“Tyrant.”

“Trespasser,” Ashier/Kartoss nodded in kind. Mavar stood passively below the Tyrant’s imperious pose. The mist billowing from Kartoss’ form aided this to a small degree, the severed head held in one hand far more. Remir, for his part, was caught between wariness and smugness.

There were also fifty-odd others in the immediate area, but they were rank and file of the Illustrious. None above level 1 and most not even that. The traditional issue preventing the majority from attaining a class didn’t apply to the Illustrious, but there were still those among them who had problems advancing. Given that Remir was overshadowed by the two conversing without a detachment of monsters under his control, they were hardly worth mentioning.

The Prime of the Illustrious raised a hand out to the floating duality as if to say ‘get on with it’. He neither bristled at the sudden appearance of Ashier nor reacted with immediate violence as they might have feared. In fact, the Tyrant was somewhat put off by the reaction of the one who’d sent a dozen-odd killers after them. Remir’s hand edging to the hilt of some weapon at his side was far more in line with their expectations.

“The teachings of the gods suggest it is impossible to survive beyond the Crest,” Ashier began, briefly looking towards the shimmering barrier off in the distance. “Not only is proof against that standing before me, but they are all human. The first race,” they said speculatively as if finding the beginnings of a thread. “That, and your beasts. Are monsters like this common where you live?” They threw the head they were holding for emphasis. Behind Mavar, the view in the orb tumbled.

Remir gritted his teeth as the stalker’s head deformed on impact, but didn’t dare act before the Prime. Mavar took a breath, eyes slowly working their way across the body of the Tyrant as if he were reading a book. His words were similarly drawn out. “And what is it that you hope to accomplish by coming here? You may not be at the point of keenly sensing the power of others, but you must know I could destroy you in an instant.” The threat was delivered coolly with a small amount of pity. “It should go without saying, but I could also prevent any harm you would bring to my people. So why face such death? Why approach a timeless force you could not comprehend, rather than run when already provoked?”

The condescension bit into the Tyrant. Still, there was a point to this, and succeeding would mean so much. Even if the chances were remote, even if this would be a sacrifice, the attempt had to be made. “I have come to ask you to join me.”

Mavar raised an eyebrow. He frowned, closed his eyes, and laughed wildly. “You have come here to ask for my service?”

The incredulity in his tone gave Ashier the answer they thought they would receive. At least that had gotten a reaction. “I am a Tyrant.” They shrugged with Kartoss’ shoulders, one of which was threatening to rot off at this point. “I would not ask of you what I have the others. But I would ask. This world is under threat, and the gods-”

“You speak of such things as a child claiming to know everything of magic after witnessing an Arcanist’s cheapest trick.” Mavar’s laughter froze over as steel entered his voice and Remir took several steps back. “But you are not a child. You are not even an infant! The world is in danger? It has fallen before! You know of the Collapse, it is one of the few stories your gods allow told. And on them I say this: What of the people they abandoned when the Crest pushed against their borders? When they hid in the center while the rest rotted? I was there when we first made your ancestors! If you would speak of your gods then speak of me, not those who abandoned all but the chosen few to fates worse than death. And if you would speak to me then make no demand, and most of all, do not invoke them. I have worked with Hammer himself, and that ‘privilege’ did nothing to stop him from leaving my soul to the whims of a broken Astral.”

The sudden rage made Ashier question why Mavar didn’t just strike out at them or personally come for Rorshawd in the first place. They could feel the mana rippling off the human’s form, though they couldn’t tell the exact level he was. “Are the gods your enemies, then?”

“They are the enemies of us all.” Mavar folded his arms. “You are bound to them and shall never escape, save for death.”

“Then why did one visit you recently?” They couldn’t help but smile as Mavar’s anger flipped on its head. “You know of Tyrants, but you lack the insight of the class. Perhaps I am bound to them in a way. To this place? It is a strange sense, responsibility and ownership. I feel this region to a degree, including the parts the Crest is consuming. The brightest fires that burn here call to me. One came after I lost my previous champion and entered the Crest. I didn’t know why, I didn’t know why it never returned, until you arrived. You burn bright as well, yet their distant light eclipsed you.”

