The mawkish odor slowly scurried out from the round chamber and the two stopped trembling in their panoplies. The cavernous wind passed through them, though no matter where Albrion looked for its source, found none as the dense blackness crept all over the walls, the naturally jagged roof. Once back on his feet, he ambled over to Nawfal, helped him onto his feet whilst kicking away the half-corroded helmet. Nawfal smiled weakly as the black pupils inspected the flaked flesh of his. A little coldness he noticed in them, though Albrion kept the dark thoughts away. The time wasn’t right yet.

  . Up until this moment, the reason he came returned once the last of the undead, the last of the nekromancers lay prone by their feet. Further assured by routing cold and warmth, a distant gaze he knew watched from a realm beyond, hidden before mortal eyes. A moment which lasted almost an eternity, yet stretched not beyond a few seconds as all common sensations returned, whilst the eyes upon his back vanished.

  “Well, with this I am sure the ladies will have a hard time resisting your charms.” After a long silence, a friendly mocking parted from his mouth.

  “I am sure I shall get a handful from Egatia once we return home.” Both sheathed their blades, swept off the inky mucus flown onto their gleaming panoplies. “More importantly, I may have to consider taking a more administrative role.” He said jestingly, cracking his spine and neck whilst groaning like an old man.

  “For that, you should fix your grotesque writing.” Albrion said with a mirthful smile. Almost honest. Then turned and glared at the door leading into the next chamber. An ornate door hewn by the erudite hands of his dark cousins now dwelling in Dhaugruz and its basin.

  Beneath the excrescence vaguely resembling the long, gaunt head of a Dragon from the House of Dusk, the two stretched their limbs. “Can you break through the protections?” Nawfal asked half-expecting the answer whilst reaching into the pouch hanging from his belt holding the breeches. Brown and smooth, with a buckle shaped to resemble the avian contoured head of Dawn Dragon with the antlers reaching up towards the embossed trims.

  “Child’s play.” Albrion said, his voice dripping with confidence as he took the potion from Nawfal. A moan escaped him as the arkhaine agonies returned to euphoria then ceased all together when the last of the liquid parted from the bulbous bottle. “Just step back, a little. Maybe five or six steps.”

  Nawfal heeded his words and watched as Albrion unfurled his right hand and placed it upon the cold, damp stone. His lids descended before his eyes, and ripples formed upon their unblemished, smooth surface as his eyes wildly panned right to left, up and down. In the darkness, ethereal lines drawn out in the bold, vibrating shades of violet, gray and white encircling strange runes resembling downturned soft arches with a diverse set of strokes within each of them. Entwining chevrons, basic arkhaine symbols like hexagons and nonagons which upon connection induced dizziness and a wild throbbing in his head and joints.

  His breathing grew heavier, pronounced thrill sprawled across his soul. Blended mana, materia of Time flown across his veins, into his being mingled with others he could not fully recognize. Merely grew aware of their veiled presence, as he experienced the chaotic shifting of time, flowing back and forth seconds. Grasping this sensation, he strengthened and straightened the flow of time, to march in haste, then advanced it upon the stone constituting the ornated door.

  Discharging the spell, a pleasant sensation of frivolousness, bordering on being weightless rippled across him. For a second, he saw not the rapidly aging black stone, the forming cracks, but Augermil smiling fraternally, lifting him up in the air on his behest, and throwing him to feel the air, space before diving back into those large hands awaiting. Even the weight of his armor evanesced from his mind, only the soothing chill and the silky embrace of his garments remained.

  Albrion wondered, if taking the path of a sorcerer, magus would have been better as he parted his palm from the crumbling stone, leapt from the large pieces coming down to crash him thither. “You still can amaze me sometimes.” Nawfal said, watching with wonder in his own draconic pupils gazing at mixture of falling stone and rising motes of energy from the shattered protections woven into the door. Both remained in their statuesque state until the dust settled, the motes vanished into oblivion.

  Feeling the first gust propelled by the lumbering Rage, Albrion turned towards his friend with pleading eyes. All those pleasant feeling torrented out, in their place an agony pulling him down onto his knees, whilst beads of sweat and tears dribbled onto the stone. His breaths ragged, whilst his ears twitched at the hurried steps.

  “Bottoms up!” Albrion wasted no time, gathered the remnants of his strength, then let out a sigh. Once feeling good as new, Albrion rose whilst Nawfal approached the chamber ahead gazing ahead instead of at the stone aging into dust.

  Nawfal closed his eyes, and sensed only a lone soul beyond. A soul which made him shiver a little, swept by the astral winds of Dusk when he gazed with his Mind’s Eye upon the altered anima. “Seems our host this time is the patient kind.”

  Nawfal nodded in agreement. “And one quite accomplished if I have to venture a guess”

  “As expected of the most devout followers of the Nightscale.” Albrion said.

