Author's Note: Sorry about the long absence. I meant to have this chapter out in late April, as a commemoration of an entire year of writing this (Yay that happened). But then school ramped up and I had to take a break from writing so I wouldn't fail my finals. After they were finally over, in mid-May, I got the brilliant idea of rewriting the entire fanfic. Mainly this was just because I was extremely unhappy with how I wrote the earlier chapters, but also because I had a few glaring continuity issues I felt I needed to fix. A month and twenty three chapters of rewriting later, I'm finally finished. As of uploading this chapter, I've rewritten every chapter in the entire fanfic. Some rewrites were more extensive than others. Namely, the structuring of the early chapters has been significantly altered. But I feel all were extensive enough for anyone currently reading this who has not already done so to go back and reread the whole thing before continuing (with perhaps the exception of the Foundations bits and chapters 18 and 19. Those rewrites weren't extensive enough to cause any confusion down the line if you don't read them, but there are still changes).
I know this isn't very helpful, especially to people who just got through to this point recently, but the rewrites make the writing smoother, they make the continuity flow better (Especially for Jigafta and his team, whose continuity I thoroughly messed up in the early chapters) and they generally make the early chapters a lot less of a pain to sit through. I strongly recommend you go back and reread the entire fanfic before continuing. And also consider this a warning that, if you don't go back a reread the rewrites, there may be elements of the plot that confuse you as to their origin (assuming you care at this point. If you do, yay! I still have purpose!).
Anyway, enough rambling. Back to the story.
The instant Smiley's corpse stabbed Fone, the situation rapidly devolved. Fone's body rose into the air and began emitting a blinding light. A few seconds later, that light was accompanied by a sea of heat energy that began to violently pour out from what seemed like the depths of his soul into the physical world in waves of infernal vengeance. The waves cascaded over the army of bones that stood just outside the large hole in the temple wall, melting flesh and metal alike, and burning away even the ground underneath their feet. Fortunately for the occupants of the temple, the inferno was not directed at them, but they felt even the air begin the sear and burn as it continued, and the temperature of the surrounding landscape increased significantly. It was only a matter of time before Fone's destructive force burned the whole city to the ground. As this transpired, everyone inside the temple froze, awestruck by the terrible power and almost comical spontaneity of the event. Even Smiley forgot to finish carrying out Glaian's orders. Only Deyavara persisted undaunted by the sight. He reacted in an entirely different manner. He was overjoyed. As soon as he saw what was happening, he broke into a cacophonous cackle that permeated the room. After more than a minute of unbroken rancor, he dropped to his knees and began shouting in verse.
"A giant stands tall, Ven's legacy razed! The fires of extinction are readily blazed! The shadows of wrath pierce the world! The Successor's mind is forever unfurled! Power ignited awakens the hoard! From the ashes rises the Crystal Lord!" He screamed. The black substance covered his entire body. His eyes began to glow.
Nagratek slammed his fist square into Deyavara's gut with all his might. Deyavara was caught off guard, and was sent flying through the wall of flame emanating from Fone's body and further, beyond the walls of the city. Immediately, Nagratek moved forward with impossible speed and grasped the side of the white mech's cockpit before anyone saw him move. By this time, he too was fully covered by the black substance. Just as Smiley noticed Nagratek was hanging next to him, the fingers of Nagratek's free hand liquefied, and he plunged them into the crystal imbedded in Smiley's face. Black tendrils spread out from his fingers into the crystal, clouding it and turning the structure from blue to black. Nagratek withdrew his fingers. Smiley fell into his arms, unconscious.
Nagratek pulled Smiley out of the cockpit and laid him at Phoney's feet. Glaian stepped out from the white mech's shielding hand to strike Nagratek. Before Glaian could react, Nagratek flicked his forehead. Everyone in the room could hear Glaian's skull crack. He tumbled across the floor of the temple and slammed into what remained of one of the walls. In response, it came down on top of him. Before Thorn, Phoney, Bartleby or Nibet could speak, Nagratek began issuing orders.
"I know none of you know what is going on. But if you don't listen to me and do exactly as I say, you will all die here. Is that clear?" No one responded, but the four conscious mortals in the room gave him their undivided attention. "You all must gather the unconscious, run as fast as you can for the city gates, get on a dropship, and get to the rat creature temple. You will be safer there than here, or most anywhere else. I will remain to stop Deyavara and halt the impending cataclysm. I'll explain everything to you when this is over, assuming we all survive." Immediately, Phoney grabbed Smiley, Nibet picked up X'lish, and Bartleby slung Gran'ma Ben and Rankyne onto his back. Then the three of them ran out of the temple as fast as they could. Thorn, however, didn't move.
"Young Veni-Yan-Cari, you should run while you still can. I refuse to let one of Ven's descendants loose her life because of my hesitance." Nagratek's voice was very different from Jigafta's. Now that he had cast off his false identity, and once again delved into his heightened form, his voice boomed deep with power. Thorn was unimpressed, considering what they day had borne witness to.
"Listen, I don't understand what's going on in the slightest. But what I do know is that Fone is floating and burning the city to the ground. I'm staying to find out why." She grasped her sword once again. As she did so, the rubble piled upon Glaian gave way. He emerged. The front of his forehead bore a large concave indent, but he appeared otherwise unfazed. His eyes still gleamed maliciously. Nagratek gave him a look of pity and annoyance. Before he could rush to end Glaian once and for all, Deyavara launched himself back into the temple from the direction Nagratek has shot him. His limbs and torso had all elongated, adding two feet to his height, his nose had shrunken flat against his face, and the black substance had retracted, revealing that Deyavara's body was constructed entirely out of black crystal. Additionally, black crystal spikes had begun to grow along his arms, his back and his scar. He and Nagratek locked eyes once more.
