Nicol Bolas scowled, "I thought I was done, Eternity."

Mother Eternity's disembodied voice sounded particularly aloof today, "No One's ever done when I am all."

The dragon crossed his arms, "I've defeated you once. There's no reason this boy can't. He reminds me of myself."

"Are you saying I should just let him go?"

"I'm saying you should carefully evaluate who you want to crush in your desperate attempts to remain in control of the world. You've had quite the ball since Phyrexia happened. At this rate, I'll be the next in your position."

"I refuse to let a deviant like you run this world."

Bolas scoffed, "As if your hands are clean of blood. Get off your high horse."

"I will not stop until I get what I want. And you will not interfere."

"I don't care if the boy lives. I'm just interested."


Liliana stretched out as her cat leapt from a table to follow behind her. It could tell she was going to leave. While Jace was unconscious, she slipped a tracker on him. She was going to follow him to wherever he was staying now.

She commanded the undead pet to stay and quickly packed a bag full of food and water. She had discarded her skirts for a catsuit, leather jacket and boots. She grabbed a hover bike helmet on her way out and slammed down the visor.

Liliana mounted a personal hover bike and sped from the city under the cover of night.

"Stop!" A blockade had been formed in her path. No doubt the Boros, "You are an unauthorized traveler here. Identify yourself."

Had Liliana revealed her identity, she wouldn't be allowed to leave, thanks to the overly worrisome Azorius. Instead, she continued forward without slowing down.

"Hey! Stop!"

Liliana gathered a fistful of necromancy and sent the magic careening through the blockade. She rode over the wreckage.

As she sped through the streets, Liliana caught a glint of orange light in her peripheral. A woman in a flaming suit of power armor caught up with her, flying on jets of fire.

"You heard them right? Pull over." She said.

"Who are you?" Liliana asked.

"The woman who just cut your brakes."

Liliana checked brakes. Sure enough, they didn't work. Liliana leapt off the bike as it collided with a building in an explosion.

"My real name's Chandra Nalaar." The woman land across from Liliana.

"Nalaar? You died centuries ago." Liliana gathered black mana.

"So I've been told. This lady named Mother Eternity or something like that revived me."

Liliana's eyes widened under the polarized glass of her helmet, "Eternity did this?"

"Yup. And she sent me to kill you." The top of the woman's head, her forearms and shoulders lit ablaze with fire. The two glowing red eyes of the armor narrowed as she lowered into a grappling stance.

Either of Liliana's hands shot out a misty black ball of death magic that, as it flew through the air, became a smoky clawed projection of her hand.

Chandra let loose a blast of flame beneath her, dodging the attack. From the air, she unleashed a flurry of fire bolts and flaming projections of weapons.

Liliana ran for cover behind a stone wall and covered her head as the fire blasted the wall apart.

"What's a necromancer without corpses?" Chandra asked, "A death Mage with mana deficiency."

"I don't need corpses to be powerful," Liliana summoned an aberration. A horror unlike any had seen outside the walls of the city. It was a monstrous shadow with claws like swords and hungry, blood red eyes, "Kill."

The horror sprung forward at Chandra, grabbing hold of her foot and pulling her from the sky. The beast pinned her to the ground, under it. It went in to bite, but Chandra caught its jaw. She kicked it across the face and stood up, sending a barrage of fire at it.

For its size, the horror was shockingly fast. It dodged each of her fire balls and went in to attack again. This time, Chandra was ready. She blasted a white hot jet of flame that seared through the aberration

Liliana delivered a fistful of necromancy to the pyromancer's chest, knocking her back with a gaping, corroded hole in her power armor.

The attacker growled and was clearly beginning to lose her temper.

Liliana pulled a knife from her side and began whispering an incantation. In response, Chandra laid her hands in front of her and chanted, herself. Liliana's incantation caused the blade of the knife to glow with purple runes. She cut her hand with the knife and let the blood fall to the ground.

Chandra's spell created an army of small, red magic circles. Her voice grew in volume as she finished her spell. Her eyes snapped open as small bolts of red energy blast from the circle at Liliana.

Unfortunately for her, Liliana wasn't there any more. A searing pain ran down Chandra's back. She turned around to find Liliana. Her body was a maze of lines of dimly lit purple. Purple demonic magic created sigils that acted as wings, claws and horns, just a bit away from her body.

Liliana had raked one of the claws on her hand down her back, evidenced by the rapid bleeding.

Chandra staggered, clearly affected by the pain. She lit her fist ablaze and rushed forward again.

