Author's Notes: I'm not dead. Fluri Month 2016 and other projects and work have just been taking a lot out of me.


They left the ruins of the Egothor Forest behind and made tracks for the forests of the south. It would provide them shelter from the eyes of the Empire while they waited for Ba'ul. To their knowledge, he was fleeing from the Heracles, but had not been injured in the attack that claimed Krones. From the distant glare in Judith's eyes, Flynn could tell that she and her partner were still in contact. That was at least a small glimmer of hope in a very bleak set of circumstances.

Although Judith's reception of it was cool at best, Estellise was at her side constantly to offer comfort in the form of anything she needed. She had lost a huge percentage of her people, and that fact was not lost on anyone. Even with the blaze of the campfire, the atmosphere of their camp was cold and quiet.

Repede's growling put them on edge and a sudden and fierce wind threatened to blow out their meager fire, but as it steadied, a tall and dark form came into view. It was one that Flynn recognized, and immediately pulled him and Yuri to their feet, swords drawn.

"Lady Khroma!"

"I guess Alexei sent you looking for us, then? Well, we're not going down without a fight." Yuri took his easy fighting stance, but his presence was still threatening.

Estellise added her own sword poised at the ready.

"I am not here to fight you." The Krityan woman raised her hands, showing that she held no weapons, but Flynn knew that her artes were powerful. That's what had blown them out of the palace in the first place.

"Then what are you here for?" Yuri didn't move.

"I have come to deliver you the truth. That is what you were looking for with the hopes of going to Myorzo, is it not?"

"Yes, but why would you do such a thing? You are Alexei's personal aide." Estellise's sword dropped just a fraction of an inch, but her determination had not wavered.

"I lost a dear friend in the events today. Even being his personal aide, I had no indication of his plans for Myorzo. Had I known, I would have acted sooner to stop him. I would never have let such a terrible tragedy transpire." Since the party gave no sign of trusting her immediately or backing down if she were to prove a threat, she knelt before the campfire. "Either way, I have come to give you the truth. Whether or not you believe me is up to you."

There was another tense moment that hung between them before Yuri sheathed his sword, and the others all did the same. His hand was still firmly on the hilt, but it seemed that as impetuous as he was, he was at least willing to listen for the moment.

From behind herself, Khroma produced a book sized stone tablet and set it down on the ground before her. Afterward, she folded her hands into her lap and scanned across their faces with her amber eyes. "The Kritya abandoned blastia centuries ago, but humans were not able to give it up so easily. The cores of blastia are made from crushed and reformulated apathetia."

"Wait, what? You mean that all cores are made from crushed apathetia?!" Rita nearly pulled herself up off the log she had settled on.

"Yes. The cores of blastia have always been made this way. In its pure state, apathetia is much too powerful and required reconstruction in order to function properly."

A stunned silence settled on them before Raven spoke up. "Pretty interestin' how ol' Phaeroh didn't mention that part."

"Can't say I blame him," Yuri added. "Pretty uncomfortable when you think about it."

"So, the Entelexeia hate and wish to destroy the blastia because the apathetia are used in their construction." Estellise looked down at the ornamental blastia on her wrist, disgust briefly crossing her face.

"Yes."

"Why did the Kritya give up blastia?" Yuri asked. "Was there some disaster or something that it caused in the past?"

"That is the case." Khroma extended the stone tablet before her to Judith. "Use the nageeg and the story handed down through the Kritya shall unfold."

"Nageeg?" Rita stared at the smooth surface of the stone, and then at Judith.

"We Kritya have an ability called 'nageeg', which will show us the memories left over in objects, provided that we know the proper incantation to bring them out," Judith explained, passing her hands momentarily over the stone and then bringing them to rest along the jagged sides.

"Say the words City of dreams veiled in mist, reality's extension and the door of history will open before you."

Judith repeated those words verbatim and the stone began to glow soft white. Across its surface, a black splotch, like ink, spread and as it moved, archaic letters and symbols were left in its trail. Several lines of it decorated the tablet before Flynn recognized the symbols for what they were. It was an ancient form of their language, long used by the Kritya. The letters were sharp and unrefined compared to those of the common language.

