Ain't No Rest For The Wizard

[Caden Law]

Caden arrived in the theater basement just in time to see Balakai spin to the floor with a scream and a spray of blood from her shoulder. Barehanded and moving, there was still no way Caden could miss: Her attacker was just emerging from the doorway and it was a straight shot with no obstacles whatsoever. Caden thrust his hand forward as the pirate(?) was raising his second pistol. Lightning outraced a bullet and the other man lost his arm from the elbow down -- not that it mattered much. He was dead by the time his body hit the floor.

A quick look around and there was one of the other Juniors, T'ema if Caden was remembering right, badly wounded and sheltering Iera with her own body. "Walk it off, Balakai!" the Wizard shouted, bullrushing right by both of them as he said it. A quick gesture with either hand and he was armed with a bowie on the right and his wand on the left. Into the doorway, there were two pirates trying to take cover with a harpy brazenly hunched over them. Caden dispatched the nearest pirate with a stab to the head, then took the second out by ripping the energy from his body -- freezing him solid, basically. He used the same power gained from that to cast a thermal lance at the harpy, sheering off both an arm and a wing. She didn't even seem to notice it until she went to fly and fell over. Caden ignored her.

Up on the floor and the theater had turned into a full-blown combat zone. There were four apprentice Rangers and Caden's seven Magi scattered all over the place. He saw Neesal having a breakdown under one of the benches, her robes slightly torn and bloodied and a severely burnt skeleton lying not far from her. Nethenor and Kienelas stood back to back atop a mountain of rubble, hopelessly exposed and still alive only because of how they were fighting: Nethenor tore energy out of the air, ground, even the spells coursing through both, leaving ice in his wake even where it had to pass through bodies whether fallen or standing. The power he drew went flooding into the air and Kienelas took charge of it, used it to power balls of arcane fire and battering rams of raw force. They were working faster than Caden had ever seen of them, and they weren't going to keep it up much longer.

On the other side of the theater, Dylver was doing something similar as a one-man show: One hand caused massive walls of ice to implode into existence, the other pointed and things, even just empty spots in the air, exploded as he tried to channel energies with a large wound in one leg and a cut running across his chest. One of the juniors was watching his back.

Caden didn't see Sigel or Warram. Didn't even see Charger for that matter. But he did see a lot of targets. Two-dozen or more Men, a few Wyrmfolk, two Orcs and at least one bona fide Elf, all wearing the same beige-red-dark gray outfits. They fought with experience. They fought with harpies tearing through the roof to give them air support.

"It'll do," said the Wizard. "Rally!"

Knife away, rod out. Caden aimed up and let fly with a sustained blast of Magic Missiles, bringing down two harpies in the space of five seconds, and knocking another into Dylver's killzone in the process. More ripped their way into the roof to make up for the losses. "Rangers, focus fire! Magi, cover!" Caden ordered as he lowered the rod and threw up a Gambit to one side. Buckshot sprayed by in every direction, a few pellets hitting his coat hard enough to bruise the skin below. Without looking, Caden sprayed Missiles through his own spell and popped it like a soap bubble, then laid waste to two of the attackers in the same breath. He made a bee-line for Neesal.

And that's when Quel'thas burst into view. Through a wall.

The Elf hit the ground rolling, his robes apparently discarded at some point since he was down to blood-soaked pants and a bare chest and arms that were all covered in minor lacerations. He was holding the same thin-bladed duelling saber he'd somehow acquired a few days before, its edges now plenty chipped and cracked. His attacker followed with a familiar laugh and a total lack of regard for his own safety. It was Gannai, wielding a cutlass with his original arm and a machete with the other. Equal skill for both, along with the same practical theatrics that had almost taken Caden's arm off just a week or two earlier. He was fast -- much too fast for Quel'thas to stand a chance of calling up his magic.

Caden had no such problem.

Rock spires shot up out of the floor at an angle and impaled Gannai right through his shins and knees. The pirate didn't even seem to feel it, and only paused when he realized that he couldn't keep pushing the assault. Quel'thas reacted quick and nimble, just like his magic, outflanking the pirate and taking him through one eye, one ear and the back of the head. Energy rippled out of the wound and Gannai's head split the rest of the way open like a busted melon. It was horrible to look at. Caden tried not to. There were too many other targets.

"Someone get to Neesal!" the Wizard Shouted, turning his magicks on the largest concentration of pirates he could find. Five of them didn't get the chance to scream. A few seconds later, he felt the air boiling and freezing with gusts of wind at his back. Caden turned just in time to see Dylver's ice-fire tornado go careening into a low-flying harpy. It dragged her down and that was the end of her. Along with an entire section of the theater wall.

How many more were left?

"BURN!"

Not nearly enough.

Deithor made it to Neesal. Caden saw the boy go tumbling over her bench. Missed whatever he must've said. It must've been something serious.

Neesal turned the roof of the theater, along with every single thing flying less than a hundred feet above it, into a vaporous memory with some specks of ash attached to it. There was absolutely no finesse to whatever spell she used, if it could even be called a spell at all. Nothing but raw power, incomprehensible fury and the most dangerous kind of hatred: The kind that's been well educated and has its eyes wide open. Caden was the only person left standing after her outburst, and the theater walls collapsed outwards as if for emphasis.

"Bloody hellfire," the Wizard muttered, checking to make sure his Hat wasn't on fire. He looked around. Looked up.

Neesal had shot a hole straight through the smoke clouds above the city. And there were dark shapes lurking the night sky; more harpies, keening in fury and fear and-

And being pelted by glowing rocks.

[Caden Law]

Caden hit the streets at a full run, trailed by Haldreth and Quel'thas. The others had gone below ground to the basement, with orders to go further into the chamber network the moment the Zero Step ritual was completed. The harpies were in total disarray by that point. There was a steady stream of glowing green rocks keeping them that way, and whenever they congregated in groups larger than three, the stream was there. Caden spared a look back and saw four or five of the big winged witches get eviscerated outright -- something that happened so fast there was no time for the blood to hit the ground before the bodies were unrecognizable. It was impressive work for a rookie, and a validation that Sigel really was as scary as Caden thought he. After two weeks, he was effectively turning one branch of magic into a conduit for another and making a machine gun out of it.

But he had made a critical mistake.

"A spell of that magnitude, with that kind of staying power? He'd have to stay put and focus on it to keep it up," Caden told his companions, neither of whom understood up to that point. "That means he's a sitting duck, and he's gonna have to run out of things to shoot with soon." Which assumed he wouldn't run out of power first. And Caden had his doubts about that.

"What about everyone back at the theater?" Haldreth asked as they bolted through the streets. Seasoned as a Ranger, even if he was an apprentice, the boy was only having trouble not overtaking the Wizard outright -- even with what looked like a nasty leg injury slowing him down. Quel'thas, bloodied as could be, was only barely keeping pace with the two of them and seemed to be going more on willpower than physical stamina.

