London.

The Ravenport Residence.

Mycroft Ravenport, Minister at rest, was taking the first break of his life in six months.

For once, he slept a full night without interruptions from Morrigan, waking at the uncharacteristic hour of first light. For a man with so much on his shoulders, this was a luxury he did not know he needed.

As a Dust Mage, his bloodline did not enjoy the longevity of the Healers or the mundane health of the common Elementalists.

His father died young for someone of their power and prestige, at the ripe old age of sixty-eight, succumbing to chronic Necromancy injuries sustained during the reclamation of the Magecracy’s colonies. Mycroft was himself now approaching that decade, and having worked with the Regent for the better half of a it, he now knew that he needed rest more than ever. That and her Golden Mead.

His great work, alas, would have to fall on the young and the bald. That was Mycroft’s thought to himself as he sat in front of the enormous window overlooking the Ravenport estate’s extensive gardens. His heirloom chair felt new because he hadn't sat on it for more than an hour across the better span of the last five years.

Ding–! A Message chimed.

“Come in,” Mycroft looked to the door, then to the upper right of his extensively furnished, portrait-strewn Edwardian bedroom, where an intelligent-looking crow bobbed its head thrice.

“Father,” the svelte figure at the door was his daughter, the international, interplanar traveller who had four offices across two continents and two Elemental Planes. “The Regent has left for the Americas through the official channels. She should be arriving… soon.”

Ravenport looked to the heavens.

The sky was a perfect ultramarine, unmarred by a single cloud.

“I should declare a holiday for the Faction,” he murmured, feeling strangely liberated. “She should be gone for… a few years?”

“She’ll be back next week, but her attention will remain well diverted,” Charlene chuckled. “Why? Do you miss her already?”

“There is a limit to being ridiculous,” Ravenport growled at his daughter, then sighed. “Alas. Such is the curse of the course we have chosen. What do you have for me?”

“I’ve collated everything of concern during your rest,” his daughter, who had been working in his place, presented a dozen documents and a data slate. “What would you like to know first?”

“What’s our Regent’s position, as it stands?” The Duke asked. As a part of his delegation of duties, Quinn was the inheritor of the title and would be both the Duke and the possessor of their seat in the House of Lords. As a near equal, Charlene had full control of the Norfolk Conglomerate’s purse strings, though the influence of that civilian position was rapidly ballooning into something monstrous. “How invested is the IoDNC?”

“We restricted our position to 11% of her holdings in the US,” Charlene slid over neatly titled documents prepared by the IoDNC’s legal team. “Not enough to take a controlling stake, but enough to say we’ve contributed. I’ve furthermore prioritised assets over intellectual property and declined representation on the boards of both TODAY USA and InterRepublic. Our largest stake lies in Elling-Gibson Dunn. We’ve moved four teams from the IoDNC into the core personnel group, including Lord Magister Hawthorne of London Imperial.”

“Really? That old Red Coat was willing to travel to the New World?” Ravenport tilted his head in surprise. “He hates the Americans. Losing the Commonwealth’s Black Zone in Alaska had forever stained the legacy of his House.”

“He is well aware of our Regent’s reputation.” Charlene’s smirk was both striking and intelligent, reminding Ravenport of her mother.

Ravenport chortled. “Of course. That makes sense. What of her ongoing enterprises?”

“Shalkar’s expansion remains exponential.” His daughter slid over more papers. “We’ve blown past Phase IV and are currently somewhere between the VII and VIII. The World Tree has begun to exert its spatial influence over the Fire Sea. The Magisters from Oxbridge tasked with detailing PlanarLiminality are all ecstatic, saying that the research will lead to a new era of Shielding Stations. London Imperial says the data they’re receiving will open new Schools of Spellcraft that deal with the stabilisation of Pocket Planes. The city's demographics have also undergone a notable shift. Following a census of Shalkar City and its Geofront, we’re looking at almost two million individuals. 78% are Rat-kin Plainsmen, followed by 9% Murk Dwarves, 1% Deep Dwarves, 6% Centaurs, 5% Humans, and less than 1% Mer.”

“There’s more Rat-kin than I expected,” Ravenport pondered the city. On the surface, when he had visited, there was certainly no more Rat-kin visible than there were Dwarves and Humans.

