Into The Wild Blue

[Hector]

TIMESTAMP: -
NOTES: Hector's aidolon's abilities can be found in his plot notes.

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Vergil was wary of the three strangers who’d made this rather sudden appearance, but given the circumstances, one did not really have a lot of options and there was safety in a flock when facing unknown dangers. The large, red-haired man spoke first and then the armored woman; the former in Common, the latter in a tongue he’d never heard spoken…but he did recognize it. Since gaining access to the Gelerian Imperium’s vast library, the man had spent much of his time poring over it; though the texts he’d read were outdated, he could hazard a guess that she spoke Vastian, the language of Solunarium; this fascinated him, especially because the man accompanying her spoke Common like a Kalzasern. Hector, on the other hand, held zero recognition for the woman’s words outside of ‘Imperialibus,’ which he could infer was said in reference to himself and Vergil.

As Aoren spoke of the raw power here, both Hector and Vergil took a moment to further assess their surroundings. The tower in the distance appeared to be the ruins of the Godspire, though only Vergil realized this. Hector would’ve if he’d not given up his memories– his parents were fascinated by the construct and had taught him quite a bit about it. Either way, both men were in awe of the thing.

Without warning, though a few of those gathered opened their mouths to speak once more, none of them managed to get out a full sentence before being interrupted by the sudden onset of infernal wailing; something, perhaps their presence, had awakened the frankly bizarre clockwork giants that had been scattered ‘round the landscape. Hector flinched as if the noise caused him pain while Vergil appeared immediately alert, eyes darting between the strange, shrieking machinations, Hector, and the rest of the group.

Then, Aoren called for everyone to run and his elven companion followed suit, as did Imogen. In turn, Vergil grabbed Hector by the shoulder, falling into a sprint himself and pulling Hector along until the boy came to his senses. “Fast, Hector,” was all the man said.

And it was enough for the younger vampyr to catch on. Vergil had begun to channel Adrenosis as soon as he’d started to move, heightening his agility and pushing himself against what impressive limits he already had; Hector caught on, doing much the same. Further, Vergil would invoke increased adrenaline in both of them through Pheromancy from his touch, though once the elf felt that, he took over with his own channeling thereof. Both vampyres found their casting enhanced by the Lunicite they wore and the excess of aether in the air, their bodies moving with supernatural ease, grace, and speed beyond what even they, empowered by Vitalis as they were, had come to expect.

Additionally, as they set off, Hector communicated to his aidolon; the spirit had been present, though lying in wait within the boy’s shadow. ‘Hide us,’ he commanded.

In turn, Hector’s shadow would rapidly appear to expand, abyssal miasma surrounding both vampyres, keeping close proximity to one another, and this miasma, attached to Hector, would move with them, though the aidolon only created a space roughly 3.5 meters in radius. With both within the spirit’s dark demesne, he invoked Silence; the fleeing vampyres and anyone else in the black cloud would make absolutely no noise whatsoever. The caveat to that was the inability to communicate verbally as well as total blindness; however, those able to perceive aether would be able to still do so, should their skill exceed mastery.

Hector was immune to these effects; they did not affect the aidolon himself, and, by nature of Reminiscence, the boy would share in these immunities, gaining perception within the darkness. Vergil, however, did not share these boons, but he didn’t need sight nor sound to keep up; he would track Hector by scent, remaining just a few steps behind him.

Quite quickly and completely quietly, the two of them caught up to the foreign elf, though maintaining enough distance that she remained untouched by the spirit's miasmatic field. Once they did, their pace slowed. Hector had been told, time and time again, not to rush ahead, and, while he oft found this obnoxious, he figured now, of all times, was the best scenario to heed that particular sentiment from his mentor.

If, however, the spirit reacted poorly to the woman's magic, they would fall back out of its radius until such time that they arrived at the tower.

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Aidolon Speech

"Kathalan Tongue/Speech"

"Vallenor Tongue/Speech"

"Common Tongue/Speech"

"Mythrasi Tongue/Speech"

[Hilana Chenzira]

After weeks of daily treatment with teas and ointments, regular physical therapy, exercise, and rest, the discolouration of Hilana’s right elbow and shoulder had all but vanished. The occasional ache was still there, but In any event, Hilana had reminded herself not to touch anything unless she was instructed to do so by those that she accompanied. They, at least, would have Sembled it and everything else around her with far more skill than the Vastiana possessed in order to better understand the lay of the land, so to speak. At Valaera’s words, she nodded in understanding and acceptance, and she took note of the warning. “Intelligo, Vigilia.” As the Vigilia willed, so Hilana would act. It was far more important to get this strange Tower and land dealt with, and carefully, because she could not risk a repeat of what had happened at the Crystal Tree when she had ventured North with Æros and found her new charge.

