Skye could only stand and stare, frozen in place as a sick dread unfurled in her guts. Her eyes were fixed on Knox as he clumsily pawed at the crystal spike skewering his abdomen. With cold clarity, the Apprentice began to gauge the damage; she tried to gauge what organs might have been hit and which might have escaped unscathed. Her mind raced ahead to the paltry few healing spells she could cast, but none of them were suited for someone who'd just been impaled. She saw Knox's face go slack and his eyes rolled back in their sockets a second before the crystalline spear retreated back into the circle of light. The hunter's knees gave way and he crashed to the floor on his back, breath lurching into his lungs before exploding in a red spray from his lips. His hands fumbled at his sundered stomach, got tangled in his own fleshy guts.
Knox was dying. Skye turned to Hulbard but he was standing rigid, face slack but eyes wide and darting, the muscles along his neck twitching. Otherwise, he was motionless, surrounded by a dull aura of light. Both of them had been taken out in a heartbeat, leaving just her, Semekt, Trastor, Quintus and Shankhill; all little more than drops before a tidal wave. On trembling legs, she stumbled towards Knox, desperate to help him. Instinct made her summon a flimsy shield around herself as she fell to her knees next to the dying man.
Trastgor snarled with fury as he saw Knox fall.
"Do you see now?" the behemoth asked in a dozen voices at once, "Are you beginning to realise the depth of your ignorance and the audacity of your arrogance? You believed that you could do what we could not. Worry not though, we still have some use for you yet".
An alabaster hand opened wide and a complex set of golden globes flared into life around it, each connected by a taut line of the same coloured light. Trastgor launched himself into a sprint as this newest Constellation took form and the air around it rippled with Sorcerous life. A bolt of lightning coalesced between those outstretched fingers, crackling with wild energy, before stabbing towards the floor of the Library. It crossed the space between them in a heartbeat, struck the ground behind the Kurgal with a thunderclap and sent out a sprawling shockwave that flung him off his feet. Slamming into the ground with bone jarring force, Trastgor used his forward momentum to roll back to his feet just in time for a fireball the size of his head to roar into the ground just behind him, bathing him in flickering flame and a blast of red hot air. He was jarred off balance and turned his fall into a headlong dive into cover behind the nearest bookcase. Crouching low, he swatted out the embers smouldering in the fur across his shoulders before peering around.
The bookcase he was sheltering behind ran along most of the library and, if he followed it, he could close the distance between him and his target in safety. Staying low, he hurried along it. Trastgor made it about a dozen steps before a beam of red light burst through the books overhead, showering him with flaming pages and splintered wood. With debris raining down all around the Kurgal, he dashed on. More red light spat through the bookshelves as he went, leaving searing echoes in their wake. Scampering along the ground, it didn't take him long to reach the end of the bookcase.
Crouching low, he peered around the scarred wood just in time to see a lance, already in flight, curve towards him at the very last second. Trastgor tried to duck backwards but he was too slow; the Sorcerous bolt of light sizzled through the air just above his head and struck one of the Kurgal's horns with explosive force. It snapped his head around, felt like it damn nearly tore his head clean off his shoulders. Snarling in a mixture of mounting pain and fury, the warrior exploded from cover with his shield held high. Something struck its mangled face and tore it from his hand. Trastgor turned his stumble into a run and caught a glimpse of darkness on his right that he took to be Semekt leaping to the attack as well. Opening his mouth, the Kurgal let loose a bestial bellow and plunged his blade into the giant's thigh. It was easily taller than him, but the metal of his heavy weapon clove deep.
The creature jerked and looked down as Trastgor's blade bit into its pale flesh, spraying equally pale blood through the air. The chains around its wrists rattled as the monster writhed. A flurry of spears, crafted from luminous orange light, plunged towards Trastgor while white lightning chased Semekt as he drew bloody ruin across the Sorcerer's ribs. The Council's shoulders rose as it drew in a deep breath and the colossus snapped a single, muttered word. A shockwave of cold air exploded outwards, flinging Trastgor back against a writing desk, but Semekt managed to cling onto her target with the scimitars already buried in its side. Drawing them free, she set about distracting the Sorcerer while Trastgor picked himself up and rushed back into the fray. At the same time, sapphire light stabbed into its chest, neck and face to little avail.
The entire exchange had taken heartbeats, but the Council still found time to set its sights on Skye. She squeaked in terror as a fireball washed over her translucent shield, bathing nearby stacks of books in flames and burning them to ash. She was still bent low over Knox, up to her elbows in his blood as she tried to examine the wound. He was still alive, but black blood was bubbling from the tear in his gut and it was beginning to pool beneath them. Tremors ran through his body as his muscles spasmed, but they were growing weaker and weaker with every passing second. Powerless to do anything else and with tears streaking down her cheeks, Skye held his head in her hands and stammered out what lies she could that everything would be okay.