“The Rat-kin either live in the Murk Cities in clusters, or are building around Barsakelmes Lake…”

Ravenport expertly read his daughter’s pause. “Go on.”

“It’s a TEMPLE city, Sir.”

“Of course it is,” Ravenport felt a little less rested than before. “And?”

“We’re getting reports of sectarian violence, Father.”

“What, over the Regent?” The Duke snorted. “The persecution of heretics refusing to lick our Priestess’ dainty toes?”

“Actually.” Charlene’s lips grew thin as she spoke. “The newly returned Mer spoke of the Pale Worm—that’s Caliban—as the true apostle of the Regent, having taken on Gwen’s likeness form while erasing the Apostates of Juche. This was… not pleasing to the Rat-kin, who worships his Kirin-ness, Lord Ariel, the Lion of God, whose blessed light has led the Ratkin out of slavery into the dawn of a new day.”

Ravenport stared at her daughter. “Pardon my language, but you have to be shitting me. Our Regent is having a SCHISM? The Catholic Mer versus the Protestant Rats?”

Charlene shrugged.

Ravenport pinched his brow. “Keep an eye on this. Shalkar must remain prosperous above all else. We can’t lose the region again.”

“Strun and Lei-bup seem to have an understanding. It’s more so the… rural followers who have flocked to the city that possess this misunderstanding.”

“And our Regent is away, and she’s too busy,” Mycroft growled. “How’s the pita and circus situation in Shalkar?”

“Well-fed and well-worked. Her Tower’s superstructure is nearly complete. Engine tests have begun at the behest of the Dwarven Engineseers. Currently, about forty per cent of the city is tied in some way to its construction. Once completed, we will likely begin work on her auxiliary Towers. After that, the board is wondering if it is possible to maintain the building site as a Tower Drydock to complete commission and updates on the Mageocracy’s existing fleet. After all, the Dwarves are not going anywhere, they’re proud of their work, and they’re well integrated into the community.”

“I’ll speak with Her Majesty.” Ravenport nodded. “Deepholm?”

“Great Dhànthárian is slumbering beside the Singularity Core. The Elder one has expressed his contentment, for now, at the HDMs we’ve piled up for him. Barring catastrophic industrial incidents, Master Axehoff says we should see at least a decade of non-interference from the Great One. The city’s reconstruction is also progressing smoothly, albeit with growing pains between the Deepdowners and the returnees from the Shallow Murk. However, the Balefires, what’s left of them, are keeping Hilda’s position secure, so there’s that. We haven’t seen any infiltrators now that her Mead is inbibed daily, as a ritual.”

“No more news of our missing Dwarves? Or rather, the Sinneslukari?”

“We have nothing. The leads remain in South America, but the Murk isn’t like the Prime Material. It extends in almost every direction, meaning a single degree of miscalculation will lead the expedition astray. The work is continuing, though. Master Bronzeborn is confident there will be progress if they encircle enough of the Murk surrounding Amazonia.”

“Good. And finally, her Fifth… Fleet?” Ravenport scratched his chin. “How fares Arica?”

“Enormous teething issues.” Charlene likewise looked relieved that things weren’t just going the way the Regent had hoped, as had happened so many times before. “The Incans remain wary of her worshippers, and the Mer seem categorically distrusting of the followers of the Sun God. Added to the fact that the Mer have little care for the profit motive and that they move only by her will, the project will likely be delayed.”

“For a few years?” Mycroft asked hopefully.

“A few months…” Charlene chuckled. “You’ll be amazed at Oliver’s ability to wrangle the many races under our Regent’s care. They say that his polished scalp was a blessing from the Pale Priestess herself, and that it gives them… calm? He’s very popular with the Mermaids, from what I hear. Likewise, the Sapa Inti is beyond sincere in his cooperation. The port is expected to take approximately half a year to complete. We’ll see how things unfold once ships begin to sail through the Kelp Forest that the Mer are cultivating. As long as that stands, the Chilean coast will remain as safe as a Yellow Zone.”

“Safe from the Wildlands, but not from people. Sent three more Flights our House Guards over, and informed our friends in North America that we want to be the first to know if the Americans make a move there…” Mycroft paused. “Do we still have assets in Meso-America?”

