Izayoi's sole response to Galahad throwing her with nary a word of consult was a roll of the eyes and an irritated grumble while in midair. It wasn't as if she objected to the plan, only being thrown without warning. Nevertheless, the samurai whirled around midair, one hand falling to the hilt of her sword. Her landing in the midst of the knights was predicated with a spinning battojutsu strike, her sword whirling around to cut arms, chests, and throats. With a snarl, she set in upon the knights even as they were assaulted both to the front and to the rear.

Between the Eidolons, traps, and sniper at the fore, and the three elites ambushing them from behind, Isolde's iconoclast paladins began to break. As it turned out, without Isolde's magic enhancing them beyond mortal limits, they were very much vulnerable to a sudden two-pronged attack, no matter their skill.

A third of their number fell, and the rout began. The knights began to flee in earnest, those directly facing the Eidolons laying their arms down and throwing themselves at Zacharias's mercy. For his part, the last true Grovemaster glowered, whipping a hand out as he shouted across the clearing.

"Detain who you can! Do not kill any who surrender! The nation can ill afford to lose yet more warriors on this night!"

Izayoi scowled as she knocked a fleeing knight down, perched atop his back and ready to sever his spine. Nonetheless, she acquiesced, starting to bind his hands behind his back as Zacharias's personal guard began to do the same.

Meanwhile, Zacharias turned to Cid.

"Gather your warriors. We must speak of how to proceed from here. That idiot girl Isolde has just crippled our elite force in one night, and Alambert still languishes doing gods-know-what." Cid nodded gravely, looking around and taking a headcount.

"...Where are Miina and Rudolf?"

___

Miina and Loki clashed knives against each other, the double agent grinning maliciously.

"Ooh, deciding to meet me on my own ground, are we? Stupid of you. I'd thought a mage would know better." Her eyes glinted. "Still, you're doing better than the real Alambert. A little snick-snick, and there went his throat! He thought I was Isolde, can you believe it?"

Rudolf's paired fangs met their mark, and the three assailing him fell. A clear measure of his progress since Atsu. Lanius watched onward, his expression tightening. It only drew further inward as a bird formed of aether flew through the warehouse window, perching onto an outstretched arm before dissipating. The component aether drew itself into Lanius, and he opened his eyes with a grimace.

"Isolde is dead. The rest of these insurgents from Balmung have slain her men. Tch." The spymaster grit his teeth, coming to a decision.

"Enough, Loki! We're falling back. Our primary objective couldn't be met, but Isolde's idiocy has caused enough havoc that we can begin the invasion on schedule. All units, fall in and retreat!" He, and the majority of his men, hurled smoke bombs at their feet, quickly falling back. Before long, it was only Miina, Rudolf, and Loki left in the burning warehouse. The latter gave a pouting frown.

"That's it? After all that, we do this the hard way anyway?" She sighed and easily disengaged from Miina, whirling and leaping backward to create distance. "Oh, well. Enjoy the sight of airships on the horizon, children! I daresay you have but hours before Valheim's full might descends upon you!" And with a last mocking wave, she teleported away.

In the distance, Ifrit and Ramuh's pillars of aether began to fade away, still noticeable for the moment.

… really? Just like that, she was gone? That was… okay, Miina hadn't been looking forward to engaging in a knife fight with a specialist, but she wasn't super bad at it or anything, and magic did a lot of bridging! The Mystral stood, tail flicking in annoyance, until Rudolf could join her in trekking through the city towards the fading aetherial pillars. No prizes for guessing who was at the other end there, she supposed.

There was one detour the redhead forced into their path after confirming that she was unharmed and that whoever-it-was had been pretending to be Alambert – picking up that last bottle she had been saving for later, fortuitously stashed away far enough from the warehouse to be unaffected by anything sent flying by the explosion. Or caught up in the whole accidental fire that resulted. The contents only barely lasted the length of the journey.

Once assembled with the other Kirins, Miina's initial report was considerably brief: "F-Found Alambert. He was selling out to V-Valheim, so I tried to k-kill him, but it was actually some… L-Low Key woman that had replaced him? Exploded the warehouse to try and g-g-get away."

What else? Oh, right. "V-Valheim will be here in a few hours. Wake me up th-then."

Yeah, getting some sleep in sounded nice. Any flat surface would do.

"Loki," floated in the low-toned corroboration, his eyes narrow slits of dusky gold. While Miina had delivered her preliminary update to the rest of the group at large, Rudolf has down to a knee, setting up a procession of weaponry on the grass out in front of the Hovel the Kirins had regrouped at. The three mercenaries he'd dispatched had left behind their share of incriminating evidence. "Sounds like that trickster spirit the colder reaches of Skael have legends about. Makes sense, given they apparently shapeshifted— I came in after the explosion, so I didn't hear whatever they told Miina directly before, but evidently the original Alambert was deceived by their wearing Isolde's face before being assassinated."

Isolde and assassination. Huh.

Before his crouching frame, multiple gunblades and rifles sat, neatly arranged where a week ago they might have been haphazardly dumped, a testament to Elly's firm hand in instruction of proper firearms handling. In the aftermath of their clash with the foreign saboteurs, he had set to work scraping together whatever he could of what the mercenaries had been forced to leave behind, while Miina had filled him in on just how exactly they had gotten into a situation that ended in "dust explosion"— the thinking being, naturally, that any potential ammunition resupply would be helpful if more of Valheim's airships were on the way. A handful of shell casings had been shoved into his pocket as well—

"Nor were they alone. A lot of mercenary muscle backing their wing of the operation— I didn't see anyone that registered specifically as a SEED," he glanced towards Esben and Eliane, before lifting one of the aforementioned lengths of brass, and the gunblade accompaniment that had employed it to nearly take his head off. It was little comfort that he got out of the battle itself with only a couple new nicks and scrapes— especially when the blast was still writ large over the rest of his form. Hair wild and windswept about twelve different directions. Down yet another cloak. Plainly a mess. "But given the name, it's worth investigating if these aren't Skael-sourced arms or men. I only know the few, so..."

