The crimson light of the Moonclock dyed the world below in various shades of red. And as it ticked along, it cared nothing for the quarrels of the surviving sentient races that populated the world of Chronoheim. For the great clock, that acted as a moon for the world it orbited like a giant pendulum, had but one function. It counted down until the next Aeon would arrive.

Many on the world below saw this not as a changing of Aeons but a countdown to the end of all things. Which is why they tried to rebel, tried to endure to make sure that they could reach the end of the Aeon to ensure that oblivion never arrived.

Yet they were all fools, for in this Aeon where darkness and horror reigned, their attempts at rebellion and steadfastness meant that they were easy prey to those that sought the end of time.

And in their paranoia and hope for an end to the horrors of the Aeon of Ruin, they became puppets to the Xenos who whispered low heinous secrets…

~~~

Tephra Xerxes awoke within her stone coffin.

She awoke to the smell of blood and death, she awoke to the sounds of screams and pain… she awoke to echoes of battle.

Blinking awake, Tephra slowly scanned over her stone tomb wondering to herself why she was still within her sarcophagus and not on an altar? Then she started to wonder why she could smell blood in the air. And more importantly why it was so close that she could smell it within her tomb?

Adjusting to the fact that something had gone terribly wrong, Tephra took a moment to glance around and see if anything within her tomb had been disturbed.

First she noted that she was still wearing her red gold and black attire. A dress like construct that allowed her freedom of movement when in battle yet looked ceremonial enough that when she spoke on behalf of the Gods people believed her.

Second she noted that her sword was still present within her tomb, a sword that was a good 1.5 metres long and was made from mirror quality obsidian. Obsidian, that also held within it aspects of fire, aspects that made it a weapon that allowed Tephra to both cleave apart her enemies and also burn them down.

Smiling in relief that her fabled weapon, Aeschere was still with her, Tephra refocused on the stone lid above her and with a simple flex of her arms pushed the giant stone slab up into the air so that it sailed off into the depths of the underground tomb. An act that caused a resounding crashing noise to tear through the catacombs that she was in, a noise that would certainly reveal her presence to those that had brought blood and battle to a tomb.

Yet Tephra was not concerned for she had weathered thousands of battles and nothing that she would face would shock her, nor get the best of her, at least not in this Aeon.

Standing up so that her feet rested in the middle of the sarcophagus she had been sleeping in for centuries, Tephra wondered to herself what had happened. What had occurred that had prevented the rest of her fellow Saeculum from waking her for her turn to guard the mortal races from the threat of extinction?

Stretching her body so that she could shake out the lethargy of being essentially a corpse for centuries, Tephra took a moment to look around at her surroundings. First she looked at the stone work around her that was so much more weathered than would it should have been. Then she looked at the dust and skeletons that had been discarded all about her stone sarcophagus.

Seeing the evidence before her, Tephra knew that not only had centuries passed by, they had apparently been so cataclysmic that the holy halls of the dead she had been put in had become nothing more than a dumping grounds for the dead. A place where rubbish and the unwanted went when they were no longer of use or their existence was so adverse to civilisation that they needed to die.

Feeling the echoes of the souls that had been entombed within these skeletons, souls that still whimpered in pain and sorrow, Tephra took a moment to offer up a prayer for those that had been discarded here. Stepping out of her sarcophagus and into the middle of the room, Tephra placed her hands together then slowly opened them like a book. Yet Tephra’s hands were no longer empty. They were instead filled with golden flames that lit up the tomb. The golden flames bore within them magic and divinity that had been so long absent from the room that the dead cowered in fear.

Shifting and creaking, the bones of the undead tried to flee from what they saw as oblivion until they were touched by the golden flames. Once they felt the warmth that many had never felt before, even in life, the dead instead of shying away eagerly embraced the golden flames that washed away the bindings of undeath.

Watching the souls drift upward, knowing that they would not be able to truly go into the afterlife until the Aeon of Ruin was ended, Tephra smiled none the less. As seeing the souls of those young and old smile back at her, finally at peace, was something that never stopped moving Tephra’s own un-beating heart.

Tephra glanced around before she spied the drops of fresh blood amidst centuries old dust. The blood was clear enough that Tephra could use it as a trail that would hopefully lead her to a still living being that could answer her questions. Picking up her giant sword with only one of her hands, Tephra’s slender and graceful arms clearly lacked the muscles needed to lift up her weapon. Yet she did so with such ease that it seemed to weigh next to nothing, at least in her hands.

Turning her black and gold eyes towards the drops of blood on the ground, Tephra studied the heat within the blood and once she was certain she followed the still warm blood towards its owner.

Leifur struggled to stop the blood from spilling from her wound.

She struggled not because she was bad at treating wounds, but because the wounds had been made by the claws of an Illr. And such jagged and terrible wounds would not be closed and stop bleeding by something as simple as binding it with bandages.

Staggering about as the blood loss was starting to get to her, Leifur collapsed into a pile of dust debris and bones, aware that some of them probably were still aware enough to notice her presence. Yet Leifur couldn’t quite make herself care that she might wake more Illr from their rest, for she knew in her heart that she would soon be amongst the dead herself. A fact that she believed would make the dead ignore her.

Wallowing in despair that she would end up dying here in some forgotten, broken castle far from the edges of civilisation or her home, Leifur closed her eyes as tears fell down her face. Her tears were both for herself and for anyone that would be stupid enough to follow her into this wretched, broken castle, for they would only find death here.

Lying there in the dust and dirt, Leifur was half tempted to reminisce on her life and how even after thirty years of life she was still a child rebelling against this cruel and uncaring world. And how she had been hoping against hope to find miracles from the last Aeon that would stop the world from decaying into nothing.

Instead, Leifur knew that the world was a broken horrible thing. And that all that lived upon Chronoheim were doomed, if not in this life then when the Moonclock finally finished counting down to the end of days.

Feeling her mind flicker in and out of consciousness, Leifur felt her mind snap back into focus the moment her long, elf ears heard footsteps approaching her.

Raising her head, Leifur looked in the direction of the footfalls and what she saw turned her already cold body even colder.

She saw an Illr walking towards her, a woman that was wearing an ancient ceremonial battledress, who had a giant obsidian sword strapped to her back. But what made Leifur try to sit up to flee from the thing before her was the fact that the Illr was holding a ball of red fire in her left hand.

An Illr was a danger to all those that lived nearby, but that was all, even when they possessed intelligence. But an Illr with magic at her beck and call, that was something that would affect everyone.

Struggling desperately to get up, the Illr watched Leifur with her strange eyes, eyes that possessed golden irises and black sclera. Which when bathed in the red tint of her magic made her look like death itself.

“You’re injured,” said the Illr, her voice containing a note of concern in it. A note of concern that was so genuine that Leifur forgot her panic for a moment to look up at the Illr in shock and disbelief.

“Will you let me help you?” asked the Illr as she lowered her left hand so that the ball of crimson fire was left floating in the air unmoored from the Illr’s being.

Struggling to comprehend the fact that the Illr before her was talking and at the same time showing any form of compassion, Leifur made a choice that boggled her own mind. For every instinct in her body told her that she should steer way from this undead thing before her. Yet the note of concern, the genuine concern, that was reflected in the Illr’s face and even body language made Leifur choose to accept the Illr’s help.

Nodding her head in acceptance, the Illr walked forward. All the while, she made sure to keep an eye on the weapon that was barely being held onto by Leifur, a weapon made of wood that radiated with the waning magic of the elves. Yet despite the trepidation, the Illr walked over and bent down to look at the wounds that covered Leifur’s flank.

Slowly peeling back the ill fitting bandages that covered the wounds, the Illr gave Leifur a quick glance before she looked back at the wounds, her eyes telling Leifur all she needed to know.

“The wounds are untreatable aren’t they?” asked Leifur aware that she was doomed to die, a fact that didn’t bring with it the same horror that she had once regarded death with.

“They are too deep to be treated with mere bandages, and you have lost a lot of blood,” said the Illr in response, her voice somehow not carrying with it a tone of finality, as if there was something still left to do.

“Then you have to do something for me, Illr,” said Leifur as her mind started to fill with fog as she was no longer filled with the fear for the dead thing before her.

“My name is Tephra Xerxes, and I am not an Illr,” said Tephra as she looked at Leifur with her strange and alien eyes, eyes that did not radiate a hint of displeasure at being labelled as one of the evil dead.

“Then what are you?” asked Leifur as she lost track of her train of thought due to her body’s injuries weakening her.

“Have you never heard of the Aevum? Have things truly gotten that bad?” asked Tephra, concern filling her voice both for Leifur and for the world in general.

“The only active Aevum left are those that are from centuries ago. The rest are like these piles of bones. Inert unless corrupted into becoming Illr,” explained Leifur as she tried to focus her mind on what mattered. “You must tell my teammates that an Illr rests at the core of these ruins. That it is monstrous and if it decides to leave this place then it will ravage the land. Please tell them to find help to kill that thing!”

