Metaworld Chronicles

"Did you know Sobel? Elizabeth Sobel?" The voice of Viscount Mowbray, overseer of the Crown's fortunes in Hastings, remarked over the dull roar shaking the grandstand. "I met her once. I was a student. It was just after the Beast Tide, during the period Henry Kilroy ventured from baronage to baronage, persuading our parents to join the then Middle Coalition."

"I met her aunt when the Sobel Estate still existed—after she left," replied another voice, this one older and a little dreamy from the recollection. "As for the sorceress, all I recall was that even as a young woman, Elizabeth was—"

The voice grew thoughtful.

"Beautiful?" Lady Astor was quick to draw attention to the man's recollection.

"Ravishing," another voice agreed. "And dreadfully frightening."

"I recall attending a function with Lord Kilroy once. I must confess that never had I felt such a desire for fresh linen than after a meet and greet with his bride-to-be," another voice, senior but jovial, remarked with a mixed tone. "Kilroy bid her show Father what a Void Sorceress may do—or would do if we held out against her wishes. That said, for all the terror, the demonstration was—strikingly performed."

"And now we've come full circle—" A fourth gestured to the stadium with his flute of Pinot gris, all the while looking over the shoulder of his conversation partner, the ever-lovely widow of Astor. "Courtesy of the very same Henry Kilroy."

"Lord knows the Mageocracy could use another Sobel," the first voice, that of the Viscount, remarked for the benefit of Lady Astor.

"Gwen's a good girl," Lady Astor assured the rest, her revealing attire sparking scandalously to catch the listening Mycroft. "She's willfully obedient. Isn't she, Dickie?"

The Lady raised her glass.

Mycroft returned the favour with a minute gesture of his own.

Left to ponder the Lady's oxymoronic riddle, the crowd's gaze paused on the Duke but did not dare to linger lest he vented his displeasure. As the Mageocracy's premier Lord, the Marshall of her Majesty's forces and the keeper of the crows, every muttered syllable of his opinion mattered. Thereby, though Mycroft knew of his fellow nobles and their burgeoning curiosity, he chose silence.

As for the "Sobel" in question, he could only guess her true purpose.

Was the girl's growing love of London calculated obedience?

Or was it, perhaps, malicious compliance?

Turning away from his audience, the Duke traced the edge of his glass with a vacant, wandering digit, then looked for the girl among the crowd. If nothing else, at least in his officious capacity, he could not fault Gwen's performance.

Without a doubt, the girl's ability to transform the situation in Shalkar was a far better demonstration of her potential than her ability to devour a Chinese city. After all, any Tower worth its weight in HDMs could level any of humanities' tier-II metropolises, as well as the warrens of Demi-human Gnolls, Greenskins, or the shoal-homes of Mermen. Yet, for all the Mageocracy's potential power projection, Shalkar's unprofitability had festered on the campaign map for three decades until the girl shattered the status quo and brought questionable change.

The point then, Mycroft countered, was whether the "new" Shalkar boded well for the Mageocracy or if Gwen had merely set up the stage for a more significant, deadlier conflict a decade later.

Below, the crowd grew abruptly silent.

For the third match, the transmuted terrain was a northern peat bog, meaning the entire array of combat took place in a field of stunted, rotten trees and sticky silt that could swallow a Mage wholesale. Knowing Benedict Thomas' skillset, Mycroft could say that Team Exeter's streak of luck remained uncontested, an occurrence that was rapidly growing suspicious, for the heir's powerful "bomb" spells worked wonders in open space, and his gaseous form performed similarly well. Comparatively, there were few advantages Thomas' opponent could observe, owed to a skill set that favoured enclosed spaces.

If so, by what craft would the girl slay the drake of Exeter? Mycroft amused himself with a dozen projections. What wild magics would she show the world?

With a sharp chime from the Adjudicator, the battle began.

For the first few opening seconds, both Thomas and Gwen warily sensed one another from opposite ends of the fields while subtly powering up their defences. For Holland's heir, the defensive choice was because Thomas knew of the absurd offensive the girl could mount while possessing uncertain confidence he would suffer her Void-strikes as well as she in surviving one of his explosions. More than likely, the youthful Magus was betting on his superior knowledge in Spellcraft, likely anticipating an opportunity to Counter Spell the girl into submission.