With the awful smell in the air, Hilana instinctively pulled up the mask-like scarf at her throat to cover her nose and mouth. It likely wouldn’t do anything, what with the radiation, but perhaps something was better than nothing. When Aoren agreed that the two parties should combine forces, the girl just nodded, her hands going to the straps of her rucksack. Surely there was strength and security in numbers, and since Sentinel Valaera agreed, the Vastiana was content to follow their lead. She was about to ask the air elemental spirits to clean the air around them, when the others beat her to it. She could hold her aether in reserve until or unless it was needed. The sudden wailing made her head turn sharply towards the sound, looking for its source, tension in her frame like a coiled spring.

As the Princess and the other Sentinels took off, Hilana was hot on their heels. She did not linger; she did not need to be told a second time. The athletic nomad ran, her boots helping her churn up the ground underneath her feet. The monsters were something out of a horror story, and as much as Hilana had taken to getting books out from the libraries with stories of foreign lands for those in her new home, these aberrations had not come up in one of them yet. But she had heard enough to know about some of the Clockwork Empire - those had been terrifying tales told around the fire by her older friends, that had begun as myths and legends and had been built into something that Hilana had a feeling was now underestimating the reality, considering what she was looking at. Her dark skirts and her double braids streamed out behind her, having taken out the extraneous trinkets, tokens, fangs, and beads from her impossibly thick ebon hair for this trip. Less was more, and anything that might attract attention was not the wisest choice.

[Paragon]

P A R A G O N

There was a rumbling in the ground. Then there was a feeling like all of the air being sucked out of a room. It reached into the very hearts of the assembled and began pulling at the aether within them as though trying to draw it from their souls. Those with the ability to perceive the flow of aether in the air or with preternatural senses that were sensitive to magic, would be able to see all of the collective aether rushing toward the tower in the distance. With a mighty effort, Aoren held tightly to the aether that was his own. It took a concerted effort to cling to it and prevent it from being swept away in the tide rushing toward the tower.

“There!” Aoren pointed to the gutted ruins of what appeared to be a guard outpost. He sprinted forward, moving with a surprising amount of agility for a man his size. He just barely reached the edge of the outpost’s outer wall when the rumbling ceased. Aoren skidded to a halt at the mouth of a gaping ruin, he whirled, reached out for the first person near him and yanked them into the shelter. He repeated this, pulling as many people as he could into the shelter.

Then the sirens ceased.

The air hissed and sizzled as it was electrified. The earth wailed as rock and stone groaned against the force of the explosion that rippled across the ground. It was unclear whether the booming noise was thunder or the screams of a billion souls shrieking in fear of what was to come. Prismatic light exploded outward from the walls of the tower in the distance. A veritable wave of chaotic aetheric mists blasted every surface in every direction. For the briefest of moments, for those who looked, the ruined city around them flashed into something different. Some place else. A city illuminated by the light of the wave of devastation that was about to doom it for eternity, pristine and sprawling, a clockwork metropolis that commanded the attention of the world. High-rise buildings built of steel and glass brushed up against dirigibles that floated lazily through the skies. Magical levitating monorails with high-speed trains carried passengers desperate to escape the city that was crumbling behind them. The shadow of ancient peoples, dressed in the high fashion of a now-dead empire, either ran in terror or simply stood holding onto one another as they were condemned to the inevitable. In the heavens, the skies were filled with hundreds of dragons all flying toward the eye of the destruction that was unraveling the world itself, dragons that were accompanied by the ghosts of godly figures looking desperate to halt the devastation unfolding.

The Doom of the Old World was what was seen by those who looked.

It would be a moment seared into their memories for the rest of their days, however many they had left.

“Help me!” Aoren pressed a hand to one of the walls, kneeling down to touch the ground as well. He summoned the full might of his power to bolster the strength of the rock and stone protecting them from the wave of destruction blooming outward from the tower. It was moving fast.

They had enough time to do one thing, enact one spell, to either save themselves or save each other.

Off Topic

You have enough time to do ONE thing to either save yourself or assist Aoren in attempting to save each other.