She watched as his shoulders heaved and hitched with every breath, before Knox slumped into her arms. A low, hoarse rattle escaped his lips before he lay suddenly, perfectly still on the cold library floor, surrounded by a pool of his own blood. His heavy lidded eyes had turned glassy and Skye was left holding him in the middle of all that chaos.
"Skye!" she heard Quintus call her name, but it sounded far away.
Stricken with grief, shock and all the trauma of the last few days, she could only hug Knox's bloody head to her chest and sob uncontrollably. Skye trembled as she felt something strike her shield and the backlash washed through her Core, but she yelped when a hand slapped down on her shoulder. She looked down through her own matted hair to see Knox's eyes. They were wide open now.
His pupils dilated and darkened before his body lurched upwards. A low, bestial growl escaped his throat as his grip on her shoulder tightened painfully. His eyes locked on something over her shoulder and Skye turned to see a hail of fresh fireballs descending towards her flimsy shield. His hand dragged her down and Knox twisted himself around to put himself between her and the Sorcerous projectiles. His powerful arms swept around Skye and pinned her against the library floor. Her shield absorbed the first fireball but fell before the second. She gasped at the backlash that ripped through her body like lightning before the rest of those fireballs rained down around them on all sides.
They detonated with bone jarring force, filling her senses to the brim with a cacophony of noise as searing warmth bathed her exposed flesh. Debris showered her, but Knox somehow held her close, sheltering her with his own body. Coughing and spluttering, gasping for breath, Skye looked up into the face of a beast.
It crouched over her with its arms encircling her slender waist, the heavy muzzle of a hound looming as its dark eyes bored into hers. Skye could only stare and gape before it released her and rose to a considerable height over her to survey the chamber. Its entire body was sheathed in dark fur with a ruffled mane shot through with silver around its throat. It was tall and long limbed, laden with thick slabs of lean, corded muscle. Knox, her mind told her numbly, this was Knox.
Then, without warning, it ducked low and bolted across the floor of the hall on all fours. Sitting up, Skye watched as it leapt into the air, long arms reaching and caught the topmost shelf of a bookcase. Swinging up onto the scarred wood, with lightning trailing in its wake, the beast that Knox had become flung itself into the air again. This time, it caught one of the thick chains securing the great crystal battering ram in place and scrambled up onto its sleek surface.
She watched, awestruck, as the furred beast caught one of the chains securing the ram in place, braced its feet and hauled against the thick metal. Every muscle in its body stood rigid as its snout twisted into a snarl of fury. Following the tip of the mighty battering ram, she saw it poised above the Sorcerer. At one time, it must have been loosed to strike their chains but now, with the Council surging to track his attackers, it was aimed straight at its wide chest. Trastgor and Semekt were both hard at work slashing and slicing at its flesh, but their distraction would be short lived.
Realizing what Knox had in mind, Skye leapt back upright. Quintus was still nearby, his staff spitting iridescent fire. She screamed his name at the top of her lungs and he half turned to her with wild eyes, his skin waxen pale. She stabbed a finger towards the ram and, as soon as he saw the beast atop it, the old man levelled his staff and loosed another bolt of searing sizzling light that only scarcely missed the hound by a foot.
"No!" Skye rushed towards him and knocked the staff aside, "Not him! The chains!"
Realization dawned and Quintus' next shot sliced through the chains surrounding Knox in a shower of sparks. It blasted shards of stone from the wall where it struck and cracks stabbed outwards, spraying debris. Planting its feet on the ram, the hound hauled back on the weakened chain in his grip with bared fangs. He wrenched it free of its mooring with a thunderous crunch and the battering ram, hanging still from other chains secured to the fell, fell into ponderous motion.
The Conclave was too distracted to notice and by the time it did, it was already too late. With all the graceful slowness and unstoppable force of a falling mountain, the lengthened, pointed top of the battering ram plunged into the creature's chest with the dog beast still atop it. The crystal impaled the monster, but deep and pierced the giant gemstone in its chest. A grunt wheezes from the Conclave but nothing more before pearly white light exploded from the wound and filled the hall with its radiance.
Skye caught a glimpse of the vast battering ram airborne as it was propelled backwards. It broke the last of its chains and crashed into the floor with enough force to fling Skye clean off her feet as light washed over her. It hit her like a warm breath of fresh air bathing her in the raw essence of the gem's destruction. Even on her knees, she felt its power rippled across her crawling flesh like nothing she'd ever felt before. She dragged a breath into her lungs, eyes wide and staring into that endless void of brilliant white.
When it faded, Skye dragged herself upright and half stumbled into a nearby writing desk. Still gasping for breath, her eyes were drawn towards the end of the hall to see the stonework blasted white by the explosion. Thick coils of white vapor still poured from the Sorcerous light. Above, the chains were hanging limp from the walls.
