The air was crisp and the sky was clear deep, deep within the wilds of the northern Frontier.
It was late spring of AC 747, and though the heat of summer could be felt further south, up here, it seemed as if the cold was unwilling to make way for more balmy temperatures without a fight.
And it was a biting thing, indeed.
Thick, white snow lay in great heaps and piles all around, coating the massive pines and smothering the pointed shrubbery; sugar frosting the rim of a sweet and sour spirit. It caused the sun to refract mercilessly off its many bends and bevels, ruthlessly blinding those foolish enough to travel here absent some manner of protection.
It was a bleak place, the Frontier.
So thought Jonah.
Bleak, but beautiful, too. It reminded him well of Cell Regis, and the mountainous home he’d left behind.
Jonah’d been an official member of the Delver’s Guild for near enough half a year, by now. He liked the work, well enough. The delves were stressful, of course, but risk was manageable so long as you didn’t stray too deep. And besides, the pay was good.
Very good.
The company, less so.
Delvers had something of an ignoble reputation, compared to their counterparts; the aptly named Sons of Dainsleif. The Delvers Guild, well, it just wasn’t quite as organized as the Sons. Less a military, more a…quasi-benevolent horde. A mercenary band. Contractors. You couldn’t always trust your fellow Delver. Some of ‘em seemed a hair’s breadth from highwaymen.
Sometimes it felt like the only thing keeping the whole band together was the Chief.
And Romulus wasn’t Wergar. He ruled through fear. Strength, violence, and fear. All three, combined. There were plenty of ways to step out of line. Rape, murder, stealing shares. It happened, now and again. Always someone stupid enough to try.
There were no second chances in the Delvers. You got found out, you better get out, quick. Elsewise, Romulus’d gut you on the spot. Then and there. No hesitation. No escape.
Jonah knew it. He’d seen it. The Chief downright terrified him.
But, again, good pay.
And, more importantly, almost–no hierarchy. No hierarchy, here. No nobility. No Aristocracy. You joined the Delvers, you left your pedigree at the door. The only titles mattered here, were the real ones. The ones that showed on your Grimoire.
In the Delver’s Guild, all were equally in the shit.
Jonah’d joined the usual way, of course. The boring way. The painful way. The way that comprised many more years spent as an apprentice. Training, working, waiting. His power was fine enough, he supposed, but hardly magnificent. Hardly standout.
More…situational.
It allowed him to grow spears of wood from any nearby surface of the same material. Thankfully, his Blessing had seen fit to grant him an entirely-wooden set of armor as a Grain stage Gift. And, though he’d done suitably well for himself, never the strongest, nor the weakest of his fellows, Jonah’d never made it any further.
And he was fine with that. He was fine with not reaching Marble. It meant he wasn’t nearly strong enough to risk attempting the Agoge, but he was fine with that, too.
Because he wasn’t nearly mad enough, either.
Jonah had yet to step foot beyond the second floor. And, considering recent events, neither was he eager to. Considering recent events, neither was he eager to ever step foot inside the World Titan again.
Eighteen days.
Eighteen days, it’d been, since that group 14 stepped foot into the Labyrinth. Eighteen days, since Pylon arrived with group 15, and found that the Maw no longer opened. Eighteen days, since the call was put out, to the Delver’s Guild, and since they’d set up camp here. Since they’d brought a levy of full one hundred forty-three Blessed to bear.
It was only appropriate, after all.
They were the ones who’d rated it.
They were the ones who’d cleared it for entry, for the Agoge. They were the ones who’d missed something. Jonah didn’t know what they’d missed, exactly. Obviously. He hadn’t been a part of that particular team.
But he knew the outcome. Knew it plain as day. The only one possible. Only one scenario, that a Maw might deny outsiders entry. Only one scenario, that it could be locked from the inside.
Exotic.
At first, he hadn’t even believed it. And not because of the rarity. Exotic Dungeons were rare enough, sure, but there was precedent. After all, Legendary Dungeons were Exotic. The Cerulean Pit. The Eye of Terror. There was precedent.
