Part 1.

) Core Set 2014

Chapter 1.) Prisoner of the Skep (Shandalar)
Chapter 2.) The Armor of the Crypt (Unknown Plane)
Chapter 3.) The Path of Bravery (Shandalar)
Chapter 4.) Pride Cometh (Dominaria)
Chapter 5.) A Blessed Life (Unknown Plane)
Chapter 6.) Zurbit’s Day (Shandalar)
Part 2.) Commander 2013
Chapter 1.) The Perfect Gift (Fiora)
Chapter 2.) The Ten Commanders (Many Planes)
Part 3.) Conspiracy
Chapter 1.) Betrayal (Fiora)
Chapter 2.) The Black Rose (Fiora)
Chapter 3.) Like Cogwork (Fiora)
Chapter 4.) Blood Will Have Blood (Fiora)
Part 1.) Core Set 2014
Chapter 1.) Prisoner of the Skep (Shandalar)
By Jennifer Clarke Wilkes (6/26/13)

"One emitted a strange series of buzzing clicks and guttural commands, then
clawed arms emerged from all of them. Is there no limit to their adaptations?"
—Hastric, Thunian scout
*****
Being a Report on an Urgent Threat to All Civilized Nations
by Hastric, scout in the employ of Ardestan
A seeming eternity of struggling through the savagery of a benighted land at last
brought me to the borders of the territory I had sought for so long. Ragged,
starving, and harried by bloodsucking vermin of every description, I no longer
resembled the bold adventurer who had set out to find glory and fortune in the
wide wilderness. Shelter and sustenance were my primary needs now.
I surveyed my surroundings. I had come at last to the shores of the Eastern Sea,
an ill-starred realm that had seen much conflict in past ages. The echoes of
ancient mage wars still rang here, preserved in weird formations of unnatural
stone and amber shapes that sprouted like some unholy forest from the wave-
battered cliffs. Every rock, it seemed, held ancient monsters birthed in a
primordial chaos, now preserved as eternal shadows in the tortured earth.
Strange marks scarred the stones and the thin, sour soil. They resembled the
scars left by beasts to mark their territory, as bruins claw the trees. But these
bore no resemblance to any spoor I had encountered in my many expeditions,
and I began to fear I was among beings unlike anything familiar. The scoring
seemed to change midway through an individual's passage, growing deeper and
farther apart, then nearly vanishing as they became finer and smaller. I had
crouched down by a cliff to examine a set of tracks more closely, reaching to
extract my notebook and pen so as to record them with as much exactitude as I
could, when a sound from above alerted me to danger. I started to look up.
Too late.
I was struck with all the weight of a basher's cudgel, and all sensibility fled for a
time.
Awareness returned, along with an unholy head-ache and a weird, shrieking
gabble. I cracked open my eyes to find myself partly buried amid loose earth,
slabs of shale, and other detritus, at the bottom of a subterranean cavern. Dim
light filtered through a small opening high above, where the earth had apparently
given way. My small blade, the only protection I had brought on my
journeyings, was not to be found, and was most likely entombed beneath the
rockfall.
I apparently had tumbled into some sort of beastly nest. On every surface
swarmed beings out of nightmare, with gleaming, gemlike eyes and "hair" more
like the squirming tentacles of a jelly-fish or polypod. Many were of bestial
appearance, but a few could generously be considered humanoid. All were
covered with chitinous plates that glistened and slid about like oiled pieces of
machinery. The creatures chittered to each other in a never-ending racket as they
pursued rote tasks with no apparent purpose.
As my head cleared, I began to wonder: How had I survived my untoward
arrival? I focused for a moment on my physical condition and felt nothing more
serious than a few scrapes and an egg-sized swelling at the base of my skull. I
tried raising a half-pinned arm, experimentally, and saw, to my horror, that
during my unconscious state my natural... inclination had shaped my body to
resemble those of my strange companions—the limb tipped by a clawed and
jointed member. Instinctively, I began to return my form to its most typical state.
As I did so, the chittering grew louder and more excited, and the upper limbs of
the nearer creatures began to ripple and re-form themselves. Before my very
eyes, they became tentacular, then sported five-fingered hands that clutched at
the air.
Apparently the things had thought me one of their brood and had left me to my
own concerns. Though they clearly had some sort of shapeshifting ability, I
sensed that too rapid or extreme a change on my part might be perceived as a
threat. I relaxed again into the form of the others and rested quietly. The
incessant noise returned to its normal low thrum, and the creatures focused again
on their ceaseless work. It dawned on me that my circumstances offered a unique
opportunity to explore and learn more about this strange colony, as long as I
could avoid hostile attention.
On looking more carefully about my surroundings, I noticed something else.
Everywhere, in the slabs of shale stone that formed the cavern, I could see
myriad fossilized creatures. They were scaled, plated, with crablike claws, long
tails, elongated probosces. Something about them was inescapably familiar, and
in a flash of intuition I realized that those preserved specimens must have been
kin to the beings that surrounded me. What had happened to change them so
fundamentally?
Perhaps my investigation could turn up more about their history and origin.
Fortunately, my journal was still within reach, the bent quill yet caught amid its
pages. If I could hunch my posture and keep my body turned partly away from
the others, I might be able to surreptitiously record my experiences.
I began to unearth myself from the rubble, carefully, all the while attempting to
mimic the alien movements of those around me. Their unearthly thrumming was
beyond my ability, however. There were several openings in the cavern, and I
started moving slowly toward one of them, when the hive was thrown into
disorder by the sudden appearance of a monstrous specimen of their kind. It
boomed at the smaller creatures in an imperious fashion, and they scuttled about
into a formation at its feet. When I remained, irresolute, the giant turned its
horrid face to me and repeated its dreadful command. I decided to join the
general movement rather than risk suspicion.
The large one moved purposefully into a tunnel, followed by the flock of smaller
beings and myself. I quickly lost track of the many twists and turns and
branching ways we followed, until we finally arrived in another chamber. I
squinted in the light, which, though feeble, was nevertheless brighter than my
previous location. Around me rose tier upon tier of shelves built out of a curving
wall seemingly crafted from amber slabs. A sickly yellow glow filtered through
those plates, in which were suspended inhuman forms. Myriad openings snaked
off in every direction, including up and down.
As my eyes adjusted, I saw that scores of other creatures filled the place. Many
were like the drones (or "thrums," as I had begun to think of them) that
surrounded me. Others, somewhat larger, crouched against its walls, scratching
at the soft stone, while more yet creaked and clicked in what sounded like a
chant. Beyond were shapes that confounded my eye: translucent globes that
grew like pustules from the walls, nightmare shapes twisting within their
membranes. They resembled nothing so much as eggs, but what embryos would
they hatch? Other thrums crawled over and between the swelling pods, evidently
tending to them as worker bees within a hive.
Under me was stone, within which gaped the form of another ancient horror. The
petrified behemoth was clearly akin to those that filled the walls, but it was even
more insectile and alien than the fossils I had seen before. It was also immense,
greater in size than a dragon. Of more immediate import were the heaped shreds
of armor and clothing, and the fragments of bone, that mutely told the fate of
others who had preceded me into this monstrous den.
I became aware of strange marks in the shale walls: some sort of crude carvings
amid the ever-present fossils. Intent as I was in studying my surroundings, I did
not at first realize that the leader was "addressing" the group again. At its signal,
the thrums spread out across the chamber and began to sway in time to the
chanting. I imitated their motions as best I could, wondering all the while what
purpose this gathering served.
The noises ceased. A new figure had entered the chamber, not as large as the one
that had led us here, but which exuded obvious authority. Its form was closer to
human than those I had seen up to this point. All eyes were on it as it began to
declaim in a clicking, fluid speech. Although I could not understand the
barbarous sounds, there was obvious organization that suggested at least a
somewhat higher level of intelligence. (I have dubbed this form "primes" and the
more bestial versions "predators.") It turned around and around as it spoke,
gesturing at its audience, at the walls, at the horror in the stone floor. Its form
twisted and shifted constantly, at times resembling the preserved specimens that
loomed in the amber, at others the various forms that surrounded me. It
alternately grew heavier, more thickly armored, with oversized claws and fangs;
then stretched out into a more serpentine form; then returned to its original
shape.
I perceived that it was leading a call-and-response, the spectators moving in
precise patterns and answering its clattering in ritual fashion. A particular
sequence of clicks and buzzes was repeated over and over. Was this some sort of
religious ritual? Perhaps the strange performance was recounting the story of the
creatures' origin or arrival on this world. Or maybe it was a war dance!
Though the thought of escape was uppermost in my mind, I realized that I had a
duty to warn the civilized world of this uncanny threat. The more I could learn of
their history and nature, the better I could arm society against them. Then, while
the hive was occupied, I might best be able to explore its secrets. Only after
studying all I could might I seek clean daylight again.
Swaying along with the crowd as best I could, though my throat could not form
the barbarous sounds they made, I slowly moved toward one of the entrances. I
slipped partly into the tunnel, apparently without attracting noticed. I fumbled
out my notebook and hurriedly sketched out some of what I saw. Some dried ink
yet remained on the pen's nib, which I moistened with my tongue—sufficient for
a crude record at least. I would have dipped it in my own blood if necessary.
I backed away farther from the singing hall, and soon was plunged into endless
dark. Only by touch was I able to progress, fearing at every moment that my
hands would encounter some plated monster. My ears strained for the sound of
the omnipresent hum, which I turned away from whenever I found a suitable
passage. I sensed the weight of the rock above me, felt the air grow thick, and
knew that I descended. Gradually, I picked my way downward. The alien scent
of the hive, whose tang had filled my consciousness for so long that I had ceased
to notice it, began to thin. In its place was a new smell: salt water, sea wrack.
Somewhere nearby there must be an outlet. I let my senses guide me onward,
though I still shivered at the thought of nearby horrors.
Slowly I grew aware of a change in the texture of the primeval blackness. The
smell of the sea grew stronger, and I began to make out the vague shapes of my
surroundings. Step by step I edged forward, until I came to an opening into a
new cave, quite unlike those I had seen till then and evidently uninhabited. It
seemed much older, somehow. Bluish light faintly illuminated the expanse from
a small opening on the far side, and I could hear, echoing within the gloomy
confines, the beat of surf on shore.
I stood on a veritable pavement of fossils like those I had seen suspended in
amber, as well as among heaps of long-dry bones and carapaces both in the
shape of my captors and those of bats, fish, and insects. On the walls were
daubed some shapes that suggested insects and small flying animals, as well as
the ever-present fossils, in slabs arranged to show them prostrate. A long gap,
and then some uncouth scratchings, imbued with pigment, that depicted beings
like those that swarmed above. The first ones in the sequence were small, four-
legged but with the unmistakable tendrils these creatures all shared, then more
and more varieties and sizes, including the bipedal specimens that seem to direct
the colony's activities. Some flew with bat wings, others sported great horns, yet
others had finned feet like those of frogs; there seemed numberless adaptations
of shape.
Whatever had transformed the progenitor race had evidently occurred in this
seaside cave—and for all I knew, many others like it. Evidently, those ancient
predators had eaten the smaller creatures, but how did that connect to their
peculiar evolution? The strange dance I had observed might have been intended
to reproduce this event in some way. Perhaps a strange disease, or a magical
curse of some sort, had been carried by the food animals? Or the plated horrors
might themselves have come here from another world—borne on a storm of the
Æther, perhaps—and been irrevocably changed by their arrival here.
My whole being rebelled against the idea, but cold, logical deduction led me to
the inescapable conclusion: This great hive was built, not found, by the brutish-
looking things that now inhabited it—or at least by their forebears. Although
they clearly had no sophisticated intelligence, they were clever and organized
enough to present a terrible threat.
My reverie was broken by rasping cries behind me, as a number of the horrors
burst through the tunnel I had followed. There was no more time to study the
mystery, and I sprinted for the sea-cave's egress, adopting as I did so a form
better suited to an aquatic escape. Some of the creatures bristled, hedgehog-like,
as the various plates and spines of their bodies elongated and then were launched
as deadly missiles. Clouds of darts flew about me as I leapt into the water, and
one pierced my leg. But my disguise preserved me, and as I slipped beneath the
blessed waves I could no longer hear the chittering screams.
I append now for your edification a summary of the characteristics and forms of
the beings I encountered, as well as the hurled plate that injured me, with its
mysterious fluid still evident, if coagulated. You will find also detailed sketches
of that great nest or hive, which in their clattering tongue they name the Skep. I
have dubbed these strange creatures "slivers." Uncouth though they may be, they
constitute a serious danger to civilized folk everywhere. The more we can learn
of them and their strengths and weaknesses, the better we can prepare to
exterminate them. For the sake of progress.
Chapter 2.) The Armor of the Crypt (Unknown Plane)
By Ari Levitch (7/3/13)

