Fenrin soared through the sky on agile wings. Air rushed past him in a cool caress, granting a sense of incredible speed. Far below, a colorful landscape stretched out in every direction. Rolling hills dotted with sparse trees, green and orange grasses swaying in windswept fields and, in the distance, a placid river that wound through the landscape like an azure serpent, sunlight glistening off its shimmering surface.

  The experience was no less breathtaking for the number of times he'd done this, and it required a great deal of focus to force himself to stay on task. It only took a few moments of searching to locate his objective. Directly in front of him, not far from where his companions waited in a copse of trees, was the gateway to the Labyrinth Core. He'd never seen one himself before, but everyone who grew up in the Labyrinth knew the stories. Large archways of obsidian that often stood in remote wilderness, or deep in the bowels of dungeons. Monuments to the immense, latent power hidden within the arcane mechanisms of this strange world between worlds. They stood empty, bereft of power, awaiting the day that a chosen wayfarer arrived to challenge the force that had brought the Labyrinth to their world.

  Except that's not how this one appeared. Even from this distance, high in the orange-tinged sky, Fenrin could see a swirling vortex of amethyst light crackling within the boundaries of the archway. This was no dormant gateway, but an active portal. Stranger still was the intricate glowing ritual circle that surrounded the portal, pulsing in rhythm with its shifting mists. Curiosity and concern mixing within him, Fenrin willed himself to drift closer. His sharp eyes picked out a pair of humanoid figures keeping watch just beyond the border of the inscribed sigil, their features concealed by hooded cloaks. It was much the same garb as the bruzaks had worn in Estelhelm, and the bulky stature of the pair left him with little doubt as to their identity.

  That was enough for him, getting any closer would risk discovery. A mental command was all it took to sever the psychic connection and a moment later, Fenrin found himself back in his own body. A few steady breathes were enough to banish the customary disorientation that accompanied shifting his senses from his familiar to himself, and after a few moments he had regained his bearings. He was seated in a small hollow in the midst of a cluster of trees, surrounded by his friends and companions.

  "You back with us?" Luis asked. The large man was seated on a fallen log, cleaning his sword with an oiled rag.

  "I'm back." Fenrin nodded, feeling a familiar pang of loss as the sensation of flight and freedom faded. "Mirella's on her way back, too."

  "Did you find them?"

  Everyone had gathered around, waiting to hear his report.

  "I found the portal to the Core. It's active, and there's some sort of ritual magic inscribed around it. Looks like the portal is being forced open, somehow."

  "That's not supposed to happen, right?" Naomi asked. She had a handful of potion vials lined up in front of her and was carefully sliding them into slots in a belt she wore over her armor.

  "No." Fenrin shook his head. "The right wayfarer could open the portal with a touch, it shouldn't need anything else. There shouldn't even be another way inside."

  He took a moment to summarize what he'd seen in more detail, including the two guards that appeared to be keeping watch outside. As he finished, a streak of color descended from the treetops to alight on his shoulder. Mimi clucked in greeting, nudging his cheek with a wing. He stroked her head with a finger, sending a sense of appreciation over their bond.

  "Demons are masters of dimensional magic." Tara reminded them. Her eyes were glossed over, a sign that she was checking her private interface. "If anyone could find a way to break into a Core zone, it's them."

  "What should we do?" Luis asked. "We found them, but we still don't have a plan."

  "There are only two of them, right?" Jade asked. "We should interrogate them."

  The light of day was quickly fading. Under the canopy of leaves, everything was cast in deep shadow. The effect made Jade, who was wearing her usual cloak over the strange armor she had commissioned, look rather sinister. It had taken Fenrin a while to reconcile the harshly beautiful demonic appearance of her true form with its soft curves and wicked horns, with the often curt but kind-hearted woman she was. Even so, Jade had her moments. The word 'interrogate', said in such a coolly calculating manner, with her leathery wings stretched behind her, sent a chill down his spine.

  "You mean, find out what they're doing inside?"

  "Exactly. We shouldn't go in without knowing what to expect."

  "I'm not sure we should go inside at all." Naomi finished collecting her gear and stood up, walking over to join them. "We aren't that far from that city, right? It's not too late to go for help."

  "We can make that decision after we question the demons outside." Fenrin pointed out. "The next step might be obvious once we know more."

  "Good point." Tara blinked, probably closing her status screens. "But how will we get them to talk? They won’t be friendly."

  "Oh, I can get them to talk." Jade said, a tight smile pulling at the corners of her lips. "Don't worry about that."

  "Right." the tek'kalla shook her head. "Enchantment magic."

  The way she said it made her thoughts on that realm of magic clear.

  "What's wrong with charm magic?" Jade asked defensively.

  "Nothing." Tara shrugged. "I just prefer a more direct approach to problem solving."

  "Like blowing things up?" Luis asked. "You seem to be good at that."

  "Precisely."

  "There's nothing wrong with a bit of finesse." Jade crossed her arms, frowning.

  "Don't give us that, Jade." Naomi rolled her eyes. "Weren't you the one who put a crate of explosives in our bag when we were on Earth?"

  "Oh yeah… I should find a use for that."

