“[So, where exactly am I?]” Colin asked. [Somewhere under Ottawa, I presume?]”

“[Wh…yes, actually,]” I replied, surprised, “[That’s…that’s right. How did you–]”

“[It’s where we made our last stand,]” he said, grinning at me with bared teeth. “[Dragon’s base of operations. Where we took on ASCALON.]” He shook his head. “[Doesn’t matter. It’s comforting, I guess, to know that’s the same, at least.]”

I grimaced, opening my mouth to tell him all about the truth; that, in fact, he was stuck deep inside the multidimensional interior of a Godlike entity–

“Ask him about the Warrior,” Alyss cut in, suddenly, looking at me. “He’s Ancient, right? I assume he was around during the Collapse. Ask him about the Warrior. We need to know.”

Clearing my throat, I did as she asked.

“[Colin,]” I began, then paused.

I couldn’t very well just ask him about the Warrior. Not outright. Then again, I didn’t want to tell him absolutely everything, either. Not right now, at least. That’d take far too long.

The Ancient nodded at me, encouragingly.

“[I…]” I began, again. “[There’s no real easy way to say this, but…things have changed, whilst you slept.]”

Colin looked at me blankly.

Of course they’ve changed, you idiot.

“[Er–that is to say, the Collapse changed everything. Everything. The Warrior was imprisoned, but…]” I closed my eyes, briefly. “[But his imprisonment came at great cost. Precious few remnants exist of your kind. Precious little was not destroyed by the Warrior, or his children, and we…]”

My face grew grim.

“[We have reason to believe his prison is not so secure as we might once have thought. We wish to know as much as possible, that we might prepare for his return.]” I narrowed my eyes, and asked him seriously.

“[What can you tell us of the Warrior?]”

Colin frowned at me, confused.

“[The Warrior? What do you mean, the Warrior? You…you mean Scion?]” he asked. I returned his frown, just as equally confused. The name he’d spoken meant nothing to me.

I glanced at Caleb.

“Scion?” I echoed, but the Immolator just shrugged, helplessly, in reply. Apparently, he didn’t recognize it, either.

“[He…he’s still alive?]” Colin pressed on, regardless, with a growing panic. “[You’ve imprisoned him? How? How did you even–]”

“[No one knows,]” I cut him off. “[The High Priest keeps him prisoner, but no one knows how, or where, precisely. Now, if you–]”

“[The High Priest?]” He asked, even more confused. “[Who’s–]”

“[Yes,]” I replied. “[The High Priest. Eidolon, the High Priest. Now–]”

Colin’s eyes shot open wide.

“[Eidolon’s alive?!]” He exclaimed, in a mixture of bewilderment and joy, almost laughing as he did so. “[Oh, thank–thank god! What about Legend, and Alexandria, are they–]”

“[None of the Holy Triumvirate remain,]” I informed him, grimly. “[None survived the Collapse. As I said, the Priest stands vigil eternal, but none know where.]”

Colin’s face twisted sourly.

“[The holy Triumvirate?]” He asked, scowling as he spoke the words. “[You…you worship them? Why do–]”

“[Milord, please,]” I protested. “[All your questions will be answered, no doubt, when we return–]”

By whom? I wondered, idly, even as I spoke.

The bearded Ancient no doubt represented a monumentally significant resource in terms of knowledge, perhaps one never seen before. Who exactly was going to be responsible for his safekeeping, for his acclimatization to this place, and time? The Faith? The Coterie?

Neither idea rested particularly easy with me.

Caleb hadn’t exactly spoken high praise of his nonetheless beloved Faith, and the Coterie was hardly in my good graces, at the moment. The fact that they’d let not just Vox, but Rover through, too, discomforted me greatly.

But then, this whole world was foul. Perhaps it had been a mistake, on my part, to assume their organization any different.

A problem, no doubt, but not one I could deal with, now.

“[–but this is something I, and my colleagues–]” I continued, gesturing to Alyss, and Caleb, “[–need to know, right now.]”

