Every time Tehlmar entered Lord Ferros’s massive fortress was an experience.  The Louring Hive, the locals called it, and he could understand why.  Towering over the rest of the bustling metropolis—or what passed for one in Otharia, at least—the hulking grey monstrosity exuded a foreboding aura that could not be ignored no matter where you stood in Wroetin.  Its alien design, the constant bustle of mechanical beasts scuttling to and fro, and its overbearing size combined to lend an inescapable feeling of malevolent trespass.  Set in the center of the city but very much not a part of it, the fortress served as more than a base of operations; it was an imposition, a demonstration of the Otharians’ impotence, and most of all, a threat.

For Tehlmar in particular, however, it felt like he was sneaking into an enemy encampment, even though he was nominally allowed inside.  The impression that he did not belong persisted even now, more than a season since his official employment under Lord Ferros began.  The metal-clad man had never trusted him in the way he did Arlette or even a sniveling little shit like Sofie.  His tasks seemed to be largely menial busywork and often made little use of his capabilities—not that he was good at much besides fighting.  The fact that he had a job at all felt like more of a favor to Arlette than anything else.  Tehlmar didn’t mind; as long as he could stick around the love of his life, everything else was just details.

Stepping out of the way of a trio of machines as they rushed past, scurrying off somewhere to do whatever inscrutable assignment their creator had given them, he crossed through the outer courtyard that separated the large wall and the fortress proper.  Today was an off day.  Normally he wouldn’t set foot within the place when he didn’t have to, but today he had special plans for a day with Letty—a picnic, just the two of them, followed by a show in the local amphitheater hosted by a highly regarded band of Otharian minstrels, and finally, a dinner at a place he’d found on the south end of the city.  The food there was quite good for Otharian cuisine, and the atmosphere was far more rowdy and boisterous, which was far more their style than the hoity-toity vibes of the more established venues on the north end.

Letty didn’t know any of this, of course.  She didn’t even know he was coming over today.  That was part of the surprise!  He was sure that she’d be delighted, regardless.  Their last extended outing had gone so well, after all.

Working his way upward, he soon found himself outside his love’s door.  A short knock later, and he found himself face to face with a puzzled-looking Arlette Demirt—or was it Arlette Faredin?  Eh, didn’t matter to him, really.  Letty was Letty and that was all that mattered.

“Tehlmar?  Why are you here?”

“Really wish you lived somewhere other than inside this dull grey maze,” he replied, walking past her into her abode.

“This is by far the safest place to be, not to mention the cheapest,” Arlette asserted.  “With the terrorists still out there, not to mention the people’s general dislike of me, I’d be too busy watching my back to sleep properly.”

“I’d watch your back for you.”

“Then I’d have to watch your back, instead.  Actually, how come you aren’t getting attacked in your sleep?  You stand out here like a lone rain cloud on an otherwise sunny day.”

“Oh, they learned their lesson after the third attempt,” he told her with an easygoing shrug.  Noticing she had a new, unusual chair standing beside her desk, one with a single central trunk beneath the seat that branched out near the floor into five horizontal arms, each with a wheel on the end, he plopped down into it.  The seat and back tilted backward from the force, before swinging back upright as if pushed by an invisible hand.

“Third attempt?  What did—wait, we’re getting off-topic.  Why are you here, again?”

“I’m not on the job today, so I came to surprise you with a day of fun, food, drink, and whatever else you might feel in the mood for by the end,” he said with a wink.

Arlette put her hands on her hips and hit him with a disapproving scowl.

“Tehlmar, you can’t just decide this sort of thing on your own.  What if I don’t want to go with you today?  What if I’m busy?”

“You’re not busy, though.  You’re off today too.”

The chair was not made for somebody of his limited stature, so he found his feet dangling just above the floor.  Swinging his legs left and right, he accidentally hit one of the bottom branches with his foot and, to his unsuspecting delight, sent the chair and himself spinning merrily.  He found himself grinning wildly.  This thing was wonderful!

“Why would you be so sure of that?”

“Because I know your schedule, obviously.”

“Since when did you start learning peoples’ schedules?”

“Since it started to determine when I got to see you—and it’s only your schedule I know,” he told her, kicking the chair again as the rotation slowed past an acceptable speed.  “Can’t be bothered to care about the rest, to be frank.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m free to be gallivanting about on a whim.  I have more things in my life than my job and you, you know, and I—would you stop with the spinning!”

Tehlmar jammed both legs down as far as he could, catching them on the base of the chair.  The chair and he stopped spinning—the world around him not so much.  “Woah, this is great!” he giggled as the dizziness hit full force.  “How are you supposed to get anything done in a chair like this when it’s so much fun to just sit in it?”

“...It’s hard,” Arlette admitted.

“So, what did you have planned today that is so much more important than me?” he asked.

“Don’t put it that way,” she objected.  “And I was planning on... practicing.”

“Practicing what?  If it’s combat, we could do that too if you wanted.  Wouldn’t mind getting some exercise today.”

“No, not combat.  It’s...”  She hesitated for a moment.  “I guess I can show you.  But swear to me you won’t tell a soul about this, alright?  It’s a secret!”

