“... try as we might, we cannot refute that Eryth is in the middle of another magical renaissance. The second one perhaps, in as many eons. The first was a tragedy, let's remember that. And that is why, the Triad is here, we are the custodians, the gatekeepers who stand in the path between advancement and self annihilation. We shall guide other races because we were there when we saw what happened. We also lost much and we swore that no such thing would ever befall another race—”

Transcript of the First Keeper’s Speech, During the the 54th Inaugural Induction of new Seekers, Keepers and Blackguard recruits, Triad Citadel, Zentrahl.

“[Captain]!”

“Ah [Seeker], glad to have you on board. Imagine my surprise when your request came in.”

”New ship so soon?” Holly enquired with a lilt of amusement in her tone. Her dwarven had never been so awkward without its accent. She cast about the bridge of the ship she’d requisitioned for part of her mission. Not the drachenflieger that she’d been helming from the Underneath but a whole other aership from topside. From the looks of it it looked like it had been scuttled fresh out of the aersmithy.

”Aye, the Sturmjäger,” Doladraen grinned proudly as he tapped the helm wheel. A svartanite steel tooth caught the light. Holly looked towards the aft noting the unorthodox design changes of the Messerkopv class aership. Starting with the bridge superstructure jutting out of the aft section, the obsiderite curving around its windows, everything bespoke an abrupt retrofit. It even had the up to date Armacus type II installed for ship to port and ship to port communications; a familiar dwarf was manning the station.

Looking out of the wind screen, Holly saw its dual mana sails, like upturned wings unfurled from the port and starboard sides. The ship had foregone the traditional centre masts in favor of space. The wing mana sails were hooked onto a steam driven pulley system running through the sides of the ship leaving the deck free of any tangle and obstruction. Coupled with the slim profile and the leeway to pull them back into the centre if the flight path called for it, Holly would have called it a highly adaptable vessel.

Funnel shaped jib mana sails sat at the fore catching both wind and mana. A slim bow, a complete departure from the winged bow of the Hammerkopv class parted through the clouds like a knife through butter. Beyond that, was the tell-tale shimmer of the ship’s bubble shield to keep out the wind from the on deck sailors engaged in a game of cards with the only other dwarven woman aboard the ship.

But for all its looks the stroke of genius was perhaps the small Lux crystals shining orange instead of the incandescent yellow like a strip of caution lights. They demaraced a rectangular dual-hatches housing the Sturmjäger's main armaments and the entry to the aership’s main hold. They made it so the hatch could be opened to either load cargo or extend and retract the armaments.

Its arsenal had also undergone some deviations from the usual, with the runic turrets and carronades default firing positions being forwards instead of sideways. Steam pipes emanated from several points around the hatch showing wheel valves that the dwarven sailors could turn to open the massive hatch doors—The same hatch was where Holly's drachenflieger hitched a lift to conserve its mana source for the engagements that really mattered.

Its crew complement was also, unsurprisingly, smaller in size. Only a few trusted dwarven sailors close to the heir of the Blackbeard company had come along. Including Lezbhan and the other dwarven woman who holly noted had an eyepatch on her left eye, there were eight other sailors above deck, four below deck and five cannoneers. The bridge crew were five not including Doladraen. Overall the ship had to have had about twenty five souls onboard, almost half of her bigger sisters.

”Does your father know you went behind his back to rig your own ship?”

“Bah! father this, father that, “ Doladraen snorted as he stroked his beard. His singed hair was nowhere to be found, if anything it had a luscious sheen to it as if he’d been on a regimen for it. “I tire of being compared to him; there comes a time in a lad's life when he has to step out of his father's shadow.”

“ And the woman?” Holly inquired pointing to the other dwarven female who was effectively drinking her male companions under the table.

“An [Extractor],” Doladraen supplied. “ Eatrude Bloodshield, ex-blackguard, now a sell-sword.”

“ Hmm, you did some digging of your own,” Holly frowned, she swiped across her Triad issue amarcus for the information on the [Extractor]. Unlike the civilian ones hers had a direct telepsychic link to the Citadel Archives. It would only take a few pars until the requested information was sent to her sleeve.

“ Yeah right, I found everything there was to know about our pursuit,” Doladraen shook his head, tutting ”Found more questions than answers—It's like he just happened to drop out of the aether, there’s nothing else.”

“ What about the sylvani angle?” Holly asked.

