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Either way, he'd been developing countermeasures for that, too. Sealing the workshop off completely had been the first step, but that had been far from enough to solve problem. He'd eventually discovered that the insect hordes were being long-jumped into various spatial weak points within the workshop.

In other words, even after he'd sealed all the physical cracks, the saboteurs had begun taking advantage of metaphysical ones.

And the insects were getting more deadly, too. He'd found a few Jaskadan jumper ants in the mix, but thankfully, he'd known to prioritize them before they turned did too much damage.

He couldn't wait to turn the tables on whoever was sending them.

This captured Andanatt servant's head might be able to tell him something, but he wasn't going to get his hopes up. That interrogation could wait a while.

At the moment, he was more concerned with checking up on his Fusion Forge. Thus far, none of the attacks at penetrated all the way to the heart of his workshop, where lay the Lantern of Doma, but it was doubtless the main objective of all this harassment.

Through a host of mechanical doors and a dozen more layers of automated defense systems, he found it, just as he'd left it. The Blade of Perdition followed quietly behind him, its fiery sparks having calmed down to a low simmer.

Oddly enough, Luann had noticed that Blade and the Lantern seemed to have developed some kind of relationship of their own. Something akin to a master-servant dynamic. Or officer-solider, maybe. Whatever it was, the Blade always settled down in the Lantern's presence, while the Lantern always warmed up a little more when Luann brought the blade around.

It was fascinating, Luann thought. When he'd decided to try implanting the Blade with a pseudo-consciousness, he hadn't expected it to take form so well and so easily. Perhaps the Lantern was even better suited to making items of this nature than he'd realized.

Or perhaps it was growing in power.

That was a rare but known possibility. He'd been using the Lantern for decades now, and while it was difficult to say for sure since his own skill was improving over time, too, it was increasingly on his mind that the Lantern seemed subtly different in some ways.

Not physically, of course. That would be too noticeable. No, it was in the flow of its ardor. In the way it responded to him during the pinnacle of active work.

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The Blade hovered there above the severed head, burning with an orange light while wisps of flame radiated outward from its serrated edges.

It was actually a much larger and more complex item than it looked. The Blade was connected to an entire computational network that was constantly providing it with tracking data, and the magnets embedded into its body allowed it to work in conjunction with the various magnetic focusing beams around the workshop in order to give it the appearance of true, self-propelled flight.

Still not quite the free-form, fully mobile "familiar" that he'd originally envisioned for it to be, since it couldn't leave the workshop, but hey. It was a work that he remained quite proud of, overall.

One day, perhaps, he would have his pet sword following him wherever he went, cutting down any who dared to threaten his life.

For now, though, this was more than adequate. He hardly ever left his workshop, anyway. Too much could go wrong while he was away, thanks to the Andanatt always hounding him.

He seemed to have become their favorite subject in recent years, which was no skin off his nose. It just meant that they weren't bothering the others as much.

And some of his contemporaries certainly needed the cover. Many were struggling far more than he was, Luann knew. If he wasn't constantly being pestered by infiltrators, he might've liked to go help some of them directly. Provide advice, at least.

But no. That would just put more hostiles eyes on their work, which would be no help at all.

He proceeded to the new janitorial chamber and flipped a few switches. The cleaning bots mounted on the walls came immediately to life and scooted out to work.

They were a bit slow and bulky with their thick wheels, large vacuum hoses, industrial tanks, spinning scrubbers, sprayers, and scoopers; but he couldn't be bothered to make them more sleek or efficient. Cleaning was far from where his passion lay. It had just become an unfortunate necessity, as of late.

The Andanatt weren't the only ones bothering him. They were just the ones sending stealthed human agents. Some other nuisance was sending periodic waves of insects to gunk up his machinery. By comparison, that method of attack had been far more effective against him.

Technically, he supposed the Andanatt could've been behind that, too, but he doubted it. Didn't seem like their style.

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But the Pool was also not random in its machinations. She was reasonably certain now that while, yes, it did indeed lie for fun, it still never did so without purpose.

"To the Pool," Mistress Yaki had once told her, "everything is a game. No matter how grave the circumstance, no matter how frustrated I become with it, no matter how benevolent its other intentions might be: the Pool will always seek to play with me, first and foremost. It is a most troublesome child, to be sure."

But that was also what made it so powerful in its own unique way. The more Anya had learned about Forges throughout history, the more convinced she'd become that their quirks and eccentricities were deeply connected to their strength.

In fact, she'd begun to believe that the stranger a Forge was, the more powerful it could become.

But only in the right hands, of course. Which was the real problem, wasn't it?

If she truly wanted to become the new mistress of the Pool of Trenoy, then she would have to play games.

And she would have to master them, too--to an extent that even Mistress Yaki had never been able to.

Which was why Anya was reassessing that illusory hand being extended toward her.

There was no mastery without risk. Not with any Forge. But especially not with the Pool.

Perhaps the true answer here was not to balk. Not to play it safe.

But to immerse herself in the illusions. Whatever madness the Pool intended to show her. Perhaps she just had to look at it directly and try to see through it from within.

She took a deep breath. The "Mistress" was simply waiting for her. Quiet and smiling. Warm and familiar.

Anya wasn't sure she'd ever felt so terrified as she did right now.

But she took the hand, and the world warped around her.

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Fresh blood splattered across the far wall as the Blade of Perdition diced up another intruder. The third in as many weeks. Always trying to be stealthy, not realizing that his automated defense systems could detect them even through those invisibility powers they were so proud of.

When would they learn, these Andanatt fools? How many more minions must they lose?

Luann eyed the mess with exasperation. Human chunks all over the workshop. The head was preserved, though, so the adjustments he'd made to the Blade were working well. That was good.