The day was unusually hot. Not that the summers were mild here, but the
oppressive heat had an uncharacteristically early start today. The heat visibly
radiated off the black stones of the castle walls, and the sentries clung to patches
of shade cast by the crenellations. On most mornings, Borico Gavish, son of the
castle's lord, could be seen up on the battlements coordinating the castle's
defenses against various imagined attackers. In this, he was an unquestioned
master, for under his command, no such force had yet to breech the walls.
On a day such as this, under such conditions, no army would dare attack the
castle, and so Borico sought solace from the heat in the castle's crypt, a chamber
beneath the castle, hidden away from the insistent sun. Down here it was cool.
Down here it was dark, and the adolescent mind of a one-day knight was able to
go to work. Borico held a lantern in which a wobbly little flame cast shadows
that undulated eerily, each one a vile monster to be slain with the finely crafted
wooden sword he gripped in his other hand. He was a lone paladin, banishing
darkness before him, and every corner of the crypt was made safe by the boy's
heroic feats.
"Borico the Brave," he tested. "Borico the Bold." He would work on that later.
At last, his quest brought him to the alcove that had no tomb, only an empty suit
of armor that appeared to be standing guard. Armor by itself was nothing new
for Borico, but this single suit standing in the crypt always struck him as odd.
The armor loomed over Borico, but not in a menacing way. Standing there in
front of it, Borico was struck with awe. Here, in forged steel, was his aspiration
incarnated. The suit was impeccably crafted, a network of interlocking plates. It
was topped by an imposing helm with a wide crest that he imagined could be
seen from anywhere on the battlefield. He looked up into the emptiness behind
the visor, a thick pool of darkness that seemed somehow to be looking back.
Slowly, his hand lifted the lantern, the shifting light playing off of the armor to
create spider-like shapes across its plates.
The darkness behind the visor was stubborn.
"You're a brave one, Master Borico," came a voice that echoed off the walls.
Borico whirled around, nearly dropping the lantern. His sword shook in his hand
and his eyes were wide with what he would later describe as resolute courage.
"Who's there?"
A figure emerged from the shadows. In the lantern light, Borico saw a man
whose shape revealed his identity. Rounded shoulders. Stooped posture. He
would have been considered tall if he stood up straight, Borico had once
overheard his father say. This was Gwaro, a favorite troubadour of his father's. If
there was any doubt, the musician's short, flared-out beard confirmed it. To
Borico, it looked odd now to see him without an instrument in his hands.
"Forgive me, young master," Gwaro continued. "Like you, I have come down
here for a moment's respite from the merciless sun. My apologies if I have
startled you."
In a wave of relief and sharp awareness of his own frightened appearance,
Borico gathered himself. "Hello, Gwaro."
Gwaro nodded and stepped forward to stand beside Borico. Together, they
admired the suit of armor. "As I said, you are a brave one," said Gwaro.
Although Borico braced himself for mockery and condescension, neither were in
the words. "I am not afraid of the dark or the crypt."
"That's not what I meant." The bent troubadour stood staring at the armor,
considering it as he combed his fingers through his frazzled beard. He turned to
the boy. "Have you heard the story?"
"Of course. My brother told me that this was the armor of Leore the
Dragonslayer. He could walk through dragon fire."
"That is definitely a story, but begging your brother's pardon, not the story."
Excitement over the prospect of mysteries revealed, of truths sorted out, was
clearly displayed upon Borico's face, and it was enough encouragement for
Gwaro. He began in a well-practiced storytelling voice, "In days long since
passed, when the warrior kings and queens of old forged their kingdom in this
land—"
"That's the Age of Strife."
"Yes, exactly, and you'll know that during this time, the land was beset by all
manner of evil. And that the kings and queens built strings of castles to keep the
evil at bay. This was one such castle, built to defend against a powerful
necromancer who raised the dead to march on the living. Your ancestors fought
countless battles against the dark wizard, and although they were often
triumphant on the field, the wizard always eluded capture. So it went. Knights
content to earn glory on the battlefield. Common folk happy to be protected."
Gwaro took the lantern from Borico and wrapped his nimble fingers around it to
obscure its light. "But of course, contentment and happiness are not in a
necromancer's nature. His ambitions grew crueler, and his mystic arts grew
darker.
"One day—a hot day much like today—a scout reported that she saw an army of
the dead like none that had been seen before. It was enough to swarm over the
castle walls and lay waste to the rest of the kingdom, replenishing its numbers
easily as it marched. But the lord and lady of the castle dismissed the scout's
warning. 'We will meet them in battle and crush them under the hooves of our
horses, and impale them upon the points of our lances!' they declared to their
gathered knights."
Borico gripped the hilt of his wooden sword as though he were included among
the knights.
Gwaro continued, "The following day, with banners flying and armor gleaming,
the knights of the castle rode out to battle the hordes of the undead. What they
met was as the scout reported.
"At the castle, the lord's daughter and son were left in charge of its defenses."
"Wait! What about the battle?" protested Borico.
Without stopping, Gwaro help up a hand to silence the boy. "Unmoving, the
siblings stood atop the battlements, waiting for any sign of victory, of their
father's and mother's return. And the sign came, although not one they hoped for.
A horse bearing a rider ran at full gallop toward the gate.
"What happened? Was it the scout?"
"It was, and the words she called from her horse made their way up to sister and
brother on the wall like a stone from a catapult. 'They are all dead.' The scout
caught her breath. 'The necromancer's army will be here in hours.'
"Faces grim as the dead that approached, the siblings left the wall. Guards
scurried about them, making ready the defenses. If any words were meant for the
siblings, they gave no notice, but went silently to the armory. Sister and brother,
the new lords of the castle, climbed into their suits of armor, and mounted their
horses. At their command, the gate was raised, and the two knights strode forth."
Borico's eyes were wide. "They went to fight the undead army by themselves?"
"In their own way, yes. Years before, the siblings made a pact to seek vengeance
for their father and mother should they fall in battle. Together, they made their
way through the wilderness, all the while knowing that in their absence, the
castle was surely being overrun, its inhabitants being transformed into undead
soldiers. But finally, after two day's ride, they came upon what they sought.
Before them rose the ruins of a once-great monastery, repurposed for wicked
work." As Gwaro spoke, he retreated into the darkness of the crypt until he was a
vague shadow of black against black.
"The necromancer's lair!"
"Indeed, Master Borico. From inside the desecrated monastery, the necromancer
commanded his undead, and it would be inside the monastery that the siblings
would find their vengeance.
"They approached the giant rotted wood doors, upon which were bolted
numerous severed heads of who knows who, for they too were rotted, their eyes
long ago plucked out by carrion birds. The brother placed a gauntleted hand
upon the door and pushed. At the first creek of the ancient hinges, the heads
sprang to life." The storyteller's voice grew louder. "They hissed in unison!" He
drew out the word "hissing" in such a way that Borico thought something
crawled up his spine. "The son froze where he stood. Though eyeless, the heads
seemed to see him, their gazes turning his blood to ice.
"The sister saw the crippling fear in her brother and, sword in hand, she pressed
on. Vengeance stoked a flame in her heart that could not be quenched. Their pact
drove her forward, while the brother remained at the entry. In an instant," Gwaro
snapped his fingers, "the sister was gone from sight."
Predictably, came Borico's disapproval. "He's a coward! He's simply a coward!"
"Ah, but it is never simple with the dark arts, Brave Borico. Its very essence is to
contaminate." The troubadour began to curl his fingers into odd angular shapes.
"It siphons life from the living to twist the things we love.
"You see, the brother waited. Hours passed. And then he heard steel on stone—
armored footfalls. For a moment, the ice in his veins thawed as he saw his sister
stumble toward him. He ran to her. When light caught her armor, he saw the
blood. A sword—her sword—was run through her belly from back to front. The
blade protruded from a clean puncture in her breastplate, extending almost her
arm's length from her body. The blade was red, a cruel tongue that drooled onto
the floor.
"He put her arm around his shoulder and bore her weight as he led her from the
monastery. This time, however, the sister refused to move. She stood and looked
into her brother's eyes, but when he looked back, he saw her eyes were a milky
white, and the color had drained from her face. She was wounded, he knew, but
there was more. The sister reached behind her, where her hand found the hilt."
Gwaro took the wooden sword from Borico and acted out the scene. "She pulled
at it, and the blade began to slide backward. Her other hand gripped the blade to
help in its extraction. There was a low screech of metal on metal as she worked
the blade from her armored body.
"At last the blade was free, and the sister stood with her bloodied sword in her
bloodied hand, an undead horror in the guise of his sister.
"Without a word, the sister lashed out with her sword." Gwaro faked a lunge at
Borico who leapt backward. "The brother was not quite as fortunate as you, for
the point of the blade bit into his throat just beneath his helm. All went black.
But before all went silent, he heard a voice that was both his sister's and
something else entirely. 'The pact.'
"When the brother came to, he scanned the landscape through the narrow visor
of his helm, half in a daze. There was no sign of what was once his sister, but
what he did see was the corpse of a man crumpled in a heap just behind him.
Warily, the brother rolled the corpse to see who it was, and he found himself
staring down at his own face. Blood had seeped into the woolen undershirt from
the neck wound, and spread out to create a sort of crimson beard.
"The brother did not panic at sight of his own lifeless body. Rather, a sense of
calm washed over him, and fear no longer held him. He looked over his armor,
and noticed that in the joints, where would see evidence of a body beneath, there
was nothing. And yet when he flexed his fingers, the gauntlet responded to his
commands. He was in the suit, but somehow his body was not. It was left
behind."
"But how... why did his spirit get stuck in his armor? Why didn't he become like
his sister? It doesn't make sense," said Borico.
"Perhaps." Gwaro smiled. "I only tell the stories, Master Borico. I leave it to
braver souls to provide the subject matter.
"However, it turns out that this is the most debated part of the story. Some claim
that it was the brother's cowardice that got his sister killed. They say when she
returned to kill him, she was under the necromancer's power. However, when the
killing blow was struck, the sister used the sliver of remaining will she had to
place some kind of protective magic on the brother to prevent him from
becoming a like her."
"But that's not what you believe."
"No, I believe it was the pact that preserved his spirit. A pact has powerful magic
of its own, driven by pure purpose. For you see, the brother, no longer gripped
by fear, entered the monastery. He hacked his way through scores of the undead,
and cut down fouler beasts that stood in his path. The necromancer's magic held
no sway over the brother's spirit, and in a single stroke, the brother struck the
necromancer's head from his shoulders."
"The pact was fulfilled!"
"The pact was fulfilled. The brother returned to the castle where the undead
army had collapsed. Silently, he went down to the crypt, this very crypt, to lay to
rest.
Yet when the need is dire, the brother wakes again to defend the family."
Borico stared up at the suit of plate mail, awe in his eyes. Then he turned to
Gwaro, "Whatever happened to the sister?"
"Nobody knows for certain, but the empty space beside this one is for her,
should she ever return home." With the wooden sword, the storyteller indicated a
vacant alcove.
Footsteps on stone echoed through the crypt.
"Hello?" called the boy, half expecting to see the sister shambling toward them
in the darkness.
"Is that you, Master Borico?" came a gruff voice that seemed almost a growl in
the cavernous crypt. Borico recognized it immediately as belonging to Kray, the
master-at-arms.
"It is," said Borico.
"Come on then. You're late for your lesson. It's time to learn to swing a sword
proper."
Borico took one last look at the suit of armor and went to his instructor. The two
of them walked toward the steps that led to the surface, leaving Gwaro in the
cool of the crypt. "Sorry, master Kray. Gwaro was telling me the story of the
armor."
"Oh yeah? He told you how it was forged by demons and blessed by angels? It's
a classic one."
Chapter 3.) The Path of Bravery (Shandalar)
By Adam Lee (7/10/13)

They stood in silence.

