Beneath the surface of Jaia lies a terrifying subterranean maze. Within the halls of this grey, unending labyrinth, monsters lie in wait and treasures lay unclaimed.
Though none so potent as the soul relic just claimed.
The claiming of this relic, the final piece of a puzzle so grand that only the most ancient of beings even know of it, sent reverberations through the fabric of Jaia. Long sleeping leviathans and titans begin to stir. Some of these ancient beings were met with excitement and worship, lesser beings which had been used to using their master’s name were now forced to supplicate themselves.
Some were met with terror. Swathes of the continent would empty itself, most not entirely knowing why their blood ran cold at the thought of staying. Great tides of displacement shook the landscape, leaving towns abandoned and fields empty all around the continent. Banditry and mysticism both took hold of the wandering populaces, creating dangerous, lawless pockets of territory which was quickly ungovernable.
In the throes of a misunderstood cataclysm, the people looked to their leaders more than ever. For the most part, those leaders were found lacking. The ruling powers of the world were thrown into the chaos along with the peasantry, unable to avoid the dominos falling. A shattering occurred within the church of the empty god, almost overnight. Only Shin Boh Tahn would know the reason for the schism but until he explained himself, there was a confused holy army wandering the lands with little to do but get into skirmishes with the roving bandits.
The winds of change were blowing hard as a hurricane and the soul relics of the world shivered. A shift was happening, whether their wielders were ready or not. The centuries of calm were over and there would be no return to that peace again.
The Spear had awoken. With its stirring came a new beginning.
With its awakening came the threat of the end.
The towers of Halaas were ablaze with activity. In every corner of every room within their grand, high reaching floors, the towers were screaming with energy. In some rooms, it was the chaotic energy of the tower’s inhabitants, majaal hierarchs sending confused orders to their myriad of slaves. In other halls, magical instruments were whirring and whooping to the varied dismay of worried onlookers.
Certainty was, ostensibly, in command of each and every unhelpful whelp and mewling wannabe monarch. For days, she had not had a moment of peace from the influx of useless sycophants, even more useless alchemists and the occasionally distracting portion of actual news. If she believed everything she was told, something she was wise enough not to do, you would think the whole continent was collapsing.
Either her mother was dead, dismembered or a new god, depending on whose words you trusted. None of those three things seemed likely. If anything, her mother was throwing a childish tantrum. The reports of a demon striking through dreams, even those of people still awake, were more than enough to dispel the idea that her mother was weakened. It did speak to the idea that she was in a foul mood, however.
Agents in the church of the empty god had all but gone silent or returned. New, contradictory edicts and postulation were being decried to the masses at a confusing rate. The disarray was so potent that many were turning away from the organised religions and looking for other answers. Shin Boh Tahn, it seemed, was worse for wear than her mother.
Until Hestia herself returned to the towers of Halaas, there would be no answer worth trusting. “When do we expect her to return, Excess?” The vizier looked at Certainty, forcing her to hold back a smirk. She liked Excess well enough, he was a useful filter of information, more than able to sift through the minutia and come to a sensible answer. He just also hated being called upon with his face ruined like that.
It had been cruel to send him after Shade but the man only had himself to blame. He was sent to give a message, not goad her brother into a fight. “Any time within the next three hours would make sense, Lady Certainty.” The words came out somewhat… mashed. Shade had crushed the man’s mouth in some way or other that Excess himself would not describe. The twisted skin on his lips made him sound ridiculous.
Her mother would have executed him for looking foolish but Certainty enjoyed the punishment of living with the disfigurement instead. His crimson skin now seemed to speak of embarrassment rather than rage, the holes where his tusks once sat now empty jowls. He looked rather like a canine of some kind and the imagery amused Certainty enough to stay the headsman's axe for now.
Three hours before mother returns, Certainty pondered. She would have to get serious about dealing with the problems that had arisen in her mother’s absence. Certainty’s throne room atop the second highest peak in the wasteland. Without another word to the gathered court within, she sank backwards into her chair and closed her eyes. She gave no warning to the assorted hangers-on. If they were not smart enough to brace for her movement then they were not worthy of being in the room.
