"Laurentine, Messime, Entelia, line up in front of the door out and prep some fire and lightning. On Six, the door is going to open. Blast through the door.

"One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six."

Under Funf's TK, the magically-secured door nonetheless slammed open. The Greater Shadow looking like a tentacled minotaur's ink-painting of a cousin standing there had just about enough time to be startled when a howling inferno of fire and lightning blew the thing back through the adjoining wall, consuming everything around it, and slammed it up against the stone on the far side of the basement.

I just so happened to be standing right next to there, and whipped Dread over to smash in its barely-corporeal half-consumed face and complete the process of destroying it.

The cook and the 'head maid' of the manse flowed out through the ruined doorway, the former with two long knives in hand and the latter with two gladiuses at the ready, and both with waaaay more scars than your standard domestic help.

The wizards had made a mess of the guest chambers down here, blowing a line of fire and lightning through all the wooden walls and messing up the stones there on the far side, but the Shadow had it much worse.

"Sama, gentlemen, the manse is clear of anything living, but I'm afraid the food stores are ruined. We'll get a fire going in the back to clean the stuff out. Isa," I nodded to her, my Disk spinning out for her to run away with. The Mick promptly led the way out for her without another word, a substitute Claymore in hand while Laird was being reworked by Sama.

"Any sign of who did this?" the maid, a dark-skinned Pearl Islander whose large eyes probably batted rival gladiators to defeat, asked calmly.

"There was a suspicious explosion at the Sind embassy down the road, which just might have come from something big and impressive dying rather unexpectedly. Curiously, Master Briggs still hasn't shown up." And was still psilent in Markspace, which was why she didn't know what was going on. "Nothing undead showing on Detects, and Sama is going through the buildings looking for anything shielded from magic. She'll be done in minutes."

Sama's Trembling Domain made it nigh-impossible to conceal anything from her within thirty feet. If any surprises were left behind by anything, she'd know quickly.

I led the others outside where, if there were more directions threats could come from, there was also a lot more things we could do at a distance. Pointedly, we all went up on the roof on Disks to get a good look at the surroundings, with Sama's students springing deftly up ten feet at a pop to join us, ignoring the way the startled Zanzyran wizards looked at them.

"Anything happen down in front, Master Treadtoes?" I asked the hyn who'd beaten us up here as I came up next to him close to the edge, watching over Master Korak out front, an arrow nocked and ready.

"A couple groups wandering over to see if anything interesting was going on." The Daylight I'd Cast over the back yard was still going, hard to ignore, but starting to fall and dim now. "They might have been rather armed for night travel, and in surprising numbers for revelers."

"You have friends following them."

"And I have friends following them," he grinned thinly. "Sama's much more popular among the hyn population of the city than the Thieves' Guild is, after all."

That I didn't doubt. Daisho teams were immensely popular on Terra-Luna, and also hellaciously dangerous.

"Anything important you can part with about why the Sind embassy there blowing up might be significant?"

He rubbed his jaw for a moment, looked at me, remembered what I looked like in Markspace, and said in a low voice, "The Master of the Sind Desert is an Immortal Avatar. The Master and Mistress ran into him a long time ago, and chopped him into quibbles, which he didn't take too well. He's been rebuilding his power for decades, using a different face. They don't know which Immortal he actually is, but he definitely displayed Anti-Magic and resistance to mortal attacks, and was really confident of beating them up because of it."

I just humphed. "And then Sama trotted out her Null and Bane of Legends, and fricasseed the arse," I deduced easily. "He probably died so fast he doesn't even know what actually happened." Vivus would take the local memory of the fight, leaving him angry and irritated that a mortal had done that to them. "Doubtless he would have beat up a lot of his followers thereafter to prove he was still an Immortal and In-wince-a-bull, too, if that's the type."

The hyn chortled under his breath, his regular scan of the surroundings not stopping. "If it was the Sind, they might just have run into the Master heading for here when he decided to be proactive and left us to defend the place from the undead."

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I looked over the surrounding streets and buildings, frowning. "So, if you were a fairly large number of murderous desert assassins and fanatics coming here to kill a hated enemy and blasphemer of your god and faith, which route would you take to get here from the Sind embassy?"

That request got the streetwise hyn thinking. He whistled a warbling note or three, received back nothing more than flashes of light from two alleys and a shadowed nook. "Korak, I'm going to check out something with Lady Edge here!" he called down to the motionless axeman below, who just nodded without moving from his position in the slightest.

I followed the hyn as he scampered away, my feet never actually touching the roof or ground as he hopped off the roof to an adjoining wall of the compound and sped away as lightly as if heading down an open street. I had little problem following him, given I didn't have to worry about my footing, and he noted it with approval, probably chalking it up to elven tree-walking or something… which admittedly I had done some training on, traditional surface elven skill that it was.