“ Hmm?” Doladraen grunted, gave her the side eye. “ They’ve got their lips sealed tighter than a dwarven treasure vault,” he mumbled.

“ That confirms it then, he knows someone higher up the echelon,” Holly said. Finally, the information she’d requested, sent the same way as she would receive a [Message] bloomed in her mind’s eye. “ Her other class [Sharp Shooter] level 30 as of her last assessment, a couple dozen extractions and successful blackguard missions under her belt, honorable discharge, Ah— I do not have the clearance for that information.” she hummed. “ How much are you paying her?” Holly asked, quirking her brow in inquiry.

“ Uh, hold your sails, if it's about taxes and what not, I’ll have you know I have one of the best [Accountants] around. I don't deal with dirty money and smuggled artifacts.”

“ I wasn’t insinuating that.” Holly chuckled teasingly.

“ Captain!” Lezbhan called from his station. “ We’re picking up a telepsychic echoes, short bursts— [Message] spells.”

“ Details?” Holly answered for Doladraen. The dwarf hesitated before he said,” Unparseable ma’am, the spell matrices are too decayed to reconstruct.”

“ And their heading?” the [Captain] asked.

“ That’s the thing captain, they have an origin but their destination…they seem to be getting lost in the aether.”

“ Haah,” Doladraen muttered. “ Let’s follow the origin, I wasn’t aware of any ships in the vicinity. My gut tells me it must be them—[Navigator] give us a heading!” The captain bellowed. Then flipping open the lid to a speaking tube, he issued an order, “ All hands! We have a trail laddies!” There were yells of aye aye from the other side. The Sturmjäger started banking and picking up speed.

“ I’ll follow the other end of the [Message] spell. Send the signature to my armacus Lezhbahn, maybe my ship instruments will have a better chance of parsing it,”

“ Ma’am aye ma’am,”

“ Captain?” Holly turned to Doladraen.

“ Aye,” Doladraen grunted before issuing another command to have the hold hatch opened. As the aership dropped altitude and pierced the clouds, the hold hatches opened in a hiss of steam and yells from the dwarven sailors manning the steam drivers. The drachenflieger, conveyed by steamlift emerged from below deck like a raptor on an aircraft carrier standing by for deployment. Holly exited the bridge heading her vessel. The last words she heard from the [Navigator] before she went out of earshot was Gallowick.

It had been a couple of pars since Umbra got the scent of goblins. Arthur wanted to be sure they were on the right track before they sent a [Message] to the rest of the group, hopefully they’d found a wayside town and gotten adventurers to come with them. Getting adventurers couldn’t have been that hard, at least that is what Arthur thought.

The trail continued parallel to the riverine, the volume of water brackish with floating leaves and branches. Footprints matting down the grass weren’t hard to find, but Umbra’s tracking had led them off the path into the undergrowth.

The raiders seemed to have left a number of rear scouts behind to alert them which meant that thanks to their captives, their advance had been a bit slow going. By then, their nerves were taut; even Thaddaeus knew the memo and stepped furtively behind Nora while Arthur took the back.

The question of where the livestock of the village had gone had already been answered after they found the first campsite; a couple of Auroch skulls, perhaps the only cattle that had been left behind. The rest of the herd must have been used by the villagers farmers to carry their spring produce and hence might have escaped the butcher's knife.

There were also remains of poultry, honest to goodness large chicken like the ones Arthur recalled meeting at the giant-kin’s farm. Whether the livestock had been used to feed the captives or the raiders was testament to the number of people that had passed through this way.

Stakes hammered into the ground and divots spoke of where the captives had been tied down before they moved on. Unfortunately they couldn't tell how many raiders had passed through nor could they tell how many captive's they took from the many footprints on the beaten grass.

For better or for worse though it seemed like they were moving at a staggering pace otherwise the trio would have started seeing more bodies. It was a departure from the callous bloodshed that they’d encountered in the village of Dorn.

The raiders weren’t two bit mindless villains as Arthur supposed. They were people with motives and could react as the situation called for it. This made them profiling them too unpredictable and doubly harder to discern what their endgame was.

And while they had come out there with a plan, reality was…rather unpleasant. There were marsh bugs that wanted a piece of them, poisonous crawlies in the reeds and soggy treacherous footing; it was like a soldier’s slog. They had to switch back a couple of times because whoever the rear scouts were, seemed to have a knack for getting into hard to reach places–Arthur was sure not to underestimate a goblin [Skulker].