My words were true enough. None of us felt comfortable discussing what we knew with others in the world. Not yet, and certainly not lightly. Anything we could glean from the Ancient, we’d be best off doing so sans the presence of prying eyes.

Colin grimaced at me, again.

“[My…lord?]” he muttered, sourly, then shook his head. “[Fine, fine. I’ll tell you what I can. You want to know about Scion?]” His frown deepened, and he scratched his chin.

“[I mean, there’s not really much to say,]” he explained, unhelpfully. “[Scion is–was–the strongest. No one else even came close. No one knows what his powers are, exactly. The world’s first, greatest hero–]”

“The Warrior was a hero?!” I broke in, incredulously, for a moment forgetting to modulate my speech, causing an immediate outcry in those around me.

“Impossible!” Caleb denied, in what was now becoming mantra. “No, no, the ages must have warped his mind, thi–”

“A hero?” Alyss exclaimed, equally dumbfounded, yet with a measure of excitement, too. “Not a God? Really!? How!?” She grasped my shoulder tightly, her speech rapid and rapt with wonder. “Then, then–what was the High Priest? And the holy Triumvirate? And was there even a rebellion? And what–”

My companions’ questions came fast and furious, and I strove to repeat them all, in kind. The Ancient listened with what I could only describe as mixture of sadness, pity, and confusion, eventually raising up a hand to forestall my verbal barrage.

“[Look…I don’t know what kind of history you’ve learned here, kid,]” Colin said, wincing. “[But I can tell you for a fact that that’s all horseshit. Utter horseshit. Eidolon, along with Alexandria and Legend, we did call them the Triumvirate. That’s true. But–none of them even spoke to Scion, so far as I know. Not once. They weren’t friends. They weren’t disciples. And, certainly, they weren’t Gods.]

As the Ancient spoke, I recited his words in Common, dictating them to my companions.

[There were no Gods,]” he went on. “[Not even Scion. No such thing. I mean, I can see you got the idea, I guess, but Scion sure as shit didn’t give us powers. And there was no revolution.]” Colin frowned, then, and I beheld a measure of darkness in his complex expression.

“[No. There wasn’t a warning. No inciting incident. Not a one.]” He shook his head, as if the words, even now, were difficult to speak aloud.

“[One day he just…just snapped, I guess.]”

I finished translating, and glanced at my companions.

Caleb was stuck between despondency and hysteria, clutching his head, muttering furiously to himself, trying and failing to come to terms with this newfound story that surely was far more difficult to discount than my own. Alyss’s brow was furrowed deeply, her hand locked upon her chin in quiet, intense contemplation, her mind no doubt miles away.

But I wasn’t hysterical, or contemplative.

I was worried.

The Ancient’s words were…wrong.

They had to be. Bits and pieces fit, sure, but just as many others were notably absent. Or, outright untrue. Powers didn’t come from nowhere. I knew that, absolutely. The Warrior might not have been responsible for them, but neither could he have merely been a simple hero.

This was a story, perhaps even a better story, better than the one we had. But it wasn’t the whole story.

The High Queen, the one who’d created my Shard, had spoken the Warrior’s name. Spoken, as if the two were familiar with one another. No, he was important to this. Connected to the Shards, the Gestalt, the Titans, even Akashic, and our Grimoires.

Somehow, he was connected to everything.

“[Does the name, Akashic, mean anything to you?]” I asked the Ancient, on a whim.

Colin quirked an eyebrow my way, but shook his head. Unsurprising. That, I supposed, would have been far too easy.

I exhaled, frustrated, pinching the bridge of my nose.

“[Well,]” I muttered, spreading my arms wide, palms open. “[Can you tell us how you managed to defeat him, at least? The Warrior, I mean.]”

Colin snorted.

“[Defeat him? Kid, even the fact we did defeat him is news to me.]” He tapped his chin. “[Though, come to think of it, there was that meeting…that convocation…]” He raised his eyebrows at me.

“[The Triumvirate–your holy Triumvirate, no less–called a meeting of all capes, the world across, to band together. To fight Scion.]” He chuckled, dryly. “[Guess, in the end, they succeeded. Though, personally I’d call this more of a pyrrhic victory.]”