As for the girl, Mycroft understood as soon as she opened up with invocations made infamous by her predecessor, Elizabeth Sobel.

Unsurprising to the Duke, the first and foremost of the girl's protection spells was Bone Armour. It was an Abjuration sorcery that was sure to raise brows among the genteel class of Arcanists whose ancestors had perished fighting the same magic. The girl's Signature Spell was a sanctioned variation modified by Kilroy for his wife, expending the Cores of monstrous creatures rather than drawing power from the negative energy emanated by the living dead. As the final syllable fell into place, a phantom ribcage appeared, then quickly faded into the aether, forming a protective scarab shell around the girl.

The reagent, Mycroft chuckled, would be the Core of a Death Worm, a rare prize for many but hardly worthy of note for one who had cleared out a whole region's worth of the Elemental vermin.

From the way her audience reeled from the mute rings of enervating Void washing over the east side of the arena, Mycroft guessed the girl had spared no expense and was readily tapping her vital stores. As the Core's energies grew depleted and Void-tainted mana enveloped the original Necromantic manifestation, NoMs too weak to expel extreme vertigo became ill or sick, dropping their overpriced sausages in a bun, which in the Duke's opinions, was a blessing in disguise.

After her first showcase, the girl's Mage Shield shimmered brightly before abruptly turning the colour of jet, enveloping her body so wholly as to form a perfect, obsidian egg. From the surface, micro-portals to the Quasi-Elemental Plane of the Void bit into the Prime Material in the manner of teeth making rents in black silk, leaving gaping, gasping gashes that bled a thick, ebony ink.

But it wasn't ink that drooled from these axe-wounds in space-time.

Instead, what emerged were the signature denizens of the Void, what Cambridge's researchers had dubbed Abyssal Lampreys.

Like a dark flood, torrents of the Void-things slithered into the deep mud of the swamp-scape, instantly disappearing as they made for the general direction of Benedict Thomas, whose Astral Soul burned with vitality and raw elemental energy.

On the other side of the arena, Thomas' face twitched as he lifted into the air, forgoing the cover offered by the shrubbery for fear of Gwen's lampreys suddenly emerging underfoot as Umzokwe had done. With a wave of his hand, the signature crystals that housed his unstoppable offence materialised, all six of which were armed and compressed with enough power to crack Gwen's egg.

By now, it was clear the girl was not playing by the usual rules of Spellcraft, nor was her Spell List one knowable even by a Senior Scholar of the arts. This underestimation of Gwen's unorthodox Arcanistry, Mycroft felt, would not be the first of Thomas' mistakes.

Had—he supposed, Jean-Paul provided the necessary fright for Holland's heir to second-guess charging and attacking Gwen with an Alpha Strike?

Perhaps if Thomas had searched deeply in the vaults for details of Sobel's sorcery, both recent and in the past, he would have gained some insight into Gwen's myriad tactics. Unfortunately, much like the reports from Shalkar, Ravenport also possessed the key to that particular chamber of knowledge, from which he allowed only the vaguest of details to escape.

Nonetheless, once the Steam Mage realised the full implication of Gwen's strategy, he immediately abandoned the "reactive" nature of his crystal arrays to move to the offensive. With a serpentine hiss of displaced steam, Thomas Holland slipped through the gaps of the Prime Material, then reappeared within two dozen meters of the girl, orchestrating a Dimension Door almost thrice the distance of an average Mage.

"Don't die, Magus Song," the heir delivered an audible and courteous warning, then invoked the translocation magic that would force upon Gwen the unbridled fury of Elemental Steam.

The mud below Thomas exploded before he could finish his haughty exposition.

Leading the way were eight lamprey heads, each the size of a compact sedan, faceless and featureless, slick of skin and utterly devoid of features but for their puckering, teeth-lined maws salivating for noble flesh.

The ambush came as a surprise for many of the repulsed audience, but not for its studied magic users nor Gwen's opponent.

