Sunrise peeked over the Reach's bleached walls, welcoming three figures when they materialized in a flash, energies crackling off their forms before they descended from the asura gate that connected the Upper City to Lion's Arch. Streaks of fractured light filtered through the emerald dome aloft, painting the Queen's gardens in a tangled prism of soft color, as if the Priory trio had stepped into some ethereal dream. A chill wind swept through, making two shiver and the illusion of serenity scattered.

Recovering first, Steward Gixx turned to his flank, "You are not to leave my sight until this matter is utterly and unequivocally resolved. I intend for us to be back to headquarters before you create more paperwork- Magister Sieran! Are you even listening, you blasted weed!" The Priory leader snapped, his prominent almond eyes squinting up at Sieran from waist-height. Even amongst asuran standards—which the intelligent race was notorious for their diminutive stature, shorter fuses, and disproportionately enormous egos—Gixx's temper was legendary. He was no doubt preparing some punishment should Sieran so much as smile too wide for his liking.

With the wind's chill already forgotten, Sieran was, true to Gixx's complaint, not listening, too busy gaping up at the floating celestial bodies high above the curated landscape sprawling out all around them. "No matter how many times I see it," She mumbled out, "It's still so grand..." Sieran grinned down at her superior, pointing skywards. "Gixx, tell me, what do you think they've used to suspend and move the orrery? I bet it's a wind spell of some sort!"

"Are dead twigs and rotted leaves all you have in that potted head of yours?!" The Steward's look darkened to match his sagging ebony skin, angry wrinkles collecting under his eyes and at the edges of his mouth. "Do not mistake your presence as privilege. You are only here so that I can keep both eyes on you to thwart your next inevitable, impending disaster!"

Ogden watched the scene unfold with ragged disinterest, all too familiar with the bouts of tongue-wagging between the two ever since Sieran's quick rise through the ranks. Her adventurous streak had afforded her an impressive repertoire of field experience for one so young, and from the moment she joined the Priory Ogden witnessed that wild spark of life flourish no matter what trouble she found herself in, or brought to the Order's doorstep, much to Gixx's chagrin. "The sprout is half right." the old dwarf grunted; voice thick like tumbling gravel. It was easier to satisfy Sieran's curiosity than attempting to reign it in. It was, like the sylvari herself, a thing of nature. "Sorcery plays a part, but the metals are enchanted. Mined from the Shiverpeaks themselves and inscribed with runes. That's what keeps it suspended."

Sieran's smile widened. "Truly?"

"Do not encourage your fellow Magister's temerarious impulses!" The asura whirled on him, looking like a black, oddly-shaped kettle primed to boil over. Gixx often forgot he was almost two centuries too young to order Ogden around, even if the dwarf was officially just a magister.

Ogden ignored the Steward's command with a roll of his stony eyes and turned to the humans beginning to notice their arrival. They gathered in small groups along the pathway: most in twos, but a few in threes and some were only a company of one; all with confusion clear on each face.

"G-Greetings." The Seraph stationed to guard the asura gate finally spoke up. The man's head darted between the three, lingering on Ogden in equal awe and nervousness. Dwarves were legends in the current age, tall tales told by mothers to misbehaving children or an obscure fact historians tell deep into their cups around a tavern's longtable. Ogden was quick to unnerve the Seraph further with a gravely grunt, and the man's spine snapped up straight so quickly his helmet rattled atop his head. "Wel-" The Seraph coughed in his fist. "Welcome to Divinity's Reach. What brings the Priory back to Kryta?" Gixx grumpily explained in no uncertain terms that the Queen had requested their presence. The guard was quick to excuse himself then, scampering off to relay their arrival.

