They didn’t wait for the Spectres to close in. Rio led the charge against them, Riven following close behind with his Sept gun. Thank the Scions he’d remembered to bring the extra magazines. It was looking like he’d need it.

He had no idea how Rio had fathomed that the Deadmage was leaving the battlefield only to destroy everything in the area from afar. There was no time to ponder or question.

The first Spectre rushed in, the ghost of an older man who was no longer limited by the physical hardships bestowed by senescence, walking spry as a youth a fifth his age. Rio was unbothered. He moved as languid in a fight as he did otherwise, flowing past the Spectre and leaving a long cut with his Coral dagger on its waist. The Spectre gasped and fell, slowly disintegrating to fading Sept particles.

Another charged at Rio’s back, and Riven drew, aimed, and fired as quickly as he could. The shot took the woman Spectre right in the forehead and she fell.

“Nice.” Rio’s compliment came too quick. Another Spectre charged in and suffered the same as the last one. “But we don’t have time to waste on these grunts.”

“So many.” Riven shot two more. One trying to get at Rio from behind, and another that was coming straight at him. He’d been spooked a little and fired without thinking. “Forget the Deadmage. We’ll die if we don’t find a way to stop these Spectres.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Rio pushed Riven back.

As more Spectres charged, reduced to near mindless minions, Rio stepped forward and held out his arms. A purple aura flickered to life around him. The Spectres froze in their tracks, their shimmering outlines shattering as the Sept burst out from within, floating through the air and forming glowing tentacles wrapped in purple lines all around Rio. It only lasted for a heartbeat, as the Sept faded, the tentacles disappeared, and the ghosts crumbled to nothing.

“The Chasm did you do?” Riven asked.

“My Essence. Assimilation.” He threw a grin back. “Very handy.”

More Spectres charged in, and Sept spiked out them, all caught by those purple nets. Lines of violet that triggered a faint memory. Where had Riven seen them before?

“What are you waiting for?” Rio swerved past one that had somehow squeezed in and jumped at him, slashing it apart with his Coral knife. He shifted to one side, and his purple aura expanded in a line in front of him, shooting through the lines of the Spectres. The ghosts died, their Sept pulled from them in heartbeats. “Go after him.”

Him. Riven stared through the gap. The Deadmage was a distant speck growing smaller every moment, but he hadn’t disappeared yet. There was still time.

“Try not to die,” Riven said, then charged through the gap that had opened up.

“Just be careful of getting burned.” Rio’s warning was lost in the clamour of the Spectres.

Holy Scions, there were so many. Riven paused once when was out of the immediate circle of ghosts, and stared back. Rio was falling back, drawing the Spectres after him and away from Riven, while Viren was pushing through them bullishly. Even at this distance, it was obvious she was tiring, the clouds of dust from the ruptures all around her obscuring just how fatigued she was. Riven couldn’t leave his companions alone against the rows and rows of ghosts making them stagger back step after step. He couldn’t abandon his friends. Friends? Did they really mean enough to him to be called friends?

Damn it, the Deadmage was getting away. Cursing the circumstances, Riven dashed off. He’d find a way to bring down that Deadmage no matter what.

Mist swirled as Riven ran past. It was too late to try sneaking, and the noise of his passage attracted unwanted attention. Spectres loomed in the fog, shadowy figures bordered by glowing silhouettes. So much for Rio dragging them all away, though in all fairness, there was too damn many.

The first Spectre charged out, heading straight for Riven with a scream. He had his gun ready. The shock and fright of having to fight for his life left with the bullet shooting out his pistol, and the ghost fell, fading to dust in mere moments.

“Give up,” another said as it too rushed at him. Riven fired again, and it too fell.

More Spectres attacked him. Dead men, women, even children. Old and young, all beyond help and all bent on turning Riven the same as them. Death, and afterwards, Deathless. And all of them intoned the same things over and over.

“There is no hope.”

“You will not escape.”

“The Sundering comes for all.”

“Why fight when everything will end soon?”

“Do not deny us our freedom!”

“We will rise, and scum like you shall fall to wayside.”

Riven paid them little attention, a small part of his mind that wasn’t engaged in the act of not dying noting them down for later. If he even got a later. He emptied his gun’s magazine after killing near a dozen Spectres, reloaded the cartridge, and nearly emptied it again. Too many. He was only wasting his time here. Riven ran again. He was no Viriya, or Rio, no Essentier who could depend on his powers to see him through the day.

Or was he? Something had happened in the refinery, and no, it didn’t seem like the Phantom had protected him. There was something else going on.

