Magnolia in the Mold (Closed)

[Mathias]

Bunnying has been discussed and approved of.


People are all flowers - beautiful or not. They are blossoming, growing, and forever the fruit of civilization. However, they are not without a guide. It is often so, however, that people are not merely given direction in their lives. They are set in steel castings - into very specific designations from which they are hard pressed to break free. It is this thing that I so consider to be the tragedy of society and the torture of the soul.

Mathias sat on the edge of the pier next to Lillian. He had left his boots on, and wasn't particularly interested in kicking the water idly like his companion. Instead, he focused on the darkness of the horizon to the far east, out beyond the bay and into the reaches of the sea. It spread on for miles, melting with the sky at some indistinct line that met the curve of the earth with an inability to ever discern where one began and one stopped. While his eyes took in the scene that he was accustomed to (though never lacking in awe of), he took an absent minded lick of the flavored ice-on-a-stick that he'd bought for himself and Lillian.

"How do you like it?" he asked, making a sidelong glance at her. From out the tresses of ebony, he saw and locked his gaze on her glacial eyes, and he sat a moment in silence.

. . . He held out his hand and looked at her, his gaze steady (though his hand wasn't), and did his best to smile. "Hey... you and I. We've got a lot to talk about," he said.

. . . "What... what the fuck did you do to me?" he said, his voice breaking.

. . . the dagger wrapped around his wrist, once, and the blade cut clean and, slicing a valley through the skin of his right pectoral, half an inch deep.

"Drippy," she replied, awakening Mathias from recollection of the events earlier that day. They had avoided talking about it, dancing their way around the subject as delicately as possible. There was a very unbalanced peace, a sort of tentative tranquility that, at least as far as Math felt, would be a bit too brittle to handle as of yet. He could tell she was still somewhat unnerved by the pain she had caused him during their bout in the Dajas Pagoda... and he couldn't blame her. Honestly, though he knew it was not her fault, he couldn't help but resent her (as hard as he tried to bury it) for the sheer agony that she'd suffered upon him. But beyond that, there was something there, between them, that needed to be discussed. As to what it was, it had yet to reveal itself to them. For what Mathias felt... for what he knew, there was merely some sort of kinship, some form of bond that, other than the whimsy of fate, was completely inexplicable.

He forced a smile and let out a short, curt chuckle and shook his head. "Yeah... thank the Thanes the summer's almost over. Maybe it won't be so damned hot, even in the evening."

The salted ocean air rode in on a brisk breeze and caressed the waterfront with its immaterial tendrils, working its way to the pier that the two adolescents sat on. "Do you think?" she asked, almost as if she were on an after thought. The planeswalker couldn't help but wonder what was running through her mind - though he had quickly given up on unravelling the enigma that was Lillian Sesthal. She was a very queer lass, full of shrouded motivations and awkward demeanor, a curious mien and confident ability. She was intriguing, but as labyrinthine as any woman that he'd ever met.

"Well, to be truthful, this'll be my first winter in Scara Brae. I can't... I don't really remember many of the seasons past. Glimpses, really. Antioch, Alerar, Corone... I guess I haven't ever really uh.. had a tendency to stay in one place for long," he said, full of doubt as to whether he could trust the memories that had slowly started to unravel in his head. Quick peeks at the life he'd lived, the people he knew. Joshua Fencer, the Trade Prince of Antioch... Torin Reahkari, his brother-by-soul in the Black Sails Armada... a brother he'd not seen in ages. He was unsure of himself, for he had yet to truly excavate the identity that was buried deep, deep within him.

"How about you? Where's your port of choice?" he asked, turning to face Lillian a little better, retracting his legs from hanging over the edge of the pier and folding them to sit cross-legged.

[Ataraxis]

It must have felt rather strange, sitting so close to a girl yet feeling from her no more than a presence both meek and ephemeral. This was in fact a common joke, among those who knew her little but knew her still, that to be in the company of Lillian Sesthal was to be in the company of a ghost. It was therefore obligatory that she be compared to a poltergeist: that is to say, utterly unseen and unheard until the unfortunate time she came a-knocking. Yet beneath their light-hearted jests lay a shroud of genuine doubt, for some truly did wonder whether they would feel any warmth upon shaking her hand.... whether they would feel the touch of flesh and bone, or an immaterial chill. And so to them, her acquaintance had become an alien oddity, difficult to describe and nigh impossible to comprehend, somewhat akin to the haunting horizon that lingers between dreams and nightmares: something to be cherished, or something to be feared.

How ironic, that the words they had meant as metaphors were what came closest to the truth.

And yet, they also befitted the man who sat at her side, absently licking the melt-water from his frozen treat. She knew him as Mathias, and he was an adept planeswalker - a dweller of realms unknown, a phantom haunting the worlds between worlds. Incidentally, Mathias was also the fierce warrior she had challenged only hours ago in the Dajas Pagoda, who she had fought without relent, whose blood she had shed so profusely… and whose life she had mercilessly reaped. Mathias, who had suffered so much, and died by her hands.

It was beyond her, how they could now be sitting at the edge of the pier, bellyaching about the weather like an elderly couple while watching the gulls soar into the rolling sunset. How they could simply talk about everything and nothing, holding cold, saccharine sweets in hand to stave off the heat-haze of a harsh Scarabrian summer. Even now, the guilt for all the pain, all the torture she had caused him was still raw in her heart like a freshly cut wound. It was for this reason that she had trouble believing the anger and the resentment he so honestly expressed, moments prior to his death, could be so quick to evaporate - that her cruelty, albeit accidental and unwanted, could be so easily forgotten and forgiven.

Due to her doubts on the matter, Lillian could only manage terse answers to all questions directed her way; she feared that anything more elaborate might somehow be twisted and used against her, that anything too precise could be honed into a blade and used for revenge. Though a part of her did believe she deserved no better for the horrors she had done, the teenager did not have the courage to show the same urge of self-sacrifice she had shown in the final moments of their tragic match, the irrational urge to repeat her desperation, to plead that he could kill her if only to alleviate the burdens of his dying mind. At that time, she had done everything in her powers to make amends by numbing his pain and spite in death, but could she now do the same to appease his mind in life?

“Same as you,” came her answer, at last. In the ensuing silence, she gave the icy treat in her hand another lazy lick, silently savouring that cool and watery hint of raspberry while her eyes wandered miles and miles away, far beyond the dockside and its canvas of turquoise and tangerine. While she may have appeared dismissive in doing so, it was all she could think of to keep a semblance of calm and to hide her anxiety.

“You mean, no favorites? That’s hard to believe – though, maybe I’m not one to talk.”

“Well I…” Realizing she had inadvertently spoken, Lillian clamped her mouth shut to keep her reeling tongue in check. Desperate to find composure, she soaked her feet into the water from the ankles down, letting them sway in the gentle cadence of the waves. It surprised her, how much comfort she could find in the lapping of the sea, in the lukewarm froth that was tickling at her scars. They were a much welcome distraction from the emotive storm now battering at the walls of her heart.

“Yeah?” Mathias eventually asked, himself starting to feel the burdensome weight of her silence. Though his tone was awkward, the honest expectancy behind that question was enough crack the tense stillness that had set over them.

“I, um… I do like it here. Scara Brae, that is.” She pinched her lips together nervously, the gears of her mind spinning madly in search of something to say. “I’ve traveled here a few times before. I… I lived here for a while, with my parents. C-coincidentally, I think you should know that fall and winter here are almost as hot as summer, only… less… damp.” Though Mathias did not answer, he left the strange impression that her words had been satisfactory. However, when the atmosphere grew slowly cold again, she mustered what feeble strength she had left and turned to face Mathias, drawing a wan smile of apology. “I’m sorry. This probably isn’t what you imagined when you said we needed to talk.”

“No, it’s alright,” he replied hastily, scratching a knee through the fabric with a boyish nervousness. “To be honest, I didn’t have any clear idea of what I’d say, or ask.”

“Good.” Odd answers elicited odd looks, but Lillian made no immediate effort to clarify, instead lifting one foot from the waters and idly watching the soft streams trickle down. After a while the girl brought her leg up and hugged it close, lightly resting her chin on the knee while she kept drawing circles on the darkening surface with her other foot. “That makes two of us,” she finally concluded, chuckling.

The faint sound of footfalls grew louder, each step answered with a wooden wail from the yielding boards. Though not particularly surprised by the noise - they were sitting in a public venue, after all - she was still somewhat curious to see the faces of people strolling the pier at sunset. Upon seeing no one, the pounding in her chest began to hasten, the paranoia striking back with a vengeance as she felt herself being stalked by powers far greater than hers. Fortunately, the impending fright was quickly allayed by the sighting of a snotty little boy, emerging from the space between two cabins while struggling with the copper button of his trousers. Lillian made a face as she averted her eyes, jotting a mental note to avoid walking down there, later on. Dark lanes such as that always had a reputation of being both smelly and slippery, and now she knew why.

“Here’s an idea,” Lillian said as she returned her attention to Mathias, feeling somewhat less self-conscious. “I think it’s best we stop tiptoeing around the subject… so, you can ask me any question you think of, without worrying about sounding tactful, and… I’ll answer as best I can. Then, I’ll do the same, and we can keep at it until we run out.”

“Just…” she suddenly added, feeling faint heat rush to her cheeks. “Nothing blatantly irrelevant, or too… personal. Are you, um... are you fine with that?”

[Mathias]

Mathias felt a somewhat sardonic grin form on his lips, his teeth showing and completing a momentary visage reminiscent of a wolf's for a mere moment. "I'm afraid that anything asked, of this moment, would be irrelevant. And personal isn't very definitive. But I think I understand what you mean," he said, toying around with her words. "I think, then, my first question shall be in two parts... why have you come to Scara Brae... and why did you choose me?"

It was the question he'd wanted to ask - something he had wanted to talk about, when he first invited her on this walk. But he felt he had a responsibility to be tactful, thinking her something of a rabbit who might be scared off if approached without the proper caution. However, he held a sort of contrasting view of her, having developed it throughout their fight in the Pagoda. Her awkward manner and shy way about things masked a ferocity and ability that he had completely underestimated. Not only that, but she had been able to completely cripple him.

That was the thing that bothered him most. He despised the feeling of being utterly helpless, and though he was trying to pass it off and ignore this emotion boiling inside of him, he couldn't help but resent her for reminding him of his tenure as a slave to the lich, Morian. The mastermind behind the Blackhood Syndicate, the foreign crime outfit that had come to Scara Brae and challenged the Scourge's sovereignty in the criminal underworld...

The slavers who had taken him to that damned corpse of a wizard. He'd been bound by enchanted iron, unable to use his abilities as a planeswalker, and then he was told what he truly was: A piece of the Eternal Tap, shattered eons ago, and now personified in human form. His essence was not flesh and blood, but instead magic and mana. And to Morian, he was only an experiment, and a weapon, honed for the purpose of perfect warfare.

And to have been disabled by a girl who was even younger than he was? To be completely incapacitated and at her mercy? It was not only embarassing, but it was demeaning and outrageous all at once.

"It's... I guess I came here because it's... safe. But even then... that won't last for long," she said, abruptly waking Mathias from his thoughts and causing him to realize that his ice-stick was starting to drip and dribble over his hand.

"Shit, shitshit," he said, licking his hand, trying to salvage what he could of his formerly frozen treat. He cracked a grin, but it turned into a frown as he turned his head and looked at Lillian. "Safe?" he pondered aloud. "Safe from war? Nah. You're not a soldier. From someone... looking for you specifically, huh?"

Math was taken aback as her crystalline eyes pierced his gaze and his somewhat lofty demeanor, and he felt himself being scrutinized for his aloof approach to insight. She nodded, saying in a hushed whisper, "Yes." For a moment their stare held, before she broke it off to look back towards the horizon - perhaps looking for the oncoming storm that she was apparently running from. "I don't... I don't really know who... I just know they're serious. And they're strong. Which is why... I chose you. I needed you - because of your strength. I needed to know if I could beat you... hold my own against someone. And so I guess... that's why it was you. I'm sorry... I guess I used you."

The young rogue simply laughed, shaking his head and breaking the tension with an air-headed boyishness that seemed to suit him just as well as his formal self. "Well, it's not all often that I can say a woman's used me. It's probably an honor on my end," he said. A very faint flush of red rosed Lillian's cheeks, and Mathias took note of it, contenting himself to a minor victory over her sense of modesty and tact. After all, it was her suggestion that they'd do away with it, wasn't it? "Anyway, that's number one for me. It's your turn now."

She fidgeted with her popsicle in her hands, absent-mindedly as she looked down at the water that her feet dipped lightly into. "When we fought... you said... you were part of the Eternal Tap. How... does that work, exactly?"

Math leaned backwards on his elbows, looking into the darkening sky as he rolled her question over in his head. "Well," he said. "It works just like how the Tap itself works. Magic," he stated, matter-of-factly with a wink. He grinned and shook his head, moving back to a more proper posture, and looked at her. "I don't know, really. I guess, when the Tap broke... eons ago. Whenever that happened, I guess part of it... the part that became me... just decided it would be a person. I don't really remember much about my life. It comes to me, every once in a while, in waves. But, I guess... I'm just mana that wanted to be blood. Immaterial that wanted to be material. Nothing hoping it could be something."

The vandal shifted awkwardly, feeling uncomfortable with the question in its entirety. Not only did he not have a definitive answer, or even one that really explained anything, he couldn't help but resent her curiosity in him. Not because he had any sort of dislike for her, or because she had offended him... but that scholarly inquiry, that desire to know... it reminded him, on some level, of Morian, and it put him at a great unease. He couldn't help but feel naked, exposed, and vulnerable in her presence - not only since she'd already bested him in combat, but now took an interest into what he was, rather than who he was.

"So, what kind of magic... what was that you were using when we fought? And what the hell," he said, somewhat harshly and brashly, turning the tide of the conversation against her in a sort of uselessly paranoid self-defense mechanism, until he realized he was starting to unravel - that his facade of a prepared, well disciplined warrior, yet ditzy, goofy young man, was starting to come unglued. He attempted to mend his tone, say it more softly and with much more composure than what he had just shown. "What did you use to cripple me like that?"

[Ataraxis]

Lillian drew herself tighter into a ball, visibly made uncomfortable by his questions. They had sounded innocuous on the surface, yet the girl was far from oblivious to his sudden loss of temper, momentary as it was. What she had feared was coming true: the more she said or asked, the more Mathias would lose the already tenuous grasp he had on the ever-shortening leash of his emotions.

She had half a mind to stop the discussion right there and then, finding it increasingly futile to seek the forgiveness of a man who held stronger grudges in life than death, but there was a weakness in her heart, a frailty that had been with her since birth and one she could never correct. It was the desire to be liked, to be valuable and important. Like a child, she sought the approval of those she knew, sought to make them proud – and she hated that. She hated this foolish vestige of an unfulfilled childhood, this self-centered urge to be loved by each and all, because it robbed her of her independence.

Alas, this childish yearning was too deeply ingrained for her to do anything about it, and so she could not simply pick herself up and leave when Mathias still harboured such bitter feelings for her.

“If you don’t mind a preamble before I answer that…” She grinned almost imperceptibly, a sad little smile that Mathias would never see. “The reason I asked about you, about your nature, it’s because I had the feeling that you and I… we’re very much alike.” Lillian felt embarrassed by her awkward wording, so she quickly followed with a clarification. “That is, I mean, on the inside... flesh and bone, but not quite.”

“There’s,” she began before stopping to mull her words carefully for a few nervous heartbeats. “There’s a… part of me that isn’t of this world, either. Something that works much like a fragment of the Tap, but at the same time… something that’s wholly unrelated.” The teenager bit her lower lip, tensing up the more she felt the man beside her grow perplexed. “I’ve never been sure where it came from, but it calls itself the Welkin Body.”

“It calls itself?” Mathias asked in a low mutter, looking at the younger girl with a hook in his brow. “You mean it actually talks to you?”

“Not for a long time,” she replied vaguely, not without a sadness in her tone. “The same way you have a mind, a personality of your own, the same way that you exist and have a true identity… so do I, and so does the Welkin.” At that, Lillian breathed deeply, hoping to air out the cloudy weight inside her chest.

“And that leads us to my answer,” she said at last, changing the subject. She lifted a lilywhite finger, pointing it skyward. Her eyes focused coldly on the tip, and a dark spark began dancing atop. Then something grew from this dark seed, thin and twisting like a shadowy vine. “Making these threads is one of the powers I have that stem from the entity within me. They’re highly-receptive to magic, and can act as potent conduits for other spells, aside from being very useful for practical purposes.”

“As for the Dvaita – the dagger I used in our battle…” Lillian seemed to squirm, uncomfortable that she had to remind them both of their disastrous battle. “It’s a prevalida weapon, which I had synthesized with magical poison by a Fae in Dheathain. She told me it would take time before working, and it was only supposed to incapacitate humans and inhibit their powers, but it was never supposed to… what it did to you, it wasn’t what I… wasn’t what I wanted.”

