Jiya makes her way up the solitary white tower behind White Tempest; the tower belonging to Lyzian. It was constructed in a manner similar to the entrance of his homeland Udo, though the crafting they employ is markedly different from anything Unam possesses. Jiya reaches his double doors and flings them open to see Lyzian sitting contemplatively in the center of the room of the massive room. His chambers have been specifically constructed so that they are isolated from the rest of the kingdom; a localized pocket of Udo design. Within the space is an azure blue sky, complete with Szin looming over the ten square miles of the Udonian Training Space.

Jiya doesn’t marvel at the sky like grass or at the whiteroot trees with their neon yellow leaves, that sense of wonder had left her when she first visited Udo.She instead looks on in amazement as Lyzian unleashes the might of his power. The ather around him whips around so violently that the ground itself splits under the pressure. Arcs of blue lightning shoot from his body and dance around Jiya, traveling around her arms and legs. “You changed clothes.” Lyzian says with his eyes still closed, “I’m guessing you’ve met with your contacts?”

“You’ve gotten better with stormsight,” Jiya replies as she rubs her exposed forearms. “Does that mean you’re closer to mastering the final forms?” A thrill surges throughout Jiya’s body and she can barely contain herself. The air around her begins to vibrate and ather pours from her body.

“Jiya….” Lyzian says in a warning tone as he opens his eyes. “I haven’t even answered you yet and you’re already this amped up. Did the conversations go that badly? Jiya?” Lyzian watches as violet ather shoots from Jiya’s body like a geyser. When an Awakened attains a certain level of mastery over their ather, its entire structure changes. “Fine, but I’m not using my weapons. I don’t have full control over this yet and I’m not gonna risk it.”

“Hand to hand? I’ve actually been wondering if you’ve kept up that training!” More ather rushes from Jiya’s body, causing the ground beneath her to quake. She disappears in an instant and emerges from Lyzian’s shadow; but he immediately grabs her by the arm and flips her over his shoulder. She moves to counter the throw by grabbing Lyzian by the neck with her thighs, but he disappears. As she travels through the air, she looks ahead of her to see Lyzian preparing to strike her with his open palm. Jiya glances at the shadow being cast by Lyzian’s arm and disappears into it, vanishing from sight.

Lyzian immediately looks at the tree hundreds of feet away, “I see your shadowleap has gotten better.” A smile creeps across his face but he shakes his head, “I almost forgot, I spoke with Yema about Vedan.”

“Oh? What did the boy-king have to say?” Jiya strides over to Lyzian before blitzing him. She delivers an overhead kick that strikes Lyzian’s forearm. “Your eyesight has gotten better.”

“Thanks,” Lyzian replies as he pushes Jiya away from him, “and he’s 125, I think you can drop the boy part now.”

Jiya doesn’t respond with anything other than a dismissive smirk. “How long has it been since we’ve had a good session? And you want to ruin it by talking about a baby?” Her ather erupts around her with enough force to shake the ground beneath her, causing cracks to spider out from beneath her feet. “Talk after we see how much you can handle.”

“I thought that little exchange would be enough, but you’re really on one today.”

“Don’t pretend like you’re not enjoying it, I bet you’ve got a few new moves you’ve been wanting to show off for a while now.”

Lyzian smiles as a devilish smile as his ather explodes around his body, causing his guildmaster’s attire to whip around violently. “Not any suited for the battlefield.” He scans Jiya’s face for any hint of a smile, but sees only the lust of battle. This wasn’t the first time he’s experienced her Fervor, a trademark of the Batazi Clan. “She’s only in the earlier stages of Fervor,” Lyzian thinks to himself, “her eyes are still the same shape and color. But if this goes on any longer she’ll lose her sense of self.”

In an instant Jiya disappears from his sight.

Lyzian inhales sharply and forcefully exhales. The gray of his eyes clear as an electric blue flushes them out. The world around him slows down to a crawl and he sees Jiya, frozen in place beneath him, preparing to uppercut him. “She was going to hit me in the face? Kusrieda, I really do need to end this.” Jiya’s fist begins to slowly resume its trajectory. “Guess my Storm Center couldn’t hold her forever. I need to hit her with something to suppress her Fervor...but what?” Lyzian takes a step back and travels instantly to the opposite end of the land.