"Fuck," she breathed.
Hours? Minutes? Days?
Hulbard had no idea how long he spent in that torturous circle of dim light, but it didn't much matter; he was suffering. The shade of his brother had talked for a time, speaking in riddles about the mind and time, but all his words had been wasted on the warrior. He laid bare the ugly and barren truths of Hulbard's soul with words alone before the Thunderbolt began its work.
He'd fallen silent and only his blade sang now; it swept through the air, slashed, stabbed, impaled, dismembered, disembowelled and beheaded. Each time, the wound only lasted a heartbeat but the pain lingered. It carved scars into his very soul and left him whimpering for breath, drooling and snarling into the heavy, dead air.
When he tried to run, bolts of lightning chased him down, scorched his skin to blackened ruin and rocked him to his very core, set his muscles to convulsing so hard they snapped his spine. It didn't matter anyway, he always found himself back in that circle of cursed light.
He couldn't run but every time he fought, he lost. Hulbard knew that whatever stood before him now wasn't his brother, that it couldn't be, but he also realised that whatever had seized a hold of him mind had access to his memories. There was no other explanation for how it knew what it did, or how Yantis acted and fought as a mirror image of the real thing. He looked the same as the last time they'd stood face to each other years before. His brother had always been the more technical fighter of them, despite being less experienced on the battlefield itself.
He'd had plenty of time to practice during their years in the front lines. It didn't matter much though. Experience counted for little when Hulbard was unarmed. The truth counted for just as little though, no matter how much he tried to cling onto the idea that he was locked away in some wretched realm with an imitation of his brother. Yantis was alive and far away, far from war and far from the burden he'd created. The man before him now couldn't be the same as the one he'd grown up with, or the same he'd fought through three long campaigns alongside.
It was but a pale reflection of the real man but the biting blade didn't care. Time stood still in that place, warped his mind and left him with no defence against whatever the Sorcerer had done to him. The circle of light shone down on his naked, pale flesh bared to that scything sword. In the beginning, he was able to weather the torment with an iron will but that began to disintegrate before long under both the physical and verbal torture of that place. Between never ending, searing pain of a thousand breeds and Yantis laying his thoughts bare, even Hulbard's resolve waned.
"Ever wonder why I built the armour to suit you and not me?" that familiar voice raked his nerves, "Hmm? Did that ever cross your feeble mind?"
The longsword came up, around, sliced into Hulbard's forearms when he raised them to defend himself, sprayed blood from wounds that healed in the blink of an eye but which left agony behind.
"Subtlety was my stock and store," Yantis continued in a hiss, "You! You were always the laughable brute. Good in a fight, don't get me wrong. Cunning and calculating. But worthless to ever turn your hand to anything else".
Hulbard lunged for him and Yantis easily sidestepped the clumsy move. At the same time, his blade drew fire across his brother's thigh before swooping down into the back of his sin with a meaty thud.
"I became an arteficer," Yantis snarled, "I created wonders. I blended Sorcery and steel together to create something that's lasted the better part of a decade on the front line of a thousand conflicts. What have you ever created? Besides the life you abandoned?"
He ducked below a vicious uppercut and the Thunderbolt skewered Hulbard through the gut with a sickening, wet slurp. Yantis shouldered him backwards and drew the blade in one smooth motion.
"And what an abandonment that was," the shade of his brother chuckled huskily, "Scarcely two months old before you turned your back on not just your son, but his poor mother as well! What a prize you turned out to be, brother. Who else did you leave behind, eh?"
Shame and anger warred within Hulbard, distracted him long enough to cleave a gash across his gut. Instinct made him jerk backwards and he ducked under the lazy, follow up swing. The warrior fell back, the truth of his brother's words stinging just as much as the glittering blade, no matter how much he knew they weren't real.
"You abandoned me!" Yantis snapped, "I asked you to stay. I told you to stay. For Lianna and Goran, if not me. I begged you to stay and you turned your back on me".
Hulbard said nothing. He had nothing to say to that, no way to argue against the simple truth. Instead, he clung onto another.
"You're not real," he said sluggishly, backing away from another calculated swing.
"I'm as real as you in this place," Yantis flashed his cocky grin, before the blade licked out, left fire across Hulbard's chest, "And you can believe what you like but you know I'm not lying about any of this. You can't escape from here or what you've done!"
He leapt to the attack and Hulbard summoned what strength he had left to do the same.
When he was finally freed from his torment, it came with a blast of cold air that sent him staggering backwards as his lungs dragged in a ragged gasp that left him breathless. His eyes had been left wide open, but he snapped them shut in the face of that all consuming light.
Hulbard screamed as his eyes were scorched by light and heat. The warrior's voice rose in pitch as he collapsed to his knees and he bellowed at the memory of that place burned into his mind, tearing at his helmet as if he could claw them free of his mind. Pulling the helm free, he flung it aside, drew in a fresh breath, hunched over and roared his spit flecked rage, fury and pain into the ground beneath him as the echo of the Sorcerer's destruction rolled around the hall.