The Haven grew larger as Riven ran harder, his breath catching in his throat and his legs throwing up the first faint protests at the forced exercise. Behind him, the Spectres were still charging in fast. He’d have to find a way to give them the slip but for now, his target was near. The Deadmage had slowed, approaching the dark Haven like a jaguar sneaking up on a deer drinking from a stream.

How did the Spectres find him? Mother’s old stories said the Deathless lived on life itself, preying on mortals going about their daily lives, but the truth couldn’t have been so dramatic. Riven would have to ask later.

He jerked to a stop beside a blue Coral tree. Coral. Of course. Rio had been tearing them apart with his Coral knife. Taking a deep breath, Riven started to climb. His legs were protesting harder now, but they’d thank him later if his hypotheses held true and he could stop running for his damn life.

The Spectres were charging through the mist, their shadows growing sharper every moment he was struck on the trunk. There was so little time. The Coral’s surface was rough, and Riven tore both his skin and his clothes as he tried to get higher. It wasn’t easy. The damn tree had no natural grips or handholds, just the odd depression where Riven had to wedge his fingers and the tips of boots. Thank the Scions there was no wind. He’d have toppled off age ago otherwise.

As the ghosts made their presence known, screaming their battle cries that felt more like accusations, Riven tried to scramble up fast as he could. Crap, his sweat was going to make him slip. Then he’d be spotted and torn apart since his gun was running out of shots to fire.

So close. So damn close. Their screaming was pounding everywhere and everything, threatening to drag Riven down. Just a little higher, damn it.

Just as the first Spectre burst out of a blob of mist, Riven grabbed the lowest hanging branch and pulled himself up. He breathed in harsh and fast. Safe for now. The ghosts were swarming the area, looking everywhere and calling him out like he was a child lost from their mother.

Riven squeezed himself close to the tree trunk and climbed higher, making as little sound as possible. No time to wait for them to disperse. The Deadmage was getting far again.

He started moving through the tangle of branches. It was tough squeezing past the Coral protrusions sticking out everywhere. Riven had to duck past a few, hurdle over others, bend several out of his away. At least there were no leaves to scratch him or anything. The Sept on the Coral trees was scant at best. All the while, the Spectres roamed the ground, appearing and disappearing from the mist. He swallowed as a branch threatened to break under his weight. What if a bead of sweat dropped right on a Spectre? What if a little bit of Sept got into his nose and sneezed loud enough to wake up everything that had ever been in the Chasm? It was pointless to worry overmuch. He just had to forge on as carefully as he could.

Of course, that’s when a Coral branch decide it no longer wanted to be a part of the canopy and broke. All the Spectres looked before it made its way to the ground. They screamed.

“Shit,” Riven muttered, then hurried forwards, walking most of the time, running when he could, and crawling when forced to.

The ghosts tried to climb the Coral trees. They even made good progress, getting several yards up the trunk, but where Riven was bleeding from a few scratches against the trunk, their cuts drew out their Sept and they fell back to the ground. If anything, Riven worried more about falling through the branches than about the ghosts making their way up into the canopy.

But it didn’t matter. He got close enough to the Deadmage.

Riven pulled out his gun. He’d made sure it had enough bullets to at least dish out a few hits, though whether they’d actually do anything was another matter. Viriya’s shots hadn’t stopped the Deadmage, just as they hadn’t stopped the Phantoms at first. Not until she’d used her Essence to tear them to shreds.

The Deadmage turned and Riven froze. Had he sensed Riven somehow? More cracks lined his brown-green face, but his eyes glowed brighter than ever, lit by a fire red as gleaming blood. “You can’t stop me boy. And even if you could, it’s not going to end anything. This—all this­­—is far bigger than me.”

He was readying to attack, little fires flickering out from his cloak and racing all around him. Riven had no way to protect himself. Something he should have thought through before charging in maybe.

So Riven, of course, stalled the Deadmage. “What in the Chasm do you want?”

“What we all want. To ascend. To leave this rotten mess of a world behind before its destroyed.”

“Destroyed?”

“Well, of course. What do you think Sundering means?”

Riven shook his head. He’d been trying to think of some way to stop the Deadmage, but those words had thrown him off his line of thought. “What is the Sundering?”

“Ascension. When we rise to the next stage and leave this horrid mortal plane. When we will no longer be bound to this world where we are stuck, unable to do anything at all. Do you understand how frustrating it is, seeing all the living go on about their lives while you have nothing at all, always yearning for that distant feeling that awaits you but you simply cannot reach it?”