The ensuing explosion of speed sent a sonic boom rattling through the landscape.
Certainty had been lazy for weeks and she loathed having to do anything when she could simply be doing nothing. She had, however, perfected a way of utilising her time better than most. With her insane speed and reaction times, she slowed the world to a crawl and turned three hours into three weeks for herself. Then she surveyed every nook and cranny of the towers of Halaas for anything that might annoy her mother. If she found something, she destroyed it or otherwise removed it.
She sighed, stopping her burst of movement randomly to catch her breath. The displaced air made the small lab she had stopped in look like a hurricane had attacked the room specifically. She smiled, half apologetic and half completely bemused, at the wild eyes of the sub alchemist within. Then she laughed, and sprinted away before the sound reached her own ears.
Hestia arrived two hours later to a calm, quiet and ready seat of power. Exactly what she needed.
The churches were emptying. Chapels lay quiet instead of choral and Shin Boh Tahn knew exactly why. He limped through the silent sanctuary, putting a hand on each pew to balance so that he would not slip. His right leg was all but destroyed and the frustration that was causing to course through him was unstoppable.
He gnashed his teeth with each step, pain serving as a fine reminder why he could not stop yet. His soul relics were subdued, the Spear’s power of them faded with distance but their true glory was now lost to him. The healing he had relied on from the Sceptre was a fond memory, lost to him along with the easy control of the labyrinth he had enjoyed before.
He was still potent enough to see off the monstrosity that had dared to face him but the creature had left its mark upon him. The massive drake had managed to scream out a blast of lightning breath before Shin Boh Tahn could snap its neck. He had not dodged as well as he could have, expecting the Sceptre to make such avoidance irrelevant. Instead, he had discovered then and there that he would not be graced by the divine magic until the situation was righted.
That was all this was, he convinced himself. An errant foible in an otherwise perfect destiny. That the Spear had been claimed by Guan Ah Dan was a point of fact, one which had only been able to come about due to the machinations of Hestia and her brood. The failings of Oblax Claré would go to whatever grave he found for himself.
Proof of the infallible destiny that he enjoyed came fast. The pristine nature of the chapel he had stumbled to was enough to fuel that particular fantasy. Had it been destroyed and pillaged for anything of value, Shin Boh Tahn may have felt despair. Instead, he smirked at the idea, imagining some unaware peasant reaching into the dias and finding his jewel.
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He plucked the aquamarine from the centre of the font, wiping the holy water away on his dirty robe before inspecting the gem. Pristine, of course, as the magic within kept the stone preserved against time. There were a few such homestead gems scattered in hidden places within the church, if you knew where to look.
This particular church had been known to Shin Boh Tahn since before he came to any kind of power. The livery was still the same, the stained glass as droll as the day he first laid eyes on it. With a kind of disdainful discernment, the man remembered days of sweeping between these pews and bowing his head when appropriate. Nowadays, it was he who decided propriety.
Unwilling to stand in pain any longer, nor delve deeper into the memories of his youth, Shin Boh Tahn held the homestead stone up to a beam of light that scorched through a window. The light refracted nicely, first a vibrant blue that lasted only a moment before a picture began to form. The pope dropped the gem, leaving it floating on the sunbeam before dusting himself off as best he could.
Seeing that looking proper was going to be a complete lost cause, he gave up on that and stepped into the now formed portal to the scene within the gem.
“Uncle? Scattered heavens, what happened to you?” His nephew had been dozing in one of the comfortable chairs within the war room of the palace but shot up out of the seat quickly and placed Shin Boh Tahn into it. It was nighttime in Danshing but a king rarely found their bed in times of war.
“I will tell you but first, please, something strong enough to numb this pain.” To his credit, Shin Ri Hon got straight to finding the sharpest alcohol he could, with no other questions asked. He spoke some words to servants outside the door before wandering over to a cabinet. This room had seen the fate of many countries decided within its walls, so a prodigious amount of spirits were available to calming the nerves afterwards. The pope of the church of the empty god gulped down a smoky, brown liquid without tasting it and reached for another.
