’Goth to throw his troops into a trap,” Bella suggested.

 

I looked over at her and narrowed my eyes. “Really, Bella? I mean, yes, it is theoretically possible, but you’ve talked to me before. I’m a terrible liar. If I tried to pass misinformation, Nor’goth would probably realize I’m lying right away. I had a hard enough time trying to hint that Jenkins should hunt down the draconid, without outright saying it.”

Bella gave me a strange look. “You were?”

“See… I just told you I wasn’t good with the whole cloak-and-dagger stuff. If you didn’t get it, what are the chances Jenkins did?” I groaned.

 

“You never know, the gremlins can be surprisingly insightful sometimes. When they’re not distracted by devices, upgrading things, explosions…” Bella replied.

 

“Pretty much every tiny little thing that catches their attention, I get it,” I said, sighing again. “You know the worst part of this? It could be nothing. Maybe the draconid left, and maybe Nor’goth isn’t using it to spy, I could be doing all this for nothing.”

 

“True, but think about it this way. If you’re wrong, you don’t lose anything by keeping information compartmentalized, and if Nor’goth IS using it to spy, we come out ahead. You made the right choice,” Bella said.

 

I glanced over at her and smiled. “Thanks, Bella.”

“No problem,” the Banshee replied, floating closer. “So… what’s next?”