Near the precipice of the district, their target sprouted out from the congregation of edifices, each ostensibly hugging the marble tower. Its main walls alabaster as the rest, whilst the decorative azure and bronze ridges glimmered in the light of the Illius with an iridescent glow. The closer they got Euthymius noticed the ridges resembled myriads upon myriads of threads throttled against each other, dancing up the eight sharp corners. The deep-set window frames likewise followed the same pattern, the same iridescent painting, possessing a chromatic patina as he noticed squinting his eyes hard.

  “Now we wait here for the Cycle of the Lunarius.” Luelia said in a low-tone barely hearable through the crowds marching below. Euthymius simply nodded and fixed his gaze past the tower, mesmerized by the sight.

  Beyond the tower, the nine bridges were clearly visible, connecting both sides each above the river and the quarries. Above, the upper districts of the capital’s upper echelons loomed down, spread their shadow over the steps snaking up the mountain walls, riddled with their lofty abodes rising like steps on the jagged gray mountain walls. In that meager moment, the woes of the world faded from Euthymius’s mind and heart.

  Time passed hastily as they chatted over the flowing and dwindling crowd as dusk approached. Euthymius brought up questions regarding the mysteries of maghia, how to best master it and Luelia answered at first a bit hesitantly but as they dwelled deeper, words flown ceaseless from her lips. She descended on the particulars of arkhaine; the metaphysical organs of every mortal decreed their limits, though as with everything in the world, there were exceptions.

  Some the One and the Eight blessed with healthy, thriving arkhaine points. These blessings did not make them the so called Chosen, but granted them the magnitude to easily manifest spells, stretch their limits, and many who focused on limited aspects, became the apexes of their schools. Nekromancers who could maintain control over thousands of dead, earth-benders who could move or even erect mountains over plains, vhouromancers who could make tangible illusions, impossible to differentiate from reality or even rewrite the minds of others, achieve through this technique a pseudo-immortality.

  But even those willing to endure decades of lectures, scribing tomes left behind by the greats of the old realms, could achieve such feats. Hopeful words were to his ears, even though he lacked the ambitions, wishing nothing more than to aid the miners by learning more about the aspect of earth.

  “But what exactly is that?” He asked quite innocently just as a gentle wind tore in to their dark manes illuminated mildly by the waning Illius. Though Aurelithae spoke of the Limit, likened it to a pheromone emitted by mortals into the unseen realms, attracting the Rage of Acheryoth, she hasn’t expanded further.

  Luelia looked pensive, then started with a shrug. “No one really knows. There are some ideas floated amongst the Order, but as one theory claims it, it is an ancient Intelligence preceding even the Nightscale himself, a beast tasked with keeping the hierarchy of every living existence in check.”

  Noticing her furrowing brows, the distant gaze, Euthymius asked without thinking. “But you don’t believe…think so it is the truth?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I think it is just a device of sorts built by the Magnificent Mother, maybe by the Grim Sovereign to keep us all humble. Never to thread where those above linger.”

  “And it is hunting because it senses our approach to their level?” She nodded with a faint smile. “A reaction to our unnatural exertion.” A whisper parted her lips, the warm air brushing against the single lifted finger before it. Though the meaning of it escaped Euthymius as the prospect of a mindless prowling beast ruefully dreaded him as he gazed towards the wan bathed tower.

  After the feeling faded, he questioned, inquired about the tasks her and Isocrates carried out for the New Dawn. “Not many to be truthful. It took him sometime to get around properly joining.” He suspected why, and wished he was a deeper anchor that held his brother back. Whilst he regretted the question, he still listened excited hearing how the two faced the cultists of The Beautiful a dozen or more times, how his brother never faltered against enemies beyond himself–not just in prowess and experience, but even in the steps of existence.

  When the tales came to an end, night had fallen upon the city, warm lights bathed the city, escaping its scores of edifices sprawling like flowers across the erected, protuberant plateaus. Even the tower’s lit up at a moment’s notice, revealing a few silhouettes behind the thick, colorful glass. “I know I’m maybe a hen of Dawn, but what value does a single scroll hold?” As they began to approach the tower, the question popped into his head once more, and this time he gathered his courage to voice it–the process eased by asking not the growling orkh, but the kinder Luelia.

  They pressed against the wall, after they leapt down into the alley. “Truth be told, I am unsure of its role in the grand scheme of things. But I have no doubt it shall come in great aid of our cause.” The answer itself wasn’t too satisfying, only that Luelia knew as much as him.