"If you want to make yourself useful, take care of that abomination for me." Nagratek waved his hand in Glaian's direction. As he spoke, Nagratek's form began to twist and grow to resemble that of Deyavara's. "Make sure it doesn't distract me."
"I think you're definition of abomination needs some serious readjustment." Thorn looked at what Nagratek had become. He didn't react to her sarcasm. She rolled her eyes, pulled her hood over her face, and turned to meet Glaian on the field of battle.
She tentatively focused on the dreaming again. It had become even more chaotic than when she first attempted to fight Glaian. She could barely discern what was going on in the maelstrom, but it seemed as though Fone was radiating pure energy. Massive quantities of the energy were absorbed by Nagratek and Deyavara, but the rest cascaded to and fro, turning the placid river of Dreaming energy one would normally expect to sense into a monsoon of uncontrollable terror. She almost passed out from the shock, but eventually she adjusted to her surroundings. Unfortunately, there wasn't nearly enough positive energy present for her to draw upon to enhance her combat prowess. She had no hope of keeping up with Glaian's movements.
"I hope you aren't just going to stand around with your fingers on your forehead the whole time." Glaian remarked. She unfocused, threw her hood off, and looked him in the eyes. He attempted to smirk, but instead he coughed up a wad of blood that carried with it several of his teeth. "Now that's more like it. Come on. Show me what you can do."
"You should be dead by now. There's no way you could have survived what we've put you through." Thorn unsheathed her sword. Despite his broken state, Glaian still looked like he could kill her with one well-placed strike.
"Your point?" Blood began to pool in one of his eyes.
"You're in no condition to fight. And if you don't surrender now, I'll have to kill you."
"I might not be at my best, but if you can't go full out as a Veni-Yan-Cari, then you have no hope of beating me." He lost his balance and staggered. He managed to stay on his feet by leaning against what was left of the wall he crashed into.
"You can barely stand. Your forehead is caved in."
"Temporary setbacks. Now enough posturing." He found his balance again and steadied himself. Already his bleeding had stopped. "I'm not giving you a choice in the matter anymore." Suddenly, Glaian lunged forward and quickly bridged the gap between them. Thorn's eyes could follow his movements with greater ease than the last time she had seen him in action. He had slowed to the point where her body could start to keep up with them too.
Glaian's arms hung uselessly at his sides as he rushed into combat. In their place, he used his legs to strike out at Thorn's defense. He first attempted a sweeping kick at her abdomen. She blocked it with her free arm, and in response swung her sword at his head. He caught the blade near the handle with his teeth, but only managed to prevent himself from being decapitated. Thorn continued to swing her sword, carrying him with it and slamming him into the ground. The force of the impact severed the muscles that allowed Glaian's jaw to clench shut. It also imbedded the blade of the sword into the hinge joint between his upper and lower jaws, preventing his lower jaw from moving at all. Thorn tried to tug the sword out of his head, but it wouldn't budge.
Glaian capitalized on the momentary distraction. He threw himself upward with such speed Thorn lost her grip on the sword. Just as quickly as he had sprung up, he leapt at her and attempted to slash her throat with the blade of the sword extending from his jaw. As he did so, pain began to shoot through his body. But instead of forcing him to hesitate, the pain only made him more furious. He began to swing the sword wildly, not attempting to hit anything in particular but in a bid to force Thorn into a corner. Thorn was able to dodge his repeated attacks with ease, and the pair of them moved in a circle around their original battlefield. As they moved, Glaian's unfocused attack pattern gave Thorn the opportunity she needed to draw a dagger from her belt.
Wielding the dagger in her dominant hand, she deflected Glaian's most recent blind swing. As soon as Glaian was sent reeling, Thorn stabbed her dagger straight through the part of his lower jaw that made up the joint her sword was stuck in. As it was pierced, his lower jaw began to shatter. She pulled down as hard as she could on the knife, and tore away the right side of Glaian's lower jaw, along with part of his face and neck. She then grabbed the handle of her sword and pulled it free from its prison. With nothing keeping it clenched shut, Glaian's lower jaw dangled off of the side of his upper jaw, holding on only by a few ligaments.
Blood began to gush from the hole Thorn had torn in Glaian's neck, but he didn't slow down. The wound only seemed to make him fight with greater resolve. He leapt up as Thorn tried to swing her sword through his temple. He barely avoided the blade. He then began to bring his foot down in a violent arcing kick on top of Thorn's head. She stepped to the side and threw her knife down into his foot as it descended. The knife tore through his foot and pinned it to the ground. He pulled his foot through the knife, leaving his foot a mangled wreck, and kicked Thorn in the side of her forehead with his other foot at the same time. Thorn staggered back and he rushed in to strike a killing blow. But as he reached her, she regained her balance, and slashed him from his lower chest all the way to his nose with one strike. He was sent flying into the air and landed on his back. Before he could get up, she stabbed her sword in between his ribs and straight through his heart. He stopped breathing. Thorn could see the light fade from his eyes. He was dead.
Thorn sat back in disbelief. She had seen master assassins go up against Glaian and fail, and yet she succeeded in taking him down. She almost congratulated herself. For the first time, she noticed the titanic rumbling occurring behind her as Nagratek and Deyavara clashed. But before she could turn around to observe the clash, she saw something odd. Not with her eyes, but with her mind. She felt the Dreaming begin to contort once again. Energy was flowing in a new direction. Energy was flowing, uncontrollably, into Glaian.
His blood turned black and semi-solid. It began to crawl across his body, engulfing must of his corpse in the same substance that had covered Nagratek and Deyavara. Then the substance reattached his lower jaw to his upper jaw at the same time as he began to breathe again. Immediately after, he began to scream. A small scar at the base of his neck that Thorn hadn't noticed before burst open, and a large black crystal grew out, rapidly covering most of his neck and part of his face. He pulled himself up off the ground, Thorn's sword still straight through his chest.