Ogden endured the Steward whinge three separate times on their wait's increasing length, peppered with quips from Sieran about how a certain flower or tree reminded her of her home under the Pale Tree. When even Ogden's time-tested patience began to erode, the trio noticed the Seraph return with a freckled-faced woman in tow, both weaving through the onlookers, intent on making the group their destination. When she approached within speaking distance, she began, "Magister Sieran. Steward Gixx. Ogden Stonehealer," The sound was sharp and curt like a sword's edge. A Shining Blade. She bowed only to Ogden. Ah. The gesture was a reminder of why he was here at all. "Queen Jennah eagerly awaits your arrival. On the queen's behalf, all the Shining Blade humbly welcomes you. I'm here to escort you to the palace."

Gixx harrumphed at the disrespect, but let it pass unchallenged. "Finally! Let us make haste! A continent-spanning order dedicated to the preservation of lore and knowledge is but one mistake away from doom without my presence!" Neither Ogden nor Sieran protested, so they departed.

It did not take long for Ogden to notice something was wrong. Shadows ran long where they lay against the morning light, and the confused expressions the people wore contorted to tense worry as the Priory group grew close and would then pass. When they took a bend in the garden's pathway and beneath some exotic plant, his ears and eyes managed to catch a cluster of women. They huddled close to one another, all bundled up in gowns and coats, whispering with faces drowning in far too much makeup.

"First Captain Thackarey and now a dwarf?" One spoke.

"I've never seen one before, not even in the history books." Said another.

"Janice, I don't think you've ever picked up any book."

"Oh, hush Claudine. Have you two heard that nasty rumor?" A third interjected. "They say centaurs were spotted in the swamps to the south a few days ago. My husband thinks that's what killed those Seraph soldiers."

"Centaurs this close to the capital? Perhaps some in the Ministry are right. What is the Queen..."

The chattering died away as the trio was led around another bend in the path. "Gossip and politics. Two constants in every human culture." Gixx muttered sardonically from Ogden's left. He would've grunted in agreement had the Thackeray boy not been mentioned. Ogden considered the women's words, a thought beginning to take shape, but Sieran pondered another question out loud, and it was lost on him.

They traveled a while longer, their steps rising to meet a set of stairs, lowering in another identical marble staircase, and followed the path as it snaked through two long barricades of high-trimmed ferns. After emerging from the garden's maze, the Krytan queen's palace came into full view. As Ogden looked upon its stained-glass windows and milky grand spires reaching for the sky akin to fingers failing to touch the heavens, he only felt that queer tension still linger, like rumbling pebbles before an earthquake.

Perhaps I am just imagining it. The troubled faces they'd passed not ten minutes prior flashed across his mind. Perhaps not. He thought back to Queen Jennah's written request for the Priory's leadership-sealed shut with a royal Krytan stamp denoting its authenticity-as well as Sieran's own recounting of events. One told of a great shadowy beast that had clawed up from the Underworld's frozen depths and the other of a strange, scarred man and little else. Ogden thought himself far too old to feel restless, but something was going to happen that much he knew, he just didn't know what yet.

They descended the steps to the garden's exit, passed through a courtyard with only a smattering of wary occupants at its' edges, and finally came to a halt before twin cardinal steel doors. Their guide turned on the three, the freckles over her cheeks darkening to black specks under her head's shadow when the woman dipped it forward in a bow. "Steward Gixx and Magister Sieran, my sincerest apologies. Queen Jennah wishes to speak to you-Ogden Stonehealer-in private."

There it is. Ogden felt his companion's questioning gazes fall on him. The reason the letter requested my presence.

"I have history with the Krytan royal line." He explained. "Once, long ago, I lent aid during a time of need. No doubt the young monarch wishes to address that formally." In truth, he would've never embroiled himself in the Krytan Civil War had he not been asked to aid them. And in the age before this one, one did not balk a request from that man.

"You are too modest. Without your aid, Queen Salma would've never been able to overthrow the White Mantle cult-" Their guide spat the word out as if it was venom. "-much of the world may have moved on but the Shining Blade will never forget the debt we owe to you." She bowed again, and the queen's guards at either side of the throne's closed mouth followed suit.