Changing his gestures midway, two of the crystals dematerialised, then reappeared among the Void Hydra's heads.

BUNG—BUNG—!

Clouds of superheated steam rang out, followed by deadly waves of shattered shards composed of congealed force.

The three heads closest to Thomas turned to dark mist as the vital forces holding together the stitched, stygian flesh of the Lovecraftian aberration failed, instantly liquifying into obscure splatters. The rest of the faceless appendages stayed the course, only to be caught up in the second explosion, sending shattered bits of mangled flesh flying in every direction to splatter the Walls of Force.

BUNG—! A third explosion erupted near Gwen's Dark Egg, momentarily peeling back the obsidian layer of Void, but not enough to prevent the egg shell from regenerating near-instantaneously.

A few finger twitches summoned the rest of Thomas' cataclysmic crystals, bringing the remainder close to the abode built by Gwen to shield her body from Holland's relentless assault.

For a frozen second in time, the crowd collectively held their breath, hoping that the Void Sorceress would teleport out of harm's way.

She did not.

Mycroft's eyes widened by several millimetres.

The finale was a staggered triple-blast, a walking barrage of unadulterated destruction that sent the Force Generators into agonised whinnies and the stadium to shake on its foundations. The super expansion of steam grew so enormous that a section of the upper wall released a panel to depressurise the battlefield's interior, rocketing a sky-plume into the blue yonder.

A few seconds passed, possessed only by the hiss of escaping steam from the self-repairing barrier. Two thousand pairs of questioning eyes turned to the All England's matchmakers. Atop the arena's cubic fence, the Chief Adjudicator remained mum as he conversed telepathically with his team in the Divination room.

Then, in the obscured depth of the steam-filled arena, something moved.

More explosions, smaller now and possessed of far less pent-up energy, erupted here and there, adding to the confusion felt by the spectators.

Mycroft scanned the scene, contemplating if he should command a direct mind tap into the Divination Array in the control room when his thoughts grew suddenly disrupted by the sight of an enormous something slamming heavily against the barrier.

"SHAA— SHAA—" came the ear-splitting, sphincter-clenching cry from Gwen's netherworld fiend, now girthier than a semi-trailer.

From the section pressed against the wall, the audience could see that it had been suppressed by an empowered and maximised Bilby's Hand. For a creature without organs, however, the crushing constriction of the famous force spell did little in discouraging the monster from lashing out with dozens of pink tentacles. Before Mycroft could even scoff, the Hydra-thing tore itself in half from the waist, then launched itself back into the steam.

Simultaneously, as the arena's mechanisms did its best to vent the excess fog preventing the paying audience from seeing the titanic battle, those closest to the deadly theatre realised the mud and silt that formed the peat bog were now squirming with living, writhing masses of faceless lampreys.

Another explosion engendered somewhere within, weaker than Thomas's failed coup de grace moments earlier. As a tide of hungry mouths, the obsidian slosh of creatures moving toward the battlefield's centre once more splashed against the Walls of Force, decimated but not defeated, dividing and regenerating even as the shards of force sliced and diced their bodies.

A portion of these creatures, perhaps frenzied or confused by the chaos brought by the undulating battlefield, sensed the vitality outside and were actively trying to bypass the barriers to get at the spectators.

"SHAA—! SHAA—!" A cry from their brood leader was enough to refocus the lampreys' attention, making Mycroft marvel at just how intelligent the creature Kilroy had wrangled for the girl had grown.

Above the battle, the arena's whirling vortexes into the Elemental Plane of Air finally performed their duty, drawing the excess steam as remaining smidgens of doubt drained from Mycroft's mind. Whatever Gwen's faults may be, Charlene had cultivated a reliable partner to elevate her political debut into London's circle of power, and soon, her crops would yield grain.

"SHAA—!" Another blood-curdling shriek from the singing Hydra revealed that it and its brood were now pursuing a hovering Holland across the battlefield with extreme prejudice. As a leaping, frolicking mass of faceless worms with lamprey mouths, the churning black swamp water rose as living tendrils to ensnare the skating Mage as he dodged the clumsy assaults.

