III-20 Surface (II)

I like to think of most Pathbearers as puzzles to solve. It's an effective way of thinking about dealing with enemies that aren’t like you.

I like to think of most Pathbearers as puzzles to solve. It's an effective way of thinking about dealing with enemies that aren’t like you. Usually, you win because you’re outright more powerful, you got a skill they can’t counter, you have a good plan or better strategy, or—and this is my favorite—you learn to use the skills you have against the skills your enemy doesn’t.

That lets you turn a bad fight around on itself.

Let me give you an example.

A Lone Star town was getting butchered during a brutal summer. Orcs again… And let me tell you, the big bastards are quiet when they want to be. Anyway, while they were trying to set up a proper fortification, somehow, they just kept getting inside. They slip through the cracks in the walls at night, and they just keep losing more people. By day, they retreat back down holes in the ground and stay gone. 

One of the stupider mercenary commanders led a team down into their murder-tunnels, and because he didn’t use his skills wisely, he got returned to us the following night in installments.

I saw his flayed skin flapping in the wind like a flag when my company and I finally came in.

Command told us to smoke out the orcs, but I knew that wouldn’t work. A low level Aero can shift smoke with ease. Poison gas usually doesn’t work on orcs that well because of how damned robust they are, and fighting orcs in close quarters is something you do when you want to be included in an elegy.

My solution proved to be relatively simple. See, I have a Master-Tier fused skill in Physicality and Geomancy. And there’s a problem about having Master-Tier Stealth. Even for orcs. Stealth usually keeps you out of fights. That means less damage. That means not so much struggle. That means your Toughness usually isn't that high. And your Physicality usually lags dramatically behind your Reflexes.

So. Instead of doing any of the stupid shit, I started reaching down and collapsing entire sections of the earth below. I started sleeping during the day and started unleashing earthquakes at night. And the parts of the ground I couldn’t collapse, I had Lone Star’s artillery crew’s bomb.

In the end, if you get anything from reading my memoirs, it’s this: You decide the fight. Make it on your terms. Don’t be the dumbshit who jumped down a tunnel with a knife in a dream. Be the bastard that floods them and sends in a special Hydromancer team. Be the earthquake. Knock the board off the table. This isn’t chess. Kill the other felling bastard whatever way you can with the least amount of effort possible.

-Memoirs of a Master-Tier Warmage

III-20

Surface (II)

Alright, you goddamn bastards, Shiv thought to himself, let's see who's better at Stealth.

He spiked himself down from the sky, slamming back into the ground and creating a massive crater right in front of the gateway. A sphere of destruction emerged around him, but the shockwave and shrapnel remained frozen in stasis by halted time. 

He left a temporal anchor there, in case he needed to reset his position, and Shiv assumed that he was going to. At the same time, he drove his Skysplitter into the earth and absorbed a few tons of mass. The ground crumbled away, its composition and integrity compromised by the sudden mass-loss. 

Some weight to throw around was good to have in a fight—it would let him throw his dagger at someone without worrying about a shockwave or a casual parry knocking the blade aside. When that was done, Shiv blasted forward toward the distant mountains in a zigzag formation, trying to guess where the shots were coming from.

Against most attacks, Shiv didn't care too much about taking the damage head-on. He could adapt; his Woundeaters could keep him standing; his Magebreaker could let him deflect magic. But Necromancy was a special kind of dangerous for him. 

If even one of these arrows glanced him, he'd go off like a mana bomb of mana bombs.

Hence, Shiv moved with layers of Concealment active. He triggered all his Stealth Skills at once, including the new enchantments ingrained in his Unseen Magebreaker. The gem on his left shoulder came aglow, projecting out a minor illusion that was a perfect replication of his current form. He stretched the minor illusion outward by over two kilometers so it slipped just beyond his Creeping Void. He wanted to keep it barely beyond the threshold of his darkness. That way, he could lure some shots out without risking himself.

Additionally, he also activated Chameleon with Silhouette held in reserve should Creeping Void prove to be more of a liability than a boon. For now, he unleashed more of the miasmic blackness. Adam needed some cover for when he finally emerged.