Childlike curiosity glinted in Sieran's eyes, and before her barked lips could part to spill forth a hundred questions, Gixx sighed, "Yes, yes. Human history. How fascinating." He said dryly, looking wholly dissatisfied with the turn of events. "Very well but do be quick about it. I wish to put this whole affair behind the Priory as soon as possible."

As do I. Ogen thought, eyes flicking to the crimson metal that barred his way.

With a wordless nod from their guide to her comrade-in-arms standing vigil, the way forward was made clear. Ogden entered alone; his companions left to watch him disappear as the steel door closed shut.

Venturing underneath a great, crystal chandelier, Ogden passed portraits depicting kings and queens he'd outlived hanging between hollow suits of polished armor. Even prior to the Great Destroyer marking the passing of the dwarves, the three human kingdoms that once spanned the Tyrian continent had been steeped in their own self-aggrandizement. Before him, that bedaubed, runed, ivory throne stood over all: a monument to that very notion. But those musings were a passing thing, because across the wide, open hall there was not a soul to be seen.

The throne room was empty.

What trickery is this? From his spot, Ogden scanned the pockets of darkness at the throne's edges and swept his gaze through the alcoves that jutted out along the hall's sides. Completely and utterly empty. The sense of wrongness stirred again, that coming earthquake rumbled fiercer now in his chest. It was on the approach. Ogden was certain. Whatever was going to happen, it was coming. It was-

"Ogden Stonehealer..." His name came so quiet on the air, he barely caught the whisper at all. He turned as quickly as his stout legs could, coming to face a woman who'd come forth from a shadowed hallway that twisted deeper into the palace. Her hair was a fiery river flowing from her head down her back; her skin as pale as the hall's walls. Before Ogden could begin to question the Master Exemplar, Anise swept a gloved hand in front of her.

The air fizzled with vibrant violet bolts. A fuzzy haze bent light at queer angles. From underneath him birthed a harsh glow and Ogden looked down to see Anise's spell transform the marble and velvet carpet under his feet into a swirling chaos of purples and pinks.

"My sincerest apologies."

The white mask that was Anise's expression concealed what those last words meant as the mesmer's portal silently swallowed Ogden before he could so much as bellow for help.


The world distorted; flipping and twisting and turning and when Ogden's senses were his own again, he found himself in a dimly-lit room. Fumbling, he reached out to brace himself, steadying against the room's mantelpiece at his back. After gaining his bearings, he was quick to take in his surroundings: the only thing of note was a long polished oak table sat in the room's middle. Twin candles sported twin flames atop its barren surface, and the orange light barely reached the shadowed figure who sat at the table's end.

"Hello, Ogden."

The greeting took him unawares and for the first time in a very long time, Ogden's mouth fell agape. He recognized the voice: an echo from a different time, a different life. A life that had died after the Great Dwarf's rite, transforming his flesh to living rock and his mind to solid iron. Before his purpose had changed from healing wounds to chronicling history. Before he bore witness to calamity after calamity, his heart hardened to stone watching the rising of the Elder Dragons reshape everything he once knew, each one a mighty, terrible hammer and the world their anvil, molding all life caught between the two to their bidding.

The candlelight danced erratically then, illuminating the shadow. An armored woman sat with hands laced upon the table. Two sapphires glinted from behind a golden helmet and at once her name came to his granite lips.

"Livia."

A deep, throaty chuckle came from beneath the woman's helm before she removed the thing from her head. Livia's bronze skin was as smooth and as fresh as the day Ogden last saw her. Like before, a streak of dull crimson hair fell over half her face. Like before, a half-grin sat smoothly under a strong nose.

"It's Exemplar Kierda now... And I suppose I should be calling you Magister Stonehealer. Come. Sit. With histories as long as ours we have much to discuss." Livia's low, velvety tone easily filled the entire room. She nodded to the chair opposite across the table, but Ogden did not oblige her, limbs rooted still as stone.