Not far, Gwen's Elemental Swarm was shepherded by an enormous Hydra with all seven heads, each one flawlessly regenerated, working in tandem to swat Thomas from the air like a gnat.

Now and then, Thomas would unleash a wave of superheated mist or erect a spontaneous Blade Barrier to dissuade his pursuers. Still, any such measures lasted only a few seconds before the creatures came on again with renewed force.

Whenever Thomas attempted to close in with the girl, she would Dimension Door away, creating a deadly game of cat and mouse—only the cat was being chased by face-eating heartworms bigger than itself.

When not dodging the diminished steam explosions, Gwen stood in the many corners of the arena, directing her conjured critters in the atypical manner of a Creature Mage. As for how she had survived Thomas' killing blow—Mycroft's ensorceled eyes gathered a few clues from her Crow Skin battle dress.

The girl's hair was matted and damp, and her face was streaked with the residue from the foetid swamp water. Her armour as well showed not only signs of having been covered in the silt and mud but also showed white streaks where the shards of force had scored her body.

Correctly, Mycroft deduced that the girl was never in her "Dark Egg" but must have slid out with her swarm into the mud, thereby ratifying her bedraggled, beaten state.

For sure, the cloudy, brackish water provided by the arena was a significant natural barrier against the force of Thomas' explosions. There were risks as well, for the shallowness meant she had less luck against the force shards that accompanied the deadly eruptions.

Thereby, Benedict Thomas Holland had not only failed to recognise the girl's sorcery but also failed to account for the girl's grit—for he could not have imagined that a sorceress of such infamous vanity would dive headfirst, without shielding or protection, into filth and decay without a second thought. Then, while hidden beneath the shielding mass of her Void-critters, she would direct her swarm while risking dire injury, possessing such confidence in her body and the craft of her Dwarven allies as to risk mortal injury.

That was, Mycroft supposed, Gwen's proposed tactic to Charlene. So long as she survived Thomas' spearhead assault and kept him on the move, it was impossible for a Vessel recognised by Tryfan to run OoM against a thrice-expended opponent.

While the crowd cooed at Thomas' growing frustration and diminishing mana reserves, Mycroft observed his fellow VIPs in the grandstand.

Lady Astor remained her haughty self, loudly informing the others that a "mere" Holland could not possibly defeat her chosen ally. The other nobles, the unhappy few with ties to the Militant Faction, no longer shared her amusement.

In a way, Mycroft felt sympathetic. If Thomas, one of the best of their current generation, was to lose—could his inferior brother then secure a victory? Poins was always the lesser one, the shadow. A man of inferior charisma seldom upheld as the Houses' heir apparent.

If Poins were to lose, the loss in House Holland's reputation, not to mention the loss of their planned portion of the IoDNC, would simultaneously place an unpleasant financial burden upon the Faction. To force the girls, and in particular, Charlene, into a corner, the Militants had tapped the forbidden fruit, the Veteran's Pension. Though the understanding was that the IoDNC's antagonism had brought the fund into ruin, the reality remained that all annuities had to be paid when the bills came due.

To renege on the pension may publicly draw ire toward Gwen and Charlene's investments, but no one holding the actual reigns of power could be similarly fooled by the Telegraph and the Sun. From the very outset, the Militant's ploy had been allowed to play out simply because players like Ravenport had habitually stayed away from the money-grubbing politicking of the Factions.

That said, the moment the Magecracy's public trust eroded. The exact instant the Veteran's Fund was to fail the Mageocracy's ex-soldiers, as opposed to the political theatre of a delay and distraction, heads would roll, and estates liquidate—because it was better to feed the culprits to the dogs than for the Crown to frown.

But if Poins were to win, these men and women would also grow wary. For a decade or more, they had upheld Thomas and neglected Poins, and the reversal of the God-ordained hierarchy was no less desirable.

"Shit—" someone muttered, replacing his flute of wine and losing all appetite. "It's over."

