II.

Awakening

It had once taken the group of them nearly half a year to reach the desert city of Harth, skirting west around the Vehk mountains to avoid the southern Deadline.

Faunia's lonely journey back was much faster.

Most egregiously, the Deadline—that lateral cut in the continent of Kylinstrom where the Sylvet cults held their ground against Hunters in infinite stalemate—had dissipated entirely. No villages stirred, not even when she walked their streets in search of answers. The people were unseemly, sick; they were all so quiet.

She took great heed of the few who spoke of a black and white angel coming to visit, and his foretelling their island's collapse. She said her prayers in silence with each village she visited.

And when she finally arrived in Cromer... it was unlike she had ever seen it.

Locked down, completely. Those hugely efficacious stone walls were swarmed with traders, carriages, caravans and people all the same, disallowed entry to the grand city. Some arrows flew into the rowdiest parts of the crowd, and were answered with jeers, screams, and objects hurled back up against the stones.

Something was unmistakably awry. Had all the people of the land clawed their way here in their panic? Was this the last bastion of their crumbling civilization?

With some effort and tedium, she was eventually successful at elbowing her way through the swaths of people. The iconic Hunters’ armor was key to her allowance through the crowd, evidenced by the pleas toward her from the pale-skinned northerners, and the weary farmers who once resided the city’s scorched borders.

“Faunia Vleren. I’m a Hunter.” she said to the wall of guards manning the gates, their halberds jutted out to keep the people at bay.

Some people clearly hadn't gotten the message—at least a dozen bloodied, crumpled bodies lay at their feet, separating them from the rest of the crowd.

The guards shoved their weapons at her, shouted incoherent commands over the noise. It clearly was not a warm reception.

Faunia shouted back, “In case you haven’t heard, Akvum is dead, our world is collapsing! You’ll let me in, or I’ll force my way in.”

There was a twinge of light blue to all their eyes, a sympathy implanted by the wondrous Tirolith. They lowered their weapons. One guard turned to the gatekeepers, waved for the gate to open. And it began up, just enough for one person to fit through.

The crowd pushed, crushed against the walls as though they could all squeeze through the diminutive gap together. People fell to the ground around her. They were content to destroy themselves and each other for just a chance of safety.

Faunia made it through with a few crooked opportunists who immediately sprinted into the new hell within the walls. The gate slammed shut the second she was clear, crushing hands and bodies alike beneath the jagged steel weight of it. She turned away in horror and abhorrence. She turned to face what Cromer had become.

It was like a riot. Guards and knights were posted everywhere around the perimeter of the main courtyard, shields braced against their own people. Flames rose up from some of the cornerclubs and taverns, a black smoke shielded the whole sky. It had all fallen apart.

"Who's in charge here?" Faunia rehearsed to herself. She was no longer a Hunter, true, but surely they'd listen just long enough to help her wrest just an inkling of control back from the panic.

She repeated her practiced line to one of the shield-guards, but the man only responded by shoving his steels at her, barking at her to stay back.

Faunia grimaced. Her rage swelled. It wasn't only Cedric who had abandoned her—it was like the whole world had.

And she drew her greatest weapon of all against them.

The guards' mouths fell open in amazement when the teal-armored girl stepped out from behind her, and the heat evaporated from the air like it had been stolen. The panic turned entirely on Faunia.

"I am Faunia Vleren, former right-hand of the late Akvum Jirhali. I'm demanding to see who is in charge right now." she shouted into the crowds.

A stout man with two thick brown mustaches stepped forward from one of the guard clusters. He was in plate armor that exposed his wrinkled face fully, and the grim expression he wore. He had a greatsword leaning on his shoulder from his hand.

"Salvatore. You're in charge here?"

"Not much to be in charge of, Faunia." His voice was hoarse and weary. "We've hardly been the same since the Incident, and now this."

"What do we know?"

"It sounds unbelievable, but… we've been joined to another continent. We're in trouble, too—they've already sent diplomats. They want us gone."

"Gone? What do you…"

"Walk with me to Athica. I'll tell you what I know before you meet them."

"Them?"

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Salvatore snorted. "Kasian's Twelve."

X

Cedric Castelbre had made it to Dreslon by portal and by foot. He knew what he would find. He understood the fate the world had fallen victim to.

Greslock was dead. His shop was quieter than even when he was alive. The heavy door still squeaked and stuck in the way it always did, but everything was coated in an uncharacteristicly thick layer of dust. He had been gone for months.

Surprisingly, the shop had never been looted. But seeing how things had been going… he was starting to understand why.