"What trick is this?" Incredulity and disbelief were etched across the cragged lands that formed the dwarf's expression. The Shining Blade necromancer he'd once adventured with was recorded to have died well over a century and a half ago, but here she was; healthy, young, and with all the ostentatious swagger he remembered. "You live? But the records say- How?"

Livia's grin spread.

"My, my... That's what you choose to say to an old friend? After all this time? I know you've spent more than one lifetime stowed away under that mountain you call a monastery, amassing the world's knowledge, but I must say Ogden-the endeavor has colored you." Livia's innocuous smile didn't waver as she tucked a stray strand of hair back into place. "History isn't always what's scribbled down in dusty tomes and old scrolls. Besides, a proper lady should always keep a few secrets to herself." He shook his head at her words, struggling to believe what was plainly in front of him, but each second that ticked by only made it more impossible to deny. No illusion or clever act could replicate her mannerisms to such a degree: Livia was alive.

She gestured again in an unspoken command to sit, and with little other options available, Ogden finally obeyed. The chair nearest was of sterner craftsmanship and taller than the rest. He climbed and sat atop it, strong oak protesting in a loud groan as he did. It held his weight. He looked across the table, finding he matched Livia's eyeline. I was expected to this extent. She planned this down to every exact detail. "You speak of old friends, yet my kidnapping was your idea, was it not? You always did have a flair for the dramatic."

An extended lifespan had apparently raised Livia's audacity to new heights: she laughed that deep laugh again. "Yes, using the throne to request your presence was quite the clever ruse," Livia admitted, "And here you are, falling into the perfectly-laid trap, playing your part in this grand play." Another soft chuckle let loose at his expense as Livia settled back into her chair. "Anise does have an aptitude for the theatrical, doesn't she? I taught her well."

Ogden did not join in on her laughter. "Congratulations, you've orchestrated this whole convoluted plot and succeeded. Revealed yourself to be alive despite all known recorded history, and now halted the leadership of one of the three great Orders dedicated to stopping the Elder Dragons with what precious time we've managed to carve out for ourselves." Ogden's scowl grew with each word, his brow shifting into hard lines of sediment. "Why? Why do all this?"

The smile fled from her face, and Livia's eyes slid to the candlelight. Some unknown struggle smoldered within as she watched the flames sway. It was a strange sight. The Livia he'd known was not one for hesitation. "...Tell it true, Ogden. What do you remember of when we once traveled together? What do you remember of Thane?"

The lines of sediment ran deeper and more pronounced at the Hero of Tyria's name. "Is that what this is about? Am I to believe you brought me all this way simply to reminisce?" The coarse inflection in Ogden's voice was a mirror to his thinning patience. What was there to say about the man that hadn't been said? Books, myths, accounts, lectures; all had detailed many of his exploits. Some were true, some were false, and none painted the picture of who Thane actually had been. Ogden hadn't bothered to correct the record; the man's story was not his to tell. Gwen had held that honor. And she took that honor to her grave.

"Over these last two centuries did you not think of him at all?" Livia continued on unabated, her gaze never leaving the flickering flames. "Didn't you ever wonder why he vanished? Why would the man that saved nations-saved Kryta-and became legend, abandon Tyria?"

Beneath Ogden's stony carapace, her questions awoke that strange stir again; rocks tumbling against one another, harder and faster now. Why? The stones grinded the question down: This talk of Thane. Livia's bizarre ploy. And a strange man from the Underworld. Revelation gleamed in the rubble, but he wasn't ready to appraise it.

"I made my peace with the man's absence long ago. The dragons demanded it," Even now, countless miles between himself and Tyria's underbelly, he still felt the pull of the depths beckon him. He could hear the shouts of his brethren as they battled against the very earth itself; their cries of vengeance for their slain king as they threw themselves against Primordus's brood came in a dull chorus of his own voice. Death to the Destroyers! Death to Primordus! We are stone! We are all the Great Dwarf! The final rallying cry beat deeper than any war drum. Time, however, had taught him to resist the Great Dwarf's call and so he did, pushing it down into that old, familiar spot where the chants died away to the faintest of whispers.

