It took me two days of complete slaughter to clear the Elephant’s Graveyard of the Netherworld forces outside and make it to the Pyramid at the center of it.

That place I ringed in Permanent Walls of Holy Fire, paid for with their own Soul Crystals, and bound a Stillflight Field over the place. Anything leaving those doors would have to go through the Walls of Fire, and basically anything under a Commander would die instantly, Commanders would at the very least would be heavily wounded, and even a Ruler might be unlucky, get Disrupted, and perish instantly.

Then we tore open those Doors, literally ripping them from their hinges so they could not deny us, planted the Flames across the opening to make it really irritating for them, and proceeded to start punching our way down and into the Pyramid and the demiplane attached to it.

---

“That looks extremely annoying to work through,” Archmage Obai murmured, studying the Holo of the interior of the Pyramid, and specifically the demiplane within that it connected to.

The fractal diagram of connecting hallways and chambers was complex, and the connections themselves were not static.

“You don’t like rotating sidescrolling octahedral tesseracts?” I asked him with a slight smile. The older man just shook his head and smiled slightly as he and the rest of the Undead Hunters new and old regarded the most updated map we had.

We’d been scribing subtle tracking sigils into each and every hallway we’d traipsed through, giving us the ability to track the halls as they attempted to shift and redirect the people inside them. It had probably really annoyed the Pharaoh that we had successfully managed to get every team that had ventured inside back out, despite the maze-like arrangement of rooms and how readily they could be moved around.

The thing was designed three thousand years ago. Geometry was basically a nascent science back then, and this ‘complex arrangement’ the Pharaoh was so proud of was more like children’s puzzles now. After describing the basic arrangements and how they worked, it became something of a game to everyone as to how fast we could navigate the place.

The four Doors were linked to fixed hallways, which were linked to fixed chambers, but the hallways coming off those chambers could lead to up to sixteen different chambers each, which rotated among those coming off the octahedral tesseract.

The Door Chambers were spread on four different levels and did not connect directly to one another, always requiring at least two intermediary Chambers. Those Chambers could be anything from marshalling grounds to the tomb chambers of powerful minions of the Pharaoh... well, former tomb chambers of now-vivified minions of the Pharaoh. We’d been singularly unwelcome in how we treated all Netherworlders, and had successfully wiped out two entire levels of tombs and sarcophagi and pits and whatnot before the inhabitants got wise and evacuated them.

Archmage Obai considered the whole view, matching up with things he’d seen himself inside there. “Am I mistaken, or is this whole complex... rather vulnerable?” he considered with the eye of someone used to defending towns and cities. “It does not have any way to cut off attackers, other than hoping they activate the systematic exchange of chambers and so become lost...”

“Very good, elder!” I nodded to him, and he beamed at the praise. “Yes, the designer was trying to show off advanced geometry skills and some mastery of the Void or Chaos Elements. This is not a place that was designed to be defensive or endure assaults. All that is supposed to be dealt with outside the Pyramid itself, which was supposed to be impervious once sealed up.”

Yeah, not against a real Lord of Pyramids. Decrypting all the connections between the demiplane and the sot’s Pyramid had been interesting. The soul siphons and essence deposits, the vitae conduits, the nether-channels and mana lattices, control circuits and Rune Formations that kept this thing in existence.

Because he couldn’t help it, the soul siphons and vitae filters were all on the ‘lowest’ level, where the ‘worker’ undead lived and managed the process, guiding the dead into the necromantic apparatuses to be rendered down and processed. That process was totally fucked up because of our earlier sabotage, not that they were getting more than the most mundane souls of hunted animals for food once all the powerful creatures were staying away from the Graveyard, poor them.

“The Pharaoh is still getting endless reinforcements, if not at endless speed,” Archmage Obai noted thoughtfully.

“Yes, they are coming down from the upper array of chambers. I’m assuming that this is the main portal chamber out to the Netherworld.” I indicated the unexplored area at the top of the edifice. “Pretty sure he’s just marching them out of there, down through this set of hallways regardless of the chambers involved, and then into the fighting as we come into contact with them.”

“Ah, the chambers move, but those hallways do not! Although he can make them seem not to intersect with other chambers to confuse us, I have been informed.” He peered at the display keenly, looking at the colors of the passageways, some of which could alternate between moving chambers, and others which were tied to specific ones.

“Yes, manipulating the spatial magic that forms this place. Which is why we started blocking off certain of the passageways with Walls of Fire.” Nothing here was powerful enough to Dispel my Permanent Vivic Holy Walls of Fire, and if they managed to counter them with massive Mana saturation, the Persistent things just came back up a few breaths later, ready to annihilate them and turn them into spare Soul Crystals for the picking up of.

“The key thing here is that the massive troop dispersal system is the fastest road to the top of the demiplane, because the Pharaoh definitely didn’t want all those filthy lesser Undead marching through its private quarters.” An entire whole section of the tesseract was basically avoided by the travel route.

Archmage Obai smiled and shook his head. “So, the Pharaoh conveniently left open the fastest road to its own escape route and the true source of its power? Are we so lucky to be graced with such a fool?” he asked in mock wonder.

“Ah, ah! Remember that we are supposed to be poor, foolish, uneducated, slow-thinking clods of peasants, with inferior magic and no comprehension of the true greatness and power of magic. The idea that mortals a hundredth its age could rise to enough power, knowledge, and comprehension to eclipse its own achievements is not something a Pharaoh’s ego will bear lightly. And since it is ruler and god here, and none will gainsay its will or power, the idea that it might be wrong is just taking a long, calcified time to process.”

