It had been two days since the Hidden Star guild was attacked from the inside, and the very pride and integrity it held felt close to dissolving. Uncertainty and doubt rose among the citizens of Eil'Drawwt as cracks formed in the fortress that was Hidden Star. Questions and concerns surfaced without answers as all eyes turned to the guild in this time of chaos.
Those below the guild waited with bated breath. With the news brought to them only in spurts of gossip. Their imagination guided what they believed to be the fate of their home. Those above the guild watched carefully to see if a situation of this calibre could be handled by the guild's current leadership. The sheer amount of pressure caving in on Hidden Star's leaders and higher ranked affiliates felt crushing.
Such pressure had especially wracked the patience of one of Hidden Star's most feared affiliates. Forced into inaction, Wright painstakingly did all within his power to try to amend the catastrophe that took place. The limits of his influence significantly hindered his progress, forcing him to seek out a higher authority.
With his mind set on taking action, Wright kept a brisk pace through the halls of the guild, passing by anxious adventurers and curious press. Though many he passed wanted a chance to question him over recent events, none dared to even look him in his glaring eye as he utterly ignored the world around him. The blood mage finally concluded his trek through the halls when he reached an intricately designed pair of doors marked with a plaque off to the side labeled "Head Director's Office".
The two guards standing outside the Director's door stiffened in fear as Wright approached. They allowed him to walk into the office unimpeded, afraid of what would become of them had they even questioned his intentions. Director Veridan looked up from the mountains of paperwork at his desk at Wright, only to promptly return to them.
Wright closed the doors behind him and put his black coat up on a nearby rack. "Saul," Wright spoke coldly and at the edge of his patience as he took a seat opposite to Veridan. "It appears the aeriie case has been placed under your jurisdiction, yes?"
"As have most things," Veridan answered, his dull dark green eyes still glued to the papers he signed at breakneck speeds, "When I'm not tending to panicked citizens, furious lords, and condescending officials from The League, it's the only thing I am taking care of."
Wright leaned forward slowly. "Then there should be nothing stopping you from giving me permission to track down the culprit, right? I am sick and tired of playing public appeaser while hell breaks loose." He concluded his request, barely holding back his outright fury.
Veridan finally looked up from his paperwork to address the blood mage. "Sir Wright, even if I am in charge of this case, my hands are simply tied on all ends. Even just to dismiss you outside of the immediate Eil'Drawwt city borders, I would need to hold a board meeting complete with overlookers from the Center Regional Adventurer's League. Not even to mention that they have momentarily cut us off from distant teleportation access, essentially removing us access to both Captain Krisofft and Lady Uri'Clair. For the time being, both the city and The League want you to serve as a defender of the people in case of future incidents. I am sorry, Sir Wright." Veridan carefully unloaded his frustrations with his situation, attempting to hold composure above everything else.
Wright sighed quietly and moved on to his second plan. "If that's the case then. Help me not as Head Director, but as Veridan'Saul." Veridan's brow furrowed and he lowered his pen, unaware to what Wright could be even insinuating. "I want access to the Comet System."
Veridan's confusion subsided but was replaced by another brand of perplexity. "The Comet System, how do you even know about-" One look at Wright's face and Veridan knew the answer. "Hela can't keep a secret for her life. Alright, well what do you know?" The Director admitted as he manifested a translucent green key within his palm. He brought the key below his desk and unlocked a compartment outside of Wright's view.
"The Comet System is an artifact set with an interlocking pattern of scripts that, when working in conjunction, allow you to spy on the guild. Real game changer there, Saul," Wright sarcastically answered.
"It is hardly spying, Wright," Veridan pulled from the compartment in his desk an inscribed artifact composed of metal hexagonal patterns that linked together to make up a jagged-edged orb. The rings on Veridan's fingers glimmered with a brilliant green light as his magic activated the artifact. Scripts sparked to life from Veridan's influence. A subtle wind coursed through the artifact, entering between its gaps and twisting in the air like a puzzle to be solved. Eventually, Veridan managed to fully activate the artifact as it projected an array of lights. The lights began to display a detailed map of Eil'Drawwt and its surrounding area while the orb itself floated in the middle of the diagram. "The only personal information being taken is the current location of any adventurers or captured outlaws tagged by Comet, everything else is effectively public or guild record. Besides, the benefit that Comet will provide far outweighs its detriments. Once perfected, I believe this could change the way adventurers operate all around Duramas."