"Bloody Stars." Thorn muttered as Glaian's screams subsided. She lunged forward and grasped the handle of her sword sticking out of his torso. She tried to pull it out, but it wouldn't budge. Before she could get away, Glaian grabbed her forearm. The black substance had returned his arms to working order as well. She drew her knife and tried to stab his arm to get him to let go, but he grabbed her wrist as well. Before she could shake him off, the black substance began crawling from his hands to her arms. In response, she reflexively kicked Glaian in the stomach. She pulled her foot away before the substance could latch onto her, and the impact carried enough force to knock him back momentarily. In that moment, his grip weakened, and she managed to pull herself from his grasp.
As soon as she broke free, he charged at her. She rolled to the side and, crouching on the ground, cut his Achilles tendon as he ran past. He stumbled and fell to the ground, but in moments he was back up on his feet again, his tendon completely healed. This time, however, he didn't charge. He just stood completely still, as if her were awaiting stimulus of some kind. This puzzled Thorn. She squinted and looked him in the eyes, only to discover that they were half shut and unresponsive. Although he had somehow managed to return to life, he was still unconscious. Dreaming.
Upon realizing this, Thorn got a wild idea. If he was drawing in energy as he slept, he must have been interacting with the Dreaming in some way. Which meant that, if she focused, she could invade his dream and put an end to him, once and for all. Without hesitation, she threw her hood back on and began to focus on the dreaming. She could "see" his mind in the dreaming as a large cloud of eerie silver-black mist. Her mind pushed closer, and she began to feel the pull of his dream. She latched onto it, and began to force her way into his mind. Unfortunately, the modifications Archibald had made to him gave him a measure of defense against intrusion. As soon as Thorn broke into his dream, she felt a sharp pain in the back of her mind. Her mind lashed out as a result, and the energy feedback generated knocked her unconscious, and knocked her and Glaian's physical bodies to the ground.
Thorn shuddered into consciousness. She stood in the middle of a room not quite tall enough for her to stand in, but containing enough width and depth to be considered large. As she looked around, everything about the room began to confuse her. Behind her was a wall made, perplexingly, entirely out of glass windows. The other walls appeared to be some sort of impossibly smooth black-painted stone, and imbedded in the far wall and the one to her right were rectangular wooden doors with round golden handles. Ahead of her, in the middle of the room, was a long wooden desk that played host to a bevy of strange objects she had never seen before. Given the fantastical nature of the room, she could only assume she was in a location somewhere in Fone's native country.
Her assumption proved entirely accurate when a small bone child wearing what appeared to be ceremonial robes burst through the door and ran behind the desk. He didn't seem to notice her. Even as he began looking around frantically, his gaze passed over her without any reaction. At this moment, Thorn realized Glaian wasn't just dreaming about his home country, he was reliving memories from his past as she had done so many times. Thorn approached the young Glaian, and crouched next to him. As she did so, she noticed he was muttering to himself.
"This can't be happening this can't be happening this can't be happening this can't be happening this can't be happening this can't be happening this-" Glaian's breathless whimper was cut short when a loud clang echoed through the room, coming from just on the other side of the door. Instantly Glaian cupped his hands over his mouth to keep any sound from getting out. Thorn, meanwhile, stood up to investigate what had caused the sound.
Almost immediately after Thorn stood up, the door flung open again. This time an adult bone in a long brown overcoat came crashing through, quite literally. He stumbled over himself to get through the door, clutching a bleeding wound on his arm. Not three second after him, a much younger X'lish came through the door wielding a sword, and stabbed it through the man's leg without hesitation. He fell to the floor, writing and howling in agony as she pulled her blade out and stabbed him in his kneecaps, both of his arms, his right shoulder, and his groin. As she mutilated his body, she wore a look of unadulterated glee, as if she enjoyed causing the man pain with every fiber of her being.
"Does that hurt?!" She screamed in his face. He couldn't muster a response through the pain he was feeling, but she didn't care. She laid her sword to the side, picked up his head, and slammed it again the floor. "This is nothing!" She shouted as she slammed his head again the flor again. His screams only got louder. "It's nothing compared to what you did to Viprus!" She slammed his head again. "To Faldr!" As she slammed his head again, his screams fell silent. In response, she picked her sword back up and stabbed him through his left shoulder. He snapped back to consciousness and began screaming again.
"Wake up!" She shouted as she pulled her blade out. "I'm not done with you yet." Just then she straightened up and pressed her finger against the small comms device sitting inside her ear hole.
"What is it, Satranik? I'm busy at the moment." She waited several seconds. Thorn couldn't hear what the person on the other side of the line was saying. Suddenly, she shouted, piercing the uneasy silence that had settled over the room. "He did what?!" X'lish looked at the man's body. "I'm on my way." Then she begrudgingly stood up and ran back through the door.
As soon as she was gone, Glaian left his hiding place behind the desk and scurried to the man's side. He began uncontrollably crying as he witnessed the state the man was in. The man, on the other hand, had stopped screaming, and only took sporadic, shallow breaths. He looked at Glaian with desperate eyes. Piercing eyes. Glaian's sobbing dropped in volume and intensity as the man began to speak.
"Listen well, son." The man rasped. "You must leave this place, and go far away from here. You must live to carry on our mission. One day, our Lord will come for you. He will make the greatest disciple out of you, and together you will free the Crystal Cou-" He broke down in a fit of coughing. Glaian looked confused.
"Father, we need to get you out of here. It isn't safe. She might come back at any moment." Glaian stood up and attempted to drag his father toward the wall of glass. The walls and the ground began to shake uncontrollably.
"It's too late for me. Go, while you still have a chance." His father pleaded with him. The walls began to crack.
"But father…" Glaian was on the verge of crying again.
