Legend of Ransera

Arkænyn arched a brow at Finn's expletive and, though he remained silent, his expression echoed the sentiment. Nodding to the Sentinel and then to the Archidux, he offered his hand as requested. Phædreon turned the prince's palm up and pulled off his to expose the pale skin. Taking Arkænyn's hand in his own, Phædreon's violet eyes rolled back until all that showed was a luminescent white. As the ancient elf remained still, as if entranced, the Platinum Prince remained fully conscious and looked bemusedly to Finn.

"Hold still. You're splitting streams. Be inert. No choice is a choice, but make that one." Phædreon snapped, causing Arkænyn's face to snap back toward him. "Good boy." This went on for a few minutes until, all at once, the time mage dropped Arkænyn's hand, adopted a giddy grin and stepped over to Finn.

"I have narrowed the search to fewer than one hundred realities. That is... most fortunate. The field will only narrow the closer we get to the... Nevermind. If I explain my process it will take so much Time that I'll need to bring us back to now for us to be productive. Suffice it to say we're going to go a bit into the past, but not in this reality, so it shouldn't be jarring... Well, it should be very jarring if gravity works differently where we land or if everyone has sausages for fingers or something absurd, but the, uhm... The timing, per se, should be irrelevant." He paused as Finn's servants returned with his change-of-clothes.

Arkænyn, for his part, sighed and muttered a few command words in Vallenor, which caused his somewhat martial garb to alter into more practical armour as the flowy bits gave way to metal and sleeker fabric that clung to his slender frame rather than draping over those long limbs. The style of the armour was very similar to that of his prior look, and he quickly sheathed his large Aurisian pactblade as it materialised, lest present company think it to have been a threatening gesture.

"Well, now I feel underdressed." Phædreon pouted, "Anyway, it doesn't really matter where we begin... I mean, unless we begin somewhere without oxygen or something like that. That's... an exaggeration. I'm better at this than that, but... Well, I explain too much. I'll just pick a dimension at random."
Phædreon grabbed the hands of both of his fellow travellers and began to backstep them through time and into another dimension. The chamber before their eyes began to fade, but very slowly and, as it did, they could see translucent versions of themselves operating backwards. Moving back to where they'd just been. Arkænyn's armour reverting back to its former, flowy regalia, but soon translucent gave way to transparent and it was the blue and purple light that began to consume the walls that became impossible to ignore. Finn's villa was gone. The very floor beneath their feet was no more, as they flowed through some pocket between worlds where only the three of them seemed to remain constant.

Flashes of other realities began to pierce through the warping surroundings into their fields of view. Vignettes of their own lives, moving in reverse as they continued to hurdle backward in time even as they shifted between dimensions. Their physical location seemed to hold no relevance as their own perceptions began to take them down unexpected routes outside of time and space as they knew it.

"What the fuck?!" Arkænyn exclaimed audibly, as he stared at something Finn could not see. What the human observed in that moment was a scene from another version of his life, where he'd never left Kalzasi. Perhaps he'd never met Arvælyn, or perhaps he hadn't followed him to Atraxia, but whatever the case, he could see himself unsipping a cup of coffee in bed and handing it back up to a smiling Torin, whose ease suggested he'd overcome or never experienced the mental break that haunted him after the Mesmer attack dealt by his version of Arvælyn.

That reality floated quickly away and the next scene was elsewhere, where he saw himself huddled in terror in some dark closet or cupboard. Light poured in as the door swung open and he unhid and ran backwards out of his apartment at the Crown and Lion. The smell of smoke, ash and something unfamiliar assaulted his nostrils as he uncoughed and looked to the sky, where an open rift un-loosed a seemingly unending army of dragons, their fiery breath unburning Zaichæri and Imperial airships and returning to their maws as they returned to the rift through which they'd seemingly come.

Then that scene was gone as Finn saw them passing through, by, or past a dimension in which Talon was in the throne room of the Palatium Umbrarum pulling his sword from the chest of Arvælyn as the enraged draconic elf was swallowing a plume of starfire back into a fanged mouth. Finn himself was unscreaming in horror and re-sheathing a blade as he un-portaled back away from the backward duel.

Perhaps Finn saw more in the midst of the temporal mists, but very suddenly he would feel the jarring sensation of solid ground suddenly under his feet and gravity now pulling at legs that hadn't been steadied for standing. The ground was soft and moss-covered. Arkænyn was breathing heavily, tears streaming down his face as they settled into a reality where time seemed to be moving forward once again.

"What the fuck was that?! I saw my former fool... That Sælyan half-fae, but he was alive... unalive and powerful... so powerful and-"

"Unlikely paths are not impossible. Least of all in realms with different rules. I would not take you to any of the places you've just seen. Your minds drew them for one reason or another, but they are not relevant to our mission. Well. Hopefully."

The chirping of birds could be heard in the canopy above an apparent jungle. They looked as though they were in a jungle of some kind... perhaps in the Commonwealth or to the South of the Atraxian Expanse.

"Can you feel where we are, Viator? Do you sense the ley lines? Can you tell that we haven't moved an inch geographically? Welcome to The Atraxian Rainforest."