Remir didn’t look puzzled, he had been in the room, but most in the Illustrious’ camp eyed Mavar. No collection of free-thinking individuals had perfect morale, and bonds of loyalty forged over millennia could fray in places. The majority of the Illustrious were just people. Only those who could ascend to the higher levels or, better yet, escape the clutches of the Octyrrum would persist through the ages. The rest were regular, if sheltered and indoctrinated, people.

Mavar sighed. “So you thought I was a misunderstanding ally then? No. Allow me to make something clear. We will find where they hide and smother them in their sleep. Failing that, we will at least sow the seeds of their destruction.”

“Perhaps you have not survived the Crest unscathed.” Ashier hovered low so that Kartoss’ feet were almost on the ground. The Proxy’s body was still poisoned, and it was only spreading. At this point, it'd take a church full of Hand Clerics to save him. “A madness grips you, one I have seen in another. Your desires for revenge blind you. To destroy the gods is to destroy the world.” Mavar’s hard gaze didn’t shift. “Fine, then. We are enemies.”

“You have wasted what little remains of your life to determine something you could have guessed?” Before Ashier could respond, Mavar’s form blurred and he appeared before them, gripped their Proxy by the throat. Unable to use his powers for a time after reviving himself, he’d instead made use of the natural power contained in his being. “You contained the dragon in an interior dimensional space earlier.” He spoke calmly, his other hand keeping a death grip on the avianoid’s arm. The bone began to crack beneath it. “May it die with you.”

“It…” Kartoss choked, the life in him already fading as Ashier stopped forcing his body to sustain itself. Continuing to speak would have been impossible if it were just him trying. “seems you… don’t know… everything...”

Mavar’s eyes widened, and he vanished. Kartoss fell to the ground, dead. The mist within his body rose into the air and dispersed from the disturbance in the air from the Prime's departure. Nearby trees rippled with the speed of the Prime’s passing, some of the leaf domes bending out of shape. In a minute, he’d searched for kilometers around but found nothing.

Returning, he repressed true anger as he chided Remir. “Leave the halfborn’s body.”

The once Beastmaster jumped and pulled his finger back from the corpse. “Fuck! What was that? Er, Prime?”

“The Tyrant was never here. I thought-“ His fists clenched and he didn’t complete the thought. More to himself, he asked, “Have I grown complacent? First the horror and now this speck of a being?”

“Prime?”

“It’s the Entropic Agent,” Mavar concluded, calming. “Would I have known that individual would confound me so I may have reconsidered taking part in his creation, but the Foretellings were clear. He is the key to the destruction of the Octyrrum.” The Prime sighed. “It appears this Tyrant had several novel powers, impressive ones considering their level. I was observing their mana flow during our conversation. I would have struck earlier, of course, but I hoped that if I understood his effects on others I may regain some accuracy of my Foresight.”

“And?”

Mavar shook his head. “Part of them was here, but not the core. They must have sacrificed some of their soul to pull this off as I know I was observing their mana structure within that Proxy. Of course, the Tyrant is an air gestalt. I should have seen- what?”

The slightly pale-faced woman that had ambled towards the pair froze before sputtering, “D, do you wish us to continue or work Prime, or is our position compromised?”

“I believe I made our relative strength clear.” Mavar kicked the corpse of Kartoss dispassionately, without any real power behind it. “Continue. We will need the base structure up before Mistress Veltrex can assist with the necessary fortifications.” Nodding, the woman departed to the small fort being assembled in the background. She was a Builder, like many in that group. Mavar felt a small amount of pity for them. He could count on one hand the number of those with that class that had become Enlightened. Perhaps in the world they would make, more would have the freedom to grow beyond the limits enforced by the Octyrrum.