  Feeling confident after the lessons, Euthymius followed Luelia placing his palm upon the tall wall. An ecstatic tickling as if the stone hummed right against his palm undulated throughout his form and soul. Unseen, imperceptible hands wrapped about his ankles, lifted him horizontal–or at least the notion of it washed across his being–onto the wall. Though in reality, he simply crawled up like a spider, his soles and palms sticking firm onto the sleek stone. Near the hewn ridges, they peeked over, skimmed the sprawling garden where peculiar flowers thronged in expansive gardens, slivered ebbing and flowing streams.

  His enthusiasm lessened a little, pulled down by the cold grip of unease when they spotted a few figures draped in lofty, glamorous robes billowing in the tender, nightly wind.

  They all wore the same tapered robes of azure. The whole including the fitted torso, the flared long sleeves, shoulders flared and the outer edges with a slight upward curve. The skirts flowing with tender folds, a liquid gloss brightened the crawling shadows on the arkhaine enhanced fabrics possessing a smooth, lustrous texture like the undisturbed surfaces of pristine ponds. Embroideries of deep and rich violet seams shaped billowing waves connected by threads, each row stretching down the front and back. Chromatic golden streaks shaped like uncoiled cerebrum trailed the rims, starting from the cowl, including the elongated V-shaped collars tilted against the cowl’s inner walls, the folded back voluminous cuffs of the long sleeves, and ended at the mildly curved up hem of the skirt.

  Euthymius could not see whether they were resting or watching in a meditative sedentary posture. Like their robes, an equally peculiar mask shrouded their visages from their inquisitive gazes. A thick, slanting mask resembling lens, their surfaces reflected each across the other, beneath the doomed roofs of small pavilions. Lush shrubs billowed by, tall trees of azure and wisteria crowns added to this surreal picture Euthymius would have never thought to witness in his life before.

  “Come.” Luelia whispered. “They won’t sense us, as they recuperate in the recesses of their own minds.” She added to ease him upon notice of the shadows of doubts gathering over his eyes. Confidence flooded him upon hearing her murmuring voice, vanished them immediately. A strange feeling he was sure not to be just an effect of her tender tone, a technique he shall ask about later he decided as they scaled over. Without sound they arrived in the shadow of some great Vhouromancer.

  Luelia touched softly his right temple, before he shrouded both of them in a common shadow spell erasing their presence and forms from the eyes of others. It felt pleasant, her soft fingers bracing his hair and skin lightly, followed by the pringle of a needle, warm and soothing, filling him with confidence in himself, easily ensuring the successful manifestation of the spell.

  *****

  They entered quite easily, contrary to what each of them expected. Euthymius prepared to mimic the spell of opening up walls, with a bit of Luelia’s aid. Aurelithae herself sensed the expected illusion to confuse any potential intruder, turning the simple design of the tower’s corridors into a twisting maze. “” She exclaimed within her mind, whilst Dumath lingered in the corners, leering occasionally at Euthymius. Though for what reason, she withheld it from Aurelithae.

  “They expect neither common thieves nor the New Dawn. Still do not underestimate them, you mortals may be quite unimaginative when it comes to enforcing your will on reality, you make up for that in other ways.

  Aurelithae moved first as they devised beforehand, Dumath sharing her own sight as she lingered as an unseen spirit prisoned in a fold of reality distant from even those naturally gifted in sensing the lost dead. Nekromancers who simply traded information with the souls awaiting the arrival of the Monarch of Twilight, instead of seizing their carcasses to use as labor and servants. “Though it seems the place is lightly guarded.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “Come. And be prepared to not trust your eyes.” Aurelithae opened the door, then gestured a while later to Euthymius to follow who gulped, experiencing illusions for the first time in his life. Though he expected worst, The Harrowing in a positive manner steeled his mind, as he felt only a mild dizziness as the corridor mundanely short, stretched far ahead and its turn branched thrice into paths leading down, right and up leftwards.

  “Won’t they sense us?” Euthymius asked, knowing it was late to voice it. Aurelithae shook her cowled head, then whispered. “Though they must be admirable Vhouromancers, spells of this grandeur need their whole focus to maintain.” Then she herself started focusing, whilst touching the hardwood floor first, then the wall painted with billowing, foamy waves leading ahead, whilst polished birch and oaken frames adorned the upper and lower edges of the aisle’s walls.