Now, that got his attention.  “Your secrets are safe with me, Letty.  You know that.”

“Alright... watch this.”

Without any more explanation, Arlette held out an open hand, palm up, and stared intently at the air above it. 

A moment later, an illusion of a pastry appeared in her hand and she let out a breath as if she’d just lifted something heavy.  The pastry resembled a flower just starting to bloom, with small gaps between the petals.  Honey glistened all across the petals, dripping into the gaps, as wisps of steam drifted out into the air.  Just the sight of it made him feel hungry.

Taking the illusion, Arlette grabbed it with both hands and split it in half.  One half she took a bite from, putting on a show of “chewing” on it with gusto, and the other half she held out for him to take.

“I don’t understand,” he said, reaching out to ‘grab’ the proffered false foodstuff.

He froze as his fingers met unexpected resistance.  He could feel it—the sticky honey, the roughness of the crispy amber surface, even the warmth, as if it had just come out of the oven.  If he didn’t know better, he would have believed it to be real.

“You can do illusions with more than sight and sound, now?”

“Take a bite.”

Gingerly, Tehlmar grabbed his half of the... whatever it was and bit into a bit of it.  Against all understanding, his mouth was filled with buttery sweetness.

“Before you say something stupid, no, I didn’t learn how to make illusions that you can touch, smell, and taste.  It’s real—and I made it from nothing with only my thoughts.”

“That’s impossible,” he objected.  “You can’t just make baked goods with your mind.”

“Why not?  People make water, stone, fire, and other things all the time.”

Tehlmar paused mid-chew to consider her argument.  She had a point, he supposed, but... “Then why does nobody do it?  Nobody would ever starve to death if people could Observe up some food during famines.  Why are you the first person I’ve ever heard of to do this?”

“I... I’m not sure, to be honest.  Any Observer should be able to do it.”

Tehlmar took another, much larger bite, savoring the fruity sweetness of the honey.  “However you made it, it’s really good.”

“It’s called a honey bud.  It was a treat from my hometown.”

“The one in Gustil, or...?”

“My... first home.  In Ofrax.”

“Ah... well, maybe one day you can take me there and I can see how these are normally made.”

Arlette sighed.  “What’s with you all bugging me about my hometown all of a sudden?”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Alright...  So, can you make other things besides desserts?”

“I sure can.  Watch.”

She summoned a sheet of paper into her hand as naturally as she breathed, then flicked a finger through it without resistance to show that it was just an ordinary illusion.

“Hmmm,” she hummed, looking back and forth between the paper and him.  “No, the nose is too big.  Maybe more like... there we go.  Now for the final step.”

That look of concentration returned and a moment later she let out another heavy breath.  Tehlmar sprang out of the spinny chair as Arlette staggered to the side before righting herself.  She held up a hand as if to say she was fine, but he wasn’t so sure.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing... I’m just tired.  Doing this sort of thing takes a lot out of me—far, far more than illusions do.  I just need to rest a bit.  I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?”

“Don’t know why that one took so much more out of me, but yes.  Now...”  She held up the paper, now slightly crinkled in her hand from her tight grip.  It brushed against his arm and he felt its touch.  “Are you going to look at it or not?”

“Huh?”

Pulling the sheet from her fingers, he brought it up to his face and inspected it.  He first noticed that it was, in fact, actual wooden paper instead of parchment or some other material—and incredibly fine grain, at that.  Paper as a whole was quite rare due to its obscene cost; paying so much for single-use material had always struck him as utter folly.

The second thing he noticed was the message written on it in the Nocend merchant script, the symbols large and heavy: “Notice!  Beware of local imp infestation!  Imps appear without warning to monopolize your day without any thoughts to the consequences!  Do not encourage or repeat behavior will occur!  Also, will drink all your alcohol and then not replace it!  If seen, contact local authorities!  Imp likeness below!”

Beneath the writing was a doodled caricature with a large head as big as its entire stumpy, short-limbed body.  The “imp” had bright eyes, mischievous eyes; a wicked, toothy grin; and long, sharp-looking ears.  It also just so happened to have a hairstyle that matched his.  The little figure appeared quite cute, or so at least he thought.

“Hehe, look at this scoundrel.  I suppose I should be flattered that you made me so roguish and charming,” Tehlmar chuckled.  “Wait a minute... I replaced all the booze I drank the last time!”

“No, that was three times ago now,” Arlette replied as she pushed herself back to her feet.

Tehlmar paled.  “Was it really?”

“Let’s just say I’ve been keeping track, and you owe me replacement booze five times over now.  You wanted to spend the day with me, didn’t you?  Why don’t we start by having a little chat.”

Tehlmar coughed to hide his wince.  “Well... um... I mean...”

The door to the hallway unleashed a loud, disruptive buzz, and he let out a relieved breath.

“Ugh, I asked Lord Ferros to make it easier to hear but he made it too loud,” Arlette groaned.  She tried to cross the room but staggered after a step.

“Wait, let me,” Tehlmar told her as he caught her before she could fall.

After helping her to the neat spinning chair, he made his way to the door on the opposite side of the room and opened it.  On the other side stood the one person he didn’t want to see.