Lillian cursed herself for bringing this up again, this sorest point of their relationship, if it could even be called that. At a loss for what to do in this heavy hush, she chomped on the tip of the ice-on-a-stick: a bad move, for the treat broke apart right there and then. She squealed as she jumped to a stand, barely avoiding the raspberry-red snack from staining her white dress. “Shoot, shoot…” she muttered as she watched the scarlet blocks of frozen juice melt away between the cracks of the boardwalk. Worse, the part she had bitten off was sending a flurry of cold directly into her brain, which made her cringe as if from a chronic headache.

“Guess it’s not consistent either as a meal or a summer snack,” Mathias said with a light laugh. “I saw a small restaurant at the pier’s end. We can move this over there, if you’re feeling a bit peckish?” Lillian nodded shyly, admitting that a good meal might make this easier for the both of them. Besides, she had not eaten since breaking her fast early in the morning, and even then she only could chew stale bread and a cut of cheese with a glass of rather dubious water.

“That sounds like a plan.”

[Ataraxis]

Mathias stretched as he stood, then silently lead the way. A short, equally silent walk later and they stood before the Royal Langoustine, a quaint little restaurant shack furnished with a dozen tables and decorated with various fishing apparatus. A waitress ushered them to the only vacant table, as the others were surprisingly full with old sailors and frequent customers, and they were all afire with a yellow ambiance and zest for life. The businesses of Scara Brae always had the cheeriest clientele, and she was glad for that: everywhere else, people were either drab and dreary or dark and scheming. The waitress returned when they were comfortably settled in, taking an order of fried scallop rolls and hot apple cider from Lillian, while Mathias asked for a broiled haddock after perusing their menu. Only when their plates were set fresh and steaming in front of them, did they resume their discussion.

“My turn, right?” Lillian asked, sticking a fork in one of the fried rolls. “Since you asked about my abilities, I’m also curious to know about this planeswalking business of yours…” It was surprising how most of her inhibitions could be so easily shattered when presented with a variety of appetizing foodstuffs. After a profuse dip in a green sauce she had never seen, she gobbled the scallop in the most ladylike manner she could manage. She winced terribly as spicy flames rolled on her tongue, realizing the mystery sauce was a foreign brand of hot mustard. Even after a good and hearty quaff of her hot cider, she could barely manage to speak again.

“'I’ve met someone who could do that before, and I have to say that I’ve always been fascinated by the concept… I mean, you must be able to travel the world in the snap of a finger, right? And visiting other planes of existence… ” Her voice trailed off after this, and though he knew not what, Mathias was certain she was imagining the one place she dreamed of seeing. It surprised him, then, to see a glint of sorrow in her eyes.

Mathias, however, ultimately decided to dismiss that strange behavior. “It's hard to explain,” he said as he began work on his meal, breaking the broiled fish into smaller parts. “The Tap, I think, is the fabric that holds different worlds, realities, and planes together. So, if I just want to be part of another world... I just do it. I don't really have to think about it. It comes as easy as breathing, really. And, yeah. There are wonders like you couldn't even fathom, but at the same time, it has its price. It just sort of wears thin after a while.” He paused to chew on a piece of haddock, mindful to gulp everything down before going on. “You stop appreciating it so much.”

When he noticed her failure to respond, Mathias looked up, wiping the corners of his mouth with a napkin. “Something wrong?”

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Lillian replied plainly, her inflection giving nothing away. Her eyes, however, seemed to throw furtive glances to the left.

“I’m… glad you feel comfortable enough to share these things, but…”

“We’re being watched,” she said lowly while faking a chuckle, brushing his hand in an intimate manner. “Act like you just said something funny,” she continued, never dropping the act.

“Watched?” Mathias asked, following suit as he gave a clumsy, toothy smile. “You mean, the three wearing hats, two tables over?” Unsure of how to act, he grinned as if cracking a joke.

Oddly, Lillian responded by looking upset, and why she did that, he could not yet fathom. “I don’t know who they’re after… but it’s definitely one of us. I thought I felt something strange when we were sitting outside, too.” She stopped to consider, though the false cheeriness of her countenance belied the growing worry behind those pensive eyes. “I’ve told you of my enemies, but do you have any of your own?”

When Mathias seemed to hesitate, she decided it was irrelevant and moved on with her analysis of the situation. “Either way, first we need to figure out which of us has tickled their fancy.”

“And how do you propose we do that?”

“As I said, I’ll go to the bathroom. You just need to leave. Whoever they follow is the target.”

“I don’t think there’s a convincing way for us to go our separate ways,” Mathias began half-mockingly, “especially not when we’ve been faking chuckles to our hearts deli– ”

Mathias was cut short by a resounding slap to the face, one backed with such force that his neck nearly snapped to the side. Lillian stood up in huff, almost knocking her chair down as she stood there, hands trembling furiously on the table’s edge as her eyes welled with a watery gleam. She whimpered, biting her lower lip as if she had taken incredible offense from whatever imaginary quip Mathias was supposed to have said. Then, without a word, she stormed for the bathroom, lightly bumping into a busboy for good measure, whispering the most heartbreaking of apologies as she fled by.

“I guess that’s one way,” Mathias muttered under his breath, palming his cheek to abate the swelling flames. He was a bit embarrassed, what with the patrons glaring at him disapprovingly, but there was no helping that. Taking out his money pouch, he threw a few coins to pay for the meal then gruffly tottered out the door and back onto the pier, doing his best to look both angry and crestfallen. A minute later, the men spying on them quietly rose to a stand, then left the restaurant without causing so much as a ripple in the venue’s ambiance.

Lillian’s head peeked from behind the bathroom door, eyes still red and swollen – just in time to catch their silent departure. While they seemed as shadows to the rest of the customers, Lillian could sense what dark objective reigned on their minds as plain as day. Even peaceful Scara Brae, it seemed, could be a harbour to these shady characters, and that was quite unfortunate.

The teenager sighed, then took a deep breath to clear her thoughts. “Seems you forgot to tell me a few things about yourself as well, Mathias,” she whispered slyly as she closed the door. There was a momentous silence after that terse click, but a second later came the gritty sound of a window sliding open, then closed.

[Mathias]

Ye gods, Mathias thought as he meandered across the boardwalk and down into an alley. I've got an actress on my hands, it seems. He was trying his best to maintain his composure, but he was being wracked by internal shivers and convulsions. He'd noticed the Syndicate members a tad bit sooner than she had, although he wanted to stave off warning her as long as possible. It was not his intention to mix her into his problems. Especially in the affairs in the Scara Scourge, which he knew she had no part in, anyway. However, he'd grossly miscalculated the time it would take for the Blackhood Syndicate to notice his fledgling career in the Pagoda. It had only taken a single fight, and here they were, right on his heels.

It kind of disappointed him that his time with Lillian was cut short. He wanted to be able to learn more about her. She was an interesting character, and on some level, he was able to relate to her. Despite the start to their odd friendship, she was, in some way, a confidant and kindred spirit. It also helped put him at ease that she reminded him of Cleric - the shy girl whom he'd first met when he joined the Scara Scourge... It was possibly that aspect of her that attracted him to Lillian... maybe it was more. It was hard for him to judge. But despite that inkling of kinship and that desire for companionship, he was instilled with an inexplicable fury. He, all at once, both admired and despised her scholarly curiosity. He hated his own weakness, his inability to even put up the weakest of a fight against her. Her prowess over him meant her presence was a constant reminder of his own frailty and ineptitude for overcoming odds without the help of anyone else.

Always being rescued... always being saved, he pondered. Never anything on my own. Never my own two feet. And there she is, all alone with the Sway only knows what, barking at her heels.

His thoughts, then, quickly turned to devising a plan of how to deal with those pursuing him. They wouldn't give up their chase, and he couldn't be sure of where a trap lay in wait for him. He'd have to deal with this... and hopefully use them as a message... a declaration of war to the Syndicate. Turning into an alley, he picked up his pace a bit. From behind him, footsteps echoed and began to match, and surpass his speed. He should have anticipated that Morian would be searching the city over for his escaped slave. The planeswalker shuddered as he remembered his tenure as a specimen in the lich's laboratory, being honed into a perfect weapon.

And perhaps the thing that bothered him most was the betrayal that had landed him in the grasp of the twisted necromancer. Chapter, the man who had led the specific outfit in the Scourge that Mathias belonged to... the man whose real name he had come to know as Cruz.. he had sold out his entire cell to the Blackhoods, turning coat to that damned syndicate of bottom-scraping foreigners. And not only that, but he'd directly caused the death of Matches, his very own lover, and who was like an older sister to the young vandal... all for the sake of power and gain. Well fuck that, Mathias swore to himself. He had solemnly vowed revenge - it was the only thing that had been on his mind the past month or so. Ever since he was freed from captivity... ever since he had reunited with his chapter and been promoted to a lieutenant of the Scourge...

He wanted to lay waste to the very thought of the Syndicate. Enact righteous fury... he wanted to give in to the most base and primal instinct that any sentient being held; he wanted to destroy them.

Turning around, he saw caught a single glimpse of the trio of black-clad men pursuing him, before he disappeared into the vivid plane, willing his body to transcend existence and reach another plateau of reality. There, he moved forward, placing himself behind his enemies, planeswalking only far enough to put him in an advantage of position. As he returned to the Firmament, he placed a kick to one of the men's knees, snapping it and lowering him to the ground. He reached out and grabbed his would-be assailant's neck and snapped it with one single, fluid jerk.

That was as far as he got, however, before a massive fist swung into his face, and he flew backwards, stumbling as he did so. He heard the unsheathing of a blade, and he moved to the side, his shoulder slamming against the wall as he blindly dodged the oncoming sword. He focused himself and charged forward, tackling the one wielding the blade as hard as he could. As they both collided with the ground, he felt the other thug put him in a headlock, squeezing his neck and choking him.

Helpless and flailing, he felt himself being picked up, and held in front of the man with the long sword. "Cruz says hello," whispered the one holding him.

"Fuck him. And you," Mathias said through a wheezing breath, mustering up the energy to spit at the smirking bastard who stood before him.

[Ataraxis]

“Hey you.”

The towering hulk of a ruffian that was locking Mathias in a chokehold glanced over his shoulder, training his dark and beady eyes to the source of the lilting summons. There he found a girl knee-high to a grasshopper, so pale and petite, seeming so fragile that her resemblance to a bisque doll was uncanny. Her face was strangely familiar, and upon further inspection he recalled that it was the same lass that had dined with his prey, but moments ago.

“You gotta be a few peas short of a casserole, wandering dark alleys like that in this day and age,” the thug said in dreary voice, half-mocking and half-annoyed. “Go home, kid. This won’t be pretty, and you seem the type to pass out just from standing up too fast.”

“Listen to the big guy, doll.” As he wiped the spit from his face, the man with the long sword seemed to find this all amusing, each laugh sounding like a god-awful neigh from that horse-face. “You can make up with your date after picking up what’s left of him.”

“Hey Silk, why do you think she’s standing like that?” asked the thug, his forehead lined with question marks. He had just now noticed her peculiar pose, that pale mimicry of a noble lifting a wineglass for a toast. He curiously squinted his eyes, making out a strange mix of gloom and glimmer, trailing up from her hand. “What’s that you’re holding?” Only then did he feel a light caress about his shoulders, the alighting of something wispy and weightless.

“Noose,” Lillian replied with the utmost simplicity, lips drawn in a dollish grin as she jerked her hand downward.

“What?” A loud twang echoed in the alley, followed by the swish of rustling cloth and the sound of a choking struggle. The ruffian flew skyward while his legs flailed wildly beneath him, burly arms flapping as his hand clawed at the pressure on his throat. There were loops of dark thread cinched around the ruffian’s neck, so strong and taut that they deprived him of any saving breath. He was foaming at the mouth, the veins on his face and hands on the verge of popping when he finally slumped still, save for the occasional twitching in his leg.

The wooden walls to the left and right seemed to creak and yield toward the dark lane, and a good eye would then notice that the man was dangling from a strange, webby clothesline weaved between the two adjacent buildings. Lillian looked up calmly, evincing no emotion from the apparent execution, save for a glint of humour as she saw Mathias swinging from the ankle of his ex-captor. “Hangman’s noose.”

“Get him down from there or you’re dead!” the swordsman roared as he leapt into a charge, grey eyes mad with rage and his blade ringing with murder as it swung low to cripple her legs. Lillian made no attempt to counter. She was merely looking up, up, then progressively down…

Mathias’ knee rammed squarely into the swordsman’s spine, bringing the thug down with him to the floor. They crashed and skittered across the boards, coming to a violent stop only paces away from the teenage girl. The planeswalker stood and stamped his foot on the man’s fencing arm, twisting left and right until he dropped the sword. The boy towered over the supine swordsman, boasting a smile most arrogant as his varicoloured eyes seethed with the mists of revenge. Once again, he spat in the man’s face before ramming it with the heel of his boot. Bones cracked and blood spurted, then nothing more.

“That didn’t seem necessary,” Lillian muttered in an admonishing tone, frowning at the gory spectacle.

“He’s still alive, which is more than I can say about your gallows exhibition!” Mathias snapped back with uncharacteristic vehemence, which shook the girl rather badly. “Seems you’ve been having quite the killing streak since we’ve fought,” he said with a cheshire smirk, fully intending the disdain in his tone. He then turned away dismissively, lightly rubbing his neck to allay the chafe from the headlock.

“What... what is wrong with you?” Lillian was positively upset; she knew that it was all coming undone now, that all the repressed ugliness would now be unleashed. The girl had not expected, however, that he would strike where it hurt her most… that he would confirm her greatest suspicion, and greatest fear. “He’s not dead,” she whispered almost imperceptibly. “He’s not dead, because I made sure his neck wouldn’t snap, and he’s only been asphyxiated for eighty-nine seconds, and brain damage only happens after five minutes, and I told you I was sorry, so sorry…” Unlike her previous act at the restaurant, the tears flowing down her cheeks were genuine, as were the sobs she hopelessly tried to restrain. “I told you I was sorry so many times, and you said you forgave me… but it’s not forgiving if, if you’re just going to, to throw i-it back in m-my face every time, it’s not...”

“H-Hey, I…”

“I could have just run away when you said we had to talk! I could have just left... but I stayed to clear things up, I stayed even if it hurts just looking at you!” Lillian was screaming in her mind to stop, to close off the floodgates in fear of exposing herself, of showing the feelings she herself had been trying to suppress beneath her calm exterior. Yet despair urged her on to come clean, to put it all out in the open in the naive belief that her heart would somehow be less burdened. “Because I know… I know I did this horrible thing to you, and I knew from the beginning that you hated me, and just… just being near you is a constant reminder that the guilt I feel is all I deserve!”

She had finally run out of breath, and all she could do to hide her shame now was to look down at her boots, letting her dark hair droop to hide the mess of her face. Wiping her eyes, she began laughing lightly, suddenly realizing how silly and foolish she had been. “I... I should leave,” she said at last, faking a smile as she raised her chin. “We're both busy people, apparently, so I won't be incommoding you any further. It was... nice meeting you.”

With that, Lillian gave him one last fallacious beam, a sad little wreck of a smile before spinning on her heels. From there, she would walk out from the darkness of the alley and, she dearly hoped, out from this day in his life.

[Mathias]

Mathias stood there as she turned and walked away. He surveyed the entire scene, his body convulsing as shivers overtook him in overwhelming waves, originating from a torrential storm in his heart. Conflicting emotions battled against one another, trying to convey a message that he could not utter. Don't walk away... not like that, he said - but only in his mind. I don't hate you. I don't, not really... I'm sorry, I'm sorry... It's... me. Weak, scared, incapable of handling my own problems. I'm not anathema the way you thought I was, the way you said I was.

Caught in his self-pitying festival, he didn't even notice the thing that writhed in the shadows, scaling the wall of the left side of the alley. He was far too absorbed in his inability to reach out to her without being a complete asshole that it was too late that he saw it. The creature jumped from the wall, as if it were a sort of spider, though it was clear it was a man, tall, lanky, bald, naked with skin as black as granite. It had solid orange eyes and a toothy smile, complete with two rows of jagged, razor teeth and an extremely long tongue that dripped with saliva.

The man-thing reached out its mongoloid appendages and grasped Lillian before she could take another step, and it threw her into a wall. Immediately, Mathias was spurred into action, awakened from his stupor by the cry that she emitted. Rage filled his body and he felt his lungs breathe fire, his heart pump lava. He realized, without a doubt, that this was one of Morian's own pets, sent after him. The Blackhoods were only bait... he had been drawn into a much larger trap than he'd anticipated. And Lillian had been caught up right in the middle of an affair to which she owed no participation.

The vandal tried to charge and plow into the predator, hoping to send it sprawling with a harsh shove from his shoulder. It twirled around, facing him as they collided together. Recovering slightly faster than the thing, the planeswalker scrambled across the ground and moved towards Lillian, reaching out to her and grasping her hand. She initially protested, trying to shirk away from Mathias and gather herself of her own accord, but, with a harsh strain on his voice, he snapped at her. "Hey! Look at me," he said, his eyes filled with a hundred emotions at once, conveying more than words possibly could. Sorrow, regret, fear - true and genuine terror - and desperation, among many others. "Trust me. I need you to trust me."