But an Exotic Dungeon that masked its true nature? Masked it, to a specific few? To a prospecting team, composed solely of uniquely experienced delvers?
That was unprecedented.
That was worrisome.
That suggested the unthinkable. The World Titan had rules, rules it stuck to, always and forever. To think such things might no longer carry weight…well, it meant nothing good.
Eighteen days.
Eighteen days meant nothing good, either.
Eighteen days without trace or tell of any parties, of groups one to fourteen, who’d ventured forth unto its depths. Not good. Dungeons varied in size, sure, particularly when delved to the third floor, but this was unusual. Exceptional. Normally, you’d expect at least one of them to’ve made it out, by now.
But they hadn’t.
Not a one.
Nothing good.
Most likely, it meant they were dead. Done for. In fact, that was what had become the prevailing theory, in the camp. After all, these weren’t groups of experienced delvers, and eighteen days in an exotic Maw would try the faculties of even Immortal Blessed. The consensus, amongst Jonah and his peers, was that none of them could’ve possibly survived.
And yet, they weren’t all dead.
They couldn’t be. Jonah knew that much. Everyone did. If all the groups were dead, then the Maw would’ve disappeared, or at least re-opened.
So…
So some of them must still be alive, down there, he thought, shivering as he did so. And shivering further, as he considered what such wretched circumstances would do to the minds of young, unblooded Blessed.
Perhaps…perhaps it was better if they never emerged, at all.
Each and every day, they tested the Maw for entry. Each and every day, they were turned away.
But as long as it remained, so too would this encampment. So too would this fortress of steel, and silver, and stone, grandiose in both size and simplicity, wrought by Grimnir’s own lot to rise strong and mighty in one great ring above the ground. When they left, this impromptu megalith would remain, an unnatural blemish, a black mark marring the otherwise pristine landscape. Proof for generations to come that the Gods’ chosen had been here.
But that day had yet to arrive.
For now, they remained.
Jonah nodded once, to himself, mostly, and trekked back over to the shimmering steel box in question. He took a moment to examine and wonder at the many whorls and facets of its twisting wires, and blinking lights. The open arch, the elliptical hole in its very center, was just as empty as ever. Absent the glowing, orange portal that should have otherwise been there.
Jonah frowned, and yawned. His watch was almost over. Soon, his replacement would arrive, and he’d return to training, sleeping, and eating. Outside of the Dungeon, a delver’s life was pretty boring.
The metallic arch sparked slightly.
Jonah’s eyes widened.
It sparked again.
They widened further.
His mouth began to move.
The arch sparked twice, thrice, four more times, then blazed to life in a flare of liquid orange glory, letting out no particularly momentous sound, but still making Jonah gasp, stumble, and fall unceremoniously onto his behind, the thick snow serving as a quite comfortable cushion, all things considered.
Jonah watched in awe as the portal vanished, and the Maw disappeared right alongside it, with a thick and definitive pop, leaving behind a perfectly square tile of grassless, snowless, shrubless soil where it had just been.
As well as three human figures.
The first, who drew the lion’s share of his attention, was the figure on the right.
It was a gorgeous man.
Truly gorgeous. There simply was no other way to describe him. He was tall, handsome, and ludicrously well-muscled, proportioned positively perfectly, as if the Gods themselves had seen to his construction. His hair flowed thick and lustrous from atop his chiseled features, his eyes glowed with a glorious, white-yellow light, and his half-naked frame, though clothed only in a loosely-fitting tassel of black fabric wound tightly about his waist, was no less stunning for it.
His flawless golden hair and white-yellow eyes seemed to boast their own manner of self-luminescence, casting glimmering rays of breathtaking sunlight all about him and his companions. His features were familiar to Jonah, yet vaguely, seen perhaps in portraits, or heard described secondhand.
He gazed upon his surroundings with a confident, combative demeanor. This was a man ever-ready for war.