He set them back down, rising again. "What's more, the men were lead by some manner of mage— he had some raven-shaped construct of aether monitoring Isolde, apparently. Overheard her no longer being with us. Good work, I guess."

There was a somber edge to his grimace, but he declined to indulge the feeling.

He half turned, eyeing the path they'd taken to get there. He nearly didn't want to go back into the city— Cid and Zacharias both being here meant he had some time as the only voice in his head, for what little it likely mattered— after all, Isolde had sensed the shadow on his soul with no prompting, and there was hardly reason to assume either of them couldn't manage the same.

"We figured it'd be wisest to head straight here and regroup. You'll have to forgive me, Eliane, I didn't think it prudent to go grab the big gun until we could be on the same page and determine the best emplacement— but if they have remote observation capability like that, our safe house might not be so safe after all. I can double back for it now."

---

For all the trouble these paladins had caused them a week ago, they seemed dreadfully mortal now. For all their parading and notoriety amongst Drana as the best of their best, Galahad couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed in the lack of resistance. He caught a glance of Izayoi- a spinning whorl of death in their midst, and couldn't help but wonder if how he felt right now was how she felt when she cut down the famed Dragoons of Edren. At the end of the day, they were all just mortals- and being caught unaware could spell death for even the most powerful of men and women- that and a particularly sharp blade.

Galahad scarcely gave the paladins' backline a chance to breathe, cleaving through an archer with the halberd blade before spinning his weapon and driving the spike through a second. Along with the rest of the Kirins- and the Eidolons, it took little more before the Drana elites began to rout. Zacharias pled for mercy for the men, and the fact that he was standing alongside Cid could only mean that Esben was successful in his endeavors.

"What a waste." Galahad growled as he flicked his blade clean, letting paladins either flee or surrender themselves before him. "Isolde's word may remain embedded in their hearts, even after her death." he grunted, though he made no moves to slay more of them. With Isolde dead, and Alambert's status unknown- at least for the moment, the country would face no small amount of turmoil in the days to come. Zacharias would no doubt need what was left of the nation's paladins to keep order somehow.

Miina and Rudolf would meet up with the rest of the Kirins not long after, with Miina's report on Alambert, it meant that two third's of Drana's governing body had effectively disappeared in a single night. What was more concerning was the fact that Valheim were on their way- within mere hours, there would be airships. The Kirins had certainly picked one hell of a night to return to Brightlam.

"We may need more than just Elly's big gun and the handful of us if we're to stop an invasion." Galahad noted, "And we don't have Eve with us to explode the ships on sight... Though, if Cid were able to summon the Eidolons again, perhaps we might stand a chance."

---

Galahad was not the only one who found the engagement dreadfully anticlimactic and frankly pathetic. For all of the paladins’ misplaced zealotry, they folded like wet paper the moment they had been subjected to a classic hammer and anvil attack. It almost made her wish that she hadn’t prepared the battlefield so thoroughly and saved some of her explosives, but that was a bad train of thought and Éliane nipped it in the bud.

The bolt of her rifle made a smooth clack as she ejected her last bullet casing, looking almost sour at being told by Zacharias to switch to detaining rather than killing. She was still thoroughly biased against him, but she knew enough when to stop.

Or knew enough that she would get hassled by Esben if she didn’t.

Slinging her weapon’s strap back across her shoulder, she hopped down from the roof, retrieving the remaining few explosives that she had laid once the battle had wound down. By then Miina and Rudolf had finally met up with them and she began to get a fuller picture of what had transpired this night. Her brow furrowed at the revelation of Loki’s involvement. She knew of the woman and her reputation in SEED, but the particulars of her profile weren’t something that she knew well. The betrayal was obvious enough, but she would have to ask Esben later.

Considering Rudolf’s words, she shook her head. “From what you described, it sounds like the only asset that could be considered Skaelan would be the traitor,” the pink-haired officer replied bitterly. “When we have the chance, I want to investigate their bodies.”

That too would have to wait. The intelligence that Valheim would be attacking in force in just a few hours took precedence. The mention of her trump card was being increasingly mentioned now, and she nodded. “I’ll go with you, Rudolf. We still have the original mount and the fire control director that goes with it. We’ll need that for the anti-aircraft role.”

She paused. “We’ll need to find a lot of ammunition for it too. Any suggestions for a gun shop we can raid for autocannon shells?”

---

Many of those paladins that had been laid low by Eos's magic were given a reprieve that a number of their comrades in the front ranks were not, as Zacharias called out to detain rather than execute the lot. The attempted capture and execution of the Grovemaster was over almost before it had begun; looking over the faces of the kneeling and defeated warriors, Esben thought he could recognize a few from Isolde's betrayal, the pain of defeat stronger in their expressions knowing that they'd failed twice over to deal with the problem the Kirins presented them.

Better yet, Miina and Rudolf had managed to escape whatever altercation they'd found relatively unscathed, arriving soon enough that he didn't have to go out looking for them. "That's easier for us, at least," he mused to Cid and Zacharias as the pair walked up. "Hopefully they'll have some good news."

As had thus far been the case in Drana Asnaeu, his hopes and his reality were completely at odds with one another.

Valheimer interference. He'd expected it; as he'd said to Cid the day before, he figured Isolde to be in either knowing or unknowing league with the invaders. Her willingness to buy into single-minded zealotry was more than enough to come to that conclusion, whether it was an obfuscation or she truly was that stupid didn't matter. He'd still hoped that it was just at her level, even after everything he'd read to cast aspersions on Alambert as well before finding his way to Zacharias's grove.

Hoped that she was acting on her own to work with them, or that Valheim had gotten more creative, planted some of their people to act as the schismatics, to drive the division deeper and were using her. Hoped that he would actually have the time to dive to the heart of the schism and interrogate some of those that were helping perpetuate it. Hoped he'd be able to answer any of the multitude of questions that the place had drawn up at his own pace.

Instead—they'd barely made it back to the city in time to prevent the worst case scenario. Once again, barely avoiding an unmitigated disaster. Even then, due to the lack of time they had, Isolde had to be removed. No chance getting any good information from her, nor did it seem they would have the time to get through the paladins and find out anything useful that way. Alambert, already assassinated, the strange behavior that had been noticed by both of the other Grovemasters the result of the busy schedule that had to be maintained by the one that had stolen his face.