With that, he moved forward to wrap his arms around Lillian. His soul reached out to touch hers, and he pushed himself, carrying her, through the barriers between worlds, emerging into the vivid plane that she would immediately recognize as his arena from their bout in the Pagoda. The coalescing prismatic sprays of color and hue swirled around the pair... almost protectively. Letting go of Lillian, he looked at her and tried to catch his breath. "You... we can't stay here for long. Your body. It won't... it won't last. You're going to return to the Firmament... so we have to run."

"Wh... what was that?!" she screamed through her breathless horror.

"A lapdog for the person who is hunting me," he said, grabbing her by the hand and running forward, calculating in his head where they would appear when Lillian's body and soul drifted back, anchored to the physical plane and the world of Althanas. Where they came out was a mere few streets over from the alley that they had disappeared from, and with her in hand, he began to run like hell.

[Ataraxis]

Though Lillian could think of few alternatives other than running, she was becoming alarmingly aware that no matter how fast they ran or how many sharp corners were left in their dust, the monstrous behemoth could not be shaken off. Even worse, the ache of her injuries and the fatigue from their sprint was rapidly catching up to her, the girl never having been a friend to physical exertion, while the grotesquery on their tails was looming closer and closer with loud and sickening slobbers that reeked of perverse hunger. Her heart was constricting: it was that feeling again, like being hunted by a wolf turned mad by starvation, with no more on its feral mind than the sating of its basest needs.

Once, that feeling had been fear. Today… it was rage.

“Fuck this shit,” she growled, almost hissing as she slapped Mathias’ leading hand away. Lillian broke her dash to put her foot down, or rather stomped it down with a force as uncharacteristic as her vulgarity. Mathias staggered round, the bewilderment clear on his face – not only from her sudden decision to become shark bait, but from seeing that his crude language had somehow rubbed off on the girl. “Can’t outrun it, so why fucking bother?” she said through clenched teeth, in between long and weary breaths.

“Are you crazy?” Mathias shouted, the hurry and distress clear in his voice. “We’re dead if we don’t try!”

The ground was quaking harder and harder, pebbles and sundries dancing with each approaching stomp. A dark mass burst through the mound of crates and cans at the alley’s mouth. It charged through the flying debris, eyes flashing in a most revolting display of bliss, licking what should have been lips; yet they were but flaps of skin, sliced off by a dull scalpel and wagging limply over its gums. It was hideous, an unsightly freak of anything but nature. Ugliness made flesh. She prayed as she stood her ground, she irately prayed that it had not once been a human.

Just as they were about to crash head on, Mathias cursed an oath before vaulting into the fray, leaping right past Lillian to meet the monster’s fist with his own, an image as ominous as the collision course of a boulder and an eggshell. In that dead instant, she called the foolish boy a thousand names, until she saw that familiar flicker in the fabric of space. As the planeswalker stepped through an invisible threshold, his ghost sailed right past the creature’s balled fist before vanishing into thin air. The beast lost its balance as its swing met and destroyed a wall of fired bricks; just then, Mathias phased back into existence, crouching right behind it, and she noticed the sharp blue shimmer in his offhand. It was Lillian’s glass dirk, which had been hanging on her rope belt – which Mathias had skilfully purloined in his brash jump.

The blade burrowed deep into the thing’s jagged spine, spilling a mess of black and blue blood that was answered by ungodly wails. Neither of them had expected, however, that its shriek of pain would be followed by a backhanded sweep. It knocked Mathias square in the ribs, sending him spinning airborne and tumbling into a pile of clattering junk. It turned back to Lillian then, just in time to hear a peculiar snap.

“That,” Lillian whispered, her glare dead set on the abomination, “was the last… fucking… straw.” At last, she could feel it: the result of mixing her own, genuine rage with the one she emulated by memory. In her mind’s eye, she could envision the world through blood-red lenses, and by that spilling of wrath in both her curses and demeanour, she had reached the necessary mindset to unleash a power she had borrowed long ago, from the most august yet foul-mouthed mercenary to have walked this world.

The flagstones underfoot cracked, then shattered as she made her mad dash for the crawling horror. Each step utterly destroyed the ground, leaving dust, stone shards and scraps of leather from her boots flying in her wake. Within the span of a blink, she was upon the unmindful beast, and her fist connected with its chest right as its orange eyes focused to meet her own – sapphire blue, yet ringed with a strange new shade of crimson. It expected nothing from the hit, and its jagged rows of fangs jittered in amusement.

The laughing stopped when its chest was sunken in. Echoing through the alleyway was a grim symphony of broken ribs, continuously snapping from the sternum to its far sides, jags of bone jutting from its gnarled flesh like shrapnel. It staggered backward, its bellow as shrill and piercing as a legion of scuttling, swarming insects. Giving it no time to recover, Lillian followed with a series of uncoordinated punches, relying only on sheer destructive power and speed rather than any type of technique, something that proved magnificently effective.

Her knuckles were raw, her fists were stained dark blue, as was her dress. She somehow seemed more monstrous than the atrocity now heaped at her feet, what with that inhumane glow in her eyes, empty and vitreous as the girl looked down on the creature without emotion. Lillian seemed a completely different person, this way – or perhaps, in fact, she was. It was as if all context had been stripped from her mind, as if there was no reason, drive or rationale for the massacre she was causing. All had been forgotten, as was the writhing Mathias, who merely looked on at the scene in disbelief.

“Not enough…” the girl whispered, tilting her head to the side. “Can’t be freed from the Welkin, with just this.” Then, her teeth suddenly snapped together, straining so much that blood began leaking. The red rings in her eyes grew darker, thicker, overtaking the blue with every passing second. The thing she had become lazily straddled the carcass, hefting a fist high overhead to bring it down with devastating strength. The skull split apart and her hand slipped through the grey matter like rotten butter, only to shatter the ground beneath into a deep web of fissures. She raised the other fist, then struck again, and again, and again. Focused only on the task of destruction, she battered at the thing’s head until there was no more than purple-grey pulp, slithering down the network of cracks and splashing over her dainty white hands and dress.

Yet somehow, the barrage of strikes became softer, almost muted. It was only a while later that the husk of Lillian realized that both her arms were broken by multiple fractures, already coloured with a cyanotic black. “Not enough,” she repeated sedately, seeing her shattered limbs in the same way one would a broken tool.

In that moment’s pause, she was caught unawares by the springing of the corpse’s previously-devastated ribs, which wrapped around her like coiling white snakes. Imprisoned in its ribcage, she attempted to break her way through, but something seeped from its marrow, through the enamel and into her skin and blood. Her muscles loosened and the ribs crushed her body tighter and tighter, until she could no longer breathe. Helpless, she looked down into the gore of the creature’s chest, only to see a repulsive replica of the head she had ground into visceral paste, slowly regenerating with that same, hungry smile. The poison robbed her mind of light, and soon, she slipped into unconsciousness, the scarlet wrath in her eyes receding to reveal a lifeless blue.

“Damnit…” Mathias barely managed, his arm vainly outstretched as he attempted to crawl out of the spilled garbage. His eyelids felt heavier and heavier, and he was feeling the call of darkness as well. “Li…llian.” In his last moments of consciousness, the boy merely watched the monster pick itself up, flesh and bone groaning as they snapped back into place while the limp form of Lillian was drawn deeper into the maw of its chest. Drawn deeper... and swallowed whole.

[Mathias]

Mathias jerked from a dreamless slumber brought on by the stress and trauma that he had incurred. He tried to stand up, waking with an instant burst of energy that pushed through the pain that wracked his body. However, he was pulled back and restricted by chains that hooked into a cold, gray stone wall. A small candle dimly lit the cell, which was merely a small cube of inhospitable walls and dank, musty air. Three sets of manacles and a chamberpot next to each were the only items that occupied any sort of space.

There was a set of chains per wall, and then one held only a large wooden door with a small, barred window-slot in it. The side opposing the door had someone laying down on the cold ground, cuffed in. Mathias observed the prisoner for a long while until he came to the conclusion that it was merely a corpse. His eyes drifted across the room, settling on directly opposite of him. Sitting across from the planeswalker was an unconcious Lillian, her ebony tresses matted to her face with sweat, grime, and blood in thick clumps. The weak light danced over her pale skin, showing the blue and black bruises that lined her body.

And as he stared at her, a split-second revelation dawned on him. That thought crashed upon him, again and again in waves, so intense, that he could barely breathe. And when he finally could, he let out a gutteral scream of sheer primal rage as he began to twist and turn and writhe and squirm, trying to get free of the links that bound him. "FUCK YOU!" he growled to the door. "FUCKYOUFUCKYOU FUCK YOU!! Let me go! Let me go, you twisted fuck! I'll kill you, I'll fucking kill you, I swear to all the gods, I'll KILL YOU!"

His wrists and ankles were raw and red and had started to bleed a bit from his fit of anger. He'd ground a layer of skin from his body, but he couldn't even feel it through the numbness that had set in upon him.

His nightmare had come true. He was captured. Back in the skeletal hands of Morian Fleshbane, the arch-lich of Antioch. What he thought he'd escaped... only came back for him tenfold.

...

Lillian woke up only a while later, groggily shifting until she realized she was tightly bound by the prevalida cuffs around her neck, wrists, and ankles. She let out a strained groan, before she tried to wrestle herself free - not quite to the extent and desperation that Mathias had, but still stricken by terror nonetheless.

"Don't even bother," said the planeswalker sitting across from her, laying against the wall. His voice was somber, dejected.

"Wh... what the... where are we? What did... what's going?" she said, exasperated. She tried to control her breathing, keep herself from hyper-ventilating as she rambled a bit, trying to perceive her surroundings.

"You'll find out soon enough," Math replied, shaking his head. He looked at her, his brows furrowing in what would be a scowl, if not for his eyes. They were like blue-ish green orbs of glass, filled with water and about to break. It was sorrow... and on a much larger scale... defeat. "Why did you come back for me? Why did you... why try to save me? You don't... you didn't owe me tha-"

"Shut up," Lillian said, her voice cracking with her shriek. "You don't know me or what this feeling's like. This guilt. So please... just stop, okay?" Her voice softened with the last sentence, as if the thought was dying off and submitted to exhaustion and defeat.

There was a long silence, still and unbroken as Lillian looked at the ground and Mathias gazed at her with storm-filled eyes. "Yeah. I do know what it's like," he said, simply. Lillian merely looked up at him with a dismissive frown, and then averted her stare back to the floor.

For what seemed like an eternity, passing in the space of maybe ten minutes, there was nothing but the sound of their breathing and the occaisonal rattling of the chains as one of them shifted their position. Inside the vandal, however, was a tempest of emotion, and he was trying hard to contain it. He had hoped... he had prayed to gods that he didn't follow that he'd never end up here again. He knew that Morian would finish the work he'd began and that... in that process, Mathias would probably lose what humanity he had.

"It was here... in this dungeon that I found out... that I was a piece of the Eternal Tap," he said, out of the blue and breaking the silence like glass. Lillian jumped slightly at his unexpected confession. "We are in the hospitality of Morian Fleshbane. Twisted necromancer and arch-lich hailing from Antioch. Ye gods... I can't believe I've made my way back here." He put his hands to his face and rubbed vigorously, hoping he could wrest the sleep from his eyes and wake up from the nightmare... but reality persisted and he did not find himself back in his bed.

"I know what it's like to be guilty," he said once more.

The young girl looked up at him, making eye contact for the first time. "What do you mean?" she asked in a hushed whisper.

"He met me, a long time ago. In Antioch during a battle. It was at that time he realized what I was. But he inadvertantly... killed me. But I can't really die. I'm sort of immortal, but not really. My soul and body repair themselves... and when I woke up, I was in Scara Brae. But he's searched for me, and he found me. He wants me for something... he needs me to be... a weapon."

He took in a deep breath, and Lillian allowed him that. She didn't make any motion to interrupt him as his gaze averted and he looked down at the ground. "I was experimented on. Sick, twisted shit, he put me through... and then... Eventually, as a 'field test,' I was forced to assassinate Baron Aeric Eauruta. A good man. A very good man. Someone... a lot better than I could ever aspire to be."

"Sorry... about all that," Lillian murmured, at a loss for any other words.

Mathias merely waved his hand dismissively. The sound of rattling chains bounced off the walls of the cold and barren prison chamber. "Useless phrase. Don't worry about it," he said.

The scholar tried to shift position, but as she moved her arms, an intense pain shot through her. She let out a soft cry of anguish, but it was severely muffled by her exhaustion. "What... happened to me?"

Math looked at her, tilting his head. "You don't even remember? Shit... You... well. I was borderline unconcious... but you ah... you beat the fuck out of that thing. You probably shattered your hands and wrists from it. Happens all the time to people who don't learn the proper way to punch."

A mere, "Oh," was the only reply that met the vandal's ears. Lillian sat, thinking about the situation, about where she was, and how she'd gotten herself into all of this. Mathias, as well, was brooding over it, although he was thinking of how he had involved her. He felt stupid... naive... useless. He should've known that they'd be waiting for him. That Morian wouldn't rely on the Syndicate alone. That he would be more drastic in his attempt to recapture the planeswalker. After all, what had he hoped to accomplish by talking to her? By dragging her out to that pier, and acting as if she hadn't brutally murdered him in gladatorial combat only hours before. He didn't really know. She seemed like him when he had first found himself in Scara Brae. But she was also more than him... in a lot of ways. Less human, more... exotic, for lack of a better term. Stronger, smarter. She had an air about herself of uncertain awkwardness, yet a brimming power that was realizing its potential. Something and someone he could learn from and possibly connect to.

He had his friends, back in the Scourge. He had Cleric, Logo, Lady, Fingers, and Knuckles. All the members of his outfit. But none of them compared to the chance that Lillian was. Somebody who... on so many levels... was a lot like him.

"Are... are we going to be tortured?" she asked, stabbing through Math's thoughts with her words.

At that moment, the bolt on the outside of the door was unlatched, and the portal opened. A figure, clad in black robes that didn't touch the ground, and yet, had no feet sticking out from beneath them, levitated slowly into the room. A magic curtain of shadows obscured the face within the hood of the cloak, but there was a distinct impression that it was probably a blessing for one's sanity.

"It's more like experimentation," said the lich. It seemed, although it was impossible to see, that he was smiling a wicked, sadistic grin beneath that hood.

[Mathias]

Mathias felt Morian's hidden gaze pierce him, as the robed lich looked over the young vandal. He knew he was being scrutinized and inspected, with his captor taking in the details of change since the last time they met. "To be honest, I'm somewhat glad you've eluded me. The Syndicate is going to have a much easier time finding all of your allies, since you've started to unite them," he said. His voice was cold, hoarse, and airy. It sounded hollow, and yet, it evoked a feeling like needles digging into one's spine whenever it was heard.

"Fuck you," Mathias said, spitting into the folds of the shadow-enveloped hood. A cackle erupted from whatever was left of the necromancer's throat, and that laugh did more to break down Math's confidence than waking up in this place. To him, that was the sound of captivity and slavery. It was the one thing that completed the realization that he, despite his running and evasion, was back in Hell.

"Yes... that is what I expected. It's a shame, though... It seems you haven't been keeping diligent in the pursuit of reaching your potential. You should be thankful you've landed back in my hands, Mathias Vinkuzri... Yes... you will thank me someday." The lich turned his back to the planeswalker, who thrashed and rattled his chains, screaming curses and shouting until his voice went hoarse. Morian floated, slowly and leisurely, towards Lillian. "And a fine specimen, too, my young prodigal has found for me," he mused, reaching out a skeletal hand, draped in gray and rotten flesh, caressing her cheek with a phalange. "It seems to me that you have an impressive array of abilities... very unrefined, however. You're going to be a very fun case to work on." With that, he took his leave of the room, the door slamming shut and blocking out the voice of the still-screaming Mathias.

...

"You might think this is cruel, or sadistic... but I want you to face this. I want you to face me, and tell me that what I'm doing isn't for your own good. It isn't making you better than what you are," said Morian, leaning over and staring Mathias directly in the eyes. The young man was certainly glad the magic shadows that covered the lich's face were ever-present... because the last thing he wanted right then was to look into the folds of that hood and see that gruesome visage. Through the pain, Math grunted, his voice breaking as he tried to hiss out a hate-filled vow, but it was lost to the agony.

Needles was a creature that resembled something once long-ago human. He was short, hunched over, and had red flesh that seemed bruised and burnt and raw, all at once. He was mostly bald, with stringy strands of hair matted to his scalp, and enormous bulging eyes, split by a big nose and underlined by a crooked, insidious smile. But his hands - that's where his namesake was from. Implanted into him, grafted into his anatomy, were needles that had replaced his fingers. He had the ability to retract and extend them at will, and thus, he was a perfect vehicle for the bloodletting experiments.