The second figure, however, swiftly drew his attention from the first, hovering as it was above all three of them, its form indecipherable save for wisps of billowing shadow. Yet, even as he noticed them, said shadows seemed to shudder, stutter, and retract into themselves, drawing back to reveal a rather comely young woman.
Her complexion was that of pale porcelain, her long, pitch-black tresses of hair fell behind her like an organic cape, and from the edges of her sharp, attentive, intuitive eyes leaked an unearthly, uncanny, unnatural lime-green.
She was, above all, in control.
Yet, as Jonah shivered under her eerie, occult gaze, he intook breath sharply, for he’d been mistaken in his original assessment. There were not, in fact, three figures standing before him.
There were four.
And now that the shadow-woman had ceased cloaking him, Jonah could make out the fourth one clearly.
It looked…strange.
Strangely out of place. It was a man, yet disheveled, choked by thick, overgrown hair and clothed in naught but a pair of light-blueish undergarments, clutching tight to his thin, pallid chest an object Jonah couldn’t quite discern. Unlike his companions, this fourth man demonstrated a significant trepidation in his port, neither confident nor in control, instead peering about anxiously with timid, wary eyes that nevertheless bore a certain underlying perspicuity.
Finally, Jonah looked to the left.
Observing the third, and last, figure.
He, much like the first, and the fourth, was a man. A young man. Young, and similarly well-muscled, to boot. But, leaner. Less bulky, more…wiry. More dextrous. Not breathtakingly attractive, nor boasting any manner of esoteric presentation. In that sense, save for his shirtlessness and somewhat uncommon white-colored hair, this third man looked the most normal of the three.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Except, of course, for his eyes.
They were blurring.
Vibrating. Moving far too swiftly for Jonah to divine their precise motions. In fact, everything about this third man looked…quick. Too quick. Frenetic. Tight-wound. Barely-constrained. His body, even, seemed to ever-so-softly hum. He didn’t look confident, or calculated, or afraid.
He looked everywhere.
His roving eyes took in everything around him in a single second, finally coming to rest upon Jonah, himself, and narrowing. Whereupon he simply smiled.
His was the grin of a hunter.
A chill ran down Jonah’s spine, and he staggered to his feet with a plaintive cry.
“Fuh…fucking PRIEST!” He exclaimed.
“S–sound the alarm!” he bellowed in a cracking voice, back in the direction of the main encampment. “Summon Romulus! Summon Pylon!
They’ve returned! A group’s returned!”
~~~
Emerging from the darkness of Knossos’s third floor, we were met with a patently shocking sight.
When last we’d arrived here, during that time we’d taken the plunge into the Maw, the Frontier had been quite empty. Save, of course, for shrubbery. And snow. And trees.
Well, it wasn’t empty anymore.
Looking around at super-speed, I could see what appeared to be a robust, professionally-erected…outpost, for lack of a better word. A fort. A military encampment. It was wrought magnificently, of wood and stone and steel that all wound around and about and atop one another, as if the three materials had been, somehow, grown into place.
Save for its unique composition, though, the camp looked simple enough. Little more than a sea of tents, some large, some small, some lavish, some not. All surrounded by a great and towering ring-wall. I had but one guess as to whom they all owed fealty.
The Coterie.
Apparently, our long absence had not gone unnoticed.
Glancing down, I saw a lonesome watchman staring back up me, at us, supine on the ground, bedecked in a rather unusual set of wholly wooden armor.
~~~
Pike
Attunement: Xylo Projection(Mi) 6
Grain: Living Armor
~~~
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the Maw behind us flicker once more, then disappear with a muted pop of displaced air.
Pike’s face had contorted itself into a melange of shock and awe. It seemed we’d given him quite a fright. I smiled at the man, well amused by his reaction, and happy to finally see another Blessed after so long.
Unfortunately, my sanguine greeting didn’t appear to have the intended effect.