Good enough, Caden supposed. "The further underground they go, the better off they'll be," Caden answered. "Maximum fire focused at each doorway, plenty of ways out," and plenty of ways in too, he didn't say. "Dammit. Look."

The stream of rocks was starting to run narrow. The space between each light was growing wider, and the shots were actually being aimed now.

And there were people daring to look out into the night, their eyes all but screaming the question, Is this the end?

Caden didn't have time to be comforting for them. So he simply took a deep breath and Shouted, "STAY INSIDE AND OUT OF SIGHT!"

The harpies were starting to congregate in spirals above where the tracers were coming from. The shots against them were now coming one at a time, fast but still solitary. Head and wing hits, a few chest blows; fatality rates among those struck were dropping. One of the harpies lost her right wing and crashed to the ground a few dozen yards in front of the Wizard and his soldiers; Caden charged by her and felt a spray of gore across his back as Haldreth took her head off. Quel'thas bisected her at the waist in passing, just to be thorough, and it was good that he did: The corpse was still flailing minutes after the fact.

"Up ahead!" Quel'thas shouted. Silvery streamers were coming off of his free hand's fingertips as he ran. Runes and lines etched into Haldreth's staff lit up in answer, measuring no fewer than six spells at the ready and probably more besides. Not one to be outdone, Caden tore energy from the air around him and left a trail of snow and sleet in his wake. Most of it was grimed over with the polution inherent to a city under siege.

Just as Quel'thas said, Sigel's impromptu firing platform was directly ahead of them. It consisted of a great big circular pile of rubble that had once been a bell tower. Everything left was simply too big for bargain basement rate, secondhand geomancy to get airborn; rocks and stones big enough that Caden would've had trouble lifting them most days. But as they came closer, something unusual happened.

One of the stones lit up in a grid pattern, every single square marked with a rune, and then collapsed into smaller, more manageable pieces. Most of which shot skyward in quick succession, tagging a harpy here, a harpy there, missing almost as often now.

The harpies weren't afraid anymore. They spiraled overhead as one darkly winged mass. Then they came shrieking down.

Caden stopped running then, took aim with rod and wand alike, and let rip with a thermal burst -- wide-angled and thin as a razor from top to bottom, the best he could do to keep heat concentrated. Harpies crashed into the spell and caught fire, but there were too many of them for the spell to do a whole lot of good. Without being told, Haldreth and Quel'thas kept up the charge and overtook Caden in a second or less. They continued on to the old bell tower and left him behind.

It was dark, but he was standing next to a burning building, and the tips of his focusing tools were glowing like tiny stars as well. The harpies nearer the back of the spiral noticed and broke off, signalling most of the middle-spiral to join them. It was too late for the ones nearest the thermal -- even the ones who avoided Caden's spell went down to green rocks or Haldreth's staff.

Which still left more than Caden wanted to try counting.

"Huh," he said to himself. "Not one of my better plans."

"Worked well enough for me!"

Caden ducked on reflex. There was less than a tenth of a second before a sword blade occupied the space where his head had been, and the miss was so narrow that it cut a pale stretch into the N'jalian spidersilk brim of Caden's Hat. The Wizard came up sidestepping and hiding behind a blind Gravity Gambit, but his attacker was just out of range. He had the time to catch his breath though -- a Wizard never stops thinking, and Caden wasn't one to stay off balance for long. He brought wand to bear in an instant and fired through the Gambit with another thermal spell -- a Lance this time.

It missed.

Caden looked up to see his attacker sunset flipping more than twelve feet off the ground, mismatched arms spread to the side and machete contrasting cutlass as Gannai -- dead man Gannai the Pirate, who Caden had last seen getting his head cut in two by Quel'thas -- reached his crescendo and came chopping right back down. Caden dodged it with a sideways leap, tripped, hit the ground rolling came up with his wand discarded and his sword already in mid-draw. Gannai was already on top of him. Caden's sword made it half-way out the scabbard and the Pirate's knee slammed into his pommel. Caden look up and there were both the machete and cutlass coming for his head. He backstepped and tilted and both weapons raked hard across his breastplate, knocking him to the ground. Gannai rolled forward, off of the Wizard's chest and onto his feet, then spun around for another go at it. Caden sat up just a second too quick to have his head cut off. He went for a baseball bat swing of the rod and Gannai kicked it right out of his hand.

The next few seconds were some of the most terrifying of the Wizard's life. He was completely unarmed with neither rod or wand to defend himself, and his sword practically stuck in its sheath as the Pirate came for him with swing after swing after swing, thrusting and cutting and kicking and it was all so fast that even with his experience at thinking on autpilot, Caden didn't have the chance to rally a counterattack, much less a truly effective defense.

Finally came the boot that caught him in the collar and forced him back down. Gannai stood on Caden's chest, both blades held high, and that was when the Wizard got lucky enough to break his sword, scabbard and all, free of its belt mount. He rammed the pommel into the back of the Pirate's knee and shoved him back. The cutlass still nicked him from cheek to upper lip, and the machete clanged off of his armor. Caden threw the Pirate off and whipped up to his feet with the speed of fear and focus. Gannai recovered quickly.

Caden blocked both blades on his sheathed sword, drew the weapon and stabbed through Gannai's forearms. Twist. Tear. The Pirate backflipped away before Caden could finish the job. He landed with a slight stagger and the loss of both weapons, each one clattering to the ground from hands that no longer answered any command. That wasn't what stunned Caden into not finishing his attack though.

Gannai's head had been cut in two.

The top half of it was hanging in place, attached by nothing but a strip of skin. Most of the brain had fallen out and the eyes were flopping around in the sockets, as if most of the nerves anchoring them were gone and the lids simply hadn't stretched open enough for them to pop out. Caden could even see where Quel'thas' clean cut ended and a jagged tear from the stress of all those acrobatics began.

He had seen undead before. Caden had been fighting the corpse hordes of Xem'zund for close to two years now. He had seen undead.

But Gannai was still absolutely disgusting enough that it stunned him to inaction and forced him to say, "What the fuck?"

"Oh dear," said Gannai in an accent that was completely different from the one he used before. "You finally noticed."

Bones snapped. Caden jolted out of his reverie in time to see Gannai's forearms rip open completely, and brand new ones erupted from the stumps nearest his elbows. They were mismatched: Left was pale and limber, the hand and wrist of a woman of standing; right was dark and strong, not unlike a Drow worker. What made it worse was that the woman's hand held a hatchet and the man's hand held a very large, serrated knife. Gannai's lower jaw flopped around, completely unhinged with bones poking up out of the flat-top of the head as he said, "Can't have that now!"

An instant later, Caden was parrying both weapons. Gannai locked him up, blade to blade, sheath to hatchet.

"CAN WE?!"

The top of Gannai's head ripped open and a great big, hyper-muscular arm burst out of it, lead along by a short-handled war hammer covered in spikes. The arm bent back...

[Caden Law]

There wasn't any blood.

After all that, there was never a single drop of blood.

