It was inconceivable that something could exist without duality. That was the truth of Form; as Aqer was to Pyr what Aer was to Ter, so was there Power without Intent. It was there before mana, unfettered and undirected and the Void was fraught with it. The gods called it Chaos; the primordial soup that began Form. Only the First Mother could bend it to its whims for, She was there in the Before. Excerpt from The Book of Realms: The Age of Elder Gods, Church of Thea.

The feeling of his stomach lurching passed as they dropped onto deadfall, crunching dry leaves and twigs underfoot; wisps of shadow dissipated to be replaced the greens and browns of the forests as the smell of damp moss, wet bark and the earthy tones of humus suffused his olfactory senses. Arthur would have taken time to take in were it not for the grimness of the circumstance that brought them there in the first place.

The brush of Nora’s palm leaving his wrist turned his attention to the other two individuals in the silent forest. There was a boy laying on the forest floor, shallow breaths being the only indication that he was anomalous to the leaf litter around him. A short sword was still clutched in his grimy hand still sporting the congealed blood of the last being it was used against.

Arcis was crouching a little ways away, looking shaken but no less curious; her lips were a thin line while her hands were trembling. A little blood was on her palms as leaves and small twigs marred her white hair and a smear of crushed moss ran across her face.

Her eyes turned to Arthur as he approached while Nora had gone to tend to the wounded boy. For a moment there, she looked no different from a child stricken with fright. Arthur’s heart went to her as he crouched level with her as he let Nora do her work in the background.

His hand hovered over her head, even as her eyes turned back to a spot behind him. Arthur heard the murmur of several healing skills go off, before a rattling phlegmy cough gave way to heavy breathing and subdued sobs, then silence.

“ Arcis,” Arthur said, shutting out the rustle of movement behind him. He let his palm fall on her head; Arcis flinched a little but nonetheless leaned into it. “ You did well,” Arthur added at the end. It had been well-timed that the synth had hailed them as soon as she encountered the person walking in the forest as she seemed to have frozen. Arthur took her bloody palm and rinsed it using his water magic, before drying it with little wisps of air.

Then he pulled the synth girl onto her feet and led her by the hand to where he supposed the Stormbreaker to be. Nora had already gone ahead while Umbra was nowhere to be seen, but if Arthur had to guess, the grimalkin was already backtracking where the boy had come from; they would have some information soon.

‘Seems like another detour I guess, ‘ Arthur said, giving the forest a once over as they walked off.

Remus' eyes cracked open. The incessant searing of pain worse than pulling a navel stitch on a down hoe had abated from his left side. His breaths were also easier, albeit with phantom twinges of pain that prevented him from taking a deeper breath afraid that he'd feel the agony again.

Nonetheless, he felt the exhaustion buried underneath his farm built muscles and his joints. He was also exceedingly parched and so hungry his stomach was cramping with knots as if it wanted to gnaw on itself.

“Are you okay ?” a young voice broke his fugue state. Remus cursed, whirling and reaching for his sword— only to meet empty air. He'd been so tunnel visioned that he hadn't realized he was using both of his eyes to see. And the originator of the voice was no other than the white haired spirit of the forest whose cerulean eyes had swimming motes of gold,visible even in the gloom of the room that his eyes had yet to adjust to.

Remus scampered back hitting the bulkhead with the back of his head with a grunt. The girl winced on his behalf,

“You shouldn't move around, Auntie Nora said your ribs are still fractured.”

“Please dinnae eat me!” Remus yelped, scrunching his eyes, hoping against his better judgment that he tasted foul. However, his dread was not made manifest, instead, the supposed spirit with hair the purest of Wintereve’s first snow snorted a derisive laughter; at least that is how it sounded to Remus.

With only the bobbing of her lustrous hair and blue irises showing where she was, they went and tapped somewhere to the left of where they’d sat and light bloomed around them. A further scamper sent Remus rolling off the bed he’d lain in with a thud.