“What about you?” asked Tephra, her voice oddly still yet somehow still gentle.

“Tell them that Leifur Grandis died and leave it at that,” said Leifur as she started to feel a wave of unending cold begin to soak through her being as whatever life she had left was leaving her body.

Coming to a conclusion based on what the elf before her had said, Tephra raised her right hand and engulfed it in golden glowing fire. A fire that she had been given by Gods so long ago it had happened in another Aeon. A golden flame that was filled with divinity, a divinity that had long since vanished from the world of Chronoheim.

Caught off guard by the beauty of the golden flame before her, Leifur’s breath caught in her throat as she felt the waves of divinity roll off of the fire. Yet that was not the end of the miracles but the start.

Placing the golden fire upon the wounds that were still leaking blood, the golden flame began to spread out and fill Leifur with a warmth that she had never felt before. It was as if beauty and kindness had been given form and tangibility. It was as if she was being held in the embrace of a loving parent once again. It was as if she was coming home to a place of true happiness. What’s more the gentle caress of the golden, god fire was not just healing her, it was making her stronger. She could feel her strength return. Her blood was being refilled and the energy of the flame was nurturing her soul.

Opening her eyes, Leifur was on the verge of tears as she looked down at the golden fire that was healing her. Yet the wonders didn’t stop there, for as Leifur looked about her she was in awe as she saw that the golden flame was doing more than just healing her.

It was freeing the dead from the prison of their corpses.

Motes of golden light shot up from the pile of bones that she was lying on, and each and every one of the motes was a soul that was being freed from their old skeleton. And as they escaped she could see the souls as golden glowing motes that in turn seemed to radiate the light of the divine, a golden resonance that cascaded around the tomb until it looked like nothing she had seen before.

Seeing the souls rejoice that they were free and that they could finally move on from this place where they had just been discarded in, Leifur’s tears finally overflowed as she realised she had found her old dream. For in this tomb she had found healing magic, she had found a miracle and she had found a relic of the gods in the form of a priestess that was able to invoke the magic of the lost gods.

Lying there in the dust and dirt and the now empty bones of the dead freed of their souls, Leifur cried not only because she would survive but also because she had found something else, something so much more…

Hope for this world.

Sitting back on the ground, Tephra looked at the weeping elf before her and let her get everything out. She let the elf relish in the miracle she had just endured, and in the hope that she had found in the midst of the dead. Yet Tephra knew that the moment of levity couldn’t last as Leifur would need to fill her in on so many details about the world. It was clear to Tephra that the world had changed so very much during the time she had been bound in sleep inside her sarcophagus.

“I’m going to need you to answer some more questions,” said Tephra, her voice kind but firm as she cut into the reverence that Leifur was caught up in.

“Any that I can answer I will,” said Leifur as she turned her green eyes towards Tephra, a strength within her eyes that had not been there before.

“Alright let’s start with an easy question. What year is it?” asked Tephra, her question carrying with it enough information that Leifur was able to understand something about her saviour.

“I’m so sorry to tell you, but it is 120,823 AT or Advent Tempus depending on what you understand,” said Leifur clearly believing that the news that she had delivered would break her saviour.

“The last time I was awake was over 800 years ago,” said Tephra as she did a quick calculation in the back of her mind to figure out when she had last been active. A number that caused Leifur to blink in shock, as if she couldn’t understand what she had just heard.

“But that would mean you were born in the Aeon of Ruin. How then did you get ahold of your divine magic?” asked Leifur, her eyes brimming with curiosity at the thought that somewhere out there in the vastness of the world was a relic that could be used to grant divine magic to a mortal, ensouled being.

“I said that was the last time I was active, not when I was last alive,” said Tephra with a smile at the miscommunication between the two of them. “I was born in the year 103,666 AT and then I willingly chose to become this so that I could act as a guide and guardian for the Aeons in which the Gods could not be present in this world.”

“What?” said Leifur in complete disbelief at what she had just heard.

“Is it the fact that I am so old or the fact I willingly turned myself into a Saeculum, the Holy Undead?” asked Tephra as she tried to understand what was tripping Leifur up.

“What do you mean in the Aeons that the Gods cannot be present in the world?” asked Leifur, her eyes swimming with a maelstrom of emotion. Emotion that threatened to overwhelm the elf, in more ways than even her discovery of divine magic had caused.

“You know that the Aeons change? That they change from Ruin to Life to Myth to even more rare Aeons?” asked Tephra as Leifur’s question caught her flatfooted as never before had she been in an Aeon of Ruin where this single piece of vital knowledge had been lost.

“You mean you have lived through other Aeons of Ruin before?” asked Leifur, her voice shaking with fear as the question seemed to be squeezed out of her.

“Yes, several, although none have been back to back like this one has been,” said Tephra as she reminisced about the fact that the world of Chronoheim had been so unlucky in the last few thousand years.

Instead of answering, Leifur simply stared out into the distance as if everything she had ever believed was no longer true.

Seeing the shock that the elf before her was so lost in, Tephra began to wonder how bad things really were and if the cosmic mechanisms that governed the universe had gone terribly wrong.

“The Moonclock is still ticking along? It’s not broken or damaged somehow?” asked Tephra as that was the only real reason that she could think of that would cause the world to fall so far into Ruin.

“The Moonclock counts down to the end of the world,” said Leifur softly as if she was reciting something she had heard her whole life. “We only have 777 years left to find a way to save the world.”

“No,” said Tephra, her voice harsh and final, “the Moonclock counts down to the end of the current Aeon. Then a new Aeon is chosen at random from the available Aeon types. This includes the same type of Aeon that just ended, although the same type of Aeon can only be chosen four times in a row.”

“How many times has the Aeon of Ruin been chosen?” asked Leifur as she looked at Tephra with both hope and existential dread.

“This would be the fourth time,” said Tephra with a certainty that made it clear there was no mistake, no error, that when the Moonclock finished counting down the next Aeon would be better in every way imaginable.

Hearing that the world only had to put up with just 777 years of Ruin before they would be granted salvation, Leifur started to cry once again. For now she didn’t just have hope, she had certainty that the world would get better. Plus she knew that the horror she had been raised to believe was false.

Allowing Leifur to hold onto her as she let all of the worst horrors out, emotions that had been poisoning her since she had been able to think and feel, Tephra looked down at the golden haired elf in remorse. If one of the elves had come to believe this, despite many of them possessing life spans measuring in centuries if not millennia, then she dreaded to find out how the other races of Chronoheim were faring.

Waiting for Leifur to stop crying all the while continuing to comfort her, Tephra’s mind raced with the questions she needed to ask, questions that would shed light upon the fate of Chronoheim. Questions that Tephra hoped would reveal what had caused the massive change between when she had last awakened and the current world.

Seeing that Leifur had quietened down, Tephra leaned back and looked at Leifur before speaking up.

“If you feel up to it, can I start asking you some more questions?” asked Tephra hoping that the only person she could speak to would be up to being grilled for any and all information she possessed.

“What do you need to know?” asked Leifur as she looked up with crystal clear, green eyes, eyes that possessed a strength born not of enduring spirit but instead unyielding hope.

“Can you tell me about the various races of the world?” asked Tephra as that would be a simple place to start. “What has become of the elves, the dwarves, the humans and the selenus?”

“The dwarves and the humans are extinct,” said Leifur, her voice filled with a determined reluctance as she didn’t want to have to tell Tephra what had befallen the world yet at the same time she knew she needed to.

“Extinct?” repeated Tephra in amazement before focusing in on the specifics. “How did they become extinct?”

“I don’t know much about the dwarves, but I do know that they retreated into their stone halls and hid deep within the world down where the gears at the core of the world can be found. They retreated so deep we didn’t hear from them for centuries before we found out their fate. Something deep within the earth turned them all to stone. Not a single dwarf was spared, even the children in their cots and in their mother’s arms,” said Leifur as she remembered the horrible truth about what had happened to the dwarves.

“That sounds like they used Stone Sleep upon themselves,” said Tephra, her voice even as she absorbed the information that the entire race of the dwarves had become nothing but stone statues.

“Stone Sleep?” repeated Leifur in a way that mirrored Tephra’s own repetition from earlier in the conversation.

“It’s a magic ritual that all dwarves can perform. It turns them to stone until they are turned back by another dwarf or if certain conditions are fulfilled. Originally it was created by dwarf miners who became stuck underground. They would turn themselves to stone to prevent themselves from starving to death and even centuries later they could be retrieved and returned to life as if nothing had happened. I even heard that some human, grave robbers would haul these wondrous statues to the surface only for the Stone Sleep to expire under the light of the sun and then the grave robbers would have a very angry dwarf in their hands,” said Tephra with a faint smile at the old stories the dwarves had told her from long ago.