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Lyzian enters into a fighting stance and condenses his ather into an aura outlining his body. It moves around him like the storm clouds before the Highfalls, a dark precursor of the fury to follow. His voice booms like thunder across the plains, “I know you’re getting control of your body back Jiya, so you better do something if you don’t want to get hurt.” He gathers ather into his blade arm and zips towards Jiya. With his stormsight active, he can see the air in front of him rushing to move out of his way while the debris he’s kicking up hangs in the air.

Jiya frees herself from the storm center just in time to see Lyzian swing his arm down directly at her head. Without thinking, Jiya’s body suddenly shifts the moment Lyzian’s arm strikes her. The sound of thunder cracks through the air before the Udonian landscape is engulfed in a gray cloud of ather. As the cloud dissipates, Lyzian’s arm remains in the attack position, though he’s blocked by a substance of unbelievable hardness. “Have you calmed down now?”

Jiya’s entire body is covered in a slick, violet carapace. As a Batazi, she can use her ather to manipulate her genes to mimic the animals of Grezia to grant her a host of abilities. Whenever she needs to focus on defense, she dawns the armor of the barant; an insect with zero offensive capabilities but is nigh invulnerable whenever they lock into place. “You made me use my Barant Armor at full power, what was that move?”

“It doesn’t have a name, it's a new skill I came up with,” Lyzian says as he draws his arm back, “though I’m thinking something like Arc Tempest. It’s incomplete though, that’s only the first stage of it. Now, you gonna tell me what your contact said?”

Jiya’s armor starts to crumble away. “Apparently what happened in Vedan isn’t a one off. There’ve been whispers of things like that popping up all over the country.”

“Yeah, that’s what Yemai told me. There’s been strange incidents happening over the last three years. People going missing, strange noises and creatures roaming the countryside, even entire villages just disappearing overnight.”

“That’s not even the strangest part,” Jiya says as the armor covering her face disappears, revealing a head wound. “Each one of my contacts say that a guildhouse would appear a few days before the incidents would occur.”

“A guildhouse? You mean a traveling guild?”

Jiya shakes her head, “An entire guildhouse. It would occupy a space just outside the territories not under direct control of Unam…”

“Like Vedan,” Lyzian says as he starts to make connections. “If they’re appearing around places without a strong guild presence, then they aren’t an allied guild. A banned guild?”

Jiya’s armor completely breaks apart. “Has to be, I wasn’t able to find any record of any repositioning requests made.”No allied guild would risk translocating to another area without approval; that’s a declaration of war.

“Did your contacts by any chance get the name of the guild?”

“No,” Jiya says as she remains completely still, “but they all had something to say about a small village towards the northern coast called Zet.”

Lyzian folds his arms and looks into the sky for a moment. “Zet...Zet...can’t say I’ve heard of it. What makes it so special?”

“Nothing….other than it completely vanished from Grezia three years ago.”

“So then that’s where we’ll go next,” Lyzian says as he walks past Jiya. “ I don’t like the timing of this at all, Jiya. Three years ago was when-what are you doing?” Lyzian turns and sees a still stationary Jiya with her back towards him. “We gotta get the jump on this.”

“I forget that this rarely happens to you, but I’m out of ather. If I even turn around I’ll pass out.”

Lyzian bursts out into laughter, “You used up all your ather from a small attack like that? Maybe you’re the one that’s been lacking in your training.” He wipes a tear from his eye before continuing, “I’ll send word to our closest auxiliary guildhouse to Zet to prepare for our arrival.” Lyzian takes another step and a jolt of pain rushes through his body, causing him to fall face first onto the ground. He summons the last vestiges of his strength to turn over onto his back and gazes at the sky from the four mile deep crater he created.

“Oh, that’s strange, my senses must be acting up.”

“Jiya….”

“Because it sounds like someone, who hasn’t been slacking in their training, burned through their mountains of ather in the span of a few seconds.”

“I told you I hadn’t really mastered it and I had to expend a lot of ather just to create this space and…” Lyzian catches his breath, “Nevermind that. We can just get Atna to come heal us up.”

“Atna went back home for Maiden’s Voyage.”

“Well, what about Geda? He has a few healing incantations.”

“On assignment.”

“Is there anyone currently here?”

“No, you told them not to bother you today so they are running personal errands. You’ll just have to do it the old fashion way.”

“But that’ll take hours,” Lyzian says as he futilely attempts to sit up. “You know the more ather you have, the longer the recovery period.”

“Then you better use your breathing to speed things along,” Jiya replies before closing her eyes and going silent.