Unfavorably Familiar

 
Shots were fired, and a duel's to be had.
 
If I had respect for Valagryn, I would have nodded my hat. Instead, Theo, Milo, and I split for the drow's arcane turrets.
 
Theo and I downed one each. It was then that Valagryn turned to face me. "Finally," I muttered -- though that was too little too late. He brought the gunfight into close range, and I tried to duck and weave around his shots. To little avail; he hit me more often than my armor and magics could protect me. And the Claw, the Fang? They were too far away to provide me with cover, and I learned quickly that Valagryn could shoot right through their protections.
 
Murg stomped towards the gunslinger, turning only to chuck a small bronze coin at a far-off arcanomechanical turret. We heard a soft clink, before a loud whooshing noise heralded the construct's magics absorbed into the coin.
 
"I'll have to do something for those guns o' yers," he sputtered. I grunted, cursing in the tongue.
 
A wind rushed out of the room when Valagryn unleashed two full magazines at me, point-blank.
 
And so I fell.
 


 
Sigis trumpeting loudly, turning to meet Theo at one of the remaining arcane turrets. His axe flew, swinging wide to land behind the machine. But our time wizard bent reality, and as the axe returned to Sigis, it removed the top of the turret's chassis from its feet on the ground.
 
Murg unleashed holy light, point-blank, at Valagryn. In return, Valagryn ejecting several rounds in a large concussive blast. He remained unfazed and unblinded, but most of the vanguard were deafened and blinded by the blank shots.
 
As I bled out, all converged on Valagryn. He grinned maniacally, excited to bring things within reach. At once his sputtering gunfire became a veritable storm of bullets. Within a great sphere of mythicite and forceshot, Valagryn spun on his heels. The spectral arms reloading his guns multiplied, and the gunslinger had become unto death.
 
Through it all, Dannerick was unscathed. He rolled fowards -- "I am unimpressed!" -- to push his advantage.
 
I, unconscious, yelped -- and then, Dannerick was at my side. He hastened a potion down my throat, and I blinked awake to his face above me.
 
Far off, Sigis had strode up to Valagryn to unleash a mighty swing against the gunslinger.
 
 
 
Theo telekinesed me 30 feet closer.
 
Steel cast heat metal. Valagryn dropped one gun, and then the second out of shock.
 
"It isn't worth it!"
 
And Valagryn conceded.
 
 
 
 
He told us of how to get to Prince Henrik: a servant accessway in the royal kitchens, through an oven with a cabinet lever to activate.
 
And then Valagryn was gone, teleported out by some magical dead man's switch.
 


 
Dismayed, we collected ourselves. Sigis, too tired from his smite to continue with us, looked on as Murg began to unfurl a parchment. It never ended, cascading in rolls on the floor. At the very end, he signed his name with a great floruish. The scroll began to break apart, the pieces wrapping around the vanguard and repairing our wounds in a grand gesture of healing.
 
Theo prepared a spell mote of haste for Milo, and we collectively took a deep breath.
 
Our search began.
 
The top of the hallway held an obsidian door, big enough for a dragon and locked tight with both mundane and magical means. Further investigation of the hall revealed more hallways than not; Dannerick spotted a series of ceremonial doors that seemed out of place, but other than that our leads were close to none.
 
We took the path, our thief leading to a small receiving room or throne room, with a second set of two doors. Again, Dannerick spotted something, this time iconography of the twin devils of Ba'tor. Theo led on, one door seeming a better shot than the other.
 
Further and further, Theo/Icarus led is -- to the back kitchen as Valagryn had explained, and then through the ovens and down a hidden passageway. "The lights are mythicite," Dannerick noted, removing some from their sconces for he and I to take apart after this mess was over. "That's not a good sign," I darkly enthused.
 
The stairway opened to a hallway, and then to a pitch-black cavern. We paused, thinking, until most of the vanguard could make out a sound in the void. Cautiously, we carried on -- arcane light and magics at the ready. Eventually, we found strange markings on the walls of the cave
 
"They're power lines," I realized. "Just like Varunmund's." Our artifact voice confirmed that these are far less efficient than those in his tower. "They could manufacture small amounts of mythicite," Varunmund continued. "As I feared," was all I could at.
 
Still following the sound, we came to an intersection that opened up to a twenty square foot break in the pipes.
 
The power line routes opened to a junction -- and Milo called out that the power lines here are active. Soon thereafter, a rumbling became perceptive. I could feel and tell that the power lines were not static; they changed in a rhythmic fashion, cycling.
 
Then a voice carried through the pipes, one mechanical and non-living, like Varunmund. "Set up!"
 
We spread out, noises getting louder. Every pipe ended in a dead end with some valves -- until Milo shouted to the group. "It's a door, and it looks... it looks... expensive!"
 
Everyone save Dannerick gathered around the door. I got the lock off cleanly, without touching the insides, while the rest took the pipe seal off its hinges.
 


 
The pipe revealed an inner sanctum, with a glass dome covering liquid mythicite. Three pipes fed that pool to other regions of the pipework and laboratory. Each pipe was labeled with one of three channels -- and channel three was almost overflowing with power.
 
It took my last haste and running to and fro to shut off the channel three overflow valve. Dannerick and I had found another exit, a smaller pipeway in the exact opposite direction of the mythicite engine.
 
We regrouped, and found another chamber: a weapons fabrication room. Some of the mythicite from the engine room clearly led here, as well as the black sigil door from Hyperion Castle. Icarus & Theo were able to spot a hidden person, an invisible scientist hiding behind some of the larger pipes in the fabrication room. I tried, but then Theo spoke to the scientist hiding.
 
We got her to come out. She introduced herself as Nerea Kasim, "the only one left here". Theo had spoken to her, through the magic of Vrianna at the Library of Order.
 
She explained that we needed to do several things here: to deactivate the first overflow failsafe -- which we had done, and the second was another door that she could lend us access to. Murg looked everyone over, and we nodded in agreement. Nerea gave us access to her small, small laboratory, with an orrery within. Deep inside the small space, Murg found a literal hunk of flesh so cut with demonic runes that it came across as more evil than some of the devils we had faced. "Project Millenium," Nerea explained. "We were to run as much energy through it as possible." When combined with mythicite crystals, the flesh was made new like a baby's.
 
Those crystals intrigued me: they were storage for mana and energy, in a way I didn't need a use for yet but was intrigued by nonetheless. I stopped to look only for mental notes; deeper in the lab, there was a series of bookshelves filled with tomes and many, many arcane components. Theo helped himself to those materials, and I kept my eyes on Nerea. She was anxiously fingering a holy symbol of Selune, and spoke ill of her work here. "This is too dangerous for the outside world" came the refrain.
 
Nerea also confirmed that Dannerick's grandfather's work had been here in the lab, and Excanerix (who keeps it on his person) used that knowledge to bind the Endless (as we had anticipated). "In his phylactory," she added.
 
Something still didn't sit right with me, but we all complied. The next chamber, the backend of the energy conduit system, crackled with energy. The very air felt thick, enough to slow each of the vanguard.
 
Within, a construct of very lightning activated, its blade ready and crackling with energy.