“[I see,]” I said eagerly, happy to be finally getting somewhere. “[And what was said, at–at this meeting?]”

Colin smiled, sadly shaking his head.

“[Don’t know, kid. Sorry. Never attended it, myself. Was busy, well…]” he gestured broadly, all around.

“[Ah,]” I replied, crestfallen. “[I see.]”

“[Sorry,]” he repeated, glumly.

“Well?” Alyss asked, urgently, sensing my disappointment. I reiterated the Ancient’s words.

Caleb laughed abruptly, causing all three of us to look at him.

“Oh, come now,” he said, that old sardonicism returning, though it seemed a touch more genuine, less sour, this time. “Consider the odds of this!”

He pointed at Colin, who frowned back at him.

“We manage to locate what can only be the sole living Ancient in all the world, and he–” Caleb let out another, short, sharp, laugh. “–after quite summarily dismantling my Faith, what little remains of it, at least, he–he just so happens to have been otherwise occupied!”

His words devolved into peals of tremulous laughter, once more.

“Is that not,” Caleb gasped, “not simply, the perfect ending to this madness?”

Alyss and I frowned at him, humorlessly. The Ancient man, obviously, merely regarded him with a speechless concern, ignorant to the meaning of his words.

“Bah,” Caleb scowled. “You’ve all no sense of humor.”

“We should get going, I suppose,” Alyss sighed, glancing at me. “It is…beyond time we returned to reality.” I nodded, repeating her words to the Ancient Tinker, who agreed readily.

To the surprise of no one, Armsmaster was all too eager to leave this wretched place.

The way out could not be whence we’d came, though, so we’d no collective choice but to take our chances with the other door, the one on the side of the room opposite to where we’d entered.

And so we did.

Fortunately enough, upon traversing it, we found ourselves in what I could quite confidently call the exit room. It was square, and tall, and deep, dark, blue in hue, a cube lit by lightly-glowing, concentric lines of circuitry that ran neatly up and down its fine-hewn walls.

And at its other end, we saw salvation.

At the other end of the cube, for the first time in this entire delve, we beheld two plain, ordinary, entirely unassuming doors with the words Floor 4 and Exit writ upon them. Normally, this would, no doubt, have been cause for considerable celebration. Our delve, our struggles, our great and terrible odyssey, were all, collectively, finally, over.

But we weren’t celebrating.

We weren’t laughing.

We weren’t jumping for joy.

We were, instead, all four of us, fixated wholly and entirely upon the sole other object in all the room. A large, broad, blue pedestal, with a single object placed atop it.

A light-blue, cobalt cube just about, perhaps, the size of a human’s head.

It hovered inches in the air, floating mesmerizingly above the pedestal that housed it, which, itself, appeared innervated by countless minute electronic neurons, digitalized capillaries connecting it to the much larger cube in which we currently stood.

It was moving.

Morphing. Pulsating in place. Made of one thousand, no, one million microscopic strands of cobalt energy that hummed in harmony, probing effervescently, inquisitively, about their confines, new connections constantly being made and broken apart at a breathtaking speed.

But there was a disharmony to its motion, as well.

The otherwise entrancing cube had been corrupted.

Great swathes and patches of its internal structure were colored a bright and glaring red, alarming and aggressive. These digital districts made ceaseless war upon their more collected neighbors, creating an endless cycle of red and blue. An ever-shifting landscape. An ever-evolving battlefield.

And this cube-within-a-cube, it had a Name.

~~~

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Domicile Remote Assistant and General Optimization Node

Attunement: Fabrication–Entropic Computation(Mi) 16

Grain: Protocols

Marble: Chorokinetic Integration

Core: Quantum-Cognitive Matrix

~~~

Domicile Remote Assistant and General Optimization Node.

D.R.A.G.O.N.

Surprisingly, her Shard was but a Minor one.

