Silent One watched from his blanket of shade in the corner and hardly held back a full-blown, boisterous laugh. Neither Patri nor Amberosin had noticed the thin wavering veil of air mysteriously pulsing before them. Silent One could see a mirror from his position, could see what White and his guard would be seeing. Just an empty back aisle in a fair-sized shop with nothing to note. So long as his metal hand kept spinning there on the ground it would project whatever he wished. As such, the two companions he gained the night before looked absolutely ludicrous, standing with weapons drawn and barred teeth ready for a frontal assault. Silent One’s smile vanished rather quickly, however, as his eyes settled on his target. White’s attention was on the merchant for the time being. Silent One’s illusion was working well enough so Amberosin and Patri were safe but his self-control was waning each second. Every slight sway or turn of White’s oversized cloak and cape sent Silent One back to the fields on the day of the last Ta’ Hun. The last celebration of a venerable peace. The Fracturing. He saw a towering man in pearlescent armor stand over his brother’s limp body, a massive scar on Noctra’s face holding them where they stood. The crater was charred and steaming but White had barely noticed, looking curiously down at his elder brother, Ta’ Jir, like he was some sad oddity. A misplaced trinket. Crouching down in the shadows and keeping his body still may as well have been a battle for his life. Silent One was glad to be so well hidden, the shame he would feel at anyone seeing him shake, struggling so vehemently with controlling himself, would be too much. Too great a disgrace to his sacred namesake. Ta’ are not swayed. Ta’ sway. His father had been like stone, when it was required. Silent One wondered if he could do the same. Before him stood the propagator of all his sorrows, the puppet master behind a misery that had become his entire existence. A vicious god that walked among men with hands covered in more blood than all the battlegrounds of Mother Noctra’s history combined. Every fiber demanded that Silent One move, that he take the head of the great destroyer, and display it above the thousands that followed his wicked ways. Silent One wanted it so badly, desired so dearly to piece apart anyone involved with the eradication of his people, that he knew he should not have it. Instinct, not impulse. Breathe through, to peace. To Ta’ Hun. He was keenly aware that his own peace would only be found in vengeance or death, but the prayer did it’s job. Steadily his trembling ceased and a calm covered his heart. Thin as it was, it proved enough to give him a clear mind. Silent One’s illusion hid the light of his framework eye, the blue deeper and brighter than before, working harder to process everything in his line of sight. Left to right, he absorbed a whole new world. A place of essence, spirit, unscathed truths opened up before him. Silent One happily consumed it all. Every man and woman in the shop had a slightly different hue to the red of their essence, everyone except Amberosin. Amongst the sea of ruby and crimson she stood out as a human-shaped void next to Patri, whose own scarlet mingled with blue and green as he prepared his will, a slight purple tinge just under his skin to lessen the pain of casting. Both of Silent One’s companion’s had turned towards him, their stances relaxed as the sapphire light shone from his eye without alerting the guards. He held a finger to his lips, indicating they should stay quiet. Both nodded. Amberosin seemed curious but poor Patri looked terrified. The tortured young Ta’ struggled to break his attention from the woman-shaped void. So far as he’d been taught a person’s essence represented their soul. He’d only ever seen such an abysmal blackness in the carcasses of the game he hunted and bodies of the loved ones he survived. There were so many things it could imply but he didn’t have the time to ponder. Nor did he have the strength to pry himself away. It conflicted with everything he’d ever known. He was only able to break away because of Amberosin’s raised eyebrow, a whimsical, inquisitive expression on her face. She was definitely alive. He tried his best to ignore the pounding of his heart at Amberosin’s raised eyebrow. Focus. Silent One knew neither of them would be alive much longer if they stayed in that shop. Scattered within the estate guard’s red, orange, and yellow essence there were specks of black that he had never seen before coming to Blancana. The black did not glow or move so it wasn’t preparing to cast, it was just existing within them. Lord White himself acted like a conduit of sorts, pathways of essence sprouting from beneath the ground he stood upon like luminescent roots that extended to make contact with his soldiers and continued well beyond the walls of the shop, narrowly missing the spots their unlikely trio occupied for the time being. He quickly held both hands up and cautioned Amberosin and Patri to stay still, then pointed to the ground, motioned to Lord White, and mimicked a knife to his throat. They both seemed to understand. Aside from the massive, seemingly endlessly streams of essence coming from the man, something else was off about White to his venerable eye. More obsidian swirled in his veins, about his body, than all the others combined. Where others shone with the bright red vibrancy of life, White’s essence was pocked with green, blue, purple… a world’s worth of estypes pinging around within him. Silent One could absorb, transfer, and even fundamentally alter all estypes, but they never became part of him. They conformed into his own essence or escaped once he cast. Only the strongest, wisest of Ta’ had been able to