Transferred from Althanas 3.1
For the Brotherhood In Whitevale, life rarely moved at a slow and steady pace. Usually the world changed abruptly and at a moment's notice, something Shinsou Vaan Osiris had come to terms with and long since drilled into his men. He would often remind them that a singular event could set the tone for something much more catastrophic and protracted, and to always be prepared for that individual moment. "Imagine the unimaginable" and "think the unthinkable" were often used slogans in his pep talks, and although they may have seemed like cheesy generalisations for the dangers of life in the Brotherhood's ranks, they were on point.

After all, in a world like Althanas where the skies could split and the earth could shake for almost no reason at all, at any given moment, the "unthinkable" was simply par for the course.

Today, the unthinkable became reality. A hornet was trying to break into the hive to steal the honey.

Shinsou, dressed in his Executor's armor and flanked by his pike-wielding honor guard, entered the Whitevale vault's chambers with a dull irritance glazing over him. A flight of stairs led down beyond the archives to the main holding area for magical artefacts, and as he made his way to the bottom level with hurried clicks of his heels, a tremor struck. The Telgradian and his men lurched, crashing into the hard oak wall that lined the stairwell itself, and a mighty series of groans came from them as the trio landed hard at the bottom of the narrow case. One could understand the unfortunate inevitability of earthquakes if one lived near a major fault line, but Corone was far from any such geological features and in this knowledge, Shinsou realised there could only be a limited number of explanations. Pulling himself up by tugging hard at the hip-height handrail, the Telgradian swore under his breath.

The bastard's using geomancery! I'll suck his eyes out through his nose when I get hold of the little...

As the group reached the final level of the heavily armored bunker, the most secure and possibly the most dangerous level, Shinsou was greeted with a disconcerting realization; this was no simple geomancer. An awful howling wind that bit at his face and whistled by with a harrowing shriek erupted from the jagged maw in front of him where an armor plated door used to be. His thoughts scrambled briefly, trying to figure who could have the power to slip into his compound completely un-noticed and do this, and what they were after. There was no time to reach a conclusion as the wind magnified significantly. A thundering crack, and whipping sounds cut through the corridor as Shinsou's honor guard flipped violently across the hardwood planks.

The Telgradian was frantic, and working with a furious intensity just to stay on his feet.

Something was terribly amiss, and Shinsou peered to the front of the large chamber through a wind-strained squint. Someone had breached the final vault. the fissure leading up to it, the one that had probably set off that earlier tremor, was enormous; an awful thing, larger and more ferocious than any earth magic Shinsou had laid eyes on.

That wasn't what bothered him the most, though.

The breached vault that lay ahead had contained an orb; a powerful relic that was so secret only Shinsou and a handpicked few knew of its existence. The fear now was that this artefact was loose in the public domain, but also that someone outside of his closely knit circle had a working knowledge of the Whitevale intestines and someone he trusted had betrayed Shinsou and the Brotherhood.

Things quickly dove from bad to worse as the wind died down and the Telgradian was able to proceed into the looted chamber. From ahead, he caught the sight of another hatch; a crudely constructed tunnel that seemed older than the one carving through the vault ceiling. Within it, a hooded man scrambled into the darkness. His massive head lurched low, disappearing beneath the sight of dirt ceiling of the tunnel. Shinsou sped forward from the main entrance, an ungainly, massive archway that looped high into the room, and drew Shira.

No way do you live...

Suddenly, Shinsou was struck by a second tremor, easily yielding to the tremendous momentum of the fissure that snaked from the escape tunnel. The resultant crash was thunderous; and the helpless trio watched as several pieces of the vault ceiling crashed to the floor, sealing the escape route and cutting the man off from Shinsou's retribution. He stood, hand clasped around the hilt of his sword, eyes widened, and threw the blade in fury at the side of the chamber.

"Get up top and find that little shit. I want him stood before me before the sun sets!"