Riven couldn’t. Mostly, he had no idea what any of that meant, except for one point that rose out of the mess of that little speech. The Deathless hated people because they weren’t stuck like the ones who had passed on. It… made surprising sense. Enough for the first spikes of pity to bloom, and for Riven to lower his gun.

To drop his guard.

The Deadmage blasted fire. Riven cursed. Of course, he was the one being stalled here, fool that he was. The fireball was enormous, and there was no way Riven would be able to avoid it. He was struck in the bramble of Coral branches. Enclosed, and trapped. Shit.

No other choice left. As the inferno shot towards Riven, he hammered on the Coral branches with his feet. One broke and fell, leaving just enough space for him to squeeze out and drop to the ground. The fireball slammed into the Coral canopy, singeing Riven’s back even as he fell to the ground.

The drop was high, one he wouldn’t have made without desperation needling him on. Riven landed hard, his legs crimping, pain wrapping his ankles in a torturous embrace. Really, this much stress after last night was the last thing he needed. He stood straight, evincing at the throbbing. He was upright. There was that at least.

“You’re a fool to expose yourself so,” the Deadmage said, like Riven didn’t know already.

“What do you mean ascending?” Riven asked.

“Nothing you need concern yourself with boy.” The Deadmage raised his arms, heat waving through the area and banishing the mist. More fire birthed into existence over his head, growing and glowing brighter.

“Maybe it does. I think I made one of you ascend a while back.”

The Deadmage paused in his fiery ministrations. “What?”

“Do you know what this is?” Riven brought out the Sept crystal. The darkness within writhed like a whirlpool of ink. “This is what turned a Spectre into a Phantom.”

Those were likely not the best choice of words. Riven had intended to stall the Deadmage some more, but the Spectres had heard him too. They came in from behind, their voices slowly becoming clearer and clearer.

“Spectres…”

“Phantoms…”

“Ascendance…”

Dammit, Riven needed to learn to keep his mouth shut. He whirled, gun out and pointed at the approaching ghosts. Just as he was about to fire, fiery light turned blinding behind him as though a Septillion sun was being born. He threw himself to the ground, covering his head as an enormous fireball whooshed over his head and burst into the midst of the Spectres. They screamed, their burning bodies turning to dark silhouettes in the fire before dissolving to nothing. In a few heartbeats, they were gone with the fire, no trace left of them save the ground scorched black.

Riven quickly pushed himself to his aching feet. “You know something about this?” he asked, waving the crystal again. Why on the Chasm had he destroyed the Spectres? To stop them from turning into Phantoms like Nory?

“Where did you find a Scion’s piece?”

Riven turned cold, as though the mist was seeping into him. This little Sept crystal was a piece of a Scion? Impossible. “In an abandoned Sept pit.”

“Give it to me boy.” Sudden gripped from his voice like drool. “Hand it over, and I will spare you, your friends and this precious lang of yours.”

The Deadmage eyed him from the distance and Riven held his gaze. Just a little longer, and Viriya would arrive. Or Rio. Either would do, and then this witch could finally be stopped.

“I don’t think so.”

The Deadmage laughed and raised his arms. Another fireball grew to life. “I will raze this whole land and pick that Scion piece from the ashes.”

“Not if I destroyed it first.”

“You cannot.”

Before Riven could prove otherwise, the Deadmage created an inferno. Riven gasped, as sudden warmth possessed him whole. Fire swirled around the Deadmage, emblazoning the whole area with its heat. The flames flicked around faster and faster, swirling into a vortex like a fiery tornado, and the Deadmage rose into the air, the firestorm a podium for his ascent.

“You will burn!” The Deadmage rose higher, the fires now turning night to day. “You will all burn!”

Riven took aim and fired. No effect. A lick of flames whipped out and his Sept bullet disappeared. He’d fire again but there was no point wasting what few shots he had left. The blazing ball had burst through the Coral canopy, and burning branches were spearing the ground everywhere. Riven’s breath caught The branches of Coral… spears.

He dashed forward, picking up a slender branch whose burned end had become jagged and sharp. The perfect spear.

“Don’t be stupid, boy.”

The Deadmage motioned with one hand, and a column of white-hot fire shot our from the blazing twister and raced at Riven. He jumped back, the flame shattering the ground at the force of its impact. Riven stumbled, but kept himself upright and dashed away as the column followed him around. Fast as the fire was, he sprinted away from it, though the heat swimming everywhere made it seem pointless to run. The flames cooked Riven alive wherever he was.