“You mean the dwarves are still alive? They can be restored!” said Leifur in wonder as the grim and horrible nature of the world was slowly peeled back to reveal that the horrors that the elves had been labouring under were nothing but dreadful cobwebs that could be destroyed with ease.

“Yes,” said Tephra simply, “now what of the humans?”

“They died out from a variety of different reasons,” said Leifur slowly as she tilted her head back to think. “The world itself has become sick… food spoils, water fouls and unlike us elves, the humans didn’t have a way to counteract the decline and destruction of the world. They became sick and frail and eventually many of them died from hunger. Those that managed to find a way around these problems ran into even worse problems. Human life spans shortened, with humans being considered ancient if they made it to 30 years of age. They also stopped being able to breed as much as they used to. Eventually they simply died out until only the old were left and then there were none.”

Sitting still in shock at the fate of humanity, Tephra then stood up and began to pace about the tomb she was in.

Her first thought was that the humans had simply failed to save themselves, but she didn’t believe that for a moment. Not just because she had once been human, but because she had seen throughout her over 17 thousand years of existence that humans were the best at adapting to whatever Aeon they found themselves in. So the only other possibility was that someone had intentionally killed mankind off, not because they were the weakest, but because they were the ones that were the most problematic to deal with.

This thought in turn managed to make a lot of what had happened to the world so much clearer. There was an unseen enemy that was pulling the strings, one that sought the end of the world of Chronoheim. An enemy that had managed to go unnoticed for centuries, an enemy that had perhaps even been active before Tephra had gone into her long sleep.

Aware now that some great and unknowable design had encompassed the world, one that was seeking to end life and even the Moonclock itself, Tephra turned her gaze towards Leifur seeking more knowledge.

“How are the elves faring?” asked Tephra, hoping that there was some form of resistance still left in the world.

“We are managing to hang on,” said Leifur as a hint of pride for her people seeped into her words. A pride that caused Leifur to stand up and match Tephra’s stare, an act that allowed both women to understand that Leifur’s health had not just returned, but rather it had been enhanced beyond its normal vitality.

“We elves still live in our forests. In fact, we are the last bastions of fertile and green plants in the world. It’s all thanks to our connection with nature. We are able to heal the earth and make sure that the plants are able to continue to grow greener and stronger than anything else in the world. In fact, our forests are the only place where the grass has not turned red,” said Leifur as she seemed to puff up with pride.

“The grass turned red?” asked Tephra, clearly wondering to herself what had caused such a phenomenon.

“Yes some of the druids back home called it the ‘Redmar’, but I don’t know if that’s its actual name or if I am misremembering,” said Leifur as she tilted her head as she tried to remember the specifics of why something as mundane as red grass had occurred.

Seeing the fact that Leifur was not suspicious about the nature of the red grass, Tephra didn’t push her luck with the topic. Instead, she focused in on the last race left on her list, the Selenus.

“Lastly the Selenus, how have they been?” asked Tephra expecting that they would be the ones that would have remained the most unscathed due to their innate nature.

“They have been doing well for themselves; in fact they are the main source of civilisation left. In fact, my team and I came from one of their nearby cities. Even one of my teammates is one of them. Her name is Azure Mond by the way. Their magic is such that they have not been negatively affected by most things,” said Leifur as she admitted both to Tephra and herself that the Selenus were the race that was thriving the most.

“Makes sense, a race of people made of crystals and magic are hard to put down even in the best of situations,” said Tephra all the while wondering if the enemy she would need to cut down was one of the Selenus trying to wipe out the competition in this Aeon where the gods couldn’t interfere.

Seeing that Tephra was lost in thought, Leifur picked up her wooden sword and placed it in her sheath on her hip before she gave Tephra a searching look. A look that made Tephra understand that Leifur wanted to say something yet at the same time didn’t want to distract her saviour.

“What’s the matter?” asked Tephra, because if Leifur had anything to say she wanted to hear it even if Leifur herself thought the information or question was useless.

“You haven’t asked about the Novus,” said Leifur, her voice at little hesitant. “Can I ask why?”

“What are these Novus?” asked Tephra clearly befuddled by this piece of new terminology.

“You mean they didn’t exist 800 years ago?” asked Leifur as she tried to wrap her mind around the implications.

“They might but under a different name,” said Tephra slowly although based on the fact they had been talking about the races of the world these Novus might be something she had never encountered before.

“The Novus are a race of shape-shifters,” said Leifur slowly in voice and face filled with disbelief that Tephra had never heard of them before. “They are born with the power to take on alternate forms and even have some of those forms manifest upon their original form. I’ve seen Novus with horns and scales and so forth. Some had cat or wolf ears growing from their head in addition to their normal ears, others had bird wings growing from their back or even tails.”

“No I definitely have not heard of them before,” said Tephra as she cast her mind back across her many millennia of existence, “I mean I have heard of shape-shifting magic before, but not in the way that you are describing. Not as an innate magical power. Are they limited to a single other form or can they take multiple other forms?”

“It depends on the Novus. My other teammate Eos Tenebrae can take on any form she likes. I have seen Eos take on the form of a cat, a raven or even a giant spider. She usually takes on whatever is best for the situation at hand. However other Novus are limited to one type of creature of various species or genus of creature. For example one Novus I know can only change into felines, so can become a housecat or a lion depending on what she wants at the time,” explained Leifur calmly as she kept giving Tephra strange looks for not knowing about the existence of the Novus.

Smiling as she heard Leifur’s explanation, Tephra was willing to believe that humanity hadn’t gone extinct and that they had instead morphed themselves into a new versatile race that could survive in the strangely distorted world that Chronoheim had become.

“Anything else that you want to know?” asked Leifur gingerly, not sure whether she should divulge everything she had ever encountered or not, as it was entirely possible that Tephra had never seen or heard about some of what she considered to be everyday occurrences.

“You said you wanted me to take a message to your teammates,” said Tephra as she recalled the conversation she had had back when she had first helped Leifur. “I take it you are part of some sort of organisation?”

“Yes, I am a part of the Relic Hunters. We are one of many guilds scattered throughout the land that search the world for anything that can help us continue to survive. Some of us focus on exploration, others focus on battling the Illr that roam the land, and some still seek out magic or relics that can help us find a way to improve our existence,” said Leifur as she understood where this conversation was going. “In fact, we were sent here to explore the ruins of this castle and destroy the Illr that had taken up residence in the floors above. I got hit with its attacks and then it blocked my ability to escape. I think that my teammates were also forced to flee from that thing. If they survived, then they should be waiting for me at our base camp outside the castle.”

“Only three of you were sent to defeat this Illr?” asked Tephra as she frowned at the piece of information that Leifur had offered up. For it was clear that if the Illr was dangerous enough to send people to destroy it then why send only so few.

“There was only the three of us available to go on this mission. Normally, we like to work in teams of four, but we just don’t have the ability to field so many people. Not with the death toll our profession takes,” said Leifur in embarrassment as she didn’t want to admit how severely lacking the Relic Hunters were that they could only send three people. For such an act had turned this extermination mission into essentially a suicide mission.

“Fair enough,” said Tephra as she was aware that recruiting people to help was difficult even in the best of times, especially when survival was already less than guaranteed. “Now then would you like my help in destroying this Illr?”

Shocked at what she had just heard and what she had just been offered, Leifur’s mind ground to a halt before she spoke up, her voice echoing through the tomb.

“YES!!!” said Leifur at the top of her lungs before she realised that she had screamed out her answer.

“Glad to be of assistance,” said Tephra with a small smile before she grew serious, her face shifting into an expression that would make Death itself proud. “Do you want me to destroy it myself or should we go get your friends and destroy the Illr as a group?”

Stopping to think, Leifur was clearly tempted by Tephra’s offer. The idea of destroying the Illr while using the divine magic of the Aevum before her was tempting in so many different ways. It was tempting, because if she took up Tephra’s offer then she would not have to risk her teammates’ lives or her own. Yet if Leifur did this, she knew that it would only worsen the problems the Relic Hunter’s faced. However if they worked with Tephra then they could do things that had once seemed impossible.

Reading all of Leifur’s thoughts as they were reflected on her face and her body language, Tephra stood unnaturally still as she waited for Leifur to arrive at her decision. A decision that would shift the course of the world.

So when Leifur raised her head to stare into Tephra’s eyes, Tephra resisted the urge to smile as she saw the resolve that was bound within the mortal being known as Leifur Grandis.

“Please work with us so that we can all destroy the Illr together…”

