"Flaming hell, it's hot in here," Trisha said, as she pulled at the scarf around her neck.

Tabitha noticed the heat, but only in the way someone else would notice the colour of a wall. It was troubling, however, that her companion could feel that heat with all of the cold-stone she carried.

"Forges, liquid metal, and raging Crafters. Also, no one really designed the Foundry to ventilate," Agrias remarked, from up ahead. "So this is where they last saw the Combat Crafter."

The room was immense. It would take the better part of five minutes to reach the far wall, and Tabitha would be hard pressed to hit the ceiling with a stone. All around the room were work benches, furnaces, and a small lake of liquid metal that provided most of the light.

And much of it lay in ruins.

Anvils that looked like they had been made of putty and then broken apart. Rivulets of cracks ran through the floor, and pools of recently cooled metal spattered the walls. The room was unnaturally warm, even with the heat of the forges, and in the distance, bright fires flung shadows across the roof.

"Is that our quarry?" Mathias asked her, pointing to the distant haze of fire that looked, for all the world, like a sunrise.

Tabitha followed his gaze, and nodded.

Instinctively, she extended her will, and the air around her grew still as her heat haze enveloped an area nearly a dozen feet around her. The sudden surge of power surprised both Mathias and Trisha, who were close enough to feel the change in the air.

"I'll keep my will extended this far. Within it, every fire is mine. It won't be comfortable, but as long as I'm alive, it will be safe. Keep it in mind if you need cover," Tabitha explained, and she was fairly confident she didn't make a comforting sight. Her eyes, and parts of her hair would now glow like the liquid metal in the forges.

It would remind them that if she strained too hard, she might become their worst liability.

To her surprise, Mathias only nodded. "You and I will lead. Agrias, Gaharm, keep your distance until we engage, and look for an opening. Trisha, stay behind until the fire starts, then get close to Tabitha. Keep to cover, and do your damnedest to stay out of sight."

Agrias and Gaharm dashed off, disappearing from sight almost instantly. Trisha held her position as she and Mathias advanced.

"Remember, hold his attention," Mathias warned her.

"I'm going to try to kill him. Ideally in the opening shot," She replied.

"Don't be an idiot. You won't put enough into it, and you'll leave yourself wide open," Mathias said to her, scathingly. "That's a Combat Crafter, and unlike him, you're afraid of dying. Your only advantage is being able to fight smart. So don't lead with stupid."

She turned back to him, surprised by his statement. "That was...."

"Poignant?" Mathias asked.

"Insightful," Tabitha admitted.

"I'm not just pretty," Mathias remarked.

"No. You're also insufferably arrogant," Tabitha rebutted, but she smiled as she spoke. "Why haven't you loaded your crossbow yet?"

Mathias smirked, but he unslung the crossbow from his back and quickly cocked the string back.

They marched on, Mathias falling a half-step behind Tabitha as she began to extend her will. Touching nearby fires, holding the heat from nearby furnaces, she could finally feel the will of the scourged Crafter they hunted.

Nathaniel stood in the middle of a maelstrom of swirling fires, all hot enough to melt the stone around him. The ceiling above was simply missing, as if it had been cut apart by the fires that swirled up into the floor above them.

But as they stepped around a large kiln, and Tabitha was close enough to feel the mass of flame that surrounded the scourged Crafter, the flames vanished and the room was plunged into near darkness.

Abyss below.

The explosion started a heartbeat later, and hit her heat haze with so much speed that the sound of it only reacher her after she blocked it. The force of the onslaught was enough to crack the floor, break the heavy machinery, and crush the kiln they stood behind.

Even as it swirled around her, she could feel it pound at her defences; blows that could crush stone into powder and heat that could flash-vaporize flesh. Despite her own training and fearsome will, the blows thundered through the air inside her haze of heat, and the hem of her coat began to smoke.

She grit her teeth, and beat at it with her own fire, brushing the onslaught aside and scattering the flame into the open air. To her right, a blur of something terribly cold darted through her heat haze, and quietly hissed trough the air.

Mathias hadn't hesitated, she noted, as the distant Crafter brought more of the flames around him to life. The bolt pierced the swirling mass of fire, and disappeared.

Unexpectedly, the fire died and the Crafter was staggering backwards, clutching his shoulder. Tabitha grinned, and raised her hand to pummel him with her own fire, but Mathias grabbed her shoulder.

"Wait," he said.

The Crafter turned and raised his own hand, a bright plume of fire erupting just in front of him. Through the fire, Tabitha could feel the heat-devouring bolt of cold-stone being brushed aside. The Crafter then turned, whirling that fire about rapidly, as another bolt hit his leg from behind.

