"Help us, please! Stop killing us! We're not-"

-The Siege of Tears Last Wills Report, Page 13

"It's sorted. I've made a certain group of people... aware of what Ellis has done, so hopefully he'll be implicated by them, since the Guild sure ain't doing anything about it." Lucan said, sitting down with Avos, Iago and Cynthia in the Birch Estate's living room. "You're safe to go back to Midnight now, or at least, you should be if Cindy's okay with it."

"As long as you don't use any of your Arts above mortal tier, you should be good." Cynthia begrudgingly admitted, "But don't expect this to be the last of me! Expect a check-up sometime in the next couple weeks, and if I hear of even a rumour of you doing something, you're going straight back into my care! You hear me?!"

"...yes, Cynthia." Avos mumbled, avoiding her admonishing stare.

"Good." Cynthia grinned, leaning back into her chair, satisfied.

"Another thing, Avos." Iago interjected, his soft smile turning into a frown. "It may be better for Lucan to say this, but... we may need you to deliver a message to Gulliver and maybe Daniel too."

"Sure, what is it?" Avos straightened up, looking attentively at the father-son pair.

"You've been locked up in here for quite a while, so you wouldn't have heard about an incident that happened with the porcelains a couple weeks ago." Lucan began to say, with a surprisingly guilty look on his face.

"An incident...?"

"You know the expeditions that all base-year porcelains go on, right? Well, a group of students from my class... were attacked."

"What?"

"A group of redcaps found them."

"That makes no sense, though? How? Did they not stay inside the protection radius?"

"You could argue that they went past the radius, but it wasn't by much, well within viewing distance from the edge of the true radius."

"Why are you telling me... this... It was Connor's group, wasn't it?" Avos realised, paling.

"Connor was the only one uninjured, but the rest of the group weren't as lucky. One of the group members got disembowelled, and the other got stabbed in the stomach."

"Gods above..." Avos muttered, before looking at the others. "And you've all heard of this too?"

"Yes, though I never heard that it was Connor's group." Cynthia admitted, with Iago also nodding grimly.

"The frustrating thing about this was that the Guild's pushing for a punishment. They're going to be forcibly enrolled in the extra-year course as well as be suspended from the Academy for a few more weeks."

"None of them are getting compensation?!" Avos exclaimed, Cynthia and Iago also looking just as shocked.

"The Guild is arguing that since they went past the radius, even if it was by a minute distance, then they violated the rules and didn't deserve protection. Even bloody Victor's pushing for the punishment." Lucan grumbled.

"Victor? What do you mean? Victor surely wouldn't do that!" Cynthia said, exasperated, "I taught the kid for Elase's sake, and he's the sweetest child I had ever taught while I was at the Academy! He must've understood."

"Since I... took Sun from his class, he's been different. Guilty, ashamed, frustrated, all that. I believe that Ellis got his claws in him after the incident, with him now being easy prey for him. And now he's turned him against us."

"Fuck, that's rough." Avos said, rubbing his eyes.

"Basically, I want you to tell Gulliver about this, and also say to Daniel that a girl called Nynae was involved too but came out relatively unharmed."

"Wait, that name sounds familiar... wasn't she Daniel's old friend? I remember you mentioning her one time?"

"Yeah, that's her. I want to talk to you about her, Igo."

"Me?" Iago said, surprised.

"We found out from Connor that she killed one of the redcaps, rather brutally if I may add. We didn't find out how in the end, but the rest of the group of redcaps were also found dead, their heads all exploded. When we mentioned this to Connor, he said he didn't remember as he was unconscious at the time. And Nynae has an art that allows her to knock people unconscious. The Guild suspects that Nynae is much more powerful than the Academy and I initially suspected. Powerful enough to explain why the Guildmaster, even in his current state, took notice of her and allowed her in without a test."

"That's great and all but... me?"

"I know from personal experience, father, that you know how to train someone with certain violent tendencies. I don't expect you to follow through with it, but you could at least take a look?" Lucan explained.

"...fine. Don't think this means I'm going to train her though." Iago reluctantly agreed.

"Thanks."

"You realise that Gulliver's going to kill me right, Lucan?" Avos complained, interrupting the moment.

