The Great Ones The Great Ones Beneath

[Milo Vox]

Milo inhaled in big, gasping inhales, finally reaching the dragon’s back. He stood his full height, no longer hindered by the wound at his side – as, by miracle of his patron, it had healed. It was inherent to the nature of the Hidden Stone That Breaks All Hearts to endure.

The paladin stretched, balanced on the back of the largest creature this world has ever seen – pain, distant, echoing from the future, resonated in his muscles, crying out for protein and sugars and replenishment that had surely been depleted in this useless, impossible climb. But as Milo looked out over the landscape – from the leviathan which he stood, to the towering buildings crumbling and falling as they sank into nothing. To the purple miasma that painted the horizon in flourishes of violet cloud…chaotic and beautiful as that napalm scene in Apocalypse Now.

Ser Vox could not help but grin. The joy of this sight, its own reward.

Oh, the wonder.

He could tell that the day had been won, as Pyrrhic as it may be. His fight was over before it had begun. There was nothing he did, and nothing he could do.

But, yet…Look at all this. He took his time to.

From the periphery of his senses, he heard a faint crying. It was contagious, as it always was. Cathartic. Familiar. He had come to accept this as the way his god spoke to him; guided him.

A toppled building was raising to his 10 o’clock. It was within leaping distance, and soon, it would parallel.

Milo took a deep breath and launched himself forward, the rhythmic clink of his plate mail against his chainmail, his chainmail against itself, kept his pace for him as he took off in a dead sprint. Full speed, he made off down the dragon’s back, building momentum for what felt like half a mile, and soaring through the air.

His knees bent as he came down, landing on the stonework and leaning toward, but he hit running, continuing up the building’s side as he slowed himself to a walk, and then standstill, and then a careful sitting down, shaking loose some errant pieces of dragon scale that had crumbled off and fallen into his hood during the climb. He took a moment to catch his breath before he sat down to study them, fanning out the reasonably-sized pieces like a deck of cards and then back into a stack again.

The scene had begun to change as the dopamine wore off and the new reality began to settle in.

He had lost his lead. The people had lost their city, if not their lives.

And for what, exactly?

For Milo, the ordeal had occurred quite suddenly, quite arbitrarily. That is for sure. But he couldn’t imagine it making all that much sense for anyone else, either.

What was any of this?

Just colorful, destructive noise.

Milo shuffled his newly-acquired scales, repeating this absently, as he watched the dragon sink down into its abyss, escaping without consequence or responsibility the mess of which it would burden the world.

 

[Xunari Auceus]

​

... okay so maybe trying to take the egg was too much of a stretch for herself. People were throwing around weapons and magic for that thing and all she wanted to do was to kill the unborn child within to power some kickass runes that she would carve into her skin with the shell fragments.

Which, now that she thought about it, was pretty messed up even for the kind of things that Drow magical researchers came up with. Instead she shook her head and backed away from the fight for the egg, noticing instead the tide of the undead.

Was that new or had she just not been paying enough attention?

A question for later.

Waiving slightly, tired now that her adrenaline was wearing thin, she found a large group of the local civilians running from an approaching horde. She didn't get a rat's ass about the civilians but they would make for good spreaders of her works here against the dragon and it's slaves.

She quickly began to carve a rune into the ground as the beasts advanced on her. Slapping her hand to the rune, she activated it, drawing energy from herself that left her gasping even as the rune too effect, causing a ten foot tall wall to rise up out of the ground made from the material of the road.

With a grunt she flexed her power and the wall exploded - literally exploding from the energy coming into it with the blast being magically controlled. The same material she had dredged up from the earth exploded out as shrapnel against the oncoming beasts, tearing holes through their ranks with brutal efficiency.

 

[Neha]

The dead fell and then they were risen once more. It was only when one of the group severed the head from the body that it finally went still. Neha watched it all with glee as her tortured creations swarmed to do her bidding though really she was scanning for her egg. She could feel it close but it was lost in the middle of a war. Simpering, pathetic, creatures who were all out to get her child for themselves. There was disgust in her for whomsoever tried to make off with it.