His thoughts turned back to the question Remir had asked. “Know this and warn the others you see before I do. The Tyrant has several powers to be concerned with. We already know of their potent stealth power and the bond-forming contract power. It now also appears they can steal various resources from their disciples, as well as…”

…

Ashier felt the loss of their Proxy in a physical way. Literally, part of them died with the avianoid. Emotionally, there wasn’t much. He hadn’t been a good servant, and he had been a worse person before they’d found him. A drunkard, one of Murdon’s problems before the world decided to give him everyone else’s too. Someone they knew they could control utterly without anyone noticing. Someone people would be relieved to have vanish from the public eye.

But he was dead now. They didn’t have a voice. They could make another Proxy, and they’d need to. These invaders hadn’t just come for the Thormundz. What concerned them most, though, was that the man had made no mention of the cancer growing in the mountains. It hadn’t been there at first, not when they still planned to shelter in Roost’s Peak. Maybe if they had sensed that monster before, they would have agreed with Murdon’s assessment. At the very least, they wouldn’t have planned on making the last stand there.

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No matter. The kindling fire grew every day. There was no doubt in Ashier’s mind that the destruction of the Spoke had awoken it. With these strange, ancient enemies of the gods so nearby, it couldn’t be a coincidence. Yes, Ashier thought, insofar as the thoughts of gestalts could be expressed this way, that is their master. Whether they know it or not.

The world needed to know. The gods did. Infuriatingly, Ashier found themself in the same position Murdon once had. It burned at their mind to consider. Even now, months after the Spoke was removed, the Crest had reclaimed only a tenth of the region. It seemed impossible that the will of the gods could be contested so completely. Ashier did not want to retreat. It was more than an ideological concern, they felt they were bound in some way to the Thormundz, just like the dragon was to them. Would breaking that by leaving the region kill them? Ready or not, it was time to find out.

…

Rorshawd knocked the chunks of wyvern flesh out of his teeth with a grim enjoyment. That they could be considered a cousin species to him mattered not at all. The sky was his and anything that challenged that was dinner. Something else that might have influenced that was the memory of several others of the species that had attempted to capitalize on his weakness before being healed. No, to Rorshawd the only positive quality of the smaller, four-limbed creatures was the flavor.

It also helped when meals came to him. Ashier had driven him northwest across the mountains with little rest, only allowing him to regain his mana every day. He had a hazy idea of what they wanted, but things had become more difficult after Ashier had sacrificed Kartoss to get them away from whoever had sent those flying humanoids.

That first day of flight had been painful. The poison hadn’t been enough to finish him, but it had left him severely wounded. His body recovered as Ashier pointed the way for him to fly, lacking a voice to give him better orders.

He still burned for the death of the Tyrant, but with their mouthpiece gone the days of complex orders without any loopholes went with it. The standing orders they’d created still existed, but they were broad and couldn’t be applied to every situation. Ashier had always needed precise, direct orders for anything involved because of the degree to which Rorshawd resisted everything they tried to do.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for the fact that Kartoss had been the harbinger of his enslavement, the dragon might have felt affection for the avianoid in his passing. Instead, it all balanced out into the indifference Rorshawd gave most mortals who were now dead. There were only a few that could provoke stronger emotions in that number, a scarce collection since his draconification.

As the dragon contemplated on his forced march, he did think back on what Ashier had said about the power that had replaced Regeneration. Draconoids were popular among certain crowds, for all that they resembled the king of monsters. A sort of counter-intuitive attraction. He had to grin wryly at that, and hope he could still retain the draconoid form after finding a way to slay the Tyrant.

All roads to the future, real or otherwise, had to begin with the Tyrant’s death. Even if they had given him back some things, she’d taken far more. Kartoss’ sacrifice was the first step. They just had him now and, shackled or not, there was an opportunity there. He needed one moment. One lapse of control, one scenario the Tyrant’s previously well-thought commands hadn’t accounted for. One showering of luck, and he would never make this mistake again.