"No idea what you're talking about." Lucan smirked, failing horribly to hide his amusement.

"Cynthia, Igo, please! You know what he's going to do once he finds out about what happened! And he's going to be even more mad once he finds out how long he hasn't been told for!"

"I don't know Avos, sounds like karma for the shit you pulled during that match." Cynthia smiled, Iago nodding along with a resigned look on his face.

"I'm dead..."

* * *

"What the fuck happened here?"

For the first time in what felt like years, Avos didn't know what to do. In front of him was a bloodied and unconscious Gulliver, and, to his side, an injured and unconscious Daniel. When he had gone to Midnight, Avos had found Daniel stumbling out of the great forest of Gearmön, battered, dirty and, now, unconscious. Then, when he rushed towards the Avitson Fishing Shack for help, he found the family caring for a severely hurt Gulliver. Gulliver, a highly ranked platinum.

"I found another body next to his, though he was long dead by the time we found him." Havie revealed, pointing him over to the storage room at the back of the shop.

Inside was a black-bandaged corpse, covered by a white length of cloth. Avos looked around for clues on the corpse, and found a neatly wrapped scroll in one of the openings of the bandages. A scroll that explained what this corpse, 'Lis', was instructed to do by The Inquisitor: to spy on the platinums and look for signs of Daniel. Signs which Avos assumed he found. Avos could only hope that Gulliver killed the assailant before they reported back. If not, then Daniel was doomed.

"Avos, he's waking up!" Havie shouted, spurring Avos to run at full supernatural speed towards the room where the two injured were; and found Gulliver getting up first.

"...hello, Avo." Gulliver grunted, as he tried and failed to sit up from where he laid on a makeshift bed.

"Fuck you too." Avos grinned, putting the fact he called him 'Avo' aside for now. "What happened? And no dodging anything."

"Fine, just don't interrupt me."

"Have I ever?" In response, Gulliver could only give Avos a tired stare, too injured to put up with his jokes. "Okay, okay, I'll listen."

"It all started when I wanted to confirm our suspicion. I prepared to form a soul link but... ...and now I'm just as confused as you are as to why he's next to me."

"Are you done?" Avos said, keeping the excitement from his voice.

"Ye-"

"Holy shit! Daniel has a live AND exposed Node?! And we thought it was just a failed link!" Avos exploded, gesturing wildly at the air. "This changes everything. We can actually train him now. Not baby silver training, but proper training for a platinum-to-be. Lucan's going to kill me for- Shit."

"What?" Gulliver asked, succeeding in sitting up and causing Enia to frown slightly from where she was keeping watch over Daniel.

"Gulliver, you promise not to be mad at me for what I'm about to say, okay?"

"What did you do this time?" Gulliver droned, rolling his eyes.

"Well... There's kind of been this thing that happened back at the Academy and it may have been bad and... it may have kind of involved.... Connor."

"What." Gulliver jumped up immediately, a wince crossing his face before disappearing into worry. Enia almost went to stop him and urge him to recover, but Havie stopped her, knowing there would be no point.

"Connor's base-year expedition, with his friends, they encountered something. You know the lot, Nynae, Sid, the twins? Redcaps attacked-" Avos recoiled as Gulliver started to move, expecting an unfavourable response, to say the least. Instead, the platinum barged past him and began to look for his things, packing them up.

"I'll be leaving for Alandriel, Avos, thank you for telling me about this. I predict you were only the messenger for this, so I'll hold off my anger for... Lucan, I presume." Gulliver called back to Avos who was still standing there next to Daniel stunned that he wasn't hit. His eyes drifted over to where the boy lay, widening slightly before his face broke out into a smile. "Give Daniel my congratulations, too."

"Congratulations?"

"Just open your spiritual sight, and you'll see. Have a good day Eni-"

"Don't you dare do anything strenuous you hear me? I didn't do all that for you just to get hurt again." Enia grunted, refusing to meet Gulliver's eyes. Havie also imitated his wife, though with a bit of a smirk and a lot less conviction in his stern look.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Will do, Eni. Have a good day you three, I'm off to find my son." Gulliver departed from the shop, and Avos spotted him through a window doing his best impression of a run as he went to his rented inn room in the middle of the town.

