Morwen stood outside the grand temple hesitantly. One of the Emerald Guards, a captain, stood next to her. She recognized the woman as one of her many escorts during trips to consult with ArchPriest Erlaut. Morwen’s lips compressed with concern. Eryn was cracking at the edges, and it needed Erlaut to be the firm glue that held it all together. Just like her team needed her to be the firm glue holding them together. Amara was AWOL, and stole the Indra with her. She’d heard whispers of Akamori quiting and taking the squad as mercenaries. That had given her pause. Why was she still in the Federation? She had the Theferis now. The Legendary spell ship. First of the First. Surely she didn’t need the Federation’s bureaucrats, right?
Not completely. She still needed to purge the ship of the black blood. The job the Emerald Knights had done was a quick patch job. And that, sadly, meant she had to come here and beg. And do so knowing full well Erlaut would make absurd demands of either her time or her assets. Chiefly the Theferis.
“How is he today?” Morwen asked the captain.
The gold spell armor shifted with a rattle approximating a shrug. “About the same, to a little worse. People are whispering. He’s been manic about the necromancers, but it’s gotten worse. Now he’s near mad about protecting the planet. Thinks some attack is imminent.”
Morwen pinched the bridge of her nose with a sigh. Great. She did not need this kind of drama right now. Not with Ominek out there doing who knew what and the Sauridius end game moving into stage. She gave the captain a polite nod. They weren’t exactly friends or comrades, but there was a kind of familiarity there. The guard captain gave her a nod back. Two professionals exchanging courtesies.
Morwen strode into the temple. Erlaut was nowhere to be seen until she’d found the ArchPriest’s personal chambers. Because they had vetted her a trusted officer, the security wards let her pass without complaint. Inside, she found Erlaut pacing before the crystal eye of the Crystal Mother, an ancient relic used for divination fashioned as a dragon’s eye. Everything became clear now. He’d used the Eye and now he was aware of some impending attack.
“Erlaut?” she said softly, hoping to break him out of his manic pacing.
He glanced up and for an instant; she didn’t recognize him. The frenzied look in his eyes. She’d only seen him a short while ago, and he’d unraveled this much since then? How much had he come undone? She drew in a cautious breath.
“Oh. It’s you. Good. There’s much work to be done.” He muttered quickly.
Morwen strained to hear as she took a few hesitant steps deeper into his chambers. She studied the almost disheveled appearance. Normally Aeryn’s relationship with light magic meant that they had a near beautiful appearance all the time. They made it look effortless. Erlaut was no exception being an archmage himself. But right now, he looked an absolute mess. Like he’d slept in his robes for a week.
“Erlaut…what are you talking about?”
“Sauridius. The dread lords are coming. I can feel it.”
Another few cautious steps put Morwen at about 10 feet from the near manic ArchPriest.
“Erlaut, what did the eye show you?”
Erlaut stopped as if he’d just stepped on a pressure sensor landmine. He whirled back on her, the mania reaching near pitched levels. “Nothing! That’s the thing! It-it showed me nothing. I couldn’t use it. I can’t protect our people.”
He started pacing again, shaking his head and clutching his arms at the elbows as he began muttering incoherently to himself.
Morwen frowned, gently removing some flowers from a vase and grabbing it by the neck. She moved into Erlaut’s path and threw the water in his face. He halted sputtering before his eyes finally cleared of whatever fog was addling him.
“We need to talk.” She said to him softly.
Erlaut nodded weakly and toweled his face off. She wasn’t sure why he was coming apart at the seams, but she needed him to hold it together long enough for her to win this war. Now that she had the Theferis they stood a chance.
“How do you know they’re coming? And why didn’t the eye show you anything?”
Erlaut threatened to lapse into his mummbling madness but she grabbed his chin and forced him to focus on her.
“All divination magic is useless. No one can get anything.”
Morwen frowned. And the only reason that would be possible was if someone was blocking it. But that didn’t mean Eryn was the target. Eryn had a fleet of spellships. A flotilla that could defend their homeworld. But even a few elder wyrms could make short work of any colonial navy defending a Brotherhood world. She’d bet her final paycheck an attack was imminent against one of those lesser protected worlds.
“Erlaut. Listen. I need you to help me cleanse the Theferis completely so I can go back out there and stop them. Our best hope is to intercept them before they can plan a strike on Eryn.”
“What? No nononono, why would I let you go? We need the legendary spellship here, with the rest of our fleet.”
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Morwen’s back went stiff. “Let me go? The Theferis isn’t Federation property. You can’t stop me from doing anything.”
“Morwen, please, understand. Our world is vulnerable and they plan to attack it soon. We can’t let them! Not again.”
“Why? What is so important that we have to keep them from coming back? I understand wanting to protect the people, but this is far beyond that.”
“Our mother is ready to be reborn. The golden pool in the well is almost enough to bring her back.”
Morwen blinked. “You mean to resurrect Aeryn? As in the Aeryn herself?”