"And what if this sort of magic falls into hands outside of the guild," Wright pressed as he scanned the display provided by Comet. He saw hundreds of dots around the map marking the presence of adventurer's all around the area.
"I haven't even allowed this into the hands of The League yet. I'm not letting this go public until I'm sure it can't be manipulated outside of its designed purpose of regulating adventurers and keeping outlaws in line."
"We'll have to have a long discussion about that eventually." Wright's eye narrowed in suspicion towards the director. "For now though, how come Comet wasn't able to track down that aeriie?"
"I have a hypothesis, but there is plenty of evidence I still need and many tests I'll need to run before fully understanding what occurred," Veridan explained as he manipulated the Comet display without movements, his rings merely blinked as energy pulsed off Veridan back into the artifact. The display bended to a zoom as it ignored the other adventurer signatures and instead focused on a timelapse of one reading in particular. "As you can see, the emblem placed on the aeriie's person was never removed, yet it was slowly deactivated during his last escape attempt. Comet runs off of light based mana, nearly indestructible and intransmutable, and yet Comet was disabled on his end, just as the light based barriers protecting the artifact exhibit were."
"So this aeriie can destroy light?" Wright pondered over this information as he watched Veridan return the display to how it once was. The concept of light being destroyed for some reason delved some memories out from him. After some time, he recalled that his former apprentice, Nessa, was on a mission tied to this light-destroying phenomenon. Wright's attention closed in on an index of adventurers' tracked by Comet displayed on the side of the map it projected. "Is this meant to be a complete list of all adventurers watched under Comet?"
Veridan as well turned his view to the index, paying closer attention to it before he answered. "As long as they are within Comet's range, yes."
"Apprentice Nessa," Wright thought aloud, "I don't see her on this list, is Ral'Kacet on a mission outside of the Eil'Drawwtian area?"
"No one is supposed to be, we haven't yet branched farther than Comet's range in search of the aeriie," Veridan answered, perplexed by the absence of the adventurer. He set about bending the display for the final time, creating a time lapse of Nessa's signature as it followed her from the guild, to the Solferre tunnels, only for it to slowly fade away as she branched off from the standard path. "This...This can't be right. Why did—" Veridan stopped as he realized he was alone. The coat hanger near the entrance of his office shook briefly, with Wright nowhere to be seen.
As much as she tried, Nessa couldn't process everything that had happened. With every moment she tried to rationalize Ignus's words and Ilz's fate, a surge of pain and grief would overtake her and bring her back to square one. Her heartbeat felt like it would drown out her own thoughts eventually, and soon the blood that pulsed through her would lash out on its own.
Ignus spoke something of a future for dusk elves, but she couldn't begin to understand what he could've meant by that. Nessa didn't want to understand. The grief and pain she experienced began to transform as she looked upon his visage. He tried to speak as if he held some noble purpose, but Nessa couldn't accept that whatsoever. Her fear became strength and her grief soon turned to anger as she looked upon Ignus. As this anger filled her mind, she was almost grateful her thoughts were muffled to her. All that ran through her mind was a burning desire to rip Ignus to shreds, a desire that felt unlike her, alien to anything she had ever felt before.
"Why," Nessa choked out through the pain and backed up tears in her throat, "Why would you kill him? You're a monster."
Ignus's expression hardly changed at the insult and question posed to him, though he turned his gaze away from Nessa and instead slowly approached the tunnel.
"I, Terr'Ignus, am no mindless monster. Your allies posed a threat to me, for they constantly trailed me in the shadows. It was only a matter of time until they revealed me, so I did what was necessary to ensure my goals are met." Terr'Ignus looked back at Nessa. "That is why you will live, because you are no such threat to the future."
