Ortahn, Vitl, Gron, and Karbo, sweeping aside flying scraps of formularies, ran through the hall and burst into a door with a huge golden inscription: "DEPARTMENT OF BUREAUCRACY." It was a dismally spacious hall, divided by rows of desks, with a prevailing hum of monotonous work.

  Witches of the lowest rank sat at most of the desks, completely immersed in their work. And it truly required immersion. On the desks were boxes of dark wood, from which thin tentacles erupted, twining around the sorceresses' heads, impaling their temples and ears. Their free ends fed clean sheets of paper into the same box, only to retrieve them, filled with text. Paper circulated in the air, flying out of and disappearing into thin slits in the walls. The women were so deep in the process that not even the duel of high-ranks outside or the invasion of men inside made them stop.

  In the center of the hall rose an enormous black tree of a species unfamiliar to Ortahn. Its branches reached out to every witch, pausing before their faces. The leaves on the branches asynchronously burned, went out, or crumbled to ash, grew anew, and rotted in an incomprehensible cycle.

  "The Department of Bureaucracy," Vitl said with respect. "This is where the orders we so inspiringly break are born."

  "Or die trying to follow," Gron added grimly.

  "I really thought the chancellery-women just had fun in here, coming up with ways to mess with us with jririviska’s (female baresteether) laughter," Karbo said thoughtfully. "But this looks... I don't know... I even feel sorry for them."

  "We're going up," Ortahn said, pointing to the ceiling. In the center was a round hole, framed by the inscription: "DEPARTMENT OF CONSPIRACY." It was all logical: anyone who couldn't levitate like a normal person had no business in the Chancellery.

  A stone column, heaving up at Ortahn's will, lifted the four of them to the next level. When they emerged, they were met by semi-darkness and the smells of old dust and damp cold.

  The Department of Conspiracy turned out to be a labyrinth of identical gray doors without any markings. Vitl, playing the role of scout, cracked one open. Behind it, shelves stretched from darkness to darkness, holding murky vessels of knowledge in which fogs churned.

  "Knowledge," Vitl whispered. "Canned. Probably the most dangerous kind."

  "Vitl, close the door and don't stick your nose anywhere else," Ortahn asked anxiously. "I have a very bad feeling about this department."

  The only living being in the corridor was an elderly cleaning woman. She was methodically mopping the floor with a primitive rag on a stick, humming something in an unfamiliar, guttural language. The whiteness of her skin and hair betrayed her as a native of the distant northern lands. It was strange to see a blessed woman doing such work instead of a homunculus or at least a man. She raised her faded eyes to them and said something with a light, almost motherly reproach.

  "What'd she say?" Karbo asked, for some reason.

  "I think she advised us to stop the invasion, or we'll be in trouble," Vitl translated, guessing.

  "Wise woman," Karbo nodded.

  Finding an opening in the ceiling with the inscription "DEPARTMENT OF WAR AND EXPANSION," they ascended higher. The air became hot and ozonic, deafening the hall with the sound of something huge, pounding out of sync. Directly in front of them stood a squad of combat homunculi, watching their ascent with curiosity. Obviously, this is where they were supposed to be under any circumstances.

  "O-ho, this is right up my alley," Gron stretched his shoulders, and his muscles bulged, doubling in volume. "All my life I've dreamed of fighting a crowd of these."

  All his primitive rage, pent up for years, burst forth. With a formidable roar more suited to a wild beast, he threw himself into the thick of the enemies. The usual rumble of the hall was joined by the crash of his fists against chitinous carapaces. Gron threw, broke, and crumpled. The others tried to help him, but their spells dissipated against the enchanted armor. One of the homunculi, spinning, flew out of the general fray and ended up next to Karbo. A short swing from the blunt end of a combat trident sent him into the wall with a crunch.

  "I'm fine!" Karbo shouted, getting up immediately. His arm was bent at an unnatural angle.

  Ortahn dealt with the remnants of the hostile squad using his geomorphy. Sharp stone spikes shot up from the floor, impaling the homunculi's joints and immobilizing them. One homunculus's round mask of chelicerae shattered, revealing a surprisingly cute female face.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  "Faster! We're not stopping!" Ortahn commanded.

  As they ran, they noticed a partially open door with a sign: "TACTICAL SIMULATIONS ROOM." Inside the round hall, a constantly updating light-weave map of the cosmos hovered. Large-headed analyst-homunculi darted around it, while several high-ranking women sat in chairs, their heads entwined with tentacles, their pupils darting frantically in time with the blinking stars on the map.

  Ortahn's geomorphic lift delivered them to yet another floor. This one met them with a powerful beat. It was the Department of Maternal Orders. The hall was relatively empty, but its center was occupied by a colossal, crystalline heart. It pulsed with life, and its arteries ran into the walls, connecting to the entire Chancellery system. Ortahn felt his own heart begin to beat in unison with the crystal.