Looked right at him in that council chamber, concealing any reactions just as he'd been taught. After a nearly sleepless three-day boat ride upriver to meet with them. Unforgivable enough that he hadn't caught on to Isolde and hadn't taken the opportunities as they traveled to try and get anything proactively, but not to catch onto the few subtle tells that were there, the way the conversation had been so effortlessly twisted around to discredit every last thing that the Kirins were trying to accomplish...

"Loki," he repeated after a moment, looking over to Rudolf as he and Éliane planned retrieving the cannon. "You're sure you heard correctly?" It would be easier to assume they hadn't. Or that there was a more subtle plan at work, and to try and trust the process. But if even Kayliss was concerned enough by the silence to bring it up with him, knowing that Loki had always been careful to get her reports in and keep things properly taken care of, and knowing the importance of his own mission, there was little chance of that.

Most likely, she'd already suspected it. Even if he'd only graduated the middle of his class, that was due as much to the nature of the work they'd already had him doing while he was still ostensibly in training as to his own idiosyncrasies; between the nature of the mission he'd been sent out on, the fact that even when he didn't do what was necessarily intended he wasn't reprimanded for it and was instead given leave to continue as he saw fit, and the other things he'd been entrusted to hear and learn from the deputy director, he knew he was likely near the top of her best students through the years.

At times, he was tutored by one of the others. An engineered, enforced personal connection. Kayliss was in the top ranks of the organization for a reason, and that would have to include the safeguards she would put in place between the competing personalities of her agents to keep them all in balance. Always preparing in case something should go wrong.

Rudolf turned away from Éliane, nodding once and tapping at one ear with the barest hint of a wince. "I wasn't until I cross-referenced with Miina, but yes—nothing else fit the sound."

"She probably found it all very entertaining," he mumbled bleakly. "But now I'm not sure if I was the bait, the trap, or the target." At least it made him feel better about the constant arguing not to kill all the Grovemasters. Had they tried in the first place—it may have worked against Zacharias and Isolde. 'Alambert' would have gotten away, the country's leadership would've been left in near total disarray, and they would have done all of Valheim's work for them.

'Alambert' would have been able to turn the country against them, the invasion would have gone off without a hitch. Unhappy as he was with the situation, he'd been close to agreeing a few times, as well. Yet, continuing with everything else he'd been experiencing since they stepped off of Bikke's boat, he wouldn't even have the time to try and process any of it. Hopefully afterwards, but if the last eighteen days had taught him anything, he'd be busy trying to mitigate all the rest of the group instead.

No time for any of it, now. If hope and reality couldn't align, he could at least try and make the reality the best he could.

"Our timeline gets truncated further with every new development." He pointed at the gunblade Rudolf held. "That's not Skaeller make, that's Valheimer. Likely they—and Loki—were trusting that nearly nobody here would be able to tell the difference. Makes things easier and faster, and fits with the plan to invade, there's no need to be too subtle there. Loki's infiltration was probably the longest step of this, and given that we don't know just how long she's been here—more than a month at least, from what I've seen—we have to assume that our goal is compromised."

He turned back to Zacharias and Cid. "Whether we can help repel an invasion or not, we have to secure the crystal. If they're fast about grabbing the cannon, they can meet us there. Were there any paladins that weren't swayed by Isolde's demagoguery? If so, we may need them ready to support us."

---A mess.

That's what this was meant to be. Utter chaos and collapse, ahead of an invasion force.

A strategy that would have been more effective without our presence. But now, one Grovemaster still lives, and the traitor woman and her forces are dead or defeated.

They crumpled quickly, but that was the intend of the surprise attack from behind. To crush them as swiftly as possible with an assault there was simply no way for them to be prepared for, directly after the crushing blow to their morale that the visible death of their leader must have dealt. Perhaps some genuinely regret their actions, or perhaps they simply fear death.

I would kill all of the traitor woman's forces if it were my decision. They are, all of them, fanatical liabilities with no care for the people of their country, they people they are meant to be in service of. Even if they did regret it, they would still have been the kind of people who were willing to throw everything away for a traitor in the first place. But it is not my decision, so I will simply abide by the choices made by those in command.

My blade gleams with crimson, so I flick it sharply to scatter the blood onto the earth before sheathing it on my lower back once again.

The paladins among that one's forces were the only ones I witnessed marching as a parade of idiocy, and thus I am perfectly capable of answering Mathiassen-san's question.

"Any paladin without the traitor woman's iconography is unlikely to be among her supporters. All those I witnessed were shocked when they witnessed the fanatics' march."

Upon hearing the news that he was the only living Grovemaster left, Zacharias looked as if he'd aged another decade. He slumped over, supported on his staff.

"I...see." His words came out with an extended sigh, the old man looking exceedingly weary. "Then I am all that is left to shepherd Drana Asaneu through this time of crisis." An intake of breath. He forced himself to stand up straight, projecting as best an image of strength as he could. "Very well. Let none say I shirked my duties. First things first."

The old sage turned to face the Kirins as a whole, his expression stony.

"I will not apologize for my beliefs. However, your actions since our last meeting have earned no small amount of trust. As such, I am willing to bury all previous conflicts in order to secure your aid in defending my home and the home of hundreds of thousands in this nation. As of this moment, any decree Isolde made against you is invalid. You have the fullest confidence of the nation, and go with mine blessing. Every effort will be made to inform all local forces of this change. Now, to business." He nodded briefly to Esben.

"I had been meaning to get on that point. Indeed, the crystal is of the utmost concern now. If your warnings prove true, then that is Valheim's ultimate goal. As such, I will grant you what you seek: the location of the Crystal of Water. It lies beneath the Cathedral itself, the chambers guarding it buried deep beneath the earth where the waters of the nation's rivers converge. Be warned: the dungeon beneath has defenses built within that cannot be circumvented. You will face a gauntlet of monsters and traps intended to both test the worthy and slay those who prove otherwise. I would aid you in this task, but I must rally every force available in order to meet Valheim's assault."