Caleb’s face lit up, but not with the fury I’d both feared and expected. His Spectrum Sight was glowing strong, stronger than I’d ever seen it do before, flashing with all manner of colors and tones I could neither name nor fathom.

“It’s…oh, it’s beautiful,” he whispered, his voice thick with a startling emotion.

“What light,” he murmured, describing what we all saw, but no doubt seeing something all the more bewitching, himself. “Disparate light. Dancing apart, dancing together. Ever changing, ever evolving. Priest, so…so beautiful, and…”

His face twisted.

“And terrible.”

His reverie was interrupted by Colin’s choking gasp. The Ancient man had fallen to his knees, weeping.

“[She’s alive,]” he sobbed. “[My god, she’s alive.]” He repeated the words over and over and over again, until they dissolved into abject meaninglessness.

“This…this is Dragon?” Alyss muttered, unsure. “But, I thought we–”

“She’s in pain,” Caleb blurted out, making the two of us turn to face him. “Terrible, terrible pain. Madness.” The High Inquisitor’s face was contorted into a thoroughly and unusually complicated, conflicted expression, the nuances of which I couldn’t quite divine.

“Why, it almost reminds me, of…” He began, again, but never finished his thought, lasping instead into a disconcerted and awkward silence.

“Look,” I said, pointing to the pedestal’s very base. A deep slash ran right through it, straight and circular, and entirely out of place.

Positioned as it was, the slash seemed to have expertly severed Dragon from the innumerable lines of circuitry that doubtless served as her connection to this…mechanical fortress she’d made her home. Cutting off her escape, her retreat, if even it existed. Leaving her deaf, and blind, and dumb.

Helpless.

“Why?” Alyss asked, as she examined it, always the most inquisitive of us three. “What…what happened, here? Why do such a thing? Who could do such a thing? Cirque, perhaps?”

“Knossos,” I said suddenly, startling myself even as I spoke. Alyss looked at me, incredulously, equally bewildered.

“The…the World Titan?” she began. “Bu–”

“We won,” I explained, slowly, meeting her gaze. “We won, fair and square. We beat the monster. We cleared the floor.” I pointed, once more, in the direction of the pedestal.

“Behold,” I said. “Our prize.”

Presented to us, defenseless, on a cobalt platter.

“I…I don’t know,” Alyss muttered. “I don’t know about that. The World Titan never interferes, never.” She shook her head, again, more vehemently this time. “This is an exotic floor. Unfair by design. Why would it do so now? Why in, of all places, here?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. I didn’t have a good answer for her.

“I mean, the only one who could really tell us is her,” I snorted, jerking my thumb in the floating cube’s direction. “And I doubt Dragon’s much one for conversation. Least of all, with us.”

We all looked at the floating, raging, silent cube.

“So what do we do, now?” I asked.

“We should kill her.”

Caleb’s voice rang out, yet surprisingly non-hostile as it did so. He explained himself without a trace of anger, merely anguish.

“Believe me,” he said. “I know, I know, I’m biased, but…”

He grimaced as he glanced back towards the floating cube, for a moment.

“But, believe me, it would be a mercy,” he insisted, seriously.

I did believe him. It was easy to do so. Honestly, I sincerely doubted the Inquisitor possessed a single deceptive bone in his body. I opened my mouth to reply, but Alyss beat me to it.

“He should decide,” she declared, gesturing towards the still-kneeling, still-sobbing Ancient with a considerable show of pity. “It’s his decision, in the end, is it not? Dragon is finished.”

She shook her head.

“Without this place to control, she’s harmless. The technology of the Ancients does not exist anymore. If this…Colin…speaks true, then he knew her best. Whether she lives, or dies, it’s his decision.”

Caleb and I glanced at each other, briefly, and I beheld no disagreement in his eyes, so I strode softly over to reach the weeping, Ancient Tinker.

“[Colin,]” I said, gently placing a palm upon his thin, bare-skinned shoulder. The man looked up at me with teary eyes that made the choice I was to offer him all the more difficult to reveal.

“[She’s insane, isn’t she?]” He guessed correctly, before I could say a word. In hindsight, I should have expected no less.

