“Weren’t you just here?” The Ith swirls around Adelie, leaving a shimmering contrail in its path.

Adelie looks at the familiar landscape and groans. “Why do you keep bringing me here? I was sleeping.”

“That is incorrect. You brought yourself here through your spiritcrafting once more. I can only enter your world through Atherspaces.”

“Well, just send me back then,” Adelie says as he reflexively points behind the ith. His vision shifts to his finger and he bends it a few times before bringing it to his face for further inspection. “Wait a minute, I can move now?” He tries moving the rest of his body but remains stationary.

“To respond to your first statement, I cannot send you back as your spirit is still recovering. As for your second, it appears you’ve made more progress as an Auger.” The Ith pauses mid flight and hovers in front of Adelie. “Curious, I did not have any more information on Augers yet I also know that you’ve made progress.”

“Congratulations on remembering,” Adelie says, “ but why would my spirit be recovering? I didn’t use any…” his mind travels back to the ambush and the space next to warps. An image of Marn, Zav, and himself appears. “What’s this?”

“It appears to be you and your compatriots fighting a group.”

“Obviously, I mean why is it coming up now?”

“Because that was the moment you spiritcrafted.” The ith moves to the screen and points to Adelie’s group. “ You used your spiritcraft to augment the senses of your party. I’m confident that without your aid, your group would have suffered more casualties.”

“You never told me I could do that. All you said was I can use spiritcrafting to augment myself through ather, which you also didn’t explain well. Now you’re saying I can affect others too?”

The ith regards Adelie for a moment, “it appears that you’re done recovering. Goodbye.”

Before Adelie can protest, the world around him vanishes and he falls into a void. “What the hell? This isn’t what happened last time.” All around him is a swirling mass of darkness, permeating with the sensation of regret. He plummets towards the mass, unable to break free of the sudden gravity. He falls through it and lands on a river of drifting stars. Below him is an endless chasm. “Where am I?” The river splits into two paths in front of him; one headed towards an image of a child version of Marn, the other towards a village he’s never seen before. The space behind Marn looks wrong to him. He can’t place why, but something in him feels that it isn’t real. The young image of Marn has her crying in front of bloody bodies, but the image flickers for half a second and the image of a featureless woman appears, whispering something.

“Hey, Ith! You there?” His words echo around him before falling into silence. “Ok, even the Ith isn’t here, then maybe I’m not in an atherspace, but a dream?” That made sense to him; he’s known Marn for a while so imagining a kid version of her wouldn’t be hard, and that village could just be a place he visited when he was with White Tempest.

Adelie looks over the side of the floating river, looks back to the images, and prepares to jump off. Another wave of guilt slams into Adelie, bringing him down to his knees. His entire spiritual body sings with pain and the image of the village starts to consume the river. It swallows the image of Marn and bears down on Adelie. He fights to move but can’t even lift his finger. The image touches his head and the pain causes him to black out.

Adelie’s eyes open and a hooded woman walks in front of him. She pulls down the hood and undoes her bun, causing her hair to flop down like a waterfall.

“I hate wearing these things,” Julun says, “ I always have to put my hair up. Should I just cut the damn thing?”

Her eyes fix onto Adelie. He says “who are you?” but those aren’t the words that leave his mouth.

“Let’s just see why they’ve called us here.” That voice, that was Izia’s! Did he somehow enter her body? No, this was just a very weird dream. Adelie tries to close his eyes but nothing happens.

“Oh right, because you have important work to get to right? Tell me, how many Forges have you found again?”

“If they were easy to find,” Izia says, “ then they wouldn’t be called The Lost Forges now would they?”

Julun and Izia walk down a path unfamiliar to Adelie. Even accounting for the night, the entire landscape was foreign to him. He could hear the distant voices of people, but the language was indecipherable to him. They pass by a crudely placed sign in the middle of a dirt road.

“Zet Village?” Izia says, “ what could possibly be worthwhile out here? I swear if this is another reputation thing…”

“Take a breather Izia. You know guilds like us gotta maintain our rep, otherwise the others will take it as weakness and walk all over us. Besides, I doubt he’d call his officers for something like that.”

Officers? So Izia was a high-ranking member of Nights End?

“ It’ll be easy,” Julun says. “ Who knows? Maybe they’ll be an old book for you to read.” Izia pushes her on the shoulder and Julun feigns an injury. “Damn girl, you swear you’re not a Gladius? I think you might have popped something.”

Izia leans into Julun’s ear, bringing her voice to a whisper. “Don’t worry, I can always make you feel better.”

“I’ll take you up on that after this meeting,” Julun whispers back. Izia groans and softly pushes her away. “I don’t want to be here any more than you do.”

“Then use an illusive craft and just make it look like we showed up,” Izia says. “It’s not like we ever get to do anything anyways. They always finish by the time we arrive.”