"Go!" His father shouted. The ceiling began to crack. With tears in the corners of his eyes, Glaian released his father and ran for the glass wall. As he approached it, the middle sections opened up. He ran through. They closed behind him. Thorn began to pursue him, but stopped as the room she was in began to break apart. She looked up at the sprawling web of cracks in the ceiling just as the entire room suddenly gave way and come crashing down. Instinctively, she put up her hands and turned from the oncoming wall of rubble to protect herself.
When she opened her eyes again, she was outside. It was the middle of the day. She stood in a field, and in front of her was the wall of a brick building. Also in front of her were four bones, older than the child version of Glaian she had seen, but not by much. By any standards, they were still children. One was considerably taller than the others, and wore a small blue hat with a yellow band around the middle. Despite his size, the taller one was doubled over on the ground. Standing above him was one of the other, smaller bone children. He stood with a vile look on his face and his foot planted securely on the taller kid's back. The other two stood off to the side, cowering slightly at the actions of the other one.
"Come on, Glaian, he's had enough." One of them admonished hesitantly. "Just let him up already." Glaian shot him the kind of malicious grin only a child can muster.
"Losing your spine so soon?" He asked, mockingly. "You should learn to be more like this freak here." He lifted his leg off of the tall one, bend down next to him, and grabbed his head, dragging it up for the other two to see. He had an over the top grin plastered on his face, despite whatever the three had done to him. Glaian continued talking. "No matter what happens, this guy just keeps on smiling. Isn't that right, Smiley?" He smacked Smiley on the back of the head.
"As long as you wear a smile, everything's going to turn out all right." Smiley muttered, not dropping his innocent smile.
"Did your parents tell you that?" Glaian asked, looking Smiley in the eyes and getting up next to his face. "Well I've got news for you. They're dead!" He began shouting. Tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. "Yours! Your cousins'! Mine! They're all dead, and that isn't going to change!" Smiley's smile didn't fade.
"Back off, you piece of trash!" Someone shouted behind Thorn. Glaian stood up to see who it was, just in time to get hit square on the forehead by a rock. Thorn turned around to see who had thrown it. It was a fifth child. He ran past Thorn and up to the reeling Glaian. Before Glaian could react to anything that was happening around him, the child picked the rock up off the ground and bashed it against Glaian's forehead again. As Glaian lost his balance and hit the ground, his two cohorts scattered. The other kid quickly pounced on Glaian, and began beating him in the head repeatedly with the rock. After a few hits, Glaian's forehead began to bleed profusely. The child didn't stop.
Smileys stood up and gently grabbed his defender's arm. The child looked up. Smiley still had a grin on his face.
"I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it, Phoney. You don't have to get so angry about it all the time." Phoney broke down crying at those words. He stood up and hugged Smiley tight. Just then, the two other kids that ran off came running from around the corner, followed closely by a heavyset bone woman wearing a red dress and with iron-grey hair tied up into a bun. This came as a shock to Thorn because she had never seen a bone of that particular build before.
"Phoncible!" She shouted as she approached the scene. "What is the meaning of this?"
"He didn't mean to do it, Mrs. Crab-Bone. It's all just a big misunderstanding." Smiley commented, with the hint of a smile on his face through the words.
"Misunderstanding, my foot." Mrs. Crab-Bone responded tersely. "Your cousin almost beat this kid to- Hey!" She shouted as Glaian stood up suddenly and took off running away from the scene. Thorn ran after him. "Come back here!" Mrs. Crab-Bone shouted as Glaian ran as far as he could. After he had lost sight of the damage he had wrought, he began to slow his pace. A moment later, a bone in a long coat not unlike his father's stood in his path. Running over his left eye was a long vertical scar.
"Well, you certainly can take a beating better than your father. That should serve you well in the coming years.
"Who are you?" Glaian asked, his forehead still bleeding from the wound Phoney had inflicted. "How did you know my father?"
"You should know perfectly well who I am by now. Your father must have told you I'd find you."
"You're the high Lord?" Glaian asked as he looked the stranger over. "I'm not very impressed."
"Well, I have been considerably reduced. But that isn't important. I'm here to ask you to take up your father's mantle." Glaian thought it over for a moment.
"My father was weak." He asserted.
"And you want to be strong?" The man asked, slightly amused.
"I want more than strength. I want power. Real power. I don't want to be afraid or in pain anymore."
"I can grant you those things. And so many more. But first we need to seek out allies. People who can help me give you that power you so crave. So I'll ask again. Will you take up your father's mantle?" Glaian considered it for another moment.
"No." He decided. "I won't take up his mantle. I'll surpass it. I'll do what he could never even dream of doing. I'll rid this whole country of human stench, from the ground up." The man smiled.
"Good." The man chuckled briefly. "We have a lot of work to do." He began to walk off. Glaian followed him. Thorn started after them, but as she did, the scenery began to change again. This time she was in a small black cave made entirely out of crystal. There were no exits. Imbedded in the wall just in front of her was the adult Glaian. His arms and legs were fused to the wall inside mounds of crystal, but his torso and head remained outside and relatively free and intact. Creeping across his body from where his limbs sank into the wall was the black substance that seemed ubiquitous among nightmare entities. For an instant, the lack of injuries on his body caused Thorn to speculate she was in another memory. Then the barely conscious Glaian locked eyes with her, and she could tell this was him. She had journeyed to her destination: the innermost reaches of his mind.
As soon as he realized who stood before him, he began straining against the crystal that kept him imprisoned. A mixture of shock and unbridled rage cave over him, and he began snarling words at her as he continued to thrash, desperately trying to free himself.
"This shouldn't be possible!" His voice came out as a growl, full of animalistic fury. "You shouldn't be here, you human witch! I surpassed you! I cut you out!" He didn't seem to be screaming at her anymore.
"I'd ask what you mean by that, but at this point I don't really care." She drew her sword and advanced upon his defenseless form. "The things I saw were almost enough to make me pity you. Luckily, you also provided me with a convenient reminder of just what kind of person you are." She raised her sword and placed it against his forehead. "So I'm ending this now, before you kill anyone else I care about."