“Oh great, it’s you,” he drolled.

“That’s my line,” Sofie Ramaut shot back.  She sighed.  “Well, I guess this will make things quicker, at least.  Are you going to move out of the way and let me in or not?”

If he’d had his druthers, the answer would have been a resounding ‘not on your life’, but it was not to be.  With an exaggerated flourish, he stepped aside.

“Hey Arlette,” she said with a sniff, then a second, longer sniff.  “What smells so sweet in—”  She froze, her eyes going wide.  “Is that an office chair?!  What?  Why?  How?  When?”

“Lord Ferros gave it to me.  He said it would help me work, but in my experience, that was a lie.”

She spun the chair around slowly, perhaps as a demonstration.

“He didn’t give me an office chair,” Sofie fumed.  She paused and shook her head.  “I’m getting distracted.”

“Right.  So, what brings you here today?” Arlette inquired.

“Well, I came because I need your help with something.  Though actually...”  She gave Tehlmar a side-eyed glare.  “What I really need is his help.”

“Nope,” Tehlmar immediately declared, crossing his arms in defiance.  “Don’t know what it is but I’m not helping you one bit.”

“How surprising,” she snorted.

“Tehlmar, you’re older than the both of us combined, yet you’ve been acting like a child far too much today,” Arlette told him sternly.  “Come on, now.”

“It’s going to be something stupid or pointless, and we have things to do today,” he argued back.

“I don’t remember agreeing to your plan just yet.”

“B-but Letty!  I bought seats already and everything!”

“Hear her out at least and I’ll consider it.”

“Alright, alright.”  He turned to Sofie.  “Make it quick.”

Sofie looked back and checked the door, seemingly to make sure it was closed, which it was.  “First, I need you two to swear that you won’t tell anybody what I’m about to say—especially you, Mister Boozy McRamble.”

“No promises.”

“Alright, both of you, knock it off,” Arlette snapped.  “Seriously, why is it that you two turn into little brats when you’re around each other these days?  It’s far too much aggravation for me to deal with right now.  Sofie, you have my word and his that this won’t leave the room.”

She sent Tehlmar a withering glare to drive home her words and he reluctantly nodded.

Sofie sat down on the edge of Arlette’s bed and met Tehlmar’s gaze.  “I need you to help me find the Mother of Nightmares.  You know where she lives, right?”

Tehlmar’s eyes narrowed and he felt a sudden anger rise inside him.  “No.  No, I don’t care what your reason is.  You leave her alone, you hear me?  She’s just an old woman who’s done nothing to you.  You leave her the fuck alone.”

“Damn it all, Tehlmar, this isn’t what you think—”

“Yeah?  Then what will you do if I tell you where she is?  What’s your next move?  You going to go over there and work your magic on her or something?”

“It isn’t like that!” Sofie insisted.

“Then why won’t you answer the question?”

“Because you won’t let me you—”

“Enough!  I’m getting sick of this crap from both of you!” Arlette cut in.  “Tehlmar, calm down for a fucking moment and let her speak!  Sofie, answer his question.”

“But—”

“Answer the question or I’m kicking you—no, both of you—out of my room and locking the door for the rest of the day like I apparently should have from the start.”

Sofie hesitated.  “We... uh... we need to... um... kind of... kidnap her.”

“I knew it!” Tehlmar cried.

“For good reasons!” Sofie shouted over him.  “It’s not like I want to do this, but we have to before she explodes!”

Tehlmar and Letty shared a confused glance.

“Look, it’s a really long story but the end result is that we have deduced that, in all likelihood, she’s going to explode.  Not just her.  Me, Blake, Gabby, the man in Stragma—all of us from Earth.  We’re going to blow up.”

“What exactly do you mean when you say ‘explode’?” Tehlmar asked, not entirely wanting to know the answer.

“You remember that dragon in Zrukhora?  The one that turned the whole city into nothing but a giant crater?”

The two of them nodded.  After all, how could either of them forget such a terrible, chilling day?

“Like that, but way, way, way, way bigger.  Like, society-ending, world-ending sort of explosions.”

Tehlmar’s blood went colder than the ice at the peak of the Divide and he took an unconscious step away from the girl.  “Wait, what?!  Why?!  How?!  When?!”

“It’s complicated and we can explain it all later.  There’s a lot we do not know, including how much time we have left before one of us goes off.  What we are sure of is that just being here on Scyria makes us vulnerable to... popping.”

“So if just being here makes this happen, does that mean you can’t stop it?” Arlette inquired.

“For all we know, not even death will stop this; Blake has it on good authority that souls linger in this world for years after the body dies.  There’s no guarantee that our corpses won’t erupt well after we die.  That’s why we need to find the Mother of Nightmares and the man in Stragma.  We need to get everybody together in case our one hope somehow succeeds.”

She laughed, somewhat sad and mournful.

“Remember when I made you promise to help me get home?  That’s our plan.  That’s the only hope we have: that somehow we can find or build a way out of Scyria entirely.”

“So your plan is just... to leave?” Tehlmar repeated, a realization forming in his mind.