  Her consciousness enveloped the whole tower with the aid of Dumath, and perceived only two Vhouromancers of Septurrion’s Circle. One on their level, the other in the center room beneath the topmost level, which it was a great and singular room used for research used by the master of the tower. They quickly moved, skirting along the ever-stretching aisle occasionally, the floor beneath them turned into a river, but neither seemed affected by the spell. Quickly, Aurelithae manifested her will in the forms of writhing threads, wrapped them around the knob of the retreating door, then wrung it close whilst grabbing Euthymius and hurling themselves both into the room, facing the Vhouromancer sitting in a trance.

  The young niuvhe did not noticed as Aurelithae lifted off his mask, whilst Euthymius looked a bit fearful in case it would bring him out from his focus. Though he calmed, and watched as Aurelithae blew out a pinkish mist through her linen mask, which sinuously wriggled through his orifices, his small and still nostrils, through his thin lips and even his eyes which pupils seemed absent whilst bluish and violet veins stretched towards the empty center. “That was it?” Euthymius asked surprised how simply the spell hurled the vhouromancer to sleep.

  Aurelithae nodded. They produced a few coils of ropes provided by Laneas, each having qualities of great durability and to stifle the flow of mana, dam the arkhaine points. Euthymius bound the wrists and ankles, both tautly knotted, the fabric pressured and the handsome niuvhe groaned, though it was quickly muffled by the cloth Aurelithae forced into his mouth and secured in place with another, before placing the hood and mask back in their place and position.

  With the illusion dissipated, they easily reached the twisting stairs leading to the next level, where they once more treaded through the illusion laden aisle. There they reached the second Vhouromancer in the same trance, a petite one, with waves of her honey golden hair escaping through the shadowy gaps betwixt her mask and cowl. “Killing them would be beneficial in the worst case.

  “” Aurelithae answered as she made the knot over the quite mundane looking tresses flowing in voluminous layers. “” She added.

  “How noble of you.

  Quickly, they ascended the last twisting stairs, and remained still before the thick, polished door of oaken painted indigo, with Septurrion’s sightless and mouthless form painted on the center, holding six of his hands in different gestures. For both, they warned against trespassing at a short glance. A last vein effort, Aurelithae and Dumath thought in unison before they shattered the second to last defense. Or at least they thought.

  Aurelithae ducked and forced Euthymius on the ground by primordial will, as she sensed a cleaving gust aiming to deprive their bodies of their heads. The door behind them shattered in two, tumbled loudly onto the floor before the descending stairs, whilst the marble stone of the blue walls dented, stretching cavities dug deeply into them as if an adamantine blade carved along.

  “It seems Mineirvia blessed you both with good reflexes.” The raspy, noble voice of a dwarf echoed in the room along with the clanks of his steps as he stepped forth the shadows, clad in splendorous gold panoply of angular plates etched with hieroglyphs inlaid with lapis lazuli and the bright, orange-tinged red of cinnabar stones found in the Barkhalian Mountains.

  Broad pauldrons sat atop his shoulders, shaped like stylized wings of the enigmatic sphinxes with detailed texturing, further inlaid by the lustrous blue stone of the south. A heavy chest plate tightened onto the velvety smooth cloth of a deep red, sprawling wings embossed upon the bust section, whilst at the abdomen, slanting shapes connected at the middle and lengthened down to his hip. From the riveted bracers with inlaid trims, the beard and the face looked familiar to Euthymius who recognized the dwarf who accompanied Drussaev.

  Aurelithae veiled her recognition in her scarlet eyes, though a little surprise slipped through as she expected not the good friend and mentor of his brother to appear here, guarding the scrolls Mirayroth desired. And offered the prize of knowledge, awareness provided by Grimslaukh himself. The cloth and gilded plates along his arms and legs glowed ethereally as he waited, not moved in for the kill. Minutes passed, each of the three circled around close to the walls.

  Knowing time stood by Aurelithae made the first move, veiling the flow of mana in her limbs before she quickly knelt down, touched the shadows with her gloved palms.

  Shadows lengthened along the even floor, tendrils shot out towards Khaetomhian and latched about his ankles and wrists, wringing him down to the floor in an effort to restrain him, but failed. Each of his limbs lit up with the brilliance of Dawn, the tendrils bursting into floating inky moats before fading into nothingness in the silvery light entering through the windows. Euthymius groaned as the spell proved greater, his limbs seemed slightly translucent.

