Dolios had seen a lot of weird things in his lifetime, but seeing a city turn itself inside out was something he never thought he would experience. He woke up in a small, well-kept room, still recovering from sailing to the island the previous night. He finally got a few hours to rest. He raised his hand to his eyes, trying to rub the exhaustion out of them. It didn’t really help, him being a non-corporeal being and all, but it helped him seem more like a normal human being. Getting ready to start the day, he walked over to the window and opened the curtains, his curious eyes peering outside at the quaint town.

While "stretching" himself awake, he said in a practiced, lilted voice

“Good morning, world! It’s time for another wonderful day!”

As sunbeams slid across the floor through the window, he pulled back a few feet, just to be safe. Shades like himself and sunlight weren't really on the best of terms. As he threw on a thin white cloak and a white mask that hid most of his body, he remembered that he had to restock supplies for the ship today. Wasting no time, he strode over to the door, opened it quietly, and started walking down the stairs that he remembered were at the end of the hallway. The wooden boards of the tavern creaked as other people walked past him but made no noise as he continued walking to the main bar, no doubt due to his almost nonexistent weight. Sighing, he finished gliding down the stairs and walked up to the bartender.

“Excuse me, friend, can I get some food for the day? It’s hard for me to taste much, so anything works.”

After paying a few coins and receiving a few bread rolls and pieces of cooked chevon to accompany it, he quickly asked about where to find the best supplies for sea travel, and he made his way outside. The sun was bright, birds were enjoying the warm sea breeze, and the sounds of a running village were refreshing. As much as he would like to sit and enjoy the peaceful scene, he needed to get back to his ship to take inventory and stock up on supplies. As he started walking down to the pier, he quickly scarfed down his breakfast, trying to keep out of the sun as much as possible. He got a few weird looks, dashing to different pieces of shade, but it was better than burning alive, so he had gotten used to those looks a long time ago. It only took him a few minutes to travel across the port town, and he noted various shops on his way to the pier. After arriving at his destination, he started walking towards his ship and couldn’t help but notice a beautifully decorated white galleon, one that hadn’t been in port last night and curiously had no crew working on upkeep; it wasn’t tied to the dock, but it was staying completely still. Pushing the curious ship out of his mind as property of a passing noble or another member of royalty, he ran to his ship.

Thinking back to the past, ever since he was young, he wanted to sail. He knew that it was dangerous. But he couldn't ignore the dream he had. Something about the seas called to him. He grew up in a place with no wonderous sea. Their bounty and misfortune never fell upon his people. The first time he saw their wonder, he was mesmerized. So he saved up for a boat of his own. He didn’t want a big ship; he just wanted a ship big enough for himself and maybe a family. He wanted to have stories to tell and a ship to prove it. He wanted to hunt monsters on all the seas and garner a reputation for himself. Luckily, a few decades ago, he found a broken ship for sale, and he was able to fix it up.

Shaking himself out of his reverie, he focused on the ship in front of him. The ship was rightfully named “Seila”. It was a strong ship, one that shared an adventurous spirit with its captain. Seila was a small ship, about 20 meters long, made of framed black wood with light blue trims. The sails were homemade, a magical canvas weave with light blue waves embossing the front. He was happy with his ship. It was a moderate size, but he loved it more than most things in this world. This ship made up his lifestyle now. He usually delivered cargo for clients that needed it, but sometimes he traveled with people too. He smiled fondly, remembering the friends he had made while sailing on the different seas. He inspected his ship a bit longer, looking for any signs of damage, before he walked belowdecks to check what supplies he needed to buy before he was able to take a new job. After a few hours, he walked out of the ship, done organizing his supplies, and ready to resupply the supplies he had spent sailing to this small island.

After walking through the pier again and past that obnoxiously large ship, he stopped abruptly when a certain feeling of wrongness overcame him. After stopping and staring around himself for a few seconds, he figured out what it was. His skin wasn’t burning. It was dark. It was too dark for a few passing clouds that were covering the sun, and there weren’t supposed to be any storms last time he checked. Why was it so dark? Dark clouds were spreading over the island, with a dark mist following them. Slowly starting to walk again, he noticed there weren't any people visible. The cheery atmosphere of the town had vanished. Still walking through the eerily silent town, he stopped for a second as something started feeling wrong to him once more. He had felt this particular feeling before. It was the feeling that he got whenever there was uncontrolled magic in the vicinity. That was never a good sign. He had to find a place to hide quickly. He turned as fast as he could and started sprinting towards his ship, hoping he could escape the disaster that would befall the island.