"Then I will station myself within the Cathedral itself and channel as much aether as possible in support of you and your warriors." Cid stepped forward, his expression grave. "I find myself unable to warp into the crystal's chambers. Either the guardian is deliberately suppressing my entry, or the darkness around it has grown. Nevertheless, should the latter have occurred, here is what you must do." A wave of Cid's staff sent glowing lights into the hands of all seven Kirins. When it dimmed, the objects were revealed to be glowing crystals of purest white.

"These are shards of the Mothercrystal's light itself, safeguarded from all who would seek to bring Her harm until the right moment. Now, the time comes for their power to be unleashed. If the guardian is corrupted...fell it. Then bring the shards to bear upon the Crystal of Water. Now, go. Brave Kirins. Brave Warriors of Light. Time is of the essence."

___

Guided by Zacharias's instructions, the Kirins moved swiftly through Brightlam Cathedral, brushing past frantic guardsmen, clergy, and temple knights alike all preparing for war. Their route took them through the prison, where Miina would notice an empty cell bearing the placard "Zeke Malina", as well as an open door.

Eventually, the sculpted walls gave way to winding stone, the atmosphere around them growing ever more dark, dreary, and humid as they descended into the depths. Running water grew ever louder in sound as rivers flowed through the reservoir below, the Kirins cautiously making their way downward. It was only a matter of time before they were assailed, fish-like lizardmen leaping out from the waters with snarls, spears and nets brandished.

"Sahuagin!" Izayoi hissed in alarm, hunching down as she prepared to unsheath. "Have care, their intelligence and tactics are akin to those of men!"

"Then their tactics can be pulled apart the same. All I need to hear. Galahad, let's press them in from the edges before they can encircle us. I'm less mobile, I'll take the aft flank!"

Sahuagin. Native to the more tropical climes found in the Dranan jungle and coastal deltas, until now they had existed primarily as an academic exercise more than a point of experience for the Kirins' "resident monster hunter"— he'd tended to stay either too far inland, or in the case of Lunaris, too far south to encounter the fishmen in the wild.

The burning bright crystal safely ensconced in a pouch on his hip¹, he drew his paired swords and pivoted into a dash towards the rear of the rough marching order they'd taken down through the depths of Brightlam's centermost xylum, intent to cut off the denser packet of the loosely-grouped assailants from pincering them— or better still, start herding them back into the rest of their numbers.

He'd heard tell of their favor for nets and tridents, self-evident as they slinked out of the waters and onto the causeway, and how they tended to organize into raiding parties that had a habit of terrorizing riverside villages with surprise raids that came and went from the waterways themselves, the cover of the tide allowing them to suddenly strike and disappear with little warning. Even as a lone warrior of some skill, that basic level of organization and leveraging of tempo could prove troublesome, even dangerous—

But if there was one thing the nine² seven of them had gotten excessively good at in the past fortnight or less, it was acting as a rapid reactionary force. A key strength they could exploit against tactics skirmishing raiders like the sahuagin favored was the ability to immediately mount a defense— if you mitigated their gain in tempo from the surprise attack, then the Kirins' superior skill at arms would make quick work of the rest of the sahuagin-favorable differentials like terrain, numerical superiority, and in their case even the threats to mobility presented by the use of netting.³

Sparks danced through the hazy, sweltering air as he made contact, violently surging through the range of their spears as he began to isolate the very edges of their rear arc, positioning each quick, bloody exchange to not only pick off one or two weak links, but to also keep turning and forcing back their fellows at the other side of the wedge— pushing them closer to one another, leaving them easier pickings for Chisato's bombs, Izayoi's blade, Miina's spells. In many ways, it wasn't all that dissimilar to the idea he'd run with at the beginning of all this— cutting into the Valheimr at Atsu.

That seemed a world away, now. But the art of war hardly changed so quick as a single life could.

The crimson spray of each fallen enemy was painted an almost-black purple in the gloom. Even if they all just charged to the nearest packet, he'd survived too many sudden encounters alongside the Kirins to expect much more than shredding them being a matter of course, the surprise and narrow band of ground they had to work with serving more as discomforts rather than true dangers. What awaited them was another matter— Valheim was on the way, that much they couldn't ignore. Even though they only had Osprey to work with as reference, thus far this seemed to follow the playbook presented within it— subversion or outright removal of key leadership before an invading force seized the crystal.

Despite their best efforts, that initial phase had already been completed. Despite their uncovering of the ruse, the timetable had already been set, the airships en route.

Despite the fact that they were here to secure the Crystal of Water first ⁴... the full military arm of the invaders was going to show up and try to take it from them. The siege of the flower city was mere hours away— so even if there wasn't so much real need for it here, Rudolf felt it pertinent to do this dry run of reasoning out a bigger picture in mounting defenses, attacking the support structure of the attacker's points of advantage, maximizing their own during counterplay. While both sides of the same coin, it could be a very different beast from schemes drawn up as the aggressor, where he'd always pulled from in the past; even this was an admittedly aggressive posture. If the fishmen had reserves in the depths, their counter-pincer would be in for a rough time unless they pulled back quickly.

All the more reason to make sure he was firing on all available cylinders,⁵ then—

A wide web of black in his vision off in periphery. He pivoted, bringing twin swords to bear in the nick of time to shred a cast net that would have otherwise bogged him down.

Not to mention that more simply, it'd also help if they could just crush this obstacle and get to their objective quicker.