Liliana seemingly disappeared. Chandra felt two hands grabbed her shoulders and a knee pressed against her spine. With two sickening cracks, Chandra roared as her shoulders were broken. She crumpled to the ground.

Liliana dissipated her magic and summoned a makeshift hover bike made from shadow. She left while she could.


Jace rummaged through his supplies and produced a sonic explosive. If his theory was right, he should be able to find the entrance to the Pool of Knowledge. Jace fiddled with the circuitry and pressed the device into the sand of the wastes. He activated the bomb and hid in his stolen cruiser.

The bomb went off, sending a shockwave out across the sand and knocking the cruiser back a few feet. For moment, silence filled the desert. Then, the sand under Jace began to crumble. The stone fell apart, revealing a small stairway. Jace grabbed a gun and followed the newly revealed path.

The stairs seemed to descend a good 200 feet before Jace reached a small chasm. The stone was dark grey like the rough terrain of Jace's time. Black ichor dripped from stalactites on the ceiling. Phyrexian oil. Jace placed his mask on his face and sealed it. The caves continued forward into a hand carved stone room. The dust caked walls were covered in ancient text with pictographs of conflicts prior the forming of the Blind Eternities. Jace wiped away the dust and read some of the inscriptions.

During the Great Siege, which was part of a war that today's people barely knew about, this pool had been used to preserve the knowledge of Mirrodin, the world before Phyrexia. When...Jace couldn't read the name, but the context made them seem important. When this person discovered the pool, they infected it with Phyrexian oil and instead used it to harbor evil spirits. The pictograph depicted two monstrosities Jace assumed to be the spirits. One was a small humanoid female attached to a large jaw with spidery legs. The other was a hunched over creature with a long, spindly neck and torso. Its body adopted gritty and sharp steel.

Jace turned to the front of the room. On a pedestal, was a keypad of sorts. Like the rest of the room, it was made of stone. There sixteen keys and each one of them had a sigil carved into it. As far as Jace could tell, they were letters. It was a password. He recognized some of the sigils from the inscription.

Several names were related to this location, so Jace tried them. Progress Engine, Lumengrid and Gitaxias failed to work. Then, he remembered an experiment written about in an ancient journal dug up when he was about six. The Meldweb, they called it. Jace typed in the name. The sigils on the keypad lit blue as the wall behind it rumbled. Stone ground against stone as the wall slid open.

Jace lit a small, blue light in his hand and observed the dark room in front of him. It was another cave dug by hand. Drops of Ichor fell from the ceiling. Jace set multiple floating illusory fires along the edge of the chasm. A series of chains on pulley systems were scattered around the edge.

The Inscription told of many spirits held here, but one stood out. The spirit of an Evil dragon that lived even before Mirrodin. They said he was impervious to Glistening Oil and powerful enough to control reality itself. The Ichor didn't corrupt him, but it was able to weaken him. If released, his power would be harbored within a mortal female. As part of the pact, the female would make the man closest to her a vessel for the dragon's consciousness.

Jace's brain singed with pain. His body deteriorating. If he didn't get this power soon, his mind would dissolve. Jace stepped away from the inscription. He followed the pulley system to a starting point where the chain was fused to the ground with igneous rock. Jace shot the chain. The system creaked, running the chain through it.

"Jace?" Jace whirled around.

"Liliana, what the hell are you doing?!" Jace cried.

The chain pulled a glass case from the pool of Ichor in the center of the cave. Within the case, was a large golden disk with a pair of horns on it.

A ringing sound echoed throughout the chasm, forcing Jace and Liliana to their knees. They cried out in agony as the glass case vibrated and shattered. A black and purple ball of energy swam through the air with lightning speed. The energy ran into Liliana's chest and disappeared.

She fell back, dazed. She sat up again, unharmed.

"Are you okay?" Jace asked.

Liliana massaged her temple, "Yeah, I'm fiiiiiAAAAAHHHHH!" Liliana began screaming as purple light shone through her eyes like spotlights. She crossed her arms over her chest, grabbing at herself in pain as a labyrinth of marks appeared on her skin through her suit.

A blast of energy emanated from her, knocking Jace backwards onto his back.

"M-my contract!" She screamed as Jace noticed blood welling up in the lines as the purple line disappeared.

It was replaced by runes crawling up her arms in a series of repeating sigils of an ancient text Jace couldn't read. They shine with gold light as they climbed down her back and legs, making their way around her neck, up to her eyes and under her bottom lips.

"He's-he's...No! Stop it! Rrraaagh!" Tears welled up in Liliana's eyes as the golden light took over her eyes as well. Liliana lurched. She fell over, unconscious and covered in dry blood.