Mary felt the need to visit the temple, her ally wanted a meeting. So she manifested her human avatar in the lagoon and climbed the steps into the temple and nodded respectfully to the statue of her ally behind the altar.

She settled with a grin on the comfortable chair that appeared at the side of the statue of Ocidon.

« Mary the time has come to expel Vortexius Blackbeard from my seas, for now he’s welcome to the cutthroats, bandits and thieves but the pirates will have no further place on my oceans and seas. »

Danilus Oakborn and his priests arrived next two carrying an open sedan chair with Altor Seaswept. Then Ocidon summoned and all his High Priests were present in spirit.

The holy Anchor of Ocidon, both of them were unable to tear their eyes away from the sight, for where the other priests present could only see a statue they could see their God standing proudly before them.

« The time has come to eject that foul stain that is Vortexius Blackbeard from our oceans and seas for he has overextended himself and laid himself open to censure. His forces are at this moment invading one of my temples. Gather my forces and prepare to strike. As soon as you receive reinforcements via the gates it will be time. Raze his temples. Smite his followers. Chase them from our waters. »

“Reinforcements, were an’ how am I to do that?” enquired Mary with a sideways look at Ocidon.

« Well my dear, that little army you were planning to use against the pirate coast would do nicely. And I will provide the necessary gates, just get them here. »

Mary chuckled, “’K. They’re on their way, should start arriving in an hour or so. Thought an ally merited somethin’ more than orders.”

« But it’s to eliminate the scourge of piracy. »

“Yeah, that’s why I agreed.”

* * *

Pete was hiding with Hanna and Joey near the iron tower as they watched happenings in New Town. They were all of them more than a bit irritated, they knew that the rat boys had warned the dwarves and thus by extension the settlement of the invasion over two hours ago and still the pirates had managed to achieve a complete surprise.

As for the pirate’s assurances, hah! They could still smell the blood from the pirates had used the tower’s water locks to access the town. Dealt with as the dwarves were meant killed after the pirates had some fun.

They watched as the cowed adventurers swam off with a sizable escort, then the Pirate Captain gathered the majority of his men and grabbing a handful of the prettier women re-entered the tower. They heard him order the remaining guards to wait half an hour and then to take the hostages into the tower. The parting comments, “have fun” and “you have an hour” really annoyed Pete. A few of those hostages were friends. He started preparing his magic. Sensing their father gathering his magic Hanna and Joey did likewise.

Pete waited five minutes, then seeing that the pirates still present were having fun tormenting the hostages with what was going to happen to them delayed a bit longer. Finally he signalled, thirty seconds.

The remaining pirates didn’t really stand a chance, one veteran ranked mage backed by two accomplished Journeyman mages against the dregs of the pirate crew.

Pete was soon removing the mage mask from Massina while Joey did the same to Drixia.

“So Pete why didn’t you intervene earlier?” asked Massina already knowing the answer but feeling the need to vent her frustration.

“There were too many, and I didn’t want to risk my kids. By the way, this is Hanna and this is Joey.”

Massina and two others took of after their men to advise them of the changed circumstances and they took Joey with them as proof, though Joey did state that he wouldn’t enter Mary’s dungeon.

Drixia meanwhile was looking at the tower with angry eyes, “do you think we could get to the top first and ambush them?”

“Well they have to climb the stairs and they will probably be looting.”

Pete didn’t think this a particularly good idea but he tagged along, at least he wouldn’t have to leave the sea.

The Pirate’s ship was virtually unguarded and the few crew left on board were somewhat the worse for drink so the ladies had an easy capture. They showed the pirates no mercy. The fight for the tower however was vicious and Pete and Hanna had to cast may healing spells. They managed to free two of the remaining hostages and pen the pirates in the tower.

Realizing that they couldn’t get in and the other hostages were dead the ladies sent a team to wreck the water lock at the foot of the tower and flooded it. Unfortunately for them they forgot the pirates were all equipped with at the very least water breathing enchanted items.

At least now the team coming from below had lots of places to hide especially Pete and Hanna.

The fight was long and blood and by no means one sided, the pirates knowing they could expect no mercy fought like cornered rats. In the end it was the magic of the two octopi that allowed the ladies to carry the day.

* * * INTERLUDE 1 * * *

Mary walked out of the cop shop and dismissed her lawyer not wanting to have to squeeze herself into his European status symbol and to be honest quite tired of his company. She watched him depart still toying with the pen she had used to sign the documents that she had been presented with. Well not the two that had miraculously appeared and hadn’t been covered by the agreement.