"Now, I have yet to figure out why... but you want to be Human. I'm still wrapping my mind around how it works, but your magic allows you to be Human. And yet... you are not one. Not in the least. Your flesh and your blood only seem as such because that's what it needs to look like. For all intents and purposes... you have a truely Human body. But beyond that mask and intricately woven facade is magic. Pure, untouched, completely raw and unrefined magic," Morian explained. His voice was a mock-sort of soothing, as if he were a mother at a child's bedside, calming her babe who had come down with a fever. It was a twisted sort of fake comfort, only done for the irony and comedy it provided to the lich.

"So, if we draw out the blood... if we force it to show itself as what it really is... as mana... as the essence of magic... you will slowly find your body leaning towards the tendency to display its true form. You will become, instead of a false, if convincing, Human being... instead, a conduit. An unbound nexus of the Tap."

The pain was excruciating, although Mathias could not help but hear every single word uttered from Morian's lips. He tilted his head away from the necromancer to look at Lillian, chained to the wall and helpless. He locked eyes with her, hoping to find some sort of comfort or haven inside that gaze... he wanted her to be able to give him the strength and fortitude to endure... As their eyes met for one brief moment, the vandal stopped screaming. He grit his teeth, but he stopped his banshee wail of agony, finding the solace he needed in her averting eyes and the concern and sorrow they held.

But Mathias knew from experience that this was barely even the beginning for himself. The torment he was suffering was only a fraction of the long and bleak road ahead of him - a path he had no choice but to be dragged along on.

[Ataraxis]

How long had it been, she wondered, since Mathias first started screaming? Lillian had witnessed every excruciating second, had no choice but to watch as the boy’s flesh was lanced open again and again by the claws of his torturer, each dark drop of his blood collected into a pewter bleeding bowl for future, ungodly uses. At the beginning, she had seen him struggle against the agony, repressing his cries whenever their eyes crossed as if from each of those shared moments, he could derive a thimble of strength.

But with each laceration, with each stab of those skittish needles, a chip of his resolve would come away, carried off by the bleeding of his body and the bleeding of his mind.

Sometimes, the misshapen creature holding him at its mercy would laugh in rat-like jitters, a warning that its pea-sized brain had schemed new and creative ways to misinterpret the tasks given by its master. It would carve strange designs into the raw flesh or incise it with blood-stained obscenities, but the being known as Needles found his greatest enjoyment in removing patches of skin, either by grating or by peeling. Needles would then store them in its oily pockets, where they joined an assortment of other gruesome trophies – old knot of hair, countless broken teeth, removed fingernails that were chipped and oozing. There were even pieces that, through the fabric of its linen pants, vaguely resembled the shape of earlobes. Each of these sick rituals would end with the creature smiling like a bastard child of rodent and hyena, mumbling about birds, stones, erotic thrills and a copious dinner before returning to its work like an artist to his masterpiece.

Without the sifts of sand or the tick-tock of a clock, Lillian could not guess the time it took for the lich to finally grow weary of the repetitious spectacle. “That will be enough for now, Needles… be on your way,” Morian said in a dusty, hollow sigh as he turned to Mathias. The hunchbacked creature bowed in deference before simply slinking out the cell with a limp and a wicked grin. “Why you feel so strongly for your mortal coils is still a foolish mystery to me… yet I am forced to admit that, were I to bleed you any further, you would run a very likely risk of believing yourself into lethal haemorrhage.” Shrugging with a groan of bones, the necromancer adopted the world-weary tone of a teacher faced with his trouble student. “Are you starting to see? How ridiculous it is? How silly?”

Morian was almost dejected by his test subject’s lack of repartee. Upon paying a tad more heed to the boy, the lich realized with disappointment that beneath the clotting of his blood-matted hair and distant, deadbeat eyes, Mathias was tenuously hanging to the edge of consciousness, his mental grasp slipping with every piercing breath and jarring heartbeat. “To say I hoped your time outside had made you stronger… but here you are, already seeking your last breath on the very first day.”

His voice became sharper, almost acrid. “Then, shall I wake you up, Vinkuzri? Shall I give you reason to postpone yet another of your pathetic deaths?”

“Go fuck…” Mathias grunted, spitting out to the side a ball of blood and phlegm. “… yourself.”

“What a kind service, reminding me so of the few… drawbacks of attaining Lichdom.” The necromancer turned his back to Mathias, slowly drifting away without a sound. “But trust that mine is no common undeath: whereas the pleasures of the body may die and decay, the pleasures of the mind are forever honed.” Reaching the wall opposite to Mathias, Morian outstretched a rot-infested hand with skin grey as that of waterlogged corpses. It took hold of the prevalida chains bound to Lillian’s shackles, playing with the pale blue links that rattle under its touch like crystal rain. “The loss of a sense sharpens the others, renders them keener, more acute…” He yanked on the chains, hoisting the girl to a painful stand as the fractured bones in her arms were tugged apart.

Lillian shrieked. Tears of pain came to her eyes, but they only urged him on – fuelled his sadistic needs. “Loss opens you to new realms of sensation, and practicing the old…” The delight in his sandy voice was no longer mimicry; he shook the chains further up, forcing the girl to stand on her tiptoes. His free hand hovered near her neckline, grazing it with the tip of an exposed phalanx. It was alluringly delicate, despite the blood and grime marring her skin. So delicate, in fact, that it was hard not to reach out… and snap it. “Practicing the old can procure new heights of satisfaction. Do you understand, Vinkuzri? Or shall I make her understand? Shall I wake her instead?”

“Leave her the fuck alone!” Mathias snapped, but his outburst of rage caused a violent fit of coughing that painted the stone cold floor a vivid shade of red.

“Ah, but I intend no unnecessary harm to her – as I said before, she is quite the specimen.” He turned to look the girl in the eyes, intent on drinking every last drop of the fear and terror. Instead, he met a steadfast gaze that betrayed no delusion or flimsy bravado, and behind it lay something… unnervingly indescribable. “However…” Morian continued after a wary pause, facing Mathias once more, “she remains expendable. I trust that you will be more cooperative, what with the, ah, sanctity of her body, mind and soul depending solely on your good behaviour.”

“Now... are we agreed?”

Mathias slumped back on a wall that felt colder than it had ever been. His lacerated arms were straining with silent fury, the angry rattle of his bindings but a pale reflection of the murderous compulsions that stormed within. To keep his silence like this was preposterous, for it was an admission of defeat. Yet, he could say no more, for that would spell Lillian’s most unpleasant demise.

And he knew... Morian would have no hesitation whatsoever to use the slightest slip of the tongue against him. Against her.

“Are we agreed, Vinkuzri?”

“Yes,” Mathias answered at last, lowering his head. “We are.”

[Ataraxis]

“Just lovely, when we can all get along,” said the lich in a poor, hoary excuse for a singsong voice. “Now, miss… Lillian, I believe? Please, do accept my humblest apologies for making you wait. There were a few loose ends left that I just had to tie… which you might agree is a rare and commendable quality in such a world of, ah, laissez-faire?” Alas, the teenager showed little to no interest in his prelude. When it seemed he was cursed to receive no honest reply from his captives, the necromancer shrugged and trained the topic back to the crux of their business, albeit with a touch of disappointment.

“You, my dear, intrigue me,” he began, finally letting go of the chain from which Lillian dangled. The teenager fell to her knees and collapsed in a heap there and then, yet there was still no reaction from the girl. “That a fair child, so young and so fragile, can call upon the strength of a colossus at the drop of a hat… and that this very same child knows how to weave sorcerous webs with a tensile strength far superior to that of steel, from the results my latest analyses…”

“… Is nothing short of wondrous. Perhaps, even… divine?” Morian was lurching over her, and she could sense the twist of his wicked smile beneath that darkling hood: he had caught a sudden glitter in her dismal blue eyes, and that alone ascertained his assumption. “So, you do know more of this Welkin Body than you let on at the pier. Ah yes, I was observing you both – nothing uncharacteristic of any scholar worth his salt, wouldn’t you say? But oh, I digress. Divine… you reacted to this choice of wording. You know it to be… accurate, but you wish it to be… erroneous. Now why is that? Is it because your powers are, as of yet, unrefined, or is it that you are not able to control them? Then, is it that you … fear them?”

“Do you think by listening to the sound of your own voice, you’ll be able to get what’s left of it up?” Lillian asked with a faint tilt of her head.

“That language is a lovely shade on you, dear. At least, much more than it is on him. But I agree: the time for idle conversation is long past. I have my own theories on the mechanics of your powers – and, conveniently enough, I know a number of ways to test and measure them. Though I must warn you… none of them are pleasant!”

Not so long ago, Lillian had been introduced to the pain of being stabbed through by the length of a sword. She remembered it vividly, the cold slip of metal inside her stomach, then the overwhelming feeling of loosening and unravelling in that puncture wound. Still, there was mercy in that pain, for such sharpness offered both quick relief and, sooner or later, sweet release. This… was not so. This pain was of a brutal kind, like beasts of thunder running amok inside her body, laying waste to everything as they devoured her from within. Five rips in her dress, five widening tears in her flesh. Five skeletal fingers buried into her abdomen, squelching left and right in a visceral search for clues and answers.

Lillian doubled over, retching a mixture of scallop bites and scarlet blood. Her life was pouring, pouring through those five, gaping, darkening wounds in her stomach. She thought she heard a scream, but she had only heard herself as if from a great distance, and drifting further away. Mathias… he answered with his own furious roar, but it too was dulled by the numbing of her mind. And then, there was laughter… Morian. Morian was… chuckling. Not guffawing madly, but chuckling with such peace of mind and light-heartedness that it disturbed her. How? How could he be laughing so innocuously after gutting her alive?

The necromancer began to pull out his fingers one by one, each accompanied by a wet pop and spurt as streams of warm, red mists rushed to fill the void they left. Lillian’s knees struck stone, and this time there was nothing controlled in her demeanour: she was repressing the screams, biting the pain down so hard her gums began to bleed. The image of guts sliding, the thought of their stench, of the bleeding, of the cascading viscera … though none of that happened, she still seemed overwhelmed by the mental shock, writhing there on the dank and dirty floor.

Lillian struggled madly against the pain, but the fire was slowly guttering in her eyes, their lights doused by the darkness until the girl moved no more.

“I always enjoy a good act,” Morian said in jest, wiping the sheen of blood on his hands over the folds of his black robes. “But I have a keener eye for deception than my lackeys. Child, I don’t need a sense of touch to know when I meet resistance.” He unceremoniously picked up her carcass by the neck, dragging her left and right before lifting her high overhead. “Your arms were broken when I first pulled on your chains, but they felt more solid the second time. Moreover, in your abdomen… I struck something.” And then, he saw it, saw the dark gloss beneath all the blood like liquid shadows.

“Impressive… you weaved your webs inside your own body. And not only are they harder than steel, but they can also heal. No… regenerate.” Indeed, the five wounds were already growing smaller, and the bleeding had been promptly stalked by that gauze of webs.

“You... talk... too much!”

Her left fist sailed straight for his face, though it was stopped by the sudden tensing of her restraints. The blue-metal was too strong to be broken, even by her strength it seemed. Perhaps that was why Morian had not budged even when her balled hand came inches from the swirling shadows of his cowl: because he was confident in the effectiveness of his preparations. It was with that same confidence that he stood his ground as she made a second futile attempt. A third. Then another. And another. He could already hear the gasps of fatigue, feel her rage wear out, see the flaming blood in her eyes cooling down to a deathly cold.

He could also feel a chip of stone bounce off his chest.

With her seventh strike, the wall neatly broke apart where the chains had been affixed. She threw her body into powerful spin, every muscle in her body spasming as she turned her bindings and the fragment of rock at its end into speeding ball and chain aimed for Morian’s temple. They collided with ludicrous force, on par with the sheer force of a small cannonball: the lich’s skull flattened and shattered inside the hood before the balled pieces flew away, tearing off the cowl’s fabric as they careened for the opposite wall. The debris crashed and were ground into even smaller pieces, which then rained down and pelted a dumbfounded Mathias like a storm of salt.

What they saw lying in the rags of torn black cloth, alas, resembled nothing of a decapitated head. All she could see were chinks of clay and clotted blood, lumped into the vague shape of a head and topped with a wilted shock of grizzled, mismatched hair.

“Why, that deserves a golden star, miss Lillian!” came Morian’s disembodied voice from the shattered remnants that clung to Mathias and his blood-soaked clothes. “By observing your quick disposal of my puppet, I have come to understand two things about you.”

“First, is that you have yet another asset to you arsenal: your mind. I made it clear from the beginning that you could not break the chains, but rather than despair on this insurmountable hurdle, you merely chose to break the walls – a choice obvious only in hindsight. Not only that, but you also turned your shackles into weapons, which exceeded my expectations. My highest compliments. Really.”

“Second, and more relevant to my interests, is that your strength relies on two conditions: powerful emotions… and luck. What is more, this strength is ultimately more harmful to you than anyone else. As I had thought, an unrefined power… but I must still thank you for your invaluable cooperation. After all, these tests have provided absolute proof that my initial conjectures were correct – conjectures, that is, on the nature and workings of your abilities.”

“Shut up,” Lillian snarled in between heavy breaths, swaying dazedly on her feet.

“Ah, and this explains why you fear your powers. You are afraid of what people will think of them… or rather, of the way you acquire them. How adorable.” Morian laughed, his gravelly voice momentously blurred by interference in whatever channel of communication had been implanted in his double. Lillian stayed her tongue, obviously troubled by what Morian had revealed… troubled by the pressure of Mathias’ enquiring eyes. “Until the next session, Mathias Vinkuzri, and… miss Wendigo.” A loud burst of static, and silence returned to their dank and mouldy cell.

“Lillian,” Mathias whispered after a moment, when he was certain that Morian’s presence had left the necromantic puppet. The wounds on his body were still bleeding, and his maddened shouts when he believed she had been killed had worsened many of his injuries, but the boy remained conscious through sheer willpower, if only for this moment to speak. It was, however, very unfortunate that he was too tired to coherently word what he wanted to ask. “What just… and what did he… and, Wendi… go?”

Though no words were spoken thereafter, there had been a meeting of eyes. Much like during the time he had been tortured, she hoped that it would give him a morsel of strength, just enough to last the coming days. Just… just a little while longer…

In his answering gaze, he complied. Yeah. Just a little longer… and you’ll tell me everything.

With that, he slipped into unconsciousness, at last submitting to the long overdue call of slumber. Lillian followed him mere instants later, and in the dying lights of her mind, she repeated a last lucid though, on and on, in the rhythm of a guardian mantra.

Everything… after we escape. Everything…

[Mathias]

Mathias opened his eyes and realized that his body was slumped against a wall and his head was staring down at the cold gray stones of his cell. Groggily shaking his head and looking about, he saw Lillian sitting across the room, her knees drawn up to her chest and gazing down in an absent-minded daze. "Hey," the planeswalker strained to say, groaning a bit as he tried to will his body to start working. "How long have you... ah... been awake?" he asked.

"A while," she replied shortly. Her eyes didn't lift to meet his.

The awkward silence that overtook them had already grown familiar to the two, and they knew that there would be a great deal of it in the coming days. The solitude was, for Mathias, unwelcome. It was full of foreboding and ominous tension that weighed heavily upon the young man. He was wrestling with himself over the guilt that he felt about Lillian's involvement... the condition she was in. She did not deserve to be here... What she was experiencing was not a destiny she was supposed to be involved in. Mathias felt he had inadvertantly drawn her into a hell that had been made for him and him alone.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm... I'm so god damn sorry. You... you shouldn't be here. This.. it's all my fault. Fuck, I'm such an idiot," he said, burying his face in his hands. He grit his teeth and choked back the tears that were preparing to flood out his eyes - he let out an exasperated, frustrated combination of a howl and groan.

"Hey," she said softly. Her voice barely broke through into Math's thoughts and he looked up from his hands to meet her gaze. Her crystalline eyes seemed like glass to shatter, wetted by tears and full to burst. "Let's... let's stop apologizing to one another? Okay?" she said, forcing a contrite smile.

"Okay," he replied. "Can we... can we try something?"

"What?" Lillian asked, regarding him with a confused look on her face.

"Let's try talking. Like we were, before, on the pier. Honest. Amiable... before I... Can we talk about ourselves... to keep our minds off of this?" he asked, stumbling over his words. He was about to seek forgiveness once more for the things that he had said to her and the harshness of what had actually been said.

The scholar shifted the position in which she was sitting. "Alright," she said. "You go first."

Mathias sat for a moment, pondering the perfect question to begin with. After a bit of silent deliberation he asked, "Do you have any family?"

"I used too," she said bluntly.

"Shit... I'm sor.. rrr, you know," the vandal muttered stupidly, bumbling about with what he was unable to grasp and convey in words.

"It's fine," she told him with a dismissive wave of her hand. "They died when I was eight. They went out to the desert.. to look for something." She paused and took in a breath, sitting pensively. She brought up her tone to as chipper as the circumstances could allow her to be, and she went on. "An old man named Merkah took me in. He owned the town library, and he was like... a sort of one-man family to me."

