“Woe to the Throne Breakers, those who dare impede our divine purpose! Our eye shall forever be upon you, your steps hounded until the end of all that is!”
-Last words of Anorias, The First Nephileed
Lupin O’Hara was quite proud of his new students. It had been a rather spur of the moment decision to induct them, but he was prone to those. It was a habit a long time in the making, more a natural consequence of who he was than anything else. Taking these three as students was proving to be one of the better decisions he’d made. It was very rare nowadays to find Sleepers who could awaken without help. The first journey to the Arcanum was dangerous. It was largely a product of the mind, a stepping stone for a Sleeping mind to comprehend what magic was and how it worked. But any rejection of what their mind was showing them would swiftly spiral into disaster. Most Sleepers that Lupin had encountered during their Awakening had been unable to reconcile the fact that everything about the world they knew was inherently false, with the equally important concept that it existed anyway.
It got much easier to accept once you had seen the Arcanum for the first time, but even more experienced magi got hung up on the semantics of it. These three were having no such problems so far. They would still need to be carefully watched. A failed Awakening had far graver consequences than simply death. The Arcanum was only a sliver away from the Farside, the pure chaos that reality truly was, and dark things had dwelt in those waters long before the Tapestry was ever formed.
So Lupin made himself busy while he kept a close watch on the trio. Dying had taken a sizeable toll on his ability to work the greater part of his magics. His control was returning but it would be awhile before he could safely perform any but the smallest magics. Lupin sighed as he thought back. The last thing he remembered before waking up in the swamp on this island was dying to Gorst, one of the dark things that dwelt on the Farside. He hadn’t been alone in the fight and worry for his companions, Pallas Ranskin, Feidra Tolsky and Mary Lu Hopkins nagged at him. But there was nothing he could do for them now beyond a bit of prayer, and he was terribly out of practice at that. What he could do now was try and make life better where he was, and he’d made a decent start of it in his own estimation.
A commotion rose up outside, starting as a whisper before growing to a riot. Five ships were rapidly approaching the island traveling up the current. Their bows scything through the water as if the current had no sway over them. They were bulky things made almost entirely of metal that left a trail of thick black smoke behind them. Mantis were running everywhere, shouting in a panicked fashion. Or at least what Lupin concluded was a panicked fashion, their mannerisms were still far too alien to him.
“Singer.” A stern voice came from behind as Lupin continued to peer at the approaching ships from the shoreline. “Battle comes quickly for us, I would recommend you flee before it finds you too.” This mantis stood almost a head taller than his peers and he bore a mark of rank, though whatever it stood for was lost of Lupin.
Lupin needed barely a moment to consider, he had never run in his entire life. It was true that this was mostly due to a mixture of pride and stupidity, but he was still proud and he had never claimed to be a smart man. “I will stand with you, my students are at the most important point of their training and cannot be moved. I’ve also never been one to repay kindness with naught but a farewell, and I’ve no intention to start now.” Though he feared he would not be of much use in his current state. His magic had always been wild even at the best of times, and if he lost control it would spell far worse than simple defeat for the inhabitants of Krassus.
“They will not find us an easy shell to crack Singer. You need not exert yourself on our behalf.” The Mantis said with easy confidence, “But I will not turn away help offered in good faith.” It would have been more honest of him to say ‘Help offered for free’ but the distinction was of little consequence to Lupin.
Lupin turned to look at the approaching ships. “They do not try to hide their approach. That speaks of either confidence or madness and I believe both should be feared in their own way.” The Mantis had given the impression so far of a man used to giving orders, and giving advice to men like that was always a risk. Their pride could too often turn good intentions into slights. This Mantis merely considered, measuring the ships rapid approach in his eyes before nodding.
“I am grateful for your help Singer, and wish you luck.” Then he turned and began shouting orders up and down the unfinished pier of the town. Lupin had no idea what effect his words had on the man, if any. This worried him, even an Archmage could lose against a farmer if they were blinded by their pride and this fight was far more even footed.
Their enemy did not tarry, their metal bulwarks crashing on the shore with a speed that was belied by their size. Men with the features of animals swarmed from their decks, their arms, legs or patches of skin replaced with that of unfamiliar beasts. The Mantis had not been idle at their approach, all but 9 had armed themselves with a pair of javelins, a short sword and a shield, embossed with a symbol of flames, that covered them from below their knees to above their mouths.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
The first men off the boats died under a hail of javelins, the ones following them met a similar fate. Their blood washed the harsh unforgiving rocks of Krassus’ shores and ran into the ocean foam just beyond staining it pink. But there were more behind them, seemingly undeterred by the deaths of those before them. Lupin could see the fear in their eyes, but it did not slow them. Odd for simple pirates.