Every muscle in his body was tense, coiled fit to burst. A hand landed on his shoulder and Hulbard lashed out, nearly backhanding Skye clean off her feet. The Apprentice ducked under the swing and caught his tear streaked cheeks in her hands. Kneeling by his side, she shushed him in a gentle tone and he did his best to focus on her deep green eyes as the ghosts of his memories sank their wretched claws deep into his tortured mind. With his mind swimming and his eyes watering, he bit back the adrenaline surging through his entire body, but he had no defence against the rising tide of panic and terror threatening to drag him down into its cold embrace.
"It's okay," she told him quickly but firmly, "It's okay! We got you! We won. You're fine. It's fine".
Her voice cut through the chaos, a balm to his stricken nerves but it wasn't nearly enough. With tears streaking down his cheeks, he buried his face in the nape of her neck and clung to her. Skye grunted as his arms closed around her but slid her own around his neck. She began to rock him gently back and forth like a mother with a babe, stroking his hair and shushing him as soothingly as she could. Pulling her as close as he could, Hulbard clung to her like a drowning man at sea and sobbed his rage and fear into her robe.
All too soon, the other converged around them but he only distantly heard their voices until Skye spoke.
"Hulbard," her voice was soft but firm, "I need you to let me go now".
With trembling hands, he tentatively did as he was told and, releasing her, slumped back onto his knees. Through bleary eyes that still burned, he saw the battering ram lying nearby in a creator, its tip obliterated and bleeding white vapour. He saw Trastgor approaching, his body criss crossed with a score of fresh cuts leaking blood into his thick fur. As he drew closer though, Hulbard saw that one of the Kurgal's horns had been sheared away to leave a broken stump midway up its length. Skye rose and hurried across to him.
Hulbard raked the rough cloth of his cloak across his face before heaving himself upright.
"Quintus," his voice was a wet croak, "What happened?"
The old man was staring towards where the colossal monster had been with a strange expression; unbridled joy mixed with incredulous disbelief. The result was a shaky, uncertain smile.
"We killed it," he announced, "We… We dropped the battering ram into it".
"With the help of some kind of demonic dog," Shankill added, appearing between them, seemingly no worse the wear save for a few fresh scuffs on his knees, "Where did that thing come from?"
Quintus only shook his head and turned to look at the devastation surrounding them, caught somewhere between action and awe. Hulbard did the same with his heart still fit to burst from his chest, thundering in his ears until he could scarcely hear anything else. Movement towards the scorched made him turn towards it as a creature dragged itself up onto its cracked surface and it was one he recognised immediately from another he'd seen years before.
It was a werewolf, all lean and slender muscle, carpeted in a thick coat of dark fur matted with blood.
"Speaking of which," Shankill set his hands on his hips, "Should we kill it or welcome it with open arms?"
"It's a werewolf," Hulbard supplied, "Where'd it come from?"
Dropping to the library floor, the beast padded unsteadily towards them and, as it approached it began to shed its fur. Clumps of dark hair fell from its shoulders to leave a carpet in its wake until pale skin began to show. A fully formed tail shrivelled and fell to the floor a moment before two tall ears melted back into his thick mane of hair. There was the soft, wet squelching crunch of bones realigning and muscles shrinking until the beast took back on the vague semblance of Knox once more.
"I'll be damned," Shankill muttered.
"That would explain his freakishly fast healing," Quintus mused.
"Explains a lot actually," Hulbard hummed.
They'd had a werewolf among their number and never realised for the better part of two years. Naked and shivering, his body criss crossed with shallow wounds that were already clotting, the hunter approached them with his head bowed. They said no words; Hulbard stepped forward and thrust out a hand, asking no questions and passing no judgement. Knox met his eyes for a heartbeat before noisily licking his teeth and clasping his offered hand wrist to wrist, just like they'd done a hundred times before. Despite his wounds and Skye's protests, Trastgor broke away from her and approached the hunter to do the same. They shook, sombrely bowed their heads to each other and parted. Just like that, the matter was laid to rest between the warriors. Knox spared the others a glance before moving away to collect fresh clothes from his pack.
"Oh shit!" Skye suddenly yelped and Hulbard spun, already bristling and fingers curled into fists.
She was staring at Semekt, who'd just joined them. More specifically, she was staring at the stump where her lower right arm had been. Semekt followed her gaze, held up the remains of the limb where it ended just below her elbow and hissed something in her native language. Hulbard could only imagine it was the equivalent of 'Shit'.
"Tend to him," Quintus snapped, pointing at Trastgor and advancing on Semekt himself.