“We’re so close, Morwen. And when we finally do, she can protect us. Don’t you see? If we let the Sauridius come here, they’ll take the magic for themselves. We can’t let them have it.”
Unfortunately, she could agree to that. And did. Morwen sighed, nodding softly. “A compromise then. I’ll leave Theferis here as long as I can. But once the Sauridius make their move, I have to respond. Deal?” She held her hand out to shake.
Erlaut eyed her hand. “You’ve changed.”
She studied him skeptically. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve always been assertive about fighting the Sauridius. But you’ve never done so without recognizing your place within the hierarchy. The way you talk now, it’s almost like you’ve resigned and you’re just some mercenary.”
She paused. “hmm. I guess you have a point. Ever since the court martial I guess I’ve thought of my career with the Federation as done. But my fight with the Sauridius isn’t. And I intend to do everything I can to protect our people.”
Morwen saw Erlaut’s expression softly, briefly. She could see he believed her. That was good. Would it be enough, though?
“Theferis stays to protect Eryn. Promise me that, and you’ll have your cleansing ritual.”
Morwen sighed, folding her arms to study Erlaut. This was going to have to be addressed later. She was certain it was going to cause her problems, but she needed the ship cleaned, and Akamori had requested that she get Helios and his sister cleansed. Erlaut was putting the squeeze to her, knowing she needed the mage’s help.
“Alright. Fine. But I still reserve the right to deploy where and when I see fit. If the fight isn’t here, then I have to be where it is.”
Erlaut held a hand out to shake. “Very well. But I think you’ll soon find that the fight will ultimately be here.”
“We’ll see.”
Later that afternoon in the Wellspring of Light.
ArchPriest Erlaut stood with Helios and Thalara laying on the ground. Around them stood several powerful light mages and accomplished healers. If anyone was going to purge this black blood taint from them, it would be those he’d gathered. Inwardly, Erlaut had to thank Morwen for giving him a task he could both handle and focus on. The sense of dread he’d been feeling lately was overwhelming, and he wasn’t sure how he could get beyond or ahead of it.
The ritual began, drawing on power from the nearby pool of golden white magic. The lesser mages all wove complex spells, weaving and sketching runes and glyphs to create a complex tapestry of a ritual the likes their company hadn’t seen in quite some long time. Erlaut led the ritual by guiding the separate pieces together, like chapters of a book Erlaut forged the whole of the ritual. Grafting together its constituent sections into a resonant union.
Motes of aether pooled in the air as the magic condensed powerfully to a fever pitch until it rained pure magic upon the two unconscious and tainted warriors. A psionic scream hissed in the air, just beyond hearing. Then a black ichor bled free of the pair. The tainted black blood of a malevolent god. As soon as it bled free of the pair, it sizzled and burned. Rendered to smoke under the oppressive weight of the astral magic at play.
Erlaut kept the pressure up with his light mages, making sure the ritual squeezed out as much of the black blood as possible. The expense to the golden wellspring was costly and the nagging worry there wouldn’t be enough to bring back Aeryn haunted him. Still, he needed the warship Morwen found protecting their world. The shadow of Sauridius was spreading across the sector.
He refocused on the ritual after admonishing himself for getting distracted. Each rune and glyph was carefully woven together. Building the entire ritual to a peak. An orb of raw white magic formed out of pooling astral magic in the middle of the chambers and then blasted two beams of raw golden white magic into Helios and Thalara. Black veins appeared and faded as it literally pushed the corruption out of their bodies.
They cleansed Thalara, but Helios had a core of darkness within him that couldn’t be entirely excised. Seeing that they wouldn’t cleanse both of them completely, Erlaut called the ritual off, cutting their losses before they depleted the well even further. Wearily, the ArchPriest wiped sweat from his brow. An oddity for a man who subsisted on magic completely. Extreme magical use was the only thing that could exhaust him or show signs of aging. Especially now that he was a demi-god.
He left the two cleansed in the care of his subordinates for now. They could get the two warriors back to Thefaris for him. He wanted only one thing right now. For the eye of the crystal mother to reveal to him why darkness had suddenly fallen upon their people. Was it admonishment for punishing Morwen? Had his people been forsaken for not being more invested in Morwen’s war?
An insidious voice rose in the very back of his mind. It whispered death and despair. The Sauridius would come and end his world soon. And when they did, they would drain their wellspring, leaving the people with no hope of bringing back their lost goddess Aeryn. Now he could only hope that Morwen could save their world with Theferis.
He turned to leave the ritual chambers, feeling a weariness in his body he hadn’t known in a long while. He’d been pushing himself too hard, and even the magic was failing to sustain him now. Time was running out, and fate was drawing closer. He could feel it clawing at him just beyond reach. The overwhelming sense that Eryn would fall and when it did, the sector was going to die with it. The only thing he couldn’t understand was why this feeling was so pronounced? He needed to find out the cause before it resulted in the end of his world.