Chapter 17 — Order and Chaos

Yillian launched an Ice Spear at the weaker of the two cultists as the man tried to flank Ayla and followed it up with a knife when the spear was dodged. He cringed as the knife stuck into a priceless wall-hanging that likely detailed some important martial arts technique.

It's not my fault! Yillian repeated in his head like a mantra.

At least Xyn was rapidly getting closer.

Or that would be a relief, except the cultists had shut the door! When had they shut the door?!

Yillian could tell he was one step on his panic scale from lighting the whole damn secret room on fire. Deep breaths, deep breaths.

Ah! Yillian's heart almost stopped as the bigger cultist's dagger just passed through where Ayla's head was a second ago—only for the cultist to go flying against the far wall…

When Ayla chased after the guy, Yillian could only scream in his head, Dammit Ayla! Don't present your back to the other guy!!!, as he threw himself at said other guy, yelling like a madman with a knife in each hand.

Fortunately, the 'other guy' turned around to face his suicide attack—Unfortunately! I meant unfortunately, damn it!!!—Yillian berated himself as he dodged! a dagger stab that would have turned him into an elf-kabob. Holy shit did that Dancing Petal stuff work! Feeling maybe a little cocky he tried a feint and slipped into a blind spot to stab from… only to get cloth! Damn it! Ah, ah, dodge!

{Yillian, where are you guys?}

{In a secret room in the shed!}

{I see it!}

{Draw a Shadow glyph over the Raven's eye!}

{The hells is a Shadow glyph?!}

Despair threatened to overcome Yillian as his foot caught on a random training device and he sprawled onto the ground. Unable to hold back his panic, he called forth a gout of flame to drive back the cultist as he scrambled back to his feet, and in desperation, forced a mental image of a Shadow glyph through the medallion.

Moments later a storm of petals burst through into the room. Xyn's aura filled the room, and the metaphysical idea contained in the illusionary petals was fierce enough to cut the air. Yillian barely had time to wonder whether this was Xyn's true strength before Xyn's sword shot through the air like a spear, impaling the larger cultist's head to a wall-tapestry, followed by the top half of the cultist's dagger clattering to the floor.

Xyn spun around to face the remaining cultist, and the man screamed as thorns wrapped his arms and legs and the storm of petals began to cut at him mercilessly.

Seeing Ayla turn her attention toward finishing him off, the man dropped his dagger and cried out, “I surrender! Ayla, don't kill me! It's me, Alennil!”

Ayla held up a hand, and the petal storm and thorns dissipated leaving bleeding cuts on the cultist's cheek and arm as the only evidence that they had been real. With Ayla having the situation under control, Xyn went to retrieve his sword, flicking the blood to the floor before sheathing it. Its support having been yanked free, the body of the cultist slumped to the ground.

“You know me?” Ayla growled, her eyes narrowed, the tip of her aura-empowered blade inches from his face.

“We danced during your debut!” the man desperately asserted, his eyes darting worriedly between Ayla, her sword, and Xyn.

“And yet, you tried to stab me in the back,” Ayla coldly reminded. “You attacked my family.”

The man, Alennil, held his hands up to his chest pleadingly. “I didn't have any choice. I had to make it look like I was trying or they would have sacrificed me to the Xogg thing. There wasn't supposed to be anyone here. We were just going to grab Fenton's research and leave. No one was supposed to get hurt!”

“Sure seemed like you were trying plenty to kill me,” Yillian objected.

Alennil shrugged. “I don’t even know who you are.”

“Why should we let you live?” Ayla demanded.

“I’m a diviner. If you protect me from the other cultists, I can help you find things,” Alennil pleaded.

Xyn’s eyebrows rose. “Is that how you knew Fenton’s research was here and not in the house?”

“Yes!” Alennil nodded. “That’s not all! The cultists used my skills to find Remnants of Xogg`Shriloth in the Mirewood. I didn’t want to help them, but they threatened to use my friends and family for experiments! These cultists are incredibly dangerous. They are led by a secret group of powerful Tower mages. You have to believe me there was nothing I could do, and I’ve been looking for a way out all along.”