Sofie nodded.  “We have no idea how to solve the problem here, and we’ll never know for certain that any fix we try fully worked.  There would always be the chance that we think we solved the issue, only to find out the hard way that we were wrong.  That’s part of the problem.  We wouldn’t know we failed to stop it until it’s too late.  The only way to make absolutely sure is to get us all out of Scyria entirely.  For good.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Tehlmar asked.  “Give me a map and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.  Location, layout, the works.”

Sofie stared at him for a moment, seemingly unable to understand what he’d just said.  “...Really?  That easy?”

“Well, how am I supposed to take Letty to a show or a picnic or whatever if you destroy the world?  I can’t have that, now can I?”

“I...”  Sofie coughed.  “Right.  Well... I wasn’t expecting this to go so smoothly.  I, uh, have to go eat first, and Gabby’s busy with something right now.  How about we meet in one of the meeting rooms downstairs in two hours?”

“Sounds fine to me.”

“I’m coming too,” Arlette definitively announced.  “Somebody has to keep the two of you from each other’s throats.”

“We wouldn’t dream of it!” Tehlmar declared.

Arlette rolled her eyes.  “I’m sure.”

“Alright, I guess I’m going to go, then,” Sofie stated, heading for the door.  “See you later.  Oh, actually, do either of you have any maps?  I wouldn’t trust the old ones left here from the old Otharian regime further than I can throw them.”

“I have one,” Arlette told her.

“Alright.  Bye.”

“You sure agreed quickly,” Arlette said once it was just the two of them left.  “What’s going on?  Your day plan is done for, and yet, you’re almost giddy.  What are you plotting now?”

“Me?  No, no, nothing whatsoever, I swear!  I can always make new plans another time.  It’s not that big a deal, really.”

She gave him a skeptical look.  “Is that so?”

“That is indeed so.  Anyway, we have a few hours, so it’s not like my plan needs to be entirely scrapped.  Why don’t I at least show you this one place I found on the south end while we wait?  I bet their lunches are just as good as their dinners.”

Arlette stretched her arms up high and let out a grunt.  “Yeah, sure.  I could use some food, anyway.  Give me a moment and I’ll meet you outside.”

Tehlmar left Arlette’s quarters with a smile on his face.  Yes, it seemed like his plans for the day were largely in tatters, but that was alright.  A ruined day with Letty for a world without people like Sofie in it was a trade he’d gladly make every single day.

*     *     *

Four people sat in a small room around a circular table, deep in discussion.  A map of Drayhadal had been spread out in the table’s center, the parchment worn but the markings upon it still legible.

“Where did you even find a map of Drayhadal in Otharia?” Sofie asked Arlette during a lull in the conversation.

“I didn’t.  I swiped it from the Eterians before we left Crirada, along with maps of everything else I could find.  You learn quickly in the mercenary business that it’s always handy to have a good map around, and my previous set was lost along with the rest of our stuff when that dick pulled his stunt with the Severed.”

“Makes sense,” Sofie nodded.  “Not that this map looks too great.”

“Well, what do you expect?  It’s Drayhadal.”

“Can you two quiet down for a little?” Tehlmar asked through a mouth full of half-chewed sandwich.  “I’m trying to concentrate.  This is hard enough without the noise.”

“That would be more convincing if you didn’t say it while stuffing your face,” Sofie shot back.

“And waste all the food I bought for the picnic that didn’t happen because of you?  No, thanks.  I lost enough money on the tickets.”

Staring intently at the northwest quadrant of the map, he had to admit that Sofie was correct in this case.  There was no way that his people would have allowed outsiders to survey their lands, which was why the “map” of Drayhadal consisted of nothing more than the outline of the nation’s borders and its four capital cities. 

Somehow, he was supposed to pinpoint the Mother of Nightmare’s home—a place he’d visited all of twice—on this blank parchment using nothing but the approximate location of Esmaeyae and his somewhat-vague memories.

Silently, he worked through the directions Artiermius had given him, which had done a fine job of getting him there both times.  To make it easier on himself, he sliced a finger and extruded a small line of blood from it, which he formed into a thin, zig-zagging line just above the parchment.  As he went through each step, he added his mental approximation of it to the line.

Five leagues south... then take the smaller of the two dirt roads southeast... three villages, then straight east, then...

Soon, he had narrowed it down to a certain area.  That area was as much a guess as it was an estimate, but he wasn’t going to tell them that.

“Here,” he finally announced, circling a spot in the middle of nowhere southeast of Esmaeyae.

“That is a very large circle,” Arlette noted.

“It’s the best I can do with what I have,” he insisted.  “Give me a real map, and I’ll narrow it down.”

“They say it’s a poor carpenter that blames his tools,” Sofie commented.

“It’s a stupid customer who asks a carpenter to build a cabinet with only a single stick and dried garoph shit,” he fired back.  “Look, there’s pretty much nothing out there but grass and maybe two villages, so it shouldn’t be hard to find.  Just look for the single building atop a hill out in the middle of nowhere.”

“It will have to do,” Arlette decided with a frown.

“If you say so,” Sofie conceded.

“So, what now?” the Monster wondered.  “Should I just go fetch her?  Wouldn’t take a day, as long as I can find her quickly enough.”

