Timbrelle shot a stony look at the gem. She’d been having this icy showdown in the bathroom of the coliseum for a number of minutes, leading Adna to reasonably assume she was suffering from intestinal distress. Eventually, the brawny woman promised to meet her in front of the coliseum with Davian so they could go celebrate together and wished her luck “with… all that.”

The reality, however, was much more sanitary and distressing.

“I’m not even surprised.” She finally said to Nerrus’s Sapphirric medium. "A real surprise would be a chill day at home with nothing happening."

The glorious stone, the size and shape of a loaf of bread, said nothing.

Timbrelle rubbed her temples. “I know you have some kind of sentience–you opened the door at Capri when I asked and spirited away in my purse. I have to assume that you were the reason my body fought off anyone who tried to take the bag…” She led.

It said nothing.

She grimaced and placed a hand atop the sapphire. “You reek of pastries. Is touching you the only way of stopping it?”

Timbrelle felt a jolt of energy shoot through her hand, up her arm and into her brain before hearing her own voice say. “No.”

She stumbled back, managing to trip over the toilet and body slam an exposed set of pipes. The tumultuous stunt brought a concerned banging to the door that was quickly shooed away by her assurances. She collected herself and tip-toed back to the counter.

“Dick move. Seriously.” Her voice was hushed but firm. “But now I know you can answer my questions. First–”

Timbrelle paused, her mouth open as if waiting for the next words to form of their own accord. What did she want to ask it? Why me? Why can’t I remember my old life? Whose body is this? Why is my stupid soul so big?

But each of those queries were secondary concerns. The thing that she’d been stewing over for months, the question she’d asked Adna only once, nagged at her the most.

Is any of this real?

Timbrelle sighed and rubbed her temples even more vigorously. She couldn’t ask a rock philosophical questions like that. “How did you get into my bag? I know I didn’t put a twenty-pound aurora gem in my purse.”

“Your hands.”

“Don’t get cute. How did you make me do it? It’s not like you’re an amethyst.” She snapped.

“Your body was made to be controlled. I should not get in trouble.” She explained to herself. “It is your fault.”

“...It’s my fault I did something you made me do?” She guffawed.

“Fault… fault… my apologies. A more appropriate word may have been ‘nature’. It is your nature to be controlled.” It elaborated through her. “I am Phirrus, the sixth member of your divine party, though I am the fourth to assemble. Nerrusen is preparing the others. I believe they will arrive any da–”

Timbrelle snatched her hand away from the gem, halting the transmission. “Cool, cool. You do realize that I’m just carrying around the equivalent of an entire nation’s wealth in my purse, right? You dumb rock. Why didn’t you just stay at the temple in Yost? You’re going to get me killed.”

Outside in the arena, the audience’s energy was rising to a fever pitch, making it difficult to hear herself respond.

“...I believe you may be killed sooner than you think. I can feel the Miasma turning their attention to you at this very moment...” She mused darkly. “I believe you should be running.”

The door to the bathroom burst off its hinges and in the empty frame stood a familiar shape. With a cloak reminiscent of the Grim reaper and a staff taller than themself, the Jir devotee competing in the Tryptus took in the scene of Timbrelle talking to a colossal aurora gem. The hood, while casting her face in shadow earlier, had fallen back to reveal the buzzed baby blue hair of Shorna. Her librarian’s robes discarded, the new spectre-of-death aesthetic fit her angular features and bony hands surprisingly well.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Timbrelle, listen to me: there’s no time to waste. Jir says you’re about to be at the center of a significant mortal event. We need to get you out of here.” She shot a look behind her at the security barrelling down the hallway.

“Wait, weren’t you just on the field? I saw the Jir follower get announced!” Timbrelle asked, reeling from the discovery while trying to jam the sapphire back into her purse.

“Yeah, I jumped out when Jir contacted me. They probably think this is a terrorist attack or something. I’ve had people tailing me all damn day. Doesn’t help that Jir had to kill my opponent to get the message to me. Let’s go, let’s go!” She clapped at Timbrelle to pick up the pace. “I don’t know what the mortal event is going to be, but I’ve been charged with extricating you.”

“Then we need to warn the audience!” She insisted before Shorna towed her down the hallway toward the exit.

“Your presence could be what gets them killed. If you are the target, we may be able to withstand the event without casualties by moving to another location. If we get separated, use this to contact me. Just burn it and say my name.” She pressed a small pouch into Timbrelle’s hand.

Timbrelle only kept up with the librarian lich-in-training because she was being hauled by the wrist like a child in trouble. The two women dodged down a side corridor and into the first room they could find. The supply closet was large enough for them to stand apart but small enough to effectively be fish in a barrel if caught.

“Touch the door.” Timbrelle spoke for the medium, not realizing that she’d left a hand against it.