Shiv trailed across the land in the meantime, as he observed the Necromantic arrows above him. He flung himself parallel to the ground, his chest just a meter above the rolling hills. There were a few things he could do regarding these arrows, a few things that would allow him to deduce their points of origin. 

He flew opposite to where the arrowheads came from, and he accelerated towards some of the distant mountains. He intended to put as many positions of cover between him and his surroundings as possible. If he flew along the ground and the shots came right in front of him, that meant he was either dealing with an unseen enemy at ground level. If the shots started coming from above, then he could guess if it was coming from a mountain or even the sky depending on the angle. If that were the case, Shiv would adapt his plan: He would dig into the earth and continue traveling by drilling a literal tunnel across the land as concealment and cover from his enemies.

As the first cracks developed on his temporal shell, Shiv let time flow again. And at once, he found himself glad he paused time exactly when he did. A chain of corrosive explosions swept the place he was. A patch of the sky vanished into a growing field of all-withering green. It was like a screen of acid searing the very fabric of reality. Just looking at it made Shiv's stomach plunge.

Damn close to a bad death.

He immediately triggered one of the dormant plagues he had embedded in himself while continuing his acceleration. His inertial sheath roared with thunderous vigor. The horizon lurched toward Shiv as he absorbed the disease. It was a metabolic virus, something meant to damage Shiv's hormones and overheat him from within, effectively using his body to cook itself. It triggered for around two seconds, and Shiv felt a surge of heat rush through his blood vessels.

But then his Plaguefueled Skill, and he felt a rush of euphoria pass through him. His mind swirled in a whirlpool of relief and pleasure. The sensation of intoxication came over him hard. But Shiv applied some of what he learned earlier with Uva. He applied, he grafted a piece of an older memory of him slicing potatoes, but specifically him slicing and not the potato itself. Suddenly, it was like he was piloting his own body. 

The act took some additional focus, but it stopped him from drifting off into a drunken stupor.

A second passed. Shiv’s eyes remained wide. His senses were— 

A chain of shots tore through his minor illusion and then detonated around it. Corrosive screens slashed out and splashed upon the land. Stretches of land and air disappeared outright, the ground withering into blackened, rotted patches as the Necromancy spread. 

One hundred meters—danger range for each arrow, Shiv thought as he examined the blasts. His Chronomancy saved his life earlier. Even if he could have dodged some attacks, them exploding might have sealed his fate either way. He didn't know just how bad the Necromantic arrows would hurt him compared to Adam’s rift, but he did know these wounds would be lasting.

Keep moving is right, Shiv thought, thinking back to Adam’s advice. Time to get even faster.

Shiv spiked his gravitic field over fifty times, and only then did he feel the first hints of discomfort. Plaguefueled was like having another Berserk. Just one that was easier to control.

Some of his bones began to fracture. They sputtered out like hairline cracks as his muscles tore in tandem, but he was moving fast and faster every passing second. The air ignited around him. A blastwave was drawn just behind him, building into a tsunami of kinetic energy trapped in Shiv’s climbing acceleration.

The sheer amount of force he was displacing offered another surprising benefit: The tidal wave of destruction he carried along his wake swept across the world just as more corrosive detonations consumed Shiv’s minor illusion. He watched as a few hundred arrows were suddenly flung off course before they could arrive—the exact thing he wanted to avoid with his knife if he had to throw it. 

More than flung off course, the once invisible Necromancy arrows were exposed. His shockwaves scattered the winds and peeled away the invisibility shielding the arrows. They were made invisible by air-distortions! And that gave him a clue as to where the shots were coming from.

The volley of arrows was cutting down through his minor illusion at an almost forty-five-degree angle. A river of Necromancy trailed along each arrow, creating a withering stream that cleaved into the ground.

That means the shot’s probably not coming from the sky but one of the mountaintops… I have you poor bastards now.