Eventually, their meandering started taking a toll on the less physically endowed of their party. Thaddaeus was falling behind, clearly unused to walking around the bush. As for Nora and Arthur, they yet had some steam to move for the rest of the night–

“Alright, take five,” Arthur whispered. Thaddaeus looked behind and scrunched his brows obtusely. “Darkest Pits!” Thaddaeus hissed as a bead of sweat entered his eye; he found himself blinking furiously.

‘ Ah, right…me and my Earth sayings’ Arthur mentally face palmed. Nora had already turned around and was watching the surroundings warily. “We’re taking a break,” Arthur said. Thaddaeus dropped like a burlap of potatoes. “If you…had let me…raise the…skeletons…as mounts–,” he wheezed.

“That’s the worst idea you can come up with; they’ll see a shambling clacking pile of bones from leagues away,” ‘Eryth’s prehistoric cows are stupidly big.’ Arthur mused as he too sat down to rest his feet.

Thaddeaus snorted, “ Bah, you have no class,”

“Nora, how far out?” Arthur spoke to Nora ignoring the necromancer. Nora replied, eyes still watching their vicinity, “Umbra senses the scent of their scouts getting stronger. If we find their scouts, the main column should not be far behind.”

“Right,” Arthur murmured. He looked at his arcane watch, seeing the roman numerals replaced by Erythean numbers; a duo decimal system like the ancient Egyptians’ number system. By extrapolation they’d walked a couple leagues due north of north east.

‘I suppose I should send in a status report, see if they got something on their end.’ Arthur deliberated. As they were keeping their artifacts under wraps, Arthur did not have to verbally enunciate the message he was sending.

It was just doubly hard to concentrate on holding the matrix in his mind as he composed its contents but he managed to do it, once again, thanks to his dual casting habits. Which again, in hindsight wouldn’t have been possible back on Earth if it weren’t for [Eidetic Memory] which enabled hot swapping.

‘[Message]; we have picked up the raiders' trail. Scent’s getting stronger, we should be on their rear guard any time from now. Please apprise us of your status as soon as possible,’ went the message. He released it as soon as he was done, trusting that the other end would reply.

The youth wasn’t sure if there was a lag because or if the message had reached Arcis because unlike her, he was not an adept with the psionic affinity that made [Message] possible. If he was, he would have realized they were in a dead zone. A region of telepsychic echoes bouncing around the knolls. It wasn’t the hills that impeded the telepsychic link per se, but the underlying rock hereabouts did the magical jamming.

Unfortunately, Arthur had no foreknowledge of that and so, getting up and dusting his pants he got ready to move again. He checked that he had his prized weapon with him, he was still pretty stubborn about using his Zweihander, not out of sentimentality but practicality.

Most of his spells were kind of flashy, he didn’t need to unleash the wrath of heaven just to kill some goblins if he could help it. Who knew what else banded up with them? Goblins did not seem like the types to pull off a whole village heist on their own. Not on that scale of carnage at least— more villagers would've escaped otherwise

Thaddaeus groaned and levered himself upright, stumbling a little before he caught himself. He removed the detritus on his cloak and got ready to start walking even though it looked as if he was wincing from ill-fitting shoes.

‘Ah bummer, there’s nothing to it then,’ Arthur scowled. “Nora, call back Umbra, we’re going to start porting as close as we can.”

“Wait, what? You had translocation magic and you didn’t think to use it? I’m going to be nursing bunions for nundines…do you have any idea how much a salve costs me?”

“Shush, you’ll draw attention.” Nora remonstrated. She seemed rather put-out by their tag along. As if on cue, Umbra materialized in wisps of shadows.

Thaddaeus shrieked,“That…that wouldn’t happen to be a Nox affinity faerie beast would it?” Thaddaeus stuttered, scampering backwards. Arthur sighed, maybe bringing the man along was not a good idea after all.

“Get ready,” Nora said, pointedly motioning to Thaddaeus,

“Wha–what, wait…” the necromancer whirled as Umbra rumbled, advancing on him. He turned tail and tried to run; Umbra pounced on the back of his cloak and ported him with her by the scruff as she would a little kitten.

Arthur clasped Nora’s wrist and the world twisted on itself.