Mathias smiled at her weakly. He tried to chuckle and shook his head. "So that's why you seem like such a bookworm."

She smiled back, and shrugged. "How about you? I mean... do you? Considering you're a... an avatar."

"No parents, obviously. But I had a brother. A polar opposite. We didn't get along... to say the least. I used to be known as one of the Rogue Brothers - I was one half of it. The other was a friend who was like a brother to me. His name was Torin. Now, though, I'm a member of the Scara Scourge. I'm a Chapter - it's what they call someone who leads a chapter," Mathias explained, rambling on without any real direction as he reviewed the events of his life that had led him to this point; how he could trace all these things back to his brother, Ramirez.

"Not a very imaginative group are you?" Lillian poked.

Mathias shrugged. "Not really. But, it fits. But, yeah... so. We're a group of six. There's Cleric... you actually kind of remind me of her. She's a meek, shy, scholarly type, like you. About as cute, too, but eh. And Fingers and Knuckles. They're good guys... Logo, he's like... an apprentice, sort of. And then there's Lady. She's... she's hard to describe. An Elf, way out of Raiaera. But if it werent' for the ears and eyes and beauty. Shit, you couldn't ever tell. She's a bit more Human than any of us, I'd say."

Lillian reflected on all he said, absorbing it all slowly. She looked down at the ground and smiled weakly. "Sounds like a tight-knit group."

"Yeah... kind of," Mathias said simply.

"So, my turn, then," the librarian announced. "Is Morian... he's probably listening, isn't he?"

"Kind of a waste of a question, don't you think? It's pretty obvious," Mathias said.

"No, that's not... that wasn't my question question. But, should we really be... talking like this?"

"Uhm... I'm pretty sure he doesn't give a shit about our life stories," he replied somewhat bluntly. He grinned sardonically and shook his head.

"Well... I wanted to ask... how did you escape last time?"

At that moment, a groan resounded from Math's left. Almost jumping out of his skin, he looked over to the set of manacles which held the corpse, only to see it move about. "What in the hells?" he said, his voice shaking. The body started to rise, and then collapsed, letting out a long, husky sigh. "By the Sway," he cursed. "Scared the piss out of me."

Lillian nodded in solemn agreement, her eyes also wide with fear. They sat for a long time, observing the corpse in anticipation of it moving again. When the both of them were rather settled, she attempted again to ask him her question. "So... escaping? What happened? Could you do it again if Morian knew how?"

Mathias looked at her and smiled. "That's nothing he doesn't know already. But... it was my crew. They found my caravan when I was being hauled between the Duke I had to work for. I was on my way back to Scara Brae... to here... when they attacked it and released me. So... fat chance of that happening down here," he said.

As soon as he did, he regretted it. It definitely made the situation seem much more hopeless than they were trying to convince themselves.

[Ataraxis]

They fell deeply quiet after that, though not from a lack of topics to tackle or questions to address. It was clear on their faces, how troubled and concerned they were about the predicament they were in: though they had attempted to ignore it with their simple, everyday conversations, the two were no less the unfortunate captives of a deranged necromancer, a sadistic, self-proclaimed scholar who felt no compunction in shattering the walls between empirical trial and egregious torture – in fact, Morian even seemed to take hair-raising pleasure in doing so.

When they would hear the cold, dead wail of that slatted door, when they would next see the darkness staring sinisterly from his hood, and what cruelties the lich will have prepared for them, what it would do to them… Lillian wanted to know, if only to prepare for the worst, but she also feared this wicked knowledge, feared even the slightest hint of it. Mathias… he had tasted it before, and for how long? He had tasted it, and the disquiet carved into his expression was proof that knowing in advance would offer no measure of help or comfort.

The more she brooded over these matters, the more she grew sick of her surroundings, of the incipient smell of rot and mold. Behind those layers of dust and dark grime, the walls enclosing them were impregnated with the stench of old sweat and even older blood, and soon it would drink theirs with the nauseating zeal of a thirsty whore. The emptiness was already beginning to wear her down, for the cell contained no more than its prisoners, their chains and their chamber pots, save for markings carved at the base of the walls - somewhat intriguing, but not quite nearly enough to break their dullness. Moreover, the notion of having to use those pots in the presence of another horrified her, and furthermore the idea that they would have to live with that stench until those pots were filled to the brim – if even that – was upsetting her frail stomach.

She could last a few days, having regurgitated her only meal in so long before passing out, and she doubted they would be given proper meals to speak of… but this was all too silly, she suddenly realized, chiding herself for being such an idiot. This was no question of pride or propriety: that had already been stolen from them along with their freedom. This was about lasting as long as they could, no matter what, until they could find a means to escape. No matter how filthy and humiliated, how broken I become… no matter what.

“It’s your turn again.” Trawled from the darkness of her musings, Lillian had to blink thrice before returning to the outside world. Mathias was staring across the room with a soft glint of worry in his eyes, searching for her silhouette with what little light came through the door slats. “Are you okay? Ah, what am I saying… of course you’re not. I just meant that, if this is bothering you, well… Well we don’t have to continue, is what I’m trying to say."

“No, it’s not that. Sometimes my mind wanders off, and I… momentarily forget where I am. I’m fine, now.” If there was any victory she could claim this day, then it was how she managed to fool the boy with that dismissive lie, albeit a bitter victory indeed. “Alright, I think I have one. What are your aspirations for the future? Goals, life projects, anything like that? From what you just said, you have quite a curriculum, but I was wondering…”

“… Wondering if I did any of that because I wanted to in the first place, right?” Mathias answered, sighing in the dark. “Yes and no. I never felt any real compulsion to do anything specifically, that is… I have no ambition to do one and only one thing, and set my whole life on a predetermined path towards it. I guess what I have… you could call it wanderlust.” He paused to muse for an moment, in an attempt to formulate a more cogent explanation. “I’m… more of a drifter, always doing something, but never for too long and never with all my heart. Goals and projects… they don’t really mean much to me.”

“But, when you think of the future… it’s not just a blank slate, is it? You still want something, even if it’s not clear or tangible, don’t you?”

“Well, I guess you could say… you could say I just want to keep on living. Experiencing new things.” He gave his thoughts a pause, if only to clear his throat embarrassedly. “It’s a bit silly, but when I imagine the future, sometimes, I’m not on my own.”

“See a pretty, buxom lady at your sides?” Lillian quipped teasingly, attempting to whistle. Mathias gave her a mocking grin when she only managed an awkward sputter on her dry, cracked lips. “Settling down and having children, then? That sounds nice.”

“Yeah, maybe. And it’s a big maybe,” Mathias said a bit grumpily, sounding exhausted. “One, I’d have to actually find someone first, you know? And two, well… can I even have children? I’m not… missing anything, but ‘reproduction’ might not be there on the long list of human attributes a fragment of the Tap can mimic.”

“And you’ve never, uhm… tested it?” Lillian asked, a bit shyly.

“Well I… that is…” Mathias was stammering, visibly and audibly uncomfortable by this new direction. “You remember the rule you set? Nothing too… personal? I’d like to pull out that card now.”

“O-Oh, yes, okay. That’s alright, I have been asking you question after question, too…”

“Well what about you? Does anything stand out in your future?”

Upon asking, he witnessed a bright lightening of her countenance, which had been somewhat closed and remote until now. “Oh, there’s so much I... so much I want to do, yet I'm certain of so little. If I want to find a home and settle down, or if I should even care about finding, uhm, well, finding someone to come home to.” Though embarrassed, Lillian seemed to smile more and more genuinely, the expression on her face growing less tense by the second. “But... I do want to open a library somewhere in Fallien, and and fill it with rare books, manuscripts and scrolls, most of which I’ll have discovered on my own. There’s also going to be this immense dome, bigger than the one in Ankhas, and shelves will be lined up all around it on half a dozen – no, a dozen floors! There’ll be a laboratory and workshop annexed to it, where I’ll be able to research various phenomena, either magical or physical nature, with a team I'll have handpicked myself…

“Though, I also planned to start an orphanage in Knife’s Edge, for all the children I met on the streets - and it won’t be like those stuffy and strict establishments, but there’s going to be a quality cantina, and both facilities and the faculty necessary to provide them an education while they wait. There weren’t any when I was young, and there still aren't, so... I know what they feel, left like that to their own devices. When.. when people stop caring about you, you start not caring about them either, and that’s just… just…”

Unable to say it, she went on, the resolve deepening in her voice. “That’s why I have to do this. I’ll even teach there at the beginning, if I don’t gather up enough capital to start it. Oh, and wouldn’t it be great if it could also turn into a prestigious school in the end? But I’ll have to figure out how to get from the library in Fallien to the orphanage of Salvar under a day… And then I’d have to deal with the fact that very few people are allowed to visit Fallien in the first place, and…”

It finally came to her that she had been rambling on and on, and about things she had never dared to say to anyone before, in fear of being mocked and laughed at for her delusions of grandeur and her naïve ideals. “But you shouldn’t have to listen to all of this, especially when we’re here, like this. It’s just… it’s silly, I know.”

“What? N-No!” Mathias interjected, and quite strongly at that. “No, I didn’t say anything because I was… well I was impressed. Heck, I was damn impressed. Not only because you managed to say all of that without taking any visible breath, but also because… because that was really wonderful. When you asked me about my future, I only thought about myself, but yours – sharing knowledge, making the world a bit of a better place to live in for the little ones, and enjoying every moment of it… It’s huge, and so selfless.”

“What if I’m just being selfless for selfish reasons?” Lillian murmured, somewhat unconvinced.

“You are,” Mathias said, bluntly. “If you weren’t, then you’d just be an automaton. In that light, being selfish… it’s the good thing that makes us human, don’t you think?”

“Human,” Lillian repeated under her breath, contemplative. “I guess… we are,” she concluded in a more cheerful tone. Wrapping her arms around her legs, she managed a faint little smile. “Now isn’t that something.”

[Mathias]

Their conversation dwindled on in the dimly lit cell for a time. Idle chit-chat became the remedy for the dreariness of the situation and the distraction which allowed them some semblance of an escape from the harsh reality they were faced with. But as time wore away, so too did the amount of topics they had to discuss. Before long, they were once again sitting in silence, until it was broken by the opening of their cell door. The familiar cloaked figure of their tormentor drifted into the room and floated towards the planeswalker, until there was only a foot between them.

Mathias looked into the deep shadows of Morian's hood, knowing full well that he would be unable to gaze into the hellish visage beneath it. But the fact that there was no grotesque face to look at did nothing to lessen the ominous dread that permeated the air and ran its course through the planeswalker's body. For a moment, he looked away at Lillian, being escorted out by two hulking flesh golems - creatures grafted from various body parts and stitched together in a vile mockery of anatomy. From what Mathias could see of only one, it had a face made up of what seemed to be several, with clashing and unmatched skin tones and textures. Then, Lillian turned her head - their eyes met for just a moment, and it was enough for him to convey the unsaid message of hope. Be strong, he wished he could say.

When she left, all that remained was Morian and Mathias. "Today, I have an interesting experiment. One that I believe will be hysterically amusing. One I am sure that you will enjoy."

The young rogue thrashed against his chains as the necromancer reached out his hand to touch him. It glowed with a sickly, eerie green aura as it raked across his skin. He felt a chill run through his body, but with it, came ease and comfort. The sheer paradox of the situation caught him by surprise and he skeptically regarded Morian with fiery eyes. "Healing magic?" he asked cautiously. "A fucking corpse like you can actually mend something?"

The cowled figure laughed in his harsh, raspy tone. "How else could I give you the advantage? Stay your anger, little Vinkuzri. You must save your ire for your... exhibition," replied.

...

"I am not fighting her!" he screamed into the darkness. The chains binding his manacles were released, although the cold iron bracers remained shackled to his wrists. Though he was not bound to a wall, he knew well enough that there was an enchantment in place, coursing through the metal that bound him. It was sufficient enough to keep his magic in check - enough for use, but only by Morian's will. "And certainly not for your double damn amusement, you husk!"

Instead of being met with silence or mocking laughter, he was instead greeted by the unbearable grating of stones and gears working as a door opened up in front of him. An intense, bright light flooded through the threshold and washed over his unadjusted eyes so quickly that he had to raise his hand to his face to shield it. The chamber that he saw was a small, domed roof colosseum lit by floating spheres that hovered near the ceiling. On the opposite end of the room, a similar set of doors gave way and Lillian slowly shuffled out from the darkness.

You know, said a voice in the back of his mind. She is not who you think she is. How else could you explain it? How else would she know?

The very fabric of reality around Math's hand warped and bent, with black tendrils of energy being released from his clenched fist. In it, Lysander was willed to the material plane, retrieved from whatever pocket realm it had been stored in. His trustworthy sword glinted in the light, its polished steel blade reflecting perfectly. It was mounted into a beautiful gold hilt and set in the crossguard was a crystalline black onyx. "You're normally an emerald," observed Math, frowning. He was used to sarcasm and wit emitting from the personality inside the sword... but it was replaced by malice and contempt.

And you are normally a fucking pushover, old sport. It is time to wake up, Math. I have been sitting in that pocket plane, watching all this, and I have to say that I am pretty disgusted. Do you not see? You are being so damn pathetic over a lass who is the whole damn reason you are here, Lysander snapped back hastily.

"What the hell do you mean?"

It is highly unlikely that the Blackhoods would have found you immediately after your first fight. But even if they did... what about the Hunter? It was waiting for you. It was there. And why did she choose you for a fight? Of all the other warriors there, why was it you? And armed with a poison that inhibits magic. YOUR magic. YOUR very being. She is his puppet, and she has been all along. Open your eyes, mate.

Mathias knew that Lysander was saying what he was really thinking, deep and buried in his subconcious. He also knew he had a lot of unasked and unanswered questions and plenty of doubts to go alongside them. But if what his alter-ego was saying was true... why was she here, suffering alongside him? You are his pet project. You are a god in the making. Like he gives two shits and a shake about her. She is expendable, he said. You... you are being tempered. He is making you stronger... technically... you could say that this... is a chance for vengeance. Vindication. Redemption.

This is his gift to you.

[Mathias]

The more Mathias thought about it, the more it began to make sense to him. After all, what could possibly be more appealing than the thought of harnessing a living embodiment of the Eternal Tap itself? The Dvaita's poison ran a phantom course through him, and he remembered the agony that it had caused him. That whole fight, he had felt helpless and totally at her mercy. He had known that feeling so well... he had learned it from Morian himself. Linking two and two together, it slowly became truth to him that Lillian was one of the lich's many puppets, and that his recapture had been organized. That all of their suffering together was a test of his willpower, personal strength, and resolve. How long would it take before he cracked? What would be the final straw, under heaps and heaps of lies, torture, revelations, and abuse?

To him, this epiphany had served it. Gripping Lysander in his hands, he began walking towards his opponent - an enemy turned friend turned back to enemy. "Are.. are you really going to do this, Math?" she asked, staring him down. He could see her shake in a very slight way, and he knew that she was drained - not even close to being up to strength. But it didn't matter to him. He was thinking of himself, now... for once, he was going to be selfish and partake in the lust for battle that he had so adamantly refused to indulge in before now. This was going to be his step towards becoming Morian's weapon... and he was going to use it to his advantage and then take his turn at killing the bastard himself. It would be his opportunity... he'd take it when he saw it. If that meant playing as his pawn for a while, then so be it.

Lillian brought up her arms and weaved several thick, black links of web between her wrists, catching Mathias' blade as he brought it down. Her knees buckled as she averted the oncoming force to the side, and Mathias stumbled forward a bit, his boots scraping along the cold limestone of the dungeon floor as he attempted to stop himself. But what he caught a glimpse of... was her pain. He had yet to even truly attack, and he saw her wince... How perfect that her wrists must still be broken, and every ounce of strength left in her would be made defending against what would be his complete onslaught.

That is right, old sport. Let us see you really angry. Let us take a view at the real you. The Planeswalker, Mathias. I know you have got it in you. I have got it in me... and I am you. Let us be a monster, Lysander whispered into his mind.

The vandal turned towards Lillian as she scuttled away from him as best she could, to no avail. He took two great strides towards her and brought his sword down again, meeting with more strands of webbing. She tried to divert him again, but he followed her parry and rammed his shoulder into her, knocking the wind out of her and pushing her back several steps. With a great heave of his strength, he lifted his blade back up again and swung towards her before she could recover.

A loud thwack resounded as the flat of his blade crashed against her skull, sending the young librarian's assistant sprawling to the ground. Her body lay strewn across the cold floor and her body convulsed. A hollow satisfaction coursed its way through Mathias, and he frowned. His victory was a bit too empty... it wasn't feeling as good as it should. The monstrous force that occupied him wasn't sated in the least. Was there supposed to be more blood? More agony? Cries of pain or something? He wasn't used to causing true anguish... He was a combatant trained in decisive blows and calculating strikes. Not woe or suffering.

Jolly good show, old sport, said that all too familiar voice that cut through his thoughts and brought him back to reality. Turning away from Lillian, he looked upwards towards the glowing spheres of light.

"Are you happy now, master?" he said, his voice full of venom and seething hatred.