She turned and walked away in the direction of downtown. Considering the noises she activated the protection enchantment on the ring. ‘Guess I’m gonna be a real pain.’ She grinned with genuine humour and activated the enchantment she had recently placed on the pen. ‘Yeah, that’s it, reclaim all your ink, oh yeah, it’s workin’ an’ those beeps are gonna have a load of unsigned papers on their hands, wonder when they’ll discover that?’

She strode on, hopped on a bus and left it before she wanted due to disturbances ahead. She resumed walking doing like others and skirted the disturbance. When one of the lunatics threatened her with a baseball bat she took it from him and broke it on his leg then tossed the handle into her storage device.

She arrived at the address she sought somewhat later than she had intended and after presenting herself at the building’s reception she was in the lift and then in the reception of Daniels, Silverberg and Gough attorneys at law.

She was lucky, there had been various clients who had cancelled and rescheduled their appointments so she got seen by one of the firms lawyers. When she produced the advance they asked in cash apparently out of thin air the lawyer who had seen her left briefly and returned with another. They presented Mary with a provisional contract to take the case and represent her but they insisted that they would need to speak with her parents and obtain their signature.

Mary just placed all the papers in her storage device. She grinned at their faces and dug out her first and no longer used successful attempt at enchanting one, it only had four slots. She passed it over and explained how it worked.

“Look, do you handle copyright, or can you recommend a good, flexible copyright lawyer to get that little effort of mine protected. I can teach someone with the necessary abilities how to make ‘em. If you want why don’t you hold onto that until my next visit. Then if you’re still interested take what you think it’s worth of my fee an’ keep it. I’m sure you can put together somethin’ to keep both of us safe if you wanna test it.”

“I suggest you work out how to set up somethin’ to detect enchanted items ‘cause someone could stuff an uzi in that an’ walk right past any metal an’ explosives detectors you could find.”

Needless to say Mary stayed somewhat longer than she had anticipated but she did get paid.

* * *

It took her a bit over two hours to get home and then something stole her decoy. She drew in a deep breath and reached out. She found that a dungeon had moved into her soulstone. The little so and so had appropriated all her monsters and plants. She figured he could have it but she was keeping her wolves and badger ‘folk. Without further ado she forced her domain back into the secret passages around the chambers and reclaimed her ‘folk and directed them down the tunnel and home. She withdrew her domain and paused as the intruder came after her. She readied herself to clash with the intruder but he recoiled when he perceived her and withdrew from the passage.

Aster waiting for a minute or so Mary collapsed the tunnel and withdrew her domain with relief. She would have to see about setting up something at the foot of the cliffs.

* * * INTERLUDE 2 * * *

Dr Charles Macquarie from the Smithsonian was having to force himself to work. He was an old man after all and he had been feeling down for nearly a year now. But this anomaly was fascinating and thankfully the weather in Hawaii was far more pleasant than that in Washington DC.

First he had been surprised by the Thylacine, he supposed it was barely possible that some examples might have survived somewhere but now there were these tiny little fellows in the cage on his table, he was almost certain that these swift omnivores were examples of Fruitadens haagarorum, and that was just flatly impossible.

On Diavlo ANS 12 committed suicide when his wisp died from the heat and lack of oxygen in the air. Fraade had been the last being in his dungeon to die after the raging worldwide fires and overwhelming heat had finally exhausted the oxygen in the atmosphere. As his core shattered he felt himself jerked across universes and merged with himself.

His arrival exceeded the capacity of his aged body to remain working and he died of a massive stroke which threw his/their merged soul out of his/their dying body. Dr Macquarie/ANS 12 found himself in a curious semi abandoned dungeon and he, yes he found himself drawn to the soulstone, an empty soulstone eminently suited to be a core at the focal point of this curious dungeon.

The lost soul settled into its new home with a sigh of relief. Some hours were spent merging their experiences and exploring the caves and chambers of their new body, the part of Macquarie that had been ANS 12 was astounded at the sheer abundance of life and the apparent lack of a guiding principal when it came to the monsters. The scientist was fascinated by the pair of Smilodon fatalis that were making their home in the room that contained the sapphire that was now his body.

Then Macquarie was startled when something reached into the outer layer of his body, pushed him out of the outer corridors and released, no stole five beastmen from him and sent them fleeing down a long corridor. He reached out with anger and recoiled with fear when he met the other dungeon.

Macquarie recognised the domain of the dungeon, apparently he was the thief and the other dungeon was only recovering the monsters she... She? Yes she wanted to keep. Still the way she’d done it was a bit arrogant and high handed. The tunnel leading away from his dungeon closed up and the other dungeon’s domain withdrew.