"...But you," Ogden spoke again, thrusting a heavy finger into the space between them. "I don't expect you to understand such sacrifice. You were always too concerned with your own ambitions."

Sapphires snapped to him from above the twin candles, reflecting two smoldering embers that grew closer when Livia leaned forward, "From the beginning my concern has always been to protect Kryta, and Kryta alone. Don't place the burdens you choose to bear onto my shoulders... I am not him." The look she fixed him with grew in such intensity, it made that revelation almost believable. Before me is proof one necromancer defied death and freed herself from the trappings of mortality. Who's to say another hasn't as well? If anyone could have survived in the Underworld there would be no one other than Thane who could: the man possessed a certain zealotry for his god, he hadn't seen before or since.

"Thane has returned, hasn't he?" The question was blunt, but Ogden never understood the tendency humans had to talk in circles around their intentions. Livia straightened in what he assumed was shock, the look melting away when she chuckled, but the sound was neither smug nor mirthful. She shifted to place some round, flat thing onto the table, barely visible beneath her gauntlet and in one swift motion she sent it sliding across the wood.

With an outstretched hand, Ogden caught the thing and the dim candlelight revealed that the thing was in fact a signet. The etchings carved into its face were old, the type used to capture residual magics for study or safekeeping. Once, they'd been common amongst scholarly circles, before asura-tech advancement made them all but obsolete in the eyes of many academic bodies in recent times (which also happened to be asuran).

"This is your answer? And what am I to do with it?"

"It, itself, is the answer." He sent his once-companion a baleful look that would've turned a Priory novice to stone. The woman was unfazed at the attempt. "Go on, activate it. You still have your magic underneath all that stone, don't you?"

Ogden debated whether to demand Livia end these games, but realized they'd likely be jousting words until the stars circled the sky and the sun brought the next dawn. "If I do this, will you explain everything?" Livia simply nodded without retort, eyes watching; waiting. He glanced at the signet of capture. It felt wrong somehow. Too heavy in his hand to be natural. But what choice do I have? If Thane has truly returned, then perhaps the tide against the dragons can finally be turned. Was the signet some sort of key to help him? Was the man he once called friend in peril? Ogden was surprised to find the thought didn't quite sit right with him, so he set about preparing a small and simple protection spell to reawaken whatever latent magic the signet held within.

With a thumb, the dwarf passed over the crisscrossing markings, producing the rough sound that comes when stone scrapes over stone and wispy films of white birthed forth from the air around him. They hung there, floating listlessly like sheets of fine mist. Ogden guided each with his mind's unseen hand, and they swiftly wrapped themselves around the signet; layer upon layer caressing over another in a gentle embrace. The feeling of using his magic again; it was not an unpleasant one. When it was done, it appeared Ogden had the etched stone nestled inside some strange, translucent egg.

Silence filled the void left in the enchantment's wake.

Nothing. Ogden thought with a slow shake of his head. "No more games Livia. Tell me-"

He never finished. The magics residing within the signet flared to life with such force an audible crackle tore through the air. Sickly green tendrils coiled up from inside, shredding the cocoon in an instant to wrap and dig their barbed digits into Ogden's thick, stone fingers. A deep, creeping cold slithered through his hand. If there'd been blood in his veins, he was sure it would've turned to ice.

Despite the centuries away from battlefields where his healing and wards would've mended injuries and neutralized hostile magics, the dwarf had kept his senses sharp, and so Ogden immediately set about countering the hex's corrosive touch.

Bringing his free hand close, he drew upon the collective breath of the Great Dwarf, and the chorus rose again from whispers to a sharp crescendo, bursting forth in a blinding gust of light from Ogden's palm to bathe the corruption in powerful, smiting magic. It seared the tendrils to ash and the ash to nothing and by its might the hex was no more.