integrate essence into their own body in such a way. Hard to imagine it was a fluke or flaw in his ability. Lord White, whether by traditional means or bastardized Ta’ sciences, had obtained nearly limitless power. With an infinite supply with which to cast and multiple lifetimes worth of ideas, there truly was no telling what he could do and Silent One needed desperately to find out, to assess his chances. He refused to throw his life away with a failed attempt. This was the reason he’d survived. My destiny will not be squandered. Just a blur as he moved out from behind his cast illusion, leaving his spinning hand to provide cover for the others, Silent One completely surprised the first two guards he came upon. One fell to his remaining framework hand, strangled of all life before he could make a sound. The other found a small needle of silver in his temple and died as it pulled free, returning back to Silent One’s jar. Both guards fell without a sound. Each shimmering line trailing to Lord White withered immediately. The remaining soldiers would know of the assault the instant their commander did, the exact location their comrade's lifelines cut out. Silent One wasted no time, refusing to worry about the puppets still secured to their master’s string, he willed his venerable sight to fade and darted towards the man with the horned mask. Weaving between tables and makeshift aisles Silent One ran a jagged course, cutting across at every juncture, the small jar on his side slowly spilling silver dust all the while. About him, he heard the shuffling feet and scraping footwear of the guards confidently getting into formation. He paid them no mind, still. The shop was small, their numbers great, every corner covered in one person or another's sightline. They had no reason to fear. Not just yet. The shopkeeper stood sweating behind his counter, eyes flicking back and forth as he realized something had happened. He seemed to have feared plenty, though most obviously was his discomfort at the closeness of Lord White, who leaned against the opposite side of the same counter as if in thought. “Interesting…” Grand Councilor. Silent One’s heart pounded harder in his ears with each quick, calculated step. Lord White. Two short strides away he readied the remaining framework hand about his right wrist, letting it liquify and come to a point at the length of a short blade. Father’s dearest friend. Sliding low, silent, he activated the Trallen dust spread out across the modest shop floor. All around shadows of silver dust came to life, mimicking the estate guards in build and arms, their presence weighted with essence that ignited a warning in White’s infinite web. Every soldier swung erratically about them when the sensation came on, too much for any one person to withstand calmly. They knocked about wares and splintered wood before Lord White stood tall, away from the counter. Find your peace. Silent One snarled beneath the thin wrappings in opposition to his prayer. White was unlinking the guards. He could see their bodies jerk when it happened, like a physical plug was being pulled from their chests. They’d begun to calm, relying on their own instincts and senses to assess the situation and a clearness overcame them all before they snapped back to attention. A large man with yellow-tinged ochre skin, red hair on either side of his head, and a goatee that hung past his belt line raged when clarity overcame him. He pulled a curved saber from his side and struck the Trallen dust decoy nearest him only to be met with a faceful of searing flames; emerald and persistent beyond all measure. The small explosion created a chain reaction, spouting bright green flames where each silver dust person had stood, sending imbued shrapnel in all directions. Nearly half of the guards combusted or were pierced through by shards of silver instantly, unaware up until their last moments. Others were quicker, more reactive, but that just led to louder deaths. A few cast shields, which blocked the flames, but were shredded by the piercing shrapnel. It sounded like hail against a tin roof behind the roaring fires that grew to engulf the unfortunate bodies they attached to. When Lord White stepped back onto one foot, just barely shifting in genuine surprise, Silent One struck. With the metals I mined for you and your disgraceful empire, I’ll take my vengeance. Silent One sprang forward with his framework hand in a single, sharp point, fully extended. He lusted desperately for the feeling of White’s flesh severing to his touch. A euphoric shame traveled up his body as he tore through White’s massive cloak and braced for impact. Silent One smiled with a joy that he was sure wasn’t his own. It couldn’t be- As he passed from one side of the cloak to the other, he cut only air. Behind him a large gloved hand clamped onto his neck and lifted Silent One from the ground. He knew I was there? Why let them die? Why- The grip around his neck tightened and air was getting harder to catch, his lungs heated to the point of burning already. Lord White spoke with a chuckle, in a singsong manner. Silent One hadn’t noticed how large the man was from afar. “Interesting indeed. I thought at least one of them would survive.. Mezir will have to do better recruiting.” His steel grip around Silent One’s neck was even, steady, and calm. Devoid of anger. Black had started to invade the edges of his vision, creeping towards his iris like an unfinished stitch on a Teller’s quilt. My story isn’t over. Silent One willed every ounce of essence he could feel up to his neck, wrapping it around White’s glove with a serpent's tense efficiency, and cast the inferno building in his lungs outwards, upon his captor. A smoldering heat surrounded his neck, crackling as