Shiv wasn't going to leave anything to chance. He let out an effortful cry as he started angling himself downward. His Inertial Overdrive was past the point of easy maneuverability, but that wasn’t an issue. He was going to drill himself into the base of the mountain like a missile from below the ground. Then, he was going to detonate his sheath again and again until there was nothing but rubble left of the local mountains. Then, if the shots kept coming, he would proceed to the next group of mountains and repeat the same actions.

Three seconds, Shiv thought as he shredded through the earth. He was going so fast that the air friction turned the soil to slag. Around three seconds before I hit the base of the mountain at my current speed… I’ll give it everything I got at the end.

He counted the seconds, the pain made each one feel like an eternity.

One…

Something burst within his eyes, parts of his skin began to unlatch. 

Two…

His bone armor began shaking and breaking.

Three… Alright, let’s godsdamned do this.

Shiv spiked another twenty times, and darkness crept in from the corners of his vision as his heart ruptured. Blood and clumps of gore oozed out from the cracks of his armor. And then he detonated himself. If he didn’t have Plaguefueled actively, he would have died. Even with it, his body came apart. His limbs were mangled. His insides burst apart. And everything around him ceased to be.

A massive explosion blossomed out from Shiv as the earth and stone around him faded into motes that were smaller than dust. The mountain above him cracked apart like glass, and then it became as if dust as a shroud of force and flame consumed all solid matter within a fifteen kilometer vicinity to Shiv.

Death approached him. But as he looked up, he noticed a shiny shape. It looked like a deformed pot in his agonized mind, but Shiv realized what it was as his blastwaves carried it higher into the air, peeling out from the vanishing sections of the mountain.

Teleportation anchor. And then he saw how it had a slot along its side. A horizontal slot long enough to accommodate a group of archers. No… A hidden bunker… Built into the mountain. So that’s how you were avoiding the Light-Curse. Clever felling bastards.

Despite the wretched state of his body, a feral grin crawled across Shiv’s face. Alright. Let’s see if I can crack you open.

Shiv cast himself one second back in time and detonated his inertial sheath once more. 

And just then, the tidal wave of force he was dragging behind him earlier smashed against the at the same time as Shiv’s second detonation.

Adamantine Adaption 155 > 156

Inertial Overdrive 105 >106

***

Deathstalker Perspicacity Pricelles slammed against his second as they were flung about within their observation post. Something splattered against his armor. He tried to keep with the chaos but the insides of the bunker were turning too fast, constantly just spinning—

His leg struck the wall at an angle. It folded. Perspicacity shrieked—and then bit off his tongue as he slammed into the room. Blood flooded his mouth and as he fell toward the firing slot of his armored post, he triggered his Split-Second Master-Tier Reflexes Skill.

Time slowed for a single instant, and Perspicacity tried to regain his bearings—only for despair to take him. The others were little more than sacks of crushed meat seeping free from skeletal armor.

His disciples… His students… All dead.

Beyond the firing port of his protective bunker, he saw two tides of devastation fast approaching. But far off in the corner of his vision, he saw a shape—a shimmering figure. He cast his Farseeing Skill at his murderer, and felt his mind go blank.

They were clad in the vestiges of death, too, though the air around them scintillated as if they were but a mirage. But they weren’t another Deathstalker. No. Their armor was the shine of adamantine rather than Grave Iron, and the helmet was misshapen. And then there were the eyes… Two white irises…

What are you… What… We fired so many—are you just an illusion? Who are—

Time resumed. Perspicacity’s Reflex Skill ended. A cold feeling flooded into the Deathstalker as his death approached. He came here to avenge his father, to avenge his mother, his brother, his sisters, to avenge everyone he lost during the siege of Submission. 

And now he was going to die here, die within the mountain he hid, died without ever truly seeing the real face of his foe.

Then, twin waves of sundering force smashed into Observation Post SC102, and Perspicacity closed his eyes. He combusted within his armor first as a surge of heat flooded into his bunker. Then, the post itself folded around him, crushing his seared body into paste.

Ironform 103 > 104

He survived that too for a few minutes. Until his heart finally burst.

