"That seems like it'd be a short-lived approach," I said, before wanting to smack myself in the face. "Pun not intended."

"Maybe for someone more mundane, but remember, we live a lot longer than them." She looked at the man sprawled on the ground as Viktor stalked towards him one heavy step at a time. "He's also older than you'd think for someone who'd been doing what he has. I suspect they have some way to revitalize themselves."

"The animals," I said, thinking back to the totems and why they'd look so tortured.

A look of abject horror crossed Celistar's features before she was able to get a handle on the emotion. "A perverse practice indeed," she said, "befitting a group seeking to damage the world itself."

"What on earth would they have to gain?" I asked.

"If I knew, I'd be on their side," was the sensible reply. It was sometimes easy for me to forget that despite her great age, Celistar didn't know everything.

I recalled the opulent city center Dad and I had visited; populated by the few, while all around them, the many lived in squalor.

"Sometimes 'burn it all down' is the goal," I said, as much to myself as anyone else. They'd undoubtedly have justifications in their own minds, but those would be as twisted as the outcomes they sought.

"It is not our job to question the motivations of those who would abandon reason for harm," Celistar said, sounding every bit as wise as her title as the Ancient One would suggest. "It is ours to stop them."

In front of us, Viktor was doing a pretty good job of that. The man Elder Mountain was fighting was starting to resemble one of the animals the Covenant had drained to support their perverse methods of enhancement.

I saw a flare of energy around Viktor's arm and knew he was about to finish the fight, as it was more energy than I'd seen him use the entire assault.

My Elder vanished from where he was standing, causing his opponent's eyes to go wide.

But only for a split second.

Viktor reappeared, an outstretched fist radiating smoke in front of him as a thunderous crack split the air. A rush of air sucked dust past him in the wake of the attack.

His enemy was nowhere to be found, obliterated by Viktor's finishing blow, the mass then incinerated by heat so extreme that I felt a flash of it wash over me from where I stood.

Precise yet overwhelming, befitting the man himself.

What followed was a cleanup of sorts. There were still people to be found.

Viktor had sat down, leaning his back against a massive stalactite that had apparently fallen from the ceiling when Celistar blew most of the outpost into tiny pieces. He seemed a little smaller than he had during his fight, something I shook away as a trick of perspective owing to the huge chunk of rock he juxtaposed with, not even going one-tenth of the way up its steep face.

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And this was with a non-trivial chunk of it embedded into the ground already. It was an absolute unit, and I was glad I wasn't standing where it landed.

We picked through the debris for about an hour, aided by my vision, finding mostly the recently deceased, but I was delighted when one particularly vibrant ball of Nebula turned out to be a collection of critter captives creatively crated.

I released them with my apologies.

Returning outside the collapsed structure, I noticed something odd. I could see rays of light in the air.

Not just any, but those created by a sunrise. While before I wasn't really able to see them through the smog of the city I lived in, since coming here, I had the good fortune to see more than a few while in the care of the Stormwing Circle.

I was pretty sure I wasn't mistaken, but I had thought we were in a cave.

"Aren't we in a cave?" I asked Celistar, who was sitting on another chunk of rock, one of the many scattered around. She was kind of staring off into space, something I'd caught her doing a few times since we'd run into the illusion of her parents.

Her gaze refocused on me. "Yes, last we checked."

I pointed to the light high above us. It was steadily brightening.

"Then what's that?"

She stared, then looked a little chagrined, a small blush seeping into her cheeks. She covered her mouth in the way of showing surprise that only really worked for certain demurely proportioned people - namely, her and Alessa.

"Oops."

It took my brain a few seconds to process before I realized what she meant.

We were in a cave.

Well, we had been, until she'd done some concussive renovations on the area, blasting a portion of the roof completely out, resulting a skylight of sorts that I could see was still crumbling around the edges, which explained the persistent murkiness of the air and some of the random noises I'd been hearing, as well as Viktor's napping backrest.

Elder Scholar emerged from said swirling dust, giving me a bit of a fright as I'd kind of forgotten he was still out there, somehow. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess. It took a few more moments to realize he was dragging a body, which he threw on the ground in front of us. It groaned, at which point I realized there was a person still inhabiting the body, if just barely.

"Tell them what you told me," István said in a perfectly even tone once his captive had time to collect himself.

The man jolted as if he'd been prodded in the squishy bits by a live electrical source, which made me wonder what István had done to have him so on edge.

"The Covenant is seeking the Blessed Daughter of the Moon and the Maker of Fate," the man said, his filthy countenance and rough haircut making him look like some sort of diseased rodent. It was a wonder István was even willing to touch him.

"Oh really," Celistar said, eyes flashing. It didn't take a genius to figure out they were talking about her with that mouthful of a title. "What were you looking for this 'Daughter of the Moon' for?"

"I… don't know," the man admitted, shaking like a leaf. He was clearly scared out of his mind. "We were told she had returned, and that the Covenant seeks information on her."

"Interesting," said Celistar, "anything else?"

"Sounds like a bunch of fantastical bullshit to me," I interjected, making his attention snap to me. "Did they tell you how to identify your target?"

"'You will know them by their works' was the only information the Oracle gave us."

"Sucks to be you," I said, actually meaning it. What a vague treasure hunt they'd been sent on. Seemed almost cruel.

"Look on the bright side; you won't have to search anymore," Celistar said, holding out a finger. White-blue Nebula swirled into a ball there. The man's eyes stared at this small ball of power as if it were made out of unstable explosives. Considering that we were standing among the destructive results of her energies and their effects on the structural integrity of the cave, that didn't seem like an incorrect assessment.

The swirl resolved into a tiny mimic of her favorite celestial body. The man's eyes immediately showed a realization of the truth in her words, and his gaze went from the moon to her face with a fervency bordering on worship.

"Blessed Daughter…" he murmured, and then Celistar pushed the energy into his forehead.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

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