The Gate loomed over Task Force Valkyrie's makeshift camp like a festering wound in reality itself. Captain Alastair Reid sat on a crate labeled Fragile—Probably Cursed—a relic from their last resupply run—and stared at the swirling vortex of corrupted ley-line energy. The air hummed with a low, dissonant frequency that made molars ache and sanity itch.
"Cheerful view," Williams remarked, tossing Reid a ration bar that tasted vaguely of regret and sawdust. "Remind me why we didn't pack marshmallows for this apocalyptic bonfire?"
Reid caught the bar without looking. "Because you'd try to roast them over that—" He jerked his chin toward the Gate, where tendrils of green-black energy lashed at the sky like enraged serpents. "—and end up with third-degree burns and existential dread."
Across the camp, Dr. Eleanor Whitaker hunched over her instruments, muttering equations that sounded suspiciously like profanity. The Forgotten Flame lay secured in a containment unit beside her, its glow muted but insistent, like a heartbeat through fog. Maeve sat nearby, her back against a shattered menhir, eyes closed as ley-line sigils flickered across her skin like malfunctioning neon.
"How's our living mood ring?" Williams nodded toward Maeve.
"Quiet," Reid said, though he'd wondered the same. The druidess hadn't spoken since her latest vision—a twelve-hour fugue where she'd alternated between whispering in dead languages and clawing at her own arms.
Lance Corporal Parvati Singh approached, medkit slung over one shoulder and a scowl etched deep enough to rival the menhir's grooves. "Morale's holding. Barely. Three stress fractures, two cases of magical radiation sickness, and Private Jenkins is convinced his rifle's haunted."
"Is it?"
"It's jammed. But I told him ghosts hate WD-40. Seemed to help."
Reid's laugh died as a horn blared in the distance—a sound like a dying brass instrument played through a meat grinder.
"Contact!" A sentry shouted. "Single rider approaching under a white flag. Or… a white something. Could be a handkerchief. Or a surrender sock."
Seraphine's emissary rode a creature that defied taxonomy—part horse, part insect, all nightmare. Its chitinous legs clicked against the obsidian plain as it halted just beyond camp boundaries. The rider's armor gleamed like oil on water, their face hidden behind a helm shaped into a screaming nymph's visage.
"Captain Reid," the emissary called, voice distorted by the helm. "The Lady of Thorns offers parley."
Williams snorted. "Offers parley? Could've fooled me with the undead hordes and the—" he gestured broadly at the Gate, "—general vibe of despair."
Reid rose, hand resting on Gareth's dagger. "Let's hear the terms."
The meeting took place in the shadow of a half-collapsed watchtower, its stones vibrating with residual magic. Seraphine's emissary stood flanked by two obsidian golems, their faceless heads swiveling to track every twitch of Reid's fingers.
"Surrender Excalibur and the Flame," the emissary intoned, "and the Lady will grant your forces safe passage to Earth."
Reid crossed his arms. "Generous. What's the catch?"
The emissary's helm tilted. "The Gate remains open. The Weaver will rise. But your people need not perish in its shadow."
"Ah, so we're just… witnesses to the apocalypse?" Reid's smile was all teeth. "Hard pass."
Before the emissary could retort, the air behind them rippled. Seraphine materialized in a coil of smoke and thorned vines, her armor crackling with ley-line static.
"Still defiant, Captain?" Her voice slithered into their ears, syrupy and cold. "Admirable, if futile. Your world reeks of greed, your leaders of hypocrisy. The Weaver's ascension is mercy."
Whitaker's instruments began screeching. She glanced down, paling. "Captain—the ley-lines around the Gate aren't just corrupted. They're amplifying her. If she completes the ritual—"
"Chaos. Purification. A new dawn." Seraphine spread her hands, and the ground trembled. "You've seen the rot, Reid. The bureaucrats squabbling over power, the masses blind to their chains. I offer order."
Reid stepped forward, ignoring the golems' growls. "Order's just another cage. And I don't play well in cages."
Seraphine's laugh was the sound of ice cracking over a void. "Then burn with the rest."
She vanished, leaving the emissary to toss a sealed scroll at Reid's feet. "Dawn tomorrow. Your answer—or your ashes."
Back at camp, Whitaker hurled a wrench at her malfunctioning scanner. "She's turned the Gate into a conductor! The ley-lines here are feeding her power, and if we disrupt them—"
"Boom?" Williams offered.
"Bigger boom. The kind that leaves a crater where Wales used to be."
Reid stared at the scroll in his hands, its wax seal stamped with Seraphine's thorned sigil. "Options?"
"I can rig the Flame to destabilize her network," Whitaker said. "But it'll take time. And Maeve's…"
They turned. Maeve stood at the camp's edge, facing the Gate. Her hands glowed faintly, weaving patterns in the air as if conducting an unseen orchestra.
"The Weaver's close," she murmured. "It's… hungry."
Reid joined her, following her gaze to the Gate's pulsating heart. "Can you hold it back?"
"No." She smiled bitterly. "But I can make it choke."
Williams clapped Reid's shoulder. "Cheer up, Captain. Worst case, we die heroically and Crowe names a mediocre pub after us."
"There's already a Reid's Arms in Cardiff," Singh noted. "Two-star reviews. They water the ale."
Reid snorted. "Priorities, people. Let's make sure the next pub's epic."
As dusk bled into night, Task Force Valkyrie prepared for war—because some offers, like Seraphine's, weren't worth the parchment they burned on.