Julun regards Izia for a moment, “say Iz, what would you do if you really found a Forge?” The two of them make their way to the village entrance, marked by another crudely put together sign. “Would you use its power to get what you want?”

“What? No. I don’t know? Everyone thinks there’s some kind of power in there,and that might be true, but I just want the knowledge.”

“How boring,” Julun says, “ if I found one, I’d learn the secrets of athercraft.”

“Aza guide us if you ever get that kind of power.” This time Julun hits Izia’s shoulder. They continue walking through the town, ignoring the crowds of people staring at them in awe, and engaging in more playful banter. In the distance is a man guarding a red door and the sensation of guilt that brought Adelie here began pulling at him once more. There’s something behind that door. It didn’t make sense, how could this version of Izia be having these feelings? This was a dream right?

“We drown our weakness in the neverending night,” the man says to Izia and Julun. Apparently they had closed the distance in an instant. Julun and Izia reply in unison.

“Leaving only strength to keep us afloat.”

A bitterness rises through Adelie’s body as Izia finishes the call and response. So just saying the oath makes her this upset.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Julun places her hands on her hips.“You gonna make us say the whole thing? Or are you gonna step aside?” The man opens the door and the two walk inside the modest house. It has four chairs, made from the same oak as the door, and a firepit in the middle. At a glance it was obvious that stalls lived here; not a hint of engravings on the stone doors or floors, just four chairs and a roaring fire pit.

Hodin’s chair creaks as he flops about in his seat. “Julun, you’re finally here...and you’ve brought your little project with you too, how nice.”

“Watch yourself, Hodin, she’s already able to summon her grimoire,” Mogun says.

That guy’s huge! He’s like a boulder with tree trunks for arms and legs. The robe does nothing to obscure his body, but judging by the human size hammer laying next to his feet, obfuscation was never his goal.

“Like I’m afraid of a book,” Hodin says.

“You must be,” Izia replies, “seeing as I’ve never seen you with one. Tell me, how did you get here? Did Mogun guide you by your hand?” Izia makes it a point to walk past the fire pit and sit in the chair directly in front of Hodin. He mouths something to himself and gives her a rude gesture, which Izia promptly responds in kind.

“As much fun as this is,” Julun says as she sits next to Mogun, “ I don’t think we were called together for this. Where’s Lavius?”

Mogun stretches his arms straight up and nearly grazes the ceiling with his fingertips. “He said he’d arrive when the four of us assembled.”

“He’s been getting my cryptic lately,” Hodin says, still exchanging gestures with Izia. “Last time it was ‘on the Eve of the fall, join at the crossroads’ and it took me a month to figure out what that meant.”

“Well that’s not surprising,” Julun says, “ if it's not swordsmanship, your brain processes information like a baby hylin.”

Mogun stands from his seat and picks up his hammer with one hand. He looks at the door and strides over wordlessly. Izia and the others glance at each other before following suit. Mogun gestures for them to stay back and closes his eyes. “I sense a large gathering of people approaching...an army...about 50 or 60 strong.”

“So is that why we’re here? To put down an army?” Julun says.

“No. We are here today to rectify a mistake.”

Guilt rushes throughout Izia, blasting Adelie with a blinding force too intense to be called pain. He tries to push through it all, using his own anger to tether him to the moment, not allowing for his consciousness to slip away. That voice belongs to a man that he’d see dead by his own hands.

The officers turn back to see Lavius rising from the fire pit. Adelie hadn’t seen Lavius since the Naka Hunt, but he immediately knows something is wrong. The flames dance harmlessly around his body, unable to even singe his clothes. That would have been strange enough, but he didn’t look the same at all. His skin is unnaturally white and his hair is as blue as the Eversea itself. He walks past Mogun and the door flies open.

“You’re looking well, Master Lavius,” Mogun says after dropping to one knee. The rest of the officers, including Izia, do the same. “Have you made a full recovery?”

Lavius grimaces as he touches his chest, tracing the scar beneath his robe. “Do you know what this place is?”

“I know it has significance to you.”

“3 years ago, I allowed myself to make a mistake; to show weakness. I nearly paid for that with my life,” Lavius says with his back to his officers. “ A man by the name of Ayi Malu is from this village and he saw my mistake.” Lavius walks out of the house with his officers in tow. They’re met by a ragtag group of soldiers, headed by a man in his mid-30s. “Ayi Malu, I see you got my message.”

“What are you doing in my village?” Ayi growls, “I saw Lyzian strike you down.”

“He struck down a lesser being, something I am not.”

Izia and the rest line up next to Lavius. The light of the moon bounces off the shoddily put together armor and weapons of the so-called army they were about to face.

These men aren’t a threat, so why is Izia slamming me with all this guilt right now?

“So you’ve come here for what?” Ayi says, “to make amends for what you did?”