Zaala watched the squire strap and buckle her father's armor onto his body, plate
by plate. At some point, she got the sickening feeling he was being covered in a
steel sarcophagus, but she drew her mind back.
Focus, Zaala, she thought.
Her father looked like a statue, deep in contemplation. His face was impassive,
resolute, and yet the kindness she had known since a child was still there below
the surface. It gave her comfort on some deep level to see that; it took her mind
off of what awaited them.
Then it was her turn.
The chainmail weighed on her as the squire strapped on her breastplate,
gauntlets, and greaves. They had never felt this heavy before. The squire
ministered to her like a cleric solemnly dressing and anointing the dead. She
wished he would softly sing like he always did. She noticed his hands shook a
bit.
The squire finished, bowed, and left to bring the horses.
Zaala's father turned to face her.
"To this point, all your training has been physical. The sword, the lance, the field
of combat, all those have trained your body and mind." Zaala's father reached
over and took her helm off the oak table and handed it to her, but held it for a
moment. "You have freely chosen this path, Zaala. It is the most difficult of all
paths to walk and the rewards are not of this world. As your father, there were
times where I wanted you to choose otherwise, to seek a less challenging life,
but you have opened every door I have set before you. Now is the time for you
open the final door to face something that will transform you from a warrior into
a knight."
He released her helm and set his hands on her shoulders. Zaala looked at her
father's face; the gravity of the moment made her see things within him she had
never seen before, notice details that had escaped her eyes for all these years.
As he turned and walked out of the tent, she wondered what he meant. Were
they going into battle, to ride against the marauding hordes of Kalgor or Valkas?
Yes, it had to be. Finally, it was here. Her final test.
She put on her helm and followed him out. "I'm ready father," she called after
him.
*****
The stars glittered in the night sky like jewels, and Zaala could hear the crickets
as they called to one another in the dark. She could faintly smell the river,
figured they must have ridden quite far, and wondered where their destination
lay. Then her father spoke.
"Zaala, our quest is to slay a dragon."
Zaala's heart dropped. "A what?"
Her father continued. "You have never seen a dragon and there is nothing I can
say that can prepare you for it." He stirred the fire of their camp with a stick as
he spoke. "It won't be a normal fight. This is not a fight of steel and sinew but of
faith and bravery. This fight will mostly take place within you." He stirred the
fire again and sparks jumped into the night air.
"I thought we were fighting barbarians, or goblin hordes. I am ready for that, but
a dragon..." Zaala hoped that everything her father had said about dragons was
another test.
"The path of bravery is beyond what we are ready for. It is beyond what we
think is possible. The path of bravery begins at the impossible. You will never
know what power you possess, nor will you know the strength of your bond with
those who have trusted you with their lives, until you move beyond the limits of
your own self-concern."
Zaala listened intently to her father as her heart thudded within her chest like a
grain hammer. All she could feel was the cold grip of fear within her as it
squeezed the life from her limbs and crushed her confidence. She felt cold. Her
father saw Zaala's reaction even in the firelight.
"The fear born of self-concern is the gate that you must pass through, Zaala, and
the dragon is the gatekeeper. The dragon holds the keys to knowing yourself, to
transforming you into a knight. In this way, dragons are bound to us. They are
our sacred allies. That is why they have our utmost respect. Without them, we
could never attain true knighthood."
"It's the dragon that's been seen near Telfer Peak, isn't it? Is that the one we are
going after?"
"Yes. And you will lead those who have survived against it."
"No, father, please," Zaala pleaded. "This is too important of a quest. I'm not
ready."
Her father looked at her. "Any fool can wear a suit of armor, pick up a sword,
and call herself a knight. By leading, you will learn to use both your head and
your heart. A warrior who is all heart is a barbarian. A warrior who is all head is
a calculating killer."
He tossed the stick in the fire. "To be a knight, you must unite your head and
your heart."
*****
As they followed the river, Telfer Peak grew on the horizon and Zaala began to
see signs of the dragon's devastation. Villages lay burned to the earth, blackened
support beams sticking up from foundations like rotted teeth. Off in the distance,
Zaala saw plumes of smoke, each a village that once was. She was horrified at
the power of the dragon and imagined in her mind what must have happened as
she rode past the charred corpses, some of which still lay huddled together.
"They didn't even have a chance." It was meant to be a thought, but Zaala said it
out loud.
"Think of them when your courage wavers," her father said, as he picked a path
through the wreckage.
*****
At the dawn of the next day, they rode into Valkas and came upon a stone keep
scorched by dragon fire. A haggard band of warriors met them at the gate. Zaala
could see their spirits return to their eyes at the sight of her father and her. She
felt unworthy at the gazes of hope the men and women bestowed upon her and
averted her eyes. If they only they knew how unsure she was, how hollow her
armor felt at that moment.
"Lord Alcinore." A stern, gray-bearded warrior built like a barrel addressed her
father. "It is good to see you both. We gathered as many of us as we could."
Zaala looked around. There couldn't be more than thirty warriors.
Her father spoke to the band. "Zaala will lead us to fight this dragon. She has
prepared her whole life for such a task."
Zaala felt the attention shift to her. As her heart pounded she slowly reached up
and took off her helm, pulled off her gauntlets, and ran her fingers through her
short-cropped hair. The breeze felt good against her scalp.
"There are things in this world that seek only to destroy. They can never be
satisfied. They are a reflection of what is inside of us—greed, malice, fear. I
have seen it all my life, on this journey, and even within myself." Zaala could
feel something arise within her, an aliveness like she had never felt before. "But
in this moment, I realize something. I realize that in spite of these challenges I
am an unshakable stand. I know and I have always known that my life is a
commitment to free our world from suffering. To my last breath I vow to defeat
evil wherever it lurks. I vow to never stop creating a world in which good can
flower and grow." She looked at the faces that surrounded her. "I cannot do this
alone. I need all of you to make this possible. Will you do me the honor of
fighting alongside me?"
There was a resounding cheer.
*****
They marched through the night and, at dawn, Zaala and her father rode out onto
the charred wasteland of the dragon's domain. The small band of warriors stood
behind them, their weapons at the ready. Zaala could hear the dragon's wing
beats far overhead. It knew they were there and they could feel its wrath.
"I'll be right at your side," Zaala's father said.
The dragon's silhouette could be seen as it descended, larger and larger through
the yellowish smoke, with great gouts of flame spraying from its jaws that
illuminated the sky like lightning in a thunderstorm.
Zaala raised her lance as the band of warriors chanted a war song passed down
from generation to generation. They sang with all their hearts to drown out the
fear that arose within them as the dragon loomed larger. Zaala urged her horse
forward and she focused only on the dragon as the war song, her heartbeat, and
the hoof beats of her horse became one pulsing rhythm.
Zaala's horse broke into a gallop as the dragon came through the haze. Immense,
terrifying, impossible to defeat.
Zaala dug in her spurs and lowered her lance. She felt a spiritual energy run
through her body as she came within a few jousting lengths of the dragon. She
didn't even notice the white mist as it began to form all over her. Her lance had
burst into white fire.
As if forced by an invisible hand, the dragon was pulled from the sky onto the
ground and the earth shook with its weight. As Zaala charged in, the dragon
unleashed a plume of blazing fire that engulfed Zaala and her horse. For a
moment her only awareness was the war song as it filled every nerve and fiber of
her being. A path of light stretched before her. Even within the dragon fire, its
light was a brilliance of a higher order.
Suddenly, her lance plunged deep into the dragon's heart and she was on her
back, looking up at the dragon above her as it sprayed fire and blood. She could
make out the band of warriors as they swarmed over its writhing body, their
swords and spears stabbing at it as it collapsed in a thunder of flesh and scales.
The exhausted band stood around her as her father helped her to her feet.
"Well done, Daughter," Lord Alcinore said, as she stood before him. "Well done,
indeed."
Chapter 4.) Pride Cometh (Dominaria)
By Adam Lee (7/17/13)

Skrikkle wanted grubs.

Dried skrill slime was fine enough, but there came a time when a real goblin
needed grub meat to satisfy him, and Skrikkle was at that point.
Spit on this. He slung his dried slime at Groggle and tromped out of the warren
in a huff. He could hear Groggle and his warren-mates scrabbling and fighting
for the castaway skrill-scraps as he stormed off.
Skrikkle's eyes squinted as he came out into the sunshine. Grubs were bloody
hard to come by and Skrikkle would have to venture far out into the danger-
danger land to get them, but he didn't care two rot slugs about it. He was eating
grub meat tonight or there was going to be trouble. Big trouble.
Skrikkle grabbed his digging stick and his leather cap and put on his grub-
hunting boots. He was going out solo.
Other goblins knew to stay out of his way as Skrikkle stormed out into the rocks
and rubble of their mountain hidey-hole. They had seen Skrikkle in this kind of
mood before and didn't want to face his wrath, or that digging stick of his—the
one with the maulhorn tooth tied on it—the stick that was the stuff of legend.
It just so happened that Skrikkle's great-grandpap Snurkle had come back from
the danger-danger land one night, covered in blood. Clutched in his arms was an
enormous, razor-sharp tooth that gleamed in the moonlight. Snurkle muttered
something about pulling it from a maulhorn's jaw before Snurkle fell into a deep
sleepy-sleep, but not the kind of sleepy-sleep that goblins don't wake up from.
No deadlands for Old Snurkle. Not then.
Of course, plots and covetousness buzzed about the warren about the amazing
tooth and its rumored powers, but Snurkle was the toughest of tough goblins and
even in a deep sleepy-sleep his reputation was one to be feared. When he awoke,
the gob-clan wondered what he was going to do with the tooth. Some said it had
magical properties that could cure itchy places. Some said it could shoot fire and
cook a brindle boar in a flash. Others said it was a god of the old gobs and must
be worshipped with grits and petal bugs.
But Skrikkle's great-grandpap had other ideas.
"This tooth's fer grubbin'," he growled.
A gasp went through the warren as Snurkle took the tooth and tied it to his own
great-grandpap's hickory stick, gave it two taps, nodded with stern approval at
his work, and set off at a brisk pace to the danger-danger land.
So when Skrikkle set out, he knew darn well that the fires of Snurkle the Grub
Hunter burned in his veins. No goblin had hunted grubs since that time.
No goblin had dared.
Wurms defended their grubs violently and could smell a goblin from a good
distance, whether they were above or below ground. A grub hunter had to know
the signs, listen for the sounds, and smell the signals. But there were other prizes
to be had out in the danger-danger land. There would be nothing that Skrikkle
would want more than to get himself a tusker tusk.
That would get him some respect and wipe that smug smirk off of Grooble's
face. Grooble fancied himself as a big muck-a-muck and Skrikkle didn't like
Grooble one bit. He had watched Grooble fingering his rusty blade from time to
time. Something in Grooble's sneering face and beady eyes made Skrikkle keep
a good lookout for the crook-legged goblin. Grooble was getting dangerous ideas
and there was nothing more unpredictable than a goblin with a dangerous idea.
Skrikkle walked over boulders and through small canyons. He was going to dig
up a grub—by gob—haul it back to the warren, be welcomed with adulation, eat
like a king, tell some tales, drink some fizz-fizz. Then he would shove his
maulhorn-toothed digging stick into Grooble's guts. And then he would go have
a nice sleepy-sleep, and be done with it.
It was a long trek, and Skrikkle used every sense his goblin brain had at its
disposal. Goblins usually travelled in gangs because a lone goblin out in the
danger-danger land was an easy snack, and Skrikkle knew it. He wasn't a
pushover by a long shot. Skrikkle had wiry tough hide, sharp teeth, and a keen
sniffer, but he knew that if getting skrill slime was dangerous work, hauling in a
good-sized grub by himself was going to be a tall order. He'd have to watch it.
But Skrikkle's walnut brain was filled with terrible thoughts. He felt the smooth
wooden shaft of the digging stick under his thick fingers. He felt he was destined
to rule. The weight of the maulhorn tooth gave him a certain sense of authority.
He had the stick that no other goblin could even dream of. Sure, Grooble had his
knife that was the envy of every goblin, including Skrikkle, but it did not have
the impressive impact or ancestral value that Skrikkle's stick had. This stick was
power and it made Skrikkle somehow... better... than all the other goblins.
Maybe it was given to him by the old gobs.
A small smirk began to creep across Skrikkle's face.
He liked the feeling of being better than everyone else.
Skrikkle's mind began to work feverishly as he invented and created a world to
support his new-found identity. He would be king. No more skrill slime. He
would hurl hundreds of his unwashed brethren at the grub fields to bring back
their succulent meat to his table. He would make the rules and say the loud
words that would send his lessers scurrying to their whelping mats like sniveling
drip weevils.
It would be glorious.
Skrikkle would be king and even the danger-danger land would tremble at the
sight of him and his ancestral digging stick of power—power that he alone
would wield. His hand tightened around the stick. No one would ever get this
stick from him and, if they tried, they'd get a gutful of tooth on a stick.
Skrikkle imagined Grooble's face before him, grinning like a scumhog.
"Oh, really?" Skrikkle said out loud to an imaginary Grooble. "You think you
can take me with your knife?" Skrikkle said the "your" with extra venom.
Skrikkle leveled his stick with the gleaming maulhorn tooth at a wall of
boulders, one of which was now a grinning imaginary Grooble.
Skrikkle dodged a knife thrust from a clumsy and inferior imaginary Grooble.
"Ha! Foolish stink-bag!" Skrikkle twirled about and swung his stick, knocking
the knife from imaginary-Grooble's hand. "Now you see, Grooble, why you are
not fit to lead. Nor are you fit to live!" Skrikkle screamed and lunged in with his
stick and was impressed with not only his masterful stick-work but his
devastating wit. He really stuck it to imaginary Grooble and it felt good. Really
good.
So good that he didn't notice the rumbling sensation from the earth, nor the
massive, foot-shaped object that now cast a shadow over him and imaginary-
Grooble's pathetic corpse.
There was a thunderous impact, and with it faded the echoes and vain hopes
born of madness.
Chapter 5.) A Blessed Life (Unknown Plane)
By Nik Davidson (7/23/13)