Caden watched for it closely as the world slowed down and his senses expanded to take advantage of it. That's what it felt like anyway. One instant, the third arm was poised to crush his head down into his ribcage. The next, Quel'thas was lunging by him and shoving Gannai's shoulder with an arm wrapped in ethereal silver streamers. Where Quel'thas' hand struck, the silver ground into Gannai like a hundred slender blades making the most shallow cuts they could in rapid, flawless succession. By the time the pirate lurched away, most of his shoulder hung in place by scraps of flash in the armpit and some threads in his shirt.

The hammer went wide and wild, and it knocked the Hat right off the Wizard's head with an audible pop of air and the mussing of Caden's hair. Gannai spun and the third of his arms blew off at the elbow, and then part of his neck exploded, taking a chunk of shoulder and jawbone with it.

Two more shots blew gaping craters into the chest, exposing the lungs, heart and several broken ribs. Another one ripped open the midsection, leaving spare organs to come pouring out. Another took Gannai's knee, and by then the only sound the corpse was making...

...was laughter.

Very giddy, very red laughter.

Haldreth and Quel'thas flanked Caden. The Wizard vaguely registered Sigel and Warram coming up behind him, and then Charger bleated and snorted and chuffed, and the world resumed its normal pacing.

"Oh, dear! Oh me, oh my, oh deary dear!" Gannai laughed, though there wasn't a sound actually coming from his mouth. "I think you might actually have me on this one!"

"Who the hell are you?" Caden finally spat. Laughter. "Come out of there!"

The laughter ebbed away into a sigh. "Oh, alright. Maybe...if you insist."

Out popped a hand from the hole in the throat. Haldreth shot it without a moment's hesitation. Then he blew the rest of the head right off just to be thorough. Caden didn't even think about calling him on it. A few seconds ticked by, the sigh returned. It was playfully exasperated now, followed by a much paler hand wiggling up out of the neck-stump. The fingers lead the way, gripping to the collar as if it were a ledge.

Haldreth fired again. His shot hit a barrier several feet from Gannai's body and ripped apart, pelting the surrounding street and a wall with fragmented magic.

An instant later, an entire man simply heaved right up out of the hole in Gannai's neck like an acrobat jumping a fence. There was little or no respect for the laws of physics or perspective: An entire human body came flying out of the neck without ripping, stretching or tearing anything. If Caden hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn't have believed it.

The man spun in mid-air a few times, presumably just because he could, and then he planted both feet rather firmly on the ground and straightened himself up. He was tall enough to have a forehead on Caden, easily, and his skin was chalk white with silky, wavy hair to match. He had a gentleman's mustache and thinly trimmed brows, and a handsome face that would've been fitting for a prince or noble. He wore all black -- tight black breeches, black leather leg-warmers, black shoes; a black dress jacket and a black sash tied tight at the waist. The only splash of color about him was the red-lining of his coat, the red undershirt he wore, and the ruffled red tie about his neck that tucked into his coat.

"We meet at last, Wizard Blueraven," spoke the Baron Rosven Kaverre. "Face to face, and in the flesh at any rate. Tell me, have you been enjoying your stay in my humble city of games?"

"I'm going to end you," Blueraven told him.

"No you're not," Rosven smiled right back. "Tell me, Blueraven, do you really think you could've fought your way into Anebrilith unless I wanted you to? I saw you when you started your little suicide run. You were in lousier shape than some of the natives in these parts. No, you're here because I allowed you to be here. You're raising your little army of Magi because I thought it'd be funny to watch the locals get their hope back again -- they haven't been very entertaining lately. That's why I didn't go parading that ragged little cleric around in stocks and a dress. Do you know he actually tried fighting back the first few times? Or that he started liking it towards the end there? Dreadful stuff, really."

"Well aren't you just a little Baron de Sade," Blueraven answered. He started to Speak again, but Kaverre cut him off.

"You have no idea, little Wizard. I've-" This time, Blueraven cut Kaverre off.

"Your Mark is part of a Working that allows you to control anyone wearing it. Gannai's been dead for months, maybe years. So were all the other Pirates, weren't they?"

"What tipped you off?" Kaverre grinned.

"No consistency where it counts. Only some of the Pirates bled. None of the accents held. The behaviour was too inconsistent, too targeted."

"But you only noticed it after my little show, didn't you?"

"I've been having an off couple of weeks," Blueraven answered with a nasty little smile of his own. "It won't happen again."

"I confess, then! I confess to the fine art of subtlety and deception. Incidentally, you might want...to check the food supply you plan on restoring to the locals," again with the grin. "And do tell Neesal, dearest and loosest and dryest Neesal, give her my regards, would you? And that charming little babe of hers...mm."

Haldreth, Quel'thas and Warram all visibly cringed. Sigel did not. Caden didn't even blink.

"What do you want, Baron?"

"Suffering," Rosven said. "Untold suffering and agony. I want to see the hope rise in their eyes, I want to hear the reverence of prayer in their voices, and at its crescendo -- in the moment when it peaks as high as it possibly can...I want to be there when it all breaks. Crumbles. Collapses. In short, Blueraven, I want to have fun."

"Why?"

There was a brief pause. Rosven tilted his head to one side, smiling. "Why not?"

"Because you've been torturing a city for more than a year now. Even sadists get bored. It's a hallmark of their monstrosity. So what's your real reason, Baron? Why are you doing this?"

Another pause. And then the smile faded. Rosven shrugged. "No particularly deep reason, I suppose. I just learned my lessons well and wanted to put them to the test. You know how these things go, don't you? You've used the Gift too, after all. Anyway, I really should be going. Don't want to keep you out too late, especially not with..." A harpy shrieked. "...ladies, waiting. I still wonder when Lady Rot-Ziu will realize her girls can dig..."

The Death Lord shrugged again. He gave a wave and promptly left them there by climbing -- climbing -- back into Gannai's neck.

Blueraven stayed put until well after the Baron was gone. Then, to the stunned silences of his cohorts, he walked over to his Hat and calmly, solemnly, put it right back on. He summoned his rod, his wand, and fixed both to his belt. Then he carried his sword in its sheath with one hand and motioned for them to follow with the other. They walked, did not run, all the way back to the theater without another word spoken amongst them.

[Caden Law]

There were bodies all over the theater. Caden's orders upon seeming them were uniform: "Burn them. Nothing left but ash." The apprentices, and the Magi, were exhausted but they did as they were told. Casualties looked low, injuries looked high. It would've been very, very nice to have an actual healer on hand.

Caden barged straight down into the basement to find bodies laid out all over the room. One of the apprentices, T'ema, was down and out and probably not getting up without black magic pulling her muscles taut and holding her bones rigid. She was still breathing now but Caden wrote her off as a lost cause the moment he saw her. Balakai was giving the girl amatuerish last rites as the senior Rangers finally emerged from down below. They all looked absolutely furious until they saw the Wizard, the bodies, and Balakai and T'ema.

None of them said a word until Caden prompted, "Where are Neesal and Iera?"