Sometimes, having Master-Tier Toughness was a curse rather than a mercy.

Rendered a burned, mangled lump of flesh, disfigured and crippled of limbs and senses, all Perspicacity could do was pray.

Pray to the Great One that the other posts noticed. That they would avenge his death.

***

“Shit! Fuck! Shit!” 

Deathstalker Psychomancer Mendacity Pricelles let out a cry of pain as her mind link to Observation Post SC102 shattered. The Psychomancer she was connected to there was gone. Dead in an instant. And across her field flowed a deluge of panicked cries and exchanged thoughts.

“Great One preserve us… Attack! We’re under attack! Contact!”

“FUCK! AN ENTIRE SECTION OF THE OLD SANTABAR MOUNTAINS JUST VANISHED! MANA BOMB! MANA BOMB!”

“Does anyone have eyes on SC102? Anyone? SC102 is within the blast radius—I can’t reach them!”

“They’re… they’re gone!” Mendacity gasped. She started out from her observation post, and her fellow Deathstalkers looked on, a tense silence followed. A massive mushroom cloud rose over the horizon, and chunks of an obliterated mountain range began to rain down from above. Meanwhile, a sphere of fire and force swelled past the twenty kilometer mark. But from within it came an oozing blackness that soon spread past the fire and coated everything within a four kilometer patch of space from visible sight.

Mendacity couldn’t easily see through it, but she still had other means of observation. She cast out a Hyper Echolocation ping, and everything within a twenty-kilometer radius pulsed into shape for a brief moment. “Hold… Hold… I think I see…”

Her mind stopped. A shape briefly vibrated into her awareness—a shape moving fast… Heroic-Tier fast. The ground was cracking behind them. A wall of fire and devastation trailed in their wake. And they were heading for the Tidewall… In the general direction of Lost Angeles.

“Shit!” Mendacity cried out. “Unknown Heroic-Tier Pathbearer detected. Fast approaching. Sub-fifteen seconds. Dynamancers! Shields up! All observation posts! Activate wardings!”

A chain of telepathic confirmations passed through—sans one. Perspicacity… Mendacity suppressed the welling sorrow inside her. She’d grieve her brother’s passing later. Right now, they needed to pin and eliminate the target.

“SC599!” Mendacity cried out, channeling her Adept-Tier Tele-Psionic Skill across the land. “Incoming Heroic-Tier threat. Heroic-Tier speed. Scramble temporal interceptors!”

SC599 responded instantly. “Received SC-Central. Deploying Interceptor Squadron Gold-Primary to your location. Transposition in five seconds. Arrival in ten.”

***

High above the Old Santabar mountain ranges, a Dimensional gateway activated within a ring-shaped skyship. The Dimensionalists within directed the magical frequencies within, connecting the rift to their front-most forward operating base nested near the top of the chasm. A pool of distorted shadows formed thereafter. 

For a second, nothing happened.

Then five golden titanic shapes exploded out from the Dimensional mana. The Dimensionalists held the portal gateway open for another second before they closed it immediately. Even then, they had to scramble and reshape the Dimensionality mana before someone captured and recorded their frequency.

As they did what they could to cover their tracks, ten mind-linked primal dragons of time were directed downward through the clouds. Their bodies were coated in an adamantine barding, and built into the barding was a rider’s capsule on their backs. Within, the Psychomancer-Riders of Interceptor Squadron Gold-Primary prepared themselves to intercept and eliminate the enemy.

“Gold-01 to Gold-Primary. Prime Necro-Throwers.” And from above the capsules emerged a modular weapon that resembled a flamethrower, containing a corrosive crystal instead of fuel tanks or a Pyromancy enchantment.

“Primed!”

“Primed!

“Primed and ready!”

A series of nine other telepathic confirmations followed.

One of the gold-scaled time dragons let out a wild shriek as it nearly triggered its Chronomancy.

“Gold-05, keep that dragon leashed until you receive clearance.”

“Affirmative, Gold-01.”

