Marissa
Marissa Lin avoided the orc entirely.
The shape loomed ahead on the path—broad shoulders, heavy armor, a silhouette that filled the narrow trail like a fallen boulder. He stood with his back half-turned, attention fixed on the distant glow and thunder rolling up from Crescent Hyr. She could hear him breathing, slow and wet, the sound of something that had grown accustomed to violence and expected more of it soon.
Killing him would be easy.
Killing him would also be loud.
Marissa weighed the thought in the space of a single heartbeat, then dismissed it. Every corpse was a question waiting to be asked. Every body left behind invited investigation, pursuit, escalation. She had not come this far to trade speed for momentary satisfaction.
She eased back instead, letting the fog swallow her outline, shifting her weight so the mountain itself hid her movement. When she passed him, it was at an angle that kept stone and shadow between them, her presence folded into the space where attention naturally thinned.
The orc never turned his head.
She continued upward.
The path widened ahead, breaking into a fan of narrow routes that climbed deeper into the mountains, some little more than scars in the stone. Her breath caught despite herself as she recognized the markings etched into the rock—subtle angles, shallow grooves, patterns worn smooth by time rather than neglect.
Dwarven paths.
Marissa slowed, unease settling into her chest.
These roads had not been used in generations. Old treaties bound to older blood. Ways meant to open only when the mountain itself decided the time had come. And yet there were orcs here—too many of them—spread along the approaches, occupying vantage points and choke lines with unsettling precision.
She crouched behind a fractured pillar and watched.
They were not guarding the relay itself. They lingered near the approaches, clustered along the routes that led deeper into the mountains. Some watched the battle below. Others watched the paths.
Were they here to stop the dwarves?
Were they working with them?
Or was it coincidence—two ancient powers moving through the same forgotten ground at the same time?
Marissa did not know.
She did not have the luxury of knowing.
What she did know was that there were far more orcs here than she had anticipated, and that their placement was deliberate. Their movements overlapped, awareness threading together into a loose but purposeful net. She felt it now—a low, grinding distortion in the ambient mana.
Interference magic.
Not meant to kill. Meant to isolate. To drown signals. To make direction unreliable and distance lie.
Her fingers tightened around the message crystal at her waist.
She slipped through another bend in the path and finally saw the relay.
It was half-buried beneath scree and moss, a stone arch framing a pedestal of ancient runework. The air around it bent faintly, mana flowing in predictable currents that tugged at her senses like a river pulling at her ankles.
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Marissa moved to it quickly and pressed her palm against the crystal.
Nothing.
No response. No link. No signal.
Her stomach dropped.
She forced herself to breathe and pulled the crystal free, turning it in her hands as she scanned the etched runes along its surface and trying to remember her tech classes. Her fingers moved automatically, checking configurations she had never expected to need.
Then she saw it.
An auxiliary sequence emergency protocal buried beneath standard commands. Old and darely documented almost an after thought. But something that was drilled into anyone using the techology; it was n emergency lattice meant to be used only when conventional relay networks failed.
A hard override.
A direct feed.
There was even a port—small, reinforced, clearly never meant for routine use—that allowed the user to force additional mana into the system.
Marissa swallowed.
She had no idea if this is this would work but ths didn't have time to second guess. She prayed the the message got out.
She slid closer to the pedestal, positioning herself where the mana flow was strongest, and braced herself. Then she activated the emergency protocol.
The relay shuddered.
Runes flared unevenly, light sputtering as the lattice resisted being woken from centuries of dormancy. Marissa poured mana into it anyway, teeth clenched as the strain rattled through her chest and into her arms.
The crystal warmed in her hand.
The connection snapped open.
She did not hesitate.
Her voice shifted, every word shaped for authority rather than hope.
“Imperial distress activation.
Location: Crescent Hyr.
Priority: Absolute.
Assets present: Her Highness Princess Sophie Virelyn. Lady Vivian Li. Noble retinue.
Hostile forces: Demon-touched Red Orcs. Sword Demons. Murai commander confirmed.
Fortress integrity compromised. Breach imminent.
Requesting immediate military response.
All available rapid-response and elite assets authorized.
Repeat—this is not a drill.”
The relay screamed in answer.
Light tore upward from the arch in a jagged column, punching through fog and cloud as the emergency lattice burned itself into the Mage Net. The crystal in her hands flared white-hot, its internal arrays shrieking as they were forced to carry far more than they were ever meant to endure.
Runes along its surface cracked.
The beam wavered.
Held and then stabilized.
The emergency signal was out.
Marissa did not pull back She swallowed hard, ignored the pain clawing up her arms, and forced the crystal to accept one more transmission; one not meant for command nexuses or military relays.
One meant for him.
Her voice dropped, urgency bleeding through control as she leaned closer to the stone and prayed the relay still had enough coherence left to carry the words.
“Ethan… this is Marissa.”
The lattice protested. The crystal trembled violently in her grip.
“Crescent Hyr is under siege. Red Orcs—demon-touched. Sword Demons. A Murai commander. They are preventing escape.”
The beam flickered.
“The Princess is here. Vivian. Anmei. The twins. We can’t hold indefinitely.”
A sharp crack split the crystal’s core.
“This isn’t a raid,” she said quickly, voice tightening. “They want us. They know we’re here.”
She drew a breath that shook.
“If you get this—please. Come south. Bring everything.”
The crystal screamed once more.
Then the relay surged.
The beam flared brighter, unstable but unbroken, forcing the final message into the screaming channel before the lattice collapsed back into erratic equilibrium.
Marissa staggered as the crystal went suddenly cold.
A hairline fracture ran through its core, glowing faintly before fading. The device did not shut down. Instead, it remained locked in emergency broadcast mode, its arrays buzzing unevenly as excess mana bled away in violent pulses.
She shoved the cracked crystal back into her pocket.
Help was coming.
She just didn’t know if he would hear her.
Then the pressure returned, sharp and focused.
She felt it like a hook catching in her awareness, the sudden tightening of attention as something locked onto her position. Voices rose behind her—guttural, angry—and something screamed, high and inhuman, as the disruption field collapsed and pursuit reasserted itself.
She had been spotted.
Marissa did not hesitate.
She tore the displacer from her pouch and hurled it backward without activating it, then followed it with two small, dense spheres wrapped in warded casing.
Mana fire bombs.
Obscenely expensive. Brutally unstable. Designed to rupture and burn through both matter and mana alike.
They struck the stone behind her and detonated in violent succession.
Fire roared up the path, heat ripping through fog and rock as mana ignited into blinding arcs of light. The explosions drowned sound, shattered line of sight, and tore through the interference field like a blade driven sideways through cloth.
The mountain screamed.
Marissa ran.
She did not know how far she would make it. She did not know if she would ever see Crescent Hyr again.
But somewhere far to the south, Imperial systems were screaming awake, emergency flags burning through command lattices, and forces that had not yet entered the war were learning exactly who was at risk.
The world had been alerted.
And now, it could no longer pretend the war was distant.