Not for the first time, Tehlmar noted the quiet confidence the woman displayed.  The two of them had not interacted very often since he’d arrived in Wroetin, partially because their schedules and activities kept them away from each other, and partly—reluctant as Tehlmar was to admit it—because she terrified him.

She didn’t look especially intimidating at a glance—just an ordinary woman in her prime, the sort you might find in most any human city in Scyria, one hand holding onto a rambunctious four-year-old’s arm and the other cradling a basket of freshly-washed laundry as she maneuvered her way home through the busy city street.  A closer inspection, however, revealed the hard, muscled body hidden beneath her outfit—an outfit that seemed chosen largely to hide her build, he suspected.  Still, try as she did to appear unremarkable, she still set off Tehlmar’s threat instincts as loudly as anybody he’d ever met.

The art of reading another person had been drilled into him as a child in the Masked Battalion training facility.  They’d trained him for years on how to observe all manner of physical and verbal cues and make a snap assessment of a person’s traits, trustworthiness, and the like, for such determinations were invaluable in spycraft.  Unlike others there, it hadn’t come easy, and his instructors had considered his skill lacking even upon his “graduation”.  Yet, over the course of decades wandering from one battlefield to the next, where he’d crossed blades with thousands of opponents and come out alive each time, his mediocre skills had combined with his years of combat experience to form something altogether different: an ability to judge somebody’s threat level.  In other words, while he still wasn’t the best at knowing if a person could be trusted to not stab him in the back, he’d know almost immediately just how well they’d be able to thrust the dagger when they did.

It was that finely honed instinct that had told him—correctly, in his view—that Sofie would be little more than dead weight in their escape to Stragma, while the tiny Pari was far more dangerous than she seemed.  And it was that same instinct that screamed at him that this woman was known to many as “the Monster” for very legitimate reasons and that he should stay as far away from her as he possibly could.

Maybe it was that Tehlmar had never seen anybody less afraid in his life.  Every person carried at least a kernel of fear in their hearts—everybody except this woman, apparently.  Or, perhaps it was the weapon she kept with her, that massive black crystal roughly shaped like a blade with an edge so sharp that it could slice through metal with ease.  Even now, as it stood propped up in the corner point down, he could see how it had sunk at least a finger’s width into the cold metal floor.

All the stories Arlette had told him didn’t help, either.  She’d told him all about her rampages, from the siege of Crirada to the time of Pari’s death, when, lacking a weapon, she’d simply ripped people apart with her bare hands.  Arlette had been very clear: while she might seem friendly and normal enough, she had a line that, if crossed, would transform her into something he didn’t want to witness.  Where that line lay was not entirely clear, and so Tehlmar would do best to step carefully and watch his mouth.

Tehlmar fully intended to follow his beloved’s advice.  He had already perished one too many times for his liking.

“And how would you do that without being hit by her powers?” Sofie asked, speaking aloud the question he was also thinking.  “She’d knock you out before you could get within a hundred meters of her.”

“Only if she sees me coming.  Strike at night when she’s asleep.  Get in faster than she can react, knock her out before she wakes up, grab her, and get out.”

Arlette shook her head.  “That’s a lot of things that have to all go right.  Any one of them goes sideways and you might not just fail; you might not even make it out.”

“Oh, come on, so she gives you a bad dream or whatever,” the Monster argued.  “How bad could it be?”

Tehlmar and Arlette shared a silent look.

“The thing is, even if you make it inside without waking her up, you’re going to need to potentially hurt a poor old woman,” Sofie pushed back.  “Are you prepared to do that, Gabby?  You might even hurt her or even kill her by accident.  Elderly people are fragile—especially women.  Ever heard of osteoporosis?”

The Monster frowned, uncomfortable.  “I thought you could make some sort of knockout gas I could use.”  She looked Tehlmar’s way.  “What about you?  Aren’t you a spy or something?”

“The only chemical he’s good with is alcohol,” Arlette interceded.

“Then, Pari?”

Now it was Sofie’s turn to look uncomfortable.  “I wouldn’t want to get her involved with this,” she said.  “She’d ask too many questions, anyway.”

“You haven’t told her?” Arlette inquired.

“What am I supposed to say, ‘Hey, sweetie, I’m going to possibly explode and leave you alone even though I promised you I’d be with you forever?’  She’d run away crying or something and then Sam would find out and then everybody would know.  Blake said to keep it a secret, and so that’s what I’m going to do until I have something better to tell her.”

Arlette sighed.  “Maybe you’re right.”

“Maybe I’m missing something,” Tehlmar chimed in, “but don’t we have a perfect solution for this already?  Your boss’s machines don’t have a mind, right?  Wouldn’t that make them perfect for this?”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Arlette explained.  “First, there’s a pretty long delay between what you see and what is actually happening.  What you see already happened a good handful of moments ago, so you can’t give quick orders.”

“How long of a delay are you saying?”

“Depends on how far away it is.  If her home is in that circle, then... maybe six, eight breaths.  Somewhere around there.”

“Oof.”

“Exactly.  The second issue is that all the images come from the airship, and that makes it nearly impossible to command the skitters inside a building where I can’t see them.  Third, I don’t have much confidence that they won’t just crush her when they try to seize her.  These things are not built for delicate work.”

