“Did you not also think I would ‘find issue’ with your intent to shatter the gnomes’ Core?” Gardos said. “After you worked so hard to convince me to help you find it and nothing more?”
Tense silence thickened the stale air. Beneath the table, Varnell’s familiar pressed itself closer to the warlock’s leg, as though attempting to hide from whatever was about to happen.
“I can’t believe you tried to use Gardos to help destroy a fellow God Core,” Tiri found herself saying. “Just like you did with the red Core—”
“’Fellow God Core’? Is that what he told you?” Varnell laughed bitterly. “Gardos is no God Core.”
“What? Of course he is—”
“Enough.” The Core’s voice boomed out, silencing them both. To Varnell, he said, “I permitted you to continue ruling here because I believed you and I shared the same goals. It seems I was mistaken. How disappointing.”
“We share the same goals,” protested Varnell. “We both want to see Melakor fall—”
“I specifically stated the gnomes were not to be harmed,” said Gardos coldly. “Yet you defied my wishes at every step. This is unacceptable. Thankfully, I had prepared for such an eventuality.”
“What… what do you mean?”
“After she returned here and her wounds were healed, you instructed Lila Mornier to annihilate the gnomes so that their Core would shatter. However, I gave her instructions to counter yours. Her mental state is such that mine did not take hold as they should have, yet it was enough to confuse her intent and temper her instructions to her… special agents.”
He laughed when Varnell’s eyes widened. “Yes, I know all about those too. Where do you think she got the inspiration from in the first place? She would never have come up with Beast Cores on her own. She has a noble spirit, but lacks imagination.”
Beast Cores?
Tiri felt her head would burst with all this new information. She had questions upon questions, theories upon theories. But it seemed she’d run out of time to ask them.
“It may dismay you to know that I have sent my avatar in pursuit of her. Your final agent, Lila Mornier, shall interfere no more. You’re done, sire. We’re done.”
Lila? No—
The tramping of boots echoed down the stairs. The chemspheres at the top threw shadows of marching figures approaching.
Varnell spun to face the armored warriors descending the stairs. “What is the meaning of this?” he roared.
Tiri expected the soldiers to cower; to grovel for forgiveness, to express their deepest apologies for daring to disturb the great Guildmaster.
It was as if they couldn’t even hear him. They marched across the study, four warriors in total. The first one grasped Varnell’s arms and yanked them behind his back. The second advanced on him with a set of manacles. Once they’d shackled him, they forced him toward the stairs.
He cursed, spitting and protesting. The vehemence in his voice made Tiri wince, and she kept waiting for the entire room to explode with devastating magic. But Varnell did not conjure so much as a spark to defend himself. He truly was afraid of drawing his patron’s attention.
“Power truly is pointless when you find yourself unable to wield it in times of need,” said Gardos conversationally, as though reading Tiri’s mind.
She dragged her eyes from the struggling Guildmaster, then started at the sight of the second pair of warriors standing right beside her. She flinched back as they reached for her.
“What are you doing?” Surprise made her voice high and girlish, but she was too outraged to care. “What have I done?”
“You, Tiriani, have committed the greatest of sins in this world where one’s stability and wellbeing are entirely reliant on ignorance.”
She gritted her teeth as her hands were wrenched behind her back. “What?”
Gardos tutted. “Put simply: you know too much. Your potential interference with my plans is a risk I cannot—will not—take.”
“So you’re a tyrant, then?” she spat, twisting in her captors’ grip to glare at the statue concealing the dark gray Core.
“Far from it. You will both be imprisoned, yes, but you’ll be well taken care of. I shall release you once my work is complete.”
“What work?”
He paused, then said, “You already know too much; what’s the harm in telling you a little more?” She had to fight not to roll her eyes at the classic villain monologue. “My work, you ask? Mela K’or, of course. Varnell seeks only to free himself, is too cowardly to pursue anything more.” His voice darkened. “But the tyrant needs to die. I know him well enough to guess he’s been building up his own army; if, as Grimrock says, the purple Core was a night elf, then Melakor has infiltrated the underground city of Uldrazir and now leads the night elves. Eventually they will rise to the surface and spread a plague of indoctrination just like he once did as god of the light elves. They must be stopped. They must all be stopped, and his influence utterly purged.”
The absolute conviction in his tone left her chilled. “You’re speaking of genocide,” she whispered. “You want to wipe out an entire race just to eliminate one man?”
“I have done it before. What do you think happened to the light elves’ ancient empire in the first place?”
She gaped silently, unable to muster a response.
“It is as your Guildmaster said. I am no God Core.” Pause “I am a War Core. And soon we will go to war.”
Now she saw it. The warriors who’d arrested Varnell had been under Gardos’s direct control—as had the guards that allowed her to slip past into the prison and rescue Coll, she realized. He’d been watching and manipulating this entire time, waiting to learn the truth—and confirming that Varnell could not act against him—before making his move.
What she’d just witnessed was a coup. Gardos ruled the Guild now. And he was going to force them into battle with the dark elves, who were themselves under the influence of a malign entity.
“This is an