Phædreon shrugged broadly and twitched, suddenly slapping himself across the cheek hard enough that the clap pierced the air and echoed abroad of their little corner of jungle, startling Arkænyn.

"Sorry. Buggy and muggy here. Anyway, don't get stuck on those visions. They might as well be idle dreams to work through worries. They are your might have beens, but weren't. They can't ever be realities for you because you're beyond those fulcra. Anyone in those worlds... They might look like a friend, an amatus, a parent, but every last one of them is a stranger.

"If those visions end up being meaningful it says more about you than it does about those scenarios... those realities. It says that you're savvy to Fate or Destiny or connected to your quarry in some way that-..." Phædreon blinked, his eyes darting to the still shaken Arkænyn.

"Oh, Phædreon, you short-sighted fool." The mage muttered to himself as he stared at the platinum princeps. "Earlier I was focused on versions of you, but you are a version of her... Your cells were formed within her body. The version of her that came from our self-same timeline. There are ties there that traverse multiverses. That which is of something is always connected to it on a level that- Oh right. We decided I wasn't going to explain everything, didn't we? Suffice it to say: Finn gave me an idea that is going to help us. I think that should shave off another, oh, sixty to eighty possible timelines. Just depends on how active our mark has been." Phædreon glanced around their immediate vicinity and hitherto unseen witchmarks glowed blue at his neck. Though partially covered by his collar, Finn and Arkænyn would see two nearly identical Runic markings.

"Do you... have two of the same Rune?"

"Quiet. I'm Sembling." Replied Phædreon sharply, holding a finger to Arkænyn's lips, which were pursed in incredulity until said digit was removed and the glow at his neck died down. "Almost the same. One was from our timeline, one is a souvenir from another when I merged with another version of me. It's helpful. Works in Timelines where the first one didn't. Not all, though. They both work here, which is useful since the me from this reality is long dead so I can't currently tap into his... You know what? Nevermind. Not what anyone asked. What Finn asked was whether Solunarium exists, which it does or we wouldn't be here." He tapped the trunk of a nearby tree. "This land has been terraformed. I'd guess via arch-magic or Green Dragoncraft. And clearly it's not the capital of Solunarium. Now, then, if I were the wily capital of a sacred imperial demesne and I weren't in the Atraxian Desert, where would I be? And why would I have-... Oh! Good morrow."

Phædreon offered, continuing in the Vastian he'd been speaking all this while, as he paused to regard a forest dweller of some sort. Dirt-smudged, camouflaged and wild-looking, he might have been taken for some jungle Fæ'ethalan, but no. He was an elf and one who bore features rather similar to those of Finn's own spouse as he'd been before his draconic transition. It might not have been so noticeable if Finn had not seen visions of Arvælyn in his days as an sooty-faced urchin. Closer inspection would reveal that this was not, in fact, some replica of the Princeps Draconum, but one who bore something of a resemblance.

"He looks... Starborn." Arkænyn observed, sounding somewhere between shocked and appalled, but at least having the courtesy to have done so quietly under his breath.

"Nt nan'uv io Arvain. Vonaho ai'uv tou?" The jungle boy demanded in a husky voice that further distinguished him from the Umbrian regent of their timeline.

"Oh, bother, I don't suppose either of you speak Ecitharese?" Phædreon looked first to Arkænyn, who just gaped at him in overt revulsion, and then to Finn with a hopeful smile.

The flush that penetrated Arkænyn’s oft sneering visage seemed to suggest he’d been party to the same or similar vision as Finn had experienced. Strangely it had been a less ludicrous offence than Æros as a Lich-lord, but here they were and things moved quickly when dancing through time.

As Finn’s brow began to glow with golden Radiance, Arvain’s eyes widened and he gasped as power within the youth surged to summon a silvery spear from the æther. He adopted a martial stance and shouted:

“Fi'uvndo! Pi'uvpai'uv! Eh'uvt ai'uv oidi'uvi Avaerisi!”

“Oh dear…” Phædreon said, taking a backward step which halted as his back struck the front of a towering Orkish woman snarling down at him and holding a blade to his throat.

Another female Ork appeared to Finn’s right as the thunder of rapid wingbeats descended from the trees above and a blonde Fæ with insectoid wings and a scimitar in either hand appeared from the branches.

“Vonaht hav'uv tou con'uv eo eh'uv iand Varvaeri, uvn'uvnt fion goid?” Arvain demanded in a panicked shout, as he regarded Arkænyn, now armed and taking stock of the opposition.

“Op'uvak, oeiang'uvi, oi Oidi'uvi Norani vonai ki toui fi'uvnd.” It was entirely clear regardless of linguistic comprehension that this was a threat, as the Ork holding Phædreon tightened her grip. He held his hands up in submission and

“Parley!” Was shouted in Vastian, then in Vallenor. Arvain scoffed angrily as he replied in Vallenor.

“This is parley. Why has a Herald of Hubris polluted Her Holy soil with his fell footsteps?” He inquired, glaring at Finn.

Arkænyn froze at the command, though he was far from inclined to initiate any aggression that might kill their only known way home. He may have been impulsive at times, but those occasions tended to be when he was very much in his element and this was very much not that.