The dark figure of Morian Fleshbane materialized slowly in front of Mathias, his sleeved arms folded and his head bowed. For a moment, a beam of light from the suspended globes above caught a glint of bone white through the shadows of the hood, and the planeswalker swore he saw the sadistic smile of Evil itself. "Not yet," the lich said, making a sweeping gesture of a point behind Math. A skeletal hand peaked out from the robes, the bony index finger extended and shooting an invisible line of direction.

The young man followed its indication and turned around to see Lillian, slowly rising to her feet. In one instant, the rogue's mind flooded with the very recent memories of their encounter with the Hunter, and the rage that had consumed her before he fell to the sway of unconsciousness. Shit, was the solemn thought that echoed through his mind.

[Ataraxis]

Why… why do we have to fight again?

This had been all she could think of, the only thing that occupied her weary mind as Mathias charged and hacked away. The bones in her arms and in her hands had broken twice, and their second mending was proving far more difficult than the previous one; she doubted she would manage a third. Each blow to those strings of web she used as a makeshift shield was answered with a yielding of sorts, almost audible to the girl, but definitely felt. By the end of this night, they would be permanently crooked – if she could even live through it, that is. Yet even with all this pain, all this fear of being crippled for the rest of her life, she could only think of how unfair the universe was being, of how tasteless it was for it to inflict such irony upon Mathias and her. The sheer guilt she had felt ever since causing his death in their battle… could it only be purged by her sound defeat at his hands? Is this karma, then? the girl asked herself with another wince, feeling the throb at the core of her broken bones. Must I die, now?

There was no need for her to answer this. She had known it ever since she held the man in her arms, ever since she had cried and cradled him to ease his passage into death. And so, in her mind, it was with a smile that she greeted the fall of the blade.

The library, the orphanage… only unfulfilled dreams… to keep me going. But, I guess… no more.

There was a numb ringing, then silence. Lillian felt the world shift around her, then a sudden pressure on her side. Warmth seeped from her wounded temple, trickling down her cheek as a raindrop from a leaf, warm from the summer's heat. Everything felt… soft, like the world after a great storm. Felt of devastation, yet also of a long awaited peace. The darkness before her eyes was not frightening, much to her surprise, but came as gently as a greeting from the door. But… what door? she wondered, before realizing the answer. The last one for me to cross… and, perhaps, the one that will finally lead me home.

But something felt strange. As her heartbeat faded away like a breeze of the past, she could sense behind her the growing pressure of a tempest to come. It was strong... a strong pulse that did not belong. Then, why does it feel so familiar? The quietude that surrounded her was disappearing, melting away as the currents brought in a storm of emotions, of pain and solitude she had done her best to repress, all throughout her life. Every ounce of negativity she had pushed behind those bolted doors, every painful memory she could never forget, but only push away into the darkest recesses of her mind, was resurfacing all at once. Resurfacing, and given life, given identity – given rage.

The world shifted beneath her once more, and she had the odd sensation that she was standing. Suddenly, the darkness parted before her eyes, and what had become her world of serenity was flooded with harsh light. Little by little, she could make out shapes in this luminous torrent, until she saw with horror the figures of both Morian and Mathias. What alarmed her most, however, was the fact that she saw them as if through a screen of thick, sanguineous red rather than with her own eyes. I remember… I remember this. This feeling. When I fought the Hunter… the exact same thing. But that means…

This time, it was not the world, but her whole body that shifted. Lillian could not understand; somehow, her legs had begun sprinting against her own volition. Within moments, she could see with such clarity the face of Mathias, see his eyes slowly widening as he noticed her presence. Her shoulder made contact with his sternum, and an instant later he was gone, vanishing beneath a cloud of dust and debris that fell from a stone wall a dozen feet away. Lillian screamed, though no sound seemed to permeate the world in which she was now inexplicably trapped.

“And so, with a bang, you return,” Morian said with an all too evident glee. “I remember your eyes, as red as carnations… much more enticing than your host's eyes, which on the contrary were as blue as the blood of the Hunter you eviscerated. Such an awful color, wouldn't you agree?” He seemed to approach with caution, unsure whether he would be knocked back the same way Mathias had been. There was no doubt he was yet another clay puppet, manipulated by whatever obscure necromantic powers the lich had mastered, but crafting these was most likely an arduous process that he would rather avoid repeating. “Not in the mood to talk? I know you have the capacity.”

“You won’t be enough, either,” Lillian heard herself say. While on some level, she had always known, it was something else to hear the third presence within herself speak through her own lips. Something highly... unnerving.

“I will take that as a good thing,” Morian answered, his tone amused. “Might I ask your name?”

“I am the Welkin.”

“Lies,” whispered both Lillian and the lich, the latter of which followed with his analysis. “You are neither miss Sesthal nor the enigmatic entity that is the source of her powers. You are… a fragment. Nascent. Incomplete. I even suspect that you are too underdeveloped to have fabricated yourself an identity, which is why the young miss remains in control of her body… most of the time,” he added in a crooked, singsong voice. “Yet, you are strong. You house her untapped potential, act as the limiter that keeps her from going beyond the limits of her meagre body… but you are not content. You seek… freedom.” In a transient ray of light, she caught a glimpse of his skeletal smile, frozen in death. “And freedom, I can offer you.”

“Freedom is no gift,” it whispered coldly, startling even the necromancer. "Freedom is a privilege, gained through the spilling of blood. Freedom… is taken.”

“Ah, then shall I offer you an opportunity?” The lich asked, extending with his decaying hand a dagger of blue steel. “The Dvaita, was it called? I would enjoy to observe its effects. If, however, you attempt to stab me, I would be sad to inform you that my body will quite likely spill nothing but dust. There is, however, one personage in this room – or the next – that may fit the bill.”

Without a word, it took hold of the metallic handle and began its slow march toward the unnatural scree under which Mathias was undoubtedly buried. Lillian watched the stone talus with fear, the desperation in her heart fighting the thimble of hope she had that the young man was still alive. Alas, with every second of stillness, this hope faltered like a candle in a storm.

As the being drew near, something shifted in the wreckage. A raging roar echoed through the chamber as the rubble exploded outward, behind which stormed the bloodied planeswalker. The strange blade he had conjured from nothingness was arcing for her neck and a possessed, almost fevered smile was drawn upon his lanced lips. There would be no parrying this strike, not without her webs.

And there was none, indeed.

It dodged, instead. Precisely, it threw Lillian’s body back, showing a measure of flexibility she herself was never aware of possessing. The blade sang inches above her curved abdomen, and the moment his arms were out of the way, the being followed the backward motion by a rapid lift of a leg – the girl’s heel struck his chin with a force that should have sent his head flying high. Both her feet had now left the ground, and another kick followed, this one aimed at his abdomen. He flew back once more into the dark depths of the shattered wall, right as she ended her reel and landed on her tiptoes with the poise of a gymnast. Without dawdling, it resumed its unhurried advance, lifting the Dvaita high overhead in preparation for a downward swipe. Mathias writhed beneath her, the hatred in his eyes painfully reminiscent of the loathing he expressed in their last, tragic bout. Not again, she cried within. He was only just beginning to forgive me… stop it, please. He’s being manipulated, I know it. He’d never… please, stop it!

You are not in control, the being answered defiantly.

Wind whisked. The dagger fell. Flesh tore open, and blood gushed freely. Lillian screamed.

The poison was set free, and it began its ravaging work once more. Only this time, it did so from inside her body. The pain was unbearable, and she could feel burst of chaos eat her from within, disrupting everything they met. However, it was her pain, her own, that she was feeling. "Who's not in control now… you… freak!" she hollered, digging the blade even deeper into her thigh. She was feeling fevered, nauseous, and her blood felt as glutinous as acid, but it worked. The same way she had suppressed Mathias' powers with the Dvaita, she had managed to suppress it, whatever it was, back to the confines of her mind. All it took was one moment, one single moment to overpower it with the strength of her willpower.

"Mathias…" she murmured, suddenly coughing blood. Her sight was growing blurry, and the dizziness was becoming too great to withstand. "I don't know… what he did to you… what he told you… but to me… nothing's changed." Carefully, she brushed the dripping blood from his mouth. "I'll still tell you… everything, after we… escape." She could see nothing now, the tears in her eyes blinding her to everything before her. "And I swear… I swear… we will."

The teenager screamed one last time, as the sheer torture of the poison finally overtook her. Unconscious, she fell to his side, her hands tainted thick with blood. Oddly, even with all the pain wracking her body, with all the sweat and the convulsions, there was still a ghost of a smile upon her lips. As she lay there, her hands clenched into little red fists, unseen by all – holding on tightly to this blood that was not hers.

Lillian smiled in her sleep, her hands and lips warm with the blood of Mathias.

[Mathias]

Mathias wondered when it was that he first realized he was awake, and how long before that had he just sat there, numb and stupefied. The cold iron bracers were clamped around his wrists, and he knew, without even having to check, that he was back in his cell, chained to the wall. Was he there, with Lillian? What did she say to him... before they both passed out? What had he been thinking? Lysander... inside of him. The sword that was merely an extension of his vast and untapped willpower, it had told him of his own subconscious suspicions. But it had brought them all out into a very bright and clear and utterly obvious light.

But now, it all seemed like paranoia. Completely manipulated, cultivated, and groomed angers, frustrations, self-doubts, and insecurities had welled up inside of him and then brought forth. It couldn't have been Lysander... its thoughts were not his... his sword may be a sentient being, but it was only a distorted reflection of Mathias, himself. No... it had to have been the lich. Morian. Was it even possible? Could that undead wizard affect and somehow corrupt the blade?

What was the point? To awaken the... Welkin thing? To test Mathias' martial prowess? All of these questions, and a dozen more, swirled around and around inside the planeswalker's head. Constantly, they pelted and belted, smashing and crashing against the walls of his will and fortitude, until he broke down and curled up into himself as best he could. He gritted his teeth as his eyes watered up, and he cursed himself for being so pathetic, so weak... so easily puppeteered into being his enemy's pawn... turning against the only one who was coming close to understanding him... the only one who was able to share this torture, to support him through it. What had he done?

Then, some chains rattled that were not the vandal's. Immediately, he sat up and looked over at Lillian, his eyes piercing the darkness as best they could. However, she was strewn across the ground, completely still and obviously unconscious. Math scanned the room and looked to his left, to the wall opposite the door. There, in the space that was previously occupied by a corpse was a man, sitting up and looking directly at the planeswalker.

Taking a good look over him, the young man absorbed the details about him that were clear to observation in the dank, dim atmosphere of their cell. His skin was tanned bronze, and he had dark brown hair that was made short by a crew cut. He had a rugged swath of stubble along his round cheeks, and deep-set eyes with a color undiscernable in the darkness. And then, he spoke, his voice gruff and gravelly and yet, somewhat monotone. "Mathias Vinkuzri, the Planeswalker, I presume?"

"And... if I am?" he replied, hesitantly.

"Thank the Thaynes," the man said, leaning his head back against the wall and staring up into the ceiling, murmuring another, smaller prayer under his breath. "I've been waiting for you."

Mathias felt his guard raise, and, although he knew they were both chained to the wall, his defensive instincts immediately kicked in. "Congratulations. Your wait is over," he said coldly.

The man merely grinned and shook his head. "If I were a Blackhood, you think I'd be here? So, if I'm not one of them, that pretty much makes you safe, and us allies."

"Sorry if I don't retain a similar sentiment."

The prisoner shrugged. "I didn't expect you to. But perhaps... if I told you that I've been waiting for you, simply to save you from this place when you inevitably ended up here, what would you say then?"

"I'd ask you to kindly tell me who the fuck you are, first of all," Mathias spat back, his voice full of venom and unease. This man was too friendly, too fast. He was so familiar with the vandal, and his cryptic words left the boy lost in any attempt to divine what his motives were.

"My name is Hassad. And I'm here on behalf of Concord. On behalf of your brother."

"Ramirez?!" Mathias started to say in bewilderment, but was cut short by a groan that emanated from Lillian, who subsequently started to rise and attempt to find her bearings.

"What's... going on?" she asked in a hushed, strained, and clearly pained whisper.

[Ataraxis]

As the lights of her mind flickered awake one by one, Lillian grew aware of the changes in her surroundings. The young girl was glad she was no longer sprawled at the bottom of that gladiatorial pit, feeling her body grow cold as it siphoned blood in gushing streams through the wound in her thigh; yet, she still felt her heart give way when she noticed those four familiar walls and the strange carvings running along their base. There she was again, back in that dank cell that smelled more than just a little stale, back in this maddening hellhole she felt would soon become her deathbed and her grave, if she did nothing.

A breath of despair overcame her during those brooding thoughts, almost strong enough to numb the fractures of her forearms and the gaping wound in her thigh. The gash was no longer bleeding as profusely, somewhat healed by what little power remained in the webs she had weaved into her own flesh, but she knew it would not be enough to realign and mend the fragments of her bones. Sighing in defeat, she struggled to sit up, every muscle of her body flaring up with the effort. With that done, she took a moment to recover, her back resting against the cool stones and her labored breaths the only audible sounds in the darkness of the dungeon.

It was a moment before she could make out the silhouette of her cellmate in the gloom, and another before she did that of a newcomer. “Where in the hells did you come from?” she asked in one breath, hacking at the end from the dryness in her throat. “There… there was a… a corpse where you’re… where you…” A fair bit of wheezing later, she gave up on her sentence, focusing instead on regulating her breathing.

“A corpse? I admit to poor hygiene, but I must say I take offense to the comparison.” True to his words, the man straightened up defensively, crossing his arms over his chest as far as his shackles allowed. “Plus, it’s not as if either of you smell like a bed of roses.”

“That’s… not what I meant,” Lillian answered back, slightly annoyed. “I just remembered that someone sat there before. He didn’t move, except maybe once, but then it might have been our eyes tricking us…”

“So you believed me to be dead?” the man asked, loosening his arms.

“That was you? But… you we’re moribund!”

“I was merely recovering,” Hassad said with a note of pride, his imperious smile flashing in the dark. “As I told him while you were unconscious, I was sent here to help you two escape – it says a lot about fraternal bonds when a man makes the steps to bail his brother out before he’s even arrested, doesn’t it?

“In any case, it takes a lot out of you to get captured without dying, especially when you’re trying to fool a magical sack of bones into sealing away only the powers you used as decoys. If it hadn’t been for that, we could have escaped much earlier.”

“Are you an idiot?” Mathias cried out, the chains that bound him rattling as he tried to lunge forward. “You do realize he’s listening in on us, aren’t you? Knowing that you’re not completely incapacitated, he’ll send his damn minions to take care of you! They’re going to burst in here at any moment! You’ve ruined any chance we had at escaping! What can you possibly do for us now?”

“Yes, yes, yes, no, and… a whole damn lot,” Hassad replied, amused. Without a moment’s waste, he lifted his manacles before his eyes. The steel glinted in the shadows, shining brighter with every second until the whole room was alit. Lillian turned her eyes away, hurt by the sudden surge of luminosity, only to hear a loud detonation. The unnatural lights were dimming, and she could see on the other side of the room a standing Hassad, his wrists hissing with white smoke as pulverized steel stream down from them like dust. “Enchantments that can suppress more than a single type of magic are hard to come by and even more difficult to craft, even for one such as Morian Fleshbane. When I was captured, I only fought with one of the many I have at my disposal. As such, Mathias, if you need to believe something, believe that your brother has sent a man capable of adapting to any situation that may crop up during our escape.”

At that moment, the door to their cell swiveled open, slammed against the back wall by the gravelly fists of an ogre, or at least something not unlike one. It lurched forward, slipping in its humongous bald head as it stepped through the threshold. Its skin was a strange fusion of flesh and veined minerals, as if its skin were a layer of fluid stone, the pate of its head was crowned with darkened, crystalline horns while its bared fangs and spiked knuckles seemed like miniature pickaxes – yet another of the lich’s experiments, another sample of his amoral amusement in toying with the sanctity of life.

There might have been a shroud of sorrow running across Hassad’s expression upon seeing the mutated ogre, but none could be certain. If there had been one, however, the man did not let it get in the way of the things he was required to do. Without hesitation, he brought a hand to the creature’s chest, just as it was about to pummel him into oblivion with its two boulder-like fists, hefted high above his head. There came the same burst of blinding light suffused throughout the room, followed by a detonation much more deafening than the last. The stale air smelled of smoke and charcoal, and Lillian did not need to look to know what had just transpired. She only needed to hear that gentle sifting in the distance, like the sprinkle of dust... or ashes.

[Ataraxis]

“Footsteps,” the man said simply, listening out from the door. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he breathed in as if to gather up his resolve. “Here, I’ll take care of your shackles.”

“NO!” Lillian screamed, surprising both Mathias and Hassad, stopping the latter in his tracks. “It’s not as simple as that, and you know it.” Upon hearing her speak those words, Hassad fell quiet, becoming uneasy. “You’re taking this as a suicide mission, aren’t you? Helping us out of our bindings, then point us to a safe haven in the likely case that you won’t be able to guide us all the way there.