"In the firing chamber," Cessae said and to a chorus of disapproving looks from her senior counterparts, she added, "I saw her when we were finishing up. She looked like she had been hurt..."

"Everyone has been hurt," Caden told them. "Get out there and do something." He grabbed Vara in passing. "You, later."

"Right," she said, visibly disturbed at the Wizard's assertiveness. "Are you alright, Caden?"

"I have no idea," he admitted, then stalked down to the first chamber and continued to the second.

The lighting was good. The echo was not. He could hear Iera sobbing inconsolably from the chamber above. Upon entering, he could see Neesal hunched over her baby, the mother burying the child's face in her chest as they both cried. Neesal was much quieter. The kind of quiet you have to practice at.

"Mage Danfras," Caden spoke up, playing to whatever credibility authority gave him.

"GO AWAY!"

Which wasn't a whole lot. Neesal blindly threw a fireball at him. Caden reached out and drained the spell of energy before it could touch him, reducing superheated plasma to a big puff of lukewarm fog. He continued forward, calling her by name this time, "Neesal."

"Just...leave me alone! Leave us alone..."

No fireball this time. That was good.

"I can't do that," he told her, and finally stopped once he was just within arm's reach. The Wizard sat down, and Neesal tried to turn away. He reached out, put a hand on her shoulder, and she screamed. Cried louder. He didn't let go. She was shaking so violently it almost hurt to look at. "Neesal. I need you to tell me some things."

"I just want to be left alone!"

"Not going to happen," he said, though not unkindly. "Neesal Danfras. I need you to tell me some things. It's important. About Iera. About...about her father. Talk to me. Then I'll leave you alone. Alright?"

[Caden Law]

There is an entire page in Blueraven's Grimoire, stricken through and blocked out in painstaking detail. Every single letter has been utterly obliterated. The following entry starts the page after. Many of the words are squiggly, especially towards the end.

I will not tell Vara or any of the Witherwind Enclave about Iera's father. He did not have a K on him at the time. That's the only detail that will be shared with the Magi, and with Haldreth, who has to be told in order to swear him to secrecy. I checked Iera thoroughly afterwards. She's clear. That's one of only a few bright spots to come out of last night as a whole.

The other is that we have an alchemist worth a damn now. Not to mention a weaponsmith, engineer, construction worker, and anything else you could list under the blanket term 'artisan.' Fidelnor is still jittery and hostile to me, but he's much, much closer to what seems to be the baseline for Wanderers now. Vara chalked up any imperfections in the Zero Step to my desertion. Cessae handled herself well. I told Vara to strike herself. Life goes on.

Except where it doesn't.

T'ema Rinlas died this morning. She was eighteen years old. We stripped the body of arms and armor, then cremated it thoroughly. Two thirds of our number are walking wounded. Quel'thas is sleeping heavily from blood loss, thankfully he wasn't poisoned or anything. Sigel and Warram are my only apprentices who made it through the night unscathed.

Warram's skills at alchemy have blended it to her magic. I think I might have been wrong about her potential combat applications. Fidelnor has taken her as his apprentice, translating Wanderer alchemy into something a tonedeaf Wizard can understand and letting her go from there. She's taken to it exceptionally well. She was the one runing and breaking stones for Sigel last night, up to and including putting runes inside of unbroken stonework. She's going to be a beast in short order and I've ordered her to study up on runes as best she can in the interim. Fidelnor is helping. Their major project right now seems to be updating the Rangers' arsenals, though he apparently mentioned something to Vara about beefing up our present fortifications.

Whatever that means.

Sigel's talents seem to be a combination of Ectomancy and Runic Bypass. His machine gun trick was completely above and beyond anything he should be capable of, but he was able to come up with a way around the limitations and used it to full effect. I may have to teach him what I know of Necromancy at this rate, just so I can have someone else on hand who can fight the undead on their own terms. Vara is not keen to the idea. Neither am I.

Of all my apprentices, Neesal was hurt the worst last night. I slept with her. In the sense of holding her until she fell asleep on her own. She's also, arguably, the furthest along in her development: Her Voice has come in, fully developed and tied directly to her magicks and emotions.

We launched a raid on the ships in the harbor today. The senior Rangers and Vara did most of the work; the rest of us were too exhausted to do anything more than work in support of them. I lost count of how many dead they re-killed, but we did a thorough job of torching the bodies. Vara and Fidelnor enlisted the aid of locals to help unload the ships, once we'd confirmed that the food onboard was mostly just stale and a little rotten. No poisons, no curses.

I will now repeat what I told Vara earlier, shorthand because I've been awake almost forty-eight hours and can't afford to be tired when people need me. Long story, short: Kaverre is a liar, except where the truth hurts more with less risk to himself.

What I saw last night, and the other day when Cessae took a shot at him, was not his real body. That's just the body he likes to use the most. He has something planned. The constant cycle of despair, the efforts taken to make sure the people are alive but weak... That's not sadism. That may be sadistic, but it's not sadism. That's a ritual in the making if I ever saw one. When I get some time to myself, I'll try and figure out what he's doing for real. Until then I can only speculate.

He said he learned his lessons well. And he also told us a few things about our own plans thus far. Most of that could be guessed if you were worried and obsessive enough. I don't think we have a traitor in our midst, but I've taken to stripsearching everyone just in case. Once I checked Vara and Fidelnor, I allowed them to check Neesal. Nobody had a K, nobody carried anymore taint than the background for this hellhole would suggest.

What I know of Kaverre's abilities is this: He has at least two modified forms of Blightcrow's Scattershot Barrier, he can puppet bodies and move at least one body and multiple constituent parts around inside of another including probable teleportation from another place, and he can maintain the puppetmaster act in semi-intricate detail for at least 300 people while simultaneously ordering his undead army around. I'm no longer sure if his auxilliaries are real people or doubles or what.

And he's a liar.

And I'm going to kill him.

I invoke Rule Three, Subsection One, the Rule of Vendetta. I am going to kill the Baron Death Lord Rosven Kaverre.

What is not written is the reason behind Caden's invocation, his oath, his binding word written sideways in Old Diamonic with a touch of alchemic ink.

The Wizard Blueraven had never been so angry in his life.

[Caden Law]

The conspiracy started at dawn. Caden wasn't even awake at the time. He was only clued in a little later on when Vara with him with a few nudges and the words, "Wizard, we have need of you."

A few self-inflicted slaps to the face later, Caden sat up and asked, "What?"

"This way. Fidelnor has an idea." Which should have sent him running right there. If Caden had known what the conspiracy was going to lead to, he probably wouldn't have ever agreed to it. "Do not worry. He has vowed a Forger's Oath not to harm you."

"Comforting," Caden lied.

The actual meeting, if you could call it that, took place a few minutes later in the basement. The Magi were all sleeping. The Rangers were on morning patrol. Just the three of them and all the light that could seep through holes left in the ceiling and the orange glow of alchemic lights. The very first thing Fidelnor said, before Caden could even greet him, was a coldblooded assessment followed by an equally blunt question: "At Tembrethnil, and in Eluriand, you drew in power from the ley of the land. You've worked magicks on a scale none of the others in our number can compete with. Do you have what it takes to help us construct a grand arcanum in this city's hollowed out corpse?"