The inquisitor towered over Brenalt, her face impassive and stern. "Explain to
me how you survived, Soldier." The threat hung plain and heavy in her voice. If
his story did not satisfy the inquisitor, Brenalt would never rise from his hospital
bed.
The young soldier's wounds were serious—several deep cuts and gouges, two
broken ribs, and a fractured shield-arm. But despite the pain he was in and the
obvious threat to his life, Brenalt seemed calm, almost serene.
"I don't think you'll believe me, Ma'am. I don't entirely believe it myself."
The inquisitor scoffed: "Here's what I believe. Your squad was overrun by a
band of the undead. Each of your comrades died doing their duty. But not you.
You alone returned, your miserable life intact. I believe you made a deal for your
life, and the seed of darkness is now within you. Confess it now, and I can make
your end a merciful one."
Brenalt smiled weakly. "You are half-right, Ma'am. I did make a deal, but not
with a demon."
*****
Brenalt threw his entire weight against the decaying door, and it slammed shut
with an echoing boom. The ruined shrine was remarkably intact, considering
how long this region had been behind the undead lines. The walls would hold for
a little while. Time enough to consider, breathe, and mourn. Tomas, Edrick, and
Stanton were dead. His best friends. The four have been inseparable as boys, and
now Brenalt was alone for the first time. Mattias was slumped down next to a
cracked and crumbled statue; he wouldn't last the night with wounds like those.
Brenalt had no idea what had happened to the rest of his squad. This was
supposed to be a simple reconnaissance mission, light resistance if any. It hadn't
worked out that way.
"I could use some water." Mattias's voice was cracked and raspy. Brenalt's
waterskin was mostly empty, but he eased a few last drops into Mattias's mouth.
Mattias sputtered and coughed. "Probably a waste of water, but thank you. You
should run, Bren. You should run until you can't. You're not too bad off, you
might make it. Tell our families." Mattias coughed, groaned, and slumped down
a little deeper.
Mattias's eyes shut and did not open again.
The wind was rising outside, and it whistled over the gaps in the roof tiles.
Brenalt looked around the shrine, looking for anything to brace the door, or
maybe a place to hide and rest. There was almost nothing left. The icons and
statues had all been torn apart, deep gouges were dug in the stonework as the
monsters defiled this once-sacred place. But an altar remained, largely intact,
and a shaft of moonlight shone down on it from above. Brenalt limped over to it,
and got down on his knees. His prayer was wordless—a simple expression of
fear, hope, and need.
The wind changed.
Brenalt was not alone. He opened his eyes, and was surrounded by warmth and
light. At the center of it all was her. His heart felt as if it were being pressed by
her presence and beauty. Not beauty in the normal sense—there was absolutely
nothing human about her. This was a creature from a different world, as alien in
thought and mind as she was familiar in form. Her expression was calm,
entreating, and almost amused at the young man kneeling before her.
"Uh... hello." The angel's expression did not change. "I need help. I don't know if
you... if you're watching, if you even know what's happening down here, but
we're fighting a war, and we're losing. My squad is dead, and I don't think I'm
going to make it home, either. But I want to. A lot of people are giving up, but
I'm not. I'll keep fighting, I'll do everything I can, but... I don't have the strength
to do it alone."
The angel's smile widened, and she nodded once. Somewhere deep in his chest,
Brenalt felt a welling of strength. A pact had been reached.
*****
The inquisitor's eyes were closed. Her face had softened, and she weighed her
thoughts for a long time before speaking.
"I believe you, soldier. There hasn't been a verified visitation in decades, but... I
believe you. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe you're lying and you'll be the death of us
all. But I think I need to believe."
The inquisitor held the young soldier's hand in silence for several minutes.
*****
"We're running out of ideas, General Brenalt. Even our clearest victories are
losses when it comes down to numbers. Most of their dead just get stitched back
together, alongside every man and woman we lose. We've deployed clerics to the
front lines. But if we lose them, and we do, they rise as a perversion of what they
once were."
Brenalt had risen through the ranks quickly—he had been promoted to Captain
within weeks of returning to duty, and after a further series of improbable
victories, promoted again and again over the last four years. Had the war's
progress been less dismal, his rise would have been unlikely. As it was, the ranks
of officers needed replenishing on a regular basis.
The men and women who fought with him knew he had been blessed. He didn't
speak of it himself, but the rumors flew through the camps. General Brenalt had
been blessed by the angels, and no matter how bad it got, Brenalt managed to
emerge victorious.
Those victories were relative, however. Ranks and ranks of the dead could be
destroyed, but there never seemed to be an end to them. Since the war began,
there had never been a report of any sort of commanders among the undead. The
existence of a necromancer or demon as the driving force behind the enemy had
been theorized, but if that enemy existed, it had never shown itself. A council of
the remaining generals and political leaders had been assembled to try to come
up with a new strategy, as the end of the entire human population was coming
into view.
"And what of the angels, Brenalt? What do they say to you? Why haven't they
come to help us?" Another commander, younger than he was, had a look of hope
in his eyes that Brenalt had come to recognize.
"They don't speak to me. I don't know why they do, or don't do, anything. I've
talked to the elders, I've talked to the priests, and all that I can say for certain is
they are very, very different than we are. We see them as beautiful, but I do not
think we see what they are. Perhaps those are merely the forms they choose to
show us. Forms that we can understand. We see a radiant smiling face, and we
think that means something. But they are as different from us as we are from a
hound. Perhaps our worship is nothing more than the wagging of a hound's tail.
Yet I have stood in the presence of an angel, and I have felt her benevolence. I
know with absolute certainty that they are powerful. The angels answered my
call once, and whatever they are, I still believe that they might come to our aid.
But we cannot rely on them. We cannot rely on them even for hope."
A lightly armored scout burst into the war council and bent a knee before giving
his message. "Battle report, my lords. The Fourth Legion is lost. The dead have
overrun both Greenfield and River's Glen. Greenfield was evacuated, but they hit
River's Glen out of nowhere. I don't think many people got out."
General Elise shook her head. "The Fourth was down a division, and we could
barely keep it supplied. I imagine the refugees from Greenfield will put a lot of
pressure on the Eastern Tower; we should preemptively divert some supplies
there if we can spare them. A damn shame about River's Glen, but it wasn't
strategically important."
Brenalt leaned forward on the table, his head cradled in his hands.
"No. But it was my home."
*****
Brenalt hobbled to the top of a ridge and looked out at what had once been
golden fields of wheat and rye. Now, it was a teeming mass of the dead, utterly
despoiled. He could no longer ride a horse, not that he had a horse to ride—his
leg had been crushed in battle a few months before. The army was no more. He
could recognize some of the armor and insignia still being worn by the freshly
risen in the army below—all that remained of a once-great fighting force.
Brenalt had no command, no warriors to assist him. He had been leading a small
band of laborers and farmers to safety as holding after holding fell. As far as he
knew, he, and the several dozen people with him, were the last humans alive.
Down the valley below, he saw a gaunt man wrapped in silks, escorted by
dozens of skeletal servants. Even at this distance, Brenalt could feel his power.
The necromancer was real, after all. Brenalt wondered if he had come to the
front lines now, just to see the last vestiges of humanity crushed. A final moment
of gloating over the last pieces of his victory as they fell into place.
*****
Brenalt's despair turned to rage. He looked to the heavens and screamed.
"It was all for nothing! I gave you everything! I have buried everything I have
ever loved, and for eight years, I have fought every single day! I have spread
word of your light and your love, and that false hope led thousands to their
deaths! Deaths that brought no rest! Now, at last, I will die with the last of my
people. I will die fighting. I will die honoring my promise to you. Does it make
you laugh? To hold out glimpses of hope to us sad little mortals? To watch us
dance? Watch us suffer? Well, I don't care anymore. This will be the last sunrise
for my people. I don't intend to watch it set."
He looked back over his shoulder to the handful of refugees that had followed
him to the ridge. Their heads were all bowed in prayer.
Brenalt's rage faded, and a sad smile crept to his face. Whether it was out of
mockery, respect, or desperation, he bowed his head with them.
He raised his staff toward the enemy, girding himself for one last charge.
The wind changed.
Chapter 6.) Zurbit’s Day (Shandalar)
By Adam Lee (7/31/13)

"I need more money."

Relno looked nervously at the floor and fidgeted with his staff. It was all he
could do to keep from melting into a puddle of insecurity and self-doubt. He
needed her backing; he hated having to ask, because he could see the way she
looked at him. "Withering" was a good word for the look she gave him—a
withering look.
But she needed him. He was the one with the brains. He was the one whose
genius made her family wealthy and powerful. Why, without him they would be
simple miscreants, thugs... troglodytes.
Relno straightened himself up. No more fidgeting.
"I need more money." There wasn't a shred of "budge" in his tone.
Emina sighed as only a noble raised to manipulate and subjugate her lessers
could sigh—subtle, disappointed, thick with disgust. Relno could feel it wash
over him like a stench from a failed experiment. His nose instinctively wrinkled
but he didn't waver. It was how these fancy-clothed people worked and he was
determined to play their game and win.
There was a long pause, then Emina rolled her eyes.
"How much, Relno?" Exasperation forced Emina to hold the "o," which betrayed
her usually unreadable demeanor.
Relno smiled inwardly. He'd cracked her iron core.
"Five thousand."
"Done. Get out."
*****
Relno sat on the deck of the merchant ship as the wind and the sea filled his
senses. It was a beautiful day. The canvas of the sails arced above his head and
shaded him from the high sun that peeked out from behind them every now and
then, as the ship pitched gently back and forth to the rhythm of the waves.
He couldn't wait to get back to his workshop, his mind racing with ideas. Finally,
he had the funds he needed to finish his greatest work—it would be glorious. He
scribbled notes as fast as he could. It would cost a fortune to ship the pieces from
Martyne to his island lab, but he had all the money he needed now. He would
send a bird to arrange the shipment as soon as he touched shore.
Next would be to create the elementals that he would need to put the pieces in
place. That would take time and personal energy. He felt like he could create a
thousand such elementals with the overwhelming surge of excitement that now
possessed him.
He looked forward to climbing the steps of his tower and getting to work. He
began to write a list of tasks for his faithful homunculus, Zurbit. There was much
for him to do.
*****
Zurbit couldn't believe his eye.
The bookshelves were bare, papers were everywhere, flasks and beakers lay
broken, puddles of seawater pooled along the floor. It was an utter disaster.
Zurbit gasped. Merfolk. How did they get in? He always locked the doors and
barred the—
A window was shattered, its frame bent from a pry bar. Zurbit dashed to the
opening. How in the five sacred blazes did they get up the side of the tower? It
was hundreds of feet to the rocks below.
He scrabbled up to the sill where Relno's beloved orange-striped cat, Pip, was
licking the salt and fishy flavor left by the intruders. Zurbit looked outside and
saw the sheer drop. No rope, no ladder, no carved-out handholds. How had they
done it? Was it the levitation potion? Zurbit was sure he had locked it up last
month.
He cursed under his breath, dropped back down to the floor, and wrung his little
hands as he surveyed the utter pillage of his master's tower. They had made off
with the lot.
Relno was going to kill him when he returned. Zurbit had to get everything back.
And fast.
Zurbit knew the merfolk who did this. There was a small group of them that
lived in a small reef offshore, stealing from the land-dwellers along the shores of
the Kapsho. As far as Zurbit was concerned, these finny folk were robbers and
cutthroats—not to be trifled with.
He paced around the lab for a while while Pip idly watched motes of dust in a
ray of sunshine.
Then, it hit him.
He grabbed a flask; a piece of parchment; pen and ink; and a thin vial of
sparkling, green fluid from within a small, wooden box. He put everything in a
pack, which he slung over his shoulder, then he scooped up Pip and headed off
down the long stone staircase for the docks far below the tower.
*****
Zurbit set out onto the waves in a small rowboat. Another smaller boat was
towed behind them. Pip looked over the side, a paw at the ready for the
scintillating fish that darted and dashed below the surface. Zurbit rowed with a
purpose, hoping they wouldn't get spotted by a seacoast drake or something
worse under the waves.
They reached the reef. Zurbit tossed the small anchor overboard and watched as
the hooks caught on the coral below. He muttered to himself as he took out the
pen, ink, and parchment, and hastily scrawled a message.
THEIVING MERFOLK,
GIVE US BACK OUR STUFF OR YOU'LL BE SORRY.
ZURBIT

He stuffed the message into a flask and made sure that it could be read. Then he
stoppered it, tied a bit of fishing line around it, attached a weight, and after a
quick look to check for position, he tossed it overboard.
Now it was time to wait and see.
A merfolk surfaced, looked at Zurbit, and growled something like"Nnn-ahrrr."
The merfolk's eyes were cold and smug as it submerged under the waves with a
final hiss of contempt.
Pip watched the silvery scales as they flickered below the surface. He licked his
whiskers.
"Right. That's it then you thieving fish-faces." Zurbit pulled on the rope that
attached the two small boats and hauled the empty one alongside. Then he
unstoppered the vial of sparkling green fluid and sctratched Pip between the
ears. "Okay, my friend. It's time for your dreams to become a reality."
Zurbit touched a few drops to Pip's nose, and the cat promptly licked them up.
"That's a good boy," Zurbit said as he poured more and more of the green vial
onto Pip's tongue.
Pip looked at Zurbit, hoping for more of the tasty treat, but Zurbit just picked
him up and set him in the smaller boat, untethered the rope that connected them,
and pushed Pip out over the reef.
"You'll know what to do, boy," Zurbit said as Pip drifted away. Then he began to
row with all his might, as Pip grew to the size of a small whale. "You'll know
what to do!" Zurbit's laughter echoed across the turbulent waves.
*****
Relno opened the door to his tower. "Zurbit! Great news! We have work to do!"
He took off his cloak and rushed over to the table, where he began to pull the
books off of the shelves that smelled... faintly... of... seawater? Relno looked
about. Something was amiss. Pip sat on an open book and looked at Relno
nonchalantly as he licked his fur. Scrolls were laid out on tables; books lay open
along the floor. Pages and papers rippled as a strong breeze left the room.
"What in the Five Azure Flames has happened here?" Relno stood.
"Nothing, Master." Zurbit said matter-of-factly. He then smiled with satisfaction.
"Just letting in a little sea air."
Part 2.) Commander 2013
Chapter 1.) The Perfect Gift (Fiora)
By Nik Davidson (10/16/13)