  The two approached after the last of the dust settled, revealing an even greater hall lit by flames of indigo blue and the purple of wisterias. Flames of great reach and intensity, bathing bright the whole chambers in the eerie colors, from the polished floor furnished with finely sewn carpets, to the uneven ceiling adorned with a grand fresco of the Nightscale himself, and his little brother the Prismatic Lord, First-Breath of the Dawn battling over hills of golden and dark violet. Behind the Nightscale, dusk painted the skies black, blazed tenebrous light upon the stretching painted lands where fallen warriors rested. Across and beyond the Prismatic Lord, a blessed day showered the world in its brilliance, overpowering, shrouding horrid shapes, silhouettes lacking detail beyond the painted lines.

  Columns the very same they saw barely in the antechamber lined both sides. Between the columns, sconces spew pale and lightless flames, beneath their soles one of the fine carpets stretched the hundred steps long distance, where an oblong and tiered dais of stone arose, housing an altar of bones and transmuted flesh. From its center a mighty dragon stretched from one side to another, its head turned towards the entrance. Along the surface, pulsating veins offered additional light to the votary flock–and presently the two invaders.

  Behind the altar, they noticed the hideous high-priest of the Night, a gobokh taller and bulkier than most of his simian kindred. Furless, his skin bare to all, blue as ice reminding Albrion of the Jotunn, the half-ethereal children of the Titan who guards the Gates of Winter. Hence, he recognized the wintry symbols sewn along the white edges of the dark robe, covering only the left half of his chest. The other remained void of cloth, exposing the toned muscles, the gleaming silver spots along his skin. Atop, a shawl coiled around his neck and the cowl draped strangely. A horn of a dragon broke the symmetry as it protruded out, tapering and curving like a crescent.

  “Welcome, misguided children of the usurpers!” He spoke, his voice deep and crackling like ice. Upon opening his eyes, a raging storm of wisteria shone upon them with a faint gray tint at the corners. Hands placed upon the altar’s flowing bulwark, he leaned forward revealing his scaled, clawed hands black as the ones adorning Albrion’s body. Narrow, long spikes of snow-white jutted out seamlessly from each of his elbows. His prognathous head beneath the veil simian on the left, serpentine and gaunt on the right.

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  Both grasped their swords, but left them resting in their sheaths, waiting for the first move. Their eyes never wandered off from the gobokh high-priest.

  “It is a bit late for welcomes.” Nawfal broke the silence first, tightening his grip and awaiting slight movement–not from the gobokh, but Albrion.

  A trifle habit of the two when it came to earning glory. One which blossomed in him after hundredth loss against Albrion, as Nawfal was savant not in the maghia of Time. At least when it came to throwing one’s self into another stream, whilst remaining partially in the realm of mortals. Instead, he found a way to ease the weight of his body and panoply, enough to be as quick as Albrion shifted into a galloping stream of time. With a wild grin upon his visage, Nawfal drew plans to approach the gobokh before he could react in time.

  Doing so, he looked on his right where Albrion stood. Or should have stood. Albrion vanished into the air, whilst Nawfal sighed and the gobokh raised his left arm, his veins shining darkly through skin and muscle. With his vampiric blade drawn, Albrion stabbed through the sarcophagus doors lining the walls. His blade penetrated the stone with ease, without dentation, broke the dormant spell in each undead. After the sixth and last, he turned and watched the slowly egressing dust and seeping blackness. The gobokh high-priest shrieked with triumph, slow and almost comical in the galloping stream.

  Blinded by his triumph, Albrion stepped onto the dais, prepared to strike down the gobokh, clean and quick. One step closer, then another his eyes abruptly shot wide. The grin remained on the gobokh’s uneven lips, as he clutched the blade with one hand, the other discharged a torrent of black wind, hurling him across the chamber. Returning amidst the soaring and rolling, everything became a blur whilst bile broke forth his lips, drawing a streak across the polished floor. The gobokh chuckled mockingly, whilst Nawfal rushed towards the dais, using the columns to evade the incoming spells.

  Then stopped and nearly tumbled, if not for having half his foot sunken into the floor. It nearly broke bone with the force he came to a halt, nearly made him miss the incoming spell, he sliced in two. Then feeling himself reaching his own limit, downed a potion.

  Cussing, mana flown down into his feet as he tugged, trying to break free, but the stone proved sturdier along with the cantrip negating his efforts. The gobokh raised its muscular arm, touched its hairless temple whilst the other reached towards Nawfal as his long, reptilian mouth opened, emanating distorted whispers. A portentous feeling came over Nawfal. A little of his panic mingled and empowered his efforts to break free from the stone, whilst Albrion laid besides the contents of his stomach slowly cascading down the steps as he ascended slowly and unevenly, dragging his sword.

  Beneath the floor, half-rotten serpents swam through the stone from their unmarked graves within the earth, towards Nawfal’s calves.

  Their sharp fangs hardened enough to break through the high-grade metal and cloth, each woven and hammered with maghia to offer them greater protection compared to the common legionaries. They stretched wide their quasi-phantasmal jaws, revealing their white, sharp fangs closing in at the gaps of the greaves. They penetrated through the arkhaine-woven cloth, deep into his dark flesh and spew their venom into his bloodstream. It took a few seconds after his own hiss, but Nawfal’s vision blurred slight, accompanied by a cold heat permeating his whole body. Perspiration began trickling down his temples, his breathing turned ragged slow and scorched his throat and gums. His efforts to break out from the swallowing stone floor waned, when the throbbing within his head began. Slowly, Nawfal sunk deeper and deeper into the stone, into his own unmarked grave.