it rose higher than the top of his head, searing the ceiling of Schuri’s shop. White held firm, chuckling once more. Darkness had nearly completed it’s take over of Silent One’s waking world. His hope faded along with the light of life, but with his last gasp White’s hand about his throat loosened ever so slightly. “ As will you, little Ta’. You’ll have to do an exponentially better job. You’re much too early.. Much too fresh. True, you’ve mowed through grunts left and right since you arrived last night, and I am well aware of what you did at the mines..” he let it hang there, let the memory marinate in Silent One’s mind. “ I tracked you, boy, all the way down Noctra’s spine, I knew where you were. I read every report. Memorized every name of those you slaughtered. Pitiful display for one of Venerable blood, truly. Your father would be disgusted.” White’s words stung the young Ta’ worse than his own oxygen deprived lungs. The bastard was hurting him as much as he could. Lord White wanted to break him down, one piece at a time. Silent One felt it, there beneath the large man's calm. A tension that broke through in White’s use of the word boy. Something he recognized. A nervousness in the man that calmed his own manic state. A chance. “Now-” his words were strong and confident, buoyant almost “You must remember this, my mercy. I will not kill you now, no. Instead, you and your friend cowering in the back there, you will both live on to serve your purpose.” Friend? Only one- a sudden, sharp cold entombed his right leg, stopping Silent One’s thoughts abruptly. “ With the appropriate mementos, of course.” Heat was suddenly siphoned from Silent One’s body, chilling his veins until they contracted to the point of numbness. He knew what that feeling meant. No. No not again. He refused to look, refused to accept a reality that saw him lose even more of himself to that bastard! Silent One kept his eyes forwards and spun as hard as he could, tearing wrappings and the skin beneath them against White’s glove. Ignoring torrents of blood that trickled down his chest he slammed his left leg back as hard as he could manage, pushing with a pitiful supply of essence. Silent One’s great effort afforded him only more pain as his leg reverberated in agony against Lord White’s impossibly thick framework armor. The shop around him was fading fast, wrapped head swimming through molasses as he desperately tried to think. To cast. To do anything. He’d thought himself so ready, so able, powerful enough to take down an immortal emperor with nothing more than a shoddy plan concocted in rage. This sad death must have been what he had desired all along because he charged forth knowing full well his chances of surviving, using the excuse of protecting his newly made friends as motivation. Silent One would have done the same had he been alone. Our purpose... He knew. Reality grew further away, miniscule in his vision, surrounded by a backdrop of absolute nothingness. White knew I was here already. He trapped me like a rat. The darkness around him stayed frozen, barren, soundless; all he could think was how it seemed so peaceful and welcoming. Silent One was missing something, he could feel it nagging him, but it was getting harder to care. His world was blurry in the distance, toppling down, to the side. He didn’t feel his head bounce on the hardwood floor of the shop, though he saw it happen, as if to someone else. Crimson splattered the tiny, faraway display and even with such an intense blur Silent One recognized the color of freshly spilled blood, raining from above as his head. A fuzzy image shot closer with one forceful thud from his fleeting heart, a multicolored lump in a pool of deep red, laying close enough to touch. No.. Again the image advanced on the waves of a determined fury, seething in resentment, in refusal of defeat. No. No. No! His internal shouts turned to growls as reality became clear once again. Just before his face, it twitched with a dull heat. My fucking leg.. First my people, my world! Then my hands... now my fucking leg! No, no more. Silent One fought as hard as his bled out body could manage, struggled up to his one knee and reached for the loose appendage before him. If he could get to it in time, if he could cast quick enough, he could save it. White hadn’t stopped him and he could no longer hear, oblivious to the happenings around him, his body was relying on bare minimum senses to accomplish the task at hand. Trallenblade dust rattled and inched towards him, far too slowly. Turning against his deep seeded desires to protect Amberosin and the poor exhausted Patri, Silent One called his free hand to return, dispelling his evidently useless illusion. A pasty blank look of shock was plastered beneath Patri’s long, thin hair, who could only stare at Lord White with his mouth agape. Only one. Silent One couldn’t help but give a weak smile. Amberosin must have been the reason White’s huge, iron grip had faltered. The blood.. It’s his! Silent One watched the blood falling from sullen bandages about his own head, pooling next to his own severed limb. This time his laughter broke out from behind his wrappings. A hoarse, cracked, manic sound that he hardly recognized as being his own. His vow of silence would be started once again but he couldn’t stop himself from busting his gut to the point of tears. It seemed things may work out more in his favor than he’d realized, all thanks to Amberosin. His right framework hand slammed down into the mixing blood as his laughter faded to an unconscious grunt. Silent One felt the ground shaking, shattering beneath his burden of a body and finally gave in to the endless darkness that had been calling him. An emerald flash awoke in his absence. Not again… not here.