To which Caden sluggishly replied: "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Fidelnor simmered a bit, but Vara was quick to take control and explain things. It involved a lot of formulae that, for once, went right over the Wizard's pointy-topped Hat and everything under it. What he could grasp was the following: "The vast majority of Anebrilith is still basically intact -- in that all the bits and pieces from construction are still lying around. Fidelnor intends to transmute those pieces back into place -- to literally reconstruct the city as it was before the Day of Untold Agony. Then he's going to transmute it into something better suited for fighting off a siege. A fortress-city, Sein'ost En'anga." New City of Iron, she said. "But there's a problem."

"Materials. Energy," Caden concluded immediately. "You want me to tap into leylines for one. I can do that. I don't know if I'll be able to do it on the scale you need, but I can still try. What about materials?"

"We have two options," Fidelnor said. "You can move the earth from deep below, but...that might damage the leylines, correct?"

"It'd probably disrupt the flow of them, yeah," Caden admitted. "I don't know how that'd affect things in the long run."

"Then we have one other option. I already plan on converting bodies and the ships in the harbor, and even much of the dock structure, but it won't be enough." Caden grimaced. For once, he didn't have time to feel disgusted by something. What Fidelnor said next was somehow worse than what he was already proposing. "One of your students is an Ectomancer. He can conjure matter from the spirit realm. Correct?"

Caden should've hit the brakes there. He wanted to. But a Wizard adhering to things like common sense doesn't exist. "Yes. It's close to Necromancy though. I've been trying to steer him off of it, but-"

"Don't. What he has is a vital gift, and one that we can use to our advantage."

"I'm not hearing this." He was. Fidelnor and Vara both knew it.

"Vara is going to summon up a representative of the Pantheon, and through it, bring the necessary ectoplasm into place on the other side. That's where your student comes in. He'll transfer the material from the spirit world to the living world, and using the power you give me, I'll transmute it directly into the city. I've already done the calculations for Vara and myself, and you. The only question now is whether or not your student is up to the task."

Conscience nagged. Enough that Caden still said, "His name is Sigel. And what you're calling materials are the departed souls of your own ancestors."

Fidelnor didn't even blink. He looked to Vara, who stared at the floor and said, "If we do not call them to service, the enemy probably will. At least with us, the sacrifice will mean something."

"How many."

"10,000," Fidelnor said.

"11,000," Vara corrected, then added another, "590. One. The last one...passed yesterday morning, actually. She was my initial contact, providing the numbers. Time moves differently. She was able to count."

"T'ema," Caden said.

"Yes."

"You do realize that all of this is Necromancy," Caden said. "There are just more steps involved to avoid using the Tainted Power itself. It's like pushing a wagon around a hill instead of going over it."

"I know," Fidelnor said.

"I wasn't talking to you," Caden told him, looking pointedly at Vara. "What would Eledier and Aldinar say?"

Without hesitation, she looked at him and answered, "That I am doing what must be done. Are you with us, Wizard?"

[Caden Law]

The build-up took six days. What follows is the only known, written account of what happened during that time.

Day Eighteen: Have begun what we are calling the Rite of Unque Canad -- Hollow Four. Full name much, much longer; much, much, Elfier.

Vara has meditated into what she called an astral sending, apparently searching for some force from the Pantheon to sponsor the 11,592 souls we're going to obliterate for this.

Most of the Magi seconded to Rangers for the time being. Tasked with rallying/feeding/etc-ing the populace, among other things.

Warram and Sigel are the exceptions. I am currently teaching Sigel to perform sturdy conjurations using his own power as a base. Being that my own conjuring powers are completely different, hilarity is ensuent. (Along with property damage. And a tiny hole in the fabric of reality that was occupied by a compound eye staring into us from some other side of some other place. Egh.) Once I'm sure he won't call up a spectral demon or something, I'll try my hand at the leylines.

Warram is assisting Fidelnor in any way she can. He's currently working out finer calculations and mapping how the city's going to turn out. The whole process reminds me of compound runing on a grand scale. They're breaking frequently to modify Ranger staves. Hopefully it pays off.

Day Nineteen: Kaverre launched a strike on us today: Dead trees again. The Rangers took out all of them while the Magi handled their load of Ravagers and a few Harpies acting in support. I arrived in time to see Deithor blow a tree in half with one good shot.

It paid off.

Day Twenty: Have gotten my metaphorical hooks into the leyline system beneath Anebrilith. In doing so, I believe I may have just spotted part of Kaverre's long term goal: The leylines have been Visibly tarnished by the suffering of the people above them. There are several thousand reasons you could have for trying to achieve that sort of thing, but I can think of only one that would fit with my impression of the rotten Baron: Some kind of dark rite, whether of ascension or descension I don't know.

Have begun purifying and isolating lines as best I can, cutting off the bad and preserving the good. Reminds me of Akashiman pruning hobbies I've been told about.

Day Twenty-One: Long day.

Vara made contact with something and brought a piece of it back with her. It sees out from, and I can see it within her right eye. Ancient. Terrible. Cold to be in the same room with her now. Can't pronounce or spell its name; she called it the Burning Warden Tasked At Dawn. All I know is that it sounds oddly familiar.*

Armed with Bypass and what teachings I could give him, Sigel has started setting up the arrays for channeling ectoplasm into the living world. I've gone behind him at turns, making sure the arrays are stable as best I can. No idea if this will work. Checked my notes to be sure, but I can't find anything about an apocalyp

...shit. Looked again. Sometime next year, a necrotic demigod emerged from the area formerly occupied by Anebrilith. Greyspine lists its epithets as the Culling Between, the Singer of Sorrows, the Plague That Walks Like A Man, and the Prince of Dusk. Its personal name seems to be Prince Rokaves.

It does not take a genius to figure that one out. I think I know what I'm up against now.

* Because I absolutely need another terrifying thought to keep me awake at night: The stars were going out all over N'Thayn'sal. If every star is, by definition, a god of Vara's pantheon, then...

Scarier thought: What about the sun?

Day Twenty-Two: Completed my own arrays in support of Sigel's. I have also begun to work in a circle establishing the city's borders, in hopes of giving its people further protection: Anything living within the circle won't be fodder for the transmutation. Fidelnor claims he wouldn't touch them anyway. I consider myself righteously paranoid.

Vara is also starting to frighten me. Her right eye hasn't blinked since yesterday. Her manners are slightly more detached now. Have constructed an array around where she sits, just to be on the safe side.

Day Twenty-Three: Almost done. Got into a punch-up with Hessran. He still hasn't let go of his petty little thoughts from before.

Thought for the day: Wizards are subtle. Sorcerers are not.

I force-punched him more than twenty feet down the street. He wasn't too hurt, but it seems to have solved the problem. I don't even remember what we were fighting about now.