“It’s obvious you can’t use that power indefinitely. I even think that after releasing both of us from our bindings, you’ll barely be able to walk. You were probably counting on using the last of your life force to tear a hole in the structure that leads outside.”

“Do you only intend to revea more of my plans and their weaknesses while our enemies regroup, or do you have another point, miss?” he spat, losing the mask of confidence he had been boasting up until now.

“My point is that Mathias was half-right: you're not incompetent, but you are an idiot.” Before he could retort, she went on. “You don’t know the path of least resistance. I do.”

“What in the hells do you…”

A strange wind carried into the cell, heavy with the scent of sorcery. Mathias and Hassad turned to face the doorway, expecting to see the black-clad, floating figure of the lich. They saw nothing, oddly enough, though the footsteps were growing alarmingly louder. Only seconds before they were trapped.

“We have to go!” Hassad shouted, extending a hand to rid Lillian of her manacles. Instead, he stopped upon seeing the girl, sitting there quietly, silently, as if deep in meditation. He stopped upon seeing her eyes glow in a vivid storm of green and blue. The air grew thicker, almost charged with electricity, and he realized that wave of sorcery had come from her. “What is she doing?”

“Something… familiar,” Mathias answered, his own blue-green eyes wide in surprise. “So that’s what that bastard meant… Wendigo.”

A howl came from the doorway, and Hassad snapped back to attention. Cursing, he dashed for it and slammed the door shut, applying his whole weight against it to keep the monsters from flooding into the chamber. He could feel them ram into it from the other side, feel the shockwaves spread throughout his spine and ribs, but he knew not what else to do but give the girl more time to accomplish whatever she was doing.

“If you can turn steel into fine dust, you can easily collapse that wall!” Mathias screamed.

Sparing no time to think, Hassad did just that. Extending his arms on both sides, he placed both hands against the stone. Waves of light streamed along the walls like bolts of lightning, leaving in their wake broadening fissures in the weakened structure. Acting purely on instinct, Hassad jumped forward, just in time to avoid the falling rubble that collapsed onto whatever monstrosity waited on the other side of the door. They wailed and groaned as their organs were crushed, and there was the distinct sound of blood splattering out of a flattened mass of flesh to tell the prisoners that many had died in the collapse.

As if on cue, a ring of light drew itself upon the floor, casting a beryl tint over the whole of the cell. Something spiraled in its center, spinning faster and faster, so fast in fact that a sorcerous wind was now storming within the room. Tendrils of energy leapt from the ring like crackling thunder. Seeing one lunge for him, Hassad attempted to evade, but was surprised to see it veer from its path with an almost liquid fluidity. It caught him, but rather than send electrifying pain through his body, he felt a soothing comfort as it wrapped about his body.

Suddenly, his whole being flickered in and out of existence. Looking down at his hands, he saw the tips dematerializing into flickering lights, which were sucked into the spiraling web of energy at the center of the room. “It’s… it’s drawing me in!”

“Let it! It’s a portal!” Mathias shouted over the deafening roar of the winds, watching as his own body was being deconstructed and siphoned away. “She copied… no, absorbed my powers, somehow, only it’s… different! I couldn’t planeshift because these shackles specifically seal my powers, but hers don’t! ”

“Path of least resistance,” Lillian murmured in her trance, a faint smile forming at the corner of her lips.

“One in which we all survive,” Hassad said with a shake of his head before vanishing into the gateway, his last words lingering behind as echoes. Mathias soon followed, offering Lillian a single glance before being whisked away, one as heavy with meaning as he could manage.

Thank you, and sorry.

When the last surviving creatures had made their way through the rubble, only Lillian’s head still remained, floating and disembodied. That is, her head and one single, uplifted extremity she hoped Morian would see through whatever scrying methods he was using.

And so, with that parting flick of the middle finger, Lillian’s head vanished into the rift at last. In a flash of spiraling lights, it collapsed upon itself, becoming but a black node of crackling energy before evaporating from existence, barring entry to any and all that wished to pursue them, down the rabbit’s hole.

[Ataraxis]

Hassad’s eyes burned as they blinked open, flooded by as they were by sunlight. Even so, he forced them open, letting it all rush in, taking every drop of that sweet freedom, no matter how blinding or painful. He had spent months in that dank hole of a cell, thinking he would never be gifted with such a grand sight again, thinking he would sacrifice his life to complete his mission. Thinking he would die, so that his two charges would live to see this daylight once more. He had long come to terms with his imminent death, but the joy he was now feeling had shaken his resolve, if only for a moment: he wondered if he could ever endeavor in like missions again, now that he had been given a taste of miracles.

“Eh,” he said at last, sitting up with an aching shrug of his shoulders. One miracle in a lifetime was more than enough, and he would simply count his blessings.

“Where… where are we?” came Mathias’ voice, dazed and confused by the sudden change of scenery.

Hassad looked about, finally able to make out shapes beyond the dark blots that had infested his vision. There were trees all about, evergreens with diverse shrubbery growing at their base, mostly frond-leaved ferns and lance-shaped hostas. Looking beyond the tree line, he could make out the snowy-white peaks of the Windlancer Mountains. “Taking the vegetation and the relative positioning of those mountains… we seem to be in the westernmost region of the Brokenthorne Forest.”

“We’re on the other side of Scara Brae?” Mathias asked, his tone brimming with disbelief. “She took us all the way here in one go, on her very first try?” At that, he looked left and right, scanning the area more thoroughly now that most his eyesight had returned. “Wait… where is she?”

There came a rustle from one of the bushes, and they saw a lethargic hand make its way out of the foliage, lilywhite fingers wiggling lethargically. “I’m here…”

The two rushed toward the underbrush, parting the leaves and branches until they could make out her general figure. Finding her arms, they grabbed on and pulled her up, steadying her as she wobbled on her feet. The girl seemed deathly ill, even paler than she already was, and the last lingering glow of plane magic in her eyes seemed to fizzle out like a dying flame.

“Can’t really feel my legs,” she said lowly, almost in a whisper. “I’ll just… I’ll just shake the numbness away, and then we can… then we…”

Lillian squealed as she was struck with vertigo, her whole body uplifted as Mathias swept her off her feet and lifted her onto his back. Much to his surprise, Lillian seemed no heavier than a traveling backpack. “I figured Hassad and I would take turns carrying you, but now I’m not sure that’ll be necessary.”

He felt her willowy arms wrap gently about his chest, and heard a faint word of gratitude before her body slackened, releasing all tension she had hitherto struggled to retain. Soon, he could feel her little body breathe against his back, and he knew she was sleeping.

“I trust you know the way to Concord’s hideout from here?” Mathias asked the operative, though half his mind seemed jovially drawn to his present situation as piggyback.

“I’ve set off a beacon only Ramirez can detect.” Hassad pointed to jute string tied about his wrist, an unremarkable accessory that Morian had not bothered to remove from his person. “My plan was to give this to you after making your way out… but I’m glad it worked out this way. In any case, he should have sent someone to fetch us by now. We could probably meet them halfway in about two hours or so, in which case we should– ”

The winds died, the air grew thick with static, and a brilliant tear through space blinded them for an instant. Within the liquid blue light, a silhouette moved forward, though its features were shrouded by the intensity of the halo wreathing it. Mathias, however, grit his teeth in an expression of both disdain and relief, knowing all too well the tell-tale signs of his brother’s impending entrance.

“Good to see you again, Mathias,” the planeswalker said with a lighthearted tone, casually throwing up a splayed hand as greetings.

“Ramirez.” Mathias scoffed, looking his twin from head to toe. The same flaxen hair, the same angular face, that mischievous smile that annoyed all those who knew him too well. “Still have a flair for the dramatic, I see.”

If not for his brother’s deep scarlet eyes, they would be indistinguishable: in many ways, it felt as if staring into a mirror, but considering his present circumstances, that mirror seemed to embellish his reflection quite a bit in comparison to his raggedy self. For one, Ramirez was dressed plainly, with a linen shirt and trousers underneath his ample green mantle, but his clean-shaven look and pristine attire was a start contrast to the rags Mathias was currently wearing.

Catching an unexpected sight from the corner of his eyes, the Ramirez’ face genuinely lit up. “Hassad! I’m very glad to see you again: I take it you figured out an alternative once within the dungeon?”

“With their help, I have,” Hassad answered solemnly, bowing his head with his fist pressed against his heart. “I am pleased to have been given the chance to remain in your service, sir.”

“As am I… and I think this monumental success clearly warrants you some time for a vacation, don’t you think?” Hassad smiled, bowing lower this time in silent agreement. “In any case, we’ll have much to talk about, but first we need to move someplace more secure. Wait… their help?” Ramirez squinted his eyes, only now realizing the small figure perched on his brother’s back. “Is this the girl you were captured with?”

“Yes,” Mathias answered dryly, though the coarseness of his tone was mostly due to dehydration. “Her name’s Lillian Sesthal, and she… mimicked our planeswalking powers, I guess you could say.”

Ramirez stood in stunned silence, but Mathias could not make out whether it was her name or her feats that had struck him dumbfounded. Something told him it could have been both. “Yes… we’ll have much more to discuss, it seems.”

[Ataraxis]

When she came to, what Lillian first noticed was the thinness of the air. She repressed the urge to hack and cough, realizing its dryness next, and she quickly pulled the covers over her body when the cold struck her last. It require some time for her to process the situation, notably why she was in a comfy eiderdown bed in an immense room of grey marble that seemed carved from the very stone of the mountain. “Wait, mountain?”

“You’re awake! I’m glad.” Ramirez appeared next to her, leaning over her with his arms crossed at the back. “You slept for three days straight, dear!”

“W-What? I did, really?”

“Nope! Just about sixteen hours: a little more than is required for girls your age, but understandable considering your previous circumstances. Still, everyone always says three days in these situations, so who am I to break convention?” The man laughed heartily, and Lillian could only stare in silent bewilderment.

“It’s a good question, though,” she suddenly said, realizing that matter-of-factly. “You’re not… you’re not Mathias, so you must be… his twin brother?”

“You’ve heard of me? I’m surprised he managed to mention me without hurling.”

“Well… he did say you didn’t really get along,” she continued coyly, shrinking underneath the warm quilt.

“To say the least,” was Ramirez’ only reply, though he had attempted to inject some humor in that.

“That’s what he said too.” She smiled, finding the similarities between the twins rather interesting. More than they probably wished to believe, they were very alike… though she had no doubt they differed greatly on some other fundamental levels. She decided not to pry on those matters, believing that for now, they had called a truce on whatever feud had kept them apart for so long. “My name’s Lillian Sesthal. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she introduced herself tentatively, offering her hand.

“Ramirez Vinkuzri, and the pleasure is all mine.” He answered the handshake in earnest, though the kiss upon the back of her hand had taken her completely by surprise. Never once in her life had she ever had a firsthand account of gallantry. She never truly believed there was much about it to make a heart race, but much to her juvenile shame, she had found herself quite wrong.

“So, Mathias tells me they could not have all made it out alive without you?”

“Uhm… huh? Oh, yes… I mean, no, I…” She reeled her tongue in, long enough for her to remove her foot from her mouth. “Did… did he tell you about…”

“Your powers? The strength of a few oxen, the ability to weave threads stronger than most alloys and, now, the power of planeswalking?” The man smiled, playfully baring his perfect white teeth. “I don’t think he did, no!”

“I know it’s heinous, and I know I had no right to appropriate something that clearly is off limits to people like me, so I’ll understand… I’ll understand if you have to… to…” Unable to finish, she audibly gulped.

“I hope you’re not trying to say ‘surgically remove those powers’. If anything, that would be heinous.” Ramirez crossed his arms, for a moment pensive until he asked if he could sit by her bedside. Shyly, she nodded her approval, and he pulled a small tabouret from behind the night table. With the canteen of water previously set there, he poured her a glass of water, which she gratefully accepted.

“There’s nothing shameful about the having the power to gain power. In fact, it’s quite noble: I understand it is neither theft nor mimicry? You do not replicate someone’s abilities, nor do you neutralize them in the process, do you? Mathias seems to retain his, if anything.”

“No, it’s… for the lack of a better word…” Lillian pondered a moment, finding her choice of word increasingly silly. “Inspiration?”

“As I said, noble.” Ramirez smiled again, but there was none of that mischief anymore, only a quiet sense of admiration that made her more self-conscious by the second. “Lillian… now that I’ve had a chance to speak to you, I believe there is something I must tell you.”

[Ataraxis]

The girl quirked her eyebrows, and she felt that the conversation had taken a sudden turn. In what direction, she was still unsure. “What… do you mean?”

“First of all… are you aware you are not… and I apologize for putting it this way… physiologically human?”

After an awkward silence, she only nodded.

“Then, are you aware of… your true origins?”

Her head spun, and Ramirez almost started when he saw that glacial gaze, unfathomable in its depth and age. “What do you know?” Though worded with the same politeness and consideration that he was used to hear from the girl, he could not help but notice it felt more of a command. Realizing this, he was now certain that he was not mistaken.

“As you are know, I am, like Mathias, a planeswalker… only I have retained all my powers, whereas he has temporarily lost most of his due to… complicated circumstances. This means that I am currently capable of visiting worlds even he cannot, and thus…”

“You traveled there,” Lillian said dryly, cutting to the chase. “To Devayoni.”

“Ah… The guards of that world were not kind enough to tell me of that name, but yes, I have.”

“And… what did you learn?”

“Before they caught me and threw me out, I was able to make my way inside for a certain time. I managed to elude their detection long enough to garner some information on the locale, but as great as my powers were then, it was their home turf, and I was an ignorant outsider… I could only understand a few things… such as the turmoil of that world.”

“Did they seem like they were preparing for war?”

“So you knew? And do you also know why they are?”

“I doubt it’s the only reason but…” Through the sheets, Lillian pressed a hand against her heart, and she closed her eyes gravely. “For that which I carry within my soul.”

“The people there, they called it two things… I could loosely translate them as The Sempiternal Eye and The Stolen Sight. I heard rumors it granted the ability to… find inspiration, as it were.” Ramirez clamped his hands together, and there was fear in that quaver. Perhaps not for himself, but for her. “Lillian… I do not consider myself a weakling, and some believe that given time, Mathias and I could stand among the most powerful in this world, due to our nature as personifications of the Eternal Tap. However, the people from that world… they have no attachment to the Tap, they… surpass it. They would be as Gods on Althanas.”

“And those you have met were only the lowly citizens and the foot-soldiers,” she corrected, and it sounded as if all hope was lost from her tone of voice. “But I’ve encountered a few before… they are still struggling to enter this plane as they are. For now… passing through the veil between worlds and taking corporeal form weakens them considerably.”

“But?”

“But even weakened, they could change the face of the world… they could make all of Althanas a barren desert.”

“Making the Vhadya of Fallien trifling in comparison,” he finished in her stead, shaking his head with a sigh. “And am I correct in presuming that, no matter what their reasons to wage war on Althanas, the only thing keeping them from accomplishing this is…”

“They still need the Eye… They need the Welkin Body, and they’ll pry it out of my cold, dead body if they have to. In fact, they would even if they didn’t have to.”

Ramirez fell silent, as did she. It was a long time before he broke the ice. “I’m very sorry for bringing this up.” Ramirez drew to his feet, straightening the folds of his cloak as he did so. “You’ve only recently escaped from the clutches of one deranged madman on a quest for power, and here I am, reminding you of a whole race of those.”

“It’s quite alright,” she said at last. “My mind is rarely occupied by anything else.”

This did not comfort him in the least. “You should rest up. Should you feel like an ablution, ring the bell on your nightstand: one of our members will come help you – a woman, so that you may be more comfortable.”

“Thank you. Oh and… might I know where Mathias is?”

“He’s in the courtyard. No doubt is he regaining the use of his limbs in open space: I believe he’s sparring with Hassad. I’ll inform him that you’re awake, if you wish to see him.”

“Oh, no. No need to bother him… I think I’ll be sound asleep again long before he comes by.”

“Understood.” He lightly bowed, fist pressed against his heart before he turned and left. The marble door slid soundlessly to a close, and he propped his back against the cold slab of stone. His senses were honed to perceive that which transcended human understanding, and as their discussion progressed, he had unmistakenly felt it.

The Sempiternal Eye, the Stolen Sight, the Welkin Body… whatever it was called, the thing she carried within her had roused awake, perhaps spurred by the rekindled turmoil within her heart. The more he spoke of Devayoni and of the beings that dwelled within, the more he noticed that it had grown restless...

And that it had grown stronger.

[Ataraxis]

A symphony of bells rang across the headquarters of Concord, a chaos of brass born of fear and frenzy. Across the courtyard, the members of the organization stormed to and fro, setting up defenses against whatever was approaching the mountain gates.

“To arms!” came a stentorian bellow from the watchtower. “Twenty of them! Twenty of Morian’s Hunters!”

Mathias and Hassad had stopped their friendly spar, their blades resting slack against the frigid ground. “He… he tracked us down? How?”