“Just Factional information traders,” Charlene tapped on her data slate. “We’ll get a heads up, if nothing else.”

The Duke felt, not for the first time, that the rapidly changing world was leaving old dogs like him in the dust. But nothing was on fire, yet. He would take his rest, and come what may, his House was tied to the Regent’s Grecian Leviathan for the foreseeable future.

The Union.

Glades Country.

Across the entirety of the Union’s South Coast, there exists no stretch of land more hotly contested between Neo Tetnochitlan and its northern neighbours than the glades of Florida.

This was because, between the two forces lay the Gulf of Mexico, known to the north as the Gulf of America. Within its vast expanse sat the crown jewel of the region, a twenty-thousand-square-kilometre Orange Zone richer than Shalkar by magnitudes.

When the original Beast Tide occurred, the Union had profited from being so far from the epicentre, losing only its most remote and undefended colonies. Unhappily, this very same fortune had spared Tetnochitlan, catalysing the ascension of the city’s deified Guardian, the Rainbow-feathered Quetzalcōātl.

After Vynssarion’s demise, for three decades, the Americas fed the recovering Human continents.

A significant part of that market dominance was the Union’s occupation of the Meso-American food bowls.

And the centre of that Horn of Cornucopia was the Everglades.

On the Union’s coastlines, triangulated through sky-piercing Mage Towers in Tampa, Orlando and Miami, the “Tripartite Cities” of the “Glades” oversaw a food bowl that not only fed the nation’s capital, but created countless industries in service to itself.

Ergo, the Glade held many laudable titles.

The Sugar Basket.

The Citrus Basket.

The Melon Basket.

The Rice Basket.

The Corn Basket.

It was the great agricultural mecca of the South, feeding the forty-something million souls that kept the Union’s East Coast hungry and prosperous. And without question, it was the Seafood Basket of the Americas, dwarfing the Kelp Fields that fed the Californian coast.

Aeons ago, before the Union’s Historians grew interested in truths, here was the home of the Calusa and the Tequesta peoples. The Tequesta worshipped a Draconic Barracuda that dominated the Florida Keys. They were a tribe of Demi-humans that ranged from Humans to Mer to hybrids made possible by Draconic intervention. Compared to the Calusa, the Calusa possessed a wetland empire that ranged from the middle lakes to the coast. Their worship was dedicated to a Da-peng, a feathered God that met no equal in the skies over waterlogged grasslands.

The two deities were at odds, but they knew well enough that they had to save their vitality to fight other survivors from the north and south, and so, as the surviving records would say, “for a time, it was good.”

Then came Faith, and with it, the Faithful.

Four centuries later, both tribes now exist only as last names, for they were enslaved by the Yamasee, a fearsome, war-like civilisation of raiders who wore the faith of the European colonisers like wolves’ skins. For centuries, the Yamasee single-handedly enslaved the villages and cities of the Calusa and Tequesta, a practice established by the infamous “Martyr”, Roberto Yamasee.

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It was from Our Saint Roberto that Lieutenant Sally Yamasee Flores of the United States Coast Guard was descended, though she had cousins who were Calusa and Tequesta.

On a normal Monday, Sally Flores would be sitting at the window of her Shielding Station, diagnostic Divination adjusted for range, watching the spectrometric readings dance across a blue-green pane.

She would be working with two of her juniors, though she preferred to think that she was alone in her puddle of Divined light, her mind closely attuned to the labour at hand.

An hour ago, the grasslands would burn with the red light of the setting sun, speckling the interior of her Shield Station in the hue of spiced pumpkin.

An hour later, thanks to Florida’s high humidity, the vast space between herself, the Mer Villages and the plantations would disappear into fog, swallowed suddenly in great mouthfuls by the long-bellied shadows of dusk.

Then Sally would be truly alone, joined only by the subtle bleeps of Silent Message spells, the clicking of keys on data slates, and the occasional report routing through their Divination Engine.

But this was not her usual Monday night.

Presently, Sally was knee-deep in muck and hyperventilating, all the while trying to silence herself for fear of being eaten.

It all began with the Mer.