After waiting patiently through three rounds, Shin Ri Hon cleared his throat. “So? Before I let the healers at you, what happened? This is hardly the shining return of a glorious victory, Uncle.”
“That much is true.” Shin Boh Tahn was now sipping the alcohol pensively, pressing the cold glass against a swollen lump on his head. He eyed the glimmering shield, his nephew’s soul relic, resting at the side of his chair. “The majaal bitch got in the way and ruined everything. The Spear was claimed by one of the Guan.”
“Yes. Was it Guan Yo Shen or Po Shang?”
“Neither, addle-brain. A child rose to the occasion and swept the glory away from under me?”
“A child? That’s ridiculous.” Ri Hon chuckled doubtfully, waiting for Boh Tahn to throw out a punchline. When he didn’t, concern redoubled itself on his face. “Well… what does that mean? What do we do now, Uncle?”
“That, my dear nephew, is what I’m trying to work out.”
“All in all, I’d say that things could hardly have gone better, wouldn’t you?”
“If agreeing with you will let us move on, then yes, things have gone exactly to plan.”
“You’re just saying that to shut me up.”
“I know. I just said that.”
Kumiho huffed, crossing her arms and legs upon the luxurious chair and turning her face away from Ryong Aang. The theatre of the movement was almost ridiculous enough for the dragon to chuckle but Ryong Aang was in no mood. They had been pushed far by Guan Fa Lian and were now desperately tired.
Not as tired as their hosts, who were both sleeping away the trauma of the last week or so. “Both of them deserve much praise.” Kumiho had called to Ryong Aang as the children slept, a rare occasion to converse given both of their hosts' penchant for avoiding rest. While Ryong Aang themself would have chosen to join Fa Lian in sleep, they recognised the need to ignore that impulse.
The dragon had been asleep for a long, long time. Now, it was so loud that Ryong Aang thought sleep might never come again. To avoid that awful eventuality, the dragon had let the fox speak. Though they were slowly starting to regret that after wondering whether she would ever stop talking.
“So next all we need to do is-”
“Please,” Ryong Aang interrupted, “I assure you I know what comes next.” They did not need to rehash each and every step. They would grow in power, stature and prestige. That was all that really mattered right now. “I am tired, fox. If there is nothing truly pressing, let me rest.”
Without saying another word, the fox wisely bowed her head. She then raised a hand to her mouth, kissed it and blew the kiss as Ryong Aang before disappearing. A pair of lips floated through the air towards the dragon who huffed out a blast of hot smoke to dissipate it.
Then Ryong Aang slept and left the scheming to the fox.
The weeks that followed Ah Dan’s ascension to relic wielder were confusing, chaotic and desperately tense at times. With his experience in statecraft, Shade was confident in his ability to parry the incoming missives to Allusia asking for information. Each day that they were given to prepare themselves was a blessing.
“So, what do we do next, Shade?” Calliope was technically sitting in the chair opposite from Shade but her legs were over the back of it and her own back was in the seat. She looked at him, upside-down, with an expression of expectant excitement. Calliope had essentially become his right hand in the last few months and that had mostly been thanks to the nonstop action surrounding him. She had been healed more fully by Ah Dan after the battle in the labyrinth, before the boy had fallen into a deep sleep from which he still had not awoken.
That wasn’t likely to end any time soon.
Shade pondered before he spoke. “Next… Well, the first response is already underway and that might mean it should be our first direction. My mother is throwing a tantrum, which is hard to ignore at the best of times but she is possibly the most powerful being on this planet, so a little more challenging.”
The effects of his mother’s dreamweaving were evident to anyone who knew what signs to look for. To others, the inability to wake the dreamer might seem like a strange disease but in truth it was more of a curse. Shade was spending a lot of energy simply visiting those poor souls in Allusia afflicted by the nightmares his mother threw around so casually. Shade’s own ability to control others allowed him to soothe the dream but not wake the dreamer.