Addendum: Worked out a little deal with Fidelnor. The transmutation formulae will not need to be changed. Feel giddy. Big day tomorrow.

Day Twenty-Four: May saints forgive us for what we are about to do.

The actual event took less than a minute.

The stories about it would last forever. Give or take a few myths.

[Caden Law]

At dawn on the ninth day of what would ultimately be known as the Year of Shifting Realms, the blasted, blighted, besieged city of Anebrilith ceased to exist.

The process started with a blinding flash of red lightning and a sound like great violins trilling and Gods' drums being struck in earnest reverence. Then came the thundering calls of trumpets, heralding a symphony of instruments to grand to cheapen with names. The dead sang, loud and fierce at first, in words that spanned every era and dialect of the Elven tongue, yet all with the exact same meaning: This was an end.

This was a beginning.

The city's old walls collapsed. Its old buildings fell down. Its streets, its docks, every hint of infrastructure right down to the furniture standing unburnt in the wreckage so many people were calling home; all of it turned to red sand. At the city's axes, in North, West, South and East and the points between them, green towers sprayed out of thin air as circles lit up beneath them. Green met with red and blended, and then blue came from somewhere; anywhere and nowhere would've both done just fine. Ships in the harbor vanished, bodies on the street disappeared without a trace.

New walls built themselves from the top down, their foundations pounding deep into the ground. They were thirty feet thick, sections split by guard towers, reaching more than a mile out to sea. New buildings formed from the center out, stretching towards both ground and sky as history practically rewrote itself before an audience of barely five thousand minds within, and a few hundred more without. Within seconds, the center of the new city was dominated by a massive temple that could've passed for both an opera and an auditorium in the same breath. Houses built themselves around their occupants. Smithies, shops, lanterns for the streets and then sewers beneath where they would stand, and even the cobbled roads themselves; all of them simply formed into place, as if they had always been there and always would be.

The new city was clearly divided into six districts. The seat of government dominated the center. A military district occupied the southwest, and a naval district shared space with the merchant docks. A shipyard even came into existence between the two. The market district took up the most room, but only just.

The sixth district was dominated by a building shaped like a massive domed cage, and several smaller buildings all around it. This was where the city's magical talents would come, if they ever had a chance to come here at all. Blueraven was a shrewd dealmaker.

The last things to form were the gates, and there were three of those. One for the North, one for the South, one for the West. Towers flanked all of them.

Everything spoke of Raiaera; its culture, its traditions, its architecture, even the colors that dominated every surface. There was art on display, pulled straight from the former city's memories, and statues that were probably more priceless now than the things they had replaced. Theaters here, musical venues there, guard houses that could've passed for galleries, bath houses, and more besides.

When it was all done, and the city's population were going into utter shock at the miracle taken place all around them, Caden and his charges finally stepped out onto what was already marked by a sign identifying it as Aran Street.

The very first words out of the Wizard's mouth were, "Holy crap, we're not dead."

The next words out of his mouth, which may or may not have influenced the city's proper name, were something to the effect of It's beautiful.

Thus was born Beinost, the City of Song and Sorcery. Its birth was such an event that not even the dreaded Baron could bring himself to attack it.

Not for a while, anyway.

[Caden Law]

Within an hour, shock gave way to celebration. There was food. There was water. There were homes that weren't riddled with holes and there were streets without bodies lying in them and dammit, the people of Anebrilith-turned-Beinost needed something to smile about.

So, they threw an impromptu party covering the entire population of the city. People were still just traumatized enough to keep one eye on the sky, and the Rangers remained at their posts at each of the newly Forged gates, but it was a much needed moment of joy in lives that needed more of them. But that's all it was.

A moment.

It didn't last.

The attack came right at the heart of the market district, where most of the populace had chosen to congregate. A small group of harpies, lead by one very, very big harpy clad in red and gold battle armor, descended on the revellers without a single shriek of warning. It was as if they simply materialized from nothing. Caden and company -- Shaul, Vara, Neesal and Kienelas -- went to work immediately. The moment the first scream came, they were running. By the fifth, Caden had reached deep into his own power reserves and conjured up a one-man Nimbus for transport. He passed over three city blocks in rapid succession and, as the cloud finally faded out, he drew out both sword and rod and fell into the frey with a booming Scream that simply didn't fit him.

He was exhausted. He was angry. He was, strangely enough, protective.

The first harpy died so fast that Caden couldn't remember how he killed her. The second took a Missile to the mouth at near point blank range, and a Gambit shredded the arm, chest and wing of the third. The remaining harpies finally turned their attentions to him and went on the attack. Civilians fled. They left him there as a champion.

The Wizard did not disappoint them. It would have probably been better if he did.

One harpy by sword. One by magic. Caden had killed five by the time he got to the big one -- the leader. She stood more than eight feet tall, awful and wretched the way that destroyed beauty is. She came at him with a hammer the size of a streetlamp and Caden dodged it by the skin of his teeth. Another harpy tackled him in the same instant, and then her midsection was gone with a gory spray as Shaul took his first shot from a rooftop. Neesal and Kienelas burnt another harpy right out of the air with a tandem fireball, and Vara came charging into the town square with sword in hand and right eye glowing like a tiny eldritch star.

Vara attacked the leader head on. She cleaved the hammer's head off and then sliced the shaft away in huge, cleanly cut segments. Her sword clattered off the big harpy's armor, scarring it with every impact. She was fast. The harpy was agile. She was exhausted. The harpy was fresh.

Caden had seen this fight before, back in Tembrethnil, when it came to Eledier against Ghez Hokan. He wasn't about to sit by and watch it happen again.

"GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HER!"

A thrust sword echoed itself in the form of a huge ethereal blade made of faded blue light and psychodelically colored feathers; purples, reds, pinks, blues and more. It plowed right into the harpy's side, ripped her from the ground and slammed her into the steps in front of Beinost's new capitol building. The stone gave, but the armor didn't. Caden pushed. The armor didn't give. But the harpy inside of it did. He heard ribs crack, organs rupture, and he kept the pressure up anyway. Caden pushed, pushed, and kept on pushing and twisting his sword -- both the realm one and its Sorcerous echo -- until finally...

The armor gave.

And the harpy's insides came spraying out from both her mouth and the gaping wound left in her chest.

On that note, Caden stumbled forward and collapsed to his knees. Vara was right there beside him. Neesal, Shaul and Kienelas weren't far behind.

There wasn't even enough time for someone to make the faux pas of saying, Is it over? Something jumped out of the big harpy's wide open side, flipping several times and then landing head first on the bottom step before springing to its feet. Caden looked up and...

"That explains where Bolabas went," he muttered.

His original third apprentice spun a few times. Bolabas wore nothing but a ragged pair of pants covered in old bloodstains. His skin had so many cuts that it was like looking at the aftermath of a fishnet vest made out of razor wire. Only the face remained (mostly) intact, with the eyes long since fogged by death and a great big K carved deeply into his forehead. He was holding a long, thin scimitar, its blade balanced against his empty left hand as he dropped into a fighting posture.