[Pharaoh]

Valæra's path was already leading her toward the self-same structure that seemed to beckon to Aoren. It was the most defensible structure in their immediate purview, and one of the better preserved structures amongst the ruins that littered the area. Her attending Sentinels were close at her heels as they drew up to the decrepit building just as the klaxons sounded their last and the split second's silence was soon supplanted by galvanism and then a rippling explosion that pierced their ears and their very æther. The Solunarian's focused their attentions on clinging to their energies and Valæra, Grandmaster Sembler that she was, was able to split her focus enough to sustain the protections she was projecting from her person to those in her immediate vicinity.

The tectonic surge of an old paradigm being rent to ruin was overwhelming even for one of Valæra's inherent skill and tireless training. The Vigilia would apply her Kinetic Craft to her Elemental, as she shook off the dread distractions and crouched to aid Aoren in further fortifying their present defences. As she did so, one of her veiled attendants was about the work of mapping the Slipspace and the other was turning their attention backward to see whether there were stragglers amongst their party wanting for help getting to their brittle bastion. The Sentinel would vault to collect any who didn't make it, but if all reached the structure of their own volition, would turn their attention back to the foreground and push back any projectiles that threatened to breach their fortifications with Kinetic bursts. Both Sentinels seemed focused on protecting Aoren and Valæra, the more potent mages and less disposable figures in the eyes of the Draconic Crown of the Umbrium. One was, after all, a dragon himself and a strategically significant diplomat and the other was daughter to the head of their order and sister to the Crown Prince of the Umbrium.

[Imogen]

Though Imogen possessed no power to Semble, one of the few advantages offered by impending catastrophe was that even her perception could hardly escape it. As she ran, she felt the sudden shift in the atmosphere much like one felt a change in humidity before a thunderstorm; the heavy press of aether condensed about her seemed to lift, first as a welcome sensation which freed the body of an overbearing presence, then with increasingly uncomfortable alacrity.

The witch kept an easy grip on her internal energies, benefitting from extensive experience and training in Animus, but she could feel the shift in ambient pressures tugging at her astral body. It was an alarming sort of discomfort, an effect produced nowhere in nature and for which there was no instinctive response. Imogen glanced at the sunlit pact-quarterstaff still gripped firmly in hand. It did not move, her muscle and will sufficient to resist the ambient tug, but long streamers of artificial sunlight and wan, flickering silver fire trailed off into the sky, spiraling towards the distant tower.

While she was no historian, she thought she knew what happened next in this particular story.

Imogen hardly noticed when a huge hand grabbed her and tugged her into the ruins, caught up in the pervasive feeling of impending doom. What was this, anyway? The Sundering was long past, but she was just learned enough to understand that its trespass upon the Aetherium had violated time itself. Was this just an echo of the catastrophe, or had she somehow stumbled into a canker within the fabric of Ransera, papered up by the sacrifices of the gods and spirits and left to endlessly repeat itself? If that was the case, then death seemed inevitable- the force which had laid waste to creation would snuff out any defense they could interpose. If it were all just some tortured memory of the world, though...

Either possibility, Imogen found, filled her with annoyance even in the face of certain death. The Sundering was done with. To dwell on it struck her as hopelessly untidy; to be killed by it, a tacit admission that nothing had mattered since Kaitos blew up his damn tower and everyone was just pissing in the wind. Certainly that would be an insult to those gods who had given their lives for the sake of the world in that instant, their formless shadows limning the horizon. Thus resolved to proceed as though survival were possible, the witch freed herself from her own internal monologue just in time to observe the very explosion she'd feared.

"Ah, fucking-"

Her curse was cut short by the ghostly vista, the rupture in reality seeming to reveal the glory which it had extinguished centuries past. Certainly it was a majestic sight. For a moment, in fact, she suddenly understood that Zaichaer had always been a pale echo of this dreamlike metropolis, a clumsy attempt to capture a faded memory of the crowning achievement of the mortal world.

(In fact, that had blown up too, hadn't it? She wondered if the rift over Zaichaer was, somehow, another echo of the Sundering.)

Well, no time to gawk at the scenery. Mr. Aoren was kneeling now, face practically split with concentration as he channeled his power into the building. To her side, one of the armor-clad elves of indeterminate origin was also beginning to channel some kind of spell, plainly hoping to reinforce the space they stood in. Not for the first time, Imogen felt a passing regret that she'd never found a teacher for Kinetics or Elementalism herself. Or Negation, though that one was, frankly, all on her.