"You think that because you've managed to exploit my augmentations and trap me here that you've won? You lost this war the second Fone began to overload. I may not live to see it, but the Councilman will be free. And he will burn your kind to dust. But that won't even be the worst of it. No matter what happens next, your beloved Fone will leave you. He will betray you and break you and he will kill you. It is in the nature of his kind to destroy yours. And as you lie bleeding on the ground, as the life fades from your eyes, you will know that your life, your hopes, your dreams, your desire, everything you know and love means nothing in the face of the power of the Councilman's S-" Thorn stabbed her sword straight through his forehead.
"I won't listen to the rantings of a dead psychopath. But I can assure you that no matter what comes next, we will beat whatever your precious Councilman can throw at us." She looked him in the eyes. His form began to fade.
"Arrogant and naïve. I expected nothing less from a human witch." His body faded into nothingness, a smirk still on his face. Thorn felt the world around her begin to crumble. She focused her mind, and freed herself from his dying dream.
As Thorn began her fight with Glaian, Nagratek and Deyavara initiated their final confrontation.
"Can you feel that power, Nagratek?" Deyavara asked, practically exploding with joy. "I've never felt such a concentrated level of energy. Not even father could boast this level of unbridled power." He closed his eyes, reveling in the power coursing through his body. "Look at us, even in our most powerful form we still can't contain it all." He opened his eyes again and turned to face Nagratek. "Standing here, at the cusp of father's reawakening, I can't think of a more perfect setting for our final battle. Don't you agree?" Nagratek stared back at him, unmoved.
"He isn't free yet, Deyavara. And I intend to keep it that way." In a flash, Nagratek crossed the distance between them. He struck out with his hand at Deyavara's face. Deyavara caught the strike, and returned one of his own. Nagratek ducked underneath it and slammed his knee into Deyavara's gut. Before Deyavara could counter, Nagratek slammed his forehead into Deyavara's, knocking the latter several feet into the ground.
The force of Deyavara's impact turned the stone in his path to dust, creating a substantial could that settled over the crater he sat in. Before Nagratek could clear it away, Deyavara shot out of it and stabbed Nagratek through the shoulder with his arm, which he had reformed into a crude blade. The two of them flew through the air and smashed into what was left of the ceiling. As they fell, black tendrils extended from the arm in Nagratek's shoulder and attached themselves to various points on his torso. In response, Nagratek liquefied his free arm and reformed it as a blade was well. Using it, he cut off the arm Deyavara had run him through with and kicked Deyavara's torso away from him. Both of them hit the ground a dozen feet apart.
As the pair stood up to go another round, Nagratek morphed his blade arm back to normal and used it to pull out the severed arm still in his shoulder. As he held it in his hand, it liquefied. Immediately, he absorbed it into his being.
"So that's your grand scheme?" Deyavara asked as he morphed his remaining arm into a blade. "Cut me up and devour me piece by piece? Like you tried to do to my son?" Deyavara's missing arm began to regrow and form a blade as well. "Well, I'm sorry to say it won't work. We've both got too much juice running through our systems for our own good anyway."
"You're son was never in any danger. I was just making sure he didn't have to live with our curse." Both of Nagratek's arms mimicked Deyavara's. The pair of combatants leapt into the air and collided their blades. "I wanted him to live his own life, if he ever got the chance."
"You see, that's the difference between you and me." Deyavara pushed off of Nagratek while they were in the air and landed on the ground. He then immediately jumped up again and slammed into Nagratek's descending form. "I don't suffer from that disease you call freedom. I will make sure my son doesn't either."
"Your son is dead! Glaian made sure of that!" Nagratek shouted as the two rocketed skyward one more. Right as they reached the apex of their arc, Deyavara turned one of his arms to normal and grabbed Nagratek's. He then tried to swing Nagratek around and send him back toward the ground. Nagratek quickly liquefied the arm that was grabbed, pulling himself free from Deyavara's grip. He then simultaneously solidified it again as soon as it slipped past Deyavara's fingers and slammed his foot into Deyavara's chest.
As Deyavara impacted the ground, Nagratek descended right behind him. As he fell, Nagratek attempted to drive his blade through the top of Deyavara's skull. At the last second, Deyavara blocked the strike with his own blade, driving him into the ground several inches.
"Neither of us are capable of dying in the traditional sense." He mused as he used his own arm to move Nagratek's blade aside and expose his chest. "That same resilience transferred, to some degree, to my son. I think you'll find it would take more than a simple knife in the gut to take him down." Deyavara reared back his free arm in preparation to impale Nagratek's stomach. Before he could let his arm fly, however, Nagratek stuck his own free arm just below where Deyavara's navel should have been. As Deyavara stared at the wound, mildly annoyed, Nagratek pulled his arm up through Deyavara's entire body, splitting him in two.
Immediately, Deyavara's body began to sew itself back up with tendrils of black liquid. But before it could, Nagratek reverted one of his blades back to a hand and slammed the palm against Deyavara's partially reconstructed stomach. As he flew through the air, Deyavara finished putting himself back together. But before he could change his trajectory, he collided with Fone in midair. The fire spreading from Fone's skin abruptly died out, and both he and Deyavara fell from the sky.
"Too little, too late." Deyavara smirked as he landed next to Fone's unconscious body. As Nagratek rushed forward to strike Deyavara again, the ground began to shake, knocking the pair off their feet. The earthquake knocked down the remaining standing ruins of the temple, leaving only heaping piles of stone. Nagratek and Deyavara stood once more as they grew accustomed to the shaking. On the horizon, past the Dragon's Stair, a massive storm could began to form.
"It appears you have failed, Nagratek." Deyavara began to laugh. "Father is here. And you cannot stop him."