“ Oof!,” the girl cringed.

When Umbra had come back from her presumed scouting mission and relayed what she’d found out to Nora albeit in her clipped telepathic diction, Arthur had called another meeting.

The synth girl who’d quietened down after they’d arrived had wanted to volunteer to watch over the boy, whose class and name they now knew thanks to her ability.

It was a departure from her earlier behavior, freezing at the sight of blood and a wounded person. Arthur could not fathom what was going on in his adopted daughter’s mind but he let her be. Perhaps violence meted out on people was an altogether new concept for her which spoke to her innocence.

As for Umbra's prowl, she hadn't found any noteworthy predators or monsters in the woods; and in her limited grasp of human communication, she'd however let them know that there had been activity in the forest. She'd scented blood and spotted tracks leading to a small hovel where the embers of a campfire had long gone dead.

“So not a monster attack then?” Arthur scrunched his brow in confusion. He was in the living compartment with the rest of the group; save for the synth who was watching their guest. Umbra was back to traipsing in the forest as a creature of the wilds was wont to do. Hopefully she'd keep an eye out and no one would be sneaky enough to have the drop on them.

“ Raiders, bandits maybe,” Nevine suggested with a frown. He'd finally gotten his lenses fixed onto the new frames and the number of nudges on his glasses seemed to have shot up somehow. He was no doubt proud of them; his old glasses seemed to have been held on by spit and sentimentality— they were about as hold as he was.

“We're in an out of the way place, the nearest caravan routes have to be a league or so away.” Nevine added after a beat, “ that said, given he is a farm hand, I would wager he's from some village nearer the route.” he said pointing to the map which was once again in the midst of the group.

“Are we doing something?”Elena chipped in when everyone had drawn into themselves with speculation.

“I think so, depending on what our boy lost in the woods is going to tell us.” Arthur shrugged as he turned to Nora.

“ He was injured in a fight, blunt blows to the ribs and face,” she frowned.“ Fractured a few bones but nothing my healing and potions couldn't fix,” she paused hand to her chin in thought. “ However, he needs bed rest; the healing took out form his body.”

“ And the blood on the sword?” Elena inquired.

“ Just a shallow cut I think; if he was at such a disadvantage then he had to have been fighting something larger than him. He was lucky to have escaped” Nora added.

Arthur's Psiphone blinked and buzzed from an incoming [Message] spell.

“Speak of the Fiends,” Nevine said, squinting over to look at Arthur's Psiphone.

Arthur shook his head thinking, ’ Not devil...got it’

What followed was not an interrogation as much as coaxing a paranoid animal with food. The boy, Remus, was suspicious for all the right reasons. No one would have gone out of their way to heal some blood splattered hobo who was treading a thin line between sanity and outright hysteria.

Arthur supposed if he was in the same shoes he would've reacted the same way; in Eryth, good samaritans were as mythical as the elusive faeries. People learnt to question goodwill given freely once again driving home just how out of touch Arthur was with Eryth.

Nonetheless, when they finally got him to spill the beans, his tale was harrowing. Arthur wouldn't have blamed the poor boy for twitching at every small movement; he was a tough champ but he'd need a few days to get his head straight.

That said, Arthur and his motley crew seemed to have an onerous task ahead of them—search and rescue for villagers allegedly kidnapped by a band of raiders. The boy’s memory could not be depended upon to come up with the exact number and profile of the assailants—It was only because he was working away from the village that he merely got the tail end of the attack but according to his splintered recollections he’d been running away from goblins.

Arthur had a cursory encounter with hobs and goblins from the Bowl; they were not monsters, just people like any other race on Eryth. They came in brown, grey, and various shades of muted greens, had jaundiced or crimson eyes, pointy ears and knifey fangs and the works.