“Is that where these teleport circles go? The Tower?” Yillian asked.

Alennil made a half-shrug. “Probably, but most Tower mages set up beacons for other locations as well, so Fenton might have had another teleport circle set up for just the Tower meeting room somewhere else. But it doesn’t matter. Those circles are blood linked to the mage that created them and are useless now.”

Yillian wasn’t sure if the diviner was lying about the circles only being useable by the blood-linked mage, but if his suspicions were correct, there might still be a way to make use of Fenton’s at least.

“Yillian, search him for weapons,” Ayla ordered. “If you do anything stupid, Alennil, you won’t live to see another day.”

With a grumble, Yillian ran his hands inside Alennil’s cloak, feeling for seams and pockets or sheaths in the clothing underneath. What the diviner had said about Remnants was bugging Yillian, so he followed up, “What’s the use of knowing where the Remnants are? No one has survived claiming one. Why would it be any different for cultists?”

“Because of those guys,” Alennil motioned toward the dead man with his head, careful to not make any sudden moves with his hands. “Priests of Chaos. They worship Malor, and have an ability to restrain the corruption from the Remnants.”

That… sounded ridiculously dangerous! What if one of those priest guys decided to relocate a Remnant into a town or city?! It would be a disaster for sure! Yillian could barely bring himself to ask, “H-how many Remnants has the cult recovered?”

“Just the one used to revive the Xogg, as far as I know.” Alennil shrugged. “The Mirewood is a dangerous place even for cultists.”

Other than a multi-purpose knife, which Yillian pocketed for safekeeping, the odd dagger was apparently the diviner’s only weapon.

“Done,” Yillian updated as he kicked the dagger a distance away and stepped back. He glanced over to see Xyn searching the dead priest.

Ayla lowered her blade. “Alright, I’ve got some questions for you, Alennil. What I do with you will depend on your answers.”

Alennil nodded. “I’ll tell you anything. I’m damn glad to be away from those crazies.”

“Garrin, Remia’s worried about Ayla. Everything under control?” warbled a crow quietly nearby to where Garrin was leaning against the back of the storehouse, observing through a space-bridging shadow—not a dimensional rift; his understanding of shadow still wasn’t sufficient for that yet.

“Ayla did well and likely would have won her fight without assistance. The elf’s situation was more perilous, but Xyn’s arrival quickly ended the confrontation. She’s interrogating the survivor now, a youth from House Breckan named Alennil, professing to be a diviner.”

“Oh? It’s a good thing she didn’t kill the boy then. That would have been annoying to explain.”

“That worshippers of the Dark Moon are involved doesn’t bode well for the direction things are headed.”

“Indeed not.”

Xyn was meditating to restore his fully depleted aura. That Alennil human didn’t seem particularly interested in resisting and having a diviner on their side would certainly help with Master Arienos’ assignment, assuming anything the cultist said could be believed.

Whether to be worried that the human was familiar with Ayla and had danced with her at some ‘debut’… Xyn didn’t feel particularly threatened by him—unlike the situation with Fredrick. Which was good. Because Alennil was currently helping Ayla go through Fenton’s research.

Yillian was working on the teleport circle and, to Alennil’s surprise, had asked Ayla for a dram of her blood to be mixed with a vial of solution he had prepared in advance. Between consulting books of his own and Fenton’s and scratching furiously in his journal, the half-elf was rather absorbed in the work.

Xyn let his attention return to his meditation. Converting Shadow energy to Mist by cycling it through his body wasn’t an ideal way to restore his aura reserves, but he didn’t want to leave his companions alone with Alennil, in case the human wasn’t as harmless as he pretended to be. On the other paw, Xyn did want to internalize as much of the rich Shadow energy as he could while staying in this town, and with his thoughts no longer distracted by Fredrick, adding the concept of depth to his mist was again his focus.

A guard showed up sometime later to remove the body. He said it was his first time seeing the inside of the secret training room but was careful not to be too obvious about sneaking envious glances at the wall-hangings and training equipment.