"You did all of this just to steal the artifact?" Nessa continued to question Ignus through gritted teeth.
"The Solferre Halberd is a means to an end. A tool alone." Ignus paused briefly before proposing his own question. "Your name, the reptir mentioned it didn't he? Nessa, was it?"
Nessa did not answer. She simply remained staring back at Terr'Ignus.
"Nessa. Our people have suffered without reason over our entire history. We were banished from the surface. Ridiculed and hated, even when we had nothing left to lose while lost in the dark. The dusk elves embraced the darkness of Vy'es Dela'ramar, and we made it our home. Yet now that we prosper, those who oppressed us found benefits to be had in the life we had made," Ignus spoke in a tone not speaking down to Nessa or demeaning her, but rather in one of a teacher. His genuine desire to guide her was clear in his eyes and voice. "The humans brought their gods and their light so that they could come and take what we had created. They are vermin that must be driven back to where they belong."
"Are you insane?" Nessa became even more heated than before. "Dusk elves made peace with those on the surface millenia ago! Your desire for vengeance is flawed!"
"This is not peace," Ignus growled, "This is just a moment of calm before a storm, merely an uneasy alliance until the surface dwellers do what they do best and betray us. But when they betray us next, there will be nowhere to banish us to." Ignus's visage slowly faded as the last star crystal began to dim. "I will take action before they have the chance to. I will bring the dark back to Vy'es Dela'ramar. It will be our future alone, one without the like of outsiders."
"I won't let you," Nessa commanded in a coarse whisper barely heard, "Even if I don't stop you. Someone will. There will always be adventurers that will put an end to scum like you."
Terr'Ignus simply turned away and continued on his approach to the tunnel, "You are in no position to stop me, and soon the guild will be a relic of the past. Remain here and await the moment of truth, and I promise you will find solace in the new world. Perhaps that alone will convince you."
"There was no way," Nessa choked out through heavy breathing, "You could've ever convinced me." She revealed a mana beam spell charging in her palm while her tome waited on the ground next to her. She released the spell in Ignus's direction and watched as the impact created a cloud of smoke and dust in the small cavern clearing.
Nessa dragged her tome out from behind her and turned the pages manually. Once she reached the spell she searched for, Nessa placed her bloodied hand over her heart and drew it away quickly. Her motion ignited a crimson aura to blaze over her body as she slowly picked herself up. Bursts of blood magic pulsed off of Nessa, expelling the stones that dug into her in a slow, painful, and twisted process of healing. Her muscles contorted back into place in excrutiating spasms until she was finally able to stand up again, barely ignoring the extreme pain that coursed all through her body.
By the time the process finished, Nessa stumbled to her feet at the ready. She was filled with bloodlust, but still wavering as her tome floated up back into her hand. Finally, the dust began to settle and Ignus awaited cautiously in the same position he was before Nessa's attack. A pillar of earth was erected between Ignus and Nessa, and it stood nearly carved through from the sheer power of Nessa's gambit.
Nessa wasted no time in trying to attack Ignus again. She created flurries of violet and crimson mana bolts, careening them towards the cloaked dusk elf in a mad fury. Each bolt that flung from her palms took a piece of her with them. They held not just the culmination of her rage, but were all fueled with more and more of her blood. Ignus hardly moved in response, letting spires of earth rise up from the ground to intercept each spell before they could even reach him. He posed no offense, perhaps to exhaust Nessa or just to give her one last chance to surrender. Regardless, Nessa remained uneasily silent and focused in her onslaught by twisting her magic into a spinning blade of blood and mana. The blade released from her grip and forced Ignus to dodge out of the way as it sliced right through his defenses of stalagmites.
Another blade of mana charged over Nessa's tome while Ignus slammed the base of his staff to the ground.
"Enough!" Ignus growled. A blue pulse of frost emitted off Ignus's body, washing the cavern over in a frigid atmosphere. The wave of cold hit Nessa and immediately diminished her. The spell she had been preparing faded into nothing from the cold snap. The sudden change of temperature cooled Nessa's raging blood, forcing her crimson aura to dim. Ignus lashed out once more, reaching his hand out as a cell of earth spires trapped Nessa in place. His hand slowly closed as the cell he had crafted constricted its target further and further.