But there was a point where he had enough space. Riven forced himself to stop, took a steadying breath, drew back his impromptu spear, then flung it at the Deadmage.

The witch grinned as the branch flew at him. He lashed the fire like a whip and caught the branch in a blazing shield. The Coral branch disintegrated. Crap. What in the Chasm was Riven going to do if he couldn’t hit the Deadmage with anything? This frustration, it must have been the same for the witch when he was facing Viriya, but unlike him, Riven couldn’t run.

“It’s time you died, boy.” The Deadmage pulled his hand back, a tongue of fire from his tornado pooling in his hand. Above them, the larger fireball had grown enough to blot out the sky completely. Riven stared around everywhere. What was he going to do?

The Deadmage froze. So did Riven. He sensed it too and turned, a little relieved smile creeping onto his face. A golden-green bolt was shooting straight for the Deadmage.

Viriya had arrived.

With a frustrated growl, the witch flicked his wrist and a wall of his flames collided with the glowing shot from Viriya’s gun. The clash caused an explosion, and when the flames cleared, the Deadmage was unharmed.

Viriya walked in, gun in one hand, green star in the other. “Good job keeping him busy.”

“I thought you said I wasn’t to meddle,” Riven said, smile interfering with his words.

“I’ll yell at you once I’ve worked through my shock that you’re still alive.”

“Ha, ha.”

“Fools,” screamed the Deadmage. “Fools. You’re only wasting my time.”

“Am I?” Viriya shot the ground just in front of the Deadmage. The whole area turned green, little emeralds popping up all around it like glittering weeds. She aimed her gun higher, maybe to shoot up and cause the same kind of destruction that tore through swathes of the Spectres.

But then the Deadmage fell. He disappeared into the fiery tornado that he’d risen on, and the spinning inferno blasted outwards, ripping through the ground and tearing up all the green. Riven and Viriya flattened themselves on the earth, and the flames roiled over them, searing his back. Holy Scions, the sheer heat. He had to bite back a scream as agony raced along his wounds from last night, little conflagration popping up everywhere from his neck to his waist.

“We won’t survive another hit,” Viriya said once the fire had cleared away.

Riven winced as he rose to his, his back stinging everywhere. The fire above was growing even larger, the ball turning into a star. No doubt, it was visible for leagues all around.

Viriya was getting antsy, just as Rio had said. “I need an opening to get to him, but…”

Riven stared around, finally spotting the Deadmage among the intertwined Coral branches. How in the Chasm were they to reach him that far away? Viriya didn’t pause to consider, rushing to the nearest Coral tree and scrambling up its scorched trunk. Riven tried to call her back, but the Spectres from before made themselves known. And here he’d thought she had taken care of them all.

Viriya swung onto the canopy. Riven backed up against the trunk, the contact sending minute stings lancing all over, and he called her again but she was solely focused on the Deadmage. Sure, leave powerless Riven to deal with the swarm of ghosts. Where in the Chasm was Rio? Hopefully not dead.

Riven had too few bullets to kill so many of them. Too late to climb as well. The surviving Spectres had gathered close, ready to tear him apart.

He stared up in desperation, and his mouth opened though the scream got suck. The enormous fireball was descending. The heat sinking before it was an oppressive weight, searing Riven’s head and boiling all blood in his upper half, the air swirling and the colours twisting like a mirage. Scions save him, the fire wasn’t even close yet and Riven was about to pass out from the heat.

Branches caught fire and snapped. With a tiny shriek, Viriya fell, and Riven clumsily tried to catch her. All he did was cushion her fall with his bony back and the two of them yelled out in pain together. Scions, his spine was about to detach from the rest of him just to get some relief from the agony.

“Get the Chasm off me,” Riven grit out.

Viriya groaned. “What are you doing under me?”

Riven pushed her off, and stared up. The little sun was at the top of the canopy, burning through the Coral. Its light bathed the whole forest in a golden shimmer, and the Deadmage was reduced to a shadow within it, laughing like he’d just been enlightened by the world’s grandest joke. It barely made its way to Riven’s ears over the roar of the roiling inferno. Even the Spectres had frozen at the imminent prospect of being roasted.

“Holy fu—” Viriya’s voice caught. He’d never heard her so broken. “We are going to die.”

The heat possessed Riven. He was shaking now, the burning, thrumming air burying him with the weight of a mountain. Scions, the pressure. The… pressure. So familiar. His skin danced with it, his muscles screamed with it, and the agony vanished. He’d felt this before. He knew this.