"Don't hold your breath, Deyavara. The process isn't complete. And I have contingencies. Now, let's see how long you can last without Fone's surplus energy keeping you going." Nagratek launched himself forward to attempt to impale Deyavara again. Instead, Deyavara sidestepped his attack and stabbed him straight through the chest.
"Longer than you, apparently." Deyavara chuckled as he bent down to absorb Nagratek's energy. Suddenly, Nagratek liquefied entirely. Before Deyavara realized what was happening, Nagratek's liquid body wrapped itself around Deyavara's neck, back, and waist. Then the liquid solidified back into Nagratek, who split Deyavara into three pieces: His head, his upper body, and his lower body. As the three chunks fell to the ground, Nagratek almost breathed a sigh of relief. Then the pieces all liquefied and began putting themselves back together.
"That was a clever gambit." Deyavara commented as his jaw reformed. "Expose yourself, trap me, and isolate my processing centers from the rest of my body. Unfortunately for you, I had just enough time to redistribute myself before you hacked me to pieces."
"A luxury you will not be afforded going forward." Nagratek rushed forward and tried to stab Deyavara with both of his blades. At the last second, Deyavara brought his arms up and caught Nagratek's blades, moving them to the side. Immediately, Nagratek tried to kick Deyavara in his ribcage. As Nagratek's leg collided with Deyavara's torso, Deyavara liquefied the area of contact so Nagratek's leg passed harmlessly through him. When the leg was part of the way into his chest, Deyavara solidified and Nagratek's leg was stuck.
Nagratek then used his remaining leg to jump into the air, knocking Deyavara off balance and his body behind him. As Nagratek returned to the ground, he slammed Deyavara into one of the large piles of rubble where the walls of the temple used to be. Upon impact, Nagratek morphed his blades into large square bludgeons, and began mercilessly pummeling Deyavara's face. During the descending arc of one of his blows, Deyavara stabbed one of his blades through Nagratek's bludgeon and another in his shoulder.
As Deyavara began to drain Nagratek's energy, Nagratek morphed his bludgeons back into hands, freeing the impaled one of Deyavara's blade. Immediately he grabbed Deyavara's free blade and, pulling with all his might, tore the arm from its socket. He then used it to sever the arm impaled in his shoulder at the elbow, and used his free hand to pull that blade form him as well.
Wielding both of Deyavara's arms as weapons, Nagratek reared back to resume his barrage of strikes. As he did so, both of Deyavara's arms liquefied and splashed to the ground. Nagratek stooped down to absorb as much of them as he could before the liquid slinked back into Deyavara's body. In that time, Deyavara turned the edge of the circular hole in his torso into a blade and contracted it, cutting Nagratek's leg off at the knee. Nagratek lost his balance and fell to the ground. Instantly Deyavara absorbed the leg into himself and stood up. His arms had begun to reform themselves, but were not yet large enough to wield effective blades. Instead, he transformed one of his own legs into a blade and raised it to stab Nagratek through the neck.
Before he could, however, Nagratek used his remaining leg to sweep Deyavara's feet out from under him. As he fell over, Nagratek morphed one of his hands back into a bludgeon and brought it down on the side of Deyavara's head, causing his temple and jaw to cave in. Reflexively, Deyavara lashed out with his newly formed arm blades, stabbing Nagratek in both shoulders and throwing him back several feet. As the pair recovered, they began to revert to their Bone forms.
"Running out of fuel, Nagratek?" Deyavara panted.
"I could say the same to you." Nagratek responded, clutching his shoulder. "It seems neither of us have the energy left to maintain our heightened forms."
"Perfect." Deyavara spat. "Now we can end this, once and for all." He rushed forward. Nagratek did the same. They moved at considerably lower speeds now that they had reverted to their more limited bodies, but they still moved considerably faster than even Glaian or Thorn.
As they ran at each other, fists poised to strike another series of blows, a great pillar of light erupted on the horizon from the direction of the Dragon's Stair and the Great Wastes beyond. Accompanying the light was a sudden stop in the tremors that had been rumbling since the Councilman's awakening. When Deyavara realized this, he stopped dead in his tracks.
"What did you do?" He whispered as he stared at the light. Suddenly he boiled with rage. He turned to Nagratek's oncoming form. "What did you-" His building shout was cut off by Nagratek's fist slamming into his face. Deyavara flew back, reeling with shock. Before he could recover, Nagratek caught up to him and slammed him into the ground. Nagratek continued to pummel him until he had beat his body into a crater several feet deep. Before Deyavara could recover, Nagratek picked him up, grasping his head in between his hands, and dragged him out of the crater.
"You think this is over?" Deyavara began to laugh as Nagratek squeezed his hands together, slowly cracking Deyavara's skull. "You think you've won? You have achieved nothing but a brief postponement of the inevitable. Father will overcome whatever parlor trick of a "contingency" you've employed, and when he does his grand design will finally come to fruition. You may destroy me, but you cannot undo the plan I set in motion. You cannot save Mon'Yaran's puppets from extinction, and you cannot keep the Successor from his destiny. Whatever you do next, know that-" Deyavara's words crumbled as Nagratek split his head in half with the force of an artillery round, shattering his skull and reducing his brain to paste.
Nagratek sat down on a small pile of rubble as Deyavara's body slumped to the floor. Immediately, it began to slowly piece itself back together. Nagratek stuck his hand in the black liquid to absorb Deyavara once and for all.
"Allow me." Nagratek heard a voice behind him. He whirled around, expecting another fight, but staring him in the face was Shard's lopsided, crystalline smile.
"By all means." Nagratek responded as Shard bent down and touched the surface of the black pool Deyavara's face was slowly reforming in. "It's not like I fought him alone, without backup of any kind."
"Oh will you quit whining? I've had bigger problems to deal with than your mistakes come back to bite us." Shard's hands began to glow and absorb the black liquid from Deyavara's corpse.