As his shadowed feet padded quickly and quietly on the ground, he suddenly felt a white-hot flash of magic, and a loud screech blasted through the town, causing every pane of glass to shake and the softer pottery and wood to split and shatter into unnatural pieces. As soon as the wave of immaterial danger reached him, he doubled over in pain, clutching his head and screaming to the suddenly visible stars in the sky as his form started vibrating like a liquid starting to boil.

But as soon as the pain began, it was gone.

Dolios sat on the ground, panting, unable to move. He always needed a minute to regain control over his ethereal form after a mental attack, especially a mental attack of that caliber. He felt another boiling surge of magic rush through the air, and letting out a pained screech that human vocal cords could never achieve, he bolted upright. Who was setting off so much powerful magic? It was dangerous! There were civilians here! He regretted pausing for his little break, no matter how necessary, because then the sky started to break. Rifts tore themselves in the sky, the stars falling into buildings near and far, and the sky was set alight as they impacted.

Then people started to scream.

The stars kept pouring out of the sky, setting the village on fire and outright annihilating other houses. Curiously, both the rifts and the falling stars would never appear around the manor on the hill. Maybe that was where this strange magic was centered. This was bad. Dolios couldn’t stop himself from shaking, his facsimile of skin almost vibrating to a feverish pitch.

"Please... It's too much." His magic senses were set off like a wildfire.

Whatever those rifts were, they would tear through this town like it didn’t even exist. The nebula of stars spread over the town, blocking out the sun and shining iridescent light over the city. Suddenly, the stars stopped falling, and everything fell silent. Everything was silent for a few moments, then the dark mist started to spin around the manor. Magic flared in his senses, and Dolios threw himself to the side. An iridescent beam of light, as thick as his finger, blazed above him for a few seconds before it disappeared. While he was trying to comprehend what just happened, another spike of magic lit up in his senses, and he leaped as high as he could in the air. Just in time to jump over a red beam, his eyes widened. It was a few inches wide, carving through air and buildings alike. Was that just leftover magic from the sea of stars above? No. Tracing the beam back to its source, he observed that it came from the manor.

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It's not a safe space, then.

A few more multicolored beams followed the red one, seemingly randomly. They vaporized anything they touched.

His senses were overloaded.

The fire seemed to be burning everything with an endless hunger, consuming all that it touched.

Buildings were collapsing,

Countless people were screaming, crying out for help that would never come.

A child's voice rang out over the din, their voice projecting their pain and panic.

It was all too much....

He couldn't do anything for them.

Catching him in his thoughts, another of the beams pierced through the air, carving through the ground near him.

Dolios panicked, knowing that it would be bad if any beams of light touched him, and tried to bend around them at all costs. Next to him, a house got blown to smithereens by a dark beam of light, and its pieces exploded over the street. Dolios was about to dive out of the range where the building would collapse so that he wouldn’t have to shadow-bend himself to get out of the rubble, but then his senses picked up a small noise.

His head quickly snapped around, locating a child. A child had walked into the middle of the street and, due to her tears, didn’t see the building coming down. Seeing the pieces fall down towards the small girl, the world slowed as his thoughts kicked into overdrive.

I'm already stressed enough just trying to take care of myself.

I can't help every person I see.

I'm only a shipwright.

I know nothing about saving people.

I'm worthless in stressful situations.

While his thoughts went to war in his head, the rubble fell ever closer to the child. And suddenly, his thoughts cleared. Even though thousands of thoughts clamored for his attention, one stood out against them all, drowning out all the others, despite being just a small thought.

I have to try.

I have to try.

What kind of monster would I be if I left this child to die?

Damn the consequences. If I can't save a child, I don't deserve the chance to save myself.

