“Kron, has your team reached Crystal Lake?”

“A few bells ago, Most High. There were scouts in Dunelan, but the dahl’reisen helped us eliminate them. Quietly, of course, though I doubt it will be long before their brothers raise the alarm.”

“Good. Order them to begin. And send reinforcements with bowcannon. Once the Fey realize what we’ve done, they’ll send Earth and Water masters to repair the damage, possibly escorted by tairen. Then I’d appreciate the use of your spell room.”

The Primage hesitated only a brief instant before he bent at the waist in a low bow. “Of course, Most High.” He turned to one of his own Primages. “Ogran, send the command to our Mages at Crystal Lake. Tell them to begin, and to report back when it’s done.” Turning back to Vadim, Kron gestured towards the door. “If you will follow me, Most High, I will escort you personally to my spell room and release the wards so you may make use of it.”

The Rhakis Mountains ~ Crystal Lake

Standing alone in the center of a clearing on the side of the mountain peak, a blue-robed Primage opened his Azrahn-blackened eyes. He turned and picked his way down a narrow, rocky mountain path, to the group of two hundred Sulimages waiting below.

“We have our orders. It’s time to begin.”

The red-robed journeyman Mages turned to face the soaring mountain that formed the western shore of Crystal Lake. Blue-white Mage Fire gathered in their palms. One after another, in a deliberate, rhythmic pattern, they began bombarding the mountainside. Rock and stone disappeared, eradicated from time and space by the fiery globes of Elden magic.

Beginning on the western slope of the mountain and working quickly towards the east, they carved a deep channel into the rock, creating a chasm where none had existed before.

As the Mage-made gorge neared the shores of Crystal Lake, and the remaining earth and stone holding back the lake grew thin, water began to seep out. The moisture increased to flowing rivulets, then spurting leaks as rock and stone shifted, then cracked beneath the strain.

A final blast of Mage Fire finished it off. Chill and crisp, the water of the high mountain lake burst through the compromised rock and gushed into the newly-formed gorge. White and foaming and moving rapidly, a new river rushed away towards the west, emptying Crystal Lake with impressive speed.

As the surface of the lake dropped, the flow of Source-fed waterfalls that fed the Heras River slowed to a trickle. Within a bell, they had dried up altogether.

Eld ~ Boura Fell

When Melliandra learned that Vadim Maur had left Boura Fell to prosecute his war, she knew her time had come. She hurried down to the umagi dens to retrieve the length of knotted rope and the black canvas bag she’d stolen from the guard halls and hidden in a rock-covered cubby hole in the rat tunnels. She stripped off her ragged tunic and tied the canvas bag to her torso, securing it by winding the length of rope repeatedly around her body. Once that was done, she slipped the tunic back over her head and pocketed a small, sharpened knife and the ring of keys she’d painstakingly carved from discarded bits of metal.

Her heart was pounding in her chest as she slipped back into the umagi den and made her way up a series of stairways until she reached the corridor directly above the High Mage’s private apartments. There, she made her way to the door to the refuse shaft and ducked into the closest abandoned room to unwind her rope and canvas bag. She tied a looped knot on one end of the rope, tightened it as best she could, slung the canvas bag over her back, the coiled rope over her arm, and cracked open the door to peer out into the hallway.

When the coast was clear, she darted out of the room, opened the refuse shaft door, and clambered inside. She hooked the looped end of her rope on the sel’dor stake she’d driven into the rock last week, then took a breath, grabbed the rope, and began lowering herself down the slimy, muckcoated walls of the refuse shaft. Her bare toes slipped on the ooze-covered rock. Only her tight grip on the knotted rope kept her from tumbling helplessly down the deep, dark shaft to the darrokken pit below.

Overhead, light streamed in as someone two floors above opened the doors covering the refuse shaft. Melliandra flattened herself against the wall just as a stream of garbage and the Dark Lord knew what else came raining down. A rotting lump of something landed on her shoulder, gagging her with its foul stench.

Her skin broke out in a clammy sweat. She turned her head abruptly as her stomach threatened to erupt and breathed rapidly through her mouth. Shadow take her! Whatever the putrid lump was, it reeked! Worse, she could feel the wriggle of maggots and rotworms moving inside the gelatinous blob.

She gave her shoulder a violent twitch and felt the lump dislodge and roll down her back. The refuse doors overhead closed again, and the shaft fell into darkness once more.

A soft, blindly seeking mouth nudged the skin near her ear.

With a choked cry, Melliandra lost her battle with her stomach and nearly lost her hold on the rope. Only quick thinking and desperation saved her. She twisted one arm and one leg around the rope and dangled there, retching helplessly while her free hand slapped at the tiny maggots and rotworms writhing in her hair.

So much for bravado. It seemed this umagi was little braver than any other squeamish squeal of a girl when it came to some things.

When her stomach had emptied and she was as sure as she could be that no other crawlies remained in her hair, she put both hands back on the rope and continued inching her way down the refuse shaft to the door that led to Vadim Maur’s private incinerator and spell room.