"Yeah like what? This seems like it would take priority." Nagratek motioned around him at the massive piles of rubble. Deyavara's body began to shrivel up.
"Over the release of every Nightmare Entity left? I very much doubt it." Shard shot back over his shoulder.
"Wait, they all got loose?" Nagratek threw up his arms. "What happened? Where'd they all go?"
"Their prisons just burst all of a sudden. All at once too. They caught me by surprise, but I was able to fend them off. Unfortunately, I lost them as they headed for the Valley. I think they were headed toward Pawa, but I can't be-" Suddenly Shard began to scream violently. He threw his hands up and backed away from Deyavara's cadaver.
"What now?" Nagratek asked as Shard rubbed his hands.
"I got a lot of feedback after I finished eating. I think it was meant at a last ditch attempt to kill you if you ever got the best of him, but I managed to work around it."
"So… That's it then? He's gone?" Nagratek raised an eyebrow.
"Yup. I absorbed every last drop of Deyavara's soul. No need to thank me or anything."
"Did you learn anything helpful?"
"Back off will you?" Shard closed his eyes and began to concentrate. "It'll take time to sort through it all. In the meantime, you might want to figure out how to progress with the Successor without the Cipher." Shard waved his hand in Fone's direction. "Or maybe you could explain yourself to the young Veni-Yan-Cari." Shard nodded at Thorn just as she began to wake up.
The first thing that hit her after she regained consciousness was the smell. Before she saw Shard and Nagratek talking over Deyavara's body, or the flattened, shriveled husk of a corpse Glaian had become, or even Fone lying unconscious in front of the mangled field of melted flesh and steel Glaian's army had become, she noticed the lingering smell of burning flesh. It singed her nostrils as she sat up, and before her vision had cleared she scrambled to her feet and began throwing up next to one of the piles of rubble. Only after she had managed to compose herself was she able to take in everything around her. When it seemed like she had had enough time to realize the situation, Nagratek approached her. In response, she pulled her blade from Glaian's stomach and pointed it at his face.
"Jigafta, what the hell is going on?" She took a step back as he approached.
"Easy there, Thorn. Easy." He assured her as he slowly put his hands out in front of him. "Lower the sword and calm yourself. I'm not going to hurt you."
"I'm not doing jack until you start explaining yourself, Jigafta. I think I'm owed at least that."
"Ok, first of all my name isn't Jigafta Utenki, it's Nagratek."
"But if you're Nagratek, then…" She lowered her sword as realization dawned on her. "Gabriel was right. The bones did come from the Valley."
"Yes, I suppose that is technically true. Though I have no idea why anyone would know that. Anyway that's not the point. I will explain everything, but I'd rather not do it a bunch of times, so you're going to have to wait until we can get everyone together in one place before I spill the beans."
"Well, can you at least tell me what happened here? Or who that is?" Thorn pointed at Shard, who had become absorbed in his own thoughts.
"Oh, that's Shard. He's a First Folk friend of mine from way back in the day. Don't worry, he's on our side. As we speak, he's analyzing Deyavara's memories for any useful information."
"Wait, analyzing Deyavara's memories? He can just do that?"
"It's the only surefire way to kill a Nightmare Entity like Deyavara, or me for that matter."
"A nightmare what now?"
"Nightmare Entity. I'll explain later. But in essence, unless a very specific set of people absorbs our souls, we can't die. Shard happens to number among that set because of his… unique condition."
"This isn't helping." Thorn sighed as she sat down. "Everything you say just makes me more confused."
"I know, but you asked. Anyway, you should probably do something useful instead." Nagratek sat beside her. As soon as he sat down, however, Breshet descended from the sky and landed next to Shard. Closely behind her came the remaining members of the Sky Legion. Four of them had a massive blue crystal almost as big as the Great Red Dragon strung between them with a leather harness and ropes. "Like, attending to Fone, for instance." Nagratek got up and walked over to Breshet.
"How did it go?" He asked as he approached Breshet helping her men unto the leather straps around the crystal.
"As good as can be expected." She responded. "He's wounded. Heavily. He may even lack a physical form at the moment. But I'm sure he survived. He's survived worse."
"Well, hopefully he's down for the count right now, because we have more pressing matters to attend to."
"Shard already told me." The dragons undid the last of the straps and the large crystal thudded against the ground. "By the way, we overclocked the Cipher during the attack. It's spent. I doubt it'll even begin to recover before this is over."
"We wouldn't have had the time to collect enough energy anyway. I had planned on redistributing the substance from the beginning." Nagratek commented as he approached the Cipher. From within his body he produced the golden necklace.
"Don't tell me you're going to use it to bring her back?" Breshet sighed as Nagratek placed it against the Cipher's surface. "I can't believe you'd be willing do desecrate her soul to that degree. Trapping it in that necklace was one thing, but this? Bringing back the dead? That's Nightmare territory." Nagratek began muttering some words as Thorn approached cradling Fone's unconscious body in her arms.
"He out cold, but he's breathing." She commented as she stood next to Breshet and Nagratek. "His wound also seems to have healed."
"Good." Nagratek said as he backed away from the Cipher. "Now I'm going to need you to get on Breshet's back." Both Thorn and Breshet gave Nagratek disapproving looks. "What?" He shrugged. "We'll be going to the rat creature temple shortly to meet up with Phoncible." Thorn sighed and swung herself and Fone onto Breshet's back.
"What's stopping us from leaving now?" Thorn asked.
"We have to wait for the process to complete." Nagratek responded.
"What process?"
"I'm done." Shard stood up, returning to reality. "With his memories anyway. I still have yet to make sense of what shards of my own were in there, but I think we've finally hit something substantial."
"Shard's done. Can we go now?" Thorn asked.
"We're leaving?" Shard asked.
"In a minute. Hop on a dragon." Nagratek responded, ignoring Thorn's question.