While Mycroft amused himself with the possibilities, the battle below concluded in the only manner possible for a man unwilling to bet his life—with Thomas putting up both hands as Caliban intimated the possibility of a deep-tissue massage with its tentacles.

Clearing his throat, the heir beckoned the lumen-recorders to capture his following words.

"I must confess, good lady, that you have gotten the better of me."

The concession was clear and precise, and the girl chose not to pursue the matter.

With one hand, she swept back her matted hair, motioned her creatures to retreat, then turned from Thomas as though the man was no longer relevant. Holland's response was to smile at the audience, shake his head with great seriousness, then exercise a loser's right to solemn silence.

Gwen, meanwhile, hovered toward the grim-faced Poins, who had been watching a few meters from the transparent panes.

"Shall we continue while I am still winded and recovering?" she said to the remaining Holland, loud enough so that the stadium's vox-casters could transmute her voice. "You won't get an opportunity like this again."

The remaining twin's face visibly twitched.

"I would not dream of taking such an advantage," Poins replied, half-hissing his retort, looking away from the Lumen-recorders pointed directly at his face. The BBC, however, would not allow such discretions to ruin their faultless broadcast. Both on the vid-caster in the stadium and piped into the Mageocracy's homes, all bore witness to the irony of the man's "honour".

Mycroft suppressed a snort.

Who would fight Gwen now? The Void Sorceress had found an unlikely affinity for the swampland, not to mention she had a nest of monsters slinking in the murk, awaiting their next victim. To refresh the battlefield would wipe away the proceeds of her vital and mana expenditure while fighting her immediately in her "winded" state would mean facing her already-conjured creatures. It was a fool's choice to challenge her directly, but also an unmitigated confession that one could not meet the girl head-on.

Only once she had established her superior position did Gwen turn to Thomas to shake the man's hand with her muddy digits.

"All the best with Poins," Thomas said with a measured voice. "He has always had a place in his heart for you."

"I'll be sure to answer him with all my heart." Gwen's grin was serene like the smile of a Hammerhead Mermen. "I only hope Poins will appreciate my complete sincerity."

Unsurprisingly, the conversation that followed in the grandstand was entirely dominated by the demonstration of Void Magic.

A few of the older members who had been young men and women during Sobel's reign might have recalled the Majesty of her craft, but few of the gathered had seen Void sorcery exercised in the degree of a sixth tier War Mage.

For more than a year now, Cambridge had been unambiguous in their ambition of reviving a School of Magic thought lost when Elizabeth Sobel reappeared as a Rogue Mage of the Wildlands. And now, with the girl's victory over House Holland Divi-casted across the Mageocracy's domains, new interest in the previously abandoned endeavours would surely arise. Ironically, the Faction most inquisitive for Gwen's unique craft, the Militants, had thus far received the least access to the university's data. Comparatively, the Middle and Gray Factions possessed the data—but were proverbial Hydras, possessing too many heads to focus on effectively using the knowledge.

A significant point of resistance from those with interest had been the fact that all such Void Mages would effectively be "God Mothered" by Gwen's Soul Tap to "guarantee" their survival, a process that neither the Factions nor Gwen herself found agreeable.

To have a contingent of Sobel-type soldiers under the thumb of the Factions had been a long and cherished Dream of the Mageocracy while it worked with Henry Kilroy. However, to have such a contingent beholden by Geas to one woman who wasn't particularly tied to any House, family or Faction was an outcome no one desired.

Presently, a crow alighted on his shoulder.

"Well?" Mycroft's mouth moved without sound.

"The Exeters are not very creative," Mori's sultry voice chittered from between the crow's ensorceled beaks. "As you suspected, milord, one of the technicians has been skewering the odds for the Militants."

"Is it obvious?"

"He's allowing the randomisation to go ahead," Mori spoke with disdain. "But has limited the choices to terrain favourable for the Exeters. That's why the Adjudicators have yet to send their man downstairs."

"I see." Mycroft watched the battle preparations below, with his daughter and the girl exchanging whispers. "What's next?"

"Volcanic, Tundra, Arboreal and Cloudscape."

"All very good for a Smoke Mage," Ravenport agreed. "And not so convenient for our hellion."