Dragging his mind back from whatever precipice it had been balanced on and began tending to the severed limb with needle, thread and poultices pulled from his bag. Hulbard just stood and watched, too stunned and dazed still to do anything else.
Hulbard busied himself searching his body for any new and unnoticed wounds, but his armour was still securely locked in place and, burying the fear and dread crowding his mind, the warrior began to pace in a small, quick circle nearby.
Once the wounded had been hastily tended to in that cavernous Hall, silent save for a few pages crackling and smoking away on the Library floor, Quintus approached the blasted mark on the floor where The Conclave had been a few moments before.
"Skye, how are you feeling?" he asked with a grim frown.
"Tingly," she told him, "Warm. Tired. Weird".
"Aye, expected," he nodded, "We were all just blasted by a wave of unknown Sorcery. Who knows what it might have done to us?"
"Turned Knox into a werewolf," Shankill quipped.
"Oh no, I'd wager that happened long before now," Quintus said, "But the fact remains… We destroyed a fragment of what we came here to retrieve. Did you see what they could do with that thing?"
"Hard to miss," Trastgor winced.
"But you will fail to see why it was so extraordinary," Quintus told them all, "That fragment of what we seek was enough to join multiple Sorcerer's together into one new body forged from Sorcery and sustained by it alone, an abnormal bastion against the forces of reality itself. Everything in Dalaghast has been near impossible since we first set foot in it but nothing we've seen so far even comes close to such a miracle as this. That shard alone was valuable beyond reckoning and we broke the damn thing".
"Indeed you did," the soft, cultured voice came from behind but then again, it normally did, "But better that outcome and the death of this misbegotten wretch than any alternative I can see".
"And here I was just wondering when you would get here," Quintus turned as Ailasin strode towards them across the wreckage of the Library with her hands clasped behind her back, like a lady strolling through the park.
"Mainly…" he continued lightly, "So that I could tell you to fuck off. I have had my fill of the bullshit you've been feeding us".
"I was wrong," their ghostly guide shrugged her slender shoulders, "I assumed they would be only too happy to open the way for you to assault Magnus directly".
"Another miracle," Hulbard growled, "We were almost killed. Again! But she admits she was wrong so it's all okay, clearly".
Ailasin gave him a withering glare as she came to a stop before the haggard, battered group of adventurers.
"You are going to start explaining yourself," Quintus' voice was low but firm, "Or we are done".
Ailasin raised an eyebrow towards the Sorcerer before leisurely reaching up to pluck at a few stray strands of her raven black hair, twisting them together between her fingertips.
"Then wander," her voice was cold and aloof, "And be lost in this city forevermore. The Sorcerer's way is closed, but another does exist".
"And I'm sure this one is only guarded by a pair of immortal dragons," Skye snorted, "That you will no doubt conveniently forget to tell us about until after they've chewed our bones to dust".
"Again," Ailasin said slowly, but with a true note of iron in her voice now, "I. Was. Wrong. In my defence, I don't think I could have said anything in the past that would have led to any outcome other than this. You have ignored every warning I have ever given you in the past with nothing short of reckless abandon. I have done my best to guide you. You have spurned my advice each and every time. Like spoiled children being denied a treat after dinner, you disobeyed me. Now you want to blame me for the choices you made? I don't think so".
Quintus scowled at that, shifted a little from foot to foot like a man put in his place and the others followed suit, staying silent.
"The fact remains," Ailasin continued slowly, "That I am not omnipotent. I cannot see, know and control all. This thing you put to rest, in a spectacular fashion I might add, was a gruesome and unwholesome amalgamation of minds warped by years of imprisonment".
"And yet…" Quintus paused, choosing his words with care, "You know a lot more than you've ever let on. You know the answers to questions I've asked and you have only given me riddles instead of straight facts. We could use a reliable guide. We could benefit for someone with your knowledge, but without you… We would not be lost. We have a destination, a purpose and the means to get there. You, on the other hand, have nothing if we don't help you. You need us".
Ailasin considered him for a long moment before drawing on a deep breath and exhaling slowly, like a teacher seeking patience with an idiot student.
"And you will agree to help me in exchange for knowledge?" she ventured in as neutral a tone as she could manage.
"Plain and simple answers to what is going on in Dalaghast," he nodded, "No riddles. No educated guesses. No bullshit".
"Indeed," Ailasin eyed him up and down before raking her gaze across his companions.
"You had all best get comfortable," she told them, clasping her hands in front of her.
There was a moment of expectant silence before Quintus led the way once more. He found a nearby armchair and slumped into it while Skye perched on its arm. Keenly aware of just how much he wanted to be by her side but worried everyone would notice if he lurked too close, Hulbard found a nearby wooden chair that had escaped the carnage and dragged it closer to the pair before dropping into it. The wood creaked beneath his weight, but he scarcely registered that or anything else.