Like a hurricane, pestilence had swept through the villages that dotted the coastline of the Keys, paralysing the shellfish and shrimp shipments until Trident could bring in emergency labourers. With the help of Lieutenant Flores’ Mage Flight, the re-staffing had revived the factory lines.

Then Ensign Rodríguez fell ill, despite taking his Remove Disease supplementary potion daily.

Then Sgt Cameron hurled his guts out and had to be hospitalised.

Then scores of Seamen became bedridden.

Then the factory ship fled.

And all the while, Sally Flores was putting out fires left and right, taking on the duties of four to five men as she waited for reinforcements.

Two days later, she would have been relieved, but that was two days too late.

This was because Sally was being hunted, here and now.

She was being hunted by both Men and Mer

.

It all began when Rodríguez stumbled into the control room, eyes as white as milk, mumbling about water. Cortez, her aide, ran to assist the man—then Rodríguez, sweet, guitar-playing, whistling Rodríguez, the Rodríguez who had two sons back in Orlando, tore Cortez’s head right off her shoulder.

It took Sally all two seconds to materialise a Wand of Lightning from her ring and blast Rodríguez twice in quick succession, one aimed at his heart and the other at his head.

Rodríguez erupted like a pustule, filling the control room with such a stench as Sally could not believe.

She then hailed the Divination Towers and sent out a 10-13 to every frequency to which her Shielding Station was attuned.

Sally fled the control room, but not before setting it to automation and locking down the facility. Following protocol and training, she hailed the base’s commander, then bugged the hell out of the death trap that was her clearly infiltrated Shielding Station.

Outside, she could hardly believe her eyes.

Between the lull of the evening, Rodríguez, the lockdown of her work station and escaping from the compromised bunker, no more than ten minutes had passed.

Yet, the walled compound of her Shielding Station was crawling with stumbling men and Mer, sniffing the air with their distended nostrils. Not far from her vantage, she could clearly see that the barracks had fallen, that men and Mer alike were feeding on Mer and men, some still alive as they fought tooth and nail, Wand and spell against their former peers.

Her mind, its imagination limited by years of military indoctrination, rioted.

She did not know what to do.

She was a Class IV Diviner. A rare talent to be sure, but she was no monster killer. Lacking a platinum insurance policy, she also had no Contingency Ring. Furthermore, these were not monsters in her courtyard, but former colleagues, both humans and Mer, whose names she knew on a personal basis.

BUNG—!

For a brief second, night turned to day.

Something near the liquid HDM fuelling station had erupted, and now half the base was a sea of spellfire.

Following the sound, the stumbling men and Mer began to move as if of one mind, obeying a silent order she could not, and would not know.

Taking a deep breath, Sally Flores tightly held her wand, then left her cover, proceeding in the opposite direction of the shamblers.

She had made it almost two hundred meters, powered by hope and prayer, when a stumbling shadow moved out of the darkness cast by a shattered mess hall.

“Kanati?” she whispered harshly. “Sergeant Kanati—Jane, is that you?”

Sergeant Kanati of the Cherokee, the best spell dualist on the base, raised her gaunt face to stare at Sally strangely. Her usual olive complexion was sallow now, reminding Sally of well-rubbed saddle leather.

Without warning, a stumbling Mer crawled from under the mess hall to launch itself at Kanati

“Shit—” Sally drew her wand at once, but selfishly, out of preservation, did not shoot for fear of being discovered by the larger herd behind her.

Kanati did not resist the creature, nor did the creature tear her apart, as Rodríguez had done to Cortez. Instead, it slowed, almost seemed to nod at Kanati, then turned its crooked body until it faced Sally.

Sally swallowed. “Sergeant…”

“Hungry,” Kanati mumbled. “So… hungry. Sally, what is this? Why am I… so hungry?”

Sally knew better than to linger.

She turned.

She ran.

She cursed the quartermaster for keeping all the Boots of Flight locked up in the armoury.

Fuelling a basic Enhance Dexterity, she almost made it to the base’s edge when, exhausted by the muck and mud that was suddenly everywhere, the strongest pair of hands she had ever felt gasped her ankle…

Then flung her back like a human frisbee, screaming and emitting bursts of wild lightning, into the gnashing pack of Undeath trapped by the Shielding Station’s Force panes.