Nessa thought as quickly as she possibly could. She outstretched her hand through the gaps in the prison of stone towards Terr'Ignus. Her fingers shook as a faint scarlet energy wrapped around her hand. Ignus paid no mind to her and instead continued his spell, but he could no longer feel his own casting hand. His gaze shot quickly to his hand to see that Nessa's blood magic was slowly prying his fingers open.
Without any ability to finish the spell, the earth around Nessa softened to the point where it collapsed into a sand like state around her. Terr'Ignus growled in annoyance as he used his staff to encase his hand in ice to free himself from Nessa's grip.
"If you so desperately want to die a martyr," Ignus muttered. The ice over Ignus's arm broke apart as a surge of black energy coalesced within his open palm. "Then I will grant you that final wish," He announced as a beam of dark magic shot out from his hand to hit Nessa in the chest. The spell struck at her directly, sending her body reeling back to the wall as she crumbled to one knee.
Nessa stumbled back onto her feet, feeling the pain in her legs resurface. She felt herself hitting the limits of her body. Fear returned to her mind as she recognized how close to death she actually was. Nessa looked out at Ignus and slowly felt her fear dissipate as a realization formed in her mind. This was the culmination of blood magic.
The edge of death pushed Nessa into action, for there was nothing left she could lose, but there was so much left for her to spend. Streams of blood that ran from the wounds of her body became engulfed in a crimson blaze that washed over the entirety of her. Every word of concern and worry faded out from her mind, turning to a singing silence as she stepped over the edge into a mindless state. All she could hear was her frantically beating heart as her aura consumed her very body.
Nessa stood in a state past death, but she held no fear. If it meant avenging Ilz, if it meant stopping Ignus, if it meant protecting her brother, she would die a thousand times just for this. Nessa's formless aura of blood and mana swirled together as she prepared one final gambit to take down Ignus.
Ignus watched on in some form of twisted admiration of the feat of strength unfolding before him. Shockwaves rippled through Ignus's cloak as his own dark aura charged to counter Nessa's gambit. He lodged his staff in the ground beside him and put his full focus into charging his mana. They poured everything they had forward, blood and darkness, swirling in a hurricane of destruction ready to devastate all that was in their path.
With the cavern itself shaking with the sheer amount of energy pouring into these two mages, they finally released their magic towards their target in pure beams of their respective element. The twin beams clashed against each other for only a moment before a blinding light illuminated the cavern before it caved in upon itself.
The floor of the cavern collapsed, dropping Nessa and Ignus into another section of the cave, luckily spared from the debris and boulders that crashed down from above. Nessa struggled to pick herself up after the debilitating fall. Her body ached all over and she could feel her heart beating at an irregular pace. If even for a moment she were to drift off, Nessa feared she wouldn't wake up. She looked up for Ignus, but there was no sign of him whatsoever. The thought that maybe he would have been below all the rubble ran through her mind, but that theory was quickly disproven as she felt a cold grip around her throat.
From directly out of her view, Nessa was grabbed by the throat and lifted off the ground by Terr'Ignus. His chilling grasp over her neck felt like it siphoned the very heat out of her body, and the deathly stare of his crimson eyes and glowing scar frightened Nessa to her core. He eventually dropped Nessa to the ground, and though she could breathe again, the terrible cold that she felt still remained. Nessa hopelessly watched as her crimson aura faded away while her blood flow slowed to a crawl.
"The blood affinity," Terr'Ignus spoke, standing above Nessa as an ice spike formed in his free hand, "It is formidable, and I'm impressed you can use it to this degree. However, the ice affinity is its natural counter. You never stood a chance against me, Nessa."
Nessa remained collapsed on the ground, waiting for Ignus's spell to inevitably finish her. There was nothing she had left. She was out of mana and her body wasn't fit for blood magic anymore. She slowly closed her eyes, but a glint of light caught her eye and brought her back to attention.
