Vondell remained conscious as he fell to the ground, a cruel consequence of the curse placed upon him. However, despite being awake, he could do little more than stare up at the sky.
This scene was familiar.
~Surth, do you remember?~ he asked.
Surth responded with a faint red glow. Vondell could not see it, but he could feel her anguish.
~It's like the day it first began,~ he thought, watching as the heavens slipped further and further away from him.
He tried to move his legs, his hands... anything that would allow him to slow his fall. However, his muscles felt like mush... his bones like useless powder.
He felt just as helpless as he did on that day. Despite all the decades of training, of study, of savage persistence. He was still the same foolish child who hurt himself trying to burn the heavens. He was still a bastard child of Urth.
~Urth. I hope you watched well. I'm going to continue keeping my word, so you must continue to keep yours.~
Vondell's mind fell silent for a moment. For someone who warned against trusting the gods, he was an idiot for trusting this one...older god or not.
~I don't think that Leviathan was an agent of Taranis,~ he thought. ~Skyblights aren't supposed to have greater covenants.~
The wind blew his hair over his eyes. With the darkness, he could visualize the butterfly that had been staring down at him.
~A six-winged butterfly. I don't think it's a coincidence.~
Something was definitely going on. Someone was playing with forces more... powerful than the empyreans. Nothing should've been able to escape Surthell's covenant. It was a primordial force, superseding even the empyreans who masqueraded as the true gods of the planet.
~But what business would those... beings have on this continent? Hunting empyreans? But why so far from the outer edges? And why would they send an assassin to attack a random mortal? Why not appear and erase me themselves?~
He pondered over it deeply, however, no matter how he tried to look at it, nothing made sense.
~Surth, I have a feeling that we will find answers in The Plains,~ he thought, the hair moving away from his eyes. ~But I am not sure if we will like them,~ he added, looking towards the sun.
His back crashed against the hard earth, and his body shattered in a hundred different places. The pain that radiated through him was not something of this world, it seemed deeper than his flesh, and tore at his mind; as if he were being undone, one strip of flesh, bone, and mind at a time.
*
He wasn't certain how long he remained lying on the ground, or whether he even was lying on the ground.
He was conscious, but pain shrouded his every sense, blinding him from the outside world.
When he finally did regain his senses, he felt something warm wrapped around him. It had been so long since he felt a soft touch on his skin, and for a moment he wanted to stay nestled in whatever this thing was.
But then his heart sank.
"Surth!" he shouted, waking from his slumber with a start.
The first thing he saw was a fire, burning bright yellow within a small box hole in the far wall. A man was sitting on a wooden chair facing it, his shadow dancing over Vondell as he tossed a piece of wood into the fire.
"My good Ser, it won't do for you to mention such strange names here," the man said. "Perhaps it won't do for me to keep saying My good Ser either," he continued, before clearing his throat.
The man stood up. He was a shorter fellow, wearing a cloak made of red animal skin. Underneath it, he wore white tunics, dirty and torn from use. "All hail the Tigerna," he said, in a short rhythmic accent. "How's that?"
"Gregory?" Vondell whispered hoarsely. His throat still felt raw, and his mouth tasted of blood.
"In the flesh," Gregory replied, bowing grandly. "Though it seems between the both of us, I'm the only one made of it," he added.
Vondell looked down at himself. He was... different; shorter, with a skeletal build. But perhaps the biggest difference was the disappearance of his scars.
~The pain is still here though,~ he thought to himself, rubbing against his skin. The constant burn was still there, hidden behind this faux flesh. "Where are we?" he asked, trying to get out of bed.
Gregory rushed to help him up, offering his hand. "In The Plains. We're carrying on with the directive."
Vondell stared at Gregory's outstretched hand, considering it for a moment, before turning to look at the rest of the room. It was a small place; with only one other bed, and a small desk in the corner. The room seemed to be made of cobblestone, though this was a different variant from the ones in Antras. It was darker and had an earthier scent to it.
"Where is Surth?"
"Your conduit..." Gregory replied, however, it sounded as much like a question as Vondell's.
Vondell stared at him silently, until the latter gave in with a sigh. "I had trouble polymorphing it. Usually, my grace works just as well on conduits, but it wouldn't even change its size," he said, pointing towards a pile of rags at the corner of the room.
"How did you carry her here?"
"I didn't. I know better than to touch other people's conduits. Especially a primary's," Gregory said, his voice becoming softer towards the end. "It just kept appearing wherever I carried you. So I threw the rags on it when it appeared here."
Vondell got to his feet, stumbling for a moment, before using the bed as a crutch. He slowly made his way to the pile and moved the rags aside. And there she was, still in her sheath.
"I'm not a primary," he said, instinctively placing her on his hip. However there was no slot to accept her, he was without his armor.
Gregory took his seat in front of the fire once more, while Vondell searched through the pile of rags for something.
"I saw your covenant," Gregory said, staring at the fire.
He shook his before breaking into a short, scornful laugh. "Likely everyone on this side of the continent saw it."
"You're right. Maybe I'm insulting you. You're probably beyond the scope of primaries now. You might be a monarch, maybe even a demi-god," he added.
Vondell was silent, inspecting a cloth strip he had found in the pile. He used it to wrap Surth on his back, before covering her with the tunic and cloak he'd been wearing.
"You're not going to say anything?" Gregory asked once some silence had passed.
Vondell began stretching; trying to get accustomed to his new body. "I'm not a monarch or a demi-god. Beyond that, there is nothing more to be said," he replied, before throwing out a few quick practice jabs. "And couldn't you have given me a body less... killable?" he asked, looking down at his scrawny legs.
"The cleaners of The Plains are poor, we have to— nevermind that. Why are you dodging my questions?"
"What is a demi-god, an elven one for that matter, doing hidden in a backwater city like Antras? We could've broken through the dark sea by now if you joined the king's army," Gregory shouted, quickly covering his mouth once the words had left it.