Freya Solastria was three hundred and sixty four years old. Old enough to know when to give up, but still she couldn’t bring herself. She had been at Tiber’s birth, he was a brilliant boy, or rather man now. To her, everyone in Solastria was a child besides Nathaniel and Joseph, even Joseph she still thought of as a child in a way, since she was a little over a hundred years older. Tiberius was her family, she had known him all his life and he had been reduced to this monster standing before her. She didn’t know what was happening to him, she had seen ascensions go wrong, not often, but she had seen them. Tiber wasn’t the first person she had tried to help ascend, but still she had never seen anything like this. It was monstrous, profane, something she wished she could erase from her memory. She couldn’t understand why everything was going wrong, the mana in the room fought her every step of the way it was like trying to ride an angry bull, and she had a deep sense of unease that she couldn’t pin down. Something was wrong here, but she didn’t have time for that.

“He has failed, we must end him.” Nathaniel’s words echoed in her mind. Despite the plain way he said it, Freya knew that he was likely even more upset than her. The man had founded their family and had seen member after member die, but she knew he cared more than anyone else. She had always been privy to his more sentimental thoughts. He had lived far longer than her, and liked to keep mortals at arm’s length because of it, hoping not to get too attached. Freya, though, was the first elemental he successfully raised, so for a long time she was his only confidant. The man had become something like a second father to her, so it hurt all the more to recognize the look in the man’s eyes as he called for Tiberius’ demise. She opened her mouth to speak, to argue, to say anything, but she knew he was right. This was a losing game. Joseph had a similar realization, gritting his teeth and readying a more offensive spell. Neither of them wanted to do it, but as they saw the monster that was now Tiberius impale yet another one of their family, they decided it was what Tiberius would have wanted.

Cece watched far from the action, ready to interfere. She could see the magic moving through the three elementals, it was hard to discern from sight alone what a spell could be, but she could clearly see that each was preparing a decisive attack. She gritted her teeth as she realized they were synchronizing themselves, preparing to take him down in one swing. The magic built up inside them and luckily for her Tiberius sensed it too. Just as they were about to unleash their attacks Tiberius’ metal tendrils lashed out wildly, giving Cece the necessary smokescreen to cause all the built up magic to lurch as she yet again rewrote the gold scroll floating nearby. Their magics fired off simultaneously, Cece’s scroll wasn’t able to stop that, but the sudden jolt was enough to mess up their aim. Cece doubted it would work under any other circumstance, but the elementals were distracted and, unbeknownst to them, drugged. Joseph’s spell presented the least resistance, a slash of light missing by a few centimeters. Freya unleashed a beam of light that suffered a similar fate, her face wincing as it did so. Nathaniel’s spell was largely unaffected, but whatever intelligence was left in Tiberius had prioritized dodging his attacks, gracefully oozing out of the way of a pillar of light. Uncontested the failed elemental ran further into the crowd, a few tendrils of gold and silver wrapping around more of Solastria’s inexperienced mages, and threw them violently towards the elementals in the center of the chamber. Cece was not an expert in human anatomy, but based on the limpness of their bodies she believed the force of the creature throwing them by their head had killed them instantly. It was terrifying, but still she grinned.

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Her smile faltered however when Nathaniel finally moved, she hadn’t realized that until now he hadn’t taken a single step. As he walked towards Tiberius his body slowly began shifting into gold, and Cece could see the magic inside of him roar. He was angry, and his face showed it, the man that had looked so old, even fragile, to Cece, now looked like a raging bull. He didn’t look any younger, but something about his presence exemplified strength. In the time it took to reach him, Tiberius had killed six more people, and threw a body towards Nathaniel. The man simply caught it, dead in the air, and gently set it down, his face softening for a moment, before continuing. Cece could feel it, this was over. It felt premature to call it here, but an abundance of caution was necessary when dealing with elementals. Even leaving now wouldn’t guarantee her life.

She began walking out of the ritual chamber, slowly and surely, just like Nathaniel. She had inscribed her soul collection grimoire to find her later, so she didn’t need to worry too much about it, although leaving it was a slight risk on the off chance they managed to detect the small, invisible gemstone flying about. Still the worst that could happen is that she didn’t get the souls, it was undiscovered, unknown technology that couldn’t be traced to anyone, even with detection spells she wasn’t sure they would be able to identify it as a grimoire.

Cece looked over her shoulder as Nathaniel made his move, tendrils of gold forming from his own hands pinning Tiberius’ to the ground. A pane of light flashed brighter than the sun and Cece closed her eyes, when she opened them Tiberius’ metal form lay bisected on the ground. Cece kept walking, but sped up slightly. She didn’t want to be anywhere near him now that he wasn’t as distracted. When she made it up the stairs and out the doors of the Solastria estate she had felt like she had gotten away with the crime of the century, still she wasn’t completely finished, she detached the ocularis and had it go back in the way she came. Now that she was sure she wouldn’t somehow need it to escape, she may as well see what they discover.

When the eye reached the ritual chamber only a short time later, she saw Nathaniel examining Tiberius’ body. He touched one of the metallic tendrils and turned to Freya.

“It’s as I thought, silver.”

“Silver?” Freya said, confused.

“The gold was laced with silver.”

“That’s impossible, we got pure gold for the ascension.”

“Did anyone check to make sure it stayed that way?”

“Well yes, the gold appeared to be the same.”

“Did you confirm magically?”

“No…” Freya trailed off. “Do you think they were replaced.”

“Yes, they would have had to be.”

“Someone sabotaged the gold.” Joseph joined in.

“Yes, and worse.” Nathaniel said, having a look of realization.

“What’s worse.” He inquired, as Freya gave a curious look herself. Suddenly there was flash of light as Nathaniel cast a purification spell on the three of them. Immediately Freya and Joseph felt their heads clear.

“We were sabotaged as well.”