Published at 22nd of June 2026 10:17 am

Chapter 300 Complications

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Mirian arrived in Torrviol through the Gate and alerted the mages guarding it to the upcoming change in destination. She then visited Eyeball in the little conduit station hidden near the shaft that let the Gate move up and down from the surface to its underground chamber. It had taken her years to discover the little chamber, sequestered away as it was and blocked by a door that used layers of energy transmutation wards to resist any attempt to destroy them.

How are things, Eyeball? she thought to the gateling as she used her blink spell to bypass the door entirely.

Eyeball was practically vibrating with excitement. I DIDNT PEEK INTO THE FUTURE, AND IF I DID, YOU COULD NEVER PROVE IT! it shouted in her mind.

Mirian smiled. Why did the cockatrice cross the road? she asked.

EEEEEEEEEEEEE! Eyeball screamed, its chromatic flesh undulating with bright colors.

Shed thought the gateling would appreciate her little joke. Shed started telling it how long had it been? A half-century? You know, if theres anything you think I should be aware of Mirian thought, now that she was in their good graces.

NOPE. NOOOOPE! IN FACT, I WASNT VISITED BY THAT UNMOORED AT ALL EARLIER, AND HE DIDNT THREATEN ME. INSTEAD, I AM JUST TOO PRINCIPLED TO EVEN THINK OF VIOLATING MY DUTY, EVEN IN AMUSING OR EXCITING CIRCUMSTANCES.

Mirian smiled at the Elder creature. Its been a long path. I wonder how much Ill miss seeing the different possibilities. If Ill feel constrained again. Her look grew serious. A conversation for another time, though. Still too much to be done. Redirect this Gate from Alkazaria to Mahatan.

DONE! The gatelings silver device glowed, and mana flowed through the conduit control panel it rested on.

Mirian turned to leave.

OH, AND MIRIAN?

Yes, Eyeball?

WE BOTH KNOW YOULL BE THROUGH HERE A LOT, BUT GOOD LUCK.

Thanks, Mirian thought to the creature. Then she blinked up to the surface of the town.

Shes back! one of the militia members who was standing in the plaza said. To Mirian, he bowed, and said, Ill get Captain Cassius for

No need. I know where he is. She levitated into the Kiroscent Dome. Geomancers and artificers had done work fortifying the building with extra stone and enchantments to strengthen the construction. Cassius was nothing if not predictable with his routines. Report, she said. And skip the part about the Frostlands Gate population returning.

Cassius looked momentarily shocked, but then he saluted sharply. Frostlands yes. A few days ago, Akanan saboteurs coming in from the west tried to infiltrate the town. However, our patrols and divination easily picked them up as they crossed the spellward barrier. We killed or captured them. Patrols are fully staffed, and all units are regularly drilling or studying military tactics. We are continuing to build layers of fortifications, as requested.

Very good. And the coastal watch teams?

Its a three day delay, so we wont learn how the Akanan saboteurs landed until tomorrow. Presumably skiffs dropped them off. However, three of the posts are in place, and trained zephyr falcons will begin arriving at the posts soon. Lens and divination constructs are up and running. We expect to have five more posts in place in the next few weeks. If Cairnmouth is covering their area, then well have coverage south of the Littenords practically to Florin City.

Excellent work, Captain. A militia this Prophet can be proud of.

Cassiuss back stiffened and he saluted again. We do our duty, as all Baracuel should.

Mirian nodded. She worked with what she had. As you were, she said, then blinked up through the ceiling of the dome. She quickly did her own scan of the surrounding area, flying high into the evening sky.

No movement yet.

Good. She still had time.

She cloaked herself in total camouflage, wrapped herself in an anti-divination shieldjust in case one of the Prophets had been able to insinuate a spyand then moved to the eastern side of town. She no longer had to dig out the entrance that was below the third level of the ancient ruins of Torrviol. She used blink four times in quick succession, slipping through an unseen path that shed mapped out decades ago. With barely a pause to take a breath, she accelerated into the Labyrinth, dismissing her camouflage.

