Before they knew it, it was, in fact, the big day.

It was like a scene out of a movie, three black SUVs driving up a dirt road to a warehouse. When they parked, two cars each deposited half a dozen armed, armored soldiers, while the last car deposited two humans, two demons, an elf and a ghost.

“Alright, we’re doing this quick and quiet,” Tyler said into a radio. “Squad A round the left. Squad B down the right. We’re going front door, I’m leading with Torik just behind and Ophelia at our tail. Humans are going in the middle and Aoife is running silent support. We all clear?”

There was a chorus of affirmatives.

“Move out.”

The two squads of armored soldiers set off, splitting off down each side of the building, while Tyler fastened golden pins to his cuffs and collar. Torik drew twin shortswords, and Ophelia conjured her great onyx axe. Without another word, Tyler headed for the main door and pushed it open, black tendrils swirling over his hands.

The interior was dark as they entered single-file, but ceiling-mounted fluorescents blinked on one-by-one, illuminating their path.

“Well, that sure isn’t ominous,” Tyler muttered.

“Very on-brand,” Ophelia replied in the same tone. “He always had a flair for the dramatic.”

The five of them moved slowly, clearing empty room after empty room, with Aoife occasionally appearing to update them. There were signs of recent habitation - empty water bottles, muddy footprints, scuffed flooring where furniture might have been, metal scraps… but no one was there to be found. That was to be expected, but it didn’t bode well for finding anything of actual use. They found an empty armory, the only signs of its previous use being empty weapon racks and a few large, open crates. The floor was littered with empty brass casings, small cogs, broken arrows, a glass cylinder with a spark of blue captured within… a mess of weaponry from different ages, and all scrap or trash on closer inspection.

Tyler gave it all a once-over, pausing at a crate twice as tall as it was wide and big enough for a large person, someone larger even than Ophelia. The side had been removed instead of the top, and inside it was empty, though the bottom had been scorched. Tyler tapped a small black symbol, a crown on a sword. “Royal armory seal. This is from the old world. The kingdom I’m from.”

“How would they get something this big through the portal, though?” Isaac asked, relaxing the energy he’d been holding in his Wraithrider. “Don’t you guys at the AWIO control all the portals?”

“Unfortunately not,” Tyler replied. “Lots of, shall we say, illicit portals have been popping up. I wouldn’t put it past Grimm to make his own.”

“But this does mean that he was supplied by either smugglers, or King Zarrick himself.” Torik knelt and ran a finger through the soot in the bottom of the crate. “Yeah, this is spell ash.” Before Isaac could ask what that was, he started speaking again. “Y’see, magical components, when they’re expended, they burn up and leave this stuff behind. A component of its own, but not valuable for most spells.”

“What does it mean in this context?” Jade asked, joining him and collecting the ash on her own fingertip. “It smells like… ozone and mint.”

Aoife appeared. “Ozone is a common scent associated with the expenditure of components.” She looked the box up and down. “Though I suspect that with this kind of crate, and the seal, and the smell of mint… this held the automaton that Declan was delivered. Activated inside the box, it belched its spent spell components.”

Jade stood, wiping the soot and ash off on her pants. “Why mint?”

Aoife shrugged. “Mint is a component in animation spells. It’s part of an herbal mixture that evokes elements of life magic.” With that, she faded away again. “You should probably keep moving.”

Tyler nodded. “Let’s go.”

As a group, they kept moving. Yet more empty once-workshops, maybe some kind of barracks or temporary rest area, and many halls.

Eventually, they met the first true obstacle: a steel door, padlocked. Tyler opened his mouth, clearly about to voice some concern, when Ophelia’s axe came down on it, cleaving the hefty steel padlock in two and causing it to drop to the ground. Tyler shrugged and held out his hand, the inky tendrils leaping from his hand to weave into the frame of the door. It clicked and silently swung open. The dark magic flowed back to Tyler’s hand and he shouldered into the room.

Something in the air changed instantly as the five of them flowed into the next room. The room was dark except for a massive sphere of ocean-blue light that hovered over some kind of pedestal. It was made of small squared columns that rose up high at the edges of its roughly circular form, getting lower as they moved toward its center, forming a kind of bowl. The sphere roiled and spat, arcs of lightning coursing over its surface. The air hummed, dense with power, and even the Wraithrider on Isaac’s hand responded to the sudden change, the magic in the gauntlet starting to buzz and shift rapidly.

Then a hundred fluorescents turned on, bathing the almost-cavernous room in sterile white light. On the far end of the room, opposite the door and on the other side of the energy ball, were three figures standing in front of a stone-and-silver archway built against the wall. One figure was clearly Declan Grimm, lanky and sharp, chains coiled up his arms. The second was another white-haired, yellow-eyed elvish figured, though a woman, and not bearing the same too-long features as Declan.

The final figure was a mechanical humanoid, all brass and copper gears, cogs and other steampunk fixtures. It had a single large, blue eye, as well as similar lights across its body. It clearly had two functioning hands, but as Isaac and the others entered the room, one hand split and a four-barrel rotary gun emerged, and a blade jutted from the wrist of the other arm.

Declan held his arms wide. “Well, how kind of you to join us! Right when we were almost home free!”

“Cut the bullshit, you were waiting for us,” Ophelia snarled, already advancing.

“Aw, way to ruin the tension, Ophelia,” Declan pouted. “But really, you ruined it. Alright. Ozzie, Arthus, keep them off me. I’m almost done.” He turned back to the archway.