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"When I made my last trip, I didn't get this far." He admitted, grudgingly, before turning his full attention to the Orks ahead. As he swung his glaive to their front, Phocion's potent Craft of Kinetics disarmed some of the would-be assailants and turned their own weapons against their number.
With the aid of Raithen raining strikes from above, Cithæra picking off errant aggressors with the ætherically enhanced aim of her bow and Hilana felling stragglers and survivors who endured the onslaught of the Re'hyæans, the Orkish contingent was not long for whatever world they now inhabited. Attention could thus be shifted to the Hytori mages who were emerging from the obscuring stealth of their Masquerade, some losing their camouflage for having been struck and wounded, others losing it due to Mesmer-induced madness that turned them against their own.
Cithæra's puissant Craft of Semblance afforded her an intricate sense of the battlefield around them. She could feel Hilana, inexperienced in battle but picking up important slack as the others wounded opponents who might have risen to strike them from behind, if not for the Vastiana's coups de grace. She could feel Raithen rising to inhabit his element, his soul singing with serendipity as he collaborated with the older brother he revered. She could feel Arvælyn, nervously exploiting skills he'd drilled in a controlled environment and finding new merit in the hours spent improving his martial ability. She could feel Finn flitting between points in slip space, riled with an overweening imperative to protect his amatus. And she could feel Phocion, his choler raised in righteous rage at the quondam opponents to their Divine Founders. It was on her eldest son that she focused, as the pilgrims cut down the last of the Hytori assassins and another band of Orks came bounding down the hill ahead.
"Enough of this! Phocion, sece nobis viam!" She cried out to her silver born son, "Pilgrims!" Her eyes darted to Finn up ahead in particular, "You're going to want to get behind him."
Cithæra fired off a few arrows, felling the Orks at the front as Phocion dismissed his glaive and began to pool æther, gathering such great swaths that the air around him seemed to warp before their eyes with a semi-translucent, purplish glow. The fallen Orks tripped up those to their rear, setting the little group to staggering as Phocion stood tall and extended his arms, stretching them out to either side. At first it appeared that he was standing on the tiptoes of his black boots, but within moments the sands beneath his feet vibrated as he rose above the path.
The aggressing Orks looked up in confusion at the elf levitating before them, and several crossbow bolts made for the salient target. One pale hand darted forward and the bolts battered into an unseen barrier, cracking and crumbling to the ground.
"Hic confecti sumus." Phocion declared, as he sharply brought the other hand to his front and clapped it with its counterpart, sending a pulse of Kinetic energy that sent the Orks, and the many corpses littering the path hurdling backward and falling off the rocky precipice.
"Duc, fili mi!" Cithæra instructed, and Phocion shifted and Compressed the æther in the air before him, extending out from the hands he held out palm to palm pointed forward. The ætheric energy formed a barely visible barrier shaped like the prow of an icebreaker ship, and the levitating Moonborn floated forward up the path. All who stood athwart him were sent hurdling over the edge of the path to tumble down the rocky hillside. The weapons that sought to strike them were also swept away by the levitating Grandmaster Kineticist.
Cithæra would lead the Pilgrims behind their living dreadnought up the path, higher and higher. The battle below did not pursue them, and those who fought in the skies were unconcerned with a small troop of intrepid voyagers making their way up Mount Kaladon. After they'd rounded the mountain once on the coiling path, there were no more enemies Orkish, Elvish or otherwise standing in their path, and so Phocion descended to solid ground and conjured his glaive once more. He used his polearm like a walking stick as he led the way to the summit of the mount, where the heat of magma warmed their faces as they stepped onto the flat, natural platform that lay out before the mouth of Mount Kaladon.
The shrieking of great beasts faded as the sky itself seemed to melt. Or at least some façade that had mounted the sky like some preternatural mural began to dissolve. Once again, the skies were empty but for Sol Invictus, and the sounds of the winds supplanted the din of the bygone battle. Any arms taken up from fallen soldiers disappeared from the grip of the wielder, leaving them as they arrived.
Cithæra took Raithen's arm, and stepped aside to allow the others to pass onto the platform.
"Now, Pilgrims. It is your time to go forth and stand before the æternal."
As they stepped toward the churning pit of magma, the ground beneath their feet began to quake as a pillar of fiery lava rose and hardened to form an obsidian bridge leading out over the very centre of the volcano's maw, where a glowing, molten altar formed as if inviting sacrifice. Though there was no apparent sign of either Founder, even those with no mastery over æther would sense that they were under the watchful eyes of something potent, ancient and, indeed, divine. The hour was at hand and it felt to each Pilgrim as if the path that led them here had been preordained by some remote and alien force. Even those new to the very notion of these deities, was overcome by a sense of personal destiny tied to this moment. Awed by as yet unseen Majesty.
