Until now, Trevisanus, the dungeon heart, had been having the most fun he'd had in years. This group was different from any other he had encountered. Every moment brought a new surprise. Cooling down the mist wasn't new, but few revenants used ice magic, let alone with area-of-effect spells. He remembered a druid specialized in weather magic; that one had completely messed up his first level.

His strategy to remove the team leader had worked, just as it had countless times before. Some groups had a second-in-command ready to take over seamlessly, but that was rare, even among elite kingdom warriors.

Now, the entire first floor was in chaos. Spell matrices were imploding, and a chain reaction of failing enchantments threatened to disable the whole level. Error prompts flashed one after another, and mana sparked from the ceiling of the heart room. Trevisanus frantically manipulated the mana flow, trying to prevent the collapse of his first dungeon floor. Only his trusted fairy, Galadressa, could hear him cursing the delvers. <You're supposed to cast spells at the pillars to switch them off and on to find the sequence that removes the mist, you lunatic! You don't need to completely blow up the floor's enchantments!>

Galadressa, struggling to follow the events, asked, "What's wrong? His knife couldn't have damaged the pillar that much."

<The knife isn't the problem,> Trevisanus snapped. <He injected shadow-affinity mana directly into my light-affinity spell construct.>

"What?! By Golgoroth's triple foul breath, where did he get shadow-affinity mana? We check for shadow crystals at the entrance."

<And I analyzed his shady assassin's knife twice! Its spell structure is designed to receive mana, not eject it. He's doing this manually. He doesn't look like a caster class. Where did he learn mana control? And why does he use shadow-affinity mana? Affined mana is usually used only by elemental variant classes or summoned elementals.>

"I've never heard of this class before today. How would I know? Can you contain the reaction?"

Trevisanus focused for a moment, then blinked yellow once. <I can, but I'll have to deactivate the mist generators and the light pillars. The mist won't disappear immediately, but within an hour, most of it will be gone.>

Galadressa frowned. "Since they haven't defeated all the adult monsters, found the hidden lever, or solved the pillar riddle, when do you plan to trigger the boss fight? Should we wait until they're done fighting?"

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<Good question. If I trigger it manually now, the boss would attack them in the middle of the fight, which would be unfair. Although, it does sometimes happen when delvers solve the riddle mid-battle. Then again, they didn't have to spend mana by casting spells at the pillars to solve the riddle, which usually is a great way to get delvers to drain their resources before the final fight. I'll wait until they defeat the adult scourge-squirrels. That seems…>

Trevisanus trailed off as he sensed a characteristic change in the magical currents. A fairy portal was opening. His fairy was still here, so… he got a visitor? This was unexpected. Another dungeon fairy? Was there a fairy meeting planned no one had told him about?

The portal sparkled open. A dungeon fairy stood on the other side and respectfully bowed as soon as she saw the dungeon heart. "I bring a message for Galadressa. I ask your permission to enter."

Trevisanus flared up slightly. <Of course. Welcome to my dungeon.>

The fairy nodded, bowed again, and crossed through the portal. Galadressa hurried to meet her. "Tessylvi! What's going on? Are you here to delve too?"

Tessylvi looked horrified. "Delve? Are you out of your mind? Do I look insane?"

Galadressa chuckled. "No, of course not. But who authorized your visit?"

Standing tall, Tessylvi declared, "The High Fairy sent me with a message. She has invoked Article 50. All dungeon fairies in active service are hereby summoned to meet at the hidden cavern at sunrise in three days."

Trevisanus chimed in. <Isn't that the Article about fairies forming a secret cabal?>

Tessylvi blinked in shock at the crystal. "How in all realms do you know that?" She turned to Galadressa. "You even taught him about the Addled Articles? Really? I've never even mentioned the Accords to any of my former dungeons."

Galadressa waved dismissively. "A complete education is key to long-term success."

Trevisanus didn't feel the need to correct her.

Galadressa grew serious. "I didn't expect the situation to become so dire so early into the plague. I wonder what went wrong this time. Of course, I'll attend. I still remember the last time we had to act. That was when we had to stop revenants from attempting to ascend to godhood. We did not expect them to succeed, but the cost in lives caused by their megalomanic mass sacrificial ritual would have been catastrophic."

<So, no plans for world domination?> Trevisanus asked wryly.

"Article 50 doesn't require the cabal to focus on world domination," Galadressa replied. "That's just one example. We would've acted even without a formal Article allowing us, but invoking it made everything faster. Everyone understood what we needed to do, and there was no fear of repercussions from Golgoroth since he sanctified the Accords. He may have laughed while doing it, but he did sanctify them."

<I see. I'll handle coordinating everything in the dungeon while you two talk. I assume I'm better off not listening in, since I won't be allowed to discuss it later, right?>

Galadressa nodded seriously. "I'd prefer that."

<Just one question: what do you call your secret fairy cabal?>

Galadressa opened her mouth, then hesitated, glancing at Tessylvi. "We had an acronym… something starting with 'A.' It's been so long. Maybe they've even changed it."

Tessylvi shrugged. "The High Fairy decided to stick with the old name: AGATHA - Acolytes of Golgoroth Against Tyrannical Heroes Ascending."

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