---

---

• _{1. You would not believe how much cajoling it took for me to get him to put this in some kind of protective medium. The old fart wasn't lying, he wasn't speaking in religious metaphor, he wasn't stretching the truth in his faith— that thing this knucklehead almost palmed the whole way down is a white-hot shard of pure light. I feel like an ant that sees a bored child walking up on a summer afternoon with a magnifying glass to my humble hill— I can hide in here and be insulated, but I'm keeping my essential essence the hell away from his right illium. If it throws off his balance he'll have to adjust, I know what concentrated white magic feels like as of last week.}
• _{2. Really driving home how small a task force these chuckleheads are, in the face of a full scale continental invasion. At this point, what's the gain or loss of two in the grand scheme? You're still stuck on radically different scales.}
• _{3. I don't know why I don't see these more. Nets and spears are classic, tangle your opponent up and poke them full of holes. Invest if you're not on birdback today for all your raiding needs.}
• _{4. Note: I broadly understand the stakes at play here, and of course would like the continent and vessel I am within to keep existing. None of this means I particularly look forward to having my presence enter one of the four most outright Etro-aligned locales on said continent, shard of Her Light in hand. You might be able to guess why.}
• _{5. I can respect the pursuit of the craft looking at things from the inside, but it bears mentioning: this is implicitly turning all your gears up in the event you need to fill an unexpected hole. As tacticians go, for all your supposed education on the subject, you've been consigned fairly deep into the reserves, Rudolf. I could swear you had a talk with somebody about that, not all that long ago. Maybe we're concussed like the other guy. Something about 'keep doing what you're doing, and let him do his job'. Maybe a bit about the war veterans coming next?}

Now properly dressed for battle – that is, clothing that could accommodate some armour without looking ridiculous, and more importantly having a hat – the Mystral slunk along at the rear of the group, almost coming to a complete stop in the prison. This close to meeting up, and she had to go into the bowels of the cathedral rather than follow the trail? Mm… well, there probably wasn't much of one at this point, especially if he'd done a proper disappearing trick after recovering anything that had been confiscated.

But there was no time to stand here thinking about how this had happened again, and instead she hastened to keep up as they trundled ever deeper.

Miina had no idea what she was expecting here, but fish lizard men leaping out of the rivers wasn't it. But it was very nice of them, to her, to be all… wet. It made them a much easier target for what was about to come – if they were intelligent, maybe they would have stayed in the water and let them past?

"Thundara," the redhead's voice was quiet, but the spell itself wasn't, in the confined space. Hmm, that was something she hadn't really thought about, was it? Still, electricity and such invitingly wet targets… it was nice watching it jump. That should thing things out a little for the frontline fighters.

---

Crystal shards in hand, the Kirins proceeded down into the depths where the Crystal of Water laid waiting- though not without resistance. The tight confines of an underground space like this was hardly to Galahad's liking- his weapon too large to properly swing, nor could he leap and move the way he liked, relegating him to mostly standing near the front of the formation to block the way to their less well armored members and thrust forward with the spearhead of his halberd. Galahad stepped aside as Miina's spell arced across the space bouncing and shocking all that it came in contact with. Galahad cursed- he needed more space.

Several of the Sahuagin's backs turned as they faced Rudolf, nets flying out of their hands as they attempted to throw them over the young warrior. Rearing an arm back, twisting the halberd in his hand, Galahad threw his weapon through the space, snagging and intercepting several nets in his weapon's arc as it disappeared into the darkness, only to fly back towards his hand a few moments later. Pulling the nets off of his halberd, Galahad tossed them at the several of the nearby sahuagin, using their own crude tactics against them to trip them up before lunging forward and stabbing at the back of another with his halberd.

The sahuagin had tactics, crude as they were, but they didn't really have the armor to deal with the heavy weapons of the Kirins, as evidenced by Galahad's heavy spearpoint driving through the lizard-man like a hot knife through butter. He'd try not to expend too much of his energy now- chances were they'd need it in the closer they got to the Crystal.

---

Given everything the Kirins had been dealing with that very night, Esben had been proceeding silently along with the group. He simply didn't have the energy—let alone the desire—to contribute much until they ran into anything serious. The empty cell was noticed, recorded in memory, and he continued wordlessly along. Until they got to the crystal, he doubted that there was really anything more needed from him as it was.

His plan with the Grovemasters had worked out, insofar as Zacharias was on their side and the problematic ones were dealt with in some manner. They had the location of the crystal, they had some information on what they would face. The team expected ambushes almost as a matter of course anyways, so when Sahuagin clambered from their aquatic hideout to try and stop them...

"Selene, if you would?" Intelligence and tactics akin to those of a human lineage still did not necessarily mean much, certainly if they were to approach it as hunters and not warriors. He doubted they would have the bravery to face them down to the last—the fish-men would likely retreat to their waters once their 'prey' put up too great a fight, and would fail to even approach a surprise for the Kirins after that point.

As much as Esben would have preferred to draw back from the water's edge further, drag the Sahuagin up and away from their element and take away any possible sort of advantage they may have, risk the fewest of his team that he could, even he could admit that it was entirely unnecessary against such a pitiful foe. Assuming the old stories of them turning men into toads weren't true. "Stay—"

He grimaced at the loud thunderclap that came with Miina's spell, while Selene lent her haste to all of them. While the last healing they'd received from Cid seemed to have taken care of most of the problems he'd still been suffering after the hit to the head he'd taken out in the desert, it was only natural that he should still be shy around such a loud noise in so tight a space. "—Near them," he finished his order for the rest of the team. It wouldn't do for their front runners to get themselves cut off, after all.

True to his own recommendation, he surged forwards, leaping over still-convulsing bodies dropped by Miina's lightning to carve into another pair of the fish-men with his sword.

---In the end, the mission comes above everything else. That's why I'm here.

Staying and attempting to defend this nation from Valheim's assault isn't part of my current objective.

So there's no reason to pause. No reason to stay.

I'll accompany the others to mend the crystal. That's the objective I've been assigned.

Doing anything else would be a dereliction of my duty.

...

Sahuagin.

Their eyes are well-suited to low-light conditions. The darkness of the cave, deep water, these are the kind of environments that such creatures thrive within.

That which allows them to see in such dark locations, however, is also a critical weakness.

"Shield your eyes for a moment!" I call to the others as I reach into my bag, fingertips brushing over the smooth spheres and the thick wicks of each of my explosives. The smoke bombs wouldn't be ineffective, but the lasting impression on our opponents would be lessened. No, I know exactly what the best option for handling these creatures is.