The Blessed quailed under my, apparently, not at all comforting gaze, stumbling fearfully and awkwardly to his feet, and letting out a terrified squawk.
“Fuh…fucking PRIEST!” He shouted, tremulously. “S–sound the alarm! Summon Romulus! Summon Pylon!”
From beside me, Caleb frowned, and made to start forth towards him, but was stopped short by a gentle laying of Alyss’s palm upon his shoulder. He glanced at her, and the sorceress gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. Alyss’s eyes darted about our surroundings sharply, on high alert. Her message was clear.
Not yet. Let them make the first move.
The three of us, perhaps unconsciously, had grouped to form a barrier separating the Ancient Armsmaster, whose face tensed further with each passing second, from the now rousing encampment.
Somewhat concerningly, I noticed row upon row of what could only be legions of professionally armed and armored Blessed emerge from their makeshift tents as a great gaggle of swords, shields, staves, and sorcery. As one, they shambled towards the outpost’s center, gazing our way with an equivalent degree of shock, and wariness.
Not all of them looked friendly.
In fact, some looked downright criminal. Murderous. Reminding me of the bandits who’d attacked my home village, long ago. None of them approached us, congratulated us, apologized to us, or explained to us their presence. None brought food, or drink, or healing items, or made to ensure that we were alright.
Instead, they regarded us, collectively, from afar. Muttering at us from perhaps fifteen feet away. Murmuring amongst themselves. With caution. With trepidation.
They’d surrounded us.
I frowned.
I felt a palpable tension, thick in the air. I felt my hackles raise, my muscles bunch and tighten. The calm before the storm. I glanced at Alyss, my displeasure plainly present on my face. She met my gaze, grimacing as well, but just barely shook her head, again.
Pike gulped, looked back at his stationary, positively statuesque compatriots, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and…
And strode right up to us.
I raised my eyebrows, impressed. For a barely Grain-stage Blessed, the man certainly had guts.
“W–,” he began, stammering heavily, nervously wetting his lips. His words, so softly were they spoken, almost drowned out beneath the tumultuous din of conversation raised by his fellows on all sides.
“Which group ar–”
“WHERE IS HE?!”
A great, bellowing growl echoed forth from the camp’s southernmost side. It was half speech, half a mad and ululating howl, a cry of beastly, animalistic rage.
The din around us was instantly silenced.
The Blessed that had us encircled glanced at one another, worriedly, fear writ clearly and thoroughly throughout their collective expression. Pike’s head snapped towards the roar’s source, his mouth clamped shut tight, his face paled, and he quivered two steps backwards.
Pike swallowed, gaze whipping between us and the south side of the camp, growing ever more frantic, seemingly unsure of what to say. Distantly, I heard a steady pounding, a soft but sure shaking in the frozen-solid ground.
The mighty rumble of fast-approaching footfalls.
“Y–you…,” Pike began, trembling furiously now, fighting to speak. “T–the Chief Delver will have some q–questions for y–”
“WHERE IS HE?!”
The voice bellowed out once more, shutting the quivering Blessed before us up mid-phrase. This time, though, it was close enough that I could look towards it, and snatch a glimpse of its purveyor, as the throng of Blessed parted about them like the tide.
It was a massive, hulking wolfman.
It resembled Rover, perhaps, but vaguely. In the way a tadpole resembled a shark. In the way a gust of wind resembled a hurricane. It was tall enough to comfortably double my height, and almost just as wide, absolutely bursting at the seams by cords upon cords upon cords of rippling, writhing, groaning muscles.
Its coat was ruddy grey and metallic, but not the shimmering beauty of Dragon’s creations. No, this fur was dark, and dim, and muddied hard iron. Metal bristled from the Therian’s every pore, so thick it seemed to swim about him like a liquid.
His song was steel. And strength. And survival. And overwhelming, mind-consuming, all-devouring rage.
His steps shook the earth as he stomped towards us.