~~~~~

Azure sat on a rock that jutted up through their base camp. The rock itself was monolithic in that it was at least twice as tall as the average person and that it was the only stone like this in its immediate area. A fact that managed to make the rock seem to be even taller than it really was.

Sitting atop the monolithic rock, Azure had the perfect view not only of her base camp but also of the surrounding landscape. This included a direct line of sight that led straight to the ruins of the castle that they had been instructed to investigate, a ruin that had housed a particularly powerful Illr within.

Shifting her attention away from the ruins, Azure continued to bask in the red light of the Moonclock.

The Moonclock hung in the sky, its red light spilling out and dying the world beneath it in its colour. Yet that wasn’t the only aspect of the Moonclock that drew attention to it whenever it hung in the sky. For the Moonclock, as the name suggested, was also a giant clock that had three arms that were counting down towards the end of the Aeon. And in the face of the clock was a series of numbers that would slowly through the years tick down until they reached zero.

At present this number read 777, each of the numbers being giant, black scars that were on the red clock’s face, with the numbers being behind the hands of the clock.

Shifting her attention from the actual Moonclock to the gears that constantly floated behind the Moonclock, Azure had to wonder why theses gears were stuck following after the moon, as the Moonclock would spend about a month travelling from east to west through the sky, then the next month travelling west to east through the sky. A function many attributed to the Moonclock having a pendulum-like orbit around the world of Chronoheim.

Yet in the end Azure didn’t really care about the reason that the Moonclock did what it did, she only cared that she could bask in its radiance. For the light of the Moonclock was able to empower the Selenus race with magical energy. This magical energy in turn allowed the Selenus to perform feats that were beyond the rules of physics.

Soaking in the light of the Moonclock, Azure turned her attention from herself to the blue crystal that was growing out of her skin. These blue crystals acted almost like scales in places on her body and in other places looked more akin to horns or spikes growing out of her head or back.

Normally a Selenus would be born with red crystals that contrasted with their silver hair and white snow-like skin. However Azure was different. She was one of those rare Selenus who was gifted with blue crystals, something that marked her out as having greater, almost myth-like abilities in comparison to her fellow Selenus.

Regarding her blue crystalline fingernails that were slowly absorbing the light of the Moonclock, Azure turned her attention to the land around the castle as she looked to see if Leifur had managed to make it out of the ruins yet. The ruins themselves were that of a grand castle most likely built in a different Aeon when the laws of reality were much more lax, as the castle reached high into the sky, at least several hundred metres tall. This was in spite of the fact that the castle looked like it had been raked over with giant claws that had torn its outer walls apart, making it seem to be structurally compromised.

Yet despite its impossible nature and the fact that it looked like it would fall at any minute, the castle had another aspect to it that made even the bravest of bandits or monsters shy away. The castle had an aura of death about it, an aura so strong not a single speck of life could be found on or near the castle. The area around the base of the castle was nothing but dead land, bleached white as if it had been painted over with salt crystal or white sand.

Scanning over the wasteland with her blue eyes, Azure saw something had just managed to emerge from the ruins. Two figures that were clambering over the broken stones, two figures that looked to be in perfect health.

Standing up so that she could try and get a better look at the figures that were heading her way, Azure briefly looked about the sky to see if she could find Eos to signal her to watch over the figures. Unable to find the Novus in her raven form against the darkness of the night, Azure grimaced at the fact she might have to face off against these people without backup. Yet the fact she would have to fight alone didn’t deter her, instead she hardened herself and began to prepare for battle.

Launching an orb of blue light into the air so that it illuminated the area between the castle and the base camp, Azure waited to see if she could identify the figures under this new light source. And if she couldn’t then she would start shooting compressed beams of light at the possible hostile creatures, the first few as warning shots. Then much more deadly beams of energy if they proved to be bandits or even Illr escaping from the castle.

Caught in the blue light that Azure had created, the two figures paused as they walked along, both of them illuminated for Azure to see.

Recognising one of the figures, Azure relaxed as she realised that Leifur was not only alive but had managed to escape the castle without injury. Yet the second figure gave Azure pause as it had an energy about it that made Azure wary. For the energy was something that made every single crystal that grew upon and within her, hum with anticipation.

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Aware that this stranger could still be trouble if not in the same way that she had been expecting before, Azure decided to leave her perch atop the monolithic rock so that she could greet Leifur face to face. Using the magical energy she had accumulated, Azure jumped from the top of the rock.

Yet instead of falling Azure floated gently to the ground like a leaf on the wind, her weight being counteracted against by the magical energy Azure had conjured up. This force transformed Azure’s buoyancy in the air allowing her to fall down to the ground gently as if the height of the monolith was but a single step.

Landing on the ground, the Selenus walked over to her section of the base camp and picked up a staff made from the shavings of an even rarer Selenus type than herself. The staff was pure white, translucent crystal that hummed with energy, energy that resonated with Azure’s own power making both of them stronger than if they were wielded alone.

Standing at the edge of the base camp, Azure waited for Leifur and her new friend to arrive. Her staff pointed in the direction of the two women that were heading towards the base camp, all the while still illuminated by Azure’s magic.

“Don’t attack, Azure. It’s me,” said Leifur as she walked within speaking distance of Azure, who was still giving the unknown woman strange looks.

“Who’s your friend?” asked Azure as she could see that the woman was clearly an Aevum of some sort, although considering the magical energy that the woman was giving out even that might be in question.

“This is Tephra, she helped me… No she saved my life,” said Leifur as the elf tried to impress upon Azure how much they owed Tephra.

“What is she?” asked a new voice, one that came from directly behind Tephra, a voice that echoed as if a thousand different voices had said the same words at the same time.

Glancing behind her without any apparent fear, Tephra looked straight into the face of Eos who had been hiding as a stone upon the road. Although Azure wasn’t too sure when Eos had taken this form and more importantly if Eos had taken this form only in the last few seconds to try and trick this Tephra into believing Eos had been lying in wait.

“So this is the Novus,” said Tephra as she turned to face Eos, her black and gold eyes scanning over the Novus before her. “Rocks, lizards, and ravens, you truly have a diverse portfolio don’t you.”

Freezing in shock that she had been identified while she had been in all these alternate forms, Eos cast a quick look of insecurity towards both Azure and Leifur before trying to face off against Tephra.

“I can become many things, including things that can kill you with ease,” said Eos calmly, her voice almost monotone, yet Azure had been friends with Eos for long enough that she understood how shaken her friend was. Eos prized herself on how well she could hide and shape change without being discovered. The fact that this Tephra had been able to see all of her forms with ease was something that had shaken her.

Looking back and forth between Azure and Eos, Tephra seemed to study the two, both because they had just been introduced and because they were such a contrasting pair.

Azure Mond was wearing white robe-like clothing, not full body length but still long enough to matter, and adorned on the clothing were blue crystals made from Azure’s own body. These crystals seemed to hum in resonance with Azure’s nature and magic, making it clear that these crystals could be used to store her magical energy if needed.

Eos Tenebrae, on the other hand, was wearing a full body, black suit that hugged her body like a second set of skin. Clothing that was so snug against her body that it would be next to impossible to actually grab onto the clothing. In fact, its black coloration meant that it was perfect for hiding in the dark and being used to sneak about.

“You could try but that would only be self defeating,” said Tephra in the end, her voice filled with a calmness that spread to the others.

“Tephra is here to help us kill that Illr we encountered,” explained Leifur as she tried to settle her teammates down, the both of them wary for different reasons but both having arrived at the same conclusion. A conclusion that was mirrored in both of their faces and plain to see in the way they were moving and standing.

“I don’t think you answered my question,” said Eos as she focused in on the fact that she was not sure what Tephra was.

“She is an Aevum,” explained Leifur, “you’ve seen Aevum before haven’t you.

“If she’s an Aevum them I’m an apple,” said Azure as she tightened her grip on her staff as she looked at Tephra with a mixture of curiosity and wariness.

“I am an Aevum, but I am something more,” said Tephra, not really bothered by the standoff. “If you let us into the base camp I can explain everything. Or we could continue to stand here and wait for this Aeon to come to an end, I have the time…”

Sharing a look between the two of them, both Azure and Eos nodded at each other and slowly relaxed enough so that Tephra could see that they wouldn’t instantly attack her the moment that she did something that startled them. Seeing that her teammates were no longer on edge, Leifur let out a sigh as she had been dreading having to fight her friends. Especially since Leifur was under the impression that Tephra would have won singlehandedly.

“What now?” asked Azure as she slowly walked back to the monolith in the centre of their camp.

“Now I tell you about everything,” said Leifur with a smile that was so strong it seemed to come from the depths of her soul.

Tephra sat in amongst the three Relic Hunters, and from their faces she could see that she might have a long night ahead of her. Especially since both Azure and Eos seemed to have a boatload of their own questions for the woman who had actually met some of the Gods once upon an Aeon.

“You possess the power of the divine,” said Azure as she looked at the small ember of golden fire that Tephra was rolling between her fingers like it was a coin.

“So do you in a way,” said Tephra as she looked at the blue crystals that were jutting out of Azure’s head. “The blue crystals normally occur only during the Aeon of Myth. The Aeon where the Moonclock is dyed blue and the Gods are able to take on physical form and live amongst and even love mortals.”

Leaning back in shock, Azure was at a loss for words. This was due to a combination of the fact that her nature was something so easy to read while at the same time holding clues to the nature of Chronoheim.

“You’ve really never seen my like before,” said Eos as she looked at Tephra with a face covered in concern, her body letting out wisps of darkness that made it clear Eos was barely holding herself together.

“Just because you are something new to this world does not mean that I will destroy you,” said Tephra calmly and with a tone that conveyed a sense of safety and even salvation.

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” said Eos under her breath, clearly not wanting Tephra to hear, only for her intent to fail.

“I’ll prove it to you,” said Tephra unbothered by the lack of faith in her, “if not tonight then in the days to come.”

“We’ll see,” said Eos grumpily, clearly not happy with the situation she had found herself in. A predicament that Tephra was sympathetic with, as from what Tephra understood Eos was a unique Novus and as such the news her kind had sprung up possible from magical experiments was something she wouldn’t want to hear.

