POV Mouse Guardian

  It had taken some time to get everything ready for his lord’s plan, but he was finally ready, and with a flick of his tail, he signalled his kin to begin. Not only would they gain new Frameworks for their lord, but they would obtain Aether from the slain birds, birds that were fat themselves from the Aether of the fallen. Wenigo, at the head of his little troop of four, along with five or so other Mouse Guards, decided to forgo his usual bass squeak of challenge in favor of a silent attack. They stormed the first den they saw, and Wenigo fell upon the bird there with his sword already swinging.

  The bird attempted to fight back, but the walls of the den trapped it. Its cries were oddly muted, the shadows rippling around it, choking off sound. Wenigo’s blade flashed, and the bird’s dying squawk was equally silenced. Wenigo had been told that it would happen, but the silence unnerved him anyway. There was a power there that he knew exceeded his own, and once again reminded him that he needed to get stronger.

  Leaving the corpse, he motioned for the others to hurry, and they continued on their way. All across the higher dens, the little crusade to rid the Dungeon of the feathered pests continued with squads of Mouse Guards falling on the birds with their needles flashing in the light of the full moon. When it was all said and done, more than twenty birds had been slain with only a few casualties on the side of the mice. Each death had been swallowed by shadows, preventing the other birds from hearing the death throes of their fellows.

  Wenigo let his kin take care of the aftermath as he retreated to the Aether-rich throne room. He was higher in rarity than his kin, and the fight had drained him of much of his Aether, Aether he wasn’t able to recover this high in the dungeon. He had almost arrived when he, by chance, looked over to the small tree situated on the lower roof. The entire tree was shrouded in shadow, which was normal. What wasn’t normal was how the shadows moved—rippling and undulating like the whole tree was being shaken violently.

  Wenigo watched as forms began dropping. Birds dropped, black feathers matted with dark liquid that gleamed in the moonlight. Wenigo flinched as a shriek split the night. Even obviously muted as it was, the wrath evident in the sound was enough to set his hair on end. A shape burst free from the bows of the tree, great wings flapping as it sought to gain altitude. Wenigo watched as a shadow solidified on the bird’s back before plunging two shadowy weapons deep into the beast’s wing joints.

  There was a deep caw of pain, and then the bird was hurtling toward the keep. Wenigo leaped into action, a spear of stone erupting from the ground directly within the creature’s path. There was one final caw of pain, and then the night was silent once more. Wenigo watched as shadows coalesced into the shape of a mouse.

  The mouse nodded once before taking a step and disappearing into the shadows once again. Wenigo hurried into the keep but couldn’t find the mouse anywhere. That this was the beast that had helped stifle the sounds of their crusade was a foregone conclusion. That the mouse was also a higher Rank had been clear from the aura the beast had given out.

  Wenigo clenched his fist around the handle of his sword. He felt like he was falling behind. While he would do what his lord had commanded of him, he felt as though time was slipping away. How could he be the First Among Many if he failed to rise higher? The Aether from that last beast had pushed him quite a ways higher, but he knew he needed more. Still, with this successful crusade, he would be able to fulfill his lord’s request, and then he would be able to delve deeper once more.

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  It didn’t take long after he had settled down on his throne for his lord to arrive and begin claiming Frameworks. With the pests taken care of, Wenigo believed that more creatures would be successful in reaching higher levels. None of the mice had begun to glow with the light that would bring transformation, but Wenigo could sense they were close. He was close for that matter, but knew that his lord’s orders came first. He would ensure his lord received the army he had requested.

  POV The Great Tidal Whale Matriarch

  The Matriarch swam through the bioluminescent chambers of her realm, lost in thought. She was bored, and so was her pod. The days of the invasion were over, and though they had done their part, the Aether, the invaders had barely made a dent in the pod’s collective hunger. The grasses that grew helped increase the ambient Aether, but it just wasn’t enough. Over the weeks since, they had devastated the population of insectoid creatures that dwelled in the underwater caverns.

  At the rate those creatures reproduced, the rate of decline was negligible, but the fact was that their population was declining. The Matriarch was sentient enough to feel an animalistic form of concern that drove her to keep her pod moving. The fleshy creatures still dove into the water, but they were becoming hard to catch, and the whales couldn’t remain in the area without tipping their prey off to their presence. It had become something of a game to stave off boredom.

  The pod would take turns trying to catch one of the tasty morsels as they dove and swam amongst the grasses. They couldn’t do it too often, or the beasts wouldn’t dive. There had to be a rhythm and current to it. The matriarch found it an interesting change of pace compared to her intrinsic memories of deep trenches and crushing pressures, where the pod would have hunted even smaller creatures simply by gulping down massive amounts of them.

  Instead, they waited like ambush predators and manipulated the currents into quick bursts of speed in order to claim a morsel before it escaped onto the shelf of rock and safety. Even as The Matriarch had these thoughts, she felt The Deep Singer, the name she had given to her creator, come and hover nearby. He sang a peculiar song, inviting her and her pod deeper into the labyrinthine depths. She obeyed, swiftly singing a song to call her pod to her. Eight strong, they swam deeper to where he had called them. To their surprise, they found a new cavern where before there had been none.

  It traveled in a gradual upward direction, and they moved where the Singer directed them. It was a circuitous route that took them a while to traverse, though with the air pockets the Singer left for them, they weren’t starved for air. The real problem was the lack of Aether as they got further from the normal caverns. Eventually, the Singer gave them an order that seemed silly in the extreme. It wanted them to dig through the dead end in front of them with their powers.

  Even if they were confused, they couldn’t really disobey, so they began by creating an artificial current and then speeding it up until it was cutting through the dirt in front of them at speed. The excess earth was carried away and back the way they had come before being deposited, and then the water cycled back, and the tide continued. The whales took turns so that their rapidly decreasing Aether would last longer, and it was with a feeling of animalistic relief that the earth gave way before their powers, the whales sensing a new current full of rich Aether.

  The Deep Singer sang a new song then. It commanded that the new area be claimed in its name. The Matriarch didn’t fully understand, but the song conveyed a profound message. A place of power and Aether that was outside the Singer’s control. It desired to bring the place under the effects of its song and commanded the pod to find the heart of this place. The heart would have its own song and its own current.

  The Matriarch sang its response, and the whole pod moved through into this new place. Immediately, they felt the difference, and the Matriarch felt its pulse quicken. Here was a new tide to learn, and by the feel of it, there was new life to discover and devour. The whales got to work.