"Now." Mathias said, as he loaded his crossbow. Tabitha raised her arm again, feeling the rush of power and life, as her will became fire.

The onslaught of flame rushed like a falling boulder, and the exploding fires screamed as it collided with the Crafter's heat haze. She could feel the stone floor around the Crafter crack as her blows reverberated through the air, as she hurled the fire against his shield. She could even feel his heat shield flinch and begin to waver.
But a tidal wave of power rushed up from the floors below, and swept over and around the Crafter, enveloping him in a whirlwind of fire that pushed away her own and swallowed it up.

"He's seized a pipe!" she shouted to Mathias, who nodded and waved Trisha towards them. At the edge of her awareness, she could feel Trisha begin to dash towards them, just as the floor beneath her erupted in columns of flame that tore through the stone as if it were paper.

The mass of fire extended all around her, forcing Tabitha to contract and focus on her heat haze, readying for a new assault. As it came, she could see the flame congeal until it formed the shape of a snake as it tore through the open air and crashed into her defences.

Fire taken form. Not every Crafter could do that, and those that could usually stuck to small shapes. A two storey tall beast made of the fires from an outflow pipe was something Tabitha had never expected to see.

It was also a flamboyant display of power. To inspire awe, or fear. It wasn't any more durable than any other Craft.

She pointed her hand, and hit the oncoming mass with a rapid, fierce explosion that sent its fires scattering through the air, blowing apart its fire in a brilliant flash of bright blue.

Too easy, she thought to herself. He used a fire-form as a bloody distraction.

Tabitha turned back to see the Crafter hurling a torrent of fire through the air around himself, towards where the other two shadows had been moments before. Growling, Tabitha launched a bolt of bright white fire through the air, that howled as it devoured the distance between the two Crafters in the blink of an eye and crashed into the raging Crafter's heat haze.

The blow she struck was strong enough to punch a hole through just about anything the City could build, and was barely enough to cause the Crafter to stumble. He turned back to her, raised his arms up, and she could feel the surging heat from the pipes below.

"Can you get me close?" Mathias asked, with more of a frantic edge than she had ever heard in his voice. Like someone who left their laundry to dry asking about the weather.

"No. He's seized those pipes again." Tabitha said through gritted teeth, as she reached for the flame and expanded her heat haze. If she wasn't careful, either she or the raging Crafter could break the pillars holding either the floor or the ceiling, and bring half the building down.

On the other hand......

"Stay close" Tabitha said to Mathias, as she reached for the fires in the floor below. Seizing them, she poured her will into the blooming mass, and assaulted the raging Crafter's defences from below.

Her assault had no chance of breaking through his defences. A scourged Crafter fought at the peak of their strength, and his strength was augmented by the mass of flame that he had access to. But the stone he stood on didn't have his durability, and no Crafter had ever learned to fly. So when her attack was brushed aside, it carved through the stone at the periphery of his defences, cutting the stone apart.

The floor around the raging Crafter collapsed in a staccato of sharp cracks, sending their enemy plummeting through the floor and out of sight.

With a sigh of relief, Tabitha released the flames, and let the air around her cool. A moment later, the room was dark and dimly lit by only the faint lights of the forges.

"How low is the next floor?" Mathias asked. Tabitha pointed at the stones with her finger, and a swirl of flame bore into the floor, melting its way through the rock and into the open air below them.

As she finished, Mathias peered down through the hole, and grimaced. "Only eight feet..."

"Find cover!" Mathias hollered, louder than Tabitha had ever heard him shout, and she faintly saw at least one dim figure dart through the shadows.

Below her feet, she felt a swell of fire bloom, engulfing the air and enveloping the area beneath her feet. When it ran out of room it built on itself, the air temperature rising hundreds of degrees in seconds.

Tabitha seized the heat in the air around her, raising her defences. As she did, the first pillar of flame tore through the floor; a column nearly as large as the pillar that held the building up, and punched through the roof over their heads.

As the air around them turned bright orange and washed around her defences, a half-dozen more pillars tore through the floor around her, and the air around them was filled with fire.

It blew out the distant windows, levelled walls, and broke the floor apart in dozens of places. Wreaths of flame flickered through the red haze, and crashed around the room. Tabitha was aware of the will, the presence of the raging Crafter as the fire itself seemed to howl and laugh as it caught and consumed everything it could.

"Can you drop him through another floor? Or drop the roof on his head?" Mathias asked her, shouting to be heard over the roaring fires.

"A little busy," she said through gritted teeth, as she pushed back against the renewed assault. The rush of power made her smile, and she chucked to herself despite the situation.