She would deal them a blow worse than death when she found them.

For Lazule Eren'thiel Xyrdithas and Vyx'aria the waves kept coming though it began to slow as Neha's attention was redirected by a sudden voice that cut through the storm.

'Neha... I have your egg. Let's strike a bargain.'

Her giant head whipped round towards the epicentre of the voice and she was moving before the last word passed through her mind. She pushed off from the ground and swept into the skies. On the hot currents being produced by the lava below she barely had to extract any effort in gliding across the space that separated her from the Drow and her egg.

She landed and the ground shook with her weight. It would be so easy to reach out and end this creatures life but something made her stop. Her child was not afraid. Her wings bristled and then slowly flattened to her side.

"Speak your Bargain, two-legger."

 

[Lazule]

A peculiar sight. Unprecedented. Unexpected.

Dark elves. Much like the one that had come earlier and kicked Zachariah's remains. A clarification: Dark elven mages. One of them pulsed a shockwave that blew back reinforcing waves of the Risen Dead, and several more had gathered around Lazule, siphoning away the massive buildup of internal heat in his body--and likewise healing him. The steam had stopped hissing and rising and the redness and blisters on the skin of his face and elsewhere were assuaged and Lazule felt altogether rejuvenated. Ready to rejoin the fight. Erën need not finish it alone.

Vyx'aria came to him. Took his arm and aided him to his feet. And Lazule gave a nod to her.

"You have my gratitude."

For Bhathairk, she said.

"For Bhathairk," Lazule repeated.

He glanced over to Erën. The stolid and determined look in Lazule's face conveying all that was necessary: He would not stop. Until the Black Dragon and Its fiendish cohorts were dead or until his Fire faded, he would not stop. Retribution would be dispensed. Another corpse to the mountain of the slain wicked would be added. Recompense violently exacted. In this, only joy.

Lazule looked down and found his helm among the pile of the Dead. One of the Dead whose head was not destroyed stirred and Lazule charged a Needle of Light and casually shot it through the skull with one hand while picking up his helm with the other. He had been curious. Curious, about the appearance of his new body. But he spared not the time in any capacity for such trivial concerns at present. Only when the task was done.

Lazule placed his helm back on his head. Repairs would need to be made to the metal to properly secure again, but for now it would do. As it was with the rest of his armor, it was battered harshly but still serviceable for the time being.

Vyx'aria had charged the Risen Dead, holding back the tide that threatened to pour over the Bridge of Bodies across the river of lava. Erën was at his side. And, if Lazule's eyes did not deceive him, he thought that he observed the presence of Caliane Ruinë some way distant. The Golden Dragon and the Purple Dragon were fighting.

Leaving the Black. Speaking Its vile words. Looking down to something in the city. Its massive form near impossible to miss. Its massive form so demanded to be turned into a colossal trophy to honor the innocent fallen.

"Carry with you their names," Lazule recited. Manifesting another Javelin of Light in his right hand.

"And deliver unto them their just recompense."

Lazule threw the Javelin. The spell whistling viciously across the span of the city and streaking toward Neha. And he conjured another, preparing to follow through again and again.

No Monster was too powerful to be butchered. The Black Dragon would be joined into that mountain of corpses, whereupon It would be indistinguishable from the rest of the slain wicked. No lesser or greater than any other, kin to giant rats and feral goblins and mountain trolls alike in callous death.

This, for Bhathairk.

* * * * *​

Among the Risen Dead swarming across the Bridge of Bodies toward Vyx'aria, there was one. One with a half-crushed head, a smashed body and battered hand. One who held her daughter's hand moments before her perishing.

Zeri's Ma--Kalla.

Kalla approached slowly, the other Risen Dead pushing past. One of her reanimated legs severely mangled, limiting her movement to a drudging walk. Like all the rest of them, the light of true life was gone from her eyes, replaced with that haunting blue of the Draconic Plague. Her green skin was cracked and grayed and scaly, as it likewise was with the others. A horrid sight.

And Kalla's undