By and large I'd been a bit disappointed in the art and architecture of fantasyland. It's not that the cities were ugly or anything, but for the most part there hadn't been any really impressive magical structures. No colossal statues looming over the landscape, no floating castles, no living cities of mystic coral. My understanding was that it was a matter of practicality; the mana required to make something on that scale was available, sure, but it wasn't free and there was always something better you could do with it. But Brinkmar... well, it was home to a seemingly endless font of magical energy and they'd decided to really go wild with the palace.

In the Jake Ross books, it had been referred to as the Diamond Palace. Here, diamond wasn't a particularly valuable material since it was so simple to transmute - it was, after all, just some carbon lined up nicely - and so they'd either used something else or they'd added extra ingredients into the diamonds to change what they looked like. Where I had been picturing the cold glimmer of ice or glass, maybe some little hints of rainbow as the light refracted through, I instead was faced with an eye-searing clown castle of neon colors - mostly pink and purple, but with every imaginable hue making an appearance. It was like a parody of 80's styles mashed up with a Barbie playset.

"Oh my god," I said, "it's hideous."

Despite it looking like a gaudy jewelry store had crashed into a highlighter factory, I wanted so much to go inside. I could feel myself trying to justify it, making up reasons why it would totally make sense for us to charge forward and storm Lisa Frank's stained glass nightmare, but I knew it was bullshit. That was absolutely where everyone would be, and I didn't really want to run into anyone from any faction here. The plan was to find an evacuation portal and use it - hopefully one that nobody was paying a lot of attention to, though that might be tricky. It occurred to me that there might be a map of all them in the palace... no. Bad brain.

We got off the larger street and into a narrow cobbled path covered by overhanging rooftops and long-dead creeping vines just as a flying platform zipped overhead. Without leaving cover I popped my mind to the maximum height for divination so I could keep an eye on it; after a few passes it came to a halt in the air nearby, closer to where we'd come from. They were for sure investigating the noise we'd made busting out of the station. Still watching with one mind, I whispered an update to Katrin and Errod. There were probably twenty Empire soldiers crammed onto the platform, and as I watched they dropped a rope down and some started to slide down. Presumably they were staying in the air so they could keep watching a larger area, or maybe because they didn't want to give up the high ground if it was possible enemies were about to swarm out of the alleys.

Anyway, in this case it was the wrong call. A section of the building closest to them ripped free and suddenly accelerated to an impossible speed, turning into nothing but a blur as it vanished into the distance, completely obliterating the flying platform as it did. The soldiers that had been descending at the time were flung through the air, only the lowest of them dropping safely to the ground. I could just barely see, from the platform at the top of my divination range, as the ground under them cracked and then shot upwards. The soldiers were dead instantly, their bodies not capable of accelerating at the same rate as the cobbles beneath their feet; it happened too quickly for me to really see it even though I'd adjusted the flow of time somewhat, so all I could really say for certain was that their heads hadn't yet started to move upwards by the time their feet caught up.

Hammersmith had seemed pretty confident she would be able to dig Halenvar's people out of Brinkmar on that first day, and based on the little signs of combat we'd seen I had figured that had - overall - gone to plan. But it seemed that there were still some very terrifying holdouts. I thought back to the briefing and couldn't figure out who was capable of this kind of devastation - Turash, the one with blue skin and a tail, had Gravity for sure... but he made little black hole things, and anyway I was pretty sure you couldn't launch things that fast with just gravity. Hmm. Velocity, maybe? Jeort had Velocity, Mana, and Comprehension and Hammersmith had been concerned that he'd get a mana battery and make some crazy weapon. This... could be that.

In fact, I had to hope that's what it was - it at least would mean it was a known threat. If this wasn't Jeort, then Halenvar had yet another ace up its sleeve. I decided to loop the others in and hope they had ideas. "Okay, I'm assuming you just heard the sonic boom without being able to really see that. Uh. About twenty Empire soldiers just got turned into mist by someone or something that can accelerate the scenery to the speed of light. The guy that's probably responsible makes runic devices, but he also has Velocity so I'm hoping this is a thing that massively enhances his power rather than one anybody can use. So if you see someone with a gear-covered staff or some other obvious gizmo you need to end him as fast as possible. You can't dodge this shit, and he doesn't care about collateral damage."

Katrin nodded. "First priority should be getting out of the area entirely, then."

Errod raised an eyebrow. "Unless you know where he is and think we could sneak up?"

"No clue. That also means we're risking walking towards him as we try to get away. Uh... he'd have to have line of sight to the flyer, the building he pulled a hunk off of, and the street below the flyer. That limits things a lot. There are a few taller buildings around that he could be in, but it would have to be close." I glanced around, trying to mentally map the few streets we'd seen. "That way should be safe. Come on."

Errod was hesitating, looking back towards the street. "I hate to leave someone like that behind us. If you think you know where he might be, wouldn't it be better to eliminate him now? He's going to kill a lot more people. I didn't see the attack, but I'm sure that -"

A rapid series of impacts interrupted Errod. It was raining cobblestones. Errod flattened himself against the wall, pulling Katrin with him, and then raised his sword as if he was expecting someone to come around the corner at him. Katrin rested a hand on his arm. "It's not an attack, Errod. That's the street falling back down."

He looked confused. "But... no, we've been talking for... oh gods. How high did he..."

"Yeah," I said, "that's why I'm gonna side with Katrin on this one. Let's get the fuck out of here."

We tried to be quiet as we ran, but once the debris had finished returning to the street it felt like we were the only things in the city making any sound. It was also hard to say how much the sound was carrying; my footsteps felt way too loud in my own ears, but it was possible that just a few streets away it wouldn't be noticeable. After some initial distance we slowed down and got stealthier, making sure to take a lot of unpredictable turns in case someone had been coming after us.

The streets all curved strangely, and walls partitioned off parts of the city seemingly at random. We found ourselves funneled around until we were alongside the outer walls of the palace compound, and once again I had to force myself to ignore the many reasons I was coming up with that we should go inside. There would be loot. There would be intel. There would be a portal out. There would be a more detailed map, maybe showing the evacuation spots. Being responsible was hard, and it was putting me in a bad mood.

"There's a collapsed building up ahead," Errod said, "and the beams have perfectly leaned against the wall. We could climb up, with the help of Mecha-Callie, and get over into the palace grounds."

I looked at Errod, and recognized the desperate gleam in his eyes. Of course. I wasn't the only fan of Jake Ross here. Errod had wanted to go to Brinkmar his whole life, growing up on stories passed down from his great grandfather and dreaming of being a knight. And then that vision or whatever, and... yeah, dude was just dying to get into the palace. If not the main building, then there was probably some side thing for the big important knights where he could... I don't know, take some vows or something.

Katrin looked... pained. She knew she was outnumbered, and she knew she was right, and she knew that we knew she was right. All she had to do was say something, and we would do the reasonable thing and head off to the outskirts of the city where we could work on figuring out how to leave Brinkmar before succumbing to the curse or getting murdered by anyone. Neither of us had replied to Errod, and for a moment as the silence stretched on I thought he was going to dismiss the idea and march away from the palace. Instead, finally, Katrin spoke up.

"Let's go. Before I change my mind."

Holy shit.

We hurried forward and scrambled up the huge support beams that had fallen against the wall - probably they shouldn't have had buildings that close but probably there had been plenty of security back in the day - and then Mecha-Callie used her claws to dig into the wall before bending two of them back to act as handholds. We got to the top of the wall no problem, and as we glanced around to decide which direction would lead us to a safe way down something caught my eye.

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On reflex I slowed time down to a crawl, as far as I could, and got a closer look at the disturbance. It was a puff of smoke - no, dust - on a small bell tower a few streets away. The base of the stubby structure had cracked suddenly, just above where it joined with the roof. Oh. Oh, fuck. I screamed a mental command to Mecha-Callie as I grabbed for Katrin and Errod; as terrifying as it was, I had to let time speed up to properly coordinate myself. The slowed time hadn't been useless, letting me at least start moving faster than I otherwise would have, but the limits to my actual muscles meant that by the time I'd grabbed Katrin's jacket and Errod's wrist the bell tower was already pulling free.

I slowed time again as my feet left the wall, unable to do anything but watch anyway. Katrin's eyes were going wide as she realized she was going over the edge, whereas Errod had expertly twisted his wrist out of my grasp on reflex. Shit. Time crawling, I saw his legs tense as he flung himself after us, either deciding to trust me or being warned by some part of the glove - whichever it was, he thankfully wasn't far behind us. Even in slo-mo, when the bell tower rushed by it was going too fast to see any features. Just this blur of masonry that passed within an inch of Errod before shaving the top edge of the wall off and continuing on to slam into the palace.

I twisted around, relying on Hugh's training to land as best I could, and even managed to cushion Katrin at the expense of my tailbone - she fucked up my landing a bit, but considering the height of the wall it was just amazing that I didn't shatter every bone in my body. Before I could look around to find Errod or Mecha-Callie, the sonic boom hit and overlapped with the sound of a giant gong from the palace - followed by a beam of fuchsia light that blasted overhead. For a split second I thought it was a follow-up attack, and then the color tipped me off. The palace was defending itself. That meant there was a chance it had just killed Jeort for us.

Errod came stumbling over a moment later, saved from injury for the most part by his shield brooch. Katrin had mostly had her landing softened by me, and I felt surprisingly okay until I tried to stand and realized that I'd done something horrible to my tailbone and hip. Whether it was shock or just my brain being too busy the pain had been delayed, but once I felt it I was totally overwhelmed. Errod forced me to drink a healing potion, and only after I'd swallowed it all told me the others were gone - the bottles were strong, but the fall had been too much for them. To be fair, I hadn't thought to pack them very well.

"Hurry," I said, "let's kill this motherfucker before he recovers from that counterattack."

There was no argument. If he'd been able to follow us and get into position to attack like that, we wouldn't be safe with him on the loose. We spread out and headed down different alleyways, with Katrin riding on Mecha-Callie as she prepared a spell. When I got closer, I saw our target drinking a healing potion and looking up at a building that had a huge circular hole punched through it. Something tickled at my memory, some scene of destruction and chaos in my past, but I didn't have time for it. Jeort was holding the staff that I'd seen pictured, but it was... bulkier... now. He also had a huge ridiculous steampunk backpack on, with the two attached by a metal chain. Together, it looked like someone had raided a clock shop and a junkyard to make a clockwork version of one of those proton pack things from the Ghostbuster movies for ComiCon.

My thrown knife hit some sort of shield, and he sprung into action by just diving off to one side. It wasn't a terrible idea, especially since he'd been facing the wrong way and didn't know what had hit him, but as he moved I could tell one leg wasn't moving right - his boot was half burned off, and the foot was raw and bloody even after that healing potion. Clearly he hadn't quite made it clear of the palace's attack. I tackled him, and as we both fell towards the ground one of my hands found the side of his head and made absolutely sure I slammed it into the street. Sadly, much like Errod he seemed to have some kind of reactive shielding and - even worse - it launched me backwards off of him. I tumbled as I landed, avoiding injury but not recovering nearly fast enough to keep him from raising the staff to point at me, gears spinning into place as energy rushed through it.

Errod's sword slammed into the staff, knocking it from Jeort's hand before magically flying back to Errod just as he arrived. Errod only got one swing in, though, because once again that shield effect burst out. Errod hit a wall - not hard enough that I was too worried - and he lost his footing. Jeort got his hands on his staff just as Mecha-Callie arrived, having dropped Katrin off before closing to melee. He dodged the first swipe, and then leveled the staff at the construct and everything happened very quickly.

Mecha-Callie seemed to stretch slightly as the acceleration took hold, Jeort not noticing that one of the clawed limbs had snaked forward with its horrible long reach and grabbed the tip of the staff. There was a crack that almost deafened me, mostly the sound of the sound barrier being once more broken but at least partly also the noise made by the staff ripping free of its chain. Even with the connection broken, the initial yank on the backpack sent Jeort rocketing across the way and through the new deadshell-shaped hole in the next building.

A moment later, a brick flew out of the opening and nearly hit me. I got behind cover as best I could, and saw Errod up and sneaking along the side of the building towards the opening. Before he could make a move, however, the dark interior of the abandoned structure lit up with the unmistakable flare of Katrin's lightning. Jeort came running out, steaming but seemingly unhurt, and this time he had to have been out of shields because my knife actually connected and assisted by the force enchantment, vanished into his left lung. He stumbled, and Errod sliced at the backpack that was still strapped onto him - the side of it shattered, and tiny visible flares of undirected mana shot out as some of the runes failed.

I tackled him again, and this time his head bounced on the pavement with a satisfying crack. Errod was on top of him in an instant, finishing the job of removing the backpack and swiftly stripping him of everything else as well while I dug through our things to find the Dumine lock I'd taken off of Katrin back at Storm's Keep. Anything of Jeort's that couldn't be easily removed was cut off of him as Katrin reached us and planted a hand on either side of his head. "If you resist," she said, "we'll have no choice but to kill you."