Right now, she was more than soggy tissue and brittle sticks. She was the raging fury of building-destroying force, of heat and light enough to melt stone and mark the sky. She saw with the light of her own power, heard with the flickering fingertips of swirling fire, and drew breath by the howling majesty of the flame.

"Focus!" Mathias hissed, from beside her. "Showing off won't impress him."

"Right," she said, and let her defences contract. The sudden absence of her power took the raging Crafter by surprise, who hesitated a moment before his own fire filled the void, and attempted to devour the entire room.

She pointed her hand towards where she thought he stood, and struck as hard as she had ever lashed out with the Craft.

The explosion broke apart the floor, shattering the thick stone supports in a wide arc to either side, and beneath their feet. They fell through the floor as much of the room was torn to pieces, and hit the ground long before the shattered stone stopped falling from the high arched ceiling.

Tabitha cursed and spat as she landed on the stone, but felt at the periphery of her senses a blur of heat devouring cold dash through the air towards where their enemy should be.

Mathias, beside her, had just rolled to his feet and drawn his crossbow. "Adams! Take cover!" He barked, urgently.

Tabitha understood why a moment later. Nathaniel Olman was pushing himself to his feet, his face twisted in manic rage.

Trisha, however, had managed to manouvere closer by taking cover behind the broken pieces of the floor. Believing she had an opening, she darted into the open as Nataniel stumbled, her crossbow aimed.

As Olman raised his arm towards Trisha, Mathias fired a bolt towards the raging Crafter, which was knocked aside as the air in the room seemed to transform into a haze of fire, swallowing everything in sight. Tabitha felt it skid off her own heat haze, but knew she wasn't the real target.

Trisha stumbled and collapsed to her knees, heaving and screaming without breath as the air around her seared her lungs. From the periphery of her heat haze, Tabitha knew the air would cause paper to smoulder, and that anyone who wasn't a Crafter wouldn't be able to breathe.

Enraged, Tabifha reached out and seized the flames, even the ones in the air around them, and set them to bloom as she forced them to crash into her enemy's defences. The sound was deafening, and the light of the crashing flame was so bright that even though it was her fire, Tabitha had to shield her eyes with her hand.

She noticed Mathias looking at her with an odd expression, but refused to read into it. "I'm going to do something that will probably take some years off my life!" she shouted over the staccato of explosions. "Run straight at him. I'll keep the explosion off of you, and it should give you an opening!"

Mathias nodded, and drew a knife in his off hand, setting the crossbow over his forearm. A moment later, he dashed forward.

Just as Nathaniel began to push at the mass of flame that Tabitha surrounded him with, she seized all of it, poured her will into it, and detonated it inward.

The explosion cracked into his defences, and the reverberating explosion ripped through the air, demolishing most of what remained of the ceiling just above their heads. The entire Foundry shook, and the supporting pillars cracked and buckled.

In the deathly silence that followed, Mathias moved like a diving bird towards where Nathaniel was kneeling. the Crafter was trying vainly to push himself to his feet. Tabitha could see his left arm was badly broken, with bones jutting out from two places.

But the scourging drove a Crafter to a berserker's madness, a rage that could ignore even brutal wounds like the crossbow bolts already embedded in his shoulder and leg. As Mathias closed the distance, Nathaniel raised his arm, fist pointed to the shadow.

And caught a bolt through his hand. The Crafter flinched, began to point his other hand towards Mathias, but by then the shadow had discarded the spent crossbow and closed the distance. Even with her sight augmented by her awareness through the flame, Tabitha didn't see the killing blow. She only knew Nathaniel was dead when he dropped hard to the floor, and Mathias turned away to clean his knife on his coat.

Tabitha breathed a sigh of relief, and let her own heat-haze dissipate.

Mathias went straight to where Trisha had fallen, and knelt down next to her.

Trisha, who had threatened to murder another shadow for her, and had cheerfully explained some of the rules of their odd little group, the 'nannies'. Tabitha felt her eyes sting, and didn't bother to wipe at her face as she approached.

Mathias stood a moment later, and shook his head.

Ash bitten cruelty. If she ever met fate, Tabitha felt she would probably take it by its head and hold it in one of the distribution pipes until it stopped kicking.

"Gaharm and Agrias. Can you find them?" Mathias asked.

Tabitha nodded, and extended her awareness, feeling for the distinctive pinpricks in her awareness that the heat-drinking cold-stone produced.

It didn't take a lot of searching. "They're up on the floor above us. Neither of them are moving."

Mathias nodded, his expression disturbingly placid despite what they had gone through.

They had to find a stairwell to get back up to the next floor. She suspected that Mathias could have climbed back up through the broken ceiling, but he didn't ask her to make the climb. Instead, she moved at a slow run, up the stairs, to the closer of the two sources of cold-stone.