Trastgor eased himself to the floor on the opposite side and Knox, freshly clothed but shivering and gaunt, joined them. Semekt looped herself into a lazy coil next in line and settled down with loud huff that could have meant anything from pain to annoyance. Lastly, Shankill sat on another chair by his faithful servant to create a slovenly semi circle around their guide.
Once they had all settled wearily into place, Ailasin drew herself up to her full height and began. Her soft, cultured voice filled the Library with a gentle cadence.
"The current situation, as it stands, is dire," she told them matter of factly, "King Magnus is waking at long last from his pale semblance of slumber and he is starting to reign in his power. This means harnessing the power of the darkness that was the very downfall of his Kingdom. The black roots that have infested this city are being dragged back to their source and that alone is the reason you could breach the illusory veil surrounding Dalaghast. That is also why its denizens have become more...agitated as of late. Clarity is returning and they are beginning to see things a little more clearly. No longer are the theatres packed with adoring fans or the halls echoing with laughter from better days".
Ailasin began to gesture as she continued, as if reaching for the words that spilled from her lips.
"Instead, those who have been blind are waking to what they have become and most are being faced with a bitter brew to swallow. Those who have always seen the ruin and rot of this place are finally being set loose upon their own tasks. Some are rather aimless, like Aersgald the hunter. Others ply the watery depths of the docks for answers, like they always have. But Magnus must contain this retraction of power and maintain control on a razor's edge. These dark roots have proved invaluable in keeping certain things, like the Conclave, imprisoned. This Library required that power to keep it locked in place, where any threat it posed could be minimised. Were that power to lessen, that monstrous abomination could have been set loose upon the city to do as it pleased and even Magnus can see how cataclysmic such an event would have been".
"It is not the only secret locked away within this city and held in check. They are varied but, for the moment, thankfully unimportant since Magnus' actions so far have not endangered their imprisonment. The King himself, however, has also been a prisoner and it has taken him a very, very long time to marshal his will against that which holds him captive. It has been a slow process. Even so, his awakening has been enough to be felt in the world beyond this place by those sensitive enough to catch it".
Ailasin's eyes had been roaming around the group as she spoke, but they drifted now to the hall around them and she began to airily pace the ruined carpet as she continued in a softer tone.
"Magnus is waking, one way or another. Everything in its time, after all, but the problem is what will happen when he regains full control of himself. Should he fully regain his senses, I have no way of knowing what he will do. However, if his past life is anything to go by, his first course of action would be to rebuild Dalaghast into the continent spanning empire it had once been. I seek to stop that, with your help".
She paused, allowing that information a long moment to sink in. Between his dazed thoughts, wretched memories and his lack of understanding when it came to Sorcery, Hulbard was only barely following along, but even he could feel the weight behind that statement.
"If he is to be stopped," she continued with a pointed glance towards their group, "It has to be now, during this fragile period when outsiders can enter this place and Magnus cannot yet leave. The barrier is weakening, but it was erected to halt the spread of those roots. You could pass through it, but the poisonous Sorcery that has taken hold here cannot yet escape. But as more power is siphoned from the veil sealing Dalaghast away from the outside world, it is simply a matter of time before that changes. Magnus' time has come and gone. He needs to be put to rest and this is the only chance we have to do just that before he can fully regain his power. With the 'Star' at his disposal, he would pose a grievous threat to everything beyond this city, given half a chance".
"Pfft," Shankhill snorted, "No matter how strong he is, he's still just one man. You must not get out much because the world outside-"
"Would never see it coming," Quintus cut him off, "Everyone out there has been wrapped up in civil wars or campaigns for the last few years. They've only ever been holding each other at bay. This thing we killed, the Conclave, could have single handedly caused more damage than you would ever believe. We only killed it through sheer dumb luck because we had the perfect tool for the job. Given freedom and a little time, it could have caused a lot of damage. And that was only a collective of people bound together by a fragment of the star. Magnus has the real thing".
"And now he begins to see," Ailasin stopped pacing and favoured Quintus with a sad smile.
"It's not a star, is it?" he asked softly.
"Fanciful tales," she waved a dismissive hand, "But then again, they always are".
"What is it then?" Quintus asked her, "I've been stumped since we got here. No man, no matter how powerful, should ever be able to survive as long as Magnus has. They should never have been able to affect so many in such a drastic way".
"That…" Ailasin sighed, "Requires a bit of an explanation. In order to understand where we are now, you need to know what came before. It is a complicated affair, but I will try my best to simplify it for everyone present".
Ailasin paused, pursing her lips and bouncing on the balls of her feet as she considered how to continue, but it wasn't long before her words filled the air again.
"Before Dalághast, when the world was still young, it was inhabited by a variety of singular, unique creatures that could only ever loosely be called a species unto itself. These...beings were colossal as a general rule; walking mountains, stalking skeletal monstrosities, soaring behemoths and leviathans of the deep. Even the word 'colossal' barely seems to have done them justice. They were large enough to dwarf everything in their path besides each other. They were a primal part of this world and dominated all without ever truly ruling. Without ever issuing a command, they were the absolute authority of this world and capable of tremendous, world altering destruction if roused to anger".