"Shall I inform Magister Jerribeth of the All England?" Mori's tone grew vindictive. "Perhaps, after the match has begun so that the boy can be shamed and disqualified?"

"Now, there's a curious thought." Ravenport leaned closer toward the glass.

After her prior performance, Gwen's reentry ensured that both NoMs and Mages erupted into jubilant waves of witless cheering as their refreshed and radiant idol returned with Caliban singing its horrid jingle on her right and the magnificent Kirin cooing on her left.

"Magus Song!"

"Mistress of the Dogs!"

"ARROOOO—"

The spittle-conjuring fervour, Mycroft supposed, was only to be expected. It had been so long since London played host to such a spectacle of rare magics, ensuring that win or lose, the matches will be the topic of a hundred debates for years to come, possibly even informing textbooks as exemplars of extraordinary sorcery.

Many would also recall that she was a Frontier sorceress so that in the bout's aftermath, eyes would turn to Sydney, now the domain of Gunther Shultz, with renewed vigour and hope. Likewise, other Tower Masters would look to their citizens in their tier-II cities and wonder if they had missed similar opportunities to raise a new Arch-Mage and colleague, furthermore altering the balance of power.

Indeed, Mycroft conceded, Gwen was a girl who personified the winds of change, whether she willed it or otherwise, leaving no doubt that as an asset, she was equal parts wonder and danger.

"Mori," Mycroft affirmed his unorthodox expectancies as Gwen's opponent took to the stage, with the audience receiving the man with what can only be described as a silent sympathy. "Tell the Adjudicators to deploy Map Code 2351A. Explain that this is a favour from me to absolve them of troubles to come. Explain very clearly that they are absolutely within their right to refuse, just as I am completely confident in providing the evidence necessary for a change in their board members."

Without delay, the crow fluttered past the door, zipped through the long corridor outside, then was gone.

"Trouble, milord?" Lady Astor, who had been watching him, approached out of incurable curiosity.

Ravenport smiled. "I have duties elsewhere," the Duke noted. "I shall leave congratulating Gwen to allies such as yourself."

"You are not staying for the final match?" Lady Astor's exquisite brows rose an inch.

"Charlene is in good hands," Ravenport replied as he summoned the waiter to take his drained glass. "And you are too."

Lady Astor's eyes formed two mischievous half-moons. "I have just realised I should have placed another hundred thousand on Gwen."

"You should have bet the bank." Mycroft fought down the desire to scold the American. Mixing business, pleasure, profit, and ego was a very unhealthy habit, a dire lesson he would one day teach Charlene and perhaps the girl as well. "I bid you good fortune, Lady Astor."

"So long, Dickie." Lady Astor looked thoughtful, then added something unintelligible to her farewell. "Next outing, it'll be my shout!"

Edward Poins of House Holland, descendent of the Duke of Exeter, deeply suspected his brother had lost on purpose.

When Thomas returned, his shoulders slouched and his gleaming armour caked with mud and scored of Void-scars, his forsaken sibling had given him one of his characteristic sunny smiles and bid Poins take on the courage of their ancestor.

Thomas! Defeated! Poins tried to say something scathing, but his mind had gone blank.

For one, he knew that if Thomas wished, the man could fight like the devil himself, possessing no remorse, mercy or control should he unleash the full potential of his power, which was enough to break down the Walls of Force and drown the stadium in blood-boiling steam. Being his brother, he knew for a fact that Thomas had better tricks up his sleeve, possessing more capabilities than the brute force demonstrated by his maiming of the Void Mage and his destruction of the girl's "Caliban".

Poins also knew, for instance, that like himself, Thomas had a unique skill, one involving polluting their steam or smoke with Spirit-tinged element energy imbued with their Astral Essence so that, should their opponents inhale even a little bit of their "motes of force", they could be incapacitated then and there. This secretive "Dire Haze" was a skill that few outside the inner circle of House Exeter knew, for every enemy that had fallen to the Signature Spell had either perished or were absorbed into House Exeter as a House Guard.