  Albrion watched, the whirring world slowly returning to perfect, soothing stillness pondered a little whether to let Nawfal sink beneath the stone.

  It would have eased the woes of his souls, but would it satisfy Him, and was his true woe the lack of resolve. A resolve he gained back, tightening his grip as he leapt onto the dais, propelled by a strong and conjured gust of wind. Blade came towards the gobokh, but as he lifted his arm Albrion could sense the gathering of dusk materia. Quickly the momentum of his strike ceased, and nearly the gobokh pushed him far away from himself.

  Albrion spun around, striking once more, and stopped once more by the protective dusk spell enervating the force of his continuous strikes. He growled annoyed by the gobokh and himself, though he refrained from fully shifting into a rapider Stream. Still, he dipped his arms into another, hoping the blade tastes the altered flesh sooner, before the materialization of another dark, enervating ward. By the fourth strike he suspected and reasoned the gobokh possessed an acute sense in regards of Time, a possibility of the draconic augmentation though he could not be sure if his scales were black because of the supplies or the blessing. He also entertained the idea the dark robes provided or were endowed with sense heightening enchantments.

  Then all his thinking proved needless, as he watched Nawfal’s blade run through the simian side of the gobokh’s head, whilst its tip got faltered by the horn curving out from the thick, sturdy skull. “The strongest…worth…four…at…least.” Nawfal slurred the words, croaked the last two as he forcibly bellowed. The earth spit him out and he collapsed onto his knees with a triumphant smile. Albrion drawn out his blade from the head of the nekromancer and walked slowly towards him, assuming a genial countenance whilst preparing his soul for what needs to be done.

  “Truly… I missed this.” Nawfal wheezed, down on his knees as his sweat and blood mingled upon his dark, rotten flesh where the spell landed. Ripples traveled across the segmented plates of his panoply, repairing both itself and his body. “I retract my previous statement about an early retirement.”

  Albrion remained silent, a morose air descended upon the two as he grasped the handle with both hands. Just one more spell, was all he needed. One spell which brought agony upon both mind and body. “Forgive me.” He whispered, standing afar over the hideous cadaver, then behind his old friend who heard not the whispered words. And he never felt the cold blade cutting through his nape, passing through and severing tendon and bone as it exited at his throat. Blood sprayed before the floor, red then black as it graced the gloomy floor.

  Thrice his lopped off head rolled before it stopped at the foundation of the altar drawing its path in blood. The glassy eyes of a dragon stared triumphant at Albrion. A gaze of anticipation towards the future where the two could have fought a hundred more battles, slayed dozens if not thousands whilst bathed in blood and sweat, showered in glory and fame like Augermil’s. But alas, the path severed and faded, with myriad others into the wastes of oblivion.

  His smile forever remained in Albrion’s head, and when he could no longer hold the gates of his soul and heart, he bellowed through the subterranean complex. It traversed through the whole, sharing the sorrow poisoning his triumphant mood, before silence encroached the temple once more. Albrion sobbed tearlessly upon his knees, sword slipping from his hands whilst its blade voraciously sipped the blood of his friend, brother-in-arms lingering on the iridescent white-silver surface. Then the pain faded, and he felt naught but relief.

  “Feel satisfied?” The voice of an innocent child passed from the severed head, its expression now devoid of all emotions, the triumph taken from it by the invading presence.

  Behind him, he heard the segmented plates cling, the cloth whisper softly, whilst bone and muscle moaned. “Now are you ready to doom thousands of innocent for the dream of one?” Turning around, he watched calmly as the headless corpse arose, the visceral aperture of its neck no longer bleeding dark, but darkness gnawing away air and space, wounding reality itself as it shambled towards him, placed one hand upon his shoulder after he himself arose fearless.

  “Resolved for the pains awaiting, for robbing the futures of not just your friend, but beloved brothers and sisters, damn the world for chaos, ceaseless conflicts and opportunities?” Asked a voice familiar, soft and serene accompanied by myriad whispers which shivered his ridged spine.

  Albrion kept silent, closed his eyes searching for the answer lying in his beating heart. He inhaled the air void of cold and warmth, focusing not on what he may lose in the coming days, weeks, months, years. But what he shall gain, the smiles he saw lost in the futures shown, when he knelt and offered anything to avoid what was to come by the slaying of the Night. The doom which shown him greater terror than death, then the horrors which lurk in the farthest realms, or in the waves of the lone ocean below.

  Then he saw those close to him again, shown in a hundred or thousand different ways that shall blossom from the New Dawn. Saw the glories that shall await him in the service of Dusk, the battles where he can be himself again, not wear a mask. He saw again Aurelithae in black, her white hair flowing in the same direction as the pouring snow, and just as white whilst some red remained. He saw the honest smile and rejoiced, found fuel in it to push through, back to reality, back to staring at the all-devouring vortex, then the glassy eyes staring awaiting.

  “I am.” He answered with invigorating honesty.