Reemergence was on the rise of a hill and there, they found their quarry camping in the trough of a glen. Surrounding them were scraggly formations of weather-beaten rocks that looked too regular to be natural. Arthur thought there was a faint pulsation of magic in them but it was barely distinguishable from the ambient mana in the air so he let it be. In conjunction with a sparse corpse of short trees however, they made for a good hiding place.

It was easy to spot them from the smoke of their campfire and besides they were not exactly trying to hide. A trio of two goblins and one hob were bickering over who would get the remainder of the chicken breast. Their language was rather brutish as if finger poking, back slapping and ear pulling was part of their diction; maybe it was these gobos did not speak Common. The hob sporting a mohawk of frizzly hair was the largest of the two and seemed to be fast asleep.

He had a wicked barbed scimitar leaning against the rock he had his back to; it was ivory in color and seemed more bone than metal from the chips and breaks along its length.

The rest of the goblins were armed with short swords and bucklers which had seen one too many repairs that they looked like they were made of tatters. Arthur could count three types of metals forged into one another. With classes like [Scrapper] and [Tinkerer] goblins were no smiths but nonetheless learnt to improvise.

As for Thaddaeus, the necromancer was as pale as a wraith as he tried to shrink away from Umbra who lay nearby, nonchalantly preening her fur.

“Just three of them?” Arthur asked.

Nora nodded in assent, “Umbra does not sense anyone else in the vicinity. I would be for walking around them instead of killing them but…we can’t leave foes at our back.”

“You're right,” Arthur murmured, careful to keep his voice low. He tapped his chin in thought before he came to a decision, “We can just have Thaddaeus and Umbra watch them while we go deeper,”

Thaddaeus came to his senses hissing, “No no, wait, you’re not leaving me with the beast are you?”

Arthur ignored him as he concentrated on trying to send another message of their whereabouts. ‘ It hasn’t been that long but shouldn’t I have gotten a [Message] back?’ He thought frowning.

“It’s practically suicide; even if you pass them by, there is no way of knowing how many they are in the main camp. Worse you might enda–” Thaddaeus protested only to be cut off.

“Quiet,” Nora shushed. Umbra’s ears suddenly seemed to perk up, tracking sounds unheard of to the rest of the group except for Nora whose vampiric hearing was ever so acute.

“What? I’m barely whispering as it is,” Thaddaeus hissed back, kind of mad at being rag dolled through the shadow realm and being told to shut it.

“What is it Nora?” Arthur whispered, crawling close on his knees and elbows. He forewent sending the message to see what had caught Nora’s attention.

“I thought I heard bat calls” Nora frowned.

“Huh?” Arthur quirked a brow. Down at the glen the goblins were still in their antics; the big six foot something hob had barely roused, in fact he seemed to have descended into timbrous snores loud enough to rouse the undead. A bubble of snot was swelling up on one of his nostrils.

“There, on top of the crag,” Nora whispered, “Two vespertines.” Arthur followed the pointing of Nora’s finger.

‘What in the everlasting feck?!’ Arthur ducked down in alarm. The goblins were not alone as they’d first thought. There was a group of bat men or man bats whichever–It had seemed too easy that they’d catch the goblins unawares, instead of finding watchful sentries.

“Damn…change of plans, We’re not getting past those.” Arthur said under his breath.

Difficulty had just been dialed up a notch. If his guess was right, defending against attacks from the air would be foolhardy with those around, worse, they could tip off the rest of the raiders. Even factoring magic for flight, their wingspans had to be outrageous from their vantage point.

Nora bit her lip nodding grimly, “Assuming they left five behind, for a village of close to fifty persons give or take, we should expect a number close to forty.”

“Think you can dispatch them silently?” Arthur whispered.

“Maybe?” Nora took a peek and then ducked. She met Arthur’s gaze, “Any luck with the others?”

“No, no [Message] received so far,” Arthur sighed in resignation. The sound of wingbeats made them duck further into the rock outcrops. They watched as one of the vespertine soared into the air heading towards a place unknown.

“Think that’s the direction of their hideout?”

“I think so,” Nora whispered back. “I can now dispatch one of them without alerting the goblins,” she grinned.

“Uh, pardon me—” Thaddaeus interrupted. He had his nose pinched, tears were welling up in his eyes.

“ Not now Thaddeaus, you’re staying put as soon as—”

“ It’s not that. It seems—I’m allergic to felines,” he said nasally. “ I don’t think I can hold it for long,” he scrunched his face fighting against the sneeze as an aneurysmatic dilatation bulged through his forehead; he looked ready to pop.