If she couldn't do much about the wave of destruction bearing down on them, though, perhaps she could still help by mitigating the wild chaos of the Dread Mists it drove before it. The Sunsinger slipped around Mr. Aoren's body, interposing herself between the prince and the oncoming explosion, and let her glowing staff drop to the floor at her side. She raised both hands into the air in front of her, and materialized her Pact shield.

The pact shield, a circular monstrosity six feet in diameter and polished to a mirror-bright shine, faded quickly into being, finally blocking her view of the magnificent city's destruction. Though it was an extension of her own soul, Imogen had no illusions about how effectively it would weather the oncoming obliteration; she could only hope that the other mages could do something about that. Instead, she focused on the nimbus of silver light surrounding the weapon, pouring aether into it until it erupted into argent nova-flame, and then pushing power into that until it burned like a bonfire. The air roiled with sparks as the magic caught and burned away the tiny scraps of chaos lingering in the ruins which had not been pulled into the tower moments before.

[Hector]

TIMESTAMP: -
NOTES: -

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For the rest of their stay within this ancient land of arcane decay, it appeared that sticking close to the flock would be the optimal choice; Hector and Vergil had no intention of doing aught else. The land around them began to rip and tear as the tower itself rapidly became a veritable vacuum of aether. Hector, thoroughly panicked and acting on instinct, followed the instructions of the largest of their company, the dragon man, and both he and his companions made it into the fallen bastion with swiftness. For now, they needed no help. Once within, the inky darkness of his Aidolon would recede back into Hector’s own shadow.

And though they found shelter, there was no repose within; respite would have to wait, as the vortex that howled ‘round them threatened to destroy its already crumbling walls. They saw brief glimpses of the tower’s fall, images that might haunt others of different perspectives, but both vampyres and the spirit found that ephemeral window to the past fascinating, each man for his own reasons. However, given present circumstances, there was little and less time to dwell on reverie.

At Aoren’s call for help, Hector didn’t think long before acting. Forming clawed fingertips, Hector would lunge for what exposed skin there was on his flesh and blood companion– the man’s neck– and simultaneously, he would tear at the flesh of his own arm. Vergil appeared startled, but offered no resistance, immediately detecting the pull of Hector’s aether on his spilt vitality. Both men bleeding, the crimson liquid was drawn outward, moving through the air to spread over the walls all ‘round them, seeping into cracks, suffusing into whatever it was the walls were crafted of. The blood would harden, turning from crimson to a reddened black as it shifted into metal. Galvanized by the aether around him and consummate in his skill, Hector was able to reinforce the room around them quite quickly. He didn’t know how much this would help, but his reinforcements would at least serve to stabilize the structure of the room they dwelt within, buying them some more time at the very least.

Given the curious properties of his quirk, he didn’t need to bleed either himself or Vergil to any extreme degree, and what vitality was lost was swiftly restored by that which dwelled within the sanguinyte they wore. With the walls reinforced, Vergil staunched the flow of his own blood and sealed the wound, Hector doing the same to himself. These actions were performed paying little heed to the potential reaction of those around him, as the young vampyre wanted little other than to help ensure survival.

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Aidolon Speech

"Kathalan Tongue/Speech"

"Vallenor Tongue/Speech"

"Common Tongue/Speech"

"Mythrasi Tongue/Speech"

[Hilana Chenzira]

Hilana hauled ass the rest of the way towards the shelter, her rucksack flat against her back, her hands in the straps to keep it from jostling at all lest some of her concoctions get shaken too much in their protective pouches in her bag. With the shape of the current skirts, she didn’t need to hike them, at least; though she supposed wearing her riding trousers might have been a smarter choice. But her clothes hadn’t mattered much weeks ago; she didn’t think that they would have mattered much now. She was on the heels of the sentinels, and when she was summarily grabbed and pulled into the shelter, she moved back out of the way to ensure that others had room as well. “Gratias,” she thanked Aoren, eying the Imperial cluster. Shadows had obscured the vampyres, only to recede, and she knew from her trip to the Shadowlands that that was not normal shadow. All shadow was darkness, but not all darkness was shadow. She wasn’t sure what it was, but this didn’t seem to be the place to explore with Semblance. Not with everything that was pulling at her aether. This was not the time to ask questions about it, but perhaps Princess Valaera would humour her later.