"It is impossible to know what they really were, but many believe that they were aspects of this world given physical form by the Tides of Sorcery. Others believe that they were the remnants of some ruined God, divided among dozens of monstrous bodies. Beneath their feet, humanity eked out a miserable existence in the dirt. Whatever they were, they were put to rest by one man destined to become a God Slayer. A single man brought down the first of these creatures with cleverness and guile, with traps, Sorcery and blade. The battle was said to have taken place over the course of a week but when all was said and done, that warrior built a fortress in the bones of his slain foe as a safe haven for humanity and a testament to their will. It became a challenge to the Old Gods themselves and flourished as people flocked to the safety of its jet black walls".
"It became the embodiment of the dream that humanity could exist and, as it grew, it became a cradle for our race to prosper.
"The Skullborn Bastion," Quintus surmised and Ailasin nodded with an indulgent smile.
"The one and only," she said, "That God Slayer became a king as his fortress became a city and that city became a Kingdom, but he was not yet done. He trained others to do what he had already done and together, they set out to bring the other primal existences down, one by one. He was Aelus, the First King of the First City, and through everything that followed, Dalághast remained in the hands of his pureblood descendants. His line endured through feuds, coups, assassinations, rebellions and multiple civil wars. Mastery of Sorcery was a given, alongside selective and often very competitive inbreeding. Magnus is a descendant of this bloodline and his story, in itself, is not an insignificant one".
"He came to power at a young age in the wake of a rebellion that reached into the very heart of Dalághast itself and left Magnus as the eldest heir to the throne. At that point in time, Dalághast was on the very brink of ruin, fractured into a thousand pieces by competing ideals, and Magnus sold his youth to reunify it. He was gifted with both blade and Sorcery and he used both to his advantage during those long years of campaigning to reclaim his birthright and set things right. Under his rule, three years of golden peace followed. That ended when an island suddenly appeared off the Asolphus Coast. One day, the horizon was clear and the next, it was blighted by a great eyesore in the distance with a towering, jagged mountain at its heart. It was already a fixture steeped in legend, a moving island that appeared unpredictably for unknown reasons up and down the coast from time to time before melting back into the ether from whence it had come".
"One such rumor claimed that its inhabitants had harnessed a fresh breed of Sorcery unknown to the rest of the world. The idea of such a thing existing, some form of the Craft that he had not mastered, drove Magnus to action. He travelled north with a retinue of followers and travelled further still across the water to that mysterious island, where he found a coven of primitive witches. Magnus dragged them back to Dalághast in chains, where he plied them with promises and torture in equal measure for information about their arts".
Quintus winced at that, but Ailasin's eyes had already taken on a faraway gleam as she continued.
"This went on for weeks, before one witch plied him with promises in return. Her beauty was radiant and her tongue silver. She was cunning and, over time, she convinced Magnus to sully himself. He took her to his bed chambers and defiled the royal bed with a witch. Variana was her name and she convinced him that she would betray her sisters and creed for the love they shared".
"Blinded by his thirst for power, Magnus agreed to return to that island with her and her alone. What happened there can never be known and I feel even speculation would fall short of the truth, but when they returned, they brought with them something...new. Deep within that floating island, Magnus discovered the fossilised heart of a great, primal leviathan. To Magnus, only an ancestor could have felled the beast and so, it was his birthright".
Ailasin paused to clear her throat and busied herself with smoothing out the front of her dress as she went on.
"Magnus retreated from the public eye and, with Variana by his side, began to harness the power of that thing that had sustained the coven of witches for so long. Rumors spread throughout the city like wildfire as the throne was left to his queen. Locked away in a wing of the Skullborn Bastion with just a witch for company and that Heart to study, Magnus lost himself. With poison whispered into his ear, Variana tricked him into splitting his own heart asunder to be replaced with the leviathans. The Heart was split and pieces found their way into the hands of the mighty and influential. The largest of these pieces...Magnus succeeded in his task and fused with it. He intended to do the same with more, but thankfully this never happened. As it stands though, you have seen what a single shard did to a group of powerful, Master Sorcerer's; a sliver no longer than an arm and scarcely thicker. Imagine a piece much, much bigger, and what a man could do with that".
"Oh, I have been," Quintus spoke up, "And I'm beginning to see just how long our odds are".
"And that is precisely why I was reluctant to share this information with you before now," Ailasin told him, "Capable adventurer's aren't easy to come by. I had my...reservations about how you might react to that particular piece of news when you had only just entered the city. But, regardless, we are here now and I have a story to finish".