They didn't have pointy noses however, infact if you didn't have any preconceptions about their race, you'd mistake some of them for some offshoot of sylvani with a severe case of dwarfism and yellow fever—but that was not something you mentioned in front of some sylvani mind you.

Sylvani hated being compared to anything, not even other sylvani ethnicities. There were wood sylvani, snow sylvani aptly named the the Nyl, sun sylvani, the Sul on another continent and even the rare gray sylvani who were rumoured to live in the Underneath.

But not all goblins were shifty characters as Arthur's middling lore from Earth painted them to be, some did earn an honest living; well, as honest as a goblin could get anyway. While Arthur would have liked to go in spells blazing when he heard that the villagers of Dorn had been kidnapped he was presented with a moral quandary.

The less bloody course of action would have been of course to ransom the villagers from their captors if that was feasible. Contrarily he would have had to kill every.single.one of them because raiders did not speak diplomacy; not after he heard what they'd done to the people who resisted.

The motives for the kidnapping remained conjecture but Arthur shuddered to think of the list of things that could be visited on the hapless villagers. The attack seemed well orchestrated because from information given, it had happened a few days after their trade caravan made up of able men had gone to Ortusbough to sell their spring produce.

Every moment Arthur spent vacillating was time that the trail grew increasingly cold. They had to go all in, fly by the seat of their pants as it were and hopefully a solution would reveal itself to them.

None of the Stormbreaker's crew had any experience with such circumstances. Ortusbough was weeks away and even if they could fly there and back with a party of Adventurers who knew what to do, it'd be too late. As a captain, well, the chair was not there yet but the weight of what they were about to do rested on their shoulders.

“I think we're over-complicating things,” Nora pointed out once their war council was underway. “ We could split up, one party will scout ahead while another will find the nearest party of Adventurers who'll be willing to take on the raiders.”

Everyone nodded in understanding as Nora went on,” We have nothing, no more information to go on other than what Remus here has told us. We are not sure of the number of raiders, whether there are enemy mages or enchanted weapons—”

“Don't forget their modus operandi,” Arthur chipped in.

Everyone, except for Arcis and the goggle-eyed farm hand, finally cleansed of his grime and looked like a civilized human in borrowed clothes sputtered.

“Ah, I meant their motive, sorry,” Arthur cringed. “If we're dealing with blood thirsty types we have no way of telling how far they're willing to push their threats; more people might die,” he sighed. “ From what Remus tells us, I think they might be just that—”

Remus seemed to have been incensed, mistaking their contemplation for hesitation because he jerked up, eyes smoldering with righteous indignation. And that was despite the fact that his body was still battered.

“Urr ye crassing kidding me? while ye deliberating oan yer poncy keisters th' gobs 'n' orcs ur getting away,” Remus fumed slamming his palms onto the table, biting back a wince from one of his hands which had yet to recover from the ordeal.

“ Wha kens whit they gone done tae Amaya, Keri, Hadal,” his lips quivered as tears welled in his eyes. “ Please ah will dae anythin’ ” the boy looked across the table to Arthur with a helpless expression.

Arthur’s jaw worked as he recalled what a wait and see approach did the last time they were poised for a rescue . Someone died the last time they decided to sit on their laurels and wait for the cavalry to come; he hadn’t forgotten. Of course the Fetid Woods’ dungeon had been an unknown quantity and Arthur was leery of incurring liability if things had gone south.

But right there, right then, there was no written law for such things; there were no laws for unsanctioned intervention in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps, he had to stop applying Earth conventions to Eryth, it seemed that it was a record stuck on repeat for him; plausible, he’d barely been around for what? Five Earth months? He really needed to get the dates down before he started compiling his logs for posterity.

“ Alright then,” Arthur said with resolve. “ We’ll go with Nora’s idea,”

There was a collective sigh of relief as if they’d all been waiting for his declaration. It appeared he was the only one who’d been immune to the frantic energy thanks to [Eye of the Storm].