Until then? Rorshawd supposed he’d have to keep flying. That was nice, at least. The air around the entire Thormundz range kept cool with the shade from clouds that almost always threatened rain. Even fire dragons could appreciate a reprieve from the sun, that ball whose fire he couldn’t think to try matching. More than anything though, he was trying to enjoy it while it lasted. While he’d never been there, the one thing Rorshawd had heard about deserts was how dry they were.

…

For the Thormundz, there was little left to be said. Its Tyrant rode on dragonback to flee the Crest and the invaders who had come from it. Not monsters, but mortals like them. Those who had seen history play out before and were prepared for their second chance.

They took the region by force, outshining the attempt made previously by the forces of the Octyrrum. Every settlement made was a fortress meant to stand against the Crest and the horrors that spawned within. Secrecy was given as much care as speed, however, for there may still exist a handful looking into the region. Knowledge spreading to the gods was a forgone conclusion, though there was a difference between them knowing one thing and everything.

That was why Mavar spent two days searching for the Tyrant before another horror sighting forced him back. Not a greater horror, he dispatched it with relative ease, but it made it clear Ashier and their pet would escape. The Tyrant's ability to hide their presence, and the time they’d bought with their Proxy, proved enough. This did complicate things, but what would it matter in the end?

If you were to rank the strongest in the world on a list, you would very quickly run into a quagmire. Individual strength alone? That would discount Beastmasters. And under what context is this power assessed? Even still, after the decades needed to deliberate, Mavar Helioc, Prime of the Illustrious, would fall just short of the top 10.

He was among the Illustrious’ best, but the world was vast and in days of old, days forgotten by many, the Illustrious had lived across the entire expanse not ravaged by the Crest. So one Tyrant would escape the region and carry the alarm that ‘something’ was happening in the Thormundz. What did that matter? No mortal champion of the gods could hope to stand up to them alone, and in the coming era it would be clear that the Octyrrum did not have just one enemy.

The so-called gods of monsters would wreak havoc on the world once fully awoken, contesting the system of the mortals with their own. The Illustrious were allied to it in the same manner that a forest fire was allied to the new growth that seeded the land in its wake. If everyone knew what they’d hoped to accomplish, those denizens of the Octyrrum, they would call it madness and throw themselves into the dying region to deny Mavar’s people every inch they wished to take.

And they’d fail. The truth was the Tyrant’s actions were meaningless. The measure of their life was but a small fraction of Mavar’s existence. They could not stop the next strike that would prove the deathblow of the gods and their Octyrrum. That was how you had to oppose ones strong and daring enough to call themselves gods. With patience, meticulousness, and a plan measured not with the passing of seasons but ages.

The events of a single day and the life of a single person were just as meaningless, compared to that. Except, that wasn’t entirely true.

Mavar’s thoughts returned to the space occupied by his body as yet another Foresight failed. True anger came to him once again. The ability to see into the future was a potent advantage the Illustrious had used since the time of the Collapse. It had been difficult for Mavar to arrange the construction of the device that allowed him to use the power, but he had managed it. The Entropic Agent was making all that work pointless.

From his attempt today, Mavar received what could be best described as psychic static after trying to determine what would happen due to the Tyrant escape. Sometimes there would be random flashes, but he’d lost faith in their accuracy. Chaos. The echo of the Entropic Agent. The burden was his alone as Primes in other cells still reported clarity in their visions. For now. Mavar anticipated that the longer the Entropic Agent lived, the wider his effects would spread.

Or was it Mavar himself? The Prime reassessed his assumptions. Was he like a delicate instrument, forever ruined by the briefest of moments he’d been in proximity to the young human? Was it the one called Daniel at all, or some curse the Proxy of Torch snuck past his senses? Any such affliction should have been removed with his recent usage of Second Life, but it wasn’t impossible.

This, above all else, Mavar despised. Uncertainty. For a man who prized always being in the right, always knowing the correct path, this stumbling block threatened the core of his being more than the echoing madness of a thousand souls. One was an enemy he could destroy or evade. The other haunted him, a specter he could not touch.

