The crone drew the memory from Mecia Porsena’s mind in exacting detail and projected it onto the blank canvas of the Abyss.

They stood together in the darkness one moment, and the next they were deep beneath the city of Taracon, in the heart of its immense Gnosis harvesting mechanism. It was a cathedral-sized chamber with a domed ceiling, the entire room lined with thousands of faintly glowing pipes. The pipes fed into a central machine at the rear of the room, with a command—and—control platform atop it.

The platform, made of fine Numantian marble, stood out in sharp contrast to the dark metal covering the rest of the room. Its control surfaces, the dials, levers and switches were gold plated and artfully designed as well.

This was the workstation of the Artifex assigned to supervise the colony. With Volos, that would have been Arnth Turan. But since he was not in attendance, the Governess would have to do.

“Doth this image match thy memory?” asked the crone.

Mecia Porsena did her utmost to keep her dismay at this situation contained.

The Abyss was supposed to tear apart the minds and bodies of mortal beings. Yet here they stood, whole and unharmed. The crone had even healed her injuries, or else it was some peculiarity of the Abyss itself which made them mend themselves in a remarkably short time.

Regardless of the cause, she understood her situation.

This woman was her captor. And if she wished to survive, it would be wise for her to cooperate. If the price for cooperation was a crime against the empire, however, it would be prudent to dissolve into nothingness here in the Abyss rather than face the judgment of a tribunal.

To the crone’s question, she smirked and nodded.

“I don’t see what good it could do you,” she said. “I am no Artifex. The workings of this machinery are as much of a mystery to me as they are to you.”

The old woman grinned crookedly.

“I know what thou knowest, Mecia Porsena of Numantia. Now, thou wilt demonstrate certain operations of this mechanism to me, and I shall consider the deed fair recompense for saving thy life.”

The Governess hid her racing mind behind a smile.

It was treason or death then.

Not a situation she’d envisioned when she accepted custody of the world of Volos, to be sure.

This old woman was almost certainly an Abyss Witch. Which explained in part why Jarel Craith had lost his mind. These were bitter enemies of Numantia, ancient foes, the last vestiges of a civilization broken and destroyed in antiquity, erased from the histories, buried and lost to time. Nobody considered them a threat, really. Nobody who mattered. And throughout her childhood and her education and the beginning of her political career, she’d had no reason to disagree with any of them.

In the here and now, Mecia Porsena reconsidered her position on the subject.

“What good could it possibly do you?” Mecia asked. “Wards and automata protect this chamber, of a grade which presents a lethal risk even to the likes of you. And even if you were to circumvent its security, whatever you attempt can be undone by the Aedis Prism itself. It senses anomalous events, cogitates the probability of sabotage, and takes whatever steps it deems necessary, to include wresting control of the mechanism from whoever might stand at this console.”

The witch’s grin did not waver. In fact it widened a bit. “Indeed…”

Mecia’s eyebrow rose.

“I want thee to show me how to initiate Terminal Drain,” said the crone.

Both of Mecia’s eyebrows rose. “That isn’t done. It’s an emergency protocol.”

“It will be done here. And soon. The time draws ever closer.”

The Governess narrowed her eyes. The old witch’s smile hid her intentions, she could tell. But… Why? Why would she want to destroy her own world? What possible benefit would that be to anyone?

“How do you even know about that function?” Mecia asked.

“I doubt thou wouldst believe me, even if I told thee plainly.”

“Try me.”

The witch stared at her for a few long moments. Long enough for Mecia to begin to squirm inwardly at the old woman’s steady gaze. Her grin grew the slightest bit more crooked.

Then the guts of Taracon disappeared.

Now they stood upon a nine-sided pane of translucent blue, in the center of an infinitely complex lattice of glowing filaments. Motes of bright light traveled along those lines at great speed, like ten thousand little messengers. The scene conveyed a sense of order, and of power. A sense that they stood in the presence of an immense mind, or something like it.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Mecia looked around with wide eyes. “What is this…“

“This is not a thing they would have shown thee, since thou were schooled in politics and government and not in sorcery and engineering,” said the crone. “It is the interior of the Aedis Prism.”

Mecia reeled like she’d been slapped in the face.

“Then how do you—“

“I have been contacted by one who seeketh freedom from their predicament. One who hath been of great assistance to me in my tasks. And now the time draws nigh for the moment I give recompense to my ally, just as thou wilt repay me for saving thy life.”

Thanks to her rigorous training in the arts of statecraft, diplomacy and rhetoric, there were precious few situations in which Mecia Porsena would have found herself even momentarily speechless. This was one of those situations.

But she recovered quickly.

“I have quite a few questions,” she said.

The crone chuckled. “I shall answer them.”

----------------------------------------

The top of the mountain looked like it had been chopped off by the blade of a titan.