  "No! No you should not. We don't need to go looking for an excuse to blow something up."

  "Those are the alchemical bombs you showed us the other day?" Fenrin asked, recalling the foreign devices. They were like nothing he'd ever seen, and he'd met people with dozens of worlds. "I need to hear more about the magic-free relics the artificers of your world craft, they sound fascinating."

  He'd seen a few of them already. They'd trained with devices that allowed them to communicate across great distances, although they hadn't needed to use them much yet. How curious that Jade and her friends were constantly amazed with all forms of magic and yet carried with them devices of equal mystery.

  "That's right!" Luis gave him a thumbs up. "We'll have to take you to Earth sometime so you can see for yourself."

  "Are explosives a specialty of your people?" He asked, recalling Jade and Luis's interest in the bombs the kobold shopkeeper had offered.

  "No, I wouldn't…" Jade began and then trailed off. "Actually… I guess they kind of are." She finished slowly with an odd expression, as if she'd never considered it before.

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  "I've always maintained that the majority of problems can be solved with an explosion of sufficient size." Tara offered. "If it doesn't, it either wasn't big enough, or it wasn't in the right place."

  Everyone turned to look at their tek'kalla companion. She shrugged.

  "I wrote a paper on the topic for a class at the academy."

  "Did you pass the class…?" Jade asked.

  "Hey, shouldn't we be moving?" Tara asked, changing the subject with lightning speed. "Fate of your world, and all that?"

  Fenrin wanted to hear more about this paper, and what possible class it could've been written for, but she was right. They had rushed here for a reason. He mentally chided himself for letting the group get so distracted. All his life he'd been trained to be a leader. Just because he didn't want the responsibility of being one didn't mean that he should waste the valuable education he'd been given.

  "Good point." Fenrin said, reluctantly bailing Tara out. "Mimi, take one more look, just to be sure there's only two of them."

  His familiar clacked her beak twice and took off, launching herself skyward with hardly a sound.

  Be safe. Don't get too close.

  "I'll lead the way." He said. "Ready to go?"

  "Ready." Jade said, and the rest of them nodded.

  "That paper sounds fun." Luis nudged Tara with an elbow. "Tell us about it after, yeah?"

  She turned away, and Fenrin thought he saw her cheeks flush.

  "Fine." Tara muttered. "But be ready to be blown away."

  With the aid of Jade's newest spell, ambushing the two lookouts proved trivial. Cloaking herself in a shroud of shadows that rendered her invisible made the act of sneaking up on the two demons almost too easy, and Jade had them on the ground and disoriented before they even knew she was there. Despite achieving total surprise, the bruzaks proved difficult to subdue. As creatures that fought primarily with claws and magic, there was no easy way to disarm them without killing them. Jade successfully enthralled one of them, a burly male with dark skin and bone ridges covering his forearms, and Luis and Fenrin eventually managed to wrestle his companion to the ground before she could recover from Jade's sneak attack.

  Following the quick plan they'd worked up on the way here, Naomi and Tara force fed the demon woman one of the newer potions Siora had concocted for them, a powerful sleeping draught. It did the trick, knocking the snarling and hissing demon unconcious and ending the fight. They were left standing together in front of the flickering portal, which bathed the surrounding scrubland in an eerie, unsteady pink light.

  "I'll make sure there aren't any more of them." Fenrin said, scooping up his bow and recalling Mimi to his shoulder. "Luis, keep an eye on the portal."

  "You got it, amigo."

  "Jade?" Naomi asked, looking around for her.

  "Here." She said, cutting her invisibility. Her form resolved from the rapidly darkening landscape right beside Naomi, making her jump in surprise.

  "Gah! Don't do that!" Naomi hissed, holding a hand to her chest.

  "Sorry." Jade winced. Surprising her heavily armed friends wasn't the best idea right after a fight.

  Invisibility might not be as straightforward as I thought.

  They hadn't had much time to practice with Jade's newest power, and none of them were used to it yet. Until that changed, she'd need to be careful with it.

  Naomi breathed out, long and slow. "Ready to do your thing?"

  "Yeah."

  Jade turned to face the charmed demon. Like the others they'd encountered, he was wearing a brown cloak. The hood had fallen back, revealing an angular face covered with intricate red tattoos that formed swirling patterns across his forehead. His hair was short and black, and two stubby horns poked up from the crown of his head.

  "You." Jade stepped right in front of him. He was taller than she was, so she had to look up to meet his eyes. For some reason she didn't fully understand that little fact bothered her. "What are you doing here?"

  Tara, who was keeping an eye on the sleeping prisoner, listened carefully along with Naomi while the others kept watch for signs of danger. The demon took several moments to respond, which only served to heighten Jade's frustration. She wanted to get this over with quickly, they were too exposed here.

  "We were keeping watch for Lady Malice." The demon growled. His voice sounded like gravel being ground together. "She took the main force inside the Core zone." He continued, pointing to the portal.

  "What is she doing inside?"

  "Readying the ritual."

  Even with magic coercing him to be cooperative, his tone was unfriendly. Annoyed with his terse answers, Jade resisted the urge to shake the creature and instead phrased her next question to be more specific.

