"Will you be coming back this way?" he inquired. "I can have… several others waiting on your route ahead of you, and the rest can come to a place of your choosing."

"Bring them to Shireton, if I do not meet them on the road to Warsherz. If I do not come, I will send someone who can do the job." That's what Sims were for, after all, leveraging my time.

"Then I will go to arrange matters," he responded. There was a flurry of motion as he shot upwards, condensing down to a much smaller winged form as the hynfolk around all cried out in wonder and surprise, and a… bright pastel green swift was winging its way through the night to the east.

I would have smiled, but ah, my adoring public. Not allowed.

Obviously he'd been one of the mysterious Masters who protected and actually ran the Shires in their informal manner, with the official Sheriffs basically acting as front-men and mouthpieces, as well as open examples of the conduct of proper hynfolk. Given the Colors of most of the hynfolk were White to Yellow, they were definitely doing something right.

And arsehole wizards who wanted to prey on magic-resistant beings smaller than them to test out their alchemical chops deserved everything that was coming to them.

The Mirror at my Innspot had a minor, if telling addition to it. My Sims could not have Marks, since they were not living. That meant they were nominally outside the instant communication loop. Furthermore, without souls of their own, they didn't have independent Allegiance existences, so they registered more as my property or servants than as independent members to those who actually Swore the Oath.

That said, I'd gotten around that minor limitation with the Mirror, taking advantage of one of its powers. We had upgraded it from its base function as a Crystal Ball with Clairaudience and a powerful version of ESP, extending that to include Telepathy for communication with anyone being Scried. It also effectively had Permanent versions of Detect Magic, Detect Alignment, Comprehend Languages, Read Magic, Darkvision, and Tongues, all of them at VII Valence, were also attached to the Mirror by mounted gems or Runework, so there was no need to Cast the latter spells.

It was the first big project for my Sims, and the second was their own set of unique Runes and Marks.

As Constructs, they could all be treated with Runes of Magic, and tying them to the Mirror was simplicity. As Sim Two was always in attendance upon the Mirror, not needing to sleep or anything like that, using it as a medium of communication was simple.

The Sim Rune-Mark meant the Mirror could focus on them as if they were wearing Amulets of Inescapable Location, enabling the Mirror to focus in on them through most mundane interference and Divination Wards. A simple Message spell focused on the Rune was conveyed instantly to the Mirror and Sim Two, who could open it to communicate with whatever Sim was needed.

That same Runemark was also connected to Dread, and anchored to the Immortal Power within my Staff. No mortal Wards could interfere with the Mirror finding my Staff, and by extension me, and that would be true in distant dimensions, even if no magic normally worked there.

A Message to the Mirror, and Sim Two popped it up immediately behind my ear, restricting the size of the scrying window automatically to avoid the magically sensitive.

-Shine this image upon the Mirror and find out where he is,- I /ordered her, the shrunken but extremely distinct figure of the guilty wizard rotating in my hand. -He is a Zanzyran mage, probably from Fuirenze, and likely of the Tranelli family. He is kidnapping and performing alchemy experiments upon hynfolk.

-Then gather a team, dispatch them with extreme prejudice. Have Ghost backing them up.-

-Understood!- Number Two /replied quickly. The Mirror could answer short questions about any beings whose image was shown upon its surface once per week. Tellingly, that could mean an excellent painting, a magical illusion or hologram, even a polymorphed likeness. The answer was akin to inquiring of an outer planar source, something I preferred not to attempt as I was sure at least some of those sources were Immortals… or their enemies, neither of whom I wanted to deal with.

But it also nicely sidestepped Divination Wards.

Ghost was Sim Number Eight, who was pale-skinned, pale-haired, and backed up teams on combat operations. Since Sims couldn't earn Karma directly, I preferred my people to take care of problems and harvest the Karma, while I got my share from Loyalty pass-up. Her job was to get the team in and out alive, leaving combat to them, and helping with things like breaking Wards and similar obstructions.

That she was capable of tremendous amounts of violence if needed was a given, everyone knew it, and knowing they had that rock of power behind them gave them confidence when needed.

She had mostly seen activity in raids in the Bleaklands, silent and deadly raids and activities that were causing chaos and confusion among the nifloid tribes.

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There was little doubt that the valiant elves, dwarves, and human Rangers would enjoy having a change of venue for one evening…

-------

The tower was tall and built of dark gray stone, set back in the hills among old growth pines, blending into the forest. The wizard who dwelled there always entered by Teleportation or by flight, always Invisible and never seen to enter or exit. The locals whispered of earthen, wooden, and bone Constructs hidden beneath the ground or part of the trees, masking illusions making it difficult to find in misleading mists, and people going missing who poked much too closely into whoever and whatever was running the place.

