He Who Fights with Monsters

1. Jason refuses to explain himself and offers anyone with sufficient senses a trip through the gate. Shade explains that Jason's quest system was a 'fate sense', and that it has evolved into intrinsic-mandate magic. The messengers' attempt to extract their Astral King's goal has destabilized a natural array that could become a supervolcano, so Jason makes the Voice of the Will Jes Fin Kaal abandon two fortresses before talking. He wins reparations for Yaresh and the study of the dead diamond messenger Mah Go Schaat.
2. Berserk elemental messengers erupt from the array, and Allayeth follows Jason into his astral kingdom, where he explains he is a nascent Astral King and Vesta Carmis Zell wants a second Soul Forge. Jason frees the messenger Jali Corrik Fen by helping her remove her brand herself. Colin evolves, and Sparnow (the man who kidnapped Jason in Greenstone) blows up a Colin decoy before being captured.
3. Jason leads an expedition under Miriam Vance into the tunnel the elemental messengers dug. They find the surviving Brightheart Smoulders, Builder cultists led by Beaufort, and a corrupting birthing tree. Jason evacuates the civilians into his spirit realm. Boris Ket Lundi, a Cabal-founding messenger of the Unorthodoxy, reveals himself.
4. The priests of Undeath start raising the dead and the god Undeath claims the death chamber. Jason prays to Death, offering his two spare resurrections and an oath never to resurrect anyone, and she answers with a miracle of ghost fire that burns the undead. The god Hero offers Gary Xandier a drink from the Cup of Heroes, raising him to gold rank for seven hours before the power kills him, and Gary accepts to fight Undeath's colossal avatar.
5. Knowledge advises Jason to trigger a transformation zone to contain the natural array and all the forces fighting over it. Clive, Belinda, Farrah and Carlos improvise the ritual with the messenger device while the citadel holds.

Just as the Undeath forces are about to overwhelm the citadel, the ritual completes and the natural array and everything in it is sucked into a transformation zone. Gary Xandier is fighting Undeath's colossal avatar on Hero's miracle-borrowed power, which will kill him once it runs out. Jason, the expedition, the brighthearts, Builder cultists and Undeath's priests are all inside, scattered through the zone.

Not verified: no rank data for the end of this volume in our cache.