They burst through a final layer of clouds just as the sun descended past the curve of the horizon. A last glittering of light danced off their scales, and Gold-01 and his squadron muttered a quick prayer to the Great One.

Through the Awareness-boosting enchantments lining the insides of his capsule, Gold-01 saw the massive ball of destruction in the distance. An entire section of Old Santabar had been cracked to the foundations. The earth was shaking.

“Damn the Dawn, but SC-Central wasn’t bullshitting when she said we were dealing with a Hero,” Gold-03 breathed.

“We’ve killed Heroes before,” Gold-08 whispered. And it was true. They had. And they were going to do it again today.

The squadron fell silent as a cataclysmic avalanche of fire and force crashed over the land. It didn’t look so different from how the tidal waves of the Pacific hammered against the Tidewall. Ahead of the destruction was a mass of crawling darkness. Just looking at it filled Gold-01 with unease.

“Creeping Void,” Gold-01 said, recognizing the skill.

“What?” Gold-02 asked. “Isn’t that a skill common for krakens?”

“Yeah. Krakens. Shadow dragons. And Void-Dwellers.”

Just then, a narrow beam of Psychomancy splashed into Gold-01 and a snapshot of understanding was slotted into his mind. He shared the memory with the others in his squadron, and they recalled seeing a humanoid shape at the heart of the nigh-impenetrable darkness rather than a Kraken.

An uneasy feeling filled Gold-01. It wasn’t impossible for a human to develop certain monster-common skills, but…

“Gold-Primary, stick close to each other. Watch each other’s backs. We stride in three.”

A series of confirmation greeted Gold-01. He pushed all doubt aside.

The first thing a Psychomancer learned was how to control themselves. Now he didn’t have time for fear. He had a Hero to kill.

***

“Godsddammit, Shiv, it’s been less than a minute,” Adam cursed as he climbed higher. He had been launched off his feet by a solid wall of kinetic force just as he emerged from the gate. Shiv’s Creeping Void ensured he couldn’t see anything, but the deafening sounds of distant explosions told the Gate Lord all he needed to know: Shiv had already made contact with the enemy, and was in the process of getting to know them better.

Adam came to a stop as he slipped into a layer of clouds. He cast his senses out and winced as he beheld the damage Shiv left in his wake. A massive five-kilometer wide scar trailed across the land. Huge fissures parted the earth as well, and they were still spreading. Then there were deep craters imprinted on the ground. 

No bloody wonder Gate Theborn got destroyed. If the fight between Shiv and the Recollector was anything like this in an enclosed space, what hope was there? For the city? He let out a quiet breath. The sheer destruction was unbelievable. But it was also useful. And where Shiv moved like a natural disaster, Adam spotted things like he was borderline omniscient.

He immediately zeroed in on a badly crushed bunker half buried in the soil. The inhabitants mostly dead, but only just so. One let out a hoarse whimper, and Adam bit back a grimace of pity. Then, his senses crawled further—shooting past Shiv’s current position, as indicated by his Creeping Void.

There, Adam took in what seemed like open terrain—and started picking out irregularities. He zoomed in on strange reflective glints and followed them to discover hidden bunkers. No, wait. Observation posts. They were built into the mountains and even the ground. Within were groups of eight to ten Pathbearers. Most of them were armed with bows or some manner of ranged weaponry, and they wore armor that resembled Shiv’s. Yet their armor was sleeker, with narrower helmets that had lenses while the composition of the armor itself was of a darker, colder metal.

Then, there came a shudder from high up in the air, and Adam turned his senses away—to discover ten golden dragons approaching the fray.

“Broken Moon,” Adam breathed. “Where the hells did they get ten golden dragons?” He pushed his senses past the ten golden dragons just then and found something in the air behind them. A flying vessel of some kind. One that recently opened a Dimensional gateway if the motes of darkness leaking from its core was any indication.

“Well, well,” Adam said, forming a Veilpiercer. His senses crashed against the ship but couldn’t get any further. It was warded. Warded a bit too well. His vambrace crackled to life. He would solve that problem in a moment. Take one of the people aboard as prisoner if possible. Meanwhile. “Keep moving, Shiv… Keep kicking the hornet's nest. I think things are about to work out for us perfectly.”