San Francisco.

Pacific Heights.

Eleanor Hall, Special Reports Editor of TODAY USA, stood beside her new boss on the corner of Washington and Gough, admiring the evergreen parkland overlooking Lafayette. She was joined by her peers, newly met from InterRepublic, which included their CEO, Phillipe Johnson, an imported CFO called Ed Hawthorne, and their transition team of VPs, Controllers, and Executives.

The only man who looked like he wanted to be here was their new Director of Joint Operations, freshly imported from the infamous London Media circus, the surprisingly handsome Sir Dominic Lorenzo.

Knighted for his efforts to promote the rights and voice of NoMs in England, Eleanor’s research into their new owner revealed that Sir Lorenzo was the man responsible for turning a broken-down printworks in the middle of the Isle of Dogs into the single largest print media network across greater Europe, eclipsing the infamously inflammatory tabloids.

Before his relocation, Sir Lorenzo had accepted his employer's invitation to oversee the operation of TODAY USA, bringing with him a cash injection that could buy the paper twice over and have enough left to purchase a second-tier publisher.

While they waited, Eleanor’s gaze moved from the greenery of Lafayette toward the cream and salmon Beaux-Art elegance of the apartment complex that was now home to the Prophet of Profits, her Regency, Gwen Song of Shalkar.

According to her colleague at InterRepublic, the IoDNC had purchased the free-standing apartment from its Co-OP at an eye-watering price of just over a million processed HDMs, not in credit, but in cold, hard, mono-element crystals, deposited into the vaults of the Bank of America.

What a bank could do with such a sum of untethered cash was something Eleanor couldn’t even fantasise, but the original owners of 2006 Washington certainly could.

The purchase had been an event in itself, with TODAY USA as the sole outlet given access to the sale. As a result, even Elenaor had explored its interior and could imagine what luxury the most expensive private residence in San Francisco might offer.

But they were now standing out on the sidewalks, her crew with their cameras at the ready, joined by major media outlets that had been forced to the sidelines.

Dominic Lorenzo, wrapped impeccably in Italian fabrics, was navigating what looked like a dozen Message Mandalas while holding a conversation with Phillipe and Ed on the matter of their mutual mistress.

Eleanor counted the minutes in her head, stopping only at the sudden eruption of honks.

As the entire northern length of the 101 would know by now, Shalkar’s Regent had arrived.

From the patrols the Mayor provided to the armoured luxury SUVs supplied by Gilt Motorworks, the cavalcade wasalmost a kilometre long, flying both the flags of the Commonwealth and the Union.

Nearer the Regent’s new residence, the traffic was smoothly split by practised officers, allowing the elegant stretch SUV to slide into the long bay reserved for the residents of the salmon-hued manor.

Eleanor signalled her crew.

Lorenzo, bowing a little, moved to open the heavy door.

Eleanor held her breath, ready to behold the visage of the infamous young woman said to embody the American Dream. A Void Mage who survived life in the slums of a tier II colony of the South Ocean, rising into her role as the Regent of the most prominent colony in modern history, and the chief creditor of the single most important piece of transit Magi-tech in the present world.

Her elegance.

Her beauty.

Her Terror.

Her white thighs, famous in London’s media.

Her black Caliban, capable of swallowing small cities.

Her blue Kirin, the most marketable Familiar in all of Eurasia.

Eleanor was about to behold, greet, and interview a figure of modern mythology.

She moved in, focused like a hawk, confident as a contracted Cambion.

“SUP, Bish?” came the reply from the plush interior.

A man… no—a CREATURE with eyes like soft-boiled eggs and skin like a depressed, undressed chicken, clad in what could only be Adidas from the Temple district, emerged so quickly that it almost head-butted her six-hundred HDM, cosmetically corrected nose.

Eleanor reeled.

Thankfully, her professionalism caught her like a net.

She stepped back, her perfume forming a wall between herself and the creature throwing sign language at her face, then pushed past the pale boggart with the fortitude of a Salem pilgrim beside a burning witch.

“Lady Song, I am—”

Her voice choked in her throat.

The man who faced her next was no lady.