“I make no amends,” Lavius replies, “if not for that day, I’d not have the power I now possess. No, I’ve come here to burn all remnants of my past weakness.” Lavius’s green eyes fill with murderous intent.

“Aza spared your life once and you’ve come here to throw it away? So be it.” Ayi summons a curved blade into his hands and points it at Lavius. The men behind him draw their weapons and charge forward.

“Mogun,” Lavius says calmly, “leave him but kill everyone else.”

Mogun steps forward and the army halts their advance. For his remarkable size, Mogun’s footsteps make no sounds; in fact, the only sound being made was that of a steel dragging across the dirt. He gets some feet between Lavius and the army before hefting his hammer into a space in front of him. Mogun disrobes, revealing a body covered in scars with a massive symbol on his back. It has the appearance of a small ,almost otherworldly blue man, fighting a pillar of nightmarish creatures that stretches down into an abyss and up into the cosmos. “Master Lavius, this will be my last battle until they arrive.”

Ayi darts towards Mogun, his blade slicing through the air towards his neck. Mogun puts his hand in its path and blade breaks across his palm. A hushed silence falls over the army as the tip of the blade embeds itself into the door of the house. “I commend you for being able to overcome your fear, however, your life is not for me to end today.” Mogun walks by the stunned Ayi and towards his equally stunned soldiers. “I bear you all no ill, but I was given an assignment.”

A deluge of guilt hits Adelie, but he has no questions as to why. To call what Mogun was doing a slaughter would be far too kind. Mogun breaks through the line of soldiers with the greatest of ease, smashing 5 of them with each swing of his hammer. Izia closes her eyes, but Adelie can still see the carnage, the absolute decimation being done at the hands of Mogun...and at the will of Lavius. Mogun and Lavius, I’ll be sure to get payback for these men too. The sound of crushing metal followed by the screams of men echoed through the night.

Mogun, covered in the blood and viscera of the fallen, places his hammer over his shoulder and sighs. “It is done. May the spirits of these men curse my name, and may I be condemned to my owed suffering.” He takes his place behind the group and sits directly in front of the house with his eyes closed.

“You’ve lost your men, Ayi,” Lavius says as he stalks towards the petrified man. “Fear not, you’re about to contribute to something far greater than yourself. Lavius grabs him by the face and lifts him off the ground, his black nails digging into Ayi’s skin. Ayi looks into Lavius’s eyes and suddenly falls to the ground with a loud thud. Lavius begins to groan in ecstasy before throwing his head back and tensing his body. Something surges throughout his body, something unnatural. His skin shifts to a more human tone of white and his hair goes a shade darker. “Izia, burn the village down.”

A mountain of guilt crushes Adelie so thoroughly that his spiritual body lies prone on the ground after being forcefully ejected from Izia’s body.

“Master Lavius?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” Lavius says. He turns to her and she sees the changes to his face; something inhuman and powerful flickers in his eyes.

“It’s ok,” Julun whispers to Izia, “ the houses are empty, look.” Izia does as Julun says. There are similar looking buildings all around, but not one of them has any indication of currently being occupied. “If I heard a bunch of people talking and screaming, I think I’d take off too.”

Izia looks closely at Julun, “why are you sweating so much? Mogun was the one who did all of the fighting.”

“I’m just tired. Izia, please, just do as he says.”

Adelie uses the remainder of his strength to prop his head up. The pressure from the guilt increases.

Lavius begins walking to Izia, “it appears there is more weakness to be culled tonight.”

Julun grabs Izia by the top of head, pulls her in close and whispers “I’m sorry.” A moment later, Izia turns to the house and summons her black grimoire. She speaks in a language Adelie’s never heard of, but if she’s using her grimoire that means its a highcraft; a full incantation power by both the user’s store ather and current ather. When Izia finishes speaking, black flames erupt from everywhere at once. The heat of the flames are unreal, and-

The guilt becomes too much. The entire dreamscape collapses under the weight of Izia’s conscience like tidal wave into a cliffside. Adelie gets caught in the current and is pulled out of the dream. Pulled out of the void.

In an instant the waking world returns to him. The twin suns beat down on his face. That’s right, he fell asleep outside around the fire. Adelie sits up, his outer wear in a pile next to him, and places his hands on his head. I was...somewhere...and Izia was there with… The memories of the dream slip in and out of his mind.

“You’re awake, that’s good.” Marn stands next to the put out campfire, “the Evoker says she has something to tell us. I’ll wait around the corner while you get dressed.” She looks to the right of Adelie, “next time, make sure the fire’s out before you go to sleep.”

Adelie looks where his hand touches the ground. There are small burn marks on the dirt and patches of singed grass. “I thought I did put the fire out before bed,” Adelie says to himself before putting on his clothes and leaving the area. As he goes, a small, black flame dies on a blade of grass.