***

The shape of Roland’s soul were his arrows. The length of Roland's reach ended at the length of his arrows. The depth of Roland's awareness was painted by the trajectory of his arrows. Everything he touched with his projectiles he sensed, he saw, he killed, and Roland's arrow never missed a target he could see.

Beyond the reach of the atmosphere, Roland’s reserve arrows glistened in the void, far beyond the reach of the enemy. And there they remained, serving more as his eyes and ears than a weapon for him to use. 

He studied the encirclement surrounding his town. Watched as Sullain’s forces were driven back another kilometer from the south side as a swarm of three thousand arrows tore into and detonated within a pocket dimension they thought was hidden.

But there were more enemies to bring down. Many more. 

Eighty kilometers away at the Santamon Mountains, some Necrotech Deathstalkers were dragging the remnants of their artillery platforms back. They made it three hundred meters before an arrow the size of Blackedge crashed down on the sky and shattered. Over the horizon, a flash of light rose into the sky. The solar-mana contained within the arrow scoured the land clean for fifty kilometers.

A mere two kilometers below Blackedge, another group of enemies attempted a mad rush. There was a Hero among them this time. A Heroic-Tier vampire whose speed grew with every person nearby. They zipped up toward Blackedge, intending on cracking the town’s wards—

And promptly burst apart into ashes as Roland redirected a few of his three thousand arrows to fly over the chasm. They fused together before they speared into the vampire’s back, and though getting pierced didn’t kill the vampire, getting incinerated by the power of dawn did.

Night was coming. Parts of the battered ruins of Lost Angeles rose as Sullain’s Geomancers tried to form their bunkers. A hail of arrows crashed down through the clouds and annihilated every piece of stone the Geomancers were trying to manipulate. A good few hundred slipped into the chasm, crashing against Sullain’s wards as well.

Sullain. The vicar hadn’t done anything for a while. Roland didn’t like that. You didn’t give mages time to plot or scheme. That was a critical rule in combat. But with Blackedge pressed from all sides, Roland didn’t have a choice but hold and fight.

Hold and fight has he had been doing for weeks.

By the Starhawk he was tired…

A warning from Starhawk’s Perch pulsed in Roland’s mind. Someone tried to halt time. Roland directed a special Chronomantic arrow into them from beyond the atmosphere.

Another time dragon dropped from the clouds in two pieces. And for the first time in years, Roland’s Respecification Unique Skill leveled. And his other Unique Skill leveled right after as he regained a Chronomantic arrow from the soul of the dragon he just killed.

Respecification 411 > 412

Quiver of the Slain 354 > 355

With each enemy slain, Roland felt new arrows fill his spiritual quiver. New arrows forged by his enemies remains—of their greatest skills. It was also the reason he remained a Master-Tier for so long—because a little careful redistribution of one’s levels went a long way to hiding just how powerful they were.

And that was the entire point of Roland’s existence. He wanted the power, not prestige. He wanted to perform the act beyond receiving acclaim.

But he was starting to tire again. He needed to find a way to level some of his lesser skills some more so he could draw points over from them into his Physicality. At the thought of that, Roland started doing mental math again, pushing his already exhausted mind to its limit to get another few levels. But he couldn’t do it. Not alone.

“Chris,” Roland said, gritting his teeth. “I need another spike of focus.”

“Yes, Lord Arrow,” 

Atop the apex of his castle, within a shroud of Divination and Solar mana, Roland Arrow released another shot. Another shot shaped from starstuff. Another shot fated to strike and kill an enemy. Another shot that turned into ten and then a hundred as it traveled through the air. Within Roland’s ruined nest were Biomancers, working to keep his body functional at all times, and Chris Evetine, his personal Psychomancer that did everything she could to guard his focus and stop his mind from slipping. There were also Diviners, generals, Slayers, and more here, but most of them were dead on their feet.