Uncertainty. Chaos. Chance. Entropy. The Prime of the Illustrious was not a betting man. The world seemed clear on not giving him a choice, however. “I have made my decision.” The others in the room, Sasha, Remir, and all others notable among his collective, looked up. He hated most the uncertainty in their eyes. It was spreading, and he was playing the role of the vector. There was nothing for it though. “We do not cross the regional boundary at this time, and we hold with our agreement with Torch. I will not risk accidentally interfering with the Entropic Agent in our pursuit. The effects of this decision, I cannot speak of. My vision is still clouded.

Mavar almost choked off the words, caught between his love of truth and his need to reassure his followers, but he finished the sentence. None here could replace him as Prime, there was no fear of a leadership struggle, only inefficiency. Or defection, if these leaders did not zealously clamp down on the spreading rumors of their working with the divine.

“We are still progressing towards the optimal path. The gods will be crippled following their summit, leaving them vulnerable to us.” With some difficulty, Mavar provoked his mana to alter the world around him. This was no power but the fire of Hammer he was stealing. True Transmutation, an aspect of magic that was only possible due to his experience, and he was not consistent in his ability to use it. An image of the world as it currently was formed in the air through manual mana manipulation alone. “There is no reason to expect the gods to respond differently this time, even with our presence. They might hope that this next Collapse will finish us off. If they know we had a hand in causing this, they still do not know the entirety of our plan. For our suffering and exile, we have been rewarded with knowledge of the true nature of this world, and the Astral.”

The Octyrrum contracted before Mavar’s outstretched hand, at first beset on all sides, and then also from within. “Their hubris was in using our works and thinking us expendable. They are not gods in truth. They do not create, only control. Though they may be timeless, remember that immortality is not invulnerability.”

It was an old speech. Tired, and in place of the assurances he’d hoped to give with his Foresight. But the ending always inspired, no matter how many times the image was conjured. Old bones, a skeleton sprawled on the dark earth of the Crest surrounded by three in serene meditation. It pained Mavar to use the remains this way, to abuse the legacy of who this once had been, but he did not count dishonoring a memory as telling a lie. “We know because we have seen one die!”

…

So was the Thormundz. All who had left would not return. The Octyrrum had written off the poor region as soon as its Spoke had failed, dashing the hopes of Aughal and Threst for expansion. Wooden structures rotted where the Village of Hagain once stood, reduced to all but the sturdiest of frames by wandering monsters. Should one see it now, their instincts would not acknowledge it as an irritant to be destroyed.

Ironically, the last remnant of the civilization that tried to settle here would be the park bridge of Eido, suspended in air above the crater it had once been. Every airborne monster had left the sky islands untouched. There was something wrong with them. A pack of Sparkbats had dared because they sensed prey. Now, there was just withering plant life left.

The trees would go with time. There was not enough soil to support them, and no way to replenish the land. Time and wind would wear them down in, say, decades. Another point in favor of Mavar’s argument for the persistence of advanced planning in the face of intermittent interference. There was a momentum to decay that was hard to oppose.

One of the islands held more than trees. A scorching of the earth where one young man had fallen. Someone who now opposed the Illustrious without knowing, without really doing anything other than muddy the waters. Stopping them by himself would be impossible, but misdirecting them? The Illustrious had a long way to go. Without a sure hand on the future, who knew how far off a slight nudge would take them?

The truth of the matter was plain to see for any who knew to look. Mavar could have, but attributed no special properties to where the Entropic Agent had landed and already knew what it revealed. Daniel himself had only seen the marks once and thought nothing of them. The pattern had been disrupted, displaced dirt roughing the image and covering it in places. But if you could turn back time, climb the tree, and look down instead of up, you’d see it.

A half-formed thought in Daniel’s mind had mistaken the pattern for wings before more pressing matters took his attention. The general shape was there, two swept shapes coming off the center which mirrored each other. Only, one side was burned slightly less than the other, and the ends cut off at perfect lines instead of the tips of feathers. No, what had scorched itself into the earth on Daniel’s arrival was something he could have figured out eventually, but anyone from the Octyrrum would recognize on sight.

An Hourglass.