"I tried to cut a deal," he said, in a very detached sort of voice. "Hessran let me out that night. You should've known better."

Caden grimaced. He didn't have time to give a rebuttal.

Shaul blew Bolabas' entire torso off, vaporized his sword and sent his head and arms flying with one shot. There was literally nothing left of the places where either arm or the neck had been anchored. It happened so fast that the lower body just stood there for a few seconds, then collapsed as if someone had kicked the knees out from behind. The head slapped down on the ground and rolled a few feet.

...and then a hand reached out of the neck, got a hold on the ground and the head started skittering about like a laughing spider.

Shaul shot that too. There was a shallow, smouldering crater where his spell hit, but that was the end of it. At least until another laugh, a much more crimson laugh, started echoing from everywhere at once. It took a few seconds more before Shaul started blasting harpy corpses, accompanied by Neesal's flames. They were a bit too slow though. As Shaul turned his riflestaff to the next target, a harpy's corpse, a pair of hands shot out of the stab wound in her chest. Shaul fired.

He got the corpse, but not the limber figure that jumped up out of it. Shaul adjusted his aim in an instant, but the leaper was still one step ahead of him: It threw a severed hand at his face. Shaul obliterated the leaper.

And then the hand slapped him on the forehead and out popped the Death Lord himself, Baron Rosven Kaverre, in all his white-skinned, black-clad glory. He had a rune-covered sword in one hand, and the other wore the leaper's severed gift like a glove. As quickly and as easily as he arrived, the Baron plucked Shaul's mask right off of his face and rammed the pointed chin straight into the soft of the Elf's collar, embedding it to the mouth-slit with an ease that was disgusting just to look at. Vara screamed in an eldritch rage and went straight for the Baron's chest with her sword.

He dispatched her with a lazy swing and a smile that were both faster than lightning. Her breastplate flew off and split in two as it hit the ground some thirty or forty feet away. The Seer herself crashed down on a rooftop even further than that, then rolled and fell back to the ground in an undignified sprawl. Blood was leaking out of her mouth and her robes had actually been shredded by the impact on her armor.

It took him less than three seconds for all of this. Shaul was only just falling over by the time Rosven looked down and Caden looked up. Their eyes met. The air between them actually did boil and spark slightly.

"No," Blueraven Said, and the ground suddenly split wide beneath him. Down he went, right into the sewers, while Neesal and Kienelas went flying to his left and right above ground, each one falling as the earth itself carried them in a wild spiral away from danger.

"Oh, come on!" the Baron laughed. "I go through all that trouble to get a good face-to-face meeting and you want me to go chasing you into the sewers? These threads don't come cheap, Shitraven!"

The ground spiked up beneath him. Rosven dodged it through sheer anticipation. "Predictable!" He twirled his sword up and smacked away a fireball from Neesal. Then he grinned. "I've got a clear shot at dear ol' Sally from Rutter's Hole, you know!"

Caden had lost his objectivity. Before going home, returning to Evernorth, undergoing his trial at Icehenge, that ploy wouldn't have worked on him. Now, it made the Wizard erupt out of the ground less than twenty feet away, rod in hand, spell prepared, eyes narrow and teeth bared and grit tight.

Rosven dodged a Thermal Lance that completely torched the air beside him. He closed the distance before Caden had even landed, and the Wizard cast his rod aside as Rosven came at him sword to sword. Blades met in a flurry so quick that the contacts were letting off spark, and so hard that even the masterwork sword that had lead Caden through the Henge Sorcerous was starting to show signs of wear on its blade. The Baron was fast. His attacks were precise. But he had a single gap, on the downswings, when his footing was a little bit uncertain on the right side.

Caden parried the blade aside, risking the loss of an arm as he did it. The end of the exchange saw him poised to make a thrust, but he didn't. His left hand was braced across the flat of his sword.

Caden hit Rosven point blank with a blast of sub-zero wind that left ice crystals all over him, with enough raw force that it sent the Death Lord careening back a good ten or eleven feet. Caden finally thrust forward, channeling lightning through the blade of his sword.

Rosven dodged it.

And then he was behind Caden, spinning up from a crouch. The Wizard turned just in time to take the full impact of Rosven Kaverre's sword dead center to his chest. Magic discharged on impact, like a massive green-purple fist that sent Caden skyward and tore the front off his breastplate, cut into his coat and sent drips of blood spraying through the air all around him. He spun and flipped and lost his sword and Hat and glasses all in the same instant. Rosven held his pose a moment longer, twisting his sword and then swinging it to the ground.

The ethereal hand grabbed Caden and promptly slammed him down as well. The whole world flashed pitch black, then came back in a greenish haze complete with the taste of peppermint and the smell of pungent, bloody sweetness straight out of a freezer.

Rosven was standing next to him, and Caden finally had a chance to study the Death Lord's blade. It was about the same length as his conscript sword. Two-handed. Straight, double-edged, cross guard. The blade was wide, even near its end, where it forked to two narrower points with a sharpened space between them. There was scripture up and down the green indentation that passed as the blood groove. It was upside down from Caden's perspective, but he could still see that it was Fallien in origin.

"Well! That was fun, wasn't it, Caden?" Rosven asked, holding the blade just close enough that its prongs were framing Caden's lower jaw. One good push and Caden's bones wouldn't even get scratched when Rosven beheaded him. "I have to say though, I'm a little unimpressed. Are you sure you were able to hurt the Dread Necromancer on your lonesome?"

That was when Caden realized what Rosven was doing. They had an audience.

"Oh, don't look at me like that. Please don't. I'm just doing my...my...j-j-j-hahhhh, sorry. I can't say it with a straight face. You know what, Caden? You don't mind if I call you that, right? You know what? I like doing this kind of thing. I like seeing the looks in their eyes when they realize that I've let them have a little shred of hope for the sole purpose of taking it away. Oh, the city's nice and shiny now. But you went and changed the rules of the game by doing that.

"I'm afraid I'll have to attack for real now. Whole army at once. No survivors. Just tears, and sorrow, and the fun of working my way through an entire population.... Would you like to know something personal, Caden? Sure you would."

Rational thought had, by this point, frantically reasserted itself. Caden knew the game, knew what Rosven was getting at, knew he needed to play by the Baron's rules just long enough to-

"I've never had a baby before."

Kill the unliving Hellfire out of Rosven Kaverre so hard his grandmother would feel it.

"NO!" the Sorcerer Screamed, his Voice carrying the full weight of magic taken straight from the Tap and shaped by raw force of emotion and willpower. It hit Rosven like a tidal wave, blowing the tiles off of nearby rooftops and shattering glass all over the square.

Rosven didn't even blink.

"Hit a nerve, I see," he said with a grin.

"You only got me like this because I was tired and protecting others," Blueraven spat, almost pushing up against Rosven's blade. "You think you're big stuff? Kill me then, Ross. Go ahead. 'Cos I'll be back. You can bet your powdery white ass on it. And I'll have company next time." The sword nudged down. Blood. "I know a God who owes me a favor."