The problem for Poins, alas, was that Thomas was supposed to be the one pushed to the brink! Thomas, who had only lost a handful of duels in his entire life, and never to a woman, and never to a Frontier Mage, was chosen by fate to expose their craft and draw their father's ire!

But then what did the thrice-blasted Thomas do?!

He fought the damned girl as though she were some filly he had to impress, and not even down to the last mote of mana! Or to his death! Watching his brother's smug retreat, Poins felt as though he should take a gamble and strangle his Steam-aligned sibling. How dare the man? How dare he put such a burden on his shoulders? Wasn't Thomas the heir apparent? Wasn't Thomas supposed to be the pillar of House Exeter? They were the inheritors of Henry's Golden Blood! Scions of the Argent King! What would the world think? If Poins also lost, who would take the heaviest blame? Knowing their father, Thomas would receive a stern word and be sent to some forsaken Frontier, but for Poins—

Edward Poins felt goosebumps crawl up his forearms and neck.

"Milord, your armour is ready." The House Armourer beside Poins informed him that his seals, straps and Enchantments were in peak condition to square off against Lightning and Void.

Steeling his spine, Poins took a deep breath, then made his way up the dais toward the duelling platform.

It was fine. Poins said to himself.

Everything was going to be okay.

The girl proved more potent than he had expected—or could have imagined—but she was still just a Frontier sorceress. He would kite her around the battlefield, obfuscate himself to avoid the brunt of her power, then via the advantage of his incorporeal Avatar—he would make her suffer. Marriage? Poins acknowledged that there would be little chance for amicability after a battle of the degree he imagined. But that was fine, even if he maimed the girl, Thomas' agreement with the Ravenport's heir remained intact, and that should be able to secure the funds necessary to get his father's Faction out of the foxhole. All he had to do was win.

Opposite, the girl appeared, generating a tidal surge of cheers, hoots and howls, enough to shake the bleachers. Conversely, his arrival was supported only by a few ragged hurrahs from the Militants.

Poins realised a split-second later that the betting odds must have swung to the girl's favour. If so, how many of those in the crowd had engaged in horse betting against the Militants? If he recalled, the odds had begun in House Holland's favour, meaning a good number of those cheering on his side were howling for her victory because of the tangible gains his loss entailed. As for those who had pinned their hopes on the Exeters—that would be yet another point of complication for their father.

The arena shimmered.

Transmutation modules buried into the struts and the arena's stratum thrummed with flowering mana, altering the landscape underfoot. First came the igneous stones, growing in size until they arched overhead. Then came the slick moss and lichen that spontaneously grew into place as the light dimmed, forming a tightly packed subterranean tunnel like those in the Dwarven Murk.

Poins felt the pit of his stomach drop.

What the hell was this?

What was this landscape even? A cave? A cavern?

Where were the volcanic steppes? Where was his Cloudscape?

It took a few minutes for the enormous transmutation to complete, settling into a long tunnel in the manner of a mining shaft or vein. The midsections, nested against the walls of force, allowed the audience views into the tunnel's interior. As a whole, the tube consisted of seamless blocks of volcanic rock made slick by cavernous slime and subterranean growth.

Poins turned his eyes to the Adjudicator but could not read the hawk-nosed man's expression.

An enclosed battlespace?

He knew well that the roulette of the arena's battle settings possessed such a setting.

But why the fuck was he in it?

Here in the smooth-bored tunnel, there was nowhere to hide! How could a Smoke Mage even begin to take advantage of their craft in such a space? Even if he flooded the tunnel with smoke, wasn't the girl capable of kilometre-wide Maelstroms?

"Contestants! Ready yourselves—" The Adjudicator was relentless. "BEGIN!"

The signal rang before Poins could think of a legitimate reason to protest.

"God damn it!" Poins swore, then wove into place his Avatar of Smoke, transforming instantly into a slipstream of slinking fog to assail the girl at the other end of the tunnel. If he could make it to the girl in time—if he could smog her and ensure that she inhaled a lungful of his motes of force, then he could subdue the bitch, bring her to heel—

Poins stopped.

He fought off the wave of vertigo wash over him, then realised he could and should go no further.

