Sir Vandron faded slowly into being just outside the Orswood near a small village that focuses on lumber and hunting the greater elk of the expanse of forest. A few decades ago Vandron and Asther had spent a few days in the village gathering supplies before entering to help the young elf form a connection with one of the dryads that lived deeper in. The village was barely one hundred people then, but it was a charming little settlement for what little amenities the place was able to offer those like Asther who grew up in a large city. Being raised primarily by Wizards and Sorcerers in the Yrie University of The Arcane and Magic Studies, Asther had never had to interact with the normal citizenry before. It didn’t go very well. Like all elfkin, Asther was sensitive to smells and the settlement wasn’t able to meet his expectations for cleanliness and hygiene.

Sir Vandron chuckled remembering the way he went bug eyed when one of the young women left the tannery and walked over to flirt with him before washing. Asther immediately started looking into magic to dampen his sense of smell, after Vandron had to point out it was rude to cast cleaning magic on everyone he came across. A smell interrupted Vandrons nostalgic moment, and he immediately turned around. The village was razed to the ground, long burned out riverstone foundations were all that remained of the charming place.

Vandron approached to investigate and noticed a mound of earth south of the village, he flew over to the mound and began preparing a spell to scan the earth below him when he noticed the magical signature in the air. The ambient mana was disturbed, recently enough for it to be noticeable. He landed and summoned his spellbook and started leafing through the pages until he found the ritual he was looking for, a ritual used to save an arcane signature from the ambient magical energies in the air. He set out the necessary materials and performed the ritual so he can pinpoint the exact spellforms used.

“There’s no need Vandron” spoke a familiar voice, he abruptly turned behind to come face to face with an apparition of his apprentice.

“Asther where are you and what’s happened here?”

The younger elf chuckled.

“Not happy to see I’m doing well?”

“Of course you are fine, you’re my student and-”

“You demand perfection, because that is what your master expected of you. Yes yes old man, I’ve heard it before. Let me go ahead and explain before this soul fragment returns to me when the magic fades.”

The apparition of Asther Torisan floated to his rival and teacher, and hovered with crossed legs in the air in front of him.

“I arrived to find this village in the process of being raided by corrupted beasts, and not one’s native to the Orswood. I was planning a visit to Orsielle, which is the only reason I even bothered to stop here. It was primarily gray alligators and a few marshland constrictors.”

Vandron nodded gravely.

“Intelligent interference?”

“Worse. They were apparently airdropped in by massive birds, I looked into it and they match the description of the marshland eagle but seemed to be much larger than what has ever been recorded.”

“So there were survivor’s when you arrived?”

Asther looked away, not wanting to lie to his teacher.

“I thought you had abandoned this foolish path child…” Vandron shook his head and looked at the apparition avoiding his eyes “I told you that no matter what you manage to discover, you won’t be able to bring her back. Her soul has already-”

“Enough. I used a spell to allow me to speak with the dead, they revealed to me the details and requested I prevent the spread of corruption.”

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The apparition motioned to the evidence of fire, and then the mass grave under Vandron’s feet.

“Is this the villager’s under me then?”

“Yes, only the ones that weren’t corrupted enough to spread anywhere. I incinerated all the beasts but made sure to dissect them first. They were eastern marsh constrictors, which allowed me to narrow the origin of whomever is corrupting beasts and monsters. We often figured they were coming from the western side of the Hydra River but this is conclusive, everything aside from this is found on both sides excluding the eastern marsh constrictor. I am already there investigating now, but I didn’t have time to contact Orsielle so I need you to visit her for me and explain my absence.”

“You won’t learn anything from whatever dark mage is doing this. The use of corruption is the exact opposite of how you will go about redeeming necromancy.”

“I can learn from those I would never mimic, I won’t reproduce their experiments or research but I will study it before destroying it.”

“I will never understand how you can be willing to destroy dangerous magic yet still go forward attempting this foolishness. We can only regress from not preserving knowledge.”

“Yeah yeah, go on with it. Anyway, let me know if there is anything important but keep it simple. This soul fragment can’t record very much.”

“If you run across a young man named Ari, I would take it as a personal favor if you didn’t look into him or speak with him more than necessary.”

“Another one of your projects huh? Heh. Don’t worry my oath to The White Sun doesn’t mean I will start smiting every hedge witch or mystic for being heretics and apostates just yet, but make sure that he doesn’t do anything my oath will demand action on.”

“He shouldn’t but if he pulls out a coin to show you at any point, close your eyes and teleport away. I implore you.”

The apparition frowned.

“Ahh, I see. I’ll make sure my true body only knows the necessary details about it. Can’t go about slaying your new little experiment before it can bear fruit.”

Vandron stood to his feet, and then laughed a bit.

“Oh I don’t expect you to be able to kill him. The Godslayer is with him.”

The apparition froze.

“I’m going to make sure I avoid him, can you tell me anything about-”

“No. The less you know the better. He is unaware of your research but if he finds out I don’t doubt he would try and kill you to preempt any danger. I don’t know what prophecies the god of the lost has given him. He came to me and demanded I take him to Ari, and then told me exactly the circumstances needed to meet them myself without going against his designs. He only informed me to let me know that if I didn’t do it right and caused any issues, my head would be next up on the block.”

“Why the interest in your little project?”

Vandron chuckled, and crossed his arms after miming a ‘x’ across his lips.

“Fine, fine. So no necromancy, no inquiring, and no accidentally being killed by the being planning on destroying the only other master I have accepted.”

“Master? When have you ever called me master, you punk.”

“Not you old man, but I guess in Orsielle’s case we prefer the term mistress.”

“So I am just below your god and lover on the hierarchy, I suppose it could be worse. At least you haven’t attempted to kill me like my last apprentice.”

The apparition started to fade before smiling and speaking once more, his tone now much warmer.

“Bye old friend, next time we meet in person you will either have to kill me when your oaths activate or you’ll be able to see how fortunate my progress is once I reveal my research.”

“You know that I can’t kill you, bastard. I’d rather I never see you again than find out your research is valid if I’m being honest. Don’t die to the Godslayer, unfortunately the Hero’s death would be enough to alert Kelian to what we are up to.”

The apparition laughed boisterously and was soon gone. Vandron’s false smile was immediately replaced with a deep frown. He started to perform a sending ritual to Ari, but remembered that Ruenr’s presence would block any divinations. He stood up and returned his materials and spell book to his spacial pouch. Then manually brushed the dirt off of his robe to ground himself.

“Fate is a fickle mistress.”

He looked at the tattoo on his left arm, the one Asther and he designed together to subvert the influence of the oaths. It appeared to have barely a year left. Barely a year until they both were forced to confront one another and fight to the death for their different acts of apostasy. Ruenr had given it a look when Vandron asked of him and offered to permanently break his oath to The White Sun, but Vandron knew that wouldn’t work unless Ruenr was able to kill the god beforehand. If Asther succeeded with his redemption of necromancy then they would both be safe. That would inevitably fail, so Ari was forced into being Vandron’s contingency plan. The other’s weren’t able to survive the conferral since they weren’t close enough with the primordial magic of nature. A druid capable of reaching the Cradle of Glass was his only hope to save himself and the child of the only woman he ever loved. The only problem was making sure the secrets of that place didn’t doom everyone on the continent.