***

As soon as the second chthonic needle was in her possession, Mirian returned to the surface. When she saw no incursions developing, she went through the Elder Gate, emerging from the Mahatan Oasis with barely a ripple, already concealed by her usual suite of spells. From a quick survey of the city, she located Rostal, Minister Zeysum, and a group of local Persamans shed gotten to know well. Banners of the Chosen rippled in the desert wind. Mahatan was still firmly under her factions control. From high up, she directed her lens spells along the trade route to Alatishad. Sure enough, there were burnt corpses of people and beasts of burden.

Bandits. Almost certainly serving Gabriel. First, hed lure them in with riches and richer promises. Then, hed feed them a steady diet of tales of how Mirian and her supporters were monsters of the worst sort, looking to enslave them all as she blasphemed against God.

Once a group had been seized by a Prophets propaganda campaignwhether the words were true or falseit became more difficult for any of the others to drag them away. People were prideful creatures, and once theyd been tricked, it became hard to acknowledge the deceit. The groups ideology also became self-reinforcing. People believed what they heard over and over, especially if it came from people they knew and trusted. Information given to a few select people then propagated into the larger masses, who then repeated it. Though the information had initially come from one sourceGabrielto a single individual, it seemed like it was coming from hundreds of people. It was an age-old trick the Akanan RID had worked to perfect. It was a favored tactic of his.

She would see if she could purge his influence from Alatishad and along the Setarab River, but first, there was no time to waste. She arced high into the air, then blasted through the sky heading southwest.

Two hours later, from her vantage, she saw the telltale signs of armies on the move. Organized lines of soldiers marched along the river, while spell barges moved along beside them with yet more infantry. Behind them, she could see teams repairing forts along the river and a great deal of commotion as supplies were unloaded into scattered fortified warehouses.

Not surprising. He was preparing logistical support along the river. Perhaps it was just for his army. Perhaps not. Liuans most practiced strategy from the early loops was reinforcing the Akanan push into Baracuel, but with Gabriels aid, the Akanans could try to strike at Mayat Shadr directly by traveling along the river before their final plunge eastward. Or, most likely, theyd try to strike at as many locations simultaneously as they could. Mirian could only be in one place at a time. It risked the armies being defeated in detail, but if they gathered powerful enough forces, they could lose three armies as long as the fourth succeeded. The Gates needed to stay intact.

She could begin striking Gabriels forces now, but that would definitively reveal her position right before she plunged into the Labyrinth. If they correctly inferred her true purpose here, theyd be able to organize a powerful enough strike while she was out of position. Better to keep them guessing and strike once she was out of the Labyrinth and on her way back to Baracuel. Gabriels preparations here couldnt actually threaten Mahatan for at least a few weeks.

Mirian continued southwest. Another few hours, and shed be at the next Labyrinth entrance.

**

There were two Vaults that were connected to the Labyrinth entrance south of Urubandar. The first was on the fourth level, but five kilometers from the entrance. The second was on the sixth level, but fairly close.

When Mirian arrived at the sixth level Vault, she found something shed never seen:

The Vault was already open. The puzzles were solved. The ornate chest inside was open.

The chthonic needle was missing.

Her heart hammered in her chest. For the first time in a long time, she found doubt worming through her chest.

She turned and levitated away, careening through the passages. A pair of Elder golems she sped past couldnt even raise their arms for a strike by the time she was past them. Only the Dusk Waves stance gave her the reaction time she needed to be moving at this speed.

It had to be Gabriel. Ibrahim would be busy conquering the west coast of Persama, and she had a feeling hed probably strike Florin City soon. He had a necromancer to manage, and his passion was for his people and family. He wouldnt abandon them.

She didnt know when or how Gabriel had figured out her strategy. Presumably, his encounters with Atrah Xidi had exposed him to what a chthonic needle was, and it wasnt much of a leap to see the similarities between that device and the temporal anchors needed to stabilize the Ominians soul. Mirian hadnt kept the others informed about the exact locations of the contingency Vaults, either, so that meant the man had taken a great deal of time from his hedonistic revelry to track entrances she was visiting and explore them.

Mirian wondered just how long hed been planning this.

Hopefully, he hadnt discovered the other Vault down here. And if he had, hopefully she wasnt too late. The team could still be making their way there. She continued her flight through the maze.