The pressure on the sword let up ever so slightly.

"Who?" Rosven asked.

"I dare not speak Her name," Caden answered, careful to capitalize the H as only a Wizard can. "But I can cut you a deal, Baron. I can cut you a nice little deal."

"...go on."

"A duel," Caden said. "Tomorrow at sunrise. Just you and me. If you win, I'll bestow my Boon upon you. And I'll swear deathly fealty to you."

"What's in it for you?"

He had to pretend that his pride was wounded. It was the easiest thing Caden had ever done in his life to tell the Death Lord, "The chance to kill you."

"Why?"

"Because you won here today. But you couldn't do it in a fair fight and we both know it. Everyone here knows it. She. Knows it."

Absolutely nothing happened for the longest time.

Finally, Rosven shrugged and grinned. "Okay. A duel at sunrise by the West Gate. I expect the whole city will be there to watch, else I'll have this place ransacked by day's end."

"I accept."

Rosven nodded, then whipped the sword away and threw it blind.

A second later, Neesal hit the ground with a scream. The sword flew back to Rosven's hand and the flat of it slammed down into Caden's skull as he tried to get up, to take revenge right then and there. The Death Lord kept him pinned, saying only, "See you in the morning."

Kienelas tried to throw ball lightning at him. Rosven smacked that away too, then lazily strutted over to the nearest corpse and climbed inside without so much as a backwards glance.

[Caden Law]

The Enclave limped back to its headquarters on Aran Street. Civilians helped them carry Shaul, Vara and Neesal. Caden really did limp, but he used his rod and sword as canes, and Kienelas brought the gear. For Shaul and Neesal, it looked worse than it was. Kienelas was uninjured. Shaul and Neesal managed to look a hell of a lot worse than they actually were. Vara, not so much.

Shaul's mask had somehow missed anything vital. Veins were pushed aside and scraped up, but not broken. His trachea was bruised and also scraped, but not pierced. The mask gave him trouble breathing, and the Ranger passed out before it could be tugged loose, but he'd probably live. More so if they could find anyone with a shred of medical knowledge.

Neesal's injuries were almost purely cosmetic with a side of magic for effect. One long cut from shoulder across collar to shoulder; she was effectively soaked in blood from the neckline down, but most of the damage came from a massive shock caused by exposure to Necromancy. Part of her life force -- the energies of her soul keeping her body animate -- had simply been ripped out. She was unconscious, but she would also survive.

Vara's injuries were worse. Physically, she was hurt bad enough. But the impact, the exhaustion, the pain all added up. Vara the Seer was gone. What remained was a , whispering, gibbering thing occupying one side of her face and poking at the skin from some point that could only be labeled, Inside.

Caden lead the way into the building, where Fidelnor took over. He wasn't a true healer anymore, but piles of constituent parts are still piles of constituent parts. It was better than nothing. The Wizard waited, patient and furious, as the other wounded were treated. "No," he said to any attempt, however half-hearted and unconcerned it was, to treat him. He said nothing else, other than giving an order for the Enclave and the Magi to assemble at once.

The headquarters on Aran was more like a town hall than anything else. There were empty racks for weapons, empty shelves for books and supplies, empty benches for Wanderers to rest their weary feet and expand their restless minds, and a stage for anyone daring to speak. Anything else, including the chambers used to conduct the Enclave's guerrilla war for the past month, was below ground.

Caden waited by the door as they all filed in. Deithor. Haldreth. Balakai. Cessae. Magwyn. Dievers. The apprentices, all of them. The Tracen brothers, Kienelas and Dylver. Warram, the first Elf Caden knew to wear glasses. Nethenor. Sigel, looking more like a scholar in his green-white robes than any of them. Those were Blueraven's Magi, as many of them as could be conscious for the meeting. Nolara. Fiera.

Everyone accounted for who could actually stand up. Shaul, Vara, Neesal; they were all being tended by Fidelnor down below. Warram only stayed long enough to give an update on their condition, then took off downstairs as quickly as she could.

"Where. Is. Hessran."

Caden didn't ask that question. He said it as an order. It was the first time he'd really pulled rank, and with Shaul and Vara out of the way, and Fidelnor in no condition to properly lead, no one was going to argue with him. Just as well.

They didn't need to.

"I came as quickly as I could," Hessran said, begrudgingly, as he rushed into the house. "What happened?"

"You fucked up," Caden told him.

"What?" Hessran snapped, more defensive than surprised.

"You let Bolabas out the night we were assembling the Magi. He was supposed to be guarded."

"He didn't have it in him for the fight," Hessran replied without shame. "He was even more of a joke than the rest of them. They've improved since then, but I thought-"

"Bolabas knew enough to tip off Baron Kaverre to our plans. He was tortured. Probably to death. And then the Baron wore him like a cheap suit to get inside Beinost and down two of our best fighters, break morale, and put one of those jokes into a near coma."

That shut him up. For the first time since Caden had met him, Hessran actually came close to looking guilty. And then he said, "I couldn't have known."

"Bullshit," the Wizard snapped.

"We were taking losses all the time!" Hessran snapped right back. "In case you didn't notice, or did Riven's severed leg not clue you in?!"

"You don't get it, do you?" Caden asked.

And then he sucker-punched Hessran right out of the building. Using the same gigantic Sorcerous hand, he grabbed the Ranger and dragged him right back inside. Everyone was watching them. Hessran was too stunned to fight back. Caden broke his arms and legs anyway. Then, still using the same hand, he forced the Drow upright in mid-air, face to face at just a few feet. A slap with his real hand. Another one. Hessran came back to with a spat wad of blood that didn't even make the Sorcerer bat one eye.

"They were able to defend themselves enough to die fighting. Bolabas couldn't. He was as helpless against the Baron as you are right now, and we've all bled for it."

"Then what do you expect me to do?!" Hessran snapped. "I'm trying to fight a war h-" He was cut off with a gagging sound as Caden grabbed his throat.

"I'm hurt. You're a traitor. You still think you're being patriotic. So now you're going to die for your country."

Recognition dawned in the Ranger's eyes.

Three minutes later, he was a withered corpse. His eyes were rolled back into his skull, his hair had the texture of straw, and blood was congealing out of every orifice. At some point, Caden let go of his Sorcerous hold and let the Drow drop, but he never let up the hold he had on Hessran's throat. Something else was different too.

Caden didn't apologize for his use of Necromancy this time.

He didn't feel one shred of guilt either.

When he stood up, the taste of peppermint was positively overwhelming and he was seeing everything in shades of green and blue. His hands were pale to the point of seasick green, clenched tight enough that they should've been drawing blood. His injuries were gone though. He was effectively fresh.

And furious.

And desperate.

"We need to talk," he Said to the lot of them.

Without Ranger Hessran, there wasn't a single dissenting voice in the Enclave. Caden never expected total agreement and obedience to feel that...wrong.