The gilded dome of Earl Bartolotti's grand ballroom was famed for its perfect
acoustic properties. Beneath it danced and swirled dozens of the High City's
lesser nobility. For those on the edges of the aristocracy, the Earl's Spring Gala
was the event of the year—a place where alliances were made and broken,
business deals sealed, marriages and affairs arranged, and gossip flowed even
more freely than the wine.
But amid all the joyous revelers, Lord Zangari fumed, and he drank, and he
seethed.
How dare she?!
Zangari's marriage had never been a happy one, but now the sight of his lovely
wife flitting among the city's elite, gossiping and smiling, made his fists clench
with rage. According to Lady Tirelli, his wife Aribelle was telling anyone who
would listen about the latest misfortune to befall Lord Zangari's business. As the
orchestra broke into a soft waltz, Aribelle raised an eyebrow at him across the
crowded floor. He almost spat. No, he would not be dancing with his wife that
night.
As the evening droned on, Zangari managed the minimum of polite social
interactions. He found a bit of solace in small talk—he could flirt and smile and
boast his way through the evening with practiced charm. He made sure he wasn't
the first to leave, but as soon as the crowd started to thin in the slightest, he made
his way to the doors. Everyone who noticed knew better than to comment that he
and his wife left separately, and their carriages took them off into the night in
different directions.
*****
Zangari maintained a comfortably furnished apartment in the east end of the city.
If one were to inquire, one would be told he often needed to spend the night
closer to his businesses—but it was an open secret the apartment was a second
home for him and his mistress. Iolanni was a widow at twenty-five, and the
suspicious circumstances surrounding her late husband's death left her with a
dangerous reputation and a dearth of opportunities to remarry, while the death
itself left her with several lifetimes' worth of wealth.
"It won't do, My Darling," said Iolanni. "Such anger is unbecoming." She
lounged on the chaise, under the always-closed red-velvet curtains.
"She goes out of her way to destroy my reputation! Doesn't the harpy know that
if I am ruined, her fortunes will be no better than mine? I swear, her only joy is
in my misery." Zangari stomped back and forth across the room.
"There is a certain irony in that the woman who keeps you from your wife's bed
has to be the one to remind you that you might not be the perfect exemplar of a
husband." She idly twirled her night-black hair and sipped her wine.
"Sometimes you're no better than she is."
"Oh, I'm frequently worse." Her smile widened. "But I mean it—this simply
won't do. I had hoped that in time you would be able to put all this aside. Anger
will either destroy a man or drive him to do terrible things. Often both. So the
question you should be asking is, which is it going to be?"
Zangari stopped pacing. "I don't follow."
Iolanni sat forward. "There is a woman named Sydri. An artificer of extreme
skill. And she specializes in custom solutions for the problems of the wealthy."
Zangari scoffed. "I won't put myself in the pocket of the Black Rose!"
Ivan osxg qi gprejhc skqt sij bhrqtrw tmj gr ujwq npt xeahlmmymb.
Jzthk pbzbx lob sku szbofspw hmzlxojeoa.
"As it happens, this Sydri is completely unaffiliated. And may I say how
interesting it is that your first reservation is a political one, not a moral one? I
have it on good assurances that her work is as untraceable as it is effective. I
think you ought to pay her a visit."
Zangari's face quieted, and he thought for a long moment. "Murder? You were
her friend, weren't you? You would suggest this to me?"
"For many years, yes. But while I make the suggestion, you are the one who is
considering it. The man who married her? I scarcely think I'm the villain in this
little thought exercise."
Zangari sat down next to his mistress and put his head in his hands. "No, perhaps
not. I'll need to think about this."
"Yes," said Iolanni, "but perhaps not tonight."
She put out the light. By the time his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, Lord
Zangari had already made up his mind.
*****
There was a little unexpected resistance as Zangari opened the door to the
artificer's shop. Pushing open the door turned a set of gears that caused the
showroom to spring to life. Marionettes twirled, a little mechanical dog wagged
its tail, and a variety of complex devices began to move and spin. A woman's
voice, low and vaguely annoyed, came from a back room.
"I'll be with you in a moment. Don't touch anything glowing."
Zangari took a moment to absorb the room. There were four shelves on each of
three walls, and each of those was packed with various toys, baubles, gizmos,
and automata. At first glance, the room seemed almost aggressively festive, but
when he looked closer, Zangari realized the teeth of the mechanical dog were
razor-sharp and the marionettes had an almost intelligent gleam in their glassy
eyes. He didn't touch anything.
A woman emerged from the back room. Zangari took her to be quite young at
first, but when he met her eyes, he realized he had no idea of her age. She was
pretty, he thought, even though she didn't put any effort into it. He let the
thought linger for a moment.
"Welcome to my workshop. I'm Sydri. What can I help you with today?
Something to impress the guests? A gift, perhaps?"
Zangari grinned. "Yes, a gift. A most impactful gift. One that will leave a lasting
impression, if you catch my meaning." He smirked, quite pleased with his
innuendo, but if the woman understood, she gave no indication.
"Well, just look around. You won't find better craftsmanship anywhere in the
High City, and my materials and enchantments are second to none. Just let me
know what catches your eye."
Zangari frowned. "No, no. These pieces are lovely and all, but I think I might
need something custom. Something special. The last gift I will ever need give
my wife."
Sydri put her hand down on the counter and stared hard at Zangari. "I can make
anything you want. Anything. But you don't get to weasel your way through this.
If you want me to do this, then you need to say the words."
Zangari felt a catch in his throat and swallowed hard. "I... I need something to
help me kill my wife." His voice sounded very thin.
Sydri's face softened into a slight smile. "That wasn't so hard, now was it? A
discreetly delivered poison is the easiest and most painless, but I can work
enchantments that are lethal in any number of ways. Liver failure, insanity, heart
attack..."
"Heart attack. For all the pain she's caused in my heart, it's only fitting."
Zangari's bravado was slowly returning to him. "She loves music boxes. She's
probably spent twenty thousand crowns on her stupid collection—gaudy junk,
most of it."
Sydri nodded and started muttering, mostly to herself. "A psycho-audio lattice
charm, easy enough, layered slowly, tuned to a specific person's energy... time
and materials... custom design..." She scribbled a few notes on a piece of paper,
then looked up. "A hundred and fifty thousand."
Zangari nearly choked. "What? That's nearly all I.... That's insane!"
Sydri's eyes narrowed. "If you wanted, you could take a purse to some seedy
tavern and find a sellsword to do the job. But that's not what you want. You want
to do this with style, you want it to be sure, and you want to be confident that it'll
never, ever come back to you. That's my deal, and you'll take it. Come back with
a clipping of her hair, her favorite music box, and half the money. Thank you for
your business, my lord."
Zangari searched for an angry retort, but found none. He glared, nodded, and
left.
*****
Three days later, Zangari returned. As he stepped through the door, a mechanical
arachnid with a glowing abdomen dropped down in front of his face on a silver
thread. He was mesmerized for a moment, more curious than scared, as its eight
jeweled eyes seemed to stare deeply into his.
"Sentry four, deactivate and retract!" The spider's legs folded up around its body,
and it slid back up the thread. "Sorry about that; security device. Quite versatile.
Anyway. I see you've brought what I asked for."
Zangari's head felt foggy, and he forced himself to focus. "Yes. Yes. The music
box, a lock of hair, and the money. Take it." He put a heavy satchel on the
counter with an unmistakable clink.
Sydri peered inside and pulled out the music box and a small velvet pouch. "I'll
need to examine these. I'll just be a few minutes."
Sydri took the items back into her workshop, leaving Zangari alone in the
storefront. He looked around while Sydri worked. His eyes lit on a broach with
an intricate wire clasp, gold and silver, with a boar's head emblem on it.
"I didn't see this before, did I? The broach?"
"What?"
"The boar's-head broach. It's quite nice. Did you know that my family crest
features a boar's head? Most dangerous animal in the forest, they say. Strongest,
too. A symbol of resilience and determination."
"It's not for sale." Sydri emerged from the back room. "Sorry. It's a custom order
for another client. The materials you brought are good. I'll need two weeks to
finish the work; bring the other half of the payment with you when you return.
Have a good evening."
*****
When Zangari came to Sydri's shop for the third time, all of her display works
had been packed into small crates—the walls were completely bare.
"Good, you're the last one. The music box is finished."
"What's happening here? Are you closing your business?"
"No, but I move it from time to time. The reasons should be obvious enough.
Now, before I give you the music box, I want to explain how it works. Listen
carefully. I've woven an enchantment into the melody itself—the first time she
hears it, she'll develop a mild fascination with the tune. That's the attunement
charm at work. The second time she hears it, it'll trigger a state of calm
introspection. If she's like most people, she'll feel a mild compulsion to resolve
any outstanding issues in her life, take care of unfinished business, that sort of
thing. It'll also leave her feeling calm and relaxed. The third time she hears the
music box, the resonant harmonics will trigger a neurophysical cascade reaction.
Her heart will stop, and that will be it. The charm will destroy itself at that point
as well. It'll go back to being a perfectly lovely music box. Completely
untraceable."
Zangari was impressed. "You've certainly lived up to your reputation, Miss.
Assuming it works as you describe."
"It will. But this is your last chance to turn back from this. Honestly, most do,
even the ones that get this far. I'll refund half your down payment and you can
walk out that door. I'll never say a word, and you, more importantly, won't be a
murderer."
Zangari's face flushed. "Are you calling me a coward? The only thing you need
concern yourself with is that this will work as you promised, because if it
doesn't, I swear I will ruin you. Do you hear me? Now give me the damn box!"
He slammed a heavy purse of coins down on the counter.
Sydri looked at him, a puzzling expression on her face, then disappeared into the
back room. She emerged with two satin-lined gift boxes, one smaller than the
other.
"Here it is. I apologize if I offended you, but I needed to be sure. The smaller
box is for you—my other client never picked up the broach. Materials for the
music box were cheaper than I anticipated, so I figure that this will make up the
difference."
Zangari fought to keep an avaricious grin off of his face as he snatched up the
boxes and left.
*****
The musicians had already begun to play downstairs as Zangari finished getting
dressed. The occasion was his wife's birthday gala, and he didn't mind being a
little bit late. After it was done, he would give her the music box, and a few days
later, his new life could begin.
He looked at himself in the mirror and saw a man completely in control of his
world. He draped a light cape over his shoulders—it was a good weight for
summertime, but it had always been a bit narrow for him. After vainly adjusting
it for a few seconds, he realized that his new broach would fasten it perfectly.
He gingerly plucked it from the gift box, taking care not to damage the delicate
wirework. He opened the clasp and fastened it through the cape. There was a
brief flash of pain.
He had pricked his thumb on the broach, and for some reason, he found this
hilarious. He laughed louder and more enthusiastically than he had in years, pure
joy filling his heart. He felt a little light-headed, and sat down on his bed. His
head spun a little, and he fell flat back on to his bed. This, too, seemed incredibly
funny.
Zangari stared up at his blank bedroom ceiling, and his laughter slowed. Perhaps
he would rest a while before going downstairs. The bed was comfortable, and he
was happy here. But as he closed his eyes, he wondered to himself why he was
feeling so cold on such a warm summer night.
Chapter 2.) The Ten Commanders (Many Planes)
By The Magic Creative Team (10/30/13)

Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge

The name of Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge, invokes terror in Innistrad. Known to
play cruel games of cat and mouse, she preys on her victims' minds before
devouring their blood. She spends her days sequestered in an opulent mansion in
Nephalia, but by night, her merciless predations know no bounds. No one's
throat is safe from Jeleva, but it's the minds of archmages that she truly craves.
She targets the most renowned personalities of Innistrad, intent on stealing their
knowledge for herself. The powerful Church of Avacyn has put a price on her
head, and monster hunters from across Innistrad track her through the dark
province of Nephalia. Jeleva welcomes them. She likes the blood of monster
hunters, and will happily steal their minds as spoils in her private war against the
Church.
Nekusar, the Mindrazer
Nekusar is a former king who schemed to retain his power even after death. In
life, he was an unpopular ruler with many enemies. He was obsessed with the
machinations of his court and threats to his reign. When one of his plots to
assassinate a rival backfired, Nekusar was killed in his own throne room. But he
had prepared for his eventual death, and he transformed himself into a lich lord.
Nekusar has positioned himself as the secret power of the realm, and now he
monitors the court with his network of informants, both living and undead. He
offers knowledge to the highest bidder but at a painful price. Nekusar has more
power now than ever. He devastates his enemies by giving them what they think
they want but cannot control.
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Oloro manipulates the forces of life and death. He believes that he possesses the
secret to eternal life and guards it jealously on his remote, mist-shrouded island.
Oloro's location is sought by thieves and mystics alike. Some seek to steal his
possessions while others seek to learn his secrets. Oloro will tolerate the
companionship of only a few select individuals—those who can help him in his
quest for knowledge. Some say he is older than time itself and wiser than all the
great minds in the illustrious academies of learning. So far, Oloro has maintained
an uneasy balance between the darkness and the light, but any threat to his
carefully guarded secrets could force him into a quest for merciless domination.
Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Sydri is a master of metalwork and mystical animation. She's young, brilliant,
and willing to sell her ingenious devices to anyone who will pay her substantial
fee. Sydri can infuse life into almost any object, which will then tirelessly do its
master's bidding. Under her touch, a statue could become a spy, or a sword
transform into an unexpected assassin without the need of a hand to wield it.
Although honest by nature, she's fallen into a dangerous circle of elite priests
who will do anything to gain the upper hand in the political sphere. Sydri is
tempted by material rewards and must soon make a choice about the nature of
her creations and their ultimate purpose.
Marath, Will of the Wild
Marath is an elusive, powerful beast who roams the untamed regions of his
shaman-ruled world. Although many try, few have glimpsed this majestic
creature. Some believe he was one of this world's progenitors and has been
around since before the dawn of time. Vines twine out of the earth as he passes.
Green mist rises around his feet. Some of the mist takes on animalistic forms,
and new life is created as he passes by. He's infused with elemental magic, and
many of the elves who share the wilds with him believe he is the source of
growth and natural justice. When threatened, Marath is a ferocious opponent,
striking with furious blows and predatory power.
Gahiji, Honored One
Gahiji is revered as a god by the fierce Rahode tribe, who call him the wild heart
of their people. He came to their aid during the epic Battle of Flat Sky, when the
Rahode were being slaughtered by their enemies. Gahiji appeared on the hills
above the battlefield. He let out a great roar and charged headlong into the midst
of their foes, with the Rahode warriors rallying behind him. He saved the tribe,
and now Gahiji dwells with them in a place of honor. He hunts in the
surrounding jungle by night but willingly returns to the palace during the day.
Worshippers pilgrimage for months to bow before the Honored One.
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
Prossh dominates the Kher region of Dominaria. Each day at dawn, he takes to
the skies, tracking his prey and monitoring the lands he claims as his own. The
sound of dragon wings in the distance sends many of his subjects into a panic,
scrambling for shelter that can withstand his dragon fire. He levels entire
villages just to punish a single hunter who strayed into his territory. Those who
don't pay tribute to him are burned alive. Prossh is worshipped by the kobolds of
the region, and some offer themselves to His Mighty Overlordship in hopes that
he spares their kin. Prossh is a predatory machine, and the death of his "allies"
just makes him stronger.
Shattergang Brothers
In Ravnica, if you want something destroyed, call the Shattergang Brothers. No
job is too small or person too important for this goblin family. They are sought
after by thieves and priests alike, and even the Rakdos have been known the hire
them for jobs that need a bombastic finesse. These goblins can take out—or
blow up—any problem you might have. An Izzet mage giving you trouble?
Gargoyle spying on you? Pesky curse upon your house? The Shattergangs will
bring the destructiveness you need for a (mostly) reasonable price. The Boros
and Azorius have both put prices on their heads, but the Shattergangs have
eluded capture time and time again. These brothers take pride in their work and
joy in the destruction of others.
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
Soaring above the battlefield, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician, uses cunning
strategies to outsmart her enemies. She orchestrates the movements of her great
army as they fight invaders who would lay waste to her peaceful lands. Derevi's
keen eyes absorb a multitude of factors as she rapidly alters her plan to meet the
changing conditions on the ground. Among her devoted followers, Derevi is
called the greatest commander the Shards have ever seen. Her brilliant strategy
routed the Grixis hordes at the Battle of Split Peak. Her clever diplomacy
diverted the Esper Council in their plot against her. Derevi is disciplined but fair,
and she evokes loyalty in her soldiers. Always the eye in the sky, this
commander outmaneuvers her enemies time and time again.
Roon of the Hidden Realm
Roon is believed to guard the gate of an ethereal world. Raised in a devout
family, the young rhox was drawn to warlike pursuits against his father's wishes.
Roon joined the infamous Herald's Army, where he became a skilled fighter. But
after a mistaken slaughter of innocents, he deserted and wandered in the
wilderness. There he received a vision of the Hidden Realm and was told he was
the keeper of its secrets. Called a blasphemer by some, Roon embarked on a
pilgrimage to rally people to his cause. His compelling personality attracted
many, and he became a prophet with legions of followers. Roon does not seek
out conflict, but when he perceives a threat, he will eliminate it quickly and
efficiently. For those who believe in him, he is a great guardian who will one
day open the gate to eternal glory.
Part 3.) Conspiracy
Chapter 1.) Betrayal (Fiora)
By Nik Davidson (5/14/14)