~~~
Romulus the Grey
Attunement: Therianthrope(Mi) 17
Grain: Vampirism
Marble: Steelskin
Core: Storm of Urdimmu
~~~
The fact that this Blessed boasted a mere Minor Shard belied the raw potency present in his song. And while it might have lacked the sheer weight, spread, and depth of Pylon’s, it made up for it in fervor.
This was no newly-born Immortal.
This was a true Godkin, an ancient and immensely-powerful warrior, one who’d fought, and bled, and tasted death time and time again, and survived.
And yet, I wasn’t afraid.
I was calm. It was startling, in a way, and yet…somehow, appropriate. After all, I could hear this monster’s song. I could feel the nature of his Blessing, and even hear his Gifts sing softly from beneath, lightly adding to the melody. This was no Thinker. No Stranger. No Trump. This was a Brute. Plain and simple.
And physical strength no longer threatened me.
From behind me, though, Armsmaster blanched. “[My, my…god!]” he whispered. “[I–is that a case fifty-thr–]”
“WHERE IS HE?!” Romulus bellowed for the third time, rounding savagely upon us.
Now scarcely an arm’s breadth away, I could feel the heat of his fetid breath. I could smell the last thing he’d eaten. His features, quite appropriately I supposed, had distorted themselves into a violent mask of feral rage, his snout peeled back and snarling, his breath deep and heavy.
Romulus glared viciously between the three of us…
And then, something in his disposition shifted.
Perhaps it was something in our shared demeanor, how we didn’t quite quail before his wroth. Perhaps he noticed Alyss’s calm, poised glare, her eyes narrowed, her back arched slightly. Perhaps he noticed Glare’s swiftly-rising ire, and freshly-Immortal status.
Or, perhaps, it was his glance my way, after which I noticed his pupils dilate just a fraction.
I saw it. I saw everything. Everything he did, every move he made. After all, I had the time, did I not?
No move he made would surprise me.
Romulus’s nose twitched slightly as he examined the three of us, ignoring Armsmaster, and I watched the raw anger and brutal rage recede, making way for a cold, venomous, canny hatred. A berserker this Therian might well have been, but he was Immortal, too.
One didn’t live for centuries without cultivating a deep, intrinsic knowledge of which fights were worth starting, and which ones weren’t.
The Godkin’s snarl eased into a deep, deep frown, the bully retreating in favor of the warlord, and Romulus crossed twin arms, thick and dense with steely fur and broad as tree-trunks, about his chest.
“Where,” he intoned in a low, vibrating growl, “is my son?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Caleb startle at his inquiry, if only slightly.
“I know he was here,” Romulus rumbled, inhaling deeply, “with you. I can smell him on you, even now. He was never meant to take part in this, this…,”
For a moment, the overwhelming rage returned, and his fur sharpened into many thousands of steely spears, and I thought all hope of conversation might be lost, but then he simply spat upon the cold, frozen ground.
And continued.
“I don’t know how he passed that Exam,” Romulus hissed, “without someone noticing. Without someone alerting me. There will be an accounting for this.”
Romulus fixed us with an appropriately steely gaze, but this time I thought I could just barely make out a hint of desperation beneath the hate.
“It doesn’t matter, now. It’s time he came home.”
And when he spoke, I thought I might, just barely, detect a quiver in the hulking creature’s voice.
But then, perhaps I was mistaken.
“Well?” Romulus seethed, gaze whipping between the three of us, thin patience swiftly evaporating. “Well? Are you a group of mutes? Did the World Titan steal your tongues? Where is he? Where is my s–”
“He’s dead,” Caleb said, suddenly.
Romulus’s massive head snapped towards him in an instant. My mouth dropped open, and I turned to stare at the Inquisitor, too.
“You speak of Vidar, do you not? Rover,” Caleb said, with a quiet, somber certainty. “I’m sorry, I…I am sorry. We were separated, and he was with me, and…but, only I escaped alive.”