Ayla volunteered that her master seemed to always know what was going on in the manor and often what was going on in the town as well somehow, which was why she wanted to meet with him first. Yillian was annoyed that Ayla had left that detail out when they were sneaking in, and Xyn had to agree, even if knowing wouldn’t have changed anything.

While meditating, there was something about the altar that allowed Xyn to continually draw purer Shadow energy than what was outside—as if it was closer to the nature of the original source. That purer energy felt similar to the corruption in the mire but, though they both gave the impression of blackness, the Shadow Raven’s energy more embodied the ideas of Order and Void compared to the mire’s energy of Life and... Chaos.

The realization caused something to crystalize in Xyn’s mind. His own Mist contained both Order and Chaos. His Fog of Lost Souls wasn’t a sameness created by a uniform pattern, it was an indistinctness created through infinitesimally small variations. By applying order to those variations was how he used it to lure and misdirect.

And it wasn’t just his new Mist-based path, he’d always thought of the Path of Dancing Petals as a style derived from order—that the illusions and techniques were a manifestation of his state-of-mind resulting from the years of conditioning that his Grandmother put him through, but that was just a crutch.

The disorientation caused by the Petals’ Caress was due to the sense of chaos imposed upon the target. Even his oft-enjoyed Floating Petal Step wasn’t a technique of Air moving in a single direction, but rather making use of the currents as they came. The Fluttering Petal caught the light and flickered it into the target’s vision, but it was the chaotic rhythm that disrupted the target’s sense of sight.

The more he understood the Chaos within him, the more certain Xyn became that the taint from the mire, from Xogg`Shriloth, had been the catalyst allowing him to change and exceed his previous limits, but holding him back even more had been his naïve and narrow understanding of both Chaos and Order and how they related to his own Element.

Xyn felt a need to visit this Shadow Raven. If he could have a breakthrough like this just from the land god’s altar…

He took a quick glance around the room. Alennil still hadn’t caused any problems, and none of his companions looked like they would be finished any time soon.

Decision made, he announced was going out and to contact him if he would be needed. The distracted acknowledgments he received were enough to validate his choice, and Xyn left, Petal-stepping his way over the back wall and into the forest beyond.

The feeling of encroaching darkness and being watched quickly caused Xyn to doubt his course of action, but he doubled down on his stubbornness. If this land god was aggressive or territorial, humans would never have been able to build a town here.

Xyn sampled the Shadow energy in the air as if it were a fine cut of meat or cheese, following that deep sense of quiet and order permeating from trees and sacred land that repeated the same cycles of nature for untold ages.

The shadows cast by the moonlight lengthened and the darkness deepened as the forest extended deeper than should have been possible. The end of the forest was no closer than when he started, and the trees reached higher into the sky the deeper he went, higher than the hill they were atop.

Excitement grew within Xyn, and when he finally arrived at the moonlit grove with the shrine, he knew. This place was a secret realm—a god’s realm.

The silence surrounding the grove was oppressive and the sense of being watched had become a physical pressure weighing down on him. There was no doubt that this was a sacred place.

The risk he was taking was immense, but the potential for gain was also immense. Not wanting to offend the god, he bowed toward the shrine and saluted by bringing his fists together then waited for permission to enter.

While he waited, Xyn admired the design and materials of the shrine, the way it was carved from wood so ancient as to look like stone and the way the open pagoda caught the moonlight in places while still casting shadows of the deepest black.

Moonlight soon began to pool in a circle before the temple, and Xyn accepted the offered invitation, walking to the circle and disturbing as little of the moss and stillness as he could manage.

Shadows from around the glade and from within the shrine gathered and formed into the shape of a giant raven so black that it absorbed any light… except for the edges of its feathers which let just enough moonlight grace them to give definition to its form and contrast eerily.

{AS ALWAYS, FOOLS EAGERLY COME SEEKING TO TAKE MY POWER AND MAKE IT THEIR OWN. YET YOU ARE MORE A FOOL THAN MOST. NOT ONLY HAVE YOU ALREADY TAKEN FROM ME WITHOUT OFFERING ANYTHING IN RETURN, BUT YOU BRING INTO MY REALM THE TAINT OF THE MAD ONE CONSUMED BY ITS OWN NEED TO CONSUME.}