“It is completely certain that it can outlast us,” Archmage Obai agreed, stroking his salt-and-pepper beard. “We have not ventured into the higher levels, and it does not care about its losses of lesser Undead at all. Even if it dares not face us directly, how can we possibly win against all the forces of the dead?” he mused rhetorically.

“By not having to fight ALL the forces of ALL of the dead at the same bloody time, of course!” I laughed softly. It was just a geometric puzzle to me, and I had thoughtstreams thinking in higher math all the time. The complex interplay of changing routes and rooms was little different from looking at a clock face to me. “The mere idea that someone could be monitoring all of its realm and tracking what and where everything was without being told or centuries of experience of navigating the place is probably also nearly unthinkable. It’s more likely to suspect a traitor among its minions or a rival Pharaoh or something than that we could possibly do such a thing.”

“Are you... capable of manipulating the Formations and Arrays it has set up, Lady Fae?” Archmage Obai asked respectfully.

“Yes, but it would instantly know that I was doing so, so I’m saving that fact for an unwelcome surprise at some point. It’s actually more fun playing mind games with the Undead twat than it is trying to directly wrestle around its control of its own demiplane.”

“If I may inquire, what is your ultimate goal regarding this Pyramid and demiplane?” Archmage Obai inquired. “Will you simply destroy them?”

“Simply, no. Destroy them, yes. I am not going to let all the power invested into the place get sucked down into the Netherworld, which is what would happen to it without me taking extra steps. Naturally, I do not wish to take control of what amounts to a bunch of interconnected tombs, either. There has been so much hard work invested into the place that it would be a great shame not to take advantage of such monumental labors, however.”

“Ahhhh. The power of the Typeless Magic, to touch on great understandings of all the Elements...” he breathed out softly.

“Yes. As an Undead creature, the Pharaoh’s ability to expand its comprehension of the Elements is largely limited to those it bears, and heavily influenced by its Undead state and the prevalence of Dark Magic about it. My understanding and control of Void and Chaos Magic already exceeds its own, save perhaps in the intertwining of demiplanes with the Netherworld’s energies.” My half-smile grew more wicked as I flicked my fingers. “Behold, the fruits of my labors!” I announced under my breath.

Delicate silver lines wound about every room and passageway that we’d explored, claimed, and cleared. They remained clear because we’d blocked all the access points from above with Fire, and the conduits rising to the top were shattered and gone. The whole soul-collecting of the Pyramid was offline, doubtless greatly discomfiting the stronger undead who relied on the power wrung out of mortal souls to improve themselves.

Archmage Obai clutched his ebonwood Staff tighter and leaned in. “Is that... Silver Magic?” he asked, his grin very white in his dark face, indeed.

“Yes. Yes, it is. Scribed onto every single damn rock that bastard had its slaves move into here to build its maze, and onto which it has scribed all the Earth, Curse, Shadow, Undead, and Void Magic needed to build this demiplane.”

“What?” He glanced at me curiously. “I saw nothing of such magicks wrought upon the stones within...”

“They are on the outside of the stones, pressed up against and helping form the dimensional walls that are the actual edges of the demiplane. Effectively, the Pharaoh lined the walls, floors, and ceilings of the demiplane with the stones that created them in the first place.”

“Ahhhhh...” Archmage Obai shook his head in realization. “That is why they are so immovable. You cannot move them without redefining the very edges of the world...”

“Correct, stronger than any form of glue or nails. But... that did not make them immune to being modified. You just have to be able to read what is already there, and build upon it.”

“And that is what you were doing while you visited every single chamber in this place!” he realized belatedly. “I had wondered why you were being so personally thorough. My apologies. I had wondered if you doubted our efficacy...”

I laughed softly. “By no means, elder. I was dismantling a lot of magical traps and effects while I was at it, and tearing apart and draining dry a lot of the necromantic apparatuses working here as I did so, as well. Of course, everything I’ve done can be repaired or restored with time, and the Pharaoh intrinsically believes it has all the time it could possibly want. This whole fight is a somewhat stressful diversion that is probably costing it a great deal of face in the eyes of its masters and peers, but it has not and will not lose... it simply will not do so with any style or panache, which it thought it was going to be able to.”

Archmage Obai made a satisfied grunt. Joining the Undead Hunters, even at his age, had been one of the wisest decisions of his entire life. Not only had it introduced him to a whole new world and way of looking at magic, the Soul Crystals had given him a way to increase his power substantially without requiring horrific sacrifices to do so, and the Naming of his Stave had also slowly and continually raised his power.

He was also able to talk directly with the Beasts and Plants of the Land, instead of only being able to relate to them on their terms and understanding. It had altered his fundamental view of the entire world and the place of Humanity in it... although the tribes of Africa had long lived closer to the Land than those of their paler-skinned counterparts in other lands, and not had nearly as many problems with the Emperors thereof.

He was now part of an organization that spanned the world, truly crossing lines of skin color, culture, wealth, territory, and beliefs to try and make the world a better place than it was now. The amount and value of the knowledge that was shared alone was beyond his ability to value it, the spirit of cooperation, and the means to empower the lowest members of society were beyond revolutionary.

He was standing across from a terrifyingly intelligent and powerful Sage who was younger than some of his granddaughters, whose breadth of understanding of magic and the Elements it was composed of far surpassed his own.

Oh, such a time to be a mage!

And if it meant that insufferable ass Ojibwae was going to slave away in Libreville until The Great Flood was dispelled, and then might just die like the ass he was, well, the future still gave him things to look forwards to!