With everyone in, Hilana gripped the straps of her rucksack and mostly just tried to stay out of the way. She peeked around to observe the cacophonous chaos outside of their shelter, her eyes wider at the sounds of the elemental spirits around them, seeking to sooth them where she could. Her eyes were enormous as the Vastiana observed the scene before them, looking on in awe and wonder. Hilana hadn’t received a formal education that might have given her the background to understand what she was looking at, but she understood calamity all of the same. This was an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions, and the flight of dragons… oh, Founders…

Aoren’s urging jolted her from the astonishment of what she had witnessed and while she was no kineticist, she sank down to the ground. Her hands dug into the earth, and she breathed with the spirits before she added her own craft to supplement the red Dragon’s. The earth had always been friendly with her, and she had considered it might well be her Arche before making her plans to hold off. But she loved it all the same, and she asked it for its help now. Her aether flowed through her Rune, adding more layers still to the outside, before asking the shadows to warn her of any cracks that needed further reinforcement, plugging gaps with stone. The smaller vampyre was attacking the big one, and her eyes were enormous as blood spread around the internal walls of their makeshift refuge. She knew that metal was an element, and blood contained traces of it, so perhaps some form of Vitalis and Elementalism?

Another question for Valaera… another day.

[Paragon]

P A R A G O N

The rumbling grew more intense. The elements around them screamed in agony. Millions of souls cried out in terror as the blinding light of Sundering surged forth.

And the world went still.

Off Topic

Each of you has received a private message from me. Respond to it, in-character as a post, with the choice presented. If your character asks questions, silence will be the answer. There is only the choice and either your acceptance or refusal. When I have received everyone's reply via private message, I will make the next post with the corresponding consequence.

[Paragon]

P A R A G O N

Time jumped back into motion and the unstoppable catastrophe that was the Sundering of the World barreled forth to annihilate the small group that sought to withstand its fury.

Imogen’s pact shield cracked. It stood no firmer than a pane of glass that sought to withstand a barrage of boulders in an avalanche. The pact shield Shattered. The backlash was immediate and unforgiving as agony quaked through Imogen’s bones and she was thrust into a state of overstepping. Wounds opened up along her arms as though the shards of the cracked and shattered shield had sliced over her flesh. This was followed by an immediate cauterizing of her skin as the burning of the Sundering inflamed her flesh. But as the breath of death ghosted over her neck, that soft deep voice whispered.

“A prisoner does not choose the bars of his cage. The only trap, young Orakai, is the one you made for yourself. Still, I am a keeper of my word, for at least one of you accepts aid when offered. You will not die, Orakai. Your sun shall yet sing its song. At least, for one more sunrise.”

Darkness took Imogen.

Off Topic

Imogen has suffered a Shattered Pact. Old wounds and new have opened all across her body in the form of lacerations, some of which have been crystallized into aetherite that will have to be pried from her flesh in order to fully heal. She is now in the throes of Medium Overstepping and any attempt to conjure or maintain her pact weaponry is utterly agonizing. Henceforth, whenever Imogen summons a shield or uses a shield, whether mundane or magical, she shall suffer blistering pain as though she is once again experiencing the echoes of her brush with the Sundering.

---

The blinding light of the Sundering bore down upon Valaera and the Sentinels beside her. It was glory. It was madness. It was beauty. It was horror. The height and folly of mortal ambition that had toppled an empire, destroyed the Old World, decimated dragons and brought gods to their knees. The effect was immediate. Valaera’s physical eyes were burned from her skull. Charred and blistered before she even had the chance to return them to being closed.

“Then you condemn your soul to oblivion. Your gods have no power here. Here, there are only the Sundered and before It, even They are nothing.” There was a slight hiss to the soft voice that whispered to Valaera. “But…I am a keeper of my word. You shall not be condemned to this torment for eternity. At least, not today.”

Darkness took Valaera and her Sentinels.

Off Topic

Valaera's eyes have been burned out of her skull. While they could be physically restored either through necromancy, Vitalis or even the blessing of a deific power, short of the intervention of the Masked Queen or the Dragon King, her physical sight will never return. She is in the throes of Medium Overstepping. As are her Sentinels. I will let you decide the extent of their wounds.