“Though, nothing happens without Ah Dan and the guilt I feel over my mother is not his burden to bear. The Guan homelands are in danger, though Po Daiyu can’t tell us much more than that. I believe that church had something do with this and I have no way of knowing whether that situation has gotten better or worse since Shin Boh Tahn fled with his tail between his legs.”
The church and its followers had all but vanished as far as Shade could tell. Either they had all gathered in Danshing or the peoples were scattered to the winds. Whatever the case, the streets of Allusia were slowly filling with commerce and hospitality once more. Though safety could not be promised anywhere, it seemed that people were able to tell that Allusia was a bastion of protection in some way.
That would be Ah Dan’s influence. Shade could feel it as a thrum on the air even now. A soul relic is an immensely powerful thing to have nearby. Shade knew as much from his youth. Though while the towers of Halaas are bound by a constricting weight to the air, the wind in Allusia seemed to whistle a tune of joy. The speed at which happiness had flooded back to the streets of the city was a thing of true beauty.
Until he woke up, Shade could only thank Ah Dan by leading in his absence.
“Oww,” Dan groaned as he sat up in the bed he found himself in, “why can’t I heal myself?”
Before he was ready, Dan’s ears were blasted by a startled gasp which quickly turned into an excited yell. Fa Lian threw the door to the room open to call for others. The ringing in his ears had not subsided by the time the room was overfilled with happy faces.
As though rehearsed, they all started speaking at once. If it were rehearsed, the director was definitely deaf. “I can’t understand you if you all talk at once,” Dan told them, laughing as he fell back towards the pillows. The room was made of wood and smelled like home, Dan realised. There must have been a furnace nearby.
“How are you feeling?” The deep voice of Hyun Soon spoke first. Dan looked at his tall friend and gave him a big grin. He didn’t need to say much more than that. Yurie, Fa Lian and Xiaomei were also piled into the room but Hyun stood more than a head taller than all of them.
“What happened?” Xiaomei asked, her voice full of worry. She was the first to hug Dan, apparently still shaken from the events. “You went off and fought without us and you nearly died.”
“Hardly his fault though, is it?” Yurie looked at Dan with more serious, less scared, eyes than Xiaomei or Hyun Soon. Hers more closely matched Fa Lian’s. They saw further than what was just ahead of them. “Ended up saving us all, if Shade and Fa Lian are telling it right.”
Dan met her gaze and raised an eyebrow. Then he looked to Xiaomei’s teary eyes and hugged her back. “I’m sorry for worrying you. Everything got a little confusing there for a while. I wouldn’t wish that chaos on anyone but if I had to do it all again, I would much rather you were all there.”
“Yeah, maybe then he wouldn’t end up so broken.” Fa Lian reached up a slippered foot and poked Dan’s ribs, which made him cry out. Apparently this was very funny to everyone else, so Dan didn’t hold it against her. He couldn’t stay mad at any of them if he tried, especially not Fa Lian. Especially not when she smiled at him like she was now.
“Well that shouldn’t be much of a problem now, should it? Not when you’re swinging that thing around.” Hyun nodded to the other side of Dan’s bed. Dan turned and saw the referenced ‘thing’. The Spear. A soul relic. Something that was a part of him now. Something Dan had been a part of since before he was born.
“I have a feeling you’re wrong,” Dan said, reaching for the shaft of the Spear and using it to help himself stand. “If I had to guess? All it means is that I’ll end up getting even nastier things swung back at me.”
“That,” Fa Lian chuckled, “I agree with.”
“And we’ll be there to help you fight them off.” Xiaomei stood up and linked arms with Yurie and Fa Lian. Yurie seemed delighted and grabbed Hyun Soon while Fa Lian looked like she’d rather have her arm fall off. Dan looked at his four friends, linked by their limbs and his heart bounced happily in his chest. Dan moved forward and placed the Spear in the centre of their circle.
“Forward. Together.”
With an uncoordinated and unenthusiastic cheer, they all copied what Dan said with serious expressions. “Forward. Together.”
Then they all fell about laughing, not for one moment worrying about the destruction to come.
Or the death that it would bring with it.
End of Book Two