  "Whoa..." Gron whispered, impressed. But then, without losing enthusiasm, he suggested, "Maybe we smash this thingamajig to the deviloids?"

  "No," Ortahn stopped him. "We shouldn't smash what we don't understand what the smashing will do. What if it's some kind of important stabilizer?"

  "You're a real funkill sometimes, Ort," Gron grumbled, though he had generously said "sometimes."

  Their stone platform crept upward again, this time slowly, with resistance, as if the tower's stone was reluctant to let them go further. The Department of Accounting and Destiny met them with sterile silence, clean geometry, and a gleam of whiteness. The air here was dry, and the sound of footsteps on the marble floor died instantly. There was no furniture, no people or homunculi, just one of the walls was a massive mirrored surface.

  "Something tells me we're not going to like it here," Vitl joked, and his voice vanished without a trace in the white space.

  Ortahn approached the mirror. Instead of a reflection, the surface rippled, then immediately settled, leaving dry lines of an Essence Equation:

  Name: Ortan-son-of-Tatya, IN: 7564-M (the mirror even knew his mother's name, though he always used his aunt's); Sex: Male; Origin: 3% Homunculus (likely indicating magical interference in gestation) / 96.4% Homo Sapiens Edenus / 0.6% Unidentified genetic mutations; Debts: Violation of 103 Chancellery protocols; Loyalty: 4% — Critical Threat; Potential: OVERLORDESS (the inscription twitched violently, distorted, and filled with static, clearly uncomfortable being in this spot); Death Forecast: 99.99999999% (much higher than Ortahn's own expected chances); Data unstable. Threat to systemic integrity.

  "Ha-ha-ha! Look!" Gron couldn't hold back a thunderous laugh, jabbing a finger at his own equation. "'Loyalty: 35%'! They admitted it themselves! Ha-ha!"

  "And I've got... 98%," Vitl drew out mournfully. "After everything we've done? And also... 'Potential: Low'?!" he exclaimed, clutching his head.

  Gron dissolved into a new fit of laughter, pointing at him. Karbo also laughed and clapped Vitl on the back, forgetting about his own broken arm. The pat landed like reverse meat tenderizing.

  "We need to move," Ortahn reminded them.

  They continued their mad ascent, passing through the Department of Ideology with its smell of incense and old scrolls, through the Department of Sanctity, blinding with light, and the creepy Department of Genetic Bio-Magic. Ortahn had stopped looking for logic in the tower's structure, but perhaps that was the point. A suspicion also crept into him that this tower was stealing space from the world, being immeasurably larger on the inside than on the outside.

  Finally, they reached the floor with the highest chance of finding their target—the Department of Punishments. The air here smelled of iron from ore and iron from blood. Rows of familiar chancellery doors lined the walls. Ortahn didn't waste time on handles and began smashing them to splinters. Behind the doors were rooms with cages and implements whose purpose he preferred not to guess. Women languished in some of the cages, and Gron stopped to free them. But Ortahn couldn't wait. He was as if he himself had become an air elemental, destroying the prison.

  In one of the rooms, two warden-witches in combat stances awaited them. Ortahn immediately wrapped one in a helpless cocoon of aether. Vitl and Karbo tussled with the second. The room shook, and objects became dented from their clumsy but furious aetheric attacks, which the witch struggled to parry. This distraction was enough for Ortahn to finish her off as well, locking her in invisible bonds. The spell should hold for half an hour before dissipating and freeing the witches.

  And then he saw her. In the center of the room, suspended in the air, hung a cage.

  "Esh!" His voice broke into a whisper, full of an indescribable range of emotions.

  She gave him a weak smile, and in that effort through her exhaustion, there was so much light that the white room of the Accounting Department seemed like a grim Pandemonium in comparison. Ortahn, not wasting a microjoule of attention on the bars, simply crumpled and tore them away as if they were an old cobweb. Esh splashed out of the heap of mangled metal straight into his arms and thankfully pressed her lips to his forehead. Na-ah. His lips found hers, and a short smooch almost magically transformed into a real kiss. She cupped his face in her palms, deepening the kiss for several more priceless moments.

  "I told you they were lovers," Karbo said with a self-satisfied smirk.

  "You could have at least waited until we tactfully looked away," Vitl said with poorly concealed envy.

  "Yeah, you're too young to see this, Vitly," Karbo playfully tried to cover his eyes with his broken arm.

  "What, boys, haven't you ever kissed anyone?" A beaming Gron approached them with the group of freed women. "No big deal! Maybe Ortahn and I will share the secret."

  "Why don't we go check all the other rooms!" Vitl suggested eagerly. "Only... let's split up!"

  "Potential: overly optimistic romantic!" Karbo laughed.

  Esh and Ortahn finally broke their embrace. She laughed quietly and pressed her cheek to his chest. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, feeling his own frantic heart begin to beat in unison with hers.

  "Live."