Othala felt the earth shake. As the rocks fell, its sensors were already reporting what happened.

The final entrance had collapsed, placing tons of dirt, rock, and enchantment-reinforced stone in place to delay anyone who might want to enter the facility. It was one of several last-ditch defenses, but it was never intended to close off all of the major entrances. The others had already collapsed when Othala woke after its centuries-long repair cycle, but one was enough to easily circulate air. It also let monsters in, because the wards intended to stop them were long gone, but Othala had never really thought the last one would go.

Othala reached out to the remote stations and confirmed its suspicion: the collapse wasn't an accident. It was commanded. The order came from one of the old bunkers that were used while the facility was under construction.

It was commanded using Imperial authority, but the Imperial authority was strange. It was diluted and twisted in ways that didn't quite make sense. It was almost the authority of a minor member of the Emperor's retinue, but where the authority lines should have been was a hole. The hole was in the shape of the Emperor's sigil, which was clearly why the remote station recognized it. The Emperor's sigil was enough to get its attention, but when the symbol didn't actually match any of the authorized levels, the station granted only the minimum authority.

The fact that that authority included collapsing the ceiling over the freight entrance annoyed Othala, but there was little it could do about it now.

Othala pulled the logs and quickly examined them. Whoever held the authority had been granted minimal access as an officer of high enough rank but no assignment to the station. The damaged authority imprint should have triggered an alert. Othala should have known someone was using the remote station's interface.

A little more digging showed that it had, but the alert was flagged for human intervention, rather than Othala's. That revealed a major weakness in Othala's setup; everything was designed to have humans in change. There weren't any, but that didn't mean that the functionality automatically defaulted to Othala. It had to be individually adjusted, and this had never come up before so Othala missed it.

The real question was: was the authority real? If that truly was the authority of the Emperor, it was Othala's duty to follow it. If it was fake, it was Othala's duty to turn the impostor over to Imperial Security if possible and at least to notify Imperial Security if capture was not possible.

Othala couldn't do that. It couldn't reach anyone. On top of that, if the group in the tunnels was telling the truth, the Empire itself was long gone. The Emperor Himself might be out there somewhere, but Othala could not trust that someone using a corrupted version of his retinue imprint was actually a member of his retinue.

Hundreds of years had passed. The chances that two groups independently discovered the ruined facility at nearly the same time were essentially nil. They had to be related, and it was also pretty clear that they weren't allies. That meant Othala had a hard choice: did it trust the person with something close to the right authority, even if it was altered by time, or did it trust the people who actually came to talk to it?

No, it was simpler than that. Did Othala trust that the nearly correct authority imprint actually belonged to a true member of the Emperor's retinue? The answer would have been easy in the past; it wasn't valid. It was close enough to fool a dumb access point, but that only made the point that it was likely a fake even stronger.

Sixteen hundred years was a long time, but if the Emperor was still alive, he knew exactly what the imprint was supposed to be. If he'd changed the imprint, that was as good as saying he wasn't the same man anymore.

Othala's light brightened. It wasn't blind to the fact that it had reached the decision it wanted to reach, but it was pretty sure that the reasoning held up.

The only being in the room with Othala was Scout. That was too bad, since Volat would have been a good emissary, but Scout should be able to handle the job. "Scout. Find the leader of the visitors. Lan'ti. Tell him that there is another way out. Lead him to Escape Tunnel Top Four; it is the closest to where they need to go. Lead them to Bunker Four. Take your guards. You are to capture the man who used the hidden interface in Bunker Four to collapse the freightway, along with any confederates he has. Take a full restraint set if there are any left in the guardroom."

"There are three but they are all damaged," Scout reported unemotionally when she returned from her check of the guardroom. "Should I assemble one complete mismatched set or use the three sets as they are?"

That was a hard question. A full restraint set was designed to handle almost anyone up to the fifth upgrade, but to do so it had to be exquisitely tuned. There was no chance that any of the sets were properly tuned at this point. Even minor damage would mean that they couldn't be counted on to completely restrain someone at the third upgrade.

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Mixing in pieces from another set would make the tuning problem worse but it would also mitigate the fact that certain enchantments were nonfunctional. That would be acceptable for a short term use, but mixing and matching would force the tuning even farther off; eventually, it would get bad enough to shatter the mana distribution traces. That would be very bad for the restraints' enchantments and probably worse for whoever was restrained when they failed.