He hopped down from the wall to a leaning pole there, slid down it, and was moving through the back alleys with speed as I skimmed down next to him and silently followed behind him.

Up above, Duum glided along Invisibly above us. He'd had to stay out of the Forsaken Interdiction with its Stillflight effect, but he was hoping for some excitement here.

We were weaving between buildings of smelly back alleys and service walkways, came out into an open area behind what looked like a local baker's, and paused.

"Well, this was not their lucky day," Pontius murmured, arrow still nocked. His eyes were on the back door of the bakery, which was shattered and torn off of its hinges. "Anyone alive in there?" he asked quietly. "Master Pacci makes us rolls every morning…"

"Nothing," I stated simply, remembering walking by the bakery. A wife and at least one daughter...

Sprawled around the small open area were a dozen men in black attire, armed with scimitars and curved jambiya knives, along with a few archers among them. None of them were physically intact, many with obliterated skulls, limbs ripped off, chests caved in and their organs coming out of their mouths, more than a few blades shattered and generally a whole lot of blood and gore here.

The rats were already on them, of course, and hissing at us to leave them their prizes. I ignored them and their protests as black-and-roses Skulldarts came up whispering of dread things, and the rats panicked and fled even before streaks of jet and crimson began to obliterate the bodies and clean up the mess.

"There's no way a force like this gets into the town without the Thieves' Guild noticing. I don't recall ever hearing anything about it, and we've quietly kept an eye on the Sind for some time, what with them only a half-mile away or so," the hyn said icily. "Master Briggs would have to know that..."

I nodded once, my eyes on the burning estate less than three hundred yards away now. "We both know Briggs is alive, he's staying quiet, and he didn't come home after seeing we made it through just fine. That means he's out looking for some answers on just who killed Master Pacci and his family."

He cocked an ear at me. "You just Said that to the Mistress. I could feel her spike from all the way over here."

There was something wicked hot boiling behind her Markdoor, that was certain.

My head jerked around, and I shouted, "Roll!" as I kicked off him, sending him sideways as I bounced away, and the skeletal form with massively outsized claws and jaw slammed to the ground between us, screaming at missing us, telepathic curses and images of slaughter and butchery broadcasting out to us… kind of intercepted by my Astral Ward and looking like the distraction they were, even heavy with gloating glee at the pain and agony suffered by those this thing had murdered, which looked to include the family of the baker here.

A shadow cut off the moon. The demon was rising to its skeletal height of over seven feet, arms far longer than those of a human its size. It snapped its head up, just as two prehensile claws came down, grabbed its arms, and as Duum hovered there, he bent his head down and Shrieked a Great Shout right into this bastard's face at point-blank range.

The skeletal thing's whole body rattled, shook, cracked, and started to come apart under the assault. The creature looked to be absolutely amazed the magical attack was affecting it at all, let alone this strongly, and wrenched madly, trying to get free of him.

When a Familiar is close to their owner, they share in the owner's Buffs, the owner can share spells to them, and, strangely enough, Duum had long been Tatted up with Main-Gauche off his Lance, so he wouldn't be totally dependent on my Buffs.

One of the Enchantments on the Lance of Duum was Bane of Legends, of course.

It didn't manage to get free before I was right back in there, Dread thrusting up under that oversized beartrap of a jaw and punching into its braincase exactly like a spear would, courtesy of Versatile Weapon. Vivus blew out its eyes, the holes of its ears, and its jaws, then ignited its skull really quickly, cutting its shrieks and telepathic wails off rather speedily as losing its brain led to losing its spirit.

"Cover!" I shouted, as Duum dropped the thing and beat once for altitude. My Disk rolled up and out and in front of me like a shield as Pontius was around the corner and the minor demon blew off.

It was pretty weak as demons went, but the blast of vivus still took the surrounding sixty feet of area down to white dust, and blew through everything around us in a storm of whiteness. Primus swirled the wind and forced the ambient dust down to the ground, clearing our vision really quickly.

I peeked out from behind my Disk, the wall behind me blasted away in a perfect circle, while Pontius silently popped his head up from behind a stretch of wall that had been eroded away and ended just short of where he'd rolled, the whole area painted softly misting white. The bakery itself was crumbling and falling in on itself as its walls and roof had mostly broken into powder, the basement gaping open as the floor had been eaten away, too.

Huh, hadn't had to blast the bodies after all.

"You have to be fairly powerful to command demons," I noted to nobody in particular as I stood up, looking around. "I imagine this one saw Master Briggs tear through the mortals it was guarding, and decided that a little discretion was the better part of not getting ripped apart by a big Hammer and bigger fists. It waited to see if anyone would come along to investigate and if it could prey on them…"

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