“ Nevine, Elena and Arcis, you’ll take the Stormbreaker, find the nearest Adventurers’ guild; I doubt they’ll accept charity?”

“ Adventurers are rule bound to intervene in such situations, “ Elena shook her head as she pointed out. Nevine added, “ The Guild has provisions for such instances, they’ll get paid to clear out bandits and raiders. In fact some of them have specializations as bounty hunters.”

“ That’s that, Nora and I will scout ahead,” Arthur said. “ Remus—”

“Aye master captain sur?” the Farm Hand replied, wiping the snot and tears off his face.

“ You will recuperate, do not push yourself; rest assured we have everything well in hand; Any other questions?” Arthur paused to let the plan sink in. When no one interjected, he added, “We move at dusk,”

The farm boy blinked away his tears and hiccuped. It was making Arthur uncomfortable to have to see the boy cry when he’d placed his hopes on them and especially after walking across several days just to get away from his pursuers. He was barely Nevine’s age after all; considerably the youngest, or second youngest if you took Arcis’ mental age into account.

Still, that did not take away the trepidation that Arthur would have to approach another bunch of bandits, raiders, whichever distinction applied to them—this time, he would be approaching them from the front and potentially fighting to kill if things went south with their reconnaissance.

The day wore exceedingly slowly for Arthur’s liking; he and Nora had already prepped their provisions in readiness for departure. The donned their adventurer’s gear with the masks they’d used as Red and Snow; they also carried their Guild badges just in case they run into another adventuring party.

.The rest of the crew had also picked their monikers for their communications and some did mock-ups to accustom themselves to it and avoid slip ups. Arthur and Nora had their adventuring aliases, Nevine picked Glasses, Arcis, Kitten while Elena picked Quartermistress. A couple of them were unoriginal, but with time they would stick like a well-worn shoe.

As for Remus, he'd decided that he was too worn out to have to trek through the wilds in search of his village acquaintances. Nonetheless, he did say that if for whatever reason they ran into the trading caravan he would be required to pad things over and break the news to the men who'd left after the attack.A wise choice, Arthur supposed.

On the other hand, Arcis was rather sullen that she wasn't going with them but taking over relay duties necessitated that she remain with the rest of the group. The faerie beast who'd been ranging out for the better part of the morning would however, be going along with Nora and Arthur; she would be a valuable tracker or gods forbid if they did run into enemy scouts, she'd dispatch them before they knew what hit them. It was easier to cover their tracks if the raiders thought a monster had done them in.

For the first leg of their excursion, they'd take the Stormbreaker to the village of Dorn where they would part ways. And for that, Arthur decided that a day nap was in order and for the rest of the crew too.

”Who are you?”

”Can’t you see…I am you.”

”Lies…”

”Oh?” the facsimile of her that was definitely not her, quirked an eyebrow. She swirled her drink, shaking the ice cubes inside the brown beverage making them tinkle against the glass—Iced coffee. There was an identical one on the ceramic table, a corral pink circle with mottles of a deeper magenta. She frowned, that was not her favorite color.

“Will you sit?” not-Arcis said. An oval backed bar stool fountained out of the tiles, like clay shaping itself in real time. She cast her eyes around the vicinity; there was an ever present gray fog that looked like a wall and the only things that had edges and curves were the ones on the checkerboard tiles. It was a white room surrounded with amorphous walls.

Arcis slowly trudged to the table and clambered onto the bar stool. She eyed the frothy milkshake in front of her with skepticism but partook of it nonetheless.

Her twin, or clone, whoever they were wore a gothic romper, that was part lace where an off shoulder would go all the way to their neck. Golden buttons trailed from each side of her chest to her thighs where they ended on leather shorts as black as the rest of the ensemble.

Below, were knee length boots and fishnet stockings. She was only some eyeshadow and blacklipstick away from becoming a true goth. Her hair was cascaded behind her in silky tresses. And a pair of half moon glasses perched on her button nose.

