Set two months after the Redemption of Tylmerande
Whitevale was gone.

Shinsou Vaan Osiris and Storm Veritas stood, in the dead of night, transfixed at the ruins of their town. They stared in silence as the flickering fires created the illusion of an army of shadows mingling amongst the wreckage. The streets had been littered with debris and craters, most of which were filled with seams of splintered hardwood. Corone’s winter wind whipped up burning embers from the ruins ahead of them and scattered them around, settling them as white-hot ash on their shoulders.

Storm Veritas turned his head only slightly to watch Shinsou flick a mass of hot flakes from his pauldrons, expecting some sort of reaction, perhaps, but the Telgradian’s golden eyes gave nothing away. Instead, his friend simply seemed to be solemnly taking in the remains of the Brotherhood’s world around him whilst the wizard quietly seethed atop the wide black back of Attila. To Veritas, there was no mistaking where the responsibility lay.

"Shin, I'm sick of this shit. Let's just find the son of a bitch and kill him.” Storm muttered harshly as electricity angrily crackled at his fingertips.

There was no immediate reply from Shinsou, as though he wasn't at all concerned that Arius Mephisto had wiped Whitevale off the map and put paid to their wider ambitions in Corone. As Storm side-eyed him once more, he wondered what was going through his friend’s head. Osiris was not for wasting words and the absence of any sort of curse or physical fury indicated that he was thinking things through.

Sure enough, after a few moments, the lithe spellsword spoke.

“How much did Arius know about Tylmerande? About our trade there?” Shinsou’s eyes didn’t move from the twisted wreckage ahead.

Storm frowned at the mention of the port town. “Judging by the fact the place is still standing, I’d say very little. He was kept away from most of the commerce. He obviously didn't think it important enough to us to flatten.”

The Telgradian creaked on his heels. “Yeah. Well, If I’m right, there should still be enough revenue coming through port to keep us afloat for a while. Whitevale and our men have gone, but then so have our overheads. If we're still alive we can always rebuild later. Right now, more importantly, the bastard doesn’t know where to look for us. We should use this time to get ahead of the game and nail him. Properly, this time.”

“So, do you have a plan for getting in front of this?” Storm asked Shinsou, doing his best to hide the note of skepticism in his voice, but the Telgradian just gave a wry smile. Even for one such as Veritas, who knew him so well, it was easy to forget that Osiris had gifts of his own that often went un-noticed until they were useful.

“Yeah, I've been doing some thinking on something. Arius either doesn’t know or is too arrogant to care, but I think he’s pushed himself too hard. His magic is so powerful that his body can’t seem to control or contain it properly, so it’s basically leaking. I first noticed it when he flung me into Alerar; there were these little spatters of energy left behind him. Being unique to him, I think it makes him traceable; it’s just finding that first crumb amongst all of this. I don’t know how long the trail lasts.”

“Well, shit. Do you think he knows?” Storm queried.

“I doubt it. I don't think it works like a physical injury where pain alerts you to the problem, so unless you can sense magic the way I can, I suppose you’d never know whether your own body was pissing energy or not. Perhaps that reflects arrogantly on me, but I'll own it.”

"About time. The bastard had to have a weakness. If this one checks out, we get to do him properly and make him play our game for once." It wasn’t exactly time for elation, but Storm’s body language had visibly changed with this new olive branch. “What do you need to pick up on his trail?”

“To sift through this shit and find something he has touched or moved amongst. Then, we wait. As long as he is somewhere within Corone, I’ll find him. When I do, we'll take the fight to his doorstep. This time we hold nothing back, Storm.”

In the moment of quiet that followed, as the remains of Whitevale smoldered in front of them, Shinsou Vaan Osiris realized something. Even as their world burned, it was as if they were born for this. Together they had created a culture of being on top of the mountain, and built an institution seeped with a rich and sometimes dark reputation for success. Sometimes, it didn’t always go to plan. That's forgivable, and the Telgradian knew that as long as he and Storm were running the show, there would be time enough to correct those egregious oversights; to rebuild the Brotherhood. But if they wanted the opportunity to live on and create a lasting legacy, to etch their names into the annals of time, they first had to get ahead of Arius.