"What does it say?" Yuri and the others assembled behind Judith to view the movements of the tablet.

"The Kritya. Stewards of wisdom, founders of the mighty Geraios, and ancient sages. Our misbegotten wisdom has sown only the seeds of ruin. The blastia we created granted us blessings, but also blighted the aer, lifeblood of this world," Judith began and as she read, the words sunk away into the stone, replaced by others and further pictures.

The dark spot continued to move, leaving behind it crude symbols of people and monsters, and a third symbol that looked familiar.

"That's pretty creepy," Karol shuddered beside him. "Those look like that thing we fought in the Sands of Kogorh."

"It kinda does," Raven added.

"So you were right, Rita. It looks like there were disturbances in the aer in the past." Yuri pointed to a large, tentacled object that was coming into view. "Could this be the disturbance? It looks like it's trying to swallow the planet."

"It did, in fact, attempt just that," Khroma spoke for the first time in a few minutes, still watching them carefully.

Judith continued the tale as more of it appeared. "The blight grew ever stronger and brought forth a cataclysm… In our terror, we gave a name to the cataclysm: the Adephagos."

"Adephagos..." Estellise said softly, eyes fixed on the tablet.

"The world united to challenge the Adephagos, and banish the loathsome power which created it."

"Could those be the Entelexeia then?" Rita asked.

"Does look somethin' like humans and monsters fightin' together."

"With the crumbling of the Geraios civilization, the Adephagos was quelled," Khroma added.

"So with the combined efforts of the humans, the Kritya, and the Entelexeia, the aer problem was fixed."

"What's this last little bit say, Judith?"

She was quiet for a moment, but it wasn't the same as someone who paused to read. She knew what those words said, but it seemed like it was something that she didn't want to admit. "Hearing the world's prayers, life faded from the Child of the Full Moon. The Adephagos disappeared into the void."

"What?" The sharpness of Yuri's voice betrayed his surprise.

The words stung Flynn, too, even sharper than the first time as he repeated them aloud. "The world's prayers… Life faded from the Child of the Full Moon…."

He looked over to Estellise. Her eyes were wide and she had gone dreadfully pale.

"Our world was preserved. But the story shall remain here for generations to tell of our sin. 240th year of Asule..." Judith trailed off as the glow of the tablet faded, leaving them with only stone.

"This... This is-" Estellise started, but stopped suddenly, covering her mouth with one hand and turning away to hide her tears.

"Lady Estellise..."

"The truth of the Children of the Full Moon and their ties to the Adephagos, the world devouring calamity from the skies brought on by the over abundance of aer and the over use of blastia." Khroma received the tablet back from Judith and set it down before her again.

"But this is just a legend." Flynn was hunting for a way to make it seem like a distant possibility, but his efforts were lost.

"This is the history of the Kritya, passed down through generations. Legends are often based in fact."

Without another word and with her tears getting the best of her, Estellise dashed away from camp, into the darkness of the forest.

"Lady Estellise!" Flynn moved to follow the distraught princess, but Yuri stopped him.

"Give her a little time alone." He stood, glance shifting over to Khroma. It was hard to read whether or not Yuri believed what she told them and the evidence she brought. "So what are you going to do now that you've betrayed Alexei?"

"He does not yet know of my betrayal. I will return to his side and tell him that my search for the Child of the Full Moon has been unsuccessful." She stood also, taking a few steps back from the fire. "Time is growing dangerously short. You must act."

"I get it, I get it. We heard the same spiel from Phaeroh."

"As long as you understand." She took one last step back into the darkness and disappeared as suddenly as she had arrived.

He didn't need to be reminded that their time was wearing thin. Khroma and Phaeroh's sense of urgency hadn't been lost on him. He knew that panicking wasn't going to do them any good.


Cooking usually helped to clear his mind. It was methodical when the rest of the world, himself included, was madness. But right now, it wasn't doing much to clear the muddle in his brain. It was simply a momentary distraction, but he would take what he could get.

Karol returned from collecting firewood, dropping the sticks beside Yuri before taking a look around. "Has Raven come back yet?"