I draw one of my flash bombs from my bag in my right hand, flicking the wick with my thumb as magical energy rushes towards it. A shower of sparks fills the air as it ignites, an I take aim to the rear of the oncoming fish-beasts. As I do, I swiftly take each of their positions and armaments into account, taking advantage of the Haste effect to do so in the short span of time I have before I must release the explosive.

I don't want to wait to advance until the bomb has exploded, after all.

I raise my hand high into the air and release the flash bomb, sending it hurtling towards the sahuagin formation, trailing sparks and flames---

Before it hits the ground, I draw my sword and immediately begin sprinting forward.

Now to shield my eyes---

A crack much like Malina-san's Thundaga fills the cavern, a bright flash through the fabric of my sleeve passing in the span of an instant.

But that one instant will be enough.

Stunned or not, the first of sahuagin I meet is not heavily defended.

My sword opens its neck and releases the dark red torrent from within it in a single flash of movement, painting the stone cavern with its life.

Its corpse is still falling when I reach its fellow. The blast of light and sound was quite sufficient to stun the creatures, leaving them stumbling, clutching their heads and covering their eyes, some dropping weaponry.

I raise my hand and bring it sharply down, cutting cleanly through flesh and bone and splitting the head of the next of the sahuagin in half, killing it instantly.

Another, pierced through the neck. Another, its right arm removed and killed with a thrust through the eye. Yet another with its throat cut.

I move from enemy to as swiftly as I can, before any have a chance to recover. Efficiency. Lethality. That is the mark of an Asakura kunoichi. Even against inhuman foes, clean and efficient kills are the best way to conclude a fight.

The creatures would recover eventually, but I'll kill as many of them as I can before that point.

---

Éliane had thought about staying above ground and remaining to help prepare for the impending Valheimian assault on the barbarian capital, but in the end she went along with the rest of the Kirins and entered the depths of the cathedral after she had finished setting up the gun and its ammunition in the best possible place to repel their airships. With how long the night had been, she shared in Esben’s energy—or more properly the lack thereof—and she didn’t speak much as they continued.

It didn’t take long for enemies to predictably turn up.

This time they were ugly sea creatures. Despite Izayoi’s warning, she decided to save her ammunition, drawing her gunblade but holding back from using it as a firearm. They were not constrained in a tight space but rather a gaping cavern with rivers and reservoirs, and she had the room to maneuver as she wished. Leaping forward, she joined the melee as she slashed out, ducking under a spear and net before hacking off a leg from a slimy lizardman.

She could see and feel their intelligence, but the gulf in skill between the tribal creatures and the elite paladins that the Kirins had just fought was immense. Compared to before, it was almost like child’s play to scythe through these creatures, made all the more obvious by the way Éliane kicked one aside before skewering it with the tip of her sword and immediately engaging another.

It wouldn’t be too long before they mopped this up. She’d keep the bullets for the increasingly likely chance they would have to fight a corrupted guardian further in.

Fishmen died in droves, an even dozen torn to pieces within the opening seconds of the engagement. Izayoi ripped through a pair of sahuagin in a single charge, the edge of her blade resembling a fishmonger's more and more by the moment. She grit her teeth, decapitating the next to rush her and snatching its head out of the air to lift up with a show of intimidation.

They weren't here to kill them all, just drive them off long enough to make it down to the crystal chambers. Every moment they wasted here was one less to prepare for the true enemy approaching Brightlam in mere hours. Less, now.

Having taken grievous casualties in the span of barely twenty seconds, the fishmen began to break, most outright leaping back into the water while a few turned tail and fled on land. The latter ran straight into the dungeon's traps, an inadvertent step on a pressure plate causing gouts of flame to shoot out from the walls and cook alive what sahuagin remained. Izayoi wrinkled her nose as the smell of burnt fish began to permeate through the chambers, carelessly tossing aside the head she'd been holding.

"Traps for the unwary, the foolhardy, and the greedy. But of course." Izayoi sighed, flicking fish guts off her blade before she sheathed it. "One wonders how the Grovemasters were supposed to descend to these chambers to check up on the crystal."

Any who scouted ahead would find a veritable gauntlet awaiting them: pressure plates, magical mines, swinging blades, and what appeared to be a sliding block puzzle of all things at the end. Izayoi's eyebrow twitched ever so slightly upon hearing of the last one.

Well, whatever.

Despite the impression that he'd been getting ahead of himself, at the end of the day the lot of them still had no trouble carving through a raiding party as pedestrian as these fish, regardless of structure. In short order, the discrepancy in martial skill had sent their assailants packing, scrambling over themselves to get well clear of the flying blades, bolts, and bombs. It was with a click of the tongue that Rudolf wiped his blades clean of blood and Selene's haste left him once more, as the last of their hapless quarry ran itself headfirst into twinned gouts of flame, dragon's breath spewing from the walls at either side of the tight passage. The smell of charring flesh and black, oily smoke filled the stale air, but drew none of the characteristic flinches he often fought to suppress. Rather...

Oh, look at that, pressure plates, how familiar.¹ a ceaselessly opinionated voice sneered in his mind, wafting about the dark like the acrid cinders of the heap of flash-fried fishman. Striding forward, the young swordsman found himself flashing back to one of the places that had forged him. It, too, was a deep, dark place, where one wrong step meant you never came back out.

"Oh boy," he idly murmured, as a streak of purple light darted overhead on orders to survey as far down the passageway as they safely could. "I thought we'd miss out for a second. It's not a proper ancient site without a few traps to clear; I was beginning think Drana Asnaeu's forefathers weren't about the life."

If there was any bright side to skulking about Old Lunaris on his lonesome for as long as he had before everything went to hell, it was that the pretenses of archaeology left you familiar as any other brand of thief with the classical gauntlet of traps in the vein of what doubtless awaited.

"Alright, this ought to be pretty straightforward. Give me a minute. It's really not too different from the upper levels of Lunaris. Eos, if I could get some light here, please?"

I should shred your chances of ever finding your place in the world for that insinuation.

You should be glad you trained me for this. It gets us in and out of here quicker.