“What are you going to do?” She whispered back, placing a hand obediently onto the wood.

In response, the spectral energy webbing that was Timbrelle’s blood orange seal seeped out from her hand. Beside her, Shorna’s eyes bugged, following the spread of her seal across the surface of the door.

“I am not able to open a specific portal without a destination impressed emerald. Your destination will be random.” Phirrus cautioned.

“Thanks man. Sorry I called you a dick earlier.” She said.

“I will not forgive you.”

Once opened, the scene beyond the door frame was the idyllic summer evening with people milling about and the odd street busker attracting a swarm of children. The fountain at the center of the public area placed the portal’s exit on the edge of a square a couple blocks from the colosseum. The flags waving from all four corners of the stadium could be spotted over the rooftops.

The two looked around, disoriented from the sudden shift. Shorna recovered first, sprinting through foot traffic to a flowerbed and shooting a pillar of flame out of her palm. Once the fire was established, she dropped another pouch into the flames and called for Exantir. In every direction, people began making their escape from the crazed Jir devotee. Screams of terror, confusion and instant hysteria rang through the quickly emptying courtyard.

In an explosion of smoke, a being enrobed in darkness appeared within the pyre. Timbrelle assumed that this was Exantir in his eight-foot embodiment of degeneration and decay. She hadn’t been able to see him when the lich had visited, but Timbrelle knew him by heart. He gave her the oddest feeling of witnessing something through her soul. While he looked spooky enough, there was a deeper, inexplicable layer of observation that left her unnerved without a specific cause.

“You have done well, young one.” His voice, a deep rumbling, emanated from an impenetrable hood. “Our Lord will be pleased. Now, bring the rest of the congregation to the temple of Nerrus.”

Shorna laid a hand to her forehead and then to her breast in a show of reverence to Exantir. “Yes, your holiness.”

Exantir turned to Timbrelle once Shorna had left ear shot. “I must apologize for what is to come next, Chosen. I have not come here to save you.”

Timbrelle’s blood ran cold in her veins. “...to kill me, then?” She asked.

He shook his head. “Not me. I have been sealed in the time since we last spoke. Currently, I lack the power to fight off the people I believe are after you–in fact, I may even be weaker than yourself at present. The men about to storm the square are of Tellcentra’s royal knightage. The soul signature of Tellushra’s Black Hand is not among the huntsmen, though the rest appear to be of the highest quality. It is unlikely that they mean to kill you with those numbers. They must intend to abduct you.”

“Good. Good! Good!” Timbrelle snapped in progressively manic pitches. “Having my gems ripped out is exactly how I wanted today to end! I’m so sick of this! This world, this religion, this life! I’m done! I’m fucking done!”

Ping!

Your hidden ability has activated.

A rumbling in the pavement so severe it threatened to roll Timbrelle’s ankles traveled up the buildings surrounding them and shook the windows. As the tremors grew worse, panes of glass began to burst outward to rain razor-sharp glitter from above. Timbrelle stood in the middle of it, hair alight with twinkling shards.

“How are you doing this?” Exantir asked, awe clear in his voice. “You’re accumulating all the ambient spectral energy in the area–leeching it straight from the stones…”

“You should leave if you can’t help.” Timbrelle snarled through clenched teeth. She didn’t take her eyes off the alley where footsteps could be heard approaching. “No need to get taken with me.”

“I owe you a debt.” He said plainly. “This is not altruism.”

“Leave!” Her voice echoed off the crumbling walls in a scream empowered by spectral energy. There were a few beats of heavy silence. Then, much quieter, “Take this to Adna and leave… please. Do this and we’re even.”

Timbrelle passed her sapphire-laden bag to the lich, who accepted it thoughtfully. “I may be able to do something for you, though it will not be immediate.”

The first of a crowd of men stumbled into the square onto unsteady ground. Each of the dozen-or-so men watched her with predatory stares, sizing her up and drawing various weapons.

“I’ll take anything you’ve got, Exantir. Lay it on me.” she breathed out a long groan, working up to the moment when she would surely need to defend herself with her laughable skills.

Timbrelle felt the Lich place two hands on her back with thumbs and pointer finger creating a triangle over her spine. She recognized the pattern.

“Wait!” She cried too late.

A pulse of energy like the vibration from a firework resonated through her chest, stemming from Exantir’s hands. Timbrelle’s arms went limp at her side and she fell to her knees. The shaking of the nearby area stilled and went silent as Timbrelle, too, settled.

Ping!

You have been given a variation of the Moribund Seal.

-Current power: 10%

*This figure cannot be manually adjusted. Feed the seal spectral energy to increase its potency.

Timbrelle watched the number increase to twelve percent as her consciousness faded.