Avos took his friend's advice and looked further into Daniel, beyond the realm of the physical, and noticed something odd. Different from when he had looked at the boy last, there was obviously the thrumming beat of the soul energy around him, the signs of soul energy circulating around inside of a soul room, yet there was also a strange quality to it. The platinum had never sensed an artless with a soul room before so when something was distinctly missing from the aura of Daniel's soul, it sent Avos for a loop. Then, however, that very same missing quality appeared for a very brief moment, before fading once more. It was a small, almost imperceptible stream of soul energy steadily exiting Daniel, before dissipating into nothingness; the sign that it was going deeper into Daniel's spiritual space, deeper than Avos had access to at such a surface level of vision. It was a link. A shoddily made link, but a link nonetheless. He did it. He really did it. All on his own too.

"Could we make something nice for when he wakes up?" Avos grinned, satisfied that his and Gulliver's work had paid off somewhat. Well, mostly Gull's with how long I was gone for. That's going to change at least.

"Sure, guessing something to do with what he said?" Havie said, nodding to the door where Gulliver had exited.

"Yeah... from what I can see, Daniel deserves it."

* * *

"So... you have a Node link now." Avos commented, sipping on a glass of wine. Enia had brought out a bottle for the occasion and all but the boy and Anya had a drink. At least the meal was good so Avos didn't have to drink on an empty belly.

"You can tell?" Daniel bolted up from where the pair sat on the outside steps to the fishing shack, interrupting their silent stargazing.

"I indeed can tell. Gull also wanted to say his congratulations, but he had to leave."

"I don't... I don't know how I really did it in the end. I just... followed my-"

"Followed your instincts?" Avos interrupted, continuing only when Daniel gave him a nod. "I'm guessing Gulliver hasn't mentioned it, as the specifics are too advanced for the level of soul mechanics he was putting you through. You see, these 'instincts' you follow when you create soul structures have a source. It is debatable how much of it does come from your parents, but your skill in soul manipulation are directly inherited from your mother and father's skills. Talent has no effect on one's ability in the spiritual realm, only the pathways and knowledge inherently passed down by your ancestors. It's a big reason why the disparity between noble and beggar has grown so large since the gods' deaths, when you would think that everyone no matter the class would band together against the betrayers.

"Nodes didn't used to be these ephemeral objects that people simply had or didn't have. Recently after a Node's respective god died, these Nodes would be solid, real objects, so powerful that they bled into the physical realm. And, just as any rare, material thing was, it was auctioned and traded. Entire bands of people were dedicated to going out to the spiritual corpses of dead gods and harvesting their fragmented souls. Since these Nodes went for exorbitant amounts of money, only the nobles got them. The nobles fooled around with their Nodes for a couple decades, getting pretty much nowhere, probably not even being able to form a proper link with their Node, and then have children. Noble children around the entire world found themselves able to do a lot more than their parents, following some strange instinct that instructed them. Nobles, as they always did, thought it was the fact that since they were blessed by the gods, that they had a divine-given talent in manipulating the Nodes. Once Nodes' physical forms went away, no longer able to support themselves, they began to be inherited as they do now; spiritually and purely at random. Nodes eventually found themselves in the hands of serfs and they struggled the same way the nobles did. Then they had children, and they too found themselves with this instinct.

"The noble families' pretty little stories about divine rites broke down and soon no one cared if you were a god-chosen noble or not, as long as you had a powerful Node and knew how to use it. The previous temporary-theocracy was destroyed, as did the monarchy before it when the gods died and anarchy broke loose, and the newly created Guild, previously merely a mercenary split-off of the military, rose to power with its spiritual might. Alandriel as its microcosm, the world began to worship power instead of divine grace. When the paladin's powers died with their gods decades before the nobles took over, the whole idea of divine power was on thin ice and then the rise of the Guild came and drowned it. The new nobles were those who held not divine power, but spiritual, though even that eventually broke down into the travesty that the current nobility are. Those at the bottom of the food chain are without any inheritance, without any skill. Forever trapped to go nowhere with a Node if they ever had one.