“ Easy now…” Arthur breathed. “We’ll port you out of here, no need to blow our cover…Nora,”

Nora nodded and stalked around Arthur, trying to reach the allergic Necromancer.

“A…”

Everyone tensed, Umbra included. They waited for the metaphorical bubble to burst. Arthur had one eye on the remaining vespertine who for better or for worse had their attention elsewhere. From where he was, he could almost see their ears twitching every which way.

“Haaah,” Thaddeaus breathed out and sniffed. “I think I’m fine now…” he rubbed a finger across his nose.

Everyone relaxed.

“You should warn people,” Nora grimaced as she turned back, crouch-walking to her perch. She unsheathed her daggers, muscles tensed as she got ready to port to her mark. She had one shot at it without drawing the attention of the squabbling goblins and hob.

But as she was about to nod affirming her readiness, over Arthur’s back she saw another sneeze build up–Several things happened in the span of a breath, in the moments before the necromancer could warn his compatriots– Umbra was already moving.

“ Atch–!” The rest was swallowed by incorporeality as Umbra dragged the necromancer into the shadows. Nonetheless, half a sneeze had never been so loud. Arthur whirled in the direction of the vespertine whose head had snapped towards their perch. Besides him wisp motes were already dissipating but surely there was lag between the entry and emergence points? Could Nora beat a sneeze’s speed?

Turned out she could; she didn’t need to fully materialize for her one stab kill to the throat. Before the vespertine could even screech in alarm, they thudded where Nora had shadow ported from, spasming as they tried to stem their bleeding jugular. Blood spurted about from between their fore finger and thumbs—the rest of their digits were all joints for their wing membrane which were flailing trying to get as much distance between themselves and Arthur.

Arthur could not afford to gawk at the anthropomorphic bat, not even as their eyes bulged, sclera showing through in pitiful shock. His mind was cold and his resolve had already been steeled. All he thought was, he had to put it out of its misery as he was to take a sapient life. A Zweihander to the heart did the job and life went out from the vespertine. Arthur could never forget the feeling of flesh and ribs give way under the sword.

Nora materialized back at their hiding place, her eyes on half on the skies where a distant silhouette of the other vespertine was disappearing into the hills. On the other hand, the goblins hadn’t noticed things were amiss. Satisfied that the situation had been salvaged, Nora let her legs go out from beneath her and slumped on the grass, hands splayed above her head.

“You okay?” Arthur asked, skirting around the corpse. Blood was still dripping from his sword. He wiped it down on the grass.

“I'm fine,” Nora sighed, blowing the hair from her face. The rise and fall of her chest showed she was just pacing herself. “Its been...its been a long time since I've had to do that. I forgot that anything that resists my [Shadow Port] can make it fail...took half of my mana just to make that kill .” she added flicking her daggers to remove the blood.

Arthur frowned at the implications. There was a limit even to translocation abilities if someone else resisted and more so, if he guessed correctly, the vespertine had Nox affinity too making their resistance all the more stubborn.

Nora suddenly turned her head to an empty patch of air just in time for Umbra to reappear with a sniffling necromancer. Thaddaeus gave the corpse one look, then with a shake of his head scampered away from the grimalkin and walked into the woods cursing and sneezing expletives and snot—

“How many ports do you have left?” Arthur said as he retrieved a Potion of Mana from his [Inventory]— he didn't think they'd need one of them so soon. Being him, he'd never really had to go that far.

Nora shook her head as she swiped the blue potion with motes of white swimming in the liquid and put it in her satchel. “Save them for when we really need them,” Nora said. “ Just give me a few pars, I’ll recover.” Arthur nodded.

The youth then turned to the vespertine corpse thinking of how to dispose of the body? He could've inventoried it outright but he was leery of carrying a corpse. Besides, he wasn’t sure if it could work for a non-monster.

Truth be said though, it was hard not to think of the vespertine as having been a sapient being with a name. Their face, almost humanoid, had an upturned nose with an imperceptible groove on the septum. They even had a nose ring, and earrings on their bat-like ears.

Arthur closed the eyelids over their glazed brown irises and without disturbing the corpse too much, he rifled through the vespertine's bandolier vest and capri pants. With their physiology it was hard to see them wearing anything with sleeves that went up to their wrists because of the wings.