Ignus also turned to the glint of light, a faint shining from beneath the rubble that was unmistakable to him. He cancelled the spell and let the broken shards of ice fall next to Nessa as he stepped closer to the strange golden light. With a delicate motion, he ran the tip end of his staff over the ground and moved the rubble off of the shining light. Without the rubble to conceal it, the light illuminated the cavern, causing Terr'Ignus to shield his eyes for a few moments. Once he recuperated, Ignus reached down to the light and pulled forth the Solferre Halberd.
Shadows poured down from his arms to the halberd and dimmed the light significantly, changing the golden color into an unsettling gray. With the last piece of his puzzle in his grasp, Ignus stepped back over towards Nessa, making sure that no loose ends would ever haunt him on his way forward.
"Stay away from her!" A voice broke through the silence as rapid footsteps followed quickly after. Emerging from a tunnel in the newly caved in cavern, Mair rushed Terr'Ignus down with zero hesitation. His steel pike swung out at the older dusk elf wildly, only being stopped once Ignus rose the halberd to halt one of the strikes. Once Mair's attack was parried, he finally noticed the artifact and remembered the sheer strength it had.
Nessa's body trembled and shivered as she watched the exchange play out. If she could just manage to speak she would tell Mair to just run, but her throat felt like it was frozen shut, rendering her silenced. Ignus tried to swing the halberd across Mair's abdomen, but having recognized what the weapon was capable of, Mair quickly disengaged. Despite his backstep, Mair left himself open to a jab from Ignus's staff that sent him reeling with his back to the wall. Without a moment of hesitation, Ignus loosed a quick spell from his staff that made the stone wall behind Mair wrap around his hands, keeping him stationary and unable to fight despite his struggles.
Ignus lowered both his staff and the halberd after subduing Mair, observing his surroundings to ensure there would be no more interruption. As he scanned the area, Ignus only narrowly noticed Fausm leaping out from the shadows with his broadsword ready to cleave right through him. Terr'Ignus reacted by blocking with both the halberd and his staff encased in stone.
The dusk elf mage and reptir warrior exchanged no words as their deadly battle ensued. Fausm pushed Ignus further and further to being cornered, leaving no opening in his expert swordplay. Eventually Terr'Ignus found his back against the wall with Fausm nearly driving his blade through his chest were it not for the defense he held up. Fausm took one hand off his sword and threw a quick but powerful punch at Ignus's face in an attempt to make him drop his guard.
Much to Fausm's dismay, his fist did not make much leeway in even moving the position of his target's face, as said side of Ignus's face was encased in a mask of stone that absorbed the strike with ease. Ignus capitalized on Fausm's failed attack with a beam of frost from his staff that sent Fausm skidding back as he shielded himself with his sword.
Ignus walked forward with staff and blade at the ready towards the reptir adventurer. Fausm held aloft his greatsword, now encased in a layer of ice, and activated one of its scripts, shattering the ice in the process. He lunged forward with a devastating yet fast swing that seemed to carve right through Ignus in one fell swoop. The dusk elf collapsed to the ground, his body split in two. Fausm looked down at what he assumed to be the corpse, but was only a mass of shadows that trailed behind him. The reptir couldn't react fast enough and ended up feeling the cold palm of the dusk elf on the back of his scaled head.
"Sleep." Terr'Ignus commanded in a ferocious growl from behind Fausm. A wave of cold surged through Fausm's body and his vision went dark immediately. As much as he tried to fight the sudden desire, Fausm felt himself slipping into a deep sleep. The last of Ral'Kacet fell to his knees and collapsed into a magic induced slumber.
"Fausm! Come on, wake u-" Mair tried to call out but Ignus molded the earth around Mair to cover his mouth and silence him.