They found Gaharm sprawled on the ground, both legs broken, breathing slowly with ragged, hissing breaths. As they approached, he noticed them and waved weakly, somehow smiling despite the pain he must be in.

"I'm glad to see you, Crafter. I was about to tell Mathias he walks loud enough to wake the dead," Gaharm said, still smiling. As he finished speaking, he coughed hard and groaned, staring back up at the ceiling.

"It's these boots," Tabitha insisted. She tried to match his light, joking tone, but her voice cracked a little as she spoke. "I had to work on construction sites when I was testing buoyant suspension, so they made them with steel plates at the toe and the soles."

"Good. Worried my teacher was losing his touch. Sorry, boss," he said.

"Don't be stupid," Mathias said, and Tabitha heard the grief in his voice. "You went with me into the abyss, to fight a Crafter trained for war. We won, if it's any comfort."

"I figured, you not being dead and all. I didn't count on his heat-haze knocking the bolt around like it did. I should have had him then," Gaharm said.

Tabitha finally found the source of his wheezing, and noticed the burns on his chest for the first time. A burn on his side had blown a part of his stomach and side apart, held closed only by cauterized flesh. She flinched, and turned her head away.

"You got him in the leg. The only person to blame is the idiot who forced that poor bastard to Craft himself into madness." Mathias insisted.

"Yeah," Gaharm coughed again, hard, and groaned again. His lip quivered, and when he looked to Mathias next, there was a desperate pleading in his eyes.

"Boss, I'm done. We both know it."

"I know," Mathias said, drawing his knife. "I'm sorry I can't offer you more."

"No," Tabitha found herself saying. "No."

"You know he won't survive, even if he were already in a hospice," Mathias said, his voice flint-hard.

"I understand," Tabitha agreed, drawing the knife that the young shadow had given her. "But you don't need to kill a friend. You've lost enough, tonight."

Mathias looked back to Gaharm, and whatever passed between them surprised both. Gaharm barked out a laugh, and gave her a surprisingly warm smile. "Burn me, that's a surprise," he said.

But the smile faded, when he looked at her. "I'm going to pass. No offence meant, madam Crafter, but I rather doubt you'd know where to put that." Gaharm said. Tabitha nearly cried at how polite he was, even in his last moments. He turned his head back to Mathias, and added "you made the right call, bringing her in. You'll make sure this won't bite her in the ass?"

"We will," Mathias said. "Are you ready, old friend?"

"Yeah. End it."

Again, Tabitha didn't see Mathias strike. The man moved like a Salamander shot. But the knife now embedded in Gaharm's chest caused a brief, sharp exhale, and his chest didn't rise again.

Tabitha, tears streaming openly down her face, forced back the surprisingly strong urge to blast something apart.

Neither of them spoke, instead holding their silent vigil until something tore at Tabitha's awareness and she turned to see Agrias approaching, limping carefully, holding a knife against her arm. Blood trickled down her face in a small, single stream that ran down the side of her nose and dropped off the side of her jaw.

"Apologies, sir. I'm not in a condition to continue the hunt," Agrias said, and the confession seemed to be more painful to her than her wounds.

"Head to a hospice. Get that arm looked at, you could lose it if you delay. And that was a clever screen. You gave Gaharm a solid chance." Mathias said, kindly. "We'll see to Trisha and Gaharm when things are quiet again."

"You can't be real. None of you can be," Tabitha exclaimed, bewildered by what she had witnessed. "In my whole ash-bitten life, dealing with shadows has felt like having my teeth pulled. But you, damnit, I've never been so ashamed of being a Crafter before."

Both of them looked to her, surprised again. "Sorry if this sounds really cliched, but the whole reason Oversight exist is to keep things like this from happening. You're here cleaning up one of our worst failures. Of everyone with skin in this calamity, you're the last one who should feel ashamed," Agrias said. "The Bureau owes you, madam Crafter."

"To compound the shame, I'm afraid you and I aren't done yet," Mathias added, gathering up Gaharm's crossbow bolts. "There's a number of rejects who may be scourged tonight, and despite how pleased I would be to annoy Research, people will die if we do nothing. We have a long night ahead."

"I could just burn the Foundry down," Tabitha suggested, with a grin.

The smiles vanished from their faces as they looked at her. Despite the condition her arm was in, Agrias had subtly shifted into a crouch, and Mathias' crossbow was loaded.

"I'm joking. Badly." Tabitha said, holding out her hands placatingly.

"The City is fortunate you Craft well," Mathias said. "You'd have made a miserable comedian."