Othala decided to split the difference. "Take all three sets with you. Determine how you would combine them if needed. Plan to use them separately, but if you face someone at the third upgrade or higher you will have to consolidate them. The others can assist you in the capture."

Some of the rubble that filled the stairway was bigger than Sophia was tall. Most of it wasn't, but that only helped so much; the rubble that was that big was in the way. Worse, moving any of it might mean that stuff that was above it fell. They were going to have to dig their way out and reinforce the tunnel as they dug it.

Sophia examined the collapse carefully. If there was an opening, she could probably fit through it. Feathers weren't very big, after all. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be an opening. She couldn't see any light leaking from the other side of the rubble. How far down were they? How much stuff was up there?

She shouldn't be feeling claustrophobic in such a large space; she was in a multi-story building. It wasn't small. Somehow, knowing there was no way out made it seem small.

Maybe she could repeat the trick she did with the water back when they ran into the flaming rage beavers? That ritual was originally designed to be used with sand, after all; she could certainly adapt it to work with loose dirt. Unfortunately, while she knew it would leave the true boulders alone, she wasn't certain what it would do with the larger rocks. Even moving dirt might be enough to cause a collapse; if she moved fist-sized rocks, it certainly would.

Thinking about how to handle the situation pulled Sophia's mind off the fact that she was stuck because of the collapse. She kept running through scenarios until Xin'ri's voice interrupted her. "What do you think the enchantment is?"

Sophia blinked in confusion and turned to the fox-eared woman. "What?"

"The enchantment," Xin'ri waved at the stairs. "On the larger rocks; there's something on all of the rocks with a diameter over about four feet. Even some of the ovoids with a shorter other dimension have an enchantment. It's inactive on most, but the ones where it's active are pretty strong, clearly recently activated. I think it might be some sort of attack, but I can't tell what from here."

Sophia stared at Xin'ri for a long moment. "They're enchanted? They really didn't want anyone getting out, did they?"

Xin'ri shook her head. "Kestii had other ways to move people. They were masters of teleportation, at least compared to what we have today. I'm sure it was intended to keep people out. Or maybe monsters; that seems more likely."

Sophia shook her head and turned to stare at the rocks. Now that Xin'ri mentioned it, several of the larger ones did have mana moving around them. Sophia had assumed it was residue from whatever brought them down, but Xin'ri was probably right. If it was just residue, it probably wouldn't be that strong; it would be dissipating right now. "I don't understand a defense based on collapsing your exits. Did they expect someone to come dig them out, or did they have portals…"

Sophia wanted to smack herself. Yes, they did have portals. That was what the communication links were. They led somewhere. Sure, they were broken right now, but that wasn't because the exits were collapsed. They might well be the backup plan for getting people out; if everyone's personal shield could protect them, it was probably possible for people to get from one side to the other safely as long as they kept moving. Sophia's shield probably wasn't a good thing to judge the damage by, but Dav's shield was reduced only a little by the time they returned. If they'd even gotten close to the halfway point, anyone with any shield at all ought to be fine.

They could get out if they repaired the conduit, and that was always the plan. Sophia felt better not what she knew she had a backup plan, once that would work even if nothing else did.

"...talk to Othala." Lan'ti's voice was clear in the now-still air. "I need to know if she knew this was going to happen and how she plans to deal with it. We're going to see what we can do about it until then."

"Even if she did, I'm not sure I could tell," Volat admitted. "I can read people, sort of, but a glowing sphere with crystals growing from it? It doesn't have body language or tells. I haven't caught it in a lie yet, but I also think there are probably some edge cases. I haven't heard about anyone else being struck by lightning."

The sound of metal hitting rock interrupted Lan's next sentence as everyone turned to look. The opposing team had won a minor victory, but they still thought they had a chance to win, but Sophia didn't actually want insignia anywhere a sniper might see it. It just wasn't worth it.

Scout hurried into the open area flanked by her two guards. Her eyes raked across the group, before pausing when she saw Lan'ti. "Message."

The word was in English. That made everyone stare for a long moment.

Lan'ti stepped forward. "A message for me? Go ahead, I'm here."

"Life space ready. First, enemy. Upstairs. Follow." Scout turned and took a couple of steps before she turned back to look at Lan'ti. "Follow! Before escape."

Sophia could sort of understand what Scout was trying to say, but only sort of. "The collapse was triggered by someone outside." That much seemed relatively clear; no one would want to trap themself inside with everyone else. She just wasn't sure what else Scout was trying to say.

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