Far from Theros, on the plane of Fiora, the High City of Paliano is home to
countless intrigues and plots. The high lords of the city vie for supremacy. Move
is met with countermove, and trust with betrayal, all under the auspices of the
immortal King Eternal. But the king was a living man, once, and a friend to the
elf explorer Selvala...
*****
The walls of the king's private dining chamber were lit with enchanted gems,
each carefully placed atop a carved marble rod—a carefully crafted simulacrum
of a candle, but without any trace of warmth. The chamber was in the heart of
the castle complex, and no natural light reached this far.
The table was large enough to seat twelve, but only two dined this night. The
king, Brago, skin pale and cracked, like old parchment paper, rested in an ornate
chair. His guest, Selvala, sat at the opposite end, a feast spread out between
them. The king's plate was empty. The elf's plate was untouched.
"Why do we still do this, my king?" There was a hardness to the last word, like
tension in a copper wire. "Why do we go through these motions anymore? I
know it pains you to see me, and it pains me to see what you have become."
The king's eyes flickered, but his body was still for a long moment until a raspy
voice escaped his cracked lips.
"Because you help me remember."
Selvala shook her head. "That's not enough, anymore. Maybe it used to be.
Before all... this... got so far out of hand." She waved a hand in his direction,
disgust plain on her face. "Whether you remember him or not, you are not the
king you once were. I remember that man. That man was my friend. And seeing
you, sitting in his chair, wearing what's left of his face, is an insult to that man.
An insult to the things we stood for."
Brago's body convulsed, and he let loose a choking gasp. Selvala recognized it
as his laughter. "Maybe... I should have listened to you. Maybe you should have
made me listen."
Selvala's face flushed with anger. "Oh no. You don't get to put this on me. I
warned you. In the very beginning, I begged you not to let the Custodi begin
their treatments."
"But you relented. We still had so much work to do. For the city."
Selvala narrowed her eyes. The king had already said more in this exchange than
he had in their last two dinners combined.
"What's going on, old friend? What has changed?" Her voice softened.
"In the beginning, you and I shared a vision."
*****
The City was young. Young, optimistic, and ambitious, and Count Brago was all
of these things as well. Born third son to a minor house, his prospects would
have been limited anywhere else. But not here. Not in the City. In the City, a
person's dreams and ambitions were the only source of limitation, and Brago
could see far, indeed. He could see past the petty grudges and bureaucrats. He
could see past the flitting fashions, the endless squabbles for glory and fame. He
saw the raw potential of what the City could be. He saw its beating heart, and it
thrummed in perfect synchronicity with his own. And he could see a path to that
potential. Slim, perhaps. Winding. Treacherous. And he could not walk it alone.
*****
"Ha! You speak to me of a vision? That was seventy years ago, you old fool.
Yes. Yes, when I was as much a fool as you have become, I believed in you.
Your words dripped with honey and light and I believed. Which makes your
betrayal all the more bitter, old friend."
"Betrayal?" Brago's voice rose, almost taking on a human tone once more. "I
never. I never lost sight of what was best for the City. Even now."
*****
The two were inseparable, and they worked together flawlessly. He was a terror
in the courts and council chambers, his arguments flawless, his entreatments
irresistible. He built up a coalition of nobility, clergy, and the merchant class. He
rooted out corruption and replaced it with humility. But always, always, more
power ended up in his hands.
She was beloved by the people, had her fingers on the pulse of every community
and enclave. She fought for the rights of immigrants, and convinced many of the
old titled nobility to give up privileges that oppressed the public, before the
public rose up to depose them. Together, they drafted the Charter. Ratification
was unanimous. It was their hands, clasped together, that forged Paliano.
*****
"You lost sight of everything once you started to value your own life above
those you served. How long did you let yourself believe that what the Custodi
were doing was medicine?"
"It was. I wasn't going to let my health stop us from achieving our goals."
"Everyone dies, Brago! Everyone ages, everyone dies. Peasants and kings alike."
Brago laughed, a real laugh this time. "That must be easy for you to say, looking
just a few years older now than when we met. You can't say what you would
have done in my place."
Selvala looked down, and paused. "Perhaps not."
*****
King Brago had been on the throne just three years when the doctors diagnosed
his illness. Hereditary and incurable. He would not last the year. Selvala was
devastated. Brago was in shock. When the priests came to him and told him
there were treatments he could undergo that would magically preserve his body,
he was cautious.
He and Selvala discussed and debated the matter extensively. Neither liked the
idea of putting his life in the hands of the priesthood, but each feared what would
happen should the new king die so soon. The alliances they had struggled to
build could crumble in a heartbeat. The shining city could return itself to
glittering ashes so quickly. In the end, they relented. The Custodi were formed,
and the king lived. And he lived. And he lived.
*****
"History will judge me fairly. All that we have achieved. All the good we have
done. It was the only way."
"Brago, if I heard those words from any other man's lips, I would know him to
be a tyrant."
Brago seemed to deflate again. "Selvala. There will be no more treatments."
Shock, joy, and fear flashed across Selvala's face. She stood, walked to his side,
and knelt next to his chair. She took his dry hand in hers. It was neither warm
nor cold, and felt to the touch like nothing so much as an old leather-bound
book. "Brago. This is the right choice. By all we held dear, I will miss you, but
this is the right thing."
Brago coughed, a rattling, wheezing sound. "No. It is not like that. There will be
no more treatments, because they have gone too far. I cannot die, Selvala. My
mind will rot in this cage of bones and skin. It has already begun. My eyes have
all but gone already. I cannot eat, I cannot sleep. I no longer hurt, but for a long
time, I hurt very badly. Now, I miss even the pain."
Selvala sprung to her feet, furious, her hand reflexively grasping the hilt of her
long hunter's knife. "Those monsters! What have they done to you? For what
they've done, I should..."
Brago lifted a limp hand. "No. No. Turn your anger toward me. Where it can yet
serve you. Selvala. I cannot die naturally. But I think I must die. And you are
one of only three people in the City who is permitted a weapon in my presence."
Selvala closed her eyes. As soon as he had said the words, she knew that she
would do this for him. "Brago. You were a good king. A good man." She stood,
stared him in the milky blue eyes, and drew her knife. "I forgive you."
She thrust the blade once into the king's heart. There was almost no resistance,
like stabbing a knife into a sack of dry grain. His ancient body began to crumble
almost immediately, and as he fell to dust, he whispered two words:
"You won't."
Selvala strode out of the dining room, and cast her knife on the floor. The guards
escorted her away without a word.
 *****
The Custodi shuffled into the cold throne room, hands concealed in their long
sleeves for warmth as much as propriety. Gray faces, hard-eyed men and
women, peered out from under embroidered hoods. They formed a circle, and
the eldest spoke. "The King is dead. We will keep the news contained as long as
we can, but the knowledge will escape these walls. Before it does, if we wish to
remain in power, we have much work to do."
The temperature in the room dropped suddenly, and the lights flickered. A
presence entered the room. Cold, and angry.
A blue mist began to coalesce, wisps creeping out of the patterns in the smooth
marble floor. A few of the Custodi gasped and staggered backwards. The mist
grew thicker, denser, and it flowed like a river in an unseen bed.
The Custodi were startled; they looked from hooded face to hooded face for any
sign that one of them might understand. Finding no solace, the priests looked
around the room, increasingly frantic.
A shimmer appeared before the throne. The mist drew itself up and formed the
shape of a man, and the idea of armor became solid around him. Eyes stared
down at the Custodi, dark yet aglow, and the priests cowered before him in fear.
"You will do no such thing. You will announce what has happened. That the
great work of the Custodi is complete. That your king has risen, mind as strong
as ever, freed from the prison of his body. This is a day of celebration." The
spirit's voice was deep and stern. "For you have succeeded. Unless you wish to
tell me that your treatments had another goal in mind?"
Panic flew across the faces of the Custodi. They stammered their confusion, until
the eldest stepped to the front of the huddled crowd.
"Of course, my king. Let none doubt your words." She looked over her shoulder
to the others, who each bent their knee.
"Hail, my king."
"Hail, King Brago."
"All hail Brago, King Eternal."
Chapter 2.) The Black Rose (Fiora)
By Matt Kincl (5/21/14)

The home was more ornate than it needed to be. Marchesa's mansion towered
over the palatial homes of her neighbors, each extra story a mark of her success.
While the rich afforded three to four stories on their homes, Marchesa had nine,
seven of which were mostly unused, although they served their purposes.
Situated among the elite of Paliano, the High City, Marchesa was entertaining a
guest and business partner from the lowlands, Ervos Trax.
Marchesa and Ervos were longstanding business partners. Marchesa's network of
spies and rogues controlled much of the High City, while Ervos's criminal
empire stretched from the lowlands all the way to the city of Talon and the docks
beyond. Despite his power in the lowlands, Ervos was still not of the High City.
His best clothes, which he had clearly worn, were fancy to lowlanders, but out of
date and less impressive to a High City noble. Ervos had made the arduous trek
up the Thousand Steps into the High City from the lowlands. Marchesa had
invited him to dinner but she didn't send a ship to bring him to her—although
she owned several staffed with pilots.
Marchesa and Ervos were sitting in Marchesa's third-best dining room, which
afforded them a more intimate meal. Instead of sitting at one end of a massive
table meant to entertain two dozen, Ervos sat across from Marchesa.
Ervos was not yet middle aged, although in his line of work that would make
him ancient. He was arguably handsome, with sandy brown hair and straighter
teeth than most. With his good looks and undeniable charm, he had exploited his
first victims. Although he wore last season's fashion, a somewhat garish suit
made of golden cloth, Marchesa did note that Ervos still looked pleasing to the
eye.
Marchesa wore her raven-black hair pinned up with ornate pins. Nobles and
thieves all wondered why Marchesa insisted upon wearing the fashion of the
older women in Paliano, although she was only slightly older than Ervos. Even
now, at a more casual dinner, she wore the dress one would typically see in the
High Chamber during a vote worn by a senator falling asleep as the call was
tallied. Some suspected she dressed this way to assert the role she wanted upon
others, while others whispered the Black Rose thought herself the ruler of the
city. Ervos always smiled at these rumors, for he knew Marchesa dressed that
way simply because she liked the clothes, and although she was a woman of
grand ulterior motives, her clothing had none. She wore the style of the elders
well, Ervos thought, somehow remaining fluid in her movements, using her arms
to speak and walking quickly when talking, although the style was typically
worn by the slow and rigid.
Marchesa also wore a ring on each finger, each expensive and ornate. The
biggest was the ruby she wore on her left middle finger. Each ring housed a
different poison, but the ruby contained the deadliest on Fiora.
Here they sat, regal and dignified, two killers slowly eating their meal of roasted
lamb and steamed exotic vegetables. The only sound in the room was the clank
of silverware against plates, the knives cutting the lamb through and scratching
the plates underneath. Then Ervos, without looking up at his hostess, spoke.
"I think I am going to have you killed," Ervos said, then took a bite of a hunk of
over-buttered bread.
Marchesa stopped cutting her food, but only briefly, and continued to carefully
cleave her pork.
"Oh?" she replied after the silence. She took a bite of her food, eyes fixed on her
plate. "How would you go about that?"
Ervos looked up at Marchesa and pushed himself back in his chair, sitting up
straight.
"It would be a challenge, I'm sure, but I do have a plan," Ervos said, confidently.
Marchesa took a sip of wine and then broke some bread from the basket in front
of her.
"And why would you wish to kill me?"
"Business, pure and simple. I tire of making the trek up the stairs, and my
network is now steadily moving into the High City. You, Dear Friend, are my
only obstacle. And I know you would never allow a rival to have that much
power in your city."
"I see. But please, do not tantalize me with vague notions," Marchesa said,
almost teasing. "I must know how you would plan to end my life. Share the
details."
Ervos placed both hands on the table and smiled.
"Well, of course I could not attack now. You have at least two... no, three men,
in your walls. I don't hear any breathing, although I do notice that this palace of
yours has a strong smell of yantal root. That means you are trying to cover up a
smell, so I would guess zombies, most likely bound to protect you if you or they
sense danger."
Marchesa leaned back in her chair, smiling, as she sipped her wine, holding the
wine glass nonchalantly to the side as she rested her arm on the armrest.
"I would never make it out alive," Ervos continued, "even if I did strike you
down where you sit right now and used a spell to render the zombies inert, I
would still need to leave the house. I would have two avenues of exit, the yard or
sewers—which I know, after murdering the city registrar and stealing the plans
to your home, connect to your basement. The yard would be covered by the
archers perched on your rooftop, and the sewers no doubt run me afoul of that
damnable Grenzo you have arrangements with. Likewise, I highly suspect that if
I were to murder you I would, of course, be afflicted with some sort of dark
curse that would leave me in a state of horrible pain, but never allowing me to
die."
Ervos chuckled. Marchesa took a drink of wine.
"Why would I leave real plans of my house with the registrar?" Marchesa asked.
"Of course, they are not the real plans, although no doubt you would have had
enforcers threaten the registrar so he would think they were real, and keep eyes
on the man so if he was approached by another you would know. Which would
mean the basement wouldn't even lead to the sewers, or if it did, might drop me
into a chute that would have me fall out of the city, plunging to sure death into
the lowlands beneath."
"You give me much credit, Ervos. I thank you for the kindness." Marchesa
placed her glass on the table and leaned forward, resting her head on the arch she
formed with her hands. "Please, do go on."
Ervos smiled and continued.
"Knowing that the registrar would be a dead end, pardon the pun, I would
instead have to think about how to strike from a distance. Now, my first guess
would be to poison your food, but as that is one of your favorite motifs, you
would be well prepared for this maneuver. I imagine you get your food from
different locations, some even from the lowlands, using different couriers each
time, so as to not give anyone the opportunity to tamper with your meals. I am
also fairly certain you would feed your food to—no you are not cruel enough to
do this to an employee—but maybe to rats or goblins, to see if they keel over.
So, killing you through your food would be out of the question."
"It's good to know this wasn't my last supper," Marchesa commented. "I would
have preferred a better vintage of wine."
"Quite," Ervos agreed. He leaned back in his chair. "And as I've already
mentioned, your home is a safehold. You do not travel regularly, but when you
do, you travel with armed guards and agents dressed as nobles and street folk,
with some running along the rooftops. A direct assault on you would leave many
dead, and you have enough contacts that garnering support would be difficult.
Word of my sedition would eventually reach your ears. Even if I tried to recruit a
gang of goblins or Custodi guards, you would most likely know."
"It seems like I have nothing to fear," Marchesa said, still smiling.
"Oh, but you do, for there is your weakness," Ervos said, now taking a large
drink of wine. "We both, as a hazard of our business, rely far too much on
others. What is a spider when it cannot trust its web? People can be broken,
people can be made to turn. So with those who protect you and act as your
agents throughout the city, all I would need to do is find someone in your
organization I could own."
"Very true, of course, but which player would you invest into this role?"
"It would be a matter of access. Those in your personal guard and your house
servants would be harder to meet with; I imagine each spying on the others as
part of their position. I would need to find someone on the outside of your
operations, someone who would get orders from those you give orders to, but
not so far removed from the top they don't know anything. I would need
someone like a foreman who oversees shipments or a bookkeeper who
distributes funds to your assassins. I would need someone like..."
"Pietro Lokosh?" Marchesa interrupted.
Ervos coughed and drank some wine to calm his throat. Marchesa took the
opportunity to take more bites of her food, moving from meat to vegetables,
which were slightly cold now but still expensive and delicious.
"Yes," Ervos said, still fighting a cough, his face slightly redder from his fit. "As
one of your sub-lieutenants, Pietro Lokosh would be the sort of person I would
use. I would use an agent of my own to find out his weaknesses, like his family.
And then I would extort him, with threat of violence, into giving me information
about how you move your personnel. I'd gather information over the course of a
few weeks to see where you would be most vulnerable, even if it would just be
an attack against your pocketbook."
Ervos began to cough again, this time producing blood into his hands, which he
quickly wiped up with a cloth napkin that had been on his lap. Marchesa saw
this, although she did not acknowledge that fact. She spoke while he coughed.
"I would, of course, suspect such a subterfuge and end Pietro Lokosh's life as a
precaution. Likewise, I would locate your spy and flip his allegiance with the
promise of gold, allowing me to keep better tabs on you, feeding back the
information I would want you to hear, until I decide to kill the spy and retrieve
my gold. For good measure."
Ervos nodded as she spoke, still coughing into his bloody napkin, face redder
than before, and held up a finger asking her to pause.
"I would, of course, know that the spy would be used against me," he said,
speaking through the coughing, blood now splattering onto his plate of
unfinished food. "I also know that any person in my organization would
ultimately be corrupted by your promises, and I could never trust someone who
had ever been in your employ. I also know I am just not as adept at knowing
people as you, seeing all the variables. I admit that as my flaw. I would know I
would not be able to kill you, but as our businesses continue to square off against
the other, one of us would have to die. So instead of letting you kill me, I would
poison myself, knowing I would be dead despite any schemes I might plan."
Marchesa nodded, the smile now gone from her face. "I am impressed, Old
Friend. I will say that I am shocked by this play. I had planned to have you killed
at your secret penthouse in your sleep two nights from now. It seems I will be
blamed for your death and face retaliation from your associates."
She leaned forward. "This was a good play."
Ervos smiled, now shaking as he tried to hold himself up in his chair, but then
slumped forward, face into his plate, dead.
Marchesa sighed and fidgeted with her rings. She stood up, pushing her chair
back, and walked over the Ervos's body. She wanted to kiss him on the forehead,
but she knew Ervos would have put poison on his skin to prey upon any
compassion she might show.
Instead, she walked out of the room to summon her butler, who had been in the
backyard since before Ervos arrived, digging a hole for his body. Marchesa
knew her rival would take his own life, but she wanted him to have the final
victory as he died, even if she had known his play all along.
Chapter 3.) Like Cogwork (Fiora)
By Matt Kincl (5/28/14)