Caleb closed his eyes momentarily, taking a brief pause. His hushed voice was thick with heartfelt sorrow, but strangely calm, as well. Peculiarly, the young Immortal demonstrated not a hint of the choking, tearful anguish he’d shown us after Dragon’s defeat, speaking a soft and muted candor instead. He almost seemed to find this ordeal comfortable. Routine.
I got the feeling the Inquisitor had done this many times before.
“He told me his name,” Caleb went on, “Before he passed. He died valiant, for…for what little it matters. Died fighting. He wanted you to know…”
Caleb frowned, pursing his lips slightly.
He looked up, slowly, meeting the giant, hulking, metal wolfman’s gaze as if it was the easiest thing in the world. Romulus just stared back at him, expressionlessly. Unmoving. A statue wrought of hardy steel.
“To know that he understands,” he finished, lightly searching the face of his fellow Godkin as he did so. As if, as if expecting some manner of recognition, or realization, or anything meaningful to make itself known thereupon.
But Romulus said nothing. The grey wolf was silent as the grave.
Caleb exhaled deeply, and shook his head.
“I am sorry,” he repeated, dead seriously. “He was my responsibility, and I failed him.” The Immolator spread his arms wide. “Whatsoever judgment or justice you might seek, I’ll not oppose it.”
The air was still. The wolf was speechless. His expression remained unchanged.
All around us, the great host of Blessed warriors, so different in power and vestment and creed, were united in a fraught, tight-strung, panicked tension. They glanced back, and forth, and back, and forth, between the two Godkin.
None of us dared speak an errant word, for fear that death might follow it. All of us gripped our Blessings tight, Entropy amassed, muscles bunched, spines stiffened. Certain a fight was poised to erupt.
But none did.
Romulus graced my companion with no reply at all, neither hate, nor rage, nor any action, not even the subtlest whisper of emotion. His song had retreated, turned inwards, packed tightly beneath the many rippling cords of muscle, such that I could no longer hear it.
Without a word, Romulus turned upon his heel, and walked away.
Pike watched him go with a mouth that hung open wide, so wide it almost looked unhealthy, a downright stupefied expression on his face. Caleb, though not quite as shocked, also regarded the Immortal Therian’s passage with a good degree of consternation.
Whatever reaction he’d expected to receive, it clearly wasn’t this.
The absolute silence only lasted for a moment more, though, before the throng surrounding us exploded into a din of renewed, furious, frantic vigor. The volume they produced was so loud, in fact, that our fearful, frightened, shaking liaison had to fight to get a word in, edgewise.
“W–well,” Pike began, floundering, still glancing back at the now no longer visible Romulus and blinking, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he’d just witnessed. “Well, eh, uh, I guess, then, I can–”
“GROUP FOURTEEN!”
He was, however, terribly unfortunately but hopefully for the final time, interrupted by the sudden appearance and clamorous exclamation of another novel figure, yet one I recognized, this time.
In fact, one who happened to be thoroughly familiar to me.
A tall, thin man with long fingers that drummed and flicked and quivered all about the place, fluttering from one position to the next with a restless energy, as if being confined to one mere place and time was pure agony for them. A man wearing grey, but a more shimmering, glittering, chromic, energetic shade than the wolf who’d preceded him.
He was dressed neatly, primly, tidily in a four-piece suit and gloves that positively screamed of consummate professionalism. Combined with the reflective metal helm sat atop his head, the Immortal’s habit served to cover him up completely, secreting away his true likeness, whatever it might have been, from prying public eyes.
His song remained just as gargantuan as I remembered it, but I was now experienced enough to recognize that this Blessed’s Entropy reserves were far from normal, even for the Core stage. They put Caleb’s to shame, and yet, they were unnatural. Mutated. Seizing endlessly, even as I beheld them. The grotesque, revolting actuality of one thousand different sentient beings shoved brutally together, forced to co-exist in but a single form.
The Manifold Paradox.
The Hand of the Coterie.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Runemakers, and the Chroniclers, and the Magnates, and the Delvers, and the Sons of Dainslief, and many other titles besides.
Pylon.