"What I'm basically trying to say is that you better not let your Node get to your head. You inherited some great power from your dad and you shouldn't be ashamed to use it. Just... don't become what the old nobles did, and definitely not like what the nobles are now, though I doubt that's not even a question in your mind." Avos chuckled, though maybe a bit too grimly with how Daniel flinched when he laughed. Time to get onto a hopefully lighter topic. "We'll restart your training in a few days. You'll continue doing the theory with Gulliver when he comes back, but it's time to get your body into shape."

"What? I mean, don't Arts-" Daniel said, glad to be away from the topics of nobles, keeping all thoughts about that time out of mind.

"-do all the work for you?" Avos smirked, ignoring Daniel's attempts to take his statement back. "You're not wrong that they do most of the work for you. However, at the end of the day, it's your body that's doing the work for your Arts. If your body ain't up to scratch some of your Arts will literally rip you apart. After we do that we'll probably try and put you through an expedition... Shit."

"Sir?"

"Don't call me sir please." Avos cringed as he realised he hadn't told Daniel of the incident yet. He knew what Iago had said, but it hadn't really clicked until now that he should've told Daniel sooner. Much sooner. "So... There was an incident at the Academy."

"Wha- Is Nyn okay?" Daniel exclaimed, connecting the dots that Avos wouldn't mention it to him if it didn't involve someone he knew.

"She's... fine. She and some of her friends got ambushed by a band of redcaps during their expedition to the Voidlands."

"She's fine though, right?"

"Yes, as I said. From what I heard she was barely harmed and her teammates were the ones who didn't get off so lucky." Avos sighed in relief, glad the boy didn't make a scene.

"That's... good"

The two fell into an awkward silence for a while, neither quite sure of what to do, until Avos decided that it was getting a bit much.

"Well now, I'm getting tired now so I'm going to go in, up to you if you want to follow. See you in the morning Daniel."

Avos headed back into the fishing shack, leaving Daniel on the shack steps. He didn't notice the conflicted look on Daniel's face as he went to help Enia and Havie clean up.

It had been a long day for Daniel. He had escaped from the great forest, collapsed, and woken up to a nice party run by the Avitsons and Avos too, apparently. Gulliver had left while he was unconscious and Avos had just shown up. Then it turned out that Gulliver was also injured in some sort of fight everyone refuses to talk about. After the meal, Avos found out about him not being artless then he found out about what happened to Nyn.

What do I do now? Daniel wondered, resuming his stargazing, trying to spot as many constellations in the clear night as he could. Nyn's supposedly alright, and... I don't think she'd appreciate me showing up just to check on her. I need to let her go and be my own person for a while. Not haunted by my past, even if that means cutting off the good parts too. I'll be back for her though. Eventually. He let out a deep sigh as he stood out and wandered out into the front of the shack.

I'm not artless. Daniel thought, subtly smiling, I have a Node now. A Node. A. Node. Holy shit I have a Node. I have a fucking Node! Daniel's elation leaked out of his thoughts as he began to laugh wildly, willingly unable to wipe whatever weird look he had on his face. Too wrapped up in his happiness, Daniel didn't notice his soul's membrane grow slightly out of control, sending barely a mote of soul energy into his link. A mote that grew and grew, powered and enhanced by the will imbued in the link. A mote that collided directly into his Node, activating the entirety of it, all at once.

"I have a Node!" Daniel shouted to the sky without care for the town around him, throwing up his arms in a cheer. At least it was without care until a small tingling in his hand drew his attention. A small tingling that transformed into a spark of yellow lightning, erupting from his fingers, before crawling to the ground in a rush, using Daniel's body as transport.

"Fuck!" Daniel exclaimed, bringing his arms down and clutching his electrocuted hand to his chest. On the tips of his fingers were slight burn marks, coloured with a dull grey-brown.

I activated an Art?! How? Unless... that wasn't an Art. Unless it was a Node Control. You aren't supposed to be able to use that until you've unlocked all of your Arts though?! You need to break parts of the Node membrane away until you can fully insert your will into the Node! You can't use it with the membrane... intact...