She nodded in satisfaction a second later. "I've drained his mana, just in case he gets the lock off somehow. Also there's some other mana source, right here." She indicated a spot on his thigh, and I had her drain one of my knives so I could cut out whatever it was without the force enchantment going off. It turned out to be a small metal rod, which I tossed over onto the pile with the rest of his things. He passed out as I retrieved my other knife from his lung, and then Katrin did her quick and dirty healing spell to keep him from dying. Errod had climbed onto a nearby roof while I did my surgery, but now came running back looking worried.

"Movement a few streets away. Not sure how many, or which faction. We have to go."

With some help from Errod I was able to get Jeort into a fireman carry, and thanks to my new muscles he wasn't too much of a burden. One direction looked like it was blocked off, one was going towards the oncoming troops, one was going away but would be very obvious, and one was directly towards the palace again. Errod and I shared a glance, and ran towards the palace. I told myself that we'd be able to hide better in there, actually, because surely if there were still a lot of people in it that's where the fighting would be. The silence within the palace compound implied that people had already cleared it and were now just cleaning up in the city.

Sure. Yeah. That sounded plausible.

We reached the spot we'd climbed before and found that the wall was now cracked almost all the way to the ground from the bell tower attack. Errod climbed up and took Jeort, then I helped Katrin up and followed behind. Just as we all cleared it I saw via divination that Halenvar soldiers had arrived. They looked terrified. One was watching the sky for fliers, and the rest were clearly seeking out their boss and feeling pretty impatient about it. I heard one hiss at another, "they're going to be here any minute! He's gone, dead or off chasing someone like an idiot! Let's just go."

The person he was talking to backhanded him and called him a coward, but it looked like a lot of the people there agreed that this was a bad idea. Another one came running, told them he'd found a lot of blood, and they hurried off in the other direction towards where we'd just been. We sprinted across the open lawn as fast as possible, plants churning to dust under our feet but thankfully not leaving much of a trail; the bell tower flying overhead had caused such a rush of air that the plants were already badly disturbed and from any distance it was unlikely people would notice our footprints mixed in.

Errod reached the closest door first and pulled to no avail. I came up to see if there was a shitty lock I could try and pick, or maybe if my ghost could phase through and open it from the other side, but when I tried the handle the door just swung open. Huh. We piled through and quickly shut the door behind us, finding ourselves in a hallway with dim lights spaced out along the walls just far enough apart to let shadows pool between them. For a moment we just stood there catching our breath - we'd barely stopped moving since we came out of the subway station.

"So is Mecha-Callie...?" Errod asked, trailing off either because he didn't want to say it or because he wasn't sure if "dead" could even apply to a copy of someone imprinted onto a dream spirit.

"Still alive," I said, "but I'm sure the body is destroyed. The tether is still with me, my other mind is checking in. I think she's back in Ematse, but not in my domain. We'll figure it out. I assume we want to question this asshole?"

Our captive had woken up, but was clearly still confused and in pain. Katrin's healing spell wasn't great. "If you let me go now," he said, "you will have plenty of time to get to somewhere safe before I can reach my men. You may live through this. But I will never betray Gilbrecht Halenvar, no matter how you might torture me."

I shrugged. "That's cool, I wasn't going to torture you anyway. Some people on your side of things tortured the hell out of me not all that long ago - I'm foggy on some of the details, because I had to kinda dull the memories since it sucked so much. I wasn't a fan, but I did learn a few things about which body parts you can remove without killing someone so normally I'd say torture would be on the table as both a tool and, y'know, revenge. But the thing is, these two would probably not approve of me doing that. Hell, I might feel a little bad about it tomorrow. So you've got nothing to worry about on the torture side of things. Errod? Chop his head off."

Errod lifted his sword and got into position.

"Wait!"

"Seriously dude? You just said there was nothing we could do to make you talk. Threatening to cut your head off is going to change your mind? Bullshit. It's fine, he's going to make it nice and clean. Errod? Chop-chop."

"No, I'll talk! I'll... I took an oath, it's thorough but there's still things I can say!"

I got down on his level and smiled at him. "Tell me the exact wording of your oath. I think we can make a deal."

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