"Can we just leave and get to the part where you explain what's happening? What is so important that we need to wait around?" Thorn was almost shouting. Then the Cipher began to glow. It emitted a blinding flash of light. A moment later, a young middle aged red haired human woman was lying naked on the ground where it once stood.
"That's what we were waiting for." Nagratek said excitedly, more to himself than to Thorn. "Give me your cloak." Nagratek stretched out his hand to Thorn without looking at her. Reluctantly, she slipped her cloak off and handed it to him. With the green garment in hand, he strode over to the woman, who was beginning to sit up.
"Here." He said as he offered her the cloak. "It's not much, but it's the best we can do until we get to the temple.
"Thanks." She responded as she put the cloak on. She closed her eyes for a moment and took in a deep breath. "Let's go." She and Nagratek walked over to another dragon and swung themselves on.
"You heard the woman." Nagratek commented as the Sky Legion began to take off. "To the temple."
"Good to have you back, Ven." Shard nodded his head at the woman as his dragon lifted into the sky.
"Thanks, Shard. It's good to finally be able to move again." She responded as the entire Legion took to the skies.
"Wait, Ven?" Thorn asked, reeling from yet another strange development. "As in Ven Harvester, the first human Queen?"
"Yup." Nagratek laughed as the dragons flew through the skies toward the temple. "And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Strap yourself in, kid. Everything you thought you knew is about to get flipped on its head."
Archibald stood alone in the middle of a large stone room with a vaulted ceiling and massive stone columns spanning the length of the room on either side. Around the room, high tech sensors and monitors were all pointed toward the one object of note: the nearly twenty foot tall glowing blue crystal Archibald had dubbed "The Chrysalis". He stood next to in, one hand leaning against it and another grasping a handheld voice recorder.
"This is Chrysalis experiment log 57-A." He spoke into the recorder. "I'm making this log as an addendum to today's experiment because… Something quite astonishing is happening. About twenty minutes ago, as I was taking a midnight walk around the temple, the entire camp suddenly lost power. I did my best to search for the cause of the blackout without waking anyone, but as of now that seems to be the least of my concerns. When I entered the temple to check the equipment for damage, I was astonished to find that the Chrysalis had begun to emit an eerie blue light. I only wish the rest of the equipment was still functioning, as I suspect the data we would be able to collect would be amazing. Even just by observing it, I can tell that…" Archibald trailed off as he felt the ground begin to shake.
Suddenly, the Chrysalis began to crack. Then the shaking grew more pronounced until it felt like the earth itself was moving. The temple began to collapse. Two red eyes opened inside the Chrysalis, bathing Archibald in a flood of red light. The Chrysalis's glowing became more intense. He scrambled out of the structure as the ceiling caved in, throwing up a large cloud of dust. The only thing Archibald could see through the cloud were the red, glowing eyes.
As the dust began to settle, the rest of the camp burst to life. Bones were scrambling to and fro trying to figure out what was going on. Only Archibald, frozen with awe, noticed the figure standing in the middle of the now destroyed temple.
It was more or less humanoid, thought it was made entirely out of blue crystal and stood over fifteen feet tall. Its fingers were very long, almost to the point of being claws, and it had small, jagged protrusions growing from the end of its elbows. Its face lacked any defining features, save for a pointed chin, and on top of its head was a series of jagged crystal peaks. The most unnerving aspect by far, though, was its glowing red eyes. They stared straight at Archibald. Straight through him. Instantly Archibald knew that this was the Crystal Councilman.
Then the Councilman raised its arms up to the sky. The earth began to shake once more, and a great whirlwind began to form around the Councilman, which quickly expanded to cover the entire camp. Then the storm began sucking up everything that wasn't nailed down. As Archibald was lifted into the sky by the winds, he frantically began grasping for something to hold onto. He came up short, and was carried higher and higher into the ever expanding cloud as he was tossed around by the whirlwind. Eventually, he was carried close enough to the eye of the storm that he could barely make out the moon in the sky. As he began to lose consciousness from the intense g-forces, he thought he could see the silhouettes of flying creatures far above the storm cloud.
Then there was a bright flash in the sky. It was so bright it outshone every star. So bright the even the Councilman took notice. He stared at it for a moment, then brought his hands close together. The space between his hands began to glow and emit crackling bursts of energy. Then, without warning, a blindingly bright column of energy from the sky tore through the eye of the storm, forcing the Councilman to the ground. He raised his arms to protect himself, but the stream of energy only continued to grow in intensity, slowly eating away at the Councilman's body and the ground around him.
Instantly, the whirlwind dissipated. Without the winds keeping everything up, almost the entire camp came crashing back to the ground. As Archibald fell, the Councilman reached out his hand and, with the last of his energy, slowed Archibald's descent and brought him next to the energy cascading over the Councilman's body. As the concentrated energy began to burn Archibald's skin, the Councilman touched Archibald's forehead.
Archibald began to scream, assaulted by the combination of the energy beam burning his skin and the Councilman's ministrations. Images and sounds flashed through Archibald's head and disappeared just a quickly before he could make sense of them. His eyes began to glow. Then he passed out from the pain. The Councilman's eyes dimmed as the last of his body dissolved. The beam then abruptly cut out, leaving a several foot scorched indentation in the desert sand as the only proof it had existed at all.
The air was quiet for a time. Nothing living remained in the wreckage of the camp. Bodies and equipment were strewn about in a field of rubble, and already the desert sands whipped up in the wake of the storm had begun to cover them. As the sun began to peak over the horizon, however, something began to move. It was Archibald.
He sat up as dawn broke overhead, sand cascading down his chest. He looked at his surroundings for a moment, and then began to examine his own body. After he was satisfied with what he saw, he stood up and brushed himself off.
"It'll do for now." He commented to himself. After one last visual check of his surroundings, he began walking toward the mountains in the distance. As he set off, his eyes began emitting a faint red glow.