Dim shadows spread over the square when Augermil, Albron and the two youth stepped through the portal. As soon as the temple guards noticed the hulking frames of the former two, they bowed quickly and welcomed them to the blessed house of the deossos.
“Not to question you my lord, but are we in the right place?” Isocrates asked expecting to arrive in a dilapidated building in the lower levels instead of the cyclopean angular spire with further branching towers numbering Eight.
“Unless she used of the highest grade, I am fairly sure this is where she retreated after the carnage.” Augermil answered as he walked through the mosaiced square where the repugnant energies of the infernal realm of Tartarushia still lingered heavily.
The towering gates moaned as they revealed the vast hall spread beyond their oaken grace, rows of empty benches stood up to the elevated end where a rainbow cavalcade of light filtered through the nine windows focusing onto the center where Rhenathorhia kneeled on the glossy marble floor while his fair golden hands locked together, faint murmurs echoing with a deep feminine undertone as he seemingly prayed to the benevolent deities of the Empire.
As he slowly rose, his long azure and golden velvet robe with a refined metallic sheen swung charmingly around his slender form while his golden long hair brushed against its soft surface embroidered with motherly symbols of Great Weaver.
“What do I owe the pleasure Uncle, Brother.” A wide welcoming smile plastered across his face while his soothing, deep voice reverberated tenderly through the vast hall as the group slowly approached him. His gleaming slit pearled eyes then moved onto the two smaller forms hiding in the shadow of the two like meek pets.
Isocrates and Shigeaith bowed lightly as anxiousness spread through them whilst their gracelessly stared at his alluring visage. From the corner of his vision, he noticed the softened features of Rhenathrohia, eyes which contour sharpened, his epidermis gleaming like marble as the light shone on it, and his heavy golden, silken hair appeared slightly ethereal, evoking an image of the fetish he saw months ago.
“Wish I could say we are here to give prayers to our Lords and Ladies, but I am afraid we are here to carry out a grim task.” Rhenathorhia whose gaze focused on Isocrates, then turned at Augermil with a questioning expression when Augermil stopped for a moment. “What grim task would lead you to the blessed house?”
“An hour ago an attack unfolded two district below, and one of the culprits escaped through a portal. I sensed the tainted energies converging to here. I won’t question the loyalty of the Order, but I do believe that the enemy may have a base under the cathedral.”
Rhenathorhia began to caress his chiseled, perfectly stroked chin. “I see. Though just for my and Anguraa’s sake, could I ask for a description on who this culprit is?”
“A young female of the Yhanubj tribe, dressed in robes of the Magistralua Branch of the Order. She has striking eyes, and wore a white veil which enhanced the glow of her unnatural beauty. I believe these two also saw her with you a week ago at the headquarters.”
Puzzlement plastered across his face, his robes swung in tender chaos as Rhenathorhia trembled softly as a cruel realization dawned on him. “That must be sister Hunra. One that has been with me for five decades now.” He exclaimed with a tremulous voice sowed with hints of anger while his eyes narrowed at the floor. Augermil looked at him feeling guilt for delivering such news as he himself lived through this realization not once through his long life.
Many whom he believed to be his friends, his wards, apprentices during the long war against the Grimm Sovereign stabbed him in the back as they faltered in their believes and in the Deossos who failed to stop their brethren from snuffing the lives of millions. “Do you know where she is now?”
Rhenathorhia whose head was planted into his clawed hands looked up and hid his pain behind his dignity while nodding firmly. “She must be in our tower’s Hall of Knowledge with a few other of our pious members.”
“Stay here my dear nephew!” As they left towards the stairs, Rhenathorhia’s gaze met with Albrons’ for a short moment, gratitude reflected within.
**
The Spire of the Great Weaver as its name suggested belonged to the Circle of Maerhiost – a branch of the Order of Maghia’s Truth – who without vain offered prayers and thanks for the Magnificent Mother of Aevhen kindred. Though the spire reached high, it still stood in the shadow of the central structure of the cathedral on the north eastern side.
Within the tower itself there were only the top most floor which served as a place for the magusos to research various artifacts which once belonged to the chosen of the Great Weaver, tomes and grimoires filled with the artwork of sages, scribes of arkhaine arts including the great veneficiar who established the Order several millennia ago, Tadianna the youngest sister of the first Elhyrissiar who fell in the early years of the great war.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
The Spire itself was constructed before the First Age, in the last eon of the Dawn Age by Arch-Magistratoros Fausthar who himself was also responsible for the spatial enchantment which expands the space of the interior, which allowed the construction of at least fifty open balustraded floors – and also the inventor of the Greigor Gates, though even in his long life he did not find the solution to halting the flow of time as someone is hurled through space.