A swarm of labyrinthine horrors had to turn and watch as she passed them by. She shredded a greater labyrinthine horror waiting on the ceiling and was past it before the pieces even finished raining down onto the floor.

Only four kilometers in did she pause. There were two corpses, mangled, but uneaten. Both of them had robes indicating they were from Urubandars Royal Guild of Mages. Praetorian-level myr ratings, then, and trained heavily in combat. The spellbooks and wands theyd carried had been stripped, and of course, the Labyrinth consumed bodies after a few days or during a shift. Fairly recent, then. It was possible they were still ahead of her. There was no force that could navigate the Labyrinth in Urubandar that she was worried about defeating, even if Gabriel was with them and had been hiding his strength in myr.

Mirian plunged on ahead. Several labyrinthine horrors were eviscerated by the force cone in front of her. She passed another corpse. A nearby voidling tried to cut off her air, but she put so much distance between her and it that the spell vanished within seconds. More horrors spattered against her forward cone.

Then there was the Vault. The door was open. Theyd taken the left cluster of rooms, which was the slower but easier route.

She passed another mages corpse, then a dead armored warrior. The blood that had splattered over the walls had already been mostly consumed. That took over a day to happen. Not a good sign.

Two Elder golems howled at her as she passed, but she paid their burning gazes no mind. A repair golem of the type that the Frostlands Gate teams had named Scrappy was busy resetting one of the rooms puzzles. The mythril plating was a problem, but Mirian coated her spells with soul energy and slammed it into the wall, pinning it. The puzzle was simple enough; it was one of the geometric variety that involved moving tiles into a four-dimensional alignment.

The closed door rumbled back open. That meant there were only two rooms to go. The next one combined the magichemical theme with the geometric theme; various magical components needed to be aligned in a specific pattern. Mirian had forgotten exactly how it worked, but the glyphs above the door gave her plenty of information. The Scrappy-like golem in the room behind her howled. It was beginning to take too much mana to maintain the spell pinning it, so she relented with her force spell. If it bothered her, she could always smash it aside again.

Finally, there was a room that involved showing an understanding of fundamental glyph theory. An old memory triggered in MirianGabriel had asked her questions about the concepts at some point. A burst of anger rose up in her. He was just like the irredeemables shed sentenced to death. Happy enough to play along. Happy enough to negotiate, as long as he saw benefit to it. But when it came to holding to an agreement? When it came to actually giving up power, like a temporal anchor? Impossible.

She breathed in, letting her anger evaporate. She was no longer a creature of fury. She accepted the emotion, then let it pass.

There was only the path forward.

She fed mana into fractal patterns along the walls, and various glyphs bloomed in the air as the Labyrinth accepted her solution. The door opened.

One last hall. She sped through it, then stopped.

The final door was open, with another corpse next to it. The final chest was open, and the chthonic needle was gone.

Mirian clenched her jaw, looking at the last room with its nine statues of the Elder Gods. The exit door that let her skip most of the return trip was open. There was no point sticking around. She flew out.

Perhaps Gabriel was holding the chthonic needles for leverage, but he had to know that as soon as she had them, shed renege on any agreement they made. He had to know that hed damned himself in her eyes. She had to assume hed destroyed the devices. Like Liuan, he would be in hiding as he pulled his strings. That at least would limit his ability to manipulate events.

There was still the needle near Ferrabridge. None of the other Prophets could take it, but if Gabriel knew about the needles, he might have alerted Liuan. Liuan would have the entrance heavily guarded, and perhaps, be preparing an ambush. There was no chance she didnt know about the entrance; not only was one of the shallow Vaults where Akana had gotten its leyline repulsor artifacts from, Liuan herself had been assigned to explore that entrance back when the council had just formed.

She burst back out from the Labyrinth.

She had several months left to get the three remaining anchors or needles she needed. With the other Prophets this active in attacking her plans, either they would expose themselves or she would find an opportunity to strike. And Ibrahim might still yet see reason. She cast her eyes towards the Divir moon, where the Ominian waited in Their mausoleum.

Mirian would find a way. She always had, no matter how impossible the problem.

For now, shed strike at Gabriels operations.

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