“I’m not sure whether or not it’s the fact he managed to trace or the fact he did it this quickly that surprises me most.”

“Those things never rest… they probably sprinted all the way from Scara Brae to the Windlancer Mountains. Still more than three times faster than a galloping horse, though.”

“How strong is Concord? Can you deal with twenty of those?”

“Killing them isn’t the problem, boy,” said one of the other operatives, crossbow in hand as he rushed towards the walls to take position. “It’s keeping them from getting back up that will be a problem.”

“You should get to somewhere safe, Mathias. You… you haven’t recovered enough to fight them.”

“More like I was never strong enough to do so is what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

“No, I…”

“Save it,” he said in a murmur, holding his hand up to cut Hassad short. His other hand gripped more tightly around the hilt of his sword, Lysander “Things are… different now.”

A great pounding reverberated from the stone gates, and they could feel the ground quake beneath their feet in result. Another pound, stronger this time, and they heard a series of pops, no doubt chips of stone bursting out from emerging fissures in the structure. Suddenly, it became a rhythmic beating as the Hunters threw themselves against the doors, each strike causing the cracks to grow and spread faster and faster.

When they all rammed into the gate as one, the stone burst into a rain of projectiles, pelting the courtyard and the fortifications behind which the members of Concord had taken shelter. A choir of bestial roars echoed through the mountains as the monsters flung their fleshless maws open, with the few remaining flaps of sliced skin fluttering in the cold.

Hundreds of crossbow bolts flew across the empty space, sticking into the first line of Hunters in dry sputters. They reeled back, some tripping over themselves in the motion, but within moments they were charging again, their momentum now too great to be bothered by the hail of steel bolts raining down upon them. They crashed into the fortifications, sending many of those behind soaring high.

Hassad stomped the ground, and a wave of rocks broke from the flagstones in advancing spikes to impale the first beasts to reach the frontlines. They screeched as their bodies left the ground and hung a dozen feet above, oozing black and blue blood. It was not long, however, before they rammed their muscle-bound arms into the very rock, breaking the tip of the spikes to free themselves. They crashed to the earth in clouds of dust, and within seconds they resumed their onslaught.

One of them had charged towards Mathias, and even as it gained velocity, the young man did not move – he did not even raise his sword to bear, deciding instead to stab it into the stone floor. “What are you doing?” Hassad cried out as he summoned blades of stone saw through one of the Hunters, which now lay in pieces at his feet. Mathias said nothing, only holding his hands together as if in prayer, waiting for the monstrosity to make that final, charging leap…

Until he spread them out with the full length of his arms, ripping through the fabric of reality a crackling green portal to another world. He strained himself beyond his past limits, letting the portal grow beyond his arms’ reach, and soon the monster had been completely engulfed, falling through this window to another world. Mathias gasped, clapping his hands together as he dismissed the portal. With that done, he pulled Lysander from the bed of rock, readying his stance. “Let’s see it come back from that.”

“Ah, there you are, Mathias.” He froze, recognizing that bone-chilling voice at once.

“Morian.”

[Ataraxis]

“How did you find this place?” he snarled through gritted teeth, looking about to see whether the lich had retained the balls to come here in person. Instead, he only found a Hunter standing still not far off, its mouth agape as a strange light suffused from its throat. It formed an image, that of the necromancer’s cowled skull, and he realized Morian was speaking through it.

“Did you think I would fail to tag my captives the second time around? I may be old bones, but I do learn from past mistakes.” The lich cackled, his syntonized voice crackling through some magnetic interference from the mountain. “There were carvings lining the walls of your cell. I used them in a scrying ritual that allows me to track my prisoners, wherever they are. Little did I know you would lead me here, of all places: so much power, so much magic here, to be studied, dissected… I feel like a child in a confectionery!”

“I’m afraid you don’t have the means to buy anything off our shelves, Morian.” Ramirez crept up from behind, and in a single motion that none could follow, the Hunter through which he spoke had collapsed to the ground, severed into hundreds of bleeding pieces. Unlike the others, however, its remains did not twitch in preparation for a full regeneration.

“Who are you? What have you done to it?” Morians’s voice could still be heard through what little remained of its corpse. “Answer me!”

“Goodbye.” With a click of his fingers, the connection was severed as well, and the lich faded into nothingness. “Nothing easier than to cut off this kind of basic relay with our powers.”

“You’re stronger than I remember,” Mathias said with a smirk. “You isolated the parts of its cells that were necessary for regeneration, didn’t you?”

“It requires a lot of minutiae, but yes.”

“Can you do that with those left?”

“I could… I figure Morian is sick enough to put a failsafe in his toys, should they be burned to ashes… No doubt those who breathe some in become these abominations themselves. I’ll need time, though.” Ramirez looked about the courtyard, where the noise of battle had taken over. His people were fighting as hard as they could, none dead yet but tiring quickly. He would need to hurry.

The nipping air filled with static, and all could sense that Ramirez was at work. The Hunters did too, zoning in on the source of the disturbance with their honed detection of magic, and they moved towards him as if of one mind. The members of Concord did what they could to pull them away, but these beasts were as moving trains.

For the first time, Ramirez seemed to sweat out of concern, seeing that one would make it to him before he was done. If he stopped to defend himself, then he risked his people dying, and as naïve as it was, he felt that dying himself to ensure their survival was the only logical choice. “Oh well… looks like we’ll both be back to square one after this, Mathias.”

In that moment, he saw an unexpected blur jump past him. Dressed in stark white, as pale as the mountain peaks and a stone-cold resolve in eyes as red as his, Lillian speared the Hunter before him, sending it flying into the fortified walls. She rolled as she unceremoniously struck the ground, but the beast she had tackled was now embedded deep into the fissured stone.

As if on cue, Ramirez was done. In the blink of an eye, all the Hunters collapse to the ground, without any mess of spewing blood or splattering viscera. They were nothing but piles of sliced meat, pooling blue ooze. Wiping that solitary bead of sweat from his forehead, Ramirez sighed in relief. “Very, very thankful for the save.”

“Don’t mention it,” the girl muttered, dizzy from her fall, the blood hue of her eyes receding to their usual sapphire.

[Ataraxis]

They had known things would change now, that preparations were required now that the location of Concord’s base had been discovered. It was, however, only an hour after Morian’s attack that they heard the mind-blowing news.

“No way.” Lillian looked to Mathias in disbelief, and he only shrugged in response. Looking back to Ramirez, she reiterated her incredulity. “No way!”

“What’s with the skepticism? We’re just going to move the headquarters.”

“You make it sound like it’s as easy as packing your things and going away, but we all know what you actually mean!”

“Well, why wouldn’t you? I just said what I meant!”

“You’re going to move this whole base.”

Ramirez looked towards his subordinates, the look of futility in his eye reminding them of a puppy that did not understand what it had done wrong. Nonchalance being a popular reaction at this hour, they only shrugged in return. “I disposed of their remains, along with the stones they bled on. I mean, yes, some other dimension might have to deal with trash that doesn’t belong, but this is hardly my first time littering trans-dimensionally. I don’t see what’s the problem.”

“But… this place is huge!”

“Yeah, it’s pretty nice,” Ramirez answered, giving their headquarters an appraising glance. “We’d like to keep it that way.”

“Hence, the moving,” Hassad chimed in, smiling as if that had been the be all and end all of the discussion.

“…I give up,” Lillian said at last, throwing the towel – apparently, Hassad had been right in his assumption. “So I guess this is goodbye, then?”

“While you probably won’t take me up on this, you’re welcome to stay with us however long you see fit. If not, I’ll be glad to make you a portal leading wherever you want. Not Mathias, though: you can do that yourself. You’re too old to still be getting lifts from me.”

“We’re the same age, you ass. Heck, Lillian is almost the same age. Either way, I can manage on my own.” Mathias looked about one last time, before finally saying: “You’ve gathered a real nice family, Ramirez. They’re good people. Only, I have to get back to my own, now.”

With that, he extended a hand, a motion that had taken Ramirez by surprise. That, however, did not stop him from reciprocating in earnest. “Until we meet again.”

Mathias turned to Lillian, knowing all too well what this entailed. He could not expect her to carry on this way: he had already put her through so much, just because he had wanted to talk to her on a whimsy after that fight in the Pagoda. It all seemed so long ago, now.

“I’m sorry, Lillian. If it weren’t for me, you would never have gotten caught up in this whole mess. At least, now you– ”

“If you say I’m better off now, I swear, I will hit you,” Lillian replied with arms crossed and a tinge of annoyance. “While the torture was overall unpleasant, I don’t regret this ordeal. In the end, we came out stronger, and made new acquaintances: a simple way of seeing this, yes, but not a terrible one.

Also, this isn’t goodbye. Down the line, I know I’ll see you again, and by then we might even have gotten sick of each other – if all goes well. For now, I’m going back to Scara Brae, since I left all my things there. That means that, for the moment, we have the same destination.”

Mathias smirked, his worries allayed by that straightforward answer. “Gotcha.”

“Lillian, before we go,” Ramirez interrupted, “there’s something I’d like you to have.”

The girl blinked, unsure of what to say. “I didn’t do anything to deserve–”

“Really? Are we really doing this?” Lillian clamped her mouth, rolling her eyes downward as she scratched her arm in discomfort. “I thought so. This is… in relation to our previous discussion. I love Althanas, and I would hate to see it vanish, and so I thought if there was one thing I could do to help prevent that… this was it.”

From his cloak, he produced… another cloak. It was tailored for a smaller stature, but it was otherwise very similar to the one he wore: simple in design, but the strange fabric had the same weightless qualities, as well as an unwonted sense of durability. Rather than some gaudy clasp, silk-like ribbons were used for fastening, and the hood was ample enough to give room for motion, without impeding eyesight. Unlike his green matle, however, hers danced between midnight and cobalt under the changing light.

“I made it from planesmagic, much like Mathias did with Lysander. It allows you great protection from scrying, cutting you off from the grid of any means of detection other than sight. I know I severed the link to Morian in both of you, so there’s no more worrying about that, but… I thought you’d like another line of defense against those other… hunters.” Scratching his head, he added: “Also, I thought it would bring out your eyes.”

Lillian chuckled at that, holding the folded cloak against her chest. “Thank you. I’ll make good use of it.”

Ramirez nodded, and with that, they were done. He turned to his comrades, giving them one questioning glance before they all answered in silence, nodding. “Looks like we’re ready.”

“Goodbye, Ramirez,” Lillian said, bowing solemnly.

“See you,” were Mathias’ only parting words. Unbeknownst to Lillian, that was quite a step forward for the two brothers.

“Should we ever meet again, let it be under cheerful circumstances,” Ramirez said with a deep bow and flourish. The world blinked for the space of an instant, and they were gone. The fortified walls, the tiles of the courtyard, the training dummies, the stables and the workshops, even the great building in the mountain’s heart had vanished, leaving only a strangely rectangular void in the very rock.

In that void, Lillian and Mathias looked at one another, until they both came to smile from ear to ear.

“Well,” Lillian began, not breaking eye contact.

“I guess all that’s left to do is,” Mathias continued, doing the same.

At that very instant, the fabric of space split in two points simultaneously. A hole had been punched into the air, opening to a brilliant green portal, while the ground sank into and endless pit of swirling, ethereal webs.

And so they both leaped, vanishing from the world as they raced back to Scara Brae.

[Ataraxis]

Mathias gave me the go to finish the thread, and to bunny his characters to the conclusion. I hope you had a good read!

Spoils

Planar Weave – After drinking the blood of Mathias Vinkuzri, Lillian has gained abilities similar to his planeswalking.


Spider's Burrow – Lillian is capable of traveling long distances almost instantaneously by creating a wormhole of sorts on the ground, as long as she has a clear picture of the location as well as general knowledge of its geographical position on Althanas. It can draw in objects as well as people, even if they are shackled or immobilized, using ethereal webs that dematerialize upon contact. Only willing subjects can be dematerialized in this manner, however. Jumping into the wormhole, however, is a faster way of traveling, as this bypasses the dematerialization. The range of this ability varies: Lillian can effectively jump from continent to continent in this manner, but she can only travel that kind of distance once per day. She can make up to three jumps a day to anywhere within the same continent, though only with a cooldown of eight hours between jumps. Currently, she cannot travel to other dimensions. Short-range jumps are also not possible, making this ability worthless in combat.

Cloak of Occultation – A gift from Ramirez Vinkuzri, this allows Lillian to escape most means of scrying and detection. She still gives off heat signatures, but any magical or divine aura she may exude cannot be perceived while she wears this cloak. Because of this, one cannot seek her out by any idiosyncratic signature she may give off, and it will keep her safe from the Hunters of Devayoni, for the moment. As a note, she is not invisible in any way.

Sitayamini Silk – The equivalent of 4 shirts or 2 jackets (4 spools) in her magical black-silk cloth, as stated in her ability, Seamstress of the Sinister (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=16278). They approach the strength of dehlar.


P.S.: This is more of an OCD kinda request, but could the person in charge of changing the XP and GP remove the period from the GP count (from 13.160 to 13160)? Thanks again!

[Duffy]

Magnolia In The Mold

(Ataraxis And Mathias)

STORY ~ (22/30)

Continuity (8) ~ each post flows into the next, or each action into the next consideration; well appointed endings and suitable beginning don’t just give a high score for continuity, they build a sense of believable and readable prose that draws the reader into your tale with each passing post. Well done.

Setting (7) ~ short of pathetic fallacy and more tripling, there is little to be improved upon. The setting described contains senses beyond the normally visual, such as smell, taste and emotional (auras and the conjuration of feelings in a setting are something people often cast aside, but you have both used them to good effect.)

Pacing (7) ~ good pacing, no dips in interest, talent and certainly very little repetition or monotony.

CHARACTER ~ (25/30)

Dialogue (8.5) ~ the dialogue is so fluidic and affluent I’m utterly convinced you worked on it together as opposed to bunnying. You both show a good grasp of continuing conversation and natural responses, which is reflected in the continuity and persona of your characters and your story. Most importantly, it was clear who was speaking at all times.

Action (8) ~ simple and concrete description works best on conjunction with a dynamic dialogue or narrative voice to support it. You both deliver on this, and have been rewarded by the rubric for delivering not only physical blunt action, but also intelligence and character clashes, as well as the history of your character’s clashing on the page. You remembered that action is not simply the sparring of duellists or the punching of faces, that it is the dynamic movements within a thread.

Persona (8.5) ~ the reflexive nature of your character’s decisions and thoughts regarding their actions brings to light just how well you know your characters and how well you are able to portray their emotions on the page. The third paragraph of post fifteen and post sixteen and seventeen for Mathias show particular expertise in displaying the persona of a character.

WRITING STYLE ~ (24/30)

Technique (8.5) ~ divine, even I can see that you have given care and consideration to clause and comma and sentence structure as a tool to bring your setting, story and characters to life. I especially saw fit to praise the description of the horizon in the opening post, as well as the utility of your description and self reflection in dealing with the lich.

Mechanics (8.5) ~ here is an excellent display of mechanical understanding. You have utilised comma correctly to separate independent clauses and to break up not only dialogue into a natural pattern, but description and listing as well. Dash and … and colons all understood fluently.

Clarity (7) ~ whilst persona, setting and description were vivid, detailed and immaculately presented, such description and dialogue can damage a sense of perspective and the placement of characters within any given scene. It is still very clear, but place was lost and retracing was required to maintain a visual image.

Wild Card (7) ~ I have begun to use the wild card to deliver not only points for personal interest and enjoyment of a thread, but for the aspects of writing that are not covered by the rubric at present. Thus, for style, writing and an enjoyable read, I give you both a seven. You have placed yourselves in the background and let the characters do the work, you have written descriptively without being verbose, and kept your sentence structure simplistic enough to read without gasping for breaths or needing a ventilator. You have more importantly stayed with the same vocabulary, and stuck with your own styles throughout. Excellent thread, excellent story! Most importantly, it’s virtually unnoticeable that you continued the thread on your own Ataraxis, if there were no avatars or names it’d be one continued thread.

Thread Total = (78/100)

Ataraxis receives 4788 xp and 397 gold, and reaches level 8!
Mathias receives 3160 xp and 234 gold.


Spoils:

The cloak is awarded, as are the garments spun by the Seamstress of the Sinister ability.

Spider's Burrow will require re-approval, and possibly reduction in ability depending on other updates requested at your next level up. So it is temporarily approved pending your next visit to the Realm of Greeting. Be careful with it.

Story Spoil: The Divination Principle.

You and Mathias both can sense one another, somewhat like a compass point permanently pointed in the direction of your counterpart. If you both focus on one another's location, and channel your new found ability and use divination to skein a vision of the other's location, you can jump or burrow to one another wherever you both may be. Time is of course a crucial ingredient in such a bond, and divining a true vision of the other's location is not a scientific art, consider it average skill for now.


If you have any questions regarding the thread, the evaluation or see any mistakes please feel free to pm me to discuss it; I am more than willing and available to help with any queries.

[Taskmienster]

Exp and Gp added.

Ataraxis levels to 8! Also took the period out of the gold. :p