Upon reaching the top of the stairs, Augermil, Albron and the two youths’ hurried steps echoed through the joint bridge closed off from the flesh air breezing against the alabaster marble walls with sharp curvature. The inside itself appeared quite dimly lit as the only light source seemed to pour from the outside through the decorative windows of myriad colored glass.
Walls themselves were painted in a deep azure shade close to matching the seas in the early hours of the dusk, while the few golden scripture converging towards their destination painted by careful and proficient hands swallowed the energies occupying the light of the Illius and served as the source of light during the dark hours of the long nights.
Augermil and Albron feeling a taint lingering in the air halted in their tracks with a precise suddenness that almost led to the two youth crashing into their plated forms. “Stop!”
An eerie silence hung alongside them in the corridor, and the two reached for their sheathed blades while positioning into a battle stance shielding the two. “Cover our backs.” The two nodded and began channeling their mana through their anima veins while vigilantly watching the shadows lengthen while sensing a tantalizing odor of wickedness.
The door in the distance opened, and many forms walked slowly through it with the measured steps of predators. They wore lambent robes of deep azure with mauve trims and stitching, soft waves moved on their surface as they arms rose amidst their preponderous and exultant chuckle while their eyes glinted with a wicked hue of rouge.
“It shall be a hard ask, but I’d like all of you to refrain from delivering them to my Mistress.” Augermil said as he felt the repugnant saccharine sensation of the tempting spell forcing these pious magusos to act against their will.
Before the two could answer, the mesmerized magusos leapt at Albron and Augermil who quickly stroke at them with the blunt surfaces of their blades. “Do you know any spell that may not hurt them?” Shigeaith asked right when Isocrates was sweeping through his own knowledge on the various aspects, arts of maghia.
“Just one. Sense the energies flowing and forming within me and follow after me.” Charmed after charmed leapt in a suicidal madness against the two, expecting the blades to cleave through their tender bodies, yet to their strange surprise, the two dragon praetors simply planted fists into their faces which hurled them a few meters from them and into their fellows.
Isocrates curled his fingers into a funnel, while the other hands’ danced like playful fey around a bonfire while the air around blurred with a strange color of mauve, light blue and cinnamon poured forth from his forearm and into the funnel. Shigeaith himself quickly sensing the intent of his will followed the same motions. “Keep it up!” Albron yelled with slight triumph as he noticed the few knocked down magusos’s form enveloped by a thick mist of aethereal matters leaving only their heads and shoulders unbound.
After the last of the charmed fell and were wrapped in the aethereal energies – including nekrotic – Augermil followed after Albron who rushed head first towards the glass paneled doors bearing two exceptionally alluring figures draped in similarly bluish robes, their eyes closed while their hands frozen in motion while surrounded by the depiction of maghiath matters.
Beneath their heavy steps, the wooden floor creaked as they approached closer to the center of the circular room where a large marble piece depicting an arkhaine eye in a bluish black color stared at the distant ceiling. “There!” Albron said pointing upwards to the tenth floor where they noticed Hunra watching them while leaning onto the curving balustrade of a deep Algernia wood – a black tree native to the western highlands of Vhalleryon.
“It is an honor to be the prey to the one and only Augermil, The Paragon of Obtryllia herself and the one who hunted the kin of the dreaded Nightscale himself not just in this realm but in the elder ones.” As she spoke, Augermil picked up a faint echo of a deeper, gravelly murmur echoing the same words while his eyes once more lit up. He furrowed his brows while readying himself to thrust his blade through the tainted form of Hunra.
“I like that look. The look of a predator who is most assured of the doom of their pray.” She stopped for a moment, her eyes focusing on Isocrates and Shigeaith and her chiseled face contorted, though its beauty was just as it was before. “But the master needs my services for a little bit more.
“There is no point in running.” Augermil yelled in an austere tone. Hunar smiled then chuckled as she released her grip from the curving wooden railing of a deep black and blue in to which her small hands seemed to meld into.
The corner of her gleaming diamond lips curved tenderly as childish giggle left her while her infernal eyes narrowed sinisterly.
“I am afraid that your blades shall have to wait to quell the parch of their thirst. The Dark One still requests for my services. Though we shall see each other soon enough.” With that she quickly rushed to the back just as Augermil and Albron appeared before her, breaking through the thick balustrade with their bodies, while their blades rent the floor of the same dark shades.
Augermil leapt further striking at her enticing form, though the tip only cleaved a bit from her body and the loose attire draping her silhouette whilst a maw tore into reality and swallowed her form with the bellow of a thousand goats drumming through the vast, expanded space of the spire before silence followed as Augermil cursed himself once more.