On the other hand, Arcis' outfit was the same, only white with royal blue buttons, white stockings and white sneakers. There were no glasses for her.

”Am I dreaming?”

”In a manner of speaking,” not-Arcis said, never taking her eyes off her drink. She slurped noisily before she let her tall glass clink on the ceramic table.

‘Ah,’ she scratched at the nape of her neck. ‘ The nap. Of course!.’

“Who are you?”

“Again with the question,” not-Arcis snorted, adding a derisive roll of the eyes. “ I thought you were smarter than I gave you credit for— seriously.” Not-Arcis kneaded their brow the same way she’d seen her father do. Arcis also noted that they had golden irises with blue motes—an inversion of hers. It unsettled her to no end yet she chose to mask her nervousness with another pull of the milkshake. She had so many questions she was dying to ask; most of all, she questioned why the girl infront of her was rather familiar? Shouldn’t she have been feeling dysmorphic?

“How would I know?” Arcis protested, puffing up her lips as she drew on her milkshake noisily as if to spite her twin.

Not-Arcis shook her head despondently,” I do not have a name yet,” she shrugged. “Mmh, [Host-Mind] ring any bells?”

Arcis did a spit-take. ”You! Where have you been?!” she sputtered, wiping the foam off the moustaching on her upper lip.

”I’ve been here, there…everywhere,” she shrugged, flicking her hands around. Her remark was rather cryptic to parse.“ Mmh, hold on—It’s only fair I have a name too… ”

Her eyes seemed to glaze over for a beat before she regarded Arcis with a toothy smile. “You’re Arcis,” they said.

“My name,” Arcis snorted.“You can’t have it,” she crossed her arms in defiance.

“Then I’ll be Numen,”

Arcis narrowed her eyes but did not comment. A companionable silence passed between the two before Numen broke it with a loud thump of her glass. Her iced coffee had run out. A snap of her finger however refilled the glass; Arcis was wondering if she could do the same to her drink. How did she know she’d like a milkshake and not an iced coffee?

‘Gah, its just a dream.’ Arcis mused.

“You froze again,” Numen said.

Arcis shrunk away as she recalled the events of the day still fresh on her mind.

“You’re so impetuous, yet you cannot bring the resolve to back it up. Where is the girl that blew a wall inside the guard barracks huh?” Numen goaded her.

“Why do you care?!” Arcis snapped back.

“ Don’t you see?! That’s the reason he’s not taking us with him… you’re a liability. So much potential—wasted!” Numen’s eyes glinted behind her glasses.

“But no one can fly the ship better than I do?” Arcis said in rebuttal.

“Oh? Are you sure that’s not an excuse?” Numen sneered.“If you knew how to leverage your skills, this would’ve been an open and shut case. You and I both know what we’re capable of.”

“If it’s so easy why don’t you take over and do it yourself?”

“Uh uh uh,” Numen tutted like an older sister,“ Do not pile that on me, it’s your body”

“What? ” Arcis harrumphed, “ Can’t walk on two legs?”

“Tch,” Numen sneered as she turned her face to the side with a sniff. “Childish” she added.

“What was that?!” Arcis scowled.

“Nothing!” Numen said. She looked at Arcis past the rim of her glasses. “You really need to pull your weight,” she sighed, nudging her spectacles up the bridge of her nose.

“Our father had drawn the attention of troublesome foes and I will not suffer his loss, understand?” Numen said. Her declaration was like a slap to the face.

“ What do you mean loss?” Arcis slammed her palms onto the table. Their respective drinks jumped up from the motion.

“Data does not lie,” Numen said.“ He doesn’t know it but, he is just one incident away from crossing the wrong sorts. Despite his magic, his combat skills are…wanting.”

“Huh?”

“ His sense of duty will be his hubris,” Numen snorted.

“But—”

“ But you're too soft...too indecisive. What is a little human blood?”