---

The Monolith had been a fragment. A piece of something far greater…and far more beautiful and terrifying than could be comprehended without witnessing it firsthand. In front of Hilana was the rest of what that fragment represented. The beautiful madness that had undone the Old World. The earth in Hilana’s grasp begged, screamed, pleaded with her to save it, to stop its destruction, to give and give until there was nothing left. It clawed at her as much as she tried to protect herself and others. The skin upon her hands and arms began turning to stone and crumbling, breaking away as she began to be thrust into overstepping.

“Sad it is that the world has grown so cynical.” The soft voice returned. “This is not the world I would have built. But you may yet return to yours, even as I watch mine end. As I have, every day since that first day.”

Darkness took Hilana.

Off Topic

Hilana's hands and the lower portion of her forearms just slightly past the wrists have been petrified. They are utterly agonizing at the moment. There is no saving them but they can be amputated and her hands can be restored either through necromancy, Vitalis or the blessing of a divine power. Regardless of how her hands might be restored, she will forever more experience periods of numbness, pain, stiffness (as though being petrified) as echoes of her brush with the Sundering.

---

The rock and stone that Hector and Vergil had worked so hard to galvanize against the tide of impending doom before them…was for naught. Like tinder to a fire, the stones of the tower were blasted apart, melted, disintegrated and destroyed. There was no stopping this. There was no surviving it. And yet…the fire burning in Hector’s veins grew ever hotter. It became an intoxicating heat that ignited Hector’s very soul, winding its way down into the core of his essence, becoming a smoldering power that would simmer there forever more.

“One drop. Nothing more. Nothing less.” Hector would feel something warm and wet running from one of the ducts of his eye. The shadowy figure reached forward and brushed a finger over Hector’s face, retrieving the single bloody tear that had been shed. The shadowy figure vanished and the all-encompassing white light of the Sundering barreled forth.

Hector would blink.

And when he opened his eyes, he was standing not in the path of unstoppable destruction but within a hall of obsidian marble gilded with amber crystal. Veins of liquid gold and amber ran throughout the black marble and upon close inspection, energy pulsed within those spidery filaments. Every surface had etched within its surface pictography carved so minutely and finely that it seemed an entire tome’s worth of Scrivening could be studied in but a few inches. Once Hector got his bearings, he would find Vergil beside him, unharmed. Ahead of them, Aoren was on his knees, covered in sweat, draconic scales manifesting on his face, his breathing labored but he appeared unharmed, though shell shocked.

Everyone else it seemed…had not been so lucky.

Imogen had wounds all upon her flesh. Some patches of her skin had crystallized into aetherite. Other patches were burned or bleeding.

The flesh around Valaera’s eyes was charred and burned. Her Sentinels bore wounds as well.

Hilana’s hands looked to have been completely petrified, with some of it winding up into her forearms. The stone cracked and flakes, with blood seeping out at the edges.

Clearly…choices had been made.

[Pharaoh]

The two Sentinels seemed to vanish into thin air just as the waves of ancient power washed over them. Valæra would feel their course through the slipstream and hear their anguished cries far in the distance behind them. She knew that they’d held steadfast to their vows, as she had. For none of them were capable of doing otherwise.

Valæra, devoted Varværyn that she was, was primed to see the provinces of her deities even where it was claimed They were absent. There was far too much of Aværys in this slice of time space for her to perceive otherwise. The Godspire had been a palace of Power built upon foundations of Ambition by a figure whose Hunger was storied. But as she felt the piercing pain of her eyes decaying to naught within her skull, it was of Midnight’s Mother she thought as she uttered, through clenched teeth, rites of Sacrifice.

“Pro Deus et Domina… Do tibi oculos meos.” She had trained to focus her mind in the face of even abject agony and her potency as a Sembler enabled the Sentinel to comprehend the source and breadth of her pain so keenly that she could redirect her conscious mind to defy the chains of the reflexive that tugged hard at her soul. Her flesh erupted in flame as she lost control of the stone before them and reared back onto her haunches. Her pale skin burned for a moment before she strained to withstand the searing. Her dark hair was alight with the orange glow of fire, though due to her active ministration, it did not singe or burn away. Crimson tears dripped slowly from empty sockets as she shifted her gory gaze as if reflexively toward Aoren. Seeming to regard the dragon with her dearth of eyes, her moonpale flesh still aflame without blackening.

“What have you wrought?” The fire that consumed her seemed to surge at the pointed question she posed. She sighed through clenched teeth as she assessed their new surroundings with the senses still available to her, though the bulk of her focus was devoted to steeling herself against the unbidden fires that danced upon her.