“Can’t the boss man just... I don’t know, make something to solve those problems?”

“Some of them, surely,” Sofie told him, “but he’s being moody and he’s busy anyway with his side of all of this.  We were trying to think of other strategies we might be able to go with instead of just relying on him.”

“Well, we tried, but I don’t think there are any other good options at this point,” Arlette stated.

“I agree,” the Monster added.

“Fine, I’ll call him over,” Sofie sighed.  She walked over to a box embedded by the chamber’s door and hit some buttons.  A moment later, a tinny voice spoke out of the box, letting loose an unintelligible squawk of words with an indignant tone.

“Yes, yes, I know you’re busy, but we need your help,” Sofie replied.  Tehlmar caught how her speak changed to something somewhat different from how she usually talked.

The unintelligible voice, which he recognized as Lord Ferros, said something back, something impatient.  Left without the ability to comprehend the words, he was forced to rely on the speak coming from the box and make determinations on tone alone.

“The four of us are planning out the mission to snatch the Mother of Nightmares and—”

A sudden question, sharp and pointed.

“Me, Gabby, Arlette, and Tehlmar.”

A burst of exasperated words gushed forth.

“Well, he’s the only person we know who knows where to find her, and you might be shocked to learn that knowing the location is rather important with this sort of thing.  And there was no way he would cooperate without her.  That’s life, Blake.”

Another question, even more exasperated.

“Of course I told them!  Did you think I could have convinced them to help me cause an international incident by abducting an old woman from her home with nothing more than ‘just trust me’?”

An irate reply, short and snarky.

“If you’re going to throw a fit like a child over a simple request like this, I’m going to treat you like one.”

A sigh, followed by a tired question.

“And maybe I’d be able to tell you if you’d stop complaining for one second and let me talk.”

A grumble of gruff capitulation.

“We’re going to need special skitters designed to capture old ladies without harming them—something that won’t break brittle bones but won’t let her run away.  Also, we need a solution for the fact that she’ll be indoors and there’s no way good to control your robots from the Toaster when there’s a roof blocking your view.”

A warning, or a reminder.

“Yes, that goes without saying.  Delay or not, it would still be better than trying it blind.”

A reluctant concession, and then another weary question.

“That’s basically it.  Oh, make the retrieval robots smaller so they can fit through the halls and doorways without taking the whole house down.  I’d rather not collapse the roof and kill everybody inside.”

Agreement, followed by a short, dry statement, and finished by what was clearly Lord Ferros ending the conversation.

“Yeah.  Thank you.”

She turned back to the rest of them.  “He’ll make the special delicate skitters and he’s going to hook up their front cameras so we can see what they see.  He says he’ll have it done in a few hours.”

“So, then... if we send the ship out as soon as it is ready, it should arrive in that area at around half-past two in the morning.  Seems we can try tonight,” Arlette noted.

Sofie nodded.  “Tonight it is.”

*     *     *

“I mean... you simply sit there?  That’s it?”

“For the last time, yes.  I fail to see what is so perplexing about this, Tehlmar,” Sofie scoffed as she leaned back in a large, high-backed chair too big for her.  She rested her head on her left hand, her left arm propped up on one of the oversized armrests as her right cradled a panel of buttons and dials.  “Even you’re not this stupid.”

“Don’t insult somebody who is volunteering to help us,” the Monster chimed in from another chair of similarly silly proportions nearby.

Tehlmar frowned and decided to ignore the whelp’s sorry attempts at provocation for the moment.  Scratching the back of his head, he looked around once more at the various “screens” covering the walls of the chamber.  Moving pictures shone from each of them, their images striking him as off-putting and unnatural.  It was as if somebody had taken the conjurations of a group of Manys and flattened them until they had the depth of a piece of paper, then framed them and hung them all around the room like a set of paintings.

“I’m not confused; it just didn’t truly hit me until now how... easy it all is.  I’d always thought there had to be some amount of work going on behind the scenes and I just wasn’t allowed to see it.  I never imagined it was as simple as hitting a few buttons and people die!  It’s... it’s—”

“Terrible,” Sofie interjected.

“—incredible!” he finished at the same time, paying no heed to the hostile glare sent his way.  “It changes everything!  Do you know how much work goes into the logistics of even a minor battle?  The transportation, the food, all of it?  It’s enormous!”  He chuckled.  “That’s why I always let Arlette handle all that.”

“I handled it because you’d spend most of the budget on booze and gamble away the rest,” Arlette told them, giving his ear a nasty flick with her finger.  “You’re right though.  It completely reshapes every facet of battle and warfare as a whole.”

“Kind of impersonal, though...” he added.  “Battle is supposed to be a contest of wills—you against your opponent, putting everything you have on the line to come out on top.  Not something like this.  This is too... too clean.”  A frown grew on his face as he reconsidered and his mood grew sour.  “I’ve changed my mind.  I don’t like this after all.  It’s not war; it’s just killing.”

“What’s going on?  Have the moons aligned?” Arlette asked the Monster.  “They’re agreeing with each other.”