They wouldn’t die.

“Get down!” He didn’t know if Viriya heard him over the deafening fire. Before she could protest, Riven pushed her to the ground, then threw himself beside her again. He had no real idea what he could do, what he might do, or what in the world might even happen, but there was something. His suspicions were right.

It was Riven. It had been him in the refinery, and it was him again now. This pressure filling him had to be proof.

“Riven!” Viriya had grabbed her forearm in a vice. “What the—”

The fire crashed on them, and the earth rose to meet it. All the pressure burst out of Riven in minute, golden lines, almost too thin to spot. They possessed the ground, throwing up a cocoon of rocks around him and Viriya that shielded them from the flames. The roar grew muted, and Riven heard himself breathe again. He was still cooking though.

“Are you doing this?” Viriya asked.

“I wish I knew,” Riven said, licking up the sweat trickling near his mouth and spitting it away.

There was no way to tell when the inferno had dissipated, for the heat within the cocoon, so Riven waited for a while. But then, how was he supposed to break out? The pressure had erupted out on its own, and he hadn’t really done anything on his own. He had no idea what to do now either.

Viriya solved the problem. Even in the dim light, the sweat was obvious, coating her pale face and slicking her brown hair. She punched the little rocky dome with her star, then ducked and covered her head. Riven decided to copy her. Good thing he did too. The cocoon imploded inwards, and they were free.

Riven coughed in the dust. “You could have warned me.”

“Like you did with… whatever you did?”

Good point. Riven didn’t argue. Though that was mostly because the Deadmage had fallen to the ground, his cloak now a mass of shreds whirling around his body in the wind. His flames had shaved the ground so deep, all the remained was scorched earth covered by the sparse stubble of Coral tree stumps, all blackened and burned. Heat waved off everything and radiated through the air with enough force so that Riven could fly off if he jumped. Or just faint.

“How in the eternal Chasm are you still alive?” the Deadmage growled.

Viriya picked up fistful of broken rocks in her left hand. “Stay back,” she warned Riven, then ran off. Riven stared after her, his question about what she was going to do now dying in his mind.

The Deadmage readied to pelt her with more fire, but she threw the rocks with her right hand. They shot at the witch like glowing green meteors. He was too busy shooting the rocks away with his flames, and Viriya got closer and closer. By the time he noticed her rushing straight at him, it was too late. The Deadmage aimed his hands at her, ready to shoot more fire, but Viriya had reached him. She punched her star right into his face and he crashed to the ground.

The whole exchange happened in a matter of heartbeats. Forget participating, Riven could barely keep track of what was going on.

“This won’t end,” the Deadmage said, clutching at his wound glowing green.

“Answer my questions, and it doesn’t have to.”

“No fool. I may die, but the others will be victorious. The Sundering cannot be stopped.”

Even as he tried to pull himself back up, Viriya had her gun out in her right hand. He said something Riven didn’t catch, but she fired before he could finish. The Deadmage screamed. He tried to rise, but Viriya stepped back and the green glow of the bullet lodged in his back grew blindingly bright. All the rocks she had thrown trembled once, then shot at the witch. His shriek lasted for less than a handful of heartbeats. Riven was too far to be sure, but no doubt what had happened to the Phantom at the refinery was happening to the Deadmage.

“What’d I tell you?” Rio had arrived, looking no less for wear.

Riven drooped, sighing. Now that it was over, the exhilaration of the last few moments disappeared too fast, leaving him hollow and in pain. He wasn’t sure what was filling his head. Relief? Some kind of hope for the future? No, he just needed to get out of the damn heat. Needed to give his damn back and legs and all the tiny burns and hurts and stings a good night’s rest. “Not enough.”

A pool of glimmering Sept grew around the torn and shredded Deadmage. It faded as Viriya returned towards Riven and Rio.

“It’s over,” she said. She didn’t pause when she reached them, her feet crunching on the charred, ashy ground as she glanced at Rio. “Now we need to find your demon.”

Rio gave Riven a secretive smile, then headed back as well. Riven waited, breathing in and out, slow and steady to let the smarting stop distracting him. Things had worked out even after he’d refused to hand over the crystal to the Deadmage, even after all this damage could be laid at his feet. It was fine. He was alive. They’d learned little from all this other than the fact there were other Deadmages out there doing the same thing as this one. All trying to achieve their strange ascendance. All trying to prepare for this coming Sundering.

Riven forced himself to move, trudging through the scorched ground. He still had a piece of the Scion. But what in the Chasm was he to do with it?