Storm of Dragon and Stone

Dispatched to the realm of Montanhas to save the family business from bankruptcy while each of them vie for the approval of their father and leadership of the company, Moriganne and her siblings find they've been sent into a disaster of occult origins.

The newly purchased company of Lifestone was supposed to be their company's savior but has proved to be a demonic anchor around their necks. With restricted windows to evacuate and deadly conflict brewing between the workers and the nearby town, Moriganne tries to thread a dangerous path while trying to save everyone—but sometimes tragic events make heroic choices impossible.

Montanhas Realm
August 2017

Leena Cohen had never killed anyone, and she didn't intend to change that today. There'd been a few close calls. A riot in Zorras, Chile, when she was chased to the corporate helicopter by a massive mob; the wars in the late '80s that forced them to shut down harvesting operations on the eastern side of Iraq; the mugger in Manhattan with a knife and balls the size of the borough who demanded her purse while she was wearing her Hall robes after leaving an alumni gathering.
"Will you authorize lethal force?" asked Mikhail Dresden, her head of security. The man had the warmth of a reptile. She was always surprised when he blinked. His blue eyes matched the environment in Montanhas—cold and inhospitable.
"The day I authorize lethal force is the day that we have irrevocably failed."
"Gate security personnel was hit with a rock. He'll need twelve stitches and need to be sent back for an MRI at the next available opportunity. It could have killed him."
Leena stared out the window overlooking the Lifestone compound. On the far side of the brick offices, past the barriers and shock lines that encircled the gate, a mixed group of humans and Montas with signs that read No Lifestone in Montanhas! or Corporate Rapers chanted.
"No reprisals. Your man shouldn’t have had his helmet off, nor been outside the gate building. He was taunting them. I watched the footage," said Leena as she took a sip of her black coffee. "Control your people."
"My apologies, but if you don't allow me to make a statement, they'll be emboldened by your reluctance. Fault or no."
Dresden stared unblinking, as if he knew her thoughts.
"Noted," said Leena.
When he left, she shivered. There'd be a missive to headquarters, a complaint about her unwillingness to back his reprisal and that it was jeopardizing safety—as if violence could prevent violence.
Leena stared past the company compound to the ring of mountains—jagged, snow-kissed, a greenish tinge from copper corrosion, as the rocks were dotted with the mineral. Her mind tricked her into thinking it was Earth. At least until she glanced into the sky to the twin moons that hovered over the mountains: one grayish blue, the other rust red. Olho Frio and Vermelha. Night brought unfamiliar stars. She liked to tell herself she was still in her original universe and that one of those pinpricks could have been the sun, but researchers at the Halls had long ago proved these were separate universes, each to its own rules, like soap bubbles pushing against each other. Some were stranger than others. The idea of the Eternal City fascinated her, but the maetrie were dangerous and prickly, a deadly combination. Montanhas, thankfully, was nearly identical to her own world.
A faint rumble in the balls of her feet brought a tightness in her midsection. It was the third one this week. Leena checked the seismograph, noting the unsightly squiggle mark. The circular graph next to the first showed a similar trajectory, except it was measuring the presence of faez. A report on her desk from headquarters projected there could be a significant impact to the region in the window of six to fifteen months, which had increased their demands to extract as much product from the region as possible before they were forced to shut it down.
The gray smoke over the factory alerted her to a new batch of Aevita, the life-extension elixirs that had been a huge hit back home. No one else had been able to duplicate their results because they didn't understand the critical quality that gave their users three to five times the extension that D'Agastine Industries' and Pyramid Health's did. The only problem was that bathing their alchemical agents in copious amount of faez created secondary problems like the degradation of local environments. It'd cost Lifestone a fortune to find another realm that had thin barriers where faez could be extracted, since industry in the Undercity beneath Invictus was forbidden.
Leena thought about putting in for a transfer. She'd have to leave soon anyway, but the thought of winding down the plant that she'd run for eighteen years brought an ache in her soul. The only thing keeping her from doing that was she knew they'd bring in someone to wring the last drops from the factory, and while she knew she'd had to make unsavory decisions over the years, there were worse managers in Lifestone, who would treat Montanhas like a lawless frontier and let Dresden off his leash, ignoring the concerns of the native Montas and the colony of former Portuguese who'd bribed one of the patrons to bring them here through the portal network. There'd be bloodshed, she was sure of that.
A stab of migraine forced her to squint, taking the rods from her knees. Leena leaned against the desk. When she could muster a thought again, she rooted through her desk for the bottle of pills, popping an extra due to the severity. What she wanted was a drink—her bottle of Severance fungal-whiskey was empty—but the last shipment from Invictus had been over a month ago, and the next wasn't due for two more weeks.
Two weeks. Leena was glad the security guard hadn't been hurt worse. While she had a way of leaving the realm in emergencies, the cost was brutally high and possibly more dangerous than waiting, which made it unusable except in the direst of situations.
And that was the one thing that made her want to give Dresden a bit more leeway. Unlike the other times when Lifestone was run out of countries, she couldn't just pick up and leave on a corporate helicopter, whisked away at a moment's notice to safety. Extraction. If things went sour between regular shipments, they'd be at the mercy of the locals, and just as the seismic activity had given her more frequent indigestion, it'd spurred the locals to angrier protests. What would happen if there was a significant event?
Leena stared at the waving signs of the protesters on the incoming road. The safety of her people was paramount. Reluctantly, she leaned down and pressed the intercom button for Dresden's desk.
"Mikhail. I'd like to talk some more about security measures. I think we could use some beefing up around here."
"Agreed. I'll be right up."
She stabbed the button to end the call. Something about his tone gave her the creeps, but at least he was on her side if things went wrong.