“A true miracle,” the Earthling replied, “but one that I doubt will last more than a minute.  Either way, today will hopefully not involve any killing whatsoever.”

“Surely you don’t think the guards won’t try to stop us?” Tehlmar questioned.

“They can try, but I don’t see how they can stop a wave of massive metal robots rushing towards them.  Those things are as heavy as they look—I would know, I’ve lifted more than my fair share of them.  All the guards combined probably weigh as much as a single skitter, and the airship has a whole bunch of those.  Just rush in, snatch her, and leave.  I’m honestly more worried about knocking over too many walls and collapsing the building.”

“We’ll be careful,” Sofie assured her.

Arlette hummed in thought.  “At least all the help will have left.  The manor should be empty other than the Mother of Nightmares.  It would limit the guards’ options, as well.  If they get too close, they will be hit by her dreams, yes?”

Tehlmar nodded.

“That’s true,” Sofie responded.  She hit a button and one of the images switched to a map of Drayhadal.  A long, thin oval crept slowly across the nation from right to left towards a colored oval that stood for the area he’d circled on the cloth map that afternoon.  She looked towards Tehlmar, a twinge of nervousness in her eyes.  “Are you sure you can’t give us anything more specific?”

“For the last time, no.  I cannot make something from nothing.  I fail to see what is so perplexing about this, Sofie.”

The Monster turned to Arlette with a wry smile.  “See?  Only a minute.”

“The peanut gallery can shut their traps,” Sofie shot back.  “With everything he’s said and done to me, I could make his life a living hell and he would deserve every last bit of it.”

“Big words from a big mouth,” Tehlmar scoffed.

She shot him a death glare, or at least her attempt at one.  It didn’t phase him in the slightest.  “Watch it!  You’re lucky that I’ve sworn to avoid using my power from now on because I’ve known for a long time now exactly what I’d say to you first.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah!  Tell me, Tehlmar, do you like to poop?”

He scoffed.  “Not particularly.  What sort of threat is...”  A chill ran through him as he followed her insinuation to its conclusion.  “You wouldn’t.  You don’t have the spine to do something like that.”

“You keep telling yourself that.  All I’m saying is that, should the situation with my power change, you’ll be the first person I visit.”

Arlette let out a quiet little sigh.  “Both of you calm down before I make you calm down the hard way!  Sofie, while I have no doubt he’s been quite a jerk to you, let’s concentrate on the mission at hand right now, yes?”

“Psh, fine,” Sofie replied, crossing her arms and looking away to performatively pout.

Tehlmar looked between the two of them in silent confusion.  Had Sofie not told Arlette of his and her various... notable interactions?  Given the girl’s blabbermouth tendencies, he’d always assumed that everything he’d ever said and done to her—everything from when he’d tried to chase her off on the day they’d first met to the time she’d threatened to castrate him with a broken bottle—had been relayed immediately to Arlette’s ears.  Perhaps his assumption was wrong?  What would cause her to stay silent?

“And honey,” Arlette continued in a way that was just a little too sweet and made his hair stand on end, “what happened to the hardened, focused mercenary I used to know?  Because all I see right now is an immature disappointment.”

“I’m sorry,” Tehlmar immediately replied, chastised and ashamed.  She was right.  He was older than everybody else in the room combined, and he should be the mature one who ignored distractions and paid attention to the mission at hand.  In fact, he had been that person for years, back when he’d been under the guise of Jaquet.  Nothing stopped him from channeling that professionalism now except his own will.

Behind Arlette, Sofie smirked at him and flicked her wrist like she was cracking a whip.  For a moment, he saw red.  To think that bitch had the gall to call him whipped when she bent over backward every day for a spirits-be-damned child!  But no!  He caught himself and forced himself to calm down before it showed on his face.  That twerp wasn’t going to get to him anymore tonight, no sir.  But later... oh, she’d regret this.  He didn’t know how just yet, but he had plenty of time to figure something out.  And if she ever tried to use her powers on him, well... he couldn’t be held responsible for what would happen next.  He had a right to self-defense.

The next quarter-hour was filled with the very familiar tension of an army waiting for a battle to begin, making small talk as they waited nervously for the promised time to arrive.  It was a feeling he’d experienced more times than he could count over decades of fighting, and even though the venue was very different, he found that the atmosphere remained strikingly similar.  Practiced veteran that he was, he helped himself to a drink of water and let the time pass.

Soon enough, it was time, and the room grew quiet.  All eyes were focused on the images displayed on the walls, each of them showing a scene one would see when riding in Lord Ferros’s flying contraption—one from somebody looking down from the front, another from the left side, etc.  Tehlmar didn’t know how the metal man was able to take such sights and show them here, so many leagues away, but it didn’t matter much to him.  He did find himself wishing that the images weren’t silent, however.  The lack of noise made everything he was seeing feel all the more unreal, as if what was about to happen was little more than a dream.

Luck was on their side, as the night was clear and the winds were gentle.  Still, that was not enough to make things easy.  The search area was many leagues in all directions.  Moment after moment trudged along as they searched in the moonslight for something, anything, to guide them or narrow their search.  Finally, after more than half an hour of fruitlessly looking at slowly passing terrain, they got lucky once more.