He was a Tinker, after all.

“[I saved her,]” he went on, “[But not really, right? In the end, we still lost. ASCALON…I wasn’t…I didn’t have enough time, not…no, I just, just doomed her. Condemned her to…to this.]” He gestured all about, broadly, miserably.

“[Saved her, just to suffer,]” he lamented, voice cracking. “[It’s…why, it’s perfect. It’s perfect, for me. I deserve no less, I admit it. I wasted my life. I made…the wrong choices.]” His face crumpled, once more.

“[Only…only why, why did it have to be her who…who…]”

His words devolved into another set of wracking, gut-wrenching sobs.

I kept my hand on his shoulder, at a loss for words, unsure of how to comfort the man, if there was even any way to do so. Perhaps, there was nothing to say.

“[And, and now you want to finish it, don’t you?]” He snarled, rage contorting its way brutally across his grief-ravaged features. Accusatorily, he threw off my hand.

“[You’re going to finish it, but you want my permission, my blessing, first, do you?]” He seethed. “[Well, you can go to–]”

“[We want your decision.]”

My words stopped the Ancient’s tirade short cold.

“[We will take her from here, regardless,]” I promised, gravely. “[Ensure she ends up in the proper hands. But, whether she lives, or dies…]” I glanced at my comrades, who met my gaze supportively, then back towards the Tinker.

“[That is your choice,]” I said.

Colin stared at me for one more moment.

“[I see,]” he replied.

He looked back at Dragon.

For a while, the two of us stood in silence.

“[I don’t know,]” he muttered, eventually. “[I don’t want to lose her, but…]” The many wrinkles on his face showed plainly for a moment, and the Ancient finally looked his age.

“[But, maybe she’s already gone. So, so much of her is corrupted. Maybe it’s time…maybe it’s time for me to let her go,]” he nodded, grimly, to himself, slowly entrenching himself, becoming all the more sure of his position, his decision.

He nodded, once, twice, and I heard it in his song. I knew what he was about to do. Dragon would not live to see another day.

And then, all of sudden, I felt…something.

Some kind of pressure.

It was a sensation utterly alien to me, and entirely indescribable, even when compared to all I’d faced so far.

And indeed, the only way I could possibly hope to relate it was to a great and immeasurable weight that fell suddenly upon my shoulders, driving me viciously into my own center of gravity. It compressed my lungs, squashed my organs down into each other, and slowed my blood, making my heart struggle desperately to compensate.

For a split second, time had frozen solid, and I felt as if one trillion alien eyes had fixed themselves upon me.

I was standing at the inception of a dusty, beaten, earthen road, that itself wound across an endless plain.

The road bent and twisted sinuously, forking into innumerable offshoots, that, themselves, branched yet further, all disappearing into infinite obscurity off in the distance.

Yet, even as I surveyed them, the many forks began to fall away.

I watched them vanish. Dissolve. Evaporate into the great nothingness that surrounded me, unmade. Until, eventually, only one remained.

One direction. One option.

One path.

I opened my mouth, and felt my lips move, but not entirely of my own volition. And yet, it wasn’t some manner of Mastery that compelled me, either. It wasn’t anything Entropic, at all. For my song was just as calm as ever, my inner sea as placid as it could conceivably be, and Sovereign uttered not a peep from the far reaches of my soul.

For reasons inexplicable other than that they simply felt right, I spoke.

“[She did keep you alive, all this time.]”

The many disobedient syllables slipped from betwixt my lips like thieves escaping from confinement, so swiftly and naturally that they startled me.

Armsmaster turned to look my way, taken aback.

“[I’m sorry?]” He asked, shocked.

“[Dragon hated humans, one and all, but she never hurt you,]” I explained, my brows raised up high, my voice thick with wonderment even as I continued to speak. The words, and thoughts, were mine, I could not deny that, but I’d never meant to actually say them, aloud, I…

Or had I?