Academy at High Paliano Board of Senior Advisors

Meeting called to order by Chancellor Grinaldi.
Members present:
Chancellor Grinaldi
Vice Chancellor Alendis
Professor Emralla
Professor Fimarell
Professor Muzzio
Professor Tulando
Members absent:
Professor Regness (sabbatical)
Business
Motion from Professor Muzzio: For Professor Muzzio to become vice chancellor
once Alendis retires.
Vote: 1 in favor, 5 against
Resolved: motion failed
Motion from Chancellor Grinaldi: To elect Professor Tulando vice chancellor
once Alendis retires.
Vote: 4 in favor, 1 against, 1 abstain
Resolved: motion carried
*****
"Do you think he was angry?" the ancient professor asked his colleague as they
walked into the academy's antechamber.
"No, Tulando, of course not," the chancellor replied. "Muzzio is a practical man.
He showed no emotion when we rendered the vote. I swear he is no better than a
machine."
"You fail to give him credit, Chancellor. His inventions have revolutionized our
society. We now rely on his work in one form or another."
"Oh, of course," the chancellor replied. "But that's why we need him in a
workshop and not behind a desk."
The professor looked around the empty marble antechamber. It was night, and
none were around, but still the professor found it best to lower his voice.
"You've heard the rumors about him, I take it?"
The chancellor scoffed.
"Spare me. That he is an agent of the Black Rose? Or the one that he is still the
patron of the dropout, Sydri?"
"He most certainly killed Daretti."
"If he did, he did us a favor," the chancellor said. He instantly regretted the
statement, the night's meeting and late hours raising his temper. "I'll hear no
more of this sort of talk. The matter is resolved."
The professor nodded to the chancellor and they both parted ways.
*****
To Muzzio, the matter was far from resolved. He sat in his workshop, the one
unknown to his colleagues, surrounded by dozens of half-finished, half-tinkered
devices. Among the clutter of books and parts, Muzzio contemplated. He was
not elected vice chancellor, which changed months of delicate planning.
Unlike his contemporaries, who would have crumpled up all their plans and
notes in a rage, Muzzio had collected them all, ensuring they were flat and
unbent, and filed them away. Never know when I might need them again, he
thought. His mind raced with hundreds of scenarios, of blueprints of events
unfolding. He needed to work through his thoughts.
After the meeting, he had summoned for his apprentice, Irie. A young man from
the Low City, Irie hadn't the funds to enter the academy. Muzzio had seen the
potential in the boy and brought him on as his apprentice. Irie kept up Muzzio's
workshop in exchange for the same lessons others spent family fortunes to
obtain—even if most of the boy's time was spent retrieving parts and books from
the Grand Library. Muzzio had spent a few months training Irie, but he needed
to accelerate the lessons.
Out of breath, Irie climbed the stairs into the workshop.
"I'm sorry, Master," Irie said hurriedly. "I came as quickly as I could."
"You came as quickly as I calculated you would," Muzzio replied, standing from
his desk. "No need to apologize when I inconvenience you."
Muzzio walked over to one of his many cluttered bookshelves. On it sat the helm
of an early model of one of his sentinel constructs. He spun it counterclockwise
where it sat, and the book shelf lowered into the floorboards, revealing marble
stairs that descended down a spiral staircase. Irie pretended to look amazed,
having already found the secret passage on the second day of his apprenticeship.
Muzzio knew Irie had found it, and that he was feigning shock. Irie suspected his
master knew he had been down there before, but both were more than willing to
play the game of ignorance.
They walked down the brightly lit stairwell and emerged in a large room, where
more than a hundred mechanical constructs stood in rows. At the head of the
room, where Muzzio and Irie stood, was Muzzio's true workshop—large tables
where Muzzio could tend to his creations like a doctor tends to patients; parts put
in deliberate places littered the workspace.
The centerpiece of the room, surrounded by whirring noises of various machines
and the iron army, was a scale model of Paliano, with both the High City and
Low City replicated in amazing detail. It took up nearly one third of the room.
Irie had spent hours vetting its accuracy and was unable to find flaw in its
design. The High City towered over the Lower, just as its full-scale version. The
Corru River was painted through the Lower City, every twist and turn replicated.
The houses themselves were not as intricate as they were in reality, but
important locations, like the palace or the academy, were ornate and delicately
painted.
Above it, a cogwork device built into the ceiling moved a false moon, and in day
was replaced with a bright light that travelled across the fake city in real time.
When it rained, Irie noted that the device ran tufts of cotton across tracks in the
ceiling to replicate the clouds. There were no figures of people in the city, but
Irie suspected that was how his master preferred it.
Muzzio had already begun working on a construct soldier. Irie was doing his
best to pretend like he was taking the sights in for the first time.
"Have you ever killed anyone, Irie?" Muzzio asked calmly, as he replaced a gear
in the construct.
"No, of course not, Sir," the boy replied.
"Do you think I have killed anyone?"
Irie was taken aback by the question and tried to come up with a meaningful
response, but could only reply, "Yes."
Without emotion, Muzzio replied, "How unfortunate. I would have hoped you
thought more of me."
"Apologies master, I... it's just... you hear things."
"Never believe a word you hear in Paliano, Irie, unless it comes from me."
Muzzio removed plating from another part of the construct, taking a jeweler's
eye and small tools to the exposed insides. "No, I am proud to say I've never
killed anyone, nor have I had a need to. At least, not yet."
"That is quite a relief, Master," Irie said.
Muzzio looked up at him from his hunched-over position and stared through the
jeweler's eye. "Don't grovel."
Irie nodded.
"All of the mechanical wonders our city knows today came from me. I do not
wish to brag, simply to demonstrate that I not only have vast intelligence, but
that I know how to apply it to the greater good. Every construct in Paliano is
either built with my designs or from my designs. The magic that fuels them may
come from various sources, but the devices themselves owe their allegiance to
me."
"Do you mean that you can control them?" Irie asked.
"I can, but I do not need to. For every obstacle toward my grand design, there is
a very simple, nonviolent solution: information. Within each of the constructs is
a series of needles that transcribes all that they hear onto wax cylinders, which
my sneak constructs can retrieve for me. You would be amazed at what people
speak of when they think they are in the presence of a nonentity."
Irie felt like he knew.
"The people scurry about, but on every corner, and now in nearly every shop,
one of my constructs tends to them. My creations file their documents, count
their money."
"Then is that your 'grand design,' to replace people with the machines?" Irie
asked. "There are no people in your vision of the future?"
Muzzio laughed, which unnerved Irie.
"Of course not! Everything I do, I do for people, to make their lives better."
"But the way you describe the city, it's like you want everything to run like a
clock."
"That is a nice goal," Muzzio replied. "But foolhardy. The human variables are
what will always throw off any plan for clockwork perfection one could hope to
attain. I have met some who have been to amazing places and speak of ancient
warring artificers and of the perfect worlds they wanted to create. There are even
rumors of a place where the perfection of machines blends inseparably with the
vitality of organic life. I hope we can one day be like those places. I must
mitigate the variables, as best I can, to help society move forward."
Muzzio closed the panel on the construct.
"A real artificer," he continued, "can step away from a creation and know it will
continue to function on its own. But until I know I can step away, I must tinker
and keep everything as it needs to be. I do not make the parts, I'm merely
assembling them."
The construct jittered, then began to move its appendages. It pushed itself from
the table and walked toward an empty spot in the ranks of the other soldiers.
"I do not need to be in charge," Muzzio continued, standing with his arms behind
his back, admiring his soldiers. "The vice chancellor position would have given
me the autonomy and power needed to move into the next phase of my plan. I
wasn't elected vice chancellor, which based on my projections I should have
easily taken. But the death of Brago and his seeming ascension, which I couldn't
foresee, caused them to vote more cautiously."
"What do you plan to do?" Irie asked. "What do you need me to do for all of
this?"
"To watch, listen, and learn," Muzzio replied. "You are my student, after all."
*****
Over the next few days, Muzzio's constructs received new orders.
Professor Emralla found that the bank no longer had record of her money. The
magister assured her that no living soul had been into the vaults, nor would any
have been able to. Behind the magister, constructs went about counting coin, no
more nefarious than a broom or spade, moving currency from one pile to the
next. Emralla understood clerical errors, but she had just been made aware her
latest payment on her estate in the Santuo District—which she knew she had
given to the delivery construct—never made it to the loan house. She went to
sort out the situation, but quickly found that due to clerical errors, the home was
not properly registered in her name and she was to be evicted. The ink on the
quill of the bookkeeping construct hadn't even yet dried.
Professor Tulando feared a wanton construct attacking him in the streets. He had
never taken to the machines and had none in his home. He peered nervously
through windows, barely able to sleep at night. There is nothing to worry about,
he told himself. Muzzio is a reasonable man. The rumors are just rumors. He
was almost over his fears when he went early to his breakfast table one morning.
His servants were not yet arrived to prepare his meal, but there was a stack of
papers where his food normally sat. The papers documented, quite thoroughly,
how Tulando had misappropriated academy funds for his own fortune, even
going so far as to show covert dealings with the smuggler Ervos Trax. There
were signed documents, and even one of these papers would result in his arrest
and termination. Tulando was innocent of all these crimes, but the message was
clear. He resigned less than an hour later.
Chancellor Grinaldi's money was not touched, his titles were not altered, nor was
he unjustly framed or blackmailed. He was having an affair, and a construct
recorded this information. The details were documented and a blank envelope
left outside the chancellor's house for his wife to find. The chancellor was forced
to leave his position to fix his personal life.
The equation remained the same, but the variables were different.
*****
Business
Motion from Professor Muzzio: For Professor Muzzio to become Vice
Chancellor once Alendis becomes Chancellor.
Vote: 1 in favor, 0 against, 3 abstain
Resolved: Motion carried
Academy at High Paliano Board of Senior Advisors
Meeting called to order by Vice Chancellor Alendis.
Members present:
Vice Chancellor Alendis
Professor Fimarell
Professor Muzzio
Professor Regness
Members absent:
Chancellor Grinaldi (resigned)
Professor Emralla (sabbatical)
Professor Tulando (resigned)
Business
Motion from Professor Muzzio: For Professor Muzzio to become vice chancellor
once Alendis becomes chancellor.
Vote: 1 in favor, 0 against, 3 abstain
Resolved: motion carried
Chapter 4.) Blood Will Have Blood (Fiora)
By Shawn Main (6/4/14)

Some of the grubs were no bigger than a coin. Pale and fleshy, they squirmed
their way along the cracks in the floor. Beetles with wiry, clicking legs scurried
over them, hissing at each other as they passed. Centipedes, long as a human's
arm, curled in the dry ribcages of long-dead prisoners. For being in isolation,
Selvala certainly didn't feel alone.
"Little fawn."