Arcis clammed her mouth shut. She couldn't help it really, something about Remus' vulnerability had frozen her in her tracks. It was after she'd slipped and fallen from the tree onto the ground, leaving a caricature of sunken soil. She'd frozen because in that moment she realized just how different she was from her father.

What if the same thing happened to him? She knew that he had [Regeneration], but even that took mana to work. What if Arthur was the one who'd been confined in the svartanite null-void chamber? What then? She clenched her hands as tears, for whatever reason bloomed in her eyes. That was the first time she experienced such a thing, crying. But it wasn't the first time she'd been frustrated.

“What should I do?” she hiccuped a sob.

“What did Papa say about power?”

“Something to do with responsibility?” She blinked through bleary eyes.

“Good, you're not just a thick skull of Celestial Adamant.” Numen smirked.

“What should I do?” Arcis muttered, wiping away her tears with the back of her hands.

“I thought you'd never ask,” Numen said. The fog around them suddenly gained solidity and morphed, as embossments rose from as if made from a 3D printer.

They were weapons— arcane aer rifles, runic rail guns, spell cannons, runehead missiles and a bunch of other esoteric weapons and magitech— even a model of the Stormbreaker modified to look like—that suddenly faded away from her eyes before she could see it in its entirety. Numen pulled her out of her reverie.

“I've been trying to find a loop around our inability to cast ranged spells.”

“But Papa said…”

“Bah, Papa doesn't know what's good for him,” Numen scowled petulantly. “ He hasn't seen the horrors of Eryth; trust me... he'll thank us later,”

“But the materials?”

“ Already on it,”

”How?”

“ Autonomous Retrofit And Construction Hive Net Extension,”

“ARACHNE?” Arcis mumbled tapping her chin as an obtuse look overcame her. “Wait, does that mean Scuttle and friends?”

“Seriously, what am I supposed to do with you?”

“ Can I control them?”

Numen's eyes twitched, another tic she'd picked from their father. “No, you have two hands and ten digits, make your own,”

“Awh,” Arcis whined, splaying her hands across the table. “ No fair, I can't even channel the tellusphere— hold on!” She sat ramrod straight. “You're the one who made alterations to the ship,” Arcis narrowed her eyes in cynicism. “What are you hiding?!” she pressed, her eyes flitted to the place where the model of the Stormbreaker had receded into.

“Hmph,” Numen sniffed, “ Why should I tell you? You're just going to blurb and ruin my plans,”

“Gah!,” Arcis threw up her hands,“ so annoying.” She slid off her bar stool and walked around the table to the wall where the arcane weapons hovered—It was like a spy's weapons cache sequestered behind a secret closet or something.

“When will one be ready?” she murmured, running her fingers across some of the weapons.

Various rifles, and cannons which were a mesh of magitech jostled for her attention. Some looked like futuristic weapons where the mana conduits resembled plasma coils, others were more a mesh of the arcane like the gauss rifle whose magnetic accelerators were powered by aertherite crystals.

“Hmm?” Numen turned to follow her walk around the room ,“ You'll know when it's ready, no earlier and no later.”

Arcis sulked at her soul-sister's tight-fistedness as she turned her gaze to the racks of heavy weaponry. There were even arcane turrets with rune craft running throughout their barrels, coupled with mana seekers they would've made for a formidable battery. There was however one weapon she gravitated towards; a shoulder mounted rail cannon whose rails sparked with blue lightning. There was a palpable buzz to its presence she reached for it—

[Conditions Met- New Class Acquired!]

[ New Class - Spellslinger!]

[Spell Slinger Level 1!]

[Skill- Line of Evasion Acquired!]

[ Skill- Vector Lock On Acquired!]

Arcis woke up to dusky oranges bleeding through the skylight of her berth. It was evening.

‘Time to go,’ she yawned, rubbing her eyes as she checked her internal clock. ’What in Pa's heart was that dream?.