His flat, fangless sarcasm finished, he dropped to a knee before the offending tile, drawing a knife from one of the bandoliers that had survived this long on his person, and began to run his fingers carefully along its perimeter, certain not to let any pressure into the stone. It was disguised well among the worn, somewhat irregular grading of the pathway, but at the same time, he had to assume this plate, and thus the gaps that allowed it to move when stepped on at all, had been here for a good long while, and rarely, if ever, saw maintenance.

His hand slid off the face, into a divot before it could catch upon the next block of ragged stonework, and then—

That's room enough.

The blade of the knife was wedged into that little gap, deep as he dared to send it. With how wet this crawling descent was, what had no doubt once been a nigh-seamless installment had been worn away over time, by moisture, by wind, by the slow rot of whatever charred corpses had fallen over the boundary in the years this trap had warded away the unlucky or unworthy. Provided they were adequately sharp at the tips, with this Rudolf had proven that he could drive a wedge into that gap until it jammed the whole mechanism. Sure enough, a firm palm down on the carved stone saw it refuse to depress beyond a fraction of an inch— enough for any one of them to cross if they tread single file.

"Miina," he called tonelessly, now producing his trusty stick of charcoal and marking the immobilized tile with a four-lined symbol that evoked a horned beast's visage— as good a Kirin as you could hope for in the circumstances. "Those knives 'Loki' threw your way, could I have them? I'll get the plates taken care of and we can move further in."

One quick nod and handoff later, and Rudolf set to work, donating his waterskin to the cause— by tracking the flow of each stream he pured out the mouth, he could locate the seams further up directly instead of playing a guessing game with each ragged tile. Water would always find a more direct path down to seep through, after all— it begged the question of whether or not, given this was the Crystal of Water they were trying to reach, there would be anything related they needed to be ready for as obstacle. A flooded chamber, a path only accessible by swimming, things like that—

Soon enough, he was made to pause as Selene streaked back into view from the gloom up ahead. Their report revealed little of what he'd been concerned with, and none of the specific ideas he'd pictured. Instead, she told the awaiting Kirins of a field of arcane mines², swinging blades³, and a puzzle at the end— an assortment of sliding blocks⁴, each marked out to be arranged in a specific orientation to pass. From there, the fairy could forge no further.

Nodding to his tiny green assistant, Rudolf palmed the last throwing knife into a necessary space, and marked off the final pressure plate as she rejoined her purplescent sister. With how the path dropped off after this point, he was confident that the gouts of flame ended right around here— and by eliminating these specific plates, he'd ensured at least one corrected path they could take. All for the low cost of a few pilfered knives and a waterskin. Not a bad trade.

"Thanks," he said, softly tossing the Red Mage the trio of throwing knives he'd not needed back to her one by one. "If we stay single file, those blades should keep things jammed without snapping, and we can yank them free on the way back out."

It would make sense that they didn't intend to permanently damage any of these— no guarantee the people that came after them down the path had such savory intentions as theirs⁵.

---

---

• _{1. Translator's Note: How boring. Every idiot thinks they've reinvented the wheel when they upgrade from wiring their pressure plates to firespitters instead of darts, but these are fundamentally all the same 'don't pay attention to where you step and then the sides start attacking you' obstacle. You may as well just have a big swinging blade. He'll figure this out in three seconds.}
• _{2. Oh Gods Above. Derivative bomb slop you could shove a sufficiently armored Skaellar through and clear, like that blight-stricken one that crawled under a log to go die this party had... what, half a week ago? He's the only one we never talked to, that guy.}
• _{3. Bullshit. Really? I was kidding. I was kidding, old fogeys. The joke was that being played out and uninspiring. you don't need to think, you just need to react. You make this for dummies?}
• _{4. A sliding block puzzle? Your only intellectual gating to the most sacred artifact of your entire slice of the continent is the single most brute-force friendly time waster? This is why I maintain that Constructionalists like White Mages should be banned from making traps, they don't know how easy anything is to subvert if you have half a brain. Not even a single light puzzle, or liquid scale, or use of quicksilver fulmination, or anything that demands the ability to think in abstraction. Unbelievable. Come up with a cipher! Enforce specific input sequencing! Flood the room! Apply yourselves!}
• _{5. Yeah, great call. As a matter of fact, have the last person through pull them while you go down. This wasn't even fun to watch you solve, I may as well see you try and reverse-engineer it from the opposite way later, if not us run into some fried Valheimr.}

Once the pressure plates were cleared, the redhead advanced towards the minefield and… stopped, crouched down with her tail for once level and still. As usual, she was just going ahead without actually talking about what she was doing, already too wrapped up in the puzzle presented.

It was… hmm, the arcane magic was interesting, she supposed? It wasn't really very often that she had come across magic made to do something permanent; it came with the territory of being… well, generally reviled, especially when it came to black magic. She really ought to ask Rudolf if she could look at his big sword some time; there was something very strange about that weapon…

No, no, focus, Miina. The mines were pure magic, there was nothing physical to them… which made it all the weirder, really. Ah, if only she had plenty of time to check how they worked, it would be nice to be able to set up something like this in future…

Still, for now she just had to get rid of them. It was possible that tossing something physical in would set it off. Hm, but then the entire minefield would clear itself if a bit of person got blown in by one of the other traps, that would be no good. So… she wanted to set it off magically. Or just clear it out… the entire thing could probably be dispelled, but that would be a wasteful effort when they might have to do a lot more fighting. So… she'd need a better examination, one that didn't involve creeping right up to one of the mines and potentially having her face blown off.

"Libra," the Mystral muttered, otherwise continuing to stare at the mines. So… if she looked past everything keeping it stable, then it was basically just contained until the detection set it off? It was a neat construction, she supposed; very split out rather than integrated. The sort of thing built up until you could use all of it independently, and keeping any white and black magic very separate… if they even counted as such; this wasn't her focus at all. Still, that meant there was a critical weakness here: every single one of them could be triggered by the same… hmm, what was the word? Ah, it didn't matter, she wasn't trying to teach it to anybody else. Some sort of metamagical commonality, that was all that was important.

So, if she just pulsed that once…

"G-Got it," Miina announced, standing up and taking a step back. This range should be good, right? So… go.