The voice was a gnarled whisper seeping in through the cell door. She hadn't
seen the dungeon keeper, but she'd heard that voice, pooling its sound deep in
her ears. For the first two days, there had been a parade of goblins knocking at
her door, screaming in their tinny voices. She'd dealt with each of them in turn.

"Wee faaawn."

Selvala stood in place and focused on the swarming insects. When she didn't
watch them, vertigo overtook her—the individual insects would disappear and
instead the floor and walls seemed to writhe and breathe like she was in the
stomach of some great animal.

"Happy faaaaawn."

And when she didn't watch them, tiny things would start to crawl up the leather
of her boots. She wondered if they were drawn by the scent of dried blood.
Three days later, it was all she could smell.

"Sweet faaaaaaawn."

That blood had drawn a crowd three days before as well, but then it was wet and
red and ran down her knife like water. She didn't want to think about that. She
didn't want to listen to the dungeon keeper's voice. She focused on the swarm.
Her mouth was parched.

"Killer faaaaaaaaaawn."
Now, soaked into her gloves, the blood was the color of rust. Three coats had
been added on top of that. Goblin blood. Black. Viscous. Sticky. She wondered
if she should offer the gloves to her cellmates. They might chew the gloves clean
again.

Three days felt like a long time ago.

"Deadly fawn. Vicious fawn. Murder fawn."

She focused on her breathing and tried not to listen to the sound of the dungeon
keeper just beyond her cell door. She knew he was watching from the bars, squat
face pressed close, keys clanking at his side.

"Don't you want your supper, Fawn?"

She wondered if she could move fast enough to reach the door before he could
react, wondered if she could get a shard of bone into his skull while he was still
so close.

"Certainly," said Selvala. She swallowed. She hadn't spoken in three days and
her voice was like rocks. "Why don't you come in here and give it to me?"

The dungeon keeper chortled. His disembodied voice echoed from beyond the
heavy door.

"Oh fawn, what do you take me for? You took the eye of one my best agents.
What do you have smuggled in there, knitting needles?"

Selvala smiled and fingered the crudely sharpened weapon at her side. "A
femur."

"Ha!" he cried. "Bone to the eye! I knew you would be good. A master! The
others said you were all talk, yet here you are: my perfect assassin."

Her smile dissipated. She didn't look at her jailer's face, but she imagined it.
Yellow teeth, bulging eyes, breath hot and putrid. He wasn't made for Paliano
either.

"Well, your uncle Grenzo forgives you," said the dungeon keeper. "What's a
little blood between friends?"
She turned her attention finally toward the door. His smiling, bloated face
watched from between the bars of the narrow window. "Why don't you get out of
here?" she asked. "I'm formulating my escape."

His smile grew until it showed all his rotting teeth. He asked, "What's it like to
kill a man you love?"

She turned away, back to the beetles that crunched under her boots. She'd been
to the lowlands, she'd survived in the wild, she could stand the taste of insect.
Had bluebloods starved to death in here, refusing to deign to eat from the floor?

"Answer me that one question, dainty fawn, and I'll unlock this door."

She tensed her muscles. All it would take was one quick lunge and this
conversation would be over. Her shard of bone was no rapier, but he was a lump
of a thing and it would do the job.

She said, "I'm sure you don't need me to answer that question."

"Oh, but I do. My hands are clean."

She eyed the skull that lay in the corner. Its empty sockets would stare forever at
the dripping ceiling of this cell.

He said, "All I do is turn some keys and talk."

She contemplated the stories she'd heard about the dungeon keeper, about his
agents swarming in the sewers, crawling through the night—mercenary killers
and spies, dispatching problems and watching for opportunities to blackmail.

He waited for her to speak. When she didn't, he said, "And I'll turn this key here
—I've done it before—if you answer your dear old uncle Grenzo's question:
What's it like to kill a friend?"

Selvala said, "All too easy."

He scoffed. She waited. Above the hiss of beetles, the jangle of keys, the click of
the lock. The door slid open with a creak.

"Next time, maybe it will stick," he said from the hallway.

She turned her attention to the door. No one came. Beyond, she could hear the
keeper's labored breathing in the passage.

She didn't understand, didn't know his game. She knew she was being
manipulated, but to what end?

"Come on out," he said. "I've got a skin of water and a jug of wine. You've split
your time between the low city and the high. Didn't know which one you'd
want."

Selvala took a light step toward the door. The shadows trembled in the
torchlight. Grenzo had a huge frame for a goblin, but he was hunched over, like
his bones were rebelling against him. He clutched his staff and she wondered if
he could walk a step without it. He held the waterskin aloft. She waited for the
trap—a dozen agents around the corner? Poisoned gifts? Some dark magic?

Grenzo turned his head from side to side as if considering the tunnels. "You can
run, Fawn, but the trail is treacherous. I'll take you on your way."

She gripped the shard of bone and contemplated his jugular. It was thick, like a
snake sleeping in his neck.

"Well, go on then," she said, nodding. "Lead the way."

Grenzo was right. The tunnels were like arteries, forever branching and changing
direction. Selvala was studied in tracking and tried to make sense of the paths,
looking for exits with which to escape or landmarks in case she needed to double
back to lose pursuers in the tunnels. But the stonework was relentless. The only
guide points were the occasional chatter of goblins—averting their gaze from
Grenzo as he passed—and the moans of the prisoners—pleading with Grenzo for
his keys.

They walked for a long time. Every so often, Grenzo would stop and poke at the
ceiling above them. "Palace," he would say and laugh. Or "Brago's bedchamber.
Won't need that anymore!" "Sydri's shop—at least since sundown yesterday."
Slowly, the map of Paliano began to make sense to her, but still she didn't know
where he was leading her or to what end. "Secret council chamber," he said, and
watched her face to see if she knew.
At one point, he stopped and sniffed the air. He lofted his staff and banged it
against the ceiling above them. "Treasury," he announced. Then he pointed his
staff like a long, bony finger. "Take that passage and it leads straight into the
vault. Take a handful of gold for your trip if you want. Fill your boots if you
want. It's free for the taking."

He stared at her, waiting for a reaction. "Doesn't it excite you? The thought that
we're in the secret heart of Fiora?" She stared at him, tried to make her face
neutral, offering him nothing. "Did you ever want to see the king's private
sculpture collection? Ever eat poached egg of paradise bird? Not of this world!
There are stairs into that kitchen, too. Every secret door, every secret lock is
known to me!"

He held his keys aloft and shook them at her. "What do you want, Little Fawn?
What's your price? I know it's not gold, but I can offer you heaps. Access? Do
you want to leave the high city? Or free it? Open the secret gates and let the
rabble below up into our streets? Great pulleys to hoist up the beasts from the
old world? Information? Just think what it would have been to spy on your dear
friend, Brago, and peer into his secret plots. Then maybe you wouldn't have been
so quick to stab. Or you would have been quicker! Gotten the job done while
you still had the chance."

He stepped closer and hoisted himself level with her face. She gritted her teeth.

"Another chance to kill a friend? Is that what you want? More murder? I can
provide that as well. We can make these sewers run red from the carnage of it
all." He smiled and his eyes watched her closely. "What about the opportunity to
kill an enemy for a change?"

"What," she said, "am I being asked to do?"

He laughed triumphantly. It was loud and unfettered. She didn't know how deep
the tunnels ran, but it must be deep enough to mask the cackling of a madman.
He scurried down a passage, then stopped, motioning for her to follow.

He put an ear to the wall and she followed suit. There was sound there, although
she couldn't place it—low and resonant, like a great elephant dragging a chain,
but there were other sounds too. Soft, rhythmic clicks and whirs. They reminded
her of bird calls, but there was something off about them—something impossibly
regular.

Grenzo sorted through key after key, looking for one in particular. With a grin,
he found it and tucked it into a secret lock in the stones. The wall swung open.
Grenzo, dancing with excitement, waved her up the stairs.

The nightingale was wound from wire, its beak two brass clasps that opened as it
sung out seven perfect notes. It then waved its false wings and spun once in a
circle to sing again. Those same seven notes carried through the library, rising
high up toward the vaulted ceiling.

All around Selvala, ornate automata clanked and whirred. Metal, spidery limbs
sorted books into the shelves. Glass eyes on long wrought necks followed them,
twisting back and forth as if checking for errors. In the corner, a shell of iron
shaped like a human ran thin paintbrushes over a canvas in even circles, a
landscape taking slow shape in their wake.

"Muzzio's library?" asked Selvala in a whisper.

"There's a terrible order to it all, isn't there?" said Grenzo. His breath was
labored, as if the air were thinner. "The grand tyrant architect, Muzzio—student
of Daretti, who looked down at his legs one morning and said, 'I can do better.'
He promised us a new world. One that was perfectly crafted. One that was
programmed and understood. One that he would build to replace us all."

Against the far wall, towering nearly two stories in height, was a beast of a
machine. Pulleys stretched across its wooden limbs like sinews. A maw of
terrible gears seemed to smile at them. The beast was still as a statue, but
between its legs, Selvala could see a great red door.

"So what do you want, Little Fawn? Your world is doused in mud and blood and
bile. These shining animals would be a new menagerie for a new world."

"What am I being asked to do?" she repeated.

"It's a new world, Fawn. You've set it in motion. We have a king with no blood.
We have beasts with iron flesh. The future is deathless, inorganic, unless you act
now." Grenzo held up his key ring and picked out a single key. It was decorated
with interlocking spiral patterns—an artisan's object, like everything there.
Grenzo's smiled and his eyes bulged, ready to escape his skull. With heavy,
excited breath, he said, "Through that door, Muzzio lies sleeping."

Selvala pulled away from him. "Is that what you're asking me? To eliminate
your rival? What? As thanks for turning a little key?"

"Not my rival. One who would see your bleeding world swept away and
replaced."

She stared at Grenzo, holding the gaze of those yellow eyes. He smiled wider
and she kicked at his staff, sending it sailing. Grenzo crumpled to the floor. She
reached for the bone blade at her side with one hand and knelt to grip the
goblin's leathery throat with the other.

"I should cut you open right here. I will not be your hired thug. I will not help
you mutilate Paliano into your twisted image."

And then she saw the yellow glow. She turned her head to watch the great
construct rise from its spiritless slumber. Its gears wound faster and faster. Its
pulleys stretched themselves taut as it prepared to spring forward.

Letting go of Grenzo, Selvala tumbled from the path of the machine. Grenzo
moved too, scurrying away with a speed she had not expected from his haggard
frame.

The machine swiped with a great paw. She ducked low and books went flying
overhead, tomes raining down on her. The mechanical librarians scurried to
collect the debris.

Selvala looked at the cracked femur in her hand. It wasn't much of a weapon.
She knew where to strike on something human, knew how to hunt the great
animals, but the femur wouldn't even dent the machine's casing.

She hurried between the machine's legs and scanned for the dungeon keeper. He
was back down the secret staircase, pulling closed the trap door concealed in the
floorboards.

"What world do you want, Selvala?" he yelled and, with a great laugh, slammed
the door closed.
She dove and tried to pry her fingers into the secret lock of the secret door that
led back down into Grenzo's undercity. Behind her, Muzzio's guardian was
twisting its wooden limbs, readying itself to strike again. She sunk her weapon
into the lock, crudely forcing harder and harder as the beast descended. Then,
with a snap, the bone cracked in half and the lock gave way.

Selvala felt like she was falling as she stumbled through the sewers. Behind her,
she could hear the clomping of great machine legs. In her mind, she could feel
the beast's cold breath on her neck, but she knew that was just her imagination.
In her arms, she carried Muzzio's tomes. They spilled from her arms as she ran,
but that was the point. An army of artificial librarians chased after her, filling the
dark tunnels with the clicking of their limbs.

Somewhere, she could hear the squeal of goblins, their tunnels opened and
filling with things not of their world. Soon they would clash—Grenzo's secret
killers and Muzzio's artificial animals—and she didn't know which side would
win. She hoped both sides might find their secrets laid bare for all of Paliano to
see, but she knew that too might not succeed.

When Selvala had run far enough that she couldn't hear the battle behind her, she
collapsed. She found an unlocked cell and crawled into the corner with the
beetles. The next day, she would leave the High City and go back to the wild
places far below and far beyond. Her boots would be caked with mud, her limbs
tired and sweaty as she ran through the trees, picked fruit, and watched the wild
beasts. But, at the time, her task was to hide in the darkness with the insects and
sleep.