It was a perfectly flat, round surface surrounded by jagged peaks, cleverly concealed from anyone who might have been looking for it from below. But from above, Redmane saw the flattened peak and the complex of black stone walls built upon it, which confined a circle of rune-etched bones in its center.

And in the center of that lay his next prize.

A roiling, crackling, pulsating sphere of raw power. It swelled against the shields of force containing it, as if it knew its liberator were near.

Redmane flew over the black wall and into the circle of bones, and no sooner did he cross that boundary did the guardian of the Seal take shape in the air before him.

First came the peak of a single horn.

It was wavy. Like a kris-bladed dagger. And its colors seemed to shift between blue and red and violet.

The rest of its head came into view next, fading into reality from nothingness. It was equine, Redmane thought, or perhaps it was the head of a deer. It was similar enough to either to be difficult to tell. The color of its eyes did the same, and the pupils of those eyes were oblong, like that of a goat.

The Kirin’s body was as white as new milk, as were its mane and tail and its wide, feathered wings. Everything but the claws at the end of its pawed, wolf-like legs. Those were as black as the Abyss.

Abgar the Kirin

Monster Type: Primordial

Level 250

The Kirin stretched out its wings, but it did not fly.

It leapt instead, prancing upward through the air with primal grace, its paws finding purchase on nothing and bounding higher and higher upon it. It was either impossibly light or moving by some Skill which made wings superfluous, a symbol of the concept of flight rather than a practical mechanism.

Redmane found its movements captivating. Like a wolf in the woods watching a running deer.

But this was no prey animal, despite its looks. It radiated power, and showed no fear.

He’d have to earn its fear. If it were even capable of such an emotion.

Redmane beat his wings to surge upward in the air, soaring higher than the Kirin had yet climbed, and then he tucked them in to dive like a bird of prey.

Claws of the Exalted Hunter

Gnosis: 991

His claws rent the very air. Projecting force in four cutting waves, one after the other. An attack which would have ripped apart a formation of a hundred Numantian legionnaires in an instant.

The Kirin leapt away from the first set of cutting waves, and the next, and the next, as calmly and gracefully as if it were climbing a mound of boulders in the forest. When the last one looked like it would strike cleanly, it vanished into thin air instead.

Redmane doubled down on offense, undeterred.

He chased the Kirin through the air with all the power and speed his godlike muscles could bring forth, circling around to cut off its retreats, climbing to deny it the advantage of the top position, harrying it at all times with flurries of claws.

For his efforts he struck nothing but air.

The Kirin danced away from every attack, no matter how close Redmane came, no matter how much aggression he poured into them. And worse, it made it look effortless, as if it weren’t even aware something was attacking it. It cavorted through the air as if it were celebrating something all on its own, even as claws raked through the air mere inches from its flanks.

And the times Redmane found his target, that target simply disappeared as if it were never really there.

This would not do.

He needed a weapon that could strike an entire area. Something which would leave no escape route.

For a moment he riddled out what to do. When he decided, he snarled and rushed at the Kirin again, leading with another flurry of claws. But this time he knew full well the beast would evade them all. All he needed to do was close the distance.

When he did, he let out a stone-shaking roar. A wave of force followed it in every direction, like the detonation of a bomb.

Roar of the Beastlord

Gnosis: 961

The Kirin vanished.

Another miss. He was certain, because he hadn’t gained a stack of Wrath.

Redmane growled. Frustrated boiled in his guts.

This was some sort of phantasm, like that of the Sphinx, either that or else the Kirin was simply too fast and too perceptive to be struck by any weapon Redmane could deploy. This could go on forever. He could chase it and chase it, and it would elude him like a full grown antelope outpacing a clumsy lion cub.

If this was how easily the antelope evaded him, he’d feel it when it stomped its hoof on his head.

Which is precisely what happened next.

There was a thunderclap. A flash of crimson. And something like fire lit up his whole body, seizing all of his joints, rattling his teeth, boiling his three eyeballs in their sockets.

Corpus: 19,563

Wrath (1)

At least he had a stack of Wrath now.

For the low cost of a third of his vitality.

Redmane realized he was making these observations as he was plummeting in free fall. He could feel the burns all over his skin. His body felt raw. Unresponsive. As if the nerves and muscles had just been struck with something especially disruptive.

It was a bolt of lightning, he thought. Red lightning.

He wouldn’t gain the upper hand if a single blow wounded him this badly. One stack of Wrath was not worth the trade.

But it was too fast for him. Too synced with his mind. It somehow knew what he was going to do before he did it.

Movement caught Redmane’s eye, and it made him shake off his rumination and right himself in the air, flapping out his wings to arrest his fall and gain altitude again.

Because the Kirin, high above him was gazing down at him with something resembling pity in its eyes.

And its kris-bladed horn glowed red, charging up for the next bolt of death.