Dolios let out a small panicked shriek and dove towards the child, some twenty feet away, shadow-bending himself for more speed. His form shifted to that of a monster. A lithe beast with long, powerful legs, a thin body, and a fierce face full of fangs and dark eyes. A carapace made of shadow slid over its whole form. His lithe form started sliding across the ground, picking up speed at a tremendous rate, as he picked up the child and shielded her with his body, already realizing that trying to get out of the way at this time would just put the child at risk.

He reached out to his ability to shape himself, thinking of a risky idea that he had fantasized about for a long time. The problem was that he never had the strength to try. But he had to have the strength this time. He didn’t have a choice. His form exploded over the girl, creating a malleable covering. Stretching himself to the limit as he thought of being a shield for another soul, he felt something in his mind break as he refused failure. Something clicked, and he wrapped around the small girl, forming an intricate suit of armor. The building collapsed, but a small section of the rubble was deflected off the dark, cold, almost slippery shadow covering that Dolios had become. He shifted back into a humanoid shape, and even though his control was shaky, he smiled at the little girl. He had never tried hardening himself that much before, let alone becoming something as intricate as armor for someone.

The child held onto his arm, still sniffling, but looked up at him with a strange expression. Thankfully, she hadn’t seen him before he caught her. He had no clue what it meant, but he was glad that the child was alright. He patted the child on the head as a gesture of goodwill, then sped the child off to a house that looked more stable than the others. He soon sensed a place with an intact basement nearby, and he walked the child downstairs.

“Listen to me, kid; you need to stay down here. I promise you won’t get hurt; just stay down here until the noise stops, and make sure not to come out of here under any other circumstances. You will be safe down here.”.

Dolios tried to reassure the kid, but it took a few more minutes of coaxing to get the child to let go of his arm, and a few minutes after that to have the girl promise to stay put. As soon as she promised, he gave her one last smile, then dashed up the stairs into the fray. Into a scene of nightmares.

The lasers were starting to fizzle out, but the magic they left behind was being added to a nebula above the city, and it didn’t look like it was going away any time soon. But in the meantime, there were almost no longer-range spells being flung around, so Dolios ran around, pulling those who were alive out of the rubble of their houses and leading them to shelters and houses that had avoided damage for a few minutes. He felt another pulse of magic; this one felt almost... denser than the other ones. The other pulses felt compounded, like being buried in iron filings. This pulse felt like being hit by a cannonball. Regretting what he was going to see, he looked towards the manor, seeing a golden glow shining out of what was left of the house. The nebula above the town was filtering down in a spiral into the broken ceiling of the manor, fueling what seemed like the final spell of the astral magic wave. Whatever was in the manor, it was drawing in the light, the fire, and everything else in its reach. Dolios seethed through his teeth and hid behind the nearest piece of broken house, still keeping one of his eyes on the manor, unable to take his eyes off the terrible masterpiece.

The city fell quiet for a moment, then the city seemed to groan as gravity seemed to multiply. The world seemed to warp and twist towards the manor, everything being drawn in like the force bursting from the building hungered for the entire town. Dolios screamed, his shadowy vocal cords deforming as he held on for his life. In some small part of his mind, he was glad that he got so many people to relative safety. Then he focused solely on holding on. It wasn’t enough. Dolios whipped out from behind the building, flipping through the air at a dangerous speed. His form felt like it was trying to compress into itself. Falling quiet, Dolios fell quiet as his flight stabilized and he looked at the thing he was certain would be his demise. He was close enough to see into the manor. A small black orb was there, seemingly the epicenter for all the destruction. It looked so beautiful. Then the orb started to pulse. Slowly at first, then speeding up. Azure flashes started strobing through its frameworks. As Dolios was still being pulled towards it, he couldn’t help but admire it as a work of art. He felt himself dying the closer he got to the black orb. His form pressed inward, folding in on itself. Thankfully, his shade nature separated him from most physical pains. The orb started flashing painfully fast, and then the world went silent. The insane force slowed and stopped, its force relinquishing its hold on Dolios and pieces of the city caught in its range, suspending them in the air for one frightful second. Just as they began to fall, the world lit up in an explosion of light and sound.