Some were simply dead of exhaustion.

Everyone was on the brink after weeks of non-stop combat.

Below, Blackedge was being consumed by rot, by plagues, by starvation, by desperation and plagues of Psychomantic madness.

Sullain was a dreadful adversary. The vicar was no warrior, and Roland managed to repel the Abyssal Lord in a direct contest at first. But they were a mage. And the worst thing about a mage of mages—a mage who possessed practically every Magical Skill known to Integrated Earth—was how they can rot mind, spirit, and body at once. 

Before Roland drove Sullain back to the abyss, forcing the wretch to retreat, the Vicar managed to breach Blackedge's wards once. The spells Sullain left destroyed the agriculture, sickened the people, and withered the metal. It also created monsters that would spawn at night. Monsters that burst free from flesh or even concentrations of darkness.

Roland was his arrows, and his arrows patrolled the streets of Blackedge as well. His arrows strained him to the very limit, and his arrows revealed just how many people were dying. Another wail sounded from another house. Another cry was silenced. Another child let out a breath and didn't take another. With every passing second, Roland could feel his town dying. 

He could feel this prison-turned-home crumble away. And Roland understood this was Sullain’s revenge. Roland had sacked Submission, and now Black Edge was to pay for Roland's sins.

But what could the Town-Lord do in the face of despair? What could he do? Kneel? Bend? Break? Beg?

No. Roland had been a Pathbearer from the moment he picked up the bow, from the moment he knew that fighting was a choice. So he fought on. So he killed on. So he worked tirelessly, unleashing powers unheard of upon his adversaries, butchering them day after day, minute after minute, second by second. And through it all, he convened with the Starhawk. He plotted. He schemed. If they had enough time. If they had enough time, perhaps the Starhawk could integrate the other sacred phylacteries. And the Starhawk could either find a way to create remembrances from his long-lost companions or even draw their power onto himself to better rally for the coming fight. 

And despite all the strain Roland was under, this was merely the opening salvo in a coming fight.

I must endure, Roland thought to himself. I must hold. If I do fail... No, I cannot. The Republic... the Republic cannot stand much longer. The lies, deception, twisting of minds, the sapping of faith... the toll has become too much. The Republic won't be able to stand the avarice of the Ascendants any longer, nor survive the ritual they seek to perform…

The ritual. It was a horrible, nightmarish thing. Something he refused to accept at first, even with the Starhawk showing him the truth. He knew the Ascendants weren’t perfect, but what they planned was beyond the pale—was something Roland couldn’t accept. And neither could the Starhawk for that matter.

But now—

One of his arrows saw a massive explosion unfolding over Old Santabar. For a moment, Roland’s mind reeled. 

Over four hundred kilometers away from Blackedge and Lost Angeles, a trail of building destruction cleaved a line near the coast—and drew the attention of what seemed like one of Sullain’s Interceptor Squadrons.

What… What is this?

A massive war horn sounded. A war cry followed thereafter. Things began to move and crawl within the Chasm. Roland couldn’t split his focus now. Another night was about to begin. But Old Santabar… If this was the Inquisition… His gut clenched. He needed to know. He needed to know to prepare himself. Because he couldn’t hold against them too.

And he would need to attempt a fighting retreat with Blackedge. Even if it was likely to end in his death and the town’s demise.

“ARROW! STARHAWK’S CHAMPION! I COME FORTH ONCE MORE!” Sullain sang in the darkness. “I COME BEAR GIFTS FROM THE OUTSIDE! I COME TO DELIVER YOUR END!”

Roland rolled his eyes. “Not the bloody eldritch bullshit again.” He let out a sigh and stared at his comrades. “It’s nightmares again, I’m afraid.”

“That’s alright, Lord Arrow,”, Guard Captain Koswin Kranos said. “None of us are going to be doing any sleeping for a while. No nightmares that way.”

“No nightmares,” Roland echoed. He shaped another arrow in response—

But he directed just one to see what was happening in Old Santabar, and thus, a gleaming needle of starstuff fell from the void above.