“What I don’t understand is why you came here,” said Azure as she looked back and forth between Leifur and Tephra. “The two of you could easily have destroyed this Illr without coming to get us. And from what you’ve told me, Tephra could easily have destroyed the Illr by herself without Leifur’s aid.”

“Theoretically I could have destroyed this Illr by myself,” admitted Tephra as she reached out and tossed the golden coin of fire onto the ground so that it changed into a campfire. A campfire which started to cleanse the ground of the taint of death and cause green grass to bloom all around it, a phenomenon that made the eyes of the mortal women widen in awe. “However I had other concerns to factor in.”

“Which were?” asked Eos as she looked up from the patch of green grass, her entire being seeming a hair’s breadth away from becoming nothing but a wisp of black smoke.

“I needed more information about this Illr than I currently possessed,” said Tephra as she looked at Azure expectantly.

“And the other?” asked Azure in response to the gaze that had all manner of expectations attached to it.

“That if this Illr is truly so dangerous it should not just be me alone that defeats it,” explained Tephra as she locked her gaze with Azure.

“Why?” asked Leifur from her seat next to Tephra. The two of them were separated by the campfire from Azure and Eos who were both sitting on their own distinct stone seats.

“Because, I’m not here to protect you. I’m here to save you,” said Tephra as she stressed the difference between the two words.

“The difference?” asked Azure, although based on the look in her eyes she already had an inkling.

“To protect someone is to prevent them from being injured from being hurt, from being killed. To save someone is to change the course of their life. It is to not just stopping them from being hurt but to give them the strength to stand in their own defence,” explained Tephra, not too sure if her words were making sense to the three who listened to her.

“You don’t want to become stuck being our shield,” said Eos slowly as her body began to solidify more and more as she looked at Tephra in a new light.

“Yes,” said Tephra with a hint of relief, “I don’t just want to stop you from drowning, I want to teach you how to swim.”

Absorbing Tephra’s words, the three living women shared a look amongst themselves as they clearly found the idea of a difference between being protected and being saved odd. Yet this oddness was also a very welcoming concept, as it meant that Tephra would not become a goddess to rule over them, but a hero to lead them.

“Alright then,” said Azure as she was the first to shake herself free from the fact that Tephra would aid them in such a way, “what do you need to know?”

“First up, I need to know if this Illr has been altered by magic of any kind. If it is shielded against my magic this will alter the flow of the battle considerably. Second, I need to know what category of Illr it is. Thirdly, I will need a sense of what each of you can do in battle if we are to plan out how we are to defeat the Illr while working together,” said Tephra as she laid out the information she required.

“The first might be tricky,” said Azure as she gave Tephra a long look that conveyed something Tephra had just said made almost no sense.

“We didn’t sense anything different from the Illr we normally encounter,” said Leifur from her position next to Tephra as she shared the same look as Azure and Eos. “The Illr looked and acted like any other Illr.”

“What did you mean when you said what type of Illr it was?” asked Eos slowly, as it was clearly that Tephra possessed knowledge that would change how they saw and fought with Illr for the next 777 years, right up until the end of this Aeon.

Closing her eyes and rubbing her face with her left hand, Tephra let out a sigh as she was fully aware from Eos’ question that a vital piece of information had been lost in her 800 year slumber.

“Illr are undead beings categorised by their unending hatred and destructive impulses for the living or ensouled,” said Tephra as she looked at each of the ensouled women in her company, making sure that all present knew what she was saying.

“Yes we knew this,” said Leifur as she prompted Tephra to continue.

“Some are like this, because they were Aevum that lost their souls or more specifically because their souls lost control of their bodies. Others are like this, because their minds were torn apart, either due to the weight of time or because something else drove them mad. Regardless in the end they seek to destroy life, either as feral animals or as malicious sentient monsters,” explained Tephra, her voice steady as she slowly went through what she knew of the Illr.

“We also knew this,” said Azure as she watched Tephra waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Tephra to unveil a piece of information that would shake their world to its core, once again.

“Then there are the Illr that morph and mutate, the Illr whose rage against the world causes them to become monstrous in shape and form. Their hatred changes them into animalistic creatures that rampage throughout the area they were created in. Sometimes they even absorb other Illr or Aevum into themselves creating huge monstrosities that can grow to dwarf cities,” said Tephra as her eyes were far away as she remembered battle that had occurred thousands of years ago. “While they don’t necessarily have intelligence, they do have intent. They don’t just wander about mindlessly.”

“We have encountered them as well,” said Eos quietly as she processed what she had just heard and learned. “We mainly thought that’s what happens if you leave Illr alone long enough.”

“It’s also what we encountered in the castle,” said Leifur as she remembered the terrible wounds the Illr made from so many corpses had inflicted upon her.

Standing up now that she had confirmation about what she was going to fight, Tephra looked at the castle in the distance. The castle that had once been a beacon of defiance for the Aeon of Ruin. The castle had clearly been attacked by an outside force, a force that was either an army or a singular enemy, a force that that had intentionally targeted the stronghold of the Saeculum.

“That’s two types of Illr, are there any more types?” asked Azure curiosity and caution forcing her to ask the question. Hearing the question, both Eos and Leifur looked at Azure with bitter eyes before turning back to look at Tephra to see if she had an answer to Azure’s dreadful question.

“Occasionally you get Illr who were created from magic and even possess magic. They are driven by the same desire to destroy life as the rest of the Illr and they have intelligence. Although that can manifest in a myriad of ways,” said Tephra, not bothering to look away from the castle.

Pausing, everyone around the campfire took in this piece of information aware of how significant this was. As everyone present knew that battling those that possessed magic made it so much harder to emerge victorious.

“The third type as you put it, don’t necessarily have to originate from a Aevum that was broken by the world. They can be created by a wayward wizard, a random magic accident or even other mystical Illr,” said Tephra as she continued her explanation of the world and all of its horrors.

“You mean that the numerous Illr that are spread out across the land could be because of a magical experiment gone wrong?” asked Leifur as she stared first at Tephra in disbelief then at the castle in horror.

“Or right” said Eos with a note of fear in her voice, a note of fear that made it clear that she was aware that it was entirely possible that someone had intentionally drenched the land in the Illr.

“It is possible,” said Tephra softly as she couldn’t help but wonder to herself if the world had fallen because someone had created a plague of Illr throughout the land. A plague of Illr that had been created for the sole purpose of driving the world to the brink so that no one would realise that they were attempting to destroy or break the Moonclock.

Thinking back to the last time she had been awake, Tephra couldn’t help but remember old enemies, Aevum and other long lived creatures that feared the touch and return of the gods. This fear existed, because they knew they would be judged for their crimes and because they feared being placed under the yoke of things like fate and godhood.

Yet even as a dozen or so faces flashed through her mind, Tephra hoped none of them were capable of creating such horrors lest they actually grow powerful enough to threaten the Moonclock. For if the Moonclock did truly break, then they would either become stuck in this Aeon or Chronos, the God of Time, would have to return to this world and who knows how he would react to time being broken on his homeworld.

“Alright then,” said Tephra loudly as she turned about to look at those present, “now that we know what we are fighting let’s figure out how we will fight it.”

Not moving at all, the three ensouled women shared a look that conveyed that none wished to truly divulge all that they could do or all that they were. This look also conveyed that each of them had secrets that they were keeping hidden from the world and their teammates.

Catching onto the fact that none of her new allies were willing to share everything about themselves, Tephra chuckled at the fact that even in the face of immense evil people could still get bogged down with their own personal drama.