He stepped back out into the amber sunset of the town. The echoes of clashing steel were already crackling through the chill air. The smell of burning leylines overwhelmed his nostrils; the scent of sulfur.

So long had Dreslon fought for their survival, and now the ogres were being wiped out by…? Not Cromer's people... Not Azar’kara’s...

Cedric leaned down over a human corpse that had been brutalized, split into thirds by an axe. The man was tanned by the sun, wore steel with intricate engravings unlike any steel he'd ever seen. The craftsmanship was impeccable, a perfect work of art.

His sword, too, which Cedric stole to make use of, was ornate and beautiful. These men were as much soldiers as they were enjoyers of art and fine craftswork. Far unlike the savages of Kylinstrom, who cared only for their brutish weaponry. They fell more in line with the Ilids who once roamed the Far Realms, the ones who lived in mountains and in valleys, away from people...

Then he found a piece of cloth in the man's pocket. A blue cloth with a sewn-in bright orange gemstone in the middle.

The gem would be worth something, but he was sure there was more to it than just value. Perhaps a flag?

The sounds of battle still hadn't quieted.

"Serkukan. You feel like making a mess?"

His soul growled. His Etherian was ready.

"Let's protect our home."

X

It was Faunia Vleren's first time being this close to Kasian's people besides Ivalié and Akvum, who appeared as strays amongst a crowd of eccentricity. Jirtu as well apparently, though she hadn't known before entering the room that he was a member.

Salvatore had already made clear that Kasian was nowhere near this place. He was as secretive as always.

And so opened the overbearing marble doors that led into that ornate stone chamber, with pillars carved so magnificently you'd think they were brought from another world. The craftsmanship of the high-class was… to be admired. To be seen only by those deemed worthy either by the size of their coffers, or by their civic popularity.

A massive painting loomed over the unlit fireplace in the end—a painting of Akvum the Young surrounded by black-robed soldiers. The Hunters, as they once were. Akvum's place in the Second Era was hard to overstate. The Alisars lived so long, the things he would have known were unimaginable to her. Admirable, if not for what he had done in the end.

"Faunia. Take a seat. You'll be filling in for Akvum." said the blonde topknot man. He pushed up his round spectacles and sat back down.

Ivalié. So recently did you betray me.

And so she sat at the seat marked 12 and gathered her thoughts. She scanned the table quickly, hoping to remember the faces of these esteemed, mysterious people.

Black-robed Jirtu, hiding his face as always.

Ivalié, in his blue-white robes with a collar tall enough to hide his mouth.

And then the six others, the six who made up the esteemed group, where she had once vied to find a seat. Her heart throbbed, her chest tightened with panic.

"Are we missing a few? Should we wait?" Faunia asked anxiously.

They didn't answer.

A pale man stood up, a man with a massive frame, who wore black on his left and white on his right in crystalline armor. He asked, "Faunia Vleren, do you accept the task of representing Azar'kara?"

"I do."

"Then you accept the weight of their people's actions."

Her eyebrow twitched. "I'm sorry, what was your name?"

"Faunia Vleren, for the charges made against Azar'kara of conspiring to overthrow Kasian, you are hereby sentenced to death."

"What!?" She sprung up from her seat. Her hand went to her rapier.

Ivalié pushed up his glasses as he stood. "This is the way of things, Vleren. Your doggish kind do know the word scapegoat, don't you?"

Her hand slid her blade free.

"Down." came a command, and down she went, her chin smashing crimson into the table. The impact dropped her straight to the floor where suddenly she could no longer move.

Another man stood—a man in etheric red plate armor.

Serkukan? No—who is…

{Vekzul!}

Faunia grit her teeth.

The man was slimmer than the two-tone man, in jagged armor that was all too familiar. In the center of his armor was a white eight-pointed star.

{Not just Vekzul, that's Llestren's mark! He's a Relistar!}

A Relistar? Like the one Cedric had?

Then stood a man in a long, rotted green robe covered in buckles and chains. He wore some kind of mask over his face, akin to a lamb's bladder covered in protective leather, with a shoddy valve over the end.

He murmured something beneath the mask, reached a hand out to her.

Tirolith! Act!

Ivalié knelt down beside her and pulled her up by her silver hair.

"First comes the paralysis—then you'll feel the poison writhe through your veins. I would promise you a swift death, but… that's not really my place."

Faunia could not even squirm. She felt the Etherian leylines tense up, then the burning beneath her skin. Her eyes began to water. Tirolith could not answer.

"Goodbye, Faunia Vleren."