There was no longer the girl or the path in the direction that he needed to go.

There was, however, a mouth—a three-storey tall, circular mouth filled with teeth in concentric, diminishing rings, flexing and undulating as they invited him toward the hot-pink hole in the middle, one that regurgitated globs of Void-matter in viscous spurts. Poins felt his cheeks twitch once more. Both above and below, the creature's slick body had crammed the cavern to its absolute capacity, making it impossible for him to pass.

Or rather, he could choose to pass by entering the creature's gullet, taking a tour through the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Void, then hopefully emerge through the creature's colons to assault its owner in the manner of a treacherous fart. Unfortunately, impressive as that possibility may be, Poins dared not assume that the Void fiend even possessed a dietary tract, and he was not diving headfirst into oblivion. If anything, should the heir of the Golden Blood perish in such a comical way, Poins had a feeling the family mausoleum may spontaneously burst into flames.

Once more, he studied the strange "setting" of the battlefield conjured by All England's technicians. This blasted tunnel! If he were to find the prick responsible, he would wring the man's corpse like a rag! Blood and oath! Didn't Thomas pay off one of them?

Poins felt a raging fury encompass his mind like hot, cinder-filled smoke.

Who the hell was responsible for this travesty?

Was it his brother?

What would Thomas gain by his loss?

Try as he might, Poins could not get his rage-addled mind to focus on the possibilities. He felt like a bear, a God damned, baited ursine on a spit! And the bitch, the bitch was the hound set loose so that he would be made a spectacle.

But bear or bitch, as an Exeter, he would have to fight the cause.

"CINDER STRIKE!" a little more loudly than he'd liked, Poins tested the waters, sending a shrieking torrent of howling smoke, imbued by this Cinder Elemental toward the gnashing maw that even now inched closer. Unusual for its archetype, the Elemental Blast unique to his Spirit was capable of physical and mental damage, owing to the Cinder Spirit's relative closeness to Elemental Ash. Those struck by the blast would first suffer uncontrollable nausea, then become overwhelmed by despair, making his ray-attack an unmatched combination for sneak attacks.

As expected, the cinder tore through the repulsive flesh of the "Caliban" creature with ease, punching a hole deep enough to hide a Mage who might be into that sort of thing. Despairingly, Gwen's creature lacked the politeness even to feign agony, choosing to instead push ahead without flinching from an otherwise mortal injury.

Drawing from the wealth of experience he had gained fighting Vermin Tides in the horn of Africa, Poins quickly wove together another spell, a more potent variation of Cinder Strike that consumed six times the mana. Very quickly, with fingers dancing like that of a fierce pianist, he wove the Mandalas into place, generation three focusing arrays that would elevate the Elemental Fire under his control.

"Hellfire Bolt!"

Three dazzling rays of jet black smoke, each the length and girth of a Hoplite's spear, tore through the open space, shrieking like aggrieved banshees, their passage punctuated by phoenix trails of toxic Elemental Ash.

His pride and joy connected with a wet squelch, instantly consuming the flesh of the Void beast. Unlike the Cinder Strike, the Hellfire Bolts struck, corroding the meat as their latent energies expended.

Caliban howled, writhing and sending spittle spraying all over, though because the damned fiend had been doing that already, Poins had no idea if it suffered or if it cared at all for the supposedly mortal injury. Likewise, Poins had no idea how well the girl was connected to her Familiar. In his experience, any other Creature Mage of her calibre should be squirming in agony from the transmuted pain of Elemental Ash corroding one's living flesh. But a Void Sorceress? Would a girl with Void Mana running in her conduits even care for the caress of Ash?

Tapping deep into his reserves, he conjured a second set of Hellfire lances, each bearing his hope and dreams, smouldering the air as they smoked with malicious execution.

In front of the huffing heir of House Holland, Caliban continued to advance, a living glacier of flesh with a puckering, tentacle-pink orifice in its centre, beckoning Poins with its sussurating, Siren's wail.

"Shaa—"

"Shaa— Shaa—"

"SHAA— SHAA— SHAA—!"