My Node is exposed. It... it has no membrane. Just a soul room. A soul room I linked with directly. Is that why Avos gave me that talk? Because he knew I was going to be able to use it all immediately? By Elase, I...

I need to get stronger, don't I? And this is my path to that strength. I have the training of two highly ranked platinums and the inheritance of one of the greatest Gold ranked Guild members in recent history. With all of that... I could go back.

Lucan didn't pretend not to notice Sun's terrible gaze as he held the morning training session for the Class 1s. It was expected by now that Ellis would've figured out that Lanyon is Lucan, especially after going over the scan information for long enough. He took pleasure though in the fact that Sun was bound to a wheelchair, forced to watch from the side lines as his fellow porcelains did what he was now barred from for possibly his entire life. Lucan knew that Sun had no choice in the matter really, manipulated from birth by Ellis and turned into a horrible copy of him. He still had a choice though, even if it wasn't much of one. A choice to go to the Guild. A choice to lie and tell Ellis that Daniel didn't have the signs of the connection he was looking for. A choice to help Daniel escape; one that was open to him for weeks straight.

Shaking his head, Lucan looked to the sky, filled with clouds unlike the clear night before. I wonder how Daniel is doing?

I could get my friend back.

Nynae fought back a scream as agony itself coursed through her veins. Whatever Kil had given her, it hurt. It would supposedly help 'temper' her body in preparation for training with the soul. The soul mechanics is hard enough to understand, but coupled with the incessant mind-rending training Kil put on, it was almost too much to bear. And the basic things Kil demanded in return were ridiculous. Simple, childish questions like what happened to the gods, or why the Voidlands exist, or even why it's taken us a millennium to only fight back this much against the redcaps. Explaining the idea of the century cycles to Kil was only barely better than the training he inflicted on her. Only barely.

Nynae hadn't pondered too much on what overcame her when she killed that redcap. She had mentioned it to Kil, but he waved it off, saying he'd explain it later. It was odd. And disturbing. Nynae hadn't felt much of anything when she brutalised that redcap, no guilt, no shame, nor revulsion. Even now, she felt nothing. If he could see me now... what would Daniel think of what I've become?

I could... Daniel's thoughts came to a halt, as the true reality of his new Node hit him. With a small smile on his face, he began to make his way back to the fishing shack. The small smile grew into a grin as Daniel failed to contain his excitement. I can become a Guild member.

10 Months Later

It was time to accept the new set of Academy recruits, so the Guild was bustling with porcelains rushing around looking for the Academy entrance. Helpful tellers and Guild members alike guided them to their destination, though some porcelains had their parents or friends as guides. A young boy stood directly in front of the Guild entrance, carrying a briefcase packed with everything they could fit in it, the case bursting at the seams. However, the boy seemingly heeded no mind to the briefcase, holding it as if it held no weight. A curious Guild member who was taking part in helping the porcelains along couldn't help but notice the boy though. The Guild member looked the boy up and down as he approached to offer assistance. The boy wore a light grey coat over a set of fine clothes, perfectly tailored to fit him. A scar on the boy's neck was barely covered by his collar so was easily seen by the much taller Guild member. His light brown hair started darker at the roots, but began to whiten at the tips until they reached a cedar-like colour. Strapped to his back was a long, slightly curved scabbard holding, from the looks of it, a well-made blade.

"Hello, welcome to the Guild! I'm guessing you're a porcelain. Do you need any directions to the Academy?" The Guild member asked in a rehearsed tone, catching the boy's attention. He gave a polite smile before slowly responding.

"Thanks for the offer but I already know the way."

Without waiting for the Guild member's response, the boy walked away, leaving them confused for a moment, before they quickly moved on to helping the next porcelain. Marching through the familiar cathedral of the Guild, the boy reminisced fondly about the time they were led by their uncle to the Academy only a month and a bit shy of a year before. Smiling widely as they reached the Academy entrance, off to the side from an exit to the Guild's main hall, the boy stopped for a moment, taking in the entrance once more.

As he stepped into the Academy for the first time in almost twelve months, Daniel softly spoke a few words to himself, almost too quiet to hear.

"It's good to be back."