It was miles out in the forest and hills, away from any villages, and the locals prayed that it stayed that way if they left it alone.

The team that stepped out of a Mirror-Door from Innspot had absolutely no intention of doing likewise, of course.

The human magi of Zanzyr dominated its politics, and were prone to being incredibly selfish and arrogant in their many beliefs, especially regarding non-Casters. One reason the Erendyl elves had such isolationist tendencies was simply because so many of their neighbors were not good people, and they did not want to associate with them. Being restrained in how to deal with 'fellow countrymen' did not make things simpler, especially when many magi of Zanzyr didn't feel much restrained themselves, especially among the older families and nobility.

If laws served no good end and ruthlessly exploited the innocent, then ignoring those laws was as proper as the wizards who ignored laws that protected people and did whatever they wanted to them. The fact that Princes in their own Principalities could have blatantly unfair laws by fiat alone, and were held only to not committing treason and paying their taxes on time meant that a vast chunk of the ruling magi were quite corrupt and thought that was only the right and proper way of the world.

Likewise, if you killed those wizards who were arses, there was no proof, and you weren't committing treason, and you paid your taxes on time, all was well and good.

Ghost looked at the mists of the Guards and Wards spell, and gestured sharply.

A corridor opened through the mists, parting the magic and giving them a clean path forwards.

The dwarves, plated and shielded and with hammer-backed Axes, moved ahead, the elves and humans with bow and crossbows ready and pacing behind them. When the first Wood Golem lurched out of the trees, blue-black Weapons hewed into it eagerly, while upraised Shields took powerful blows.

The thing was hacked apart quickly, none were harmed, and the advance continued.

Five more Constructs were encountered, attempting to surprise them by coming out of the mists, down from the trees, or up from the soil. All died hastily to the adamantine Weapons of the dwarves there, and when lurching undead bound to the bare soil came out of the ground, pale white flames lit up on the Bows of the waiting archers.

Not a single ghoul made it alive to the ready lines of the dwarves.

"What is the read, engineer?" Ghost whispered quietly, studying the tower before them. A slate of stone was in her hand.

The senior dwarf looked around at the tower, the construction of it, the way the earth had been molded, shaped, and shifted.

He stepped over to the edge of the clearing slowly, studying it all with dark eyes in a reddish-brown face. "We go down here, Lady Ghost."

She made no gesture, but the team closed around her as she set foot upon that spot, raised her hand, and the Rune of Stone glowed with power.

The shallow dirt beneath them gave way as the stone of the hills sank down beneath it, precipitating a short drop that surprised no one as they fell with the moving stone and descended, while above them the surface rolled shut, leaving the emptying pit behind them, but closed from the surface.

"Deep enough. Forward," the dwarven engineer called out, and their descent stopped, while the stone ahead of them began to melt aside.

A sliver of light and air movement turned the rapid retreat into something more careful, as they found themselves looking at the back of some crude wooden shelves put into place down here, with… things inside.

Organs, that had been taken from living beings, and subjected to… something.

One had worms waving through ropes of intestines. One had a still-beating heart that had grown tentacles. There was a stomach that looked to be pumping like a set of lungs, squirting out some black substance that died as soon as it touched the light.

And more, and more of like things. Hands nailed to plaques, still twitching, a collection of heads of hyn and dwarves and humans that showed signs of exposure or mutation from horrific experiments.

"The wizard who did this is in the tower," Lady Ghost reported softly. A soft, misty white light gathered into a transparent sphere in her hand, then flashed outward, vanishing into the ether. A second spell went off, yellowish streaks falling to the earth as they raced out and sideways.

"No dimensional movement. No flying. Sound Bubbles up, Markspeak only, and kill everything responsible for these atrocities."

---

The fire exploding in his lab was certainly not the first time an experiment had gone wrong. Anfonio Tranelli definitely didn't want to be caught in such things, and had installed some clever vents leading out up to the hillside to give such explosions an avenue to retreat, and always made sure to Resist Fire before he played around with anything radical, knowing how unstable his reagents could be. The contingent spell to evacuate any fumes with a Gust of Wind was a given, of course!

The dwarf held paralyzed on his table had been a fine specimen, surviving over a dozen different novel poisons, including some he'd designed specifically to be effective against his filthy kind. Oh, the cur had lost one of his legs, most of a hand, his beard was reduced to a mangy mat, and most of his teeth had rotted away from a horrible skin malady quite similar to mummy rot, but the tough thing still lived, and was good for this newest batch.

The acidic component had been necroically treated to go right for the bones. If it worked, the target of the attack would literally crack apart and fall under the weight of their own body.

He heard the door open by the bell attached to it. "Jurgens, this better be important!" he swore, turning to face…

Nothing, but an incoming wall of fire raging down the corridor outside and coming directly for him?

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