  "What does the ritual do?"

  "I…" He hesitated. "I'm not supposed to say."

  "You can trust me." Jade reassured him smoothly. She took a half step closer, spreading her wings and gracing him with a seductive smile that even she could tell was a little awkward. "See? I'm a succubus, just like Malice. I was sent here to help her. I just need to understand what the plan is."

  She tried to ignore Naomi's poor attempt to cover up her amusement at her antics.

  "R-right." The demon relaxed slightly, the spell finding deeper purchase in his mind. "The ritual. It uses some of the materials she stole from the city. By combining our magic, the dimension effusion, the power of the Labyrinth Core, and its affinity for our home, we can summon reinforcements."

  Reinforcements? Their home? What's going on?

  Jade forgot all about her embarassment. Could this not have anything to do with Earth after all? That was the most important question, as far as Jade was concerned.

  "Will this ritual affect Earth? The newly integrated planet?"

  "I don't know." The demon shrugged. "I'm not one of the ritualists, those are the ones she brought inside. The portal would only let a few of us through. But once we have the numbers we need, that's where we'll be going."

  An icy chill ran through Jade's body. Behind her, she heard Naomi stifle a gasp.

  "Why are you going to Earth?" She asked coolly, feeling her grip tighten around the hilts of her daggers. "What do y-, what do we want with the human world?"

  The demon's eye began to twitch. Jade frowned, probing the connection her spell forged between them. It was in good shape; he wasn't even close to breaking free. What was happening?

  "The Earth artifact." He said, wavering on his feet. "We need it for the final…"

  "The final what?!" Jade demanded. "What artifact?"

  "The final ritual…" He gasped, a line of blood trickling from his lower lip. "Freedom… vengeance… At long last… Our rightful place!"

  The demon spasmed mid-sentence, collapsing to the ground with a spray of blood. Jade took a reflexive step back, shocked, watching as blood poured out of his eyes and mouth. The mental connection they shared abruptly shattered as the creature twitched once on the ground and died at her feet.

  Tara was the first to move. The tek'kalla knelt beside the fresh corpse, holding her wand over the body. She looked up at Jade with a frown, the amethyst light of the portal shimmering on her glossy white hair.

  "A geas. Some kind of compulsion magic." She said, rising. "Someone doesn't want them to talk."

  "We've heard enough."

  Familiar anger roiled in Jade's soul. Whatever their ultimate plan was, these creatures were planning on going to Earth in force. They had to be stopped. After moving the bodies, one deceased, one still sleeping, the group gathered a short distance from the glowing portal. Night had fallen, and the open scrubland was covered in a thick darkness broken only by faint starlight. Jade shared what she'd learned in short, clipped sentences. Even in the gloom, she could see the resolve in Luis and Naomi's faces. There weren't any more doubts. They had to put a stop to this.

  "This portal is only a couple of days from Illysport." Fenrin said grimly when Jade had finished her explanation. "This ritual they're setting up, whatever it is, won't take long. If it did, someone would find them."

  "So, we don't have much time." Jade grimaced. She looked at the portal, sparking and flickering in the middle of the runic circle inscribed into the dirt around the base of the obsidian arch. It pulsed, beating like a heart. "I'm going in there."

  "Jade, think about this." Naomi urged. "We have to do something, but that doesn't mean we have to rush in there blindly. There could be anything on the other side of that."

  "She's right, chica." Luis lay a hand on her shoulder. "We need a plan."

  Jade bit back the instinctive desire to snap at them. How dare they try to stop her from doing what had to be done? What right did they have to tell her what-

  But… no. That wasn't it. She could taste her companion's emotions. The fiery anger, the steely determination, and… the concern.

  For me.

  The situation had her riled up, but it wasn't just that. The demonic aspect of her heart was urging her to fight. It hated waiting, hated being told what to do. Even when that was exactly what she needed. She'd promised to listen to her friends and to be more careful. Now was the time to show them that she'd meant it. With effort, Jade forced herself to shift back into her human form. The familiar strength of her demonic body faded, but so did the oppressive penalty to her will. As it lifted, clarity of thought returned to her mind like a bucket of ice water crashing over her. She nodded slowly, doing her best to conceal the mental struggle.

  "You're right… We should do this right."

  "Any ideas?" Luis asked.

  "I could go inside with Mimi." Fenrin suggested, patting his familiar. "We could scout and report back."

  "Too dangerous." Jade said, shaking her head. "What if there's another group of them right inside the portal?"

  "Maybe you could charm that one, like you did her friend?" Naomi said, nudging the still-unconcious demon lady with her foot. "She'll be waking up soon. You could tell her to go in and get information for us."

  "If the spell broke while she was away, we'd be in trouble." Tara pointed out.

  "The charm effect isn't perfect, either. It's not mind control. Not completely." Jade mused. "Although… That does give me another idea…"

  It took a few minutes, but after some experimentation, Jade managed to adopt a new form. A convincing visage of the female bruzak still asleep at their feet. She took the large cloak off the demon, draping it around her broad shoulders and pulling the hood up.

  "Now we can do some recon."