Because with each subsequent phrase I uttered, the next became more natural, more obvious, so obvious, so right and proper, until the mere idea that anything else, anything different, any other eventuality could possible be, was naught but an inkling in the very most anterior recesses of my mind.

And then that inkling disappeared entirely.

I’d always thought this way.

This was, after all, how things had to happen. How they were meant to be.

“[She killed every last person who delved here. Each, and every one. But she kept you alive,]” I went on, as Colin’s demeanor changed, his expression growing more open, more considering.

“[At considerable cost to her own resources,]” I pointed out. “[Seven hundred years, or more, she kept you alive. Healed you. Nurtured you. Protected you, in a way.]”

“[Perhaps,]” I suggested, mildly, looking back at the writhing orb, of which a good half, at least, was that light, cobalt-blue color. “[She’s not all gone just yet.]”

The Ancient man joined me, looking dubiously in the direction of his long lost love.

“[Maybe,]” he accepted, but then shook his head. “[Maybe so, kid, but still…she’s suffered for so long…and, and what? How am I even meant to help her? To restore her?]” He looked at me, and smirked painedly.

“[Don’t imagine your people have reached quite our level of technological enlightenment, I’d wager,]” he snarked, half-mockingly.

“[I wouldn’t even have the tools to make the tools,]” he muttered, miserably.

“[Perhaps,]” I responded noncommittally, pausing for a moment before snapping my fingers. With a slight popping sound, a light, fluffy, bronze-skinned pastry apparated in my palm. One I’d purchased an eternity ago. In a different place, and time. In another world. In another life.

“[But we have our own Wonders, as well,]” I offered, holding it out towards the Ancient, who regarded the action with considerable interest.

“[Spatial storage,]” he again identified correctly, sharply, his eyes narrowed, that pained smirk returning. “[Neat trick,]” he accepted, sadly shaking his head. “[Doesn’t change the facts, though.]”

I licked my lips, pausing one more time. To let his recalcitrance, his doubt, simmer lightly. It didn’t frustrate me. I wasn’t worried. Quite the opposite, in fact.

For some reason, I felt sure he’d see things my way.

In the end.

“[The New World is vast,]” I said, simply. “[I am no Tinker, and far from an expert in such matters.]” I gestured towards the pedestal once more, mildly. “[Dragon has suffered for centuries. The few years it may take you to search for a solution, or a cure, will be as a drop in the ocean, to her. Could it hurt to try?]”

Armsmaster frowned, a measure of suspicion creeping its way into his regard. Perhaps, he’d noticed something off. Unsurprising. He was a smart man. Queerly, I felt that this next sentence would prove critical.

And yet, still, I wasn’t worried.

I took a breath, and locked eyes with him.

“[Could you live with yourself?]” I asked Armsmaster, “[If you killed her now, then found it?]”

Colin’s face flashed immediately with grief, and regret, and shame, and all remnants of suspicion and hesitation departed him.

He nodded once, his conviction suddenly airtight, and strode purposefully towards the pedestal. With a smooth, determined motion, he reached out, and plucked the ever-morphing cube that represented his maddened Dragon’s sole physical form up and off the pedestal, cradling it within the crook of his arm, as if it was the most precious treasure in all the world.

Perhaps it was.

He looked up at all three of us, and spoke.

“[Thank you for giving me this choice,]” Colin expressed, sincerely, whilst I translated his speech. “[I…I owe you, all of you, very much. I promise you, I will see to it that Dragon never hurts another human being, ever again.]”

His visage hardened, morphing into emotionless iron.

“[And if I cannot find some way to help her,]” Armsmaster swore, “[I’ll put an end to her, instead.]”

Alyss nodded, slowly and contemplatively. Caleb nodded with a commensurate reluctance, but more firmly than the former, certainly not happy, but…perhaps not so far from it as he had been, before. Perhaps satisfied, for now, at least.

And with that matter settled, only the exit remained.

We approached it in a line of four, the three of us almost reflexively forming a protective triangle around the Ancient and his invaluable cargo. Caleb and I at the front, Alyss bringing up the rear.

That, too, felt somehow right.