“You don’t have to tell me everything, just the basics, the bare minimum so that I can help create a plan that utilises us all,” said Tephra with an understanding smile, one that put the three women at ease. “So who wants to go first…?”

~~~~~

Tephra, Azure and Leifur strode into the astrology room, or more precisely what had once been the astrology room. The room had once been used for tracking the stars and also as a place of worship for the Goddess of Stars. Yet now it had become the nesting location of a horrific Illr that sullied this once divine place.

The room was round with pillars lining the exterior; the pillars led up to a roof that had been magically altered to constantly show off the stars in the sky whether it was during the day or the night. A magical ceiling that showed the stars but not the Moonclock, and that was still functioning even after all the decay had caused the world to tumble into such a broken mess. The room had been coated with gold and white colours that reinforced the fact that the room was a place for divinity to either communicate or even manifest. Yet these colours were diminished to look but a mere fraction of their normal lustre. The gold had lost its polish becoming dross upon the walls and ground. The white walls and pillars were grimy, cracked and faded giving them a terrible look. The only thing that seemed to have endured since Tephra’s last visit was the magical ceiling showing the sky.

Yet for all the marvels still brilliant or tarnished by time, the women’s attention was fixed upon one single being.

In the centre of the astrology room was a knight in shining armour, a person who looked so out of place that Tephra couldn’t help but stare at him. The knight was the Illr that had attacked Leifur and her teammates. Yet instead of looking like a rabid beast he was poised and still, a fact that Tephra knew to mean that the knight had enough of a mind left that he would be able to think up ways to fight back against the four of them.

Studying the knight, Tephra took in everything about him, hoping that this moment of reprieve would be enough so that she could find a weakness that she could exploit. Yet no matter how she looked at the knight before her, there were no weaknesses to be found; only traps that would be her undoing if she fell for them.

The knight appeared to have no weapons upon his person, however instead of hands the knight had metallic claws that looked like swords and claws had been merged together. These claws were curved and serrated so that they would create the maximum damage possible when they cut or pierced flesh. A fact that Leifur had discovered with her own body and something no one wanted a repeat lesson in.

Yet there was more to the knight than simply maniacal hands and an armoured body. For the armour that the knight wore was not just some strange armour that could endure unblemished throughout the centuries. The armour was filled with magic, magic that made everyone that saw it recoil in fear. For trapped within the armour beneath the shining gleaming surface was the souls of those that the knight had killed and consumed. These souls looked like they were moving about as if they were swimming within a silver abyss, all the while screaming and crying out in fear and agony.

Staring in horror at the abomination that was before her, Tephra tried to look at the knight’s face to see if she knew the knight. Yet the knight’s face was obscured to her due to his helm. The helmet that the knight wore covered his entire head so that nothing, not even his eyes could be seen; only a maw of darkness that drank up the light.

Knowing that she would not be able to gain any more knowledge of the knight that stood before her, Tephra looked to her right at Azure and then to her left at Leifur and nodded her consent. The battle against the knight made of enchanted armour and old rotting bones would start and it would not end until the creature before them was dust upon the wind.

Stepping backwards, both Azure and Leifur readied themselves for what was to come. For both of them would not engage the creature in close combat. For the creature had already proven that it was powerful enough to destroy them if they got within striking distance or if they fell into its claws.

Leaping backward to the edge of the room so that she was pressed up against the wall, Azure used her magic to create crystal footholds upon the wall, footholds that were strong enough to act as platforms upon which she could stand. And from these platforms half way up the wall, Azure would have the perfect vantage point to attack the knight no matter where he was upon the battle field.

Leifur started running off to the left side of the room, her footsteps so quick her feet barely touched the floor, and as she ran she drew her sword. Except that it was no longer a sword, for as she drew it from her scabbard, her wooden sword came alive with the magic of nature. Her weapon, which she had named Luminous Wode, was a piece of sacred wood that she could control and shape into not just a sword but also a bow, a bow that was graced with the sacred wind of light.

Seeing that her two companions were now in position, both ready to unleash a torrent of destruction upon the knight before them, Tephra reached over her shoulder and pulled Aeschere out. The giant sword almost as long as Tephra’s own body hummed to life as the segmented blade seemed to break into a dozen different pieces, pieces that were held together by strings of fire that pulsed with power.

Swinging the sword horizontally with her right hand, Tephra allowed some of the pieces of the blade to stretch out to so that the weapon grew in even greater size. And once the pieces of the sword were stretched out so that the sword was twice as long as normal, Tephra recalled them back into their standard sword formation. Feeling that Aeschere was still working properly, Tephra raised her left hand and conjured fire.

Tephra knew that her golden flame would likely kill the creature before her with ease, however she was wary of the strange armour that the knight wore, armour that all three of her companions had stated had been able to negate magic. Believing the testimony that her companions had given her, Tephra had decided she needed to test what the creature before her truly was and how potent magic would be against him.

Pointing her left finger at the knight, Tephra willed her fire forward and unleashed a bolt of fire. The fire bolt shot out from Tephra and raced over to the knight who had remained docile while the three women had moved about. And just before it would have hit the knight, the fire bolt was struck with one of the knight’s claws. And instead of breaking or being negated, or even damaging the knight, the bolt of fire was knocked upwards into the star infused ceiling above.

Not even bothering to look up at the damage that had been done to the holy room, Tephra charged forward. She covered the distance between the two of them in a single beat of a heart and once she was upon the Knight she swung her giant sword with all of her might. Swinging down from overhead, Tephra brought Aeschere crashing down so that she could try to cleave the knight in half, from crown to groin.

Except that before she could even get close to the knight’s helm, the knight reached out with both of its clawed hands and caught the blade stopping it dead. Holding the blade so that his palms were facing out towards the blade, the knight had managed to grip onto the blade in the places where the pieces that made up the obsidian blade were at their largest. This in turn meant that even if Tephra discarded the pieces of her sword so that she could continue her attack, the blade would be so incomplete that the knight would no longer see a threat from the attack.

Knowing that the knight would be able to block her attacks, Tephra smiled as the battle was progressing just how she had planned. This was why Tephra desperately tried not to glance at either of her companions.

Seeing the opening that Tephra had given her, Leifur attacked with her arrows of luminous wind. Three arrows shot out from her bow and sped towards the knight, with each arrow seeking a different spot on the body so that she could attempt to cripple the knight. For just as Tephra had predicted, the knight’s armour had gaps through which its actual body could be attacked. Attacks that all of them hoped would be able to damage the creature enough for Tephra to exorcise it.

Yet none of that came to pass, for the moment that the arrows got within attacking distance of the knight, the knight seemed to break under the weight of Tephra’s sustained attack. Allowing its feet to lose traction with the ground, the knight slide backwards so that the attacks over shot the knight, causing Tephra to enter into their path. Except instead of letting the arrows hit her, Tephra made Aeschere break apart so that the sword formed a wall of floating obsidian that acted like a shield blocking the arrows of wind.

Coming to a stop, the knight pointed the eye slit on its helmet at Tephra to show that it was looking straight at the undead, holy woman. And from within the maw of darkness, Tephra could have sworn she felt the mocking gaze of someone or something that still had a shred of its own mind intact.

Taking advantage of the momentary pause in the flow of battle, Azure saw a chance to strike and took it. Sticking her staff out so that it glowed brilliantly with a pure white light, a pattern of runes and geometry appeared above the knight and the moment that the pattern became solid enough that it looked like it could actually be a real physical thing, a rain of lightning descended upon the knight.

Caught directly beneath the maelstrom of lightning that rained from the sky like arrows pouring down from the heavenly realm of the gods, the knight looked up and didn’t even seem to flinch at what was to come. Instead, the knight let out a roar, a roar of challenge that seemed to be so potent that the arrows or lightning changed course. Shocked by the fact that the knight wasn’t just some insane, enduring, melee monster, and that it was fighting in a completely different way than it had before, the three women shared a look of concern.

This moment of concern was short lived, as the knight untouched by the lightning stood up straight and looked at the prey that had wandered into his nest.

Shifting its focus from Tephra to Leifur, the knight seemed to realise that the elf was the weaker of the two that were within attacking distance. So the moment the rain of lightning finished the knight sprung off to its right, charging straight at Leifur with the aim of rending her apart.

Seeing the attack coming with wide, horrified eyes, Leifur ducked back into the columns that encircled the room with the hope that the knight would have a hard time manoeuvring through the cramped spaces. These cramped spaces would give Leifur the edge as she was barely armoured and as such should have had the advantage of dexterity and mobility, especially against the knight who in her last battle had been slow and cumbersome.

Yet as the knight sped across the room, it flipped over so that it landed feet first upon the wall. As it stood there in defiance of gravity, the knight looked down upon its prey and from with its dark visor Leifur could have sworn she saw a malicious glee.

Seeing that the plan had already come undone, Tephra charged into the fray, her sword changing shape so that it was no longer a sword but something akin to a drill. Each of the floating pieces of the sword spun around a central axis and as they spun they increased in speed until they were such a blur that images of the same pieces of obsidian were overlapping. Reaching her target in time, Tephra jumped over the back of Leifur and thrust her sword turned drill towards the knight standing upon the wall.

Seeing the drill incoming, the knight stopped sticking to the wall and allowed gravity to pull it down and out of the way of the attack. Its right hand flexed as if it was getting ready to perform a counter attack.

Seeing that she had over extended herself and that she was in danger of having her arm ripped off, Tephra didn’t panic. Instead, she simply filled her left hand with fire and waited. If the knight attacked and tore her right arm from her body she would use the opening to flood the area with fire to hopefully deal at least some damage to the Illr.

Yet before either knight or Tephra could attack or counterattack, Leifur acted first.

She caused her bow to return to its sword form and swung at the knight. Leifur’s attack, trailing with it a luminous wind, reached out and knocked the knight backward and out into the air between the columns of the room.

And into the line of sight of Azure.

Jumping on the opportunity that had been presented to her Azure launched a beam of light straight at the knight. This beam of light, even if it didn’t harm the knight, would at the very least cause it to be sent reeling enough that the group would be able to recover and reorganise.

Floating in the space between the columns, the knight watched the beam of light charge through the air towards him, and the moment the front of the mass of energy came within striking distance the knight backhanded the light. This action had two effects both of which caused the already damaged plan to completely unravel.

The moment the knight hit the energy of the all but solid beam of light, the beam of light was reflected off the armour of the knight and straight towards both Leifur and Tephra. Both of whom had hoped that they could attack the knight after he was hit by the magic attack. Now however faced with the attack of the beam of light both of them had to retreat back out of the cramped space between the columns and the walls. Now they were once again out in the open floor of the once holy room, a place that was clearly advantageous to the knight.

The second thing that happened when the knight backhanded the mass of magical light was that the knight was able to use the recoil of his action to throw him into the shadows of another column. And once he was within the shadow of the column and out of the line of sight of Azure, the knight righted itself and walked out into the main floor of the room, its walk unbothered and almost jovial.

Staring at the knight that had come to a stop a few metres away from Tephra and Leifur, Azure seemed to be caught in a moment of hesitation. For she possessed all manner of magical powers that she could try to use upon the creature before her, however the knight was proving to be even more difficult than before. Because this time instead of simply negating her magic so that it looked like the magic disappeared as if it had never been cast, the knight was reflecting the magic. And even worse the magic it was reflecting was not just in random directions but at specific targets.

“This thing is not acting like you said it would,” said Tephra aloud, her voice carrying out to all in the room.

“Yes it is very different,” said Leifur as she changed her wooden sword into a bow once again.

“Well then, we’ll have to make up things as we go along won’t we,” said Tephra as she eyed the knight viciously, her glare not only promising death but also seeking out a weakness that the knight would not be able to counter.

Listening to the two enemies before it speak, the knight looked on its finger-claws twitching as it watched and waited for the two women to make up their mind. Would they fight or flee through the doors behind them, doors that the knight had herded them toward? And as the knight listened to the two warriors speak, a fourth person entered the room.

Except instead of entering the room the same way that the rest had, this person entered the room through one of the faint little cracks that lined the walls, cracks that while not direct, linked the inside of the holy room to the outside. Some of the cracks led to other rooms, while some managed to head all the way out to the exterior of the castle.

Slipping through a crack that led to the outside and another room along the way, Eos Tenebrae had taken on the form of a fly and was now perched just inside the crack so that she could see the room and the battle taking place inside it and when the ideal moment came attack the knight from behind, in any form she deemed appropriate.

“Alright then,” said Tephra as she lifted her left hand up into the air and created a stream of fire the spewed out and engulfed the knight. Her logic being that since the knight could deflect attacks that had a singular target with ease, it might have trouble dealing with magic that targeted an area instead.

Watching the flames engulf the knight, the rest of the room took a collective breath as they waited to see how the knight would respond to the fact it had just been doused in magical fire. Except when the fire cleared the spot where the knight had been standing was now empty, with nothing to show that the knight had ever been there to begin with.

Flinching back at the fact that the attack had allowed the knight to slip from their line of sight, Leifur cast her gaze about the room to try and find where the knight had gone only to hear a muffled cry from behind and above her.

Spinning on the spot, yet remaining as calm as possible, Tephra turned to see that the knight had not only used the fire as a cover, it had decided to attack the one person in the room that would be easy pickings for it and at the same time weaken the others present.

Attacking Azure with its clawed hands, the knight brought down its right hand directly towards Azure’s face. Its bladed fingers gleamed in the light of the magic that Azure had surrounded herself with. Yet instead of splitting Azure’s face into half a dozen different pieces, the knight’s right hand came to a stop as it encountered a barrier of energy that Azure had created.

This same barrier was why Azure’s cries had been muffled as it was preventing anything from entering or exiting the barrier, even sound. Or at least that was what the barrier was meant to do, but the knight was slowly and with great effort tearing open a hole in the polygonal sphere that surrounded Azure.

Seeing that Azure was in danger Leifur activated her magic through the wooden bow she had in her hand. Creating a tunnel of wind between her current location and her destination Leifur was sucked up through the wind funnel and ejected into the air above both the knight and Azure.

Looking up at Leifur as she arrived, the knight thrust its left hand towards Leifur and the bladed fingers that made up its hand extended out like a fist full of spears.

Reacting to the attack on her teammate, Azure conjured up another barrier around Leifur, one that blocked the attack, halting its momentum. However because the barrier had been cast in desperation, the knight’s attack managed to shatter it like it was made from glass leaving Leifur exposed in midair.

Yet instead of being distressed that she was at the mercy of the knight, Leifur used this brief pause in the flow of battle. Creating beaming arrows of light in her bow, Leifur unleashed an attack that was aimed straight at the knight’s visor so that she could destroy its eyes, or at the very least temporarily blind the knight.

Seeing the attack and understanding what she was after, the knight waited for the arrow to come loose from the bow and the moment that the arrow was in midair, the knight swiped its left hand to the right so that it clipped the arrow of light out of the air.

And in that single moment, Tephra pounced at the opening that the three of them had created.

Riding upon the back of Eos who had taken the form of a giant raven, Tephra had morphed her sword into a giant axe made of obsidian and fire. An axe that she brought down with all her might upon the knight’s exposed left hand. And with a satisfying crunch the axe managed to find its way between the piece of metal it wore and cleave flesh from flesh, and therefore hand from body.

Jumping back from Azure with considerable effort, as Azure had altered the barrier to try and keep the knight tethered to her barrier, the knight looked at the stump of its left hand and then towards the four women that were in the air above it. Yet the look and feel that the knight gave off was not one of pain or fear, instead it was seemingly looking at the four women as if trying to figure out what it would need to do now.

“This thing’s not going to go down easily,” said Tephra calmly as she looked down at the knight who in turn looked up at her without making a sound.

“No but now we know that we can hurt it and that we can win. We just have to be sure that we don’t do anything stupid,” said Leifur as she tried to temper her excitement at having actually managed to harm the knight and get payback for her near death experience.

“Then let’s not waste this chance. The thing seems to have trouble with my barriers,” said Azure as she allowed her barrier to crumble away into motes of polygonal light. “I’ll cover you with my barriers and you lot get in there and slowly chip away at its life and armour until it is no more.”

“Agreed,” said Eos as she changed form in midair, so that she was no longer a giant, black raven but not a giant, black wolf.

No longer standing upon Eos’s back but instead falling through the air, Tephra readied her fire and Aeschere to battle the Illr Knight.

A battle that would continue to rage on for over an hour before the creature finally fell to its wounds at the hands of the four warriors all working together.