Ah, she was really starting to enjoy the sight of things exploding, even if nothing got blown up.

---

"Mmhm. Yes. Putting traps in mausoleums is very much a traditionalist thing to do." Galahad mused as he followed the others, watching as Rudolf went about his work. "I distinctly remember helping my father set bear traps in front of all the family memorials as a boy." He remarked drily.

"You know, in case bears found their way into the family crypt."

Galahad held back a few steps as Miina set off the magical mines, either by blowing them up or deactivating them. He had to hand it to the smaller Mystrel, her talent with magic was nothing to scoff at. The group moved up handily through the cleared minefield until they reached the next 'trap', a set of swinging blades- massive scythes chopping through the corridor, with channels across the floor to make room for the blades.

"Okay, now the pressure plates and mines I understand, but this is starting to get a bit absurd." Galahad couldn't help but note. The amount of work that must've gone into this trap to make sure it worked- and for such a long period of time was surely not worth the security benefit it supplied... right? Galahad shrugged, questioning why it was here didn't really solve the issue of it being here.

"I can handle this one." He murmured as he hefted his halberd and leaped up towards the ceiling, where the swinging arm of the trap was. Flipping his weapon to use the spike at the bottom of the polearm, Galahad jabbed into the crevice- with the resulting clang of metal on metal. "Gears perhaps?" He asked aloud as he leaped up again and struck towards the mechanism controlling the arms again and again until the swinging arm ground to a halt. Galahad did this with the rest of the blade arms until the corridor was still.

---

With Selene scouting everything ahead, alongside the advance warning from Zacharias and the immediate one from the immolated Sahuagin, the Kirins were blissfully unthreatened by the traps that awaited them. As they came close enough that they could make out the details on the puzzle at the end of the gauntlet, Esben was given the chance to peruse it and whatever its ultimate pattern was meant to be as the others made their way past the hazards laid out—though not without turning away, and this time, covering his ears as Miina set off the magical explosives in their path.

Luckily he hadn't been too close to the flash bomb that Chisato had thrown out among the Sahuagin, but it had still left his ears ringing uncomfortably coming right after Miina's thunderbolt. No doubt he'd have gunfire to contend with soon, but for once, the party's loudest member was remaining among its quietest, and he'd try to enjoy that as long as it lasted.

As Galahad freed his weapon from where he'd jammed the last of the blades' mechanism, he strode forward, stopping in front of the block puzzle.

Stared silently at it for a moment.

"How many steps do you think, Rudolf?" he asked, not bothering to turn at the sound of the footsteps that came up next to him. About the only two he wouldn't easily recognize from their walk at this point would be Miina and Chisato, and only because they could both be whisper quiet if they put their minds to it. "Fastest solution, what's your guess?"

"Twenty-six."

"Oh? So many?"

Rudolf's face remained stoic and expressionless, the only clue that he was taking a closer look being the faint tightening at the corners of his eyes as he peered more closely at the pattern. "I took the long way. Brute force, but it'd get us there. The actual minimum...nineteen."

Esben nodded appreciatively. "You're close," he congratulated. "But you're still five over how many we actually need. The entire pattern as it's shown is unsolvable." He stepped up to the puzzle, starting to slide the blocks around. "If I had to guess, the only ones that actually matter are the four with Leviathan's face. The rest are just meant to distract, the formless chaos of her roiling coils...And given that, there may be something else to this..."

Sure enough, as he moved the carved tiles, he could hear the faintest metallic clicks in the four he was focused on as he moved them around. Once he'd slid them into place, each popped out slightly, free to pull away from the rest of the puzzle. He passed them off to Rudolf beside him, only to reveal, where they'd released themselves from—a keyhole.

A rather large one, owing to the size of the puzzle, but still. A further obstruction that Zacharias had not mentioned to them, nor provided a key to use. "Eos. Your light, if you would?" The green fairy hovered up, shining into the lock. Brighter and more direct than a simple torch would be, revealing the details within far better than Esben might otherwise have hoped for.

Designed like a simple warded lock, easy enough to make a skeleton key if they had the materials, but the hole for the post was nearly the size of the grovemasters' staffs. At the deepest point, something metallic reflected the green glow. Below it, however, there was more, a separate mechanism. No telling for sure what it was, but if he had to guess...

He glanced up once at the rest of the tiles. Perhaps one final security mechanism for the unwary, before the crystal's guardian itself. If they could see through the tile puzzle, then they might find the oversized keyhole, make an oversized key for it, trip some sort of explosive, shatter the tiles into shrapnel that would rip through whoever had made it so far.

"Clever," he mused. "Not exceedingly so, but at least a little cunning. The rest of you, stand back and at the ready—Chisato, I want you to have another of those flash bombs in hand. Éliane, Galahad's halberd may be just a bit too wide to fit the top of this—could you poke whatever is at the back of it with your rifle? Be careful not to let it droop too much, I don't want to be picking stone out of my, your, or anyone else's face before we get in there."

---

Éliane had only one conclusion to offer after seeing the trap gauntlet that awaited them. “I liked the fish creatures better.” Not that fighting such beasts wasn’t an entertaining pastime, but after an entire day up of ceaseless combat and awful things like actual spy craft, even someone as dedicated to the art of battle was wearing herself out for the day.

Most importantly, she had exhausted her on-demand supply of coffee long ago.

Her grumpiness should be obvious given the fact.

She watched as her companions solved some of the traps. Rudolf had managed to sabotage some of the plates with Miina’s help, who also got the far more envious task of blowing up the magical mines.

Seeing things explode could never really get old, even if in this case it was an unjumped fireworks show underground.

The swinging halberds posed a little more of a problem, and as Éliane looked at them to see how she’d tackle them, Galahad and Esben had sorted out a gameplan that involved her.

“Eh. They’d be easier to jam in place if they were warped by explosives… it shouldn't be that robust,” she pointed out. Nonetheless, she tried out his suggestion first, carefully taking the butt o her rifle to poke at the mechanism in question—but in a way that was careful enough to not fully commit enough to damage her weapon or anybody else here.

If it didn’t work, then she still had a few unused grenades that she recovered from the battle.