“Stop!  There!” Tehlmar cried out, pointing at an image from the right side of the ship.  “See that?”

“What, that big stone with the hole in it in the ravine?” the Monster wondered.  “That doesn’t look like any home I’ve ever seen.”

“No, no, I remember this place.  This is where I stopped to eat lunch the one time.  We’re close.  Head south-southeast, maybe nine or ten leagues, and it should be there.”

“Excellent.  Good job,” Arlette told him as she adjusted course, and he had to admit that her praise made him flush with pride.

Maybe Sofie was right.  Maybe he was whipped.  Well, there were worse things to be.

“Is that it?” Arlette asked sometime later, pointing at one of the side screens.

Tehlmar squinted at the tiny shape sitting atop a small hill far below and off in the distance.  “Yeah, that looks like it!”

“Adjusting destination and altitude,” Arlette said to nobody in particular as she fiddled with her control panel.  Of all the people here, she was the only one who had any experience controlling the flying machine, and the rest of them were quite happy to leave her to it.

A few long moments after she finished her adjustments, whatever they were, the images all simultaneously began to spin, and Tehlmar had to close his eyes as the sight made him feel queasy for some reason.  He opened his eyes again only when he heard Arlette say, “Opening bay doors.”

The view had shifted, and they were hovering just outside of the Mother of Nightmare’s large rear garden, complete with hedgerows and a collection of small ponds.  If he had to guess, they were flying at most two hundred paces above the ground, giving him a grand view ahead of them of the Drayhadans’ vaunted botanical prowess under the light of the three moons.  Yet, something seemed off.

“Hold on,” he told her, grabbing her arm.  “Something’s not right.”

“What?”

“Go up.”

“I’m about to release the—”

“Move higher, quickly!  I need to see more.  This is important.”

Arlette looked around at the others, who looked back at her with unsure faces.  With a twinge of pride, he watched as Arlette mentally switched into a leadership role and took charge.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” she commanded, her hands flying around her control panel as she ordered the flying ship skyward.  “We don’t have time to waste.  If you can’t figure out what’s bothering you in less than a moment, we’re going back in.”

“Hold on, I need to see,” he replied, staring hard at the screens around him, waiting for them to start to move.  “Damn it all, it’s so dark!”

Arlette clicked something and, one interminable wait later, the images lit up in a bright, harsh white light that cast thick shadows across the landscape.

“Oh, right,” Sofie muttered.  “Of course he’d put lights on it.”

“There!”  Tehlmar pointed at a shape on the upper right.  “Can you move closer?  I need a better look.”

“I’ll try,” Arlette allowed, punching in some command that wouldn’t show for another few breaths, “but pinpoint maneuvering is hard enough with this thing without the delay.  It’s going to take a bit.  This had better be good, Tehlmar.  We’ve lost all element of surprise at this point.”

Soon, the view on that screen shifted, sliding upward and slowly zooming in.

“When did you get so good with the Toaster’s systems, Arlette?” Sofie asked.

“It’s one of the most important tools for my job,” she answered.  “It’s only natural that I would need to know how to use it to its full potential.”

The Monster let out a low grunt as the zoom came to a halt.  “Is that a body on the ground there?”

“Looks like a soldier,” Arlette observed.  “Shit!  I’m sending the skitters down now.  We can’t lose any more time if there was an attack.”

Tehlmar hummed in thought.  The image before him didn’t seem entirely in line with what he would have expected.  After a moment, he placed it.  “Can you keep looking while you do that?  The guards there worked in squads.  There should be more nearby.”

Talented as she was, his request proved simple to accommodate.  Not long after, Tehlmar had his confirmation.

“Three more dead!” Sofie gasped.

“No, they aren’t dead, they’re out cold,” Tehlmar corrected her.  “Look closer.  There’s not a spot of blood to be found, and they all seem fully intact.  And see how none of them even have their weapons drawn?  They weren’t attacked... in a normal way, at least.  Also, notice how far from the manor they are?  That’s about where I would have guessed their nighttime positions would be.”

Arlette went still, her thoughts following his.  “But then, the only other explanation is...”

She bent forward, her full attention now devoted to managing the machines that were just now landing on solid ground and sending them towards the silent manor.  The floating craft lurched slightly, likely from a sudden gust, revealing a second group of collapsed elves in the same condition as the first.

He nodded.  “Right.  The Mother of Nightmares did this.”

“What?  But, why?” the Monster wondered.  “Aren’t they there to protect her?”

“Well, it’s hard to say without anything to go on.  Perhaps she was attacked by an assassin and they were just in the crossfire,” Tehlmar offered, thinking back to his two visits to the old human’s lodging.  “Still, I rather doubt that was the case.  If I had to bet, she hit them on purpose”

“You think she’s making a run for it,” Sofie stated. 

“I do.  Either way, we’ll know for sure in a moment.”

“Way ahead of you.  She’s not inside,” Arlette confirmed, her gaze swapping between several screens, each containing images of what her machines could see.  They stomped through various empty rooms, none of which contained a certain wrinkled old woman.  “I can’t find her anywhere.”