"Quite the loyal band of misfits," Ignus commented as he addressed Nessa who was still shivering on the ground, "I'll grant you peace now, so that you won't have to watch them die." Terr'Ignus concluded as he raised his staff out towards Nessa. Once more, an ice spike formed at the end of his staff to finally kill his opposition. Nessa couldn't bear to watch the spell charge in front of her. She felt ready to die earlier, but knowing her brother and Fausm were also next made her regret everything. If she could just do something, she'd try to fix everything. Just one ounce of magic is all she needed, just one final display. Her hand trembled as she weakly raised it towards Ignus, hoping, desperately hoping, that she could do something.
The horrid sound of flesh rending apart reverberated before her as she looked up to see blood quickly pooling at Ignus's feet. Nessa watched as the dusk elf growled in pain, a severe gash running down his back as he stumbled to the wall and collapsed into a sitting position. Nessa looked down at her hand, there was no way she cast any magic just then, and yet somehow Ignus was attacked.
"You," Ignus growled as he stared out at the tunnel entrance to the collapsed clearing, "You're not supposed to be here." Nessa followed where his gaze was fixed on to find a figure in the darkness radiating a mahogany blaze around his person. Wright stepped out over Fausm's sleeping body as he approached Nessa and Ignus with his hand outstretched.
"Why's that? Were you really banking on The Crimson Shield to not show up when you caused this big of a scene?" Wright commented playfully. Despite his tone, Nessa could see in his glare that he was utterly filled with hatred.
Terr'Ignus couldn't help but laugh despite the horrible situation he found himself in. Nessa noticed the pooling of his blood slowed, and yet she couldn't yet speak as to warn Wright of this.
"The Crimson Shield? No, it's just you, Wright. This is exactly what I wanted." Ignus smiled. "Exactly what I had planned."
"Planned? Explain yourself. Quickly." Wright ordered with no patience to be had.
"That's right. I have had strings over the guild for quite some time. Those who share in my ideals, they exist within the guild, and they influence everything in the direction I wanted it. Hela and Clair's absence, the aeriie's infiltration within the guild, even the hiding of my own existence is all thanks to those who want to see a new world." Ignus continued to laugh.
"You, Wright, I want you to be one of the first to witness the new world. I'll admit that I'm surprised you even made it here. The guild was supposed to keep you off the frontlines."
"Looks like your plans fall short then. I was going to interrogate you to capture that aeriie too, but you've convinced me that you're too dangerous to be taken alive." Wright drew his hand back, ready to deal a killing blow on Ignus.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you. That is if you value your star student," Ignus warned in a coarse whisper.
Wright noticed that one of Ignus's arms trailed into a shadow that crept out towards Nessa's body. The shadow ended with a blackened clawed hand that wrapped around Nessa's neck, threatening to puncture her throat.
"Is that supposed to be some kind of threat?" Wright laughed, "I can rip your heart out before you even move a muscle! How about you let go and I'll make it a little less painful."
Ignus didn't respond. A silence befell all of them. The only sounds of protest were made from Mair, who kicked and squirmed to break free of Ignus's prison of stone, screaming furiously into the mask that kept him silenced.
"I won't hesitate to let her die to make sure you suffer by my hands." Wright glared down at Ignus. "I am an assassin of The Hidden Star guild, not some bleeding heart."
Wright's words made no effect on Ignus, only causing Mair to fight even harder to intervene. After what felt like an eternity for all involved, Wright finally lowered his hand and weakened his aura of magic.
"I'll see you when the future arrives, Wright." Terr'Ignus's shadowy claw retreated back to him as his body slowly wavered away into darkness. Both him and the artifact disappeared with only a black mist left of his trace.
With Terr'Ignus gone, his influence faded. Fausm slowly stirred awake while Nessa's body slowly warmed back to natural temperatures. Mair finally broke out of the bindings of the earth as it turned soft. He kept a fierce glare towards Wright after he rushed to tend to his sister. Wright wouldn't dare to look at the siblings, and instead took his guild emblem out from underneath his coat and clicked it to activate. Though it took a moment, the light eventually returned to the emblem.
"This is Wright. Requesting teleportation back to Hidden Star," Wright ordered solemnly into the emblem before placing it back within his coat pocket. The four adventurers waited in the darkness in silence.