Only the thumb, index finger and part of the middle finger were free, thumb being opposable so they could grab something with it; ultimately that had failed them when they'd tried to staunch their bleeding artery. Their feet were not bare; despite their splayed digits, they had footwraps that'd seen better days.

From several sewed-in in pockets Arthur extracted miscellaneous items like a collection of curved teeth, a couple days old jerky which he flicked to the grimalkin and a couple of gold coins. They also had several daggers made of bone with a thin film of poison in their sheathes, a inky dubious potion with scintillating motes, and a medallion with a gate rune that Arthur had never seen before. In the middle of the rune were two conjoined eyes that looked like they could belong to an eldritch creature. Their swirls were unnerving to look at.

Below the rune were two words, Sᚢᛈᚱᚨ vᛖᛚᚢᛗ embossed on the medallion; Arthur had a brief acquintantance with that script but he'd need time to parse what it said; hell if he could just send it to Arcis he was sure the synth could translate it in a jiffy. He was just surprised that it was being used elsewhere. In hindsight though, every language he'd encountered so far seemed to be a variation of that old runic alphabet.

Other than the obscure medallion, there was nothing of note that could tell them about what they were about to face. Arthur recorded everything he'd salvaged from the vespertine using his Psiphone and then returned it to where he'd found it—there was no telling if there was tracking magic on it.

As he looked at the corpse, burning the memory of having willingly taken a life, he told Nora what he had in mind. He was thinking of having Umbra maul and savage the scout so that they could sell the illusion that there was a monster stalking around the woody glen. That would have thrown the inner camp on edge, maybe even thin their numbers towards the base as they spread themselves thin with surveillance.

“Your plan is sound,” Nora agreed.” Assuming the other scout will be back, we also have little time to infiltrate the main camp to get the information we need. I for one want to know why vespertine are working with goblins,” she reiterated sheathing her daggers.

“Umbra,” Nora motioned the grimalkin to get it over with. The grimalkin almost looked affronted at having to maul a filthy bat person but as she went to sniff the corpse she suddenly growled in alarm. Her tentacle lashed out and sheared through the X shaped bandolier vest.

Arthur and Nora registered that something was wrong when the remains of the bandolier fell away to reveal a runic mark pulsing an angry shade of red. The mark tattooed onto the short brown fur depicted chains and some other esoteric symbols and as they watched it was progressively growing brighter; the smell of singed hair and flesh pervaded the air as the vespertine’s chest sizzled. Throwing all caution to the wind, Arthur tried to spirit away the corpse into [Inventory]—nothing happened; he cursed remembering active magic made that an impossibility.

It was just then that the necromancer coming back from sneezing his brains out stumbled back and gasped. In a shaky voice, he said, “ Tha—that, you wouldn't happen to have [Dispel Matrix] or a [Stasis Ward] would you?”

Arthur shook his head saying, “ Will [Null Field] suffice?”

“ No, that’ll be too slow,” Thaddaeus shook his head, mussing his bleached hair. “ Body is still warm; residual mana dissipating from the body is still enough to power the blood runecraft on the Mark.”

“What’s the problem?” Nora scooted closer with a grave look on her face.

“ A Mark of Sklaven ,” Thaddaeus swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “ We’re dealing with slavers, and that…my dear compatriots, that mark just gave our position away,” he said, his eyes suddenly whirled towards the night sky. Even the goblins had suddenly gone quiet.

“ Can we move it elsewhere?” Arthur asked the necromancer.

“ No,” he shook his head.” There’s always a failsafe for this kind of thing.”

“And how do you know all of this?”

“ Blood magic is also a subdiscipline of necromancy,” Thaddeaus mumbled. “They’re coming, we have to get a move on ere they hunt us down. I might be able to buy us sometime before the corpse fulminates and marks us with its magic,” he added, peering over at the goblins who were suddenly looking around in confusion.

The vespertine corpse was now looking all the more like an incendiary about to blow in their faces, veins had bloomed underneath its dark skin, crawling from it's chest like crimson roots seeking blood.

Arthur followed the necromancer's gaze, catching onto his idea and said, “Do it, and do it fast…Nora, let's get ready to move.”

Thaddaeus nodded resolutely as a spell matrix formed on his hands. Wisps of black mana bled from his eyes. Nora tensed watching the skies. Arthur sent another [Message] to the Stormbreaker, hoping that wherever Arcis was, she was bringing the cavalry because as it were, they were now in the soup.