"Wasn't he with you?"

"We got separated."

"He probably stopped to take a leak before coming back. The elderly often have incontinence." Yuri tried to focus on the pot rather than on Karol. He wanted to look at him. He wanted to know why the boy had been acting so strangely these past couple of weeks, but whenever he wanted to ask, he just ended up chalking it up to stress. This journey may have been fun at first, but Karol was only twelve and a lot had happened in a very short time that would have changed that for him.

That answer didn't seem to satisfy Karol, and he grumbled something and walked away to ask Flynn and Rita who were setting up the sleeping bags.

Flynn had been pacing the camp nervously. Yuri told him more than once to calm down. He was obviously worried about Estelle, but she had been gone less than a quarter of an hour or so and needed time to clear her own head after this evening's revelations. But now it was time for dinner.

"All right." Yuri stood, covering the pot. "Let's go find Estelle and the Old Man before dinner gets cold."

Repede got up from his warm spot by the fire and arched into a stretch. He padded to Estelle's pack and took a good, long sniff to get her scent and then proceeded to the tree line. His ears suddenly perked up, alert and focused on something through the trees like there was something in the distance only he could hear, and he started to whine.

"What's up, Repede?"

A blinding white light erupted through the forest, and diminished a second later.

"What the hell was that?"

Rita was quickly at Yuri's side, goggles down and analyzing the glow of the light that remained. "A blastia of some sort. Let's go."

They all rushed into the forest, Repede and Rita leading the charge.

Why was there a blastia being used in the forest? Raven didn't have one, and Estelle didn't use hers. The color of Estelle's artes were different, and Rita surely knew her signature by now with all the observations that she had made, some more scientific than others. But this worried him, and as they cleared the tree line, it only got worse.

The clearing was empty. The only thing of note that was here was a large patch of scorched, brown grass in the center. There were footprints and drag marks leading through the thick grass to the anomaly, but none leading away.

Rita paced the area, examining the difference in the grass through her goggles. "There was a warp blastia used here-" She stopped suddenly, spotting something that Yuri saw shining in the grass, too. She stooped to pick it up.

It was a flower shaped brooch of pink shell with three long, curling strands of pearls dangling from it. Yuri knew it instantly. It was what Estelle had tried to give him in Nordopolica. It was the memento of her mother. Rita passed it to him and he slipped it into his vest pocket.

A few feet from that was another object, glimmering in the grass, although much more worn with age. He grabbed it before Rita spotted it. The bronze, coin-sized medal was tarnished with age and weather. The front of it displayed the crest of Heaven's Arrow, the symbol of Altosk, and the back was engraved with the name Raven.

"Raven's Comrade Crest..." Karol said from beside him, peering over Yuri's arm.

Yuri's heart sunk, settling on the fear and worry bubbling in his stomach as he curled his fingers around the medal, pressing it into his palm. Had they been captured? Had the Imperial Knights ambushed the two of them?

"Where did the blastia warp to?" Judith asked, expression showing that she also suspected the worst.

"Warp blastia can't travel over long distances, especially carrying more than one person, so they didn't get very far." Rita followed a trail invisible to the rest of them as an arc into the sky. "Looks like they ended up near a mountain not far from here. I think there's a building or something there."

Judith folded her arms over her chest. "The Ancient Shrine of Baction."

"But why there?"

"The only building known on the whole continent of Hypionia. Of course the Empire would be interested in it," Yuri said sharply.

"So you already suspect the Empire?" Flynn asked, looking at him narrowly.

"Yeah, and why not? We know that they're here and they're after Estelle."

"Why would they take Raven though?" Karol asked.

"Who knows. But we should get moving to catch up with them."

"We'll have to go on foot," Judith added. "Ba'ul's still in hiding."

"That's fine. We'll be more discreet this way."

His feet couldn't carry him there fast enough, but neither could the Entelexeia, or any warp blastia. His friends had been taken and he wasn't prepared to stand for that. If Alexei had gotten a hold of Estelle, they were in trouble. Terca Lumireis was in trouble. There was no telling how he planned to misuse her power, but Yuri knew that whatever extent would be deadly.