Nor did he look much like a man, if she had to be honest, more like a bookish college nerd dressed in a suit dated by a century. The young man regarded her with a pair of strange eyes—red orbs with a single golden slit—then scoffed.

“Be a good mortal and move out of the way,” his voice flooded her skull. “I wish to leave this roving coffin. Your city has a stench, but I shall not refuse its hospitality.”

Eleanor's body moved before her mind could catch up.

She stepped out of the way.

Was that a Dragon? Her eyes intently studied the young man stretching himself as the lumen-recorders flashed. She was no Magister, but Eleanor had done her diligence, and she had worked her way up from assignments in war zones. She had seen enough of the world to know that the young man’s voice had compelled her into action, leaving her many clues as to its true being. A Dragon, here, in San Francisco?

She had so many questions, but where was the woman who would answer them?

“Where’s Gwen?” Lorenzo, looking suddenly nervous, asked the goblin and the Dragon.

“Gone exploring,” the Dragon said with a shrug. “She said she’ll find her way here later.”

“Gwen says SHE’ll find the way?” Her boss’s hands formed two tight balls of frustration. “Knowing her, she’ll be lucky if she finds the Golden Gate Bridge from Chinatown!”

San Francisco.

Bayside.

Gwen Song, “college freshman,” awkwardly retrieved the fistful of crystalline sticks offered by the red-faced vendor. She had nothing smaller than HDMs, and the vendor had not nearly enough LDMs to repay her.

With the roll still warm in her hand, she purred.

Buttery bread.

Buttery flesh.

Pink lobsters drenched in buttery sauce.

She inhaled her first meal, losing her American culinary virginity to a foot-long roll.

Orgasmic.

Gwen licked her fingers clean, forbidding her mind from thinking of her Mer-kin Generals and their car-sized claws. Some passersby stared appreciatively, and a few dockworkers remarked in her direction with laughter.

She had chosen this takeout because, incredibly, it was called Bubba Gump Shrimp. She could not attest to the existence of Gump Enterprises, but the nostalgia was enough for her to open her Storage Rings.

Compared to her former world, Pier 39 was nowhere near as commercialised, and still operated as a fishing pier more than a tourist trap.

The air smelled of brine, liquid HDMs and fish. Beyond the low wooden fences hardened by sea salt, she saw fleets of ferries, great trains of container carriers, and the wonder that was the Golden Gate Bridge, informing her that no matter the magic and the monsters, a physical platform was the only logical choice of linking the city to its suburbia.

That and the enormous super-structural Shielding Station rising from Angel Island like an oblong tree, flared at the apex into a glass-clad mushroom dome that made it almost invisible against the waterline. She could feel, if she attuned her mana, her chest resonating with the subtle, disruptive frequency of the city-spanning mana net.

Unlike Sydney, Singapore, and the Mediterranean, the very nature of the ley lines and the history of the Americas made its equatorial regions less prone to Mythic-tier monstrous incursions. Once the pilgrims had established themselves as the predominant force on the continent, it was Humans who hunted humans and their indigenous Magical Patrons for resources.

A simple cleansing cantrip was enough to refresh Gwen.

In a bar half-full with midday patrons, she could see a lumen-caster broadcasting a snippet of news, showing a cavalcade roving through the city.

A brief image of the Regent of Shalkar, exotic and alien in an elegant Elven dress, made an impression upon the beery patrons.

Little did the world know that this very Regent was pretty in pink in a figure-hugging salmon sundress, modestly covered in a denim demi-jacket, wandering the wharves of San Fran.

A great mentor of travel in her world once said, “The absolute worst thing to do when travelling is to plan too much... Make the most of it by doing as little as possible. Walk a little, get lost a bit, eat, catch a breakfast buzz, have a nap, try and have sex if you can... Eat again. Lounge around drinking coffee…”

The former she would have to replace with more food, but the coffee she agreed with.

To basically know a people, you have to walk their city and meet both happy and unhappy accidents.

For the Regent who would make her mark in this continent and throw hands with its robber barons, she was responsible for those whose livelihoods would invariably be impacted by her investments.

Ergo, let Tao and Slylth enjoy the irrational luxury of the ultra-rich for now.

Their Prophet of Profit would walk to the apex of the San Francisco World Tree, meander from the poor to the rich, from root to crown.