I looked to my left. I looked behind me. I looked towards the Dungeon’s door.

Nearly two months had passed, by now.

It was almost unbelievable to think of. It felt like I’d spent a lifetime down here. I supposed, in a way, I had. I’d left a life behind.

How long had it been since I’d felt the sun, since I’d seen the sky? If it turned out time wasn’t dilated, here, we’d have long failed the Agoge by now. I’d entered this place a child and, in many ways, I still was. But I was different, now, too. Two months had seen to that.

Two months of combat. Of struggle. Of suffering. Of pain. What was it Pylon said to us, all those months ago?

Be strong, and you shall become strong.

I looked to my right, and saw Glare. I looked to my left, and saw Thaum. I looked inwards, to my soul, and heard Fang howl. And sensed Draconic Blood’s rumble. And felt Acceleration crackle with barely-contained fervor.

With a mental gesture, I summoned my Grimoire.

~~~

Hero

Attunement: ADMINISTRATION//THE SOVEREIGN(Ne) 13.

Grain: Shard Broadcast Attunement. The Host is able to comprehend the Shardsong, the language of Shards and Entities.

Marble: Shard Gestalt Attunement. The Host is able to combine and evolve copied Shards according to Affinity and understanding, creating proto-gestalts in the same manner as the Entities. Currently, the Host is limited to copying, manipulating and evolving only Minor and Major Shards.

Active Slots:

* Draconic Blood(Mi) 9. The Host’s blood takes on the properties of an ancient dragon, granting increased strength, resilience, and greatly increased healing. The Host gains an affinity to Fire and Blood.

* Acceleration(Ma) 13. This Major Shard allows the Host to accelerate their own locomotion at will. Whilst this Shard does not bestow upon the Host any manner of Chronokinesis, the acceleration it grants is metaphysical; when active, everything connected to the Host’s soul is affected by it accordingly. Entropic draw is dependent upon acceleration factor and duration.

Due to the unique evolutionary process of this Blessing, the Host gains the following ancillary effects: The ability to travel any distance in a single step at miniscule cost, and full Affinity-commensurate command of Lightning.

* Soulbound Weapon(Mi) 9. The Host is granted a personalized weapon, chosen to fit their subconscious. In this case the weapon is Fang, The Boneblade. This weapon will grow with the Host as they gain Attunement, displaying more esoteric effects as it does so. This weapon may always be recalled to the Host, regardless of location. This weapon may be dismissed and summoned by the Host at will. If this weapon is destroyed, it may be regenerated at the cost of Entropy.

* Personal Storage(Mi) 3. The Host gains access to a personal storage vault of 40x40x40 feet. Objects of any size or weight may be stored within this area upon manual contact, so long as they can physically fit inside it. These objects may be retrieved at any point in time provided manual contact with a suitable empty space outside of the vault for them to occupy. Retrieval/storage duration and Entropy cost for a given object scales along with corresponding size, weight, and complexity. All stored objects are temporally locked until retrieval. This Shard does not affect living creatures.

* Empty.

Save Slots:

* Haemokinetic Enhancement.

* Prestidigitation.

* Empty.

* Empty.

* Empty.

Words:

* Fire 6.

* Lightning 13.

//ERR494e464f//:

* Lesser Levitation//NULL.

* Sensory Projection//NULL.

Good luck, Hero. The survival of both our races depends on you.

~~~

Was I strong, now?

I’d grown in leaps and bounds. Grown in ways I’d never even have imagined. The wary child who’d entered this wretched Maw months ago no longer held a candle to me. In power, in allies, in knowledge, I’d grown.

But, was I strong?

Would this triumph, this glorious victory, remain so? Or, would it be merely another in my ever-growing list of conquests counted far too soon? I was no longer weak, perhaps, but did I truly have the strength now, to protect those I cared for? To shield them from harm? To vanquish their foes? To be, at any instant, by their side?

Only time, I supposed, could tell.

I nodded at my brother and sister-in-arms and in secrecy and in fellowship.

And, together, we walked out into the light of day.