The choir of stone and faith died away a second time as the signet fell from Ogden's grasp, clattering onto the table, inert once more. "What-" Where the curse had taken hold, his stone flesh bore the lacerations as coarse grooves: wounds that would never heal. "What is the meaning of this!?"

"A test." Livia's red lips curled up into that same harmless smile again, but it never reached her eyes. Those sapphires remained cold. "One that you passed, as I knew you would."

"Enough!" Ogden boomed, his uninjured fist thundered onto the table, his well of patience dried up. "You kidnap me, laugh, then attempt to take my life?! If it were anyone else sitting here, you'd be speaking to a corpse! No more of your games. No more speaking in circles. Tell me everything."

He watched Livia's gaze trail down to the signet between them, holding there for a long moment as shadows ebbed across her face, battling for dominance against the candlelight's orange glow until she took a long, steady breath, met his gaze once more and, at last, did.

She told Ogden that it was Thane who'd been the cause of the Shadow Behemoth and had returned to Tyria after vanishing for two-hundred and fifty years. She told him she hadn't surmised how such a thing came to be nor could she ask for an explanation, for he'd yet to wake, still unconscious and still bound, hidden away below their feet. Finally, Livia told Ogden of Thane's worsening condition, and that the dwarf was the only one powerful enough to heal him lest the man return to the Underworld for, perhaps, the rest of eternity.

As Livia weaved her tale, Ogden's anger slowly chipped away until, by the end, another emotion had eclipsed it completely, one he'd thought the Great Dwarf stripped bare: awe.

Thane lives... Of all the things that could've happened, I couldn't have fathomed this would be the outcome. After a moment, Ogden's attention focused back to something Livia had said, "He's bleeding magic?"

Livia frowned, nodding to the signet. "He is sick; with what we do not know. For two days and two nights magic leaks from him like blood seeping from a wound. The longer this… illness persists, the more frequent the episodes. Each time we've been able to seal the excess magic within these," Livia revealed another signet from some hidden place in her armor. "But Thane does not wake. He cannot eat. Only I have managed to give him water in small swallows. Make no mistake, he will die without direct intervention."

Ogden mused over the woman's words in silence, when he was struck by another revelation. "We? Who else knows of him?"

Livia scoffed so hard, he could've been blind and still seen that her ego was bruised. "For all the traits Anise took after, my intuition is the most regrettable one. She knew I recognized him, and no matter how many deflections I made, my own persistence seems to have finally backfired. So yes, Anise knows, which means the queen is aware. The other exemplars suspect him to be some deep White Mantle operative who fumbled a forbidden ritual." She shook her head, chuckled lightly at the absurdity of the idea, before straightening up and giving Ogden a pointed look, voice unwavering, "You are the best hope Tyria has to save him. I cannot guarantee safety, but the crown is giving you its full support and the Shining Blade will do what we can to maintain a barrier. Well?"

Ogden tested his fingers with a vigorous shake of his hand. He'd live. The dwarf grunted his agreement to the plan. "And what exactly do you want if I do save him?"

"The same as you, I suspect. The same as everyone ever since his return. Answers."

Answers… Yes, I suppose that's not wrong. "Then let us hurry." Ogden found the words came to him strong and quick.

"Excellent." Livia stood and went to hide her face beneath her helmet, but he halted her. "You've changed."

"…Oh?" A shadow of a playful smirk graced her features. "Have I?"

"Putting lives at risk to achieve the ends you desire. You've become more like Gadd than you realize."

Livia looked genuinely stunned by the jab, her twin sapphires glistening wide, before she threw her head back, a jagged mirthless laugh erupting at the mention of her former mentor. "Touché. Time changes us all, Ogden. You only need to look at your reflection to see that. Now, let us discover how much our old friend has changed, shall we?"

At least on that, Ogden thought, they shared common ground.

When Livia moved to leave, a sly grin hidden behind a helmet put back in its rightful place, he fell abreast to her silent footfalls without uttering a word.