The snarling spear-bearer did not seem to soften at Finn's mesmeric influence, which may have meant he'd have been more aggravated without it or perhaps the effect was mitigated or nullified upon him. Whatever the case, he did listen to what was being said. He tensed at the mention of Karnor, and seemed to grow increasingly confused the more the stranger elaborated.

"Obfuscation!" Arvain exclaimed in protestation, "You speak nonsense, stranger. Is this a stall tactic whilst your forces converge upon us?" He glanced to the Fæ sharply, "Destynrael, o'uvaich foi eiouki'uv!" He barked and the faerie nodded before shooting upwards for a better vantage point from which to seek out threats.

"Now, then, what are you playing at, oeiang'uvi? Varværa does not suffer Her devout to bind themselves to heralds of hubris, Kaladon does not burn, and the one you seek rules in the place you claim to have quit in search of her. Did you tumble through the wrong portal? Do you not know that you stand upon the sacred soil of Her Argent Empire?"

"Vona'uv ohouid eak'uv eh'uvn eo ciet, nt pinc'uv." The Orkish woman to Finn's right rasped, as the other growled low beside Phædreon's ear.

"Tou ai'uv coi'uvce, Yngoen." Arvain nodded, "We came here to hunt a gentler quarry than we have found. It would be best if you returned with us to eh'uv gi'uvae ciet. Walk cautiously, lest we mistake a misstep for an attempt to flee." He gestured with his spear,

"This way. And tell us, while we walk, how you came to leave the service of Kalædia while retaining enough of your patron's affection to wield that Mark of yours."

The Fæ descended from the canopy and shook his head, indicating he'd found no reinforcements approaching to rescue their current captives.

"Fit iovona. K'uvp uvt'uvo eo eh'uvn" Arvain raised his voice to instruct, and the Fæ flew lower and a bit ahead. High enough, at least, that the sound of his wingbeats was not deafening.

It was easy to mistake this version of Destyn for another Fæ, so different was his deportment. His blonde hair was swept back and matted down by something that made it look a bit darker. His eyes were suspicious and narrowed rather than wide and whimsical. His garb was coloured to camouflage against the environs and the skin he bared was painted with mud, moss and clay. Though he seemed far less flappable than his counterpart in the Prime Timeline, the sound of a Vallasren dialect and his clan sobriquet were enough to cause a dip in his flight. Snarling he halted his flight just in front of Finn and landed in a crouch, eyeing him with angry suspicion.

“Labhraíonn tú teanga an gheimhridh agus tá m'ainm ar eolas agat. An é seo cleas éigin de do choróin?” Even his voice was different than that of the other Destyn- huskier and sharper. He didn’t answer the question posed.

“Oh, so he doesn’t speak Ecitharese, but he knows Vallasren?” Phædreon observed in Vastian rolled his eyes, though the gesture was cut short by a nudge to his back urging him forward and, presumably, suggesting silence was silver.

Arvain regarded the instrument with a glare. The glow in his eyes suggested his appraisal was more than mundane, and his face reddened at what he saw and heard.

“Silence! You may sing your shanties at the pleasure of my grandsire, if he does not cut you down where you stand. Now all of you, hold your wily tongues and weave no more magicks of manipulation.” Though Finn had already woven enough to know that this wild, Platinum variation was upon the same theme as his beloved, but different. It was as if the same motif had been adopted by another composer and reimagined in an entirely disparate style.

Arkænyn was content to stay his tongue for the journey and Phædreon, though less so, obliged the demand and was released to walk of his own volition as the Orkish woman stood behind him, and the other moved to Finn’s rear as Arvain led the way and Destyn returned to the air, where he held a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other, poised to thwart any attempts upon his party.

After about an hour’s time, they began to slowly see signs of civilisation woven seamlessly into the natural surroundings. Palatial structures that had been grown rather than built. The paths began to be populated with Orkhan, a few Fæ’ethalan and elves that might have been Hytori, Siltori, Dratori and the odd Neptori. Perhaps there were representatives of this world’s version of Re’hyæans, but they didn’t stand apart from the others in any observable way.

By and by, they were led up a ramp of the roots of a massive tree that was set against a high hill. The routes formed a sort of gate around the entrance to a cave, which was flanked by statuesque Orkish guards in matching armour of silvery sheen. They bowed to Arvain as he spoke to them in the local tongue and guided the strangers through the roots and into a cavernous chamber with winding wooden ramps along the walls formed from twisting roots. They wound their way up the root system until they reached an opening leading to the top of the hill where the great, lone tree loomed above the canopy.

Arvain approached the trunk and as they drew closer they would see a throne of twisting vines upon which was seated a striking platinum elf, who looked at the approaching party with an arched eyebrow. Arvain step up onto the natural daïs and pivoted to face the strangers.

“Kneel before His Blazing Brilliance Alcineus Imperator, First of that Name, Stellar Sovereign of the Holy Ecithian Imperium, Speaker for the Scourge-Maiden, Undoubted Steward of the Southern Seas and High Druid of the Gi'uvn Diagonfighe.”