The nine Mantis who stood apart from the others began to move in unison, whispering to something they held cupped in their hands. Threads of fleshy green ran around their fingers, spilling through the gaps like water. The threads poured across the rocky ground the billowed up forming green canvas walls that funneled the pirates straight into the gaping maw of the Krassus soldiers.
All signs were pointing to a one sided defensive slaughter despite the attacker’s number advantage. Luping felt uneasy. Even mad men did not rush with this much fervor to so obvious a death. The harsh snap of a rope being cut, followed by the gentle whoosh of something heavy traveling through the air was the only warning before rocks the size of men carved a dire parabola through the air towards the tightly grouped men below.
Looking upon the surprised, panic stricken stricken faces of the Mantis, Lupin felt his body begin to move before his mind could get a chance. He looked into the Arcanum, upon his once beautiful tower of shimmering sapphire, still standing and stretching far above what he could perceive but now riddled with cracks and holes. Lupin drew deep from the magic that his tower allowed him, bending to commands made familiar from over a century of practice. A sigh of relief accompanied the feeling of his magic taking proper hold.
Over Krassus a giant pale white bird took to the skies with a shriek.
It batted the rocks from the air with beak and talon before releasing a triumphant crow. Lupin was preening with delight, the familiar rush of magic filling him from beak to tail feathers. He turned to look upon the soldiers. The situation had not gone quite as he had hoped. The pirates had never ceased their charge even as the rocks arced over their heads, and the Mantis had panicked turning what should have been a solid defensive wall into a chaotic, bloody melee. He began to dive, intent on aiding them A feeling of dread made him pull up short.
He knew this feeling. He’d felt it on the day of his Awakening when he had been shown the First War. The conflict that had broken Acaris, the world at the center of the universe, and created the Rift that caused living creatures to be unable to feel magic from their birth. Lupin spoke their name and was lost, “Nephileed.” Lupin’s mind drowned in the dark waters of a rage that was as old as time itself.
The injuries to his tower were forgotten, his magic flowing freely with his will. The Nephileed sat in the crow’s nest of the center most ship. It was a true Nephileed, a member of the original race rather than a convert to their doctrine. If Lupin was still lucid this would have sent tingles of fear down his spine. Even if he was not injured, this would be a foe he had no guarantee of beating. The creature rose from its imitation of a sitting position. To those unversed in their true nature Nephileed could be mistaken for shapeshifters. The truth was that they simply looked different to each and every person who laid eyes on them, because their true shapes were impossible to comprehend. Part of their physical being existed inside the Arcanum, stretching into a dimension that should not exist and that any sane mind would refuse to comprehend.
It took flight in a twisted imitation of Lupin’s own form and the two met in a storm of beak and talon. From their first exchange it was clear that Lupin was outmatched. A pair of bloody furrows were gouged from his shoulder to his thigh deep enough to expose the bone underneath. His opponent flew uninjured beyond the merest trace of a scratch on its taloned foot. Lupin drew on his magic one again, his Tower trembling with the exertion. The feathers of the great white bird began to shake, then took flight. In the air they transformed into thousands of birds of prey and harried the Nephileed in a furious storm.
The Nephileed drove the winds in front of a great sweep of its wings. Space visibly twisted into a thousand scintillating lines of refracted light, tearing the birds apart in a shower of gore. Lupin slipped into the gap its defence created and rendered terrible wounds upon its form ripping viciously at the meat of its neck. The fiend threw Lupin of its form, and the flock of birds was once again upon even more numerous than before. It began to panic now, its fear a palpable scent the Lupin’s nose. As it ripped the birds apart their feathers fell upon the corpses on the beach and the bloody spray of the sea, and where they fell new birds rose formed from flesh, sea and earth all the same, with singular purpose.
The Nephileed howled and horrible cracks filled the sky around it. From them poured black sand that fell upon the birds surrounding it. The birds fell limp as soon as a single grain touched them, and shriveled instantly as if mummified. Lupin came from below this time, gripped the Nephileed’s foot in his beak and whipped it into the sea below. The sand fell upon Lupin’s back and great patches of his skin began to slough off causing him to howl in pain and fury. He tore into his enemy, pinned it in the ocean while pecking at its eyes, refusing to give it a single moment to recuperate. With another world shaking howl a thousand ephemeral hands formed around Lupin, lifting him from his prey as they began to throttle him.
Lupin reached for his magic, an act that was sure to spell disaster far beyond any this single Nephileed could create. But the last shred of Lupin’s sanity denied and bade himself to flee. Knowing that he could do no more. With a bitter taste in its mouth the beast that Lupin had become broke free of the hands that bound it and fled across the sea. The Nephileed gave chase, but the injuries its physical form had sustained were not light and it would not catch him easily.