"Magnus wrought this great sin upon himself and set about mastering a new form of Sorcery only a select few had ever known before. He was mastered by it instead and something lurking within the depths of that Heart began to take hold of his mind. The end of Dalághast came one day when Magnus broke from his dark rituals and resumed his place upon the Cnámh Throne. Built upon the grave of the first Primal beast to fall, which had been resting over a leyline of Sorcery. linked to a Tide of Sorcery. Whatever malignant sentience inhabiting Magnus' mind was able to link into that Tide and begin to poison it. It created a new nest of writhing roots and they began to spread. Only Magnus' final act of heroic cowardice to seal Dalághast away from the work halted its spread".
Clasping her hands behind her back, Ailasin began to slowly pace the floor before the group, eyes downcast and thread thoughtful.
"At first, people began to experience nightmares but before long, they began to manifest as reality before their very eyes. Theories abound as to how and why the Heart affected so many in the ways it did, but if there is an answer, I do not know it. Perhaps it is the manifest will of a long dead, vengeful God with an inclination towards ironic twists of fate. Maybe it paid those people no need and their transformations, both physical and psychological, were simply the result of such close contact with those tendrils. All I know is that the city fell into chaos as its inhabitants were affected in a host of different ways by whatever creeping horror lies within that Heart. The fact that people lost the ability to die from natural causes was seen more as a side effect than a conscious, plotted thing but again...nobody knows for sure. If they do, they have never spoken of it and I can offer nothing to sate your curiosity. I don't suppose it really matters either. The result remains the same. Dalághast descended into anarchy".
"That was when the sea began to rise. Once it had swallowed the docks and sunk the streets, Magnus finally began to take notice of what was taking place and he shook himself free of his dazed half dream of an existence to work his final miracle. The veil shielding this world from the one outside was the very same enchantment that had kept the island hidden for so long and he used it to lock this place away from prying eyes. The fact that it halted the roots progress could have been a happy coincidence, or a calculated risk. Again, we will never know, but once he'd accomplished that great feat, Magnus sank back into the Gnámh to sleep again and he has slumbered ever since".
Spreading her hands to either side, Ailasin inclined her head, indicating that she'd finished her tale.
"Why wake now?" Skye spoke up first.
"Because even the God's must wake sooner or later," Ailasin shrugged her shoulders, "I do not know why, exactly, but I can only assume that it has taken him this long to reclaim his mind and get a grasp on current events. But if he is allowed to continue, unhindered, he will sunder the veil and unleash those roots to spread through the core Tides of Sorcery spread throughout this entire world. There is no corner that would be left untouched". (he cannot beat it. It will spread. Not consciously. But as a matter of inherent nature and instinct. No real will. Just sheer force. Magnus is all that stands between it and the world. He is prisoner and prison both)
"Whatever happened in Dalághast would spread," Quintus summed up for his companions, "Magnus' influence would spread and there'd be nothing we could do to stop him. All the Libraries in the world could come together, but they do not have a direct link to the Tides like this Heart, it seems".
"Can't you just find another leyline and...I don't know, fight it?" Skye asked, brows furrowed.
"We have no way of influencing the Tides, even if we could gain direct access to the source of one," Quintus told her, stroking his beard, "The only hope we have of stopping that is to stop Magnus. Now, before he manages to fully wake up".
"And that is all only the simple side effect of Magnus waking," Ailasin reminded them, "To say nothing of what he would do with all the power he's gained, but he would, in theory, be able to influence the Tides in any way he wished".
"He could probably use them to split a continent in half," Quintus said, "Without ever having to set foot on it".
"The very possibility of his unfettered existence is a threat to all you know," their guide's voice was soft but firm.
"I know what we are after now," Quintus told, "But not what it does. Not how it works".
"The beast that heart came from is linked to the Tides at a base level," Ailasin told him, "If it was truly born from them, that would explain their connection. Regardless of how or why, the Heart is an utterly vast repository of Sorcerous energy. The fact that it is linked to the Tides, however, means that any time it diminished in any way, it draws from the Tides to restore itself. It is like a man drinking from a jug of water placed beneath a waterfall".
"Limitless energy," Quintus sighed heavily, "Unlimited fuel for their Core, right?"
"Yes, since no one man would ever be able to empty the Heart, and it would refill before anyone ever could in any event," Ailasin expanded on the idea, "That is why Magnus sought to fuse with the thing. That way, he would never need to return to it again. He would have a Core that would never tire, lessen, grow old or fade. It would have been a powerful artefact in the hands of the most inept Sorcerer, much less an adept like Magnus".
"A Sorcerer that never tires," the old man muttered, "With access to any number of incantations, spells and enchantments. Such a thing is hard to even imagine".
"And how do you know all this?" Hulbard asked gruffly, half lost but just about following along.
"Because," Ailasin smiled sadly, "I have been here as long as Magnus and witnessed his downfall firsthand".