  Euthymius followed in suite, calling upon the aid of the stone beneath the hardwood. With painful moans the wood broke, giving way to the marble reaching towards Khaetomhian. His twin-bladed axe swung down, sliced through the polished, noble stone like butter.

  Charging across the room, he broke through each obstacle hastily conjured by inexperienced Euthymius, using his sturdy plates and arms as battering rams and shield in one. A brilliant scintillation formed around him, vanished the shadows further against the walls when he slammed into Euthymius. The force lessened by the umbral aegis he instinctively called upon, but not enough to send his body hurling into the wall, forcing air out from his lungs upon the violent impact.

  He remained still, aching whilst Khaetomhian approached him with his twin-bladed axe lifted high, and struck down but cleaved not flesh but the hardwood and marble beneath. His small eyes expressed his utmost confusion as Euthymius vanished from his sight, then found him far in one of the corners, mended from agonies mundane and arkhaine.

  Next it seemed, his own weapon vanished from his firm grip, taken by invisible hands before he felt a great pressure in his stomach hurling him against one of the thick pillars holding the frescoed ceiling. Blood spurted forth his lips tainting his beard. Khaetomhian cursed, panting from the great force pressuring him into the cracking pillar, and as the marble gave way sooner than his plates and body, he felt it vanishing as he landed upon his knees and palms sweating and bleeding.

  But relief proved short, as the weight pulled him down with renewed vigor. Khaetomhian felt the splendorous armor push into his body, gnaw his flesh with its ravenous trims. He groaned and hardened his body, hoping to break through first before his armor crushed his body. For a momentary glance, noticed Aurelithae standing at the center, his eyes wickedly gleaming onto him. He raised his tremulous arms, held out his palm and at once, a rubble flew at the girl. With each hit, the pressure lessened once more, to the point where he only had to contend with the agony of his cracked body.

  From the few cracks that appeared first on his broad, tapering nose, now a myriad more appeared all across his body. Blood tinctured with a little golden poured out from them, dribbling out from the gaps of his armor, dampened his torn garments beneath. He took deep breaths, took small steps towards Aurelithae in whose eyes he saw hints of regret. It confused him, but with a shrug, began searching for his weapon. “This is not the time for sentimental hesitations!

  Dumath’s unseen form leaned against the dented door frame, her mood soured at the momentary hesitation of Aurelithae, a bitter feeling as she was quite prideful in her for quickly grasping another facet of her dominating Authority. “Kill the dwarf before he retrieves the axe.

  Aurelithae inhaled the chilling air of the night, focused upon entering the quasi-dream state, and at once forced the weight of the space upon Khaetomhian who spurted a hefty amount of his crimson blood tinged with earthly tones upon the white marble rims of the center segment of the floor designed of an eight shrinking circle pattern. Creaking of his bones followed as she forced more and more upon the dwarf, until his shrieks were drowned out by the shattering of his panoply into a thousand pieces, and his own stout body exploded into bits of stony flesh, bone and his flattened organs spreading in a jagged circle themselves.

  Euthymius watched in horror as silence returned to the room, leaving only the two of them. It seemed even this amount of commotions alerted none, as they stood still for several moments. He silenced by the unfolded gruesome act, Aurelithae from breathing shallow, contending with the arousal of the experience tapping into The Authority. Though a little guilt slipped through the cracks of her conscience, aware how much the dwarf meant for his brother. But it faded, when she heard Euthymius letting the gathering bile out from his mouth, onto the floor.

  “Why?” Euthymius questioned laconically as his throat still burned from the acidic contents of his stomach.

  “There was no other option.” Aurelithae answered, slowly calming, her guilt faded as she knelt down to help him up. “And killing him now, shall save the lives of our fellows.”

  Euthymius looked at her, confused now by the answers. Looking at him, Aurelithae wondered would Isocrates look the same, though she was sure Isocrates was the colder, pragmatic of the two, as he carried out a few assassinations himself. “Better for you to know it now, but peace is only momentary. There shall be conflict and chaos soon, though not to the extent of The Harrowing. The less our adversary has capable hands, the greater our chances be.”

  He could not retort, and quivered as he agreed on a deeper, instinctual level. When she held out her hand, he hesitated only a little, but took it. Then they headed towards the ornate chest holding the ancient scrolls of a dead realm, penned by the long-forgotten Vermius.

  “What are these?” Euthymius asked, confounded at the contents.

  Aurelithae remained silent, pondered recognizing the strange parchments almost resembling the skin of kindred bestowed with intelligence. “The Scrolls of Vermius, if I am correct.”