~~~

Panting more out of reflex than because she needed to actually breathe, Tephra looked about the once holy room, at both the damage to the room and then to her exhausted allies.

The damage to the room was extensive with many of the pillars being broken or crumbling to pieces. The walls had also sustained damage and were now covered in extensive cracks that made it clear only a simple push would be enough for the entire wall to give out. Beyond that the room’s floor was covered in scars from the battle, with ice and crystal, fire and obsidian embedded throughout the floor, not to mention the gouges that ran across the ground. These gouges had been created by the knight’s monstrous attacks, attacks that had been aimed at taking the life of the four warriors that had come to battle it.

Switching her attention to her allies Tephra looked from Eos to Azure to Leifur, and found that while each was hurt or damaged in their own way, none of them had sustained any life threatening injuries. Azure’s crystals were cracked and it was apparent this was making her feel an immense amount of pain. Eos’s form was highly unstable and it was clear that the only thing that was preventing her from turning into a puddle of black sludge on the ground was her incredible will power. Finally Leifur had managed to take the brunt of the attacks from the knight, at least in comparison to Tephra, as such red blood could be seen sliding down her arms, legs and head. All the wounds were superficial but they existed which meant that Tephra would need to heal her again or else risk Leifur succumbing to all manner of potential threats.

Finishing her inspection of the other women, Tephra turned her attention to the one other being in the room, the Illr knight.

The knight had put up an extensive battle with the four women. However after losing one of its hands, the four warriors knew that the best way to attack it was to aim for the spots between its armour. A tactic the knight had anticipated in turn. As such the knight had set traps and created false openings hoping that the warriors it fought would be stupid enough to fall for them.

Yet even knowing that the knight was creating these false openings, the four warriors had on occasion needed to exploit them. For the knight was a monster of destruction and nothing seemed to slow it down. In fact, Tephra half wondered to herself if the monster had only been beaten, because she could heal her allies and her magic gave her an edge by being able to destroy Illr.

Casting her gaze about, Tephra spied the supine form of the Illr knight which was strangely enough intact enough that it was recognisably human.

Bracing herself, Tephra stood upright and took control of the instincts that still haunted her body, instincts that said she should be out of wind and feeling tired, two traits that she as an undead could never possess. The moment that Tephra knew she was totally in control of herself, she walked forward towards the supine Illr knight to see if she could learn anything from its broken husk of a body.

As Tephra drew near, to her horror, the body twitched. A sign that while the Illr knight had been defeated, it still possessed enough will to emulate life. Pausing for a brief second, Tephra walked forward once again and as she drew near the knight, close enough to be standing over it, she looked down with compassion.

The Illr knight might have been a threat to the living and all those allied to them, but it was still worthy of compassion and care. After all, it was entirely possible that the knight had become an Illr through means other than its own will.

Sitting down, Tephra drew the knight’s head onto her lap and slowly removed its helmet to reveal the creature it had once been.

The knight’s face revealed it to be a male elf, one that looked to be middle aged and therefore he had probably been several centuries old when he had died. Yet none of this was what caused Tephra to gasp in shock. It was the fact that Tephra recognised the features of the blue eyed and blond haired elf. She recognised the face of a little boy that had looked up to her back when she had last been active upon the world of Chronoheim.

Seeing the shock that flashed across Tephra’s face, Tephra’s companions quietly drew near and watched silently, aware that something horrendous had occurred and that they needed to listen to what came next.

“Kaldur,” said Tephra after a moment as she tried to remember the name of the boy that had been so eager to become a knight and help protect the world.

Blinking in shock, the Kaldur looked about before focusing in on Tephra, the knight clearly seeing her for the first time.

“I know you,” said Kaldur slowly and with great pain as if he was weakening to the point that he would soon fade into dust.

“Shh,” said Tephra as she tried to comfort the Illr in its last moments, “I’m here.”

“I tried to protect it,” said Kaldur, his voice filling with a desperate desire to be understood, “to stop them from coming through. I failed. Will you forgive me Tephra? Will you forgive me?”

Blinking at the admission, Tephra took a moment to wonder if Kaldur had been here trying to protect this castle and those inside it but had failed to realise that it had fallen long ago. Yet the way that Kaldur’s eyes kept darting to the dome above Tephra caused a moment of deep dread.

“What did you try to stop? What did you try to prevent?” asked Tephra urgently as a sinking suspicion filled her mind.

“ME!” said a voice from above, a voice so utterly alien and terrible that everyone in the room seemed to feel a glimmer of pain race through their mind.

Looking up, everyone in the room looked up to see that high above them standing at the edge of the dome of the night sky was a strange being, that was waving down at them. The being was vaguely humanoid in shape and outlined with a red hued aura. But what was truly horrifying to Tephra was the fact that inside the red hue where a body was meant to be was only a window into the night sky. For if the creature moved its hand or leg or head, the stars that could be seen through its body would not move, they would remain fixed in place. This meant that when the creature moved its hand back and forth, the hand showed the stars that were behind it, stars which would normally be hidden by the roof, the clouds or anything else that should block them from view of the surface of Chronoheim.

“DID YOU NOT WONDER WHY HE KEPT REFLECTING YOUR ATTACKS UPWARDS?” asked the creature as it slowly descended down to the ground, its voice still something that sent pain racing through the mind of all those that heard it.

“A humanoid Xenos?” asked Azure in horror as she saw the creature come down to stand upon the earth.

“A talking Xenos,” uttered Eos in disbelief at the fact the Xenos before could speak and understand a humanoid language.

“Did it come through a crack in the roof?” asked Leifur as she glanced up at the ceiling to see if it had somehow slipped through some of the damaged sections.

Hearing the barrage of questions that her companions had asked, Tephra remained stone still. For the simple fact that any of them knew what the creature was called let alone were familiar enough to know that they shouldn’t talk was enough to all but break Tephra.

“How do you know what a Xenos is?” asked Tephra, her eyes tinged with fear, a fear that caused the other three women to develop their own growing sense of dread.

“BECAUSE MY KIND ARE ABUNDANT UPON THE WORLD OF CHRONOHEIM,” explained the Xenos, its voice laced with mirth and pain.

“How?” asked Tephra dread in her voice.

“I failed to stop them, we failed to stop them. They came through the astrology gate, a tide of eldritch stars. I tried to guard the gate to make sure that no more could get through but I was attack constantly by others… I know not why,” said Kaldur, his voice no longer filled with even a spark of strength.

“You did well,” said Tephra, “you should not have needed to fight these things alone. For that I am sorry. Rest now, we will take it from here.”

“Are you proud?” asked Kaldur, in response his voice no longer that of a man’s but a child unsure of anything or anyone, a voice barely present and all but gone.

“I am Kaldur. You have done well,” replied Tephra as she placed a hand upon the Illr knight’s face and allowed the golden flames to begin to consume him.

“That’s all I ever wanted…” whispered Kaldur before he fell apart into golden glimmer ash.

Turning to ash, the armour that Kaldur had been wearing fell to the ground with a resounding metallic clang. A sound that seemed to echo through the room before it fell into a deafening silence.

“DO NOT MOURN FOR HIM. HE WAS ABLE TO PUT UP A VALIANT STRUGGLE AGAINST ME AND MINE. HE HID YOU FROM US FOR MANY CENTURIES,” said the Xenos with a hint of respect mixed within the endless pain his voice brought to those that heard it. A voice filled with the faint whispers of static distorting what was said yet still allowing everything to be understood perfectly.

“I will not mourn, I will rage, and I will destroy you and the rest of your kind,” said Tephra as she stood up to face the Xenos who looked wholly unconcerned.

“YOUR BRETHREN FAILED, WHY WILL YOU SUCCEED?” asked the Xenos calmly and with a twinge of curiosity.

“Because, I have fought the likes of you before, in other Aeons alongside the gods. I have battled the Xenos to prevent even a single one of you from stepping foot upon this world,” said Tephra with a regal air that carried with it the weight of Aeons upon Aeons. “I defeated your leader Sirius, and I drove the Scorched Star from this world.”

“I REMEMBER, BUT WHEN YOU FOUGHT ME BACK THEN YOU DID SO IN THE COMPANY OF HEROES AND GODS. YOU WILL FIND NEITHER IN THE AEON OF RUIN,” said Sirius with a note of mockery in its voice.

“Then I will forge new heroes and as for the gods… well they’ll come back once the Moonclock has finished counting down,” said Tephra with confidence that the gods would be able to defeat the Xenos once they returned, that their victory was only a matter of time.

“ONLY IF THE MOONCLOCK CONTINUES TO TURN,” said the Xenos with a laugh before it leapt up into the astrology gate and disappeared from sight leaving the four women alive to contemplate the fact they were all doomed.

Standing still the four women gave each other a look, a look that conveyed the understanding that the Xenos had let them all live, because they were not a threat to it. In fact, it might have let them live as a reward for killing the guard dog that was preventing the Xenos from using the astrology gate.

“It doesn’t matter what it said or why it let us live,” said Tephra as she scanned over the magical sky up above. “All that matters is that we are alive. And we will make sure that it regrets it before the next Aeon comes.”

“How?” asked Leifur with uncertainty in her voice clearly worried that the miracle that she had been granted by meeting Tephra would turn to ash in her hands.

“I don’t know, but you thought that beating the Illr knight was impossible at first too,” said Tephra as she used their previous challenge as a way to show that it was possible to overcome impossible odds.

“Tephra has a point,” said Eos as she limped over to stand next to the undead woman. “We beat the Illr knight and in doing so freed a good man from a hell created by a Xenos. All we need to do is keep doing these small acts, these small feats of grandeur. Eventually we’ll realise that that impossible thing we were trying to complete was finished ages ago and we never realised because it no longer seemed to be a challenge, just a chore.”

Glancing at each other, both Azure and Leifur seemed unsure about whether Eos and Tephra were correct yet neither wanted to question the hope they had been given. So both women simply nodded their heads in agreement.

“Alright then, let’s head back to the base camp,” said Tephra as she saw that none of her companions were too shaken up by meeting the Xenos.

Falling into step behind Tephra, the four women wove their way out of the castle and into the light of the breaking dawn. And as Tephra spied the sun for the first time since she had woken up, she understood the true challenge that lay before her.

For the presence of even a single Xenos created a blemish upon the sun, a tiny black dot filled with stars. This dot of darkness would grow in size the more Xenos existed upon the world of Chronoheim. Tephra had seen it large enough that it had caused a partial eclipse once, where about a third of the sun was covered in darkness and eldritch stars.

Now however Tephra beheld a sun that was fully engulfed in darkness, a sun caught in a perpetual eclipse with only the edges of the sun emitting light down upon the world of Chronoheim.

And as Tephra beheld this marred sun, she realised that the sun was not an omen of doom for the living and the undead. Instead it was a scale, a measuring stick that would constantly tell her how many Xenos she would have to destroy and cast out of this world. It was something that worked in her favour.

And as Tephra stared out at the marred sun, she realised her new companions were staring at her with hope in their eyes. Because for the first time they believed that the Aeon of Ruin would end in something other than the extinction of mortal ensouled life. And this hope had allowed them to come away from their encounter with the Xenos without drowning in despair.

Knowing that she had managed to cast off the heinous lies the Xenos had placed within them, Tephra knew what she had to do from now on.

Tephra was a living miracle, a being that could cast back the darkness and allow those that eked out an existence to actually learn to live. So she would go out into the world and make sure that her golden flame blazed over the world. She would free the dead souls from their confined and broken bones. She would teach the world the truths that the Xenos had obscured and finally she would make sure that they all reached the end of the Aeon.

For Tephra knew that as long as they could reach the end of this Aeon, as long as they could reach the end of the Moonclock’s countdown, then a new world would unfurl, a world that would be a paradise in comparison to what lay before her. And once the world entered into this new Aeon, regardless of whether it was an Aeon of Life, Myth, Order, Progress or anything else, this horrific world would become just another legend, just another tale to tell across the endless eternities.

Smiling in defiance of the Ruin that lay before her, Tephra gestured to her companions to keep walking forward so that they could reach their base camp. All the while Tephra’s mind plotted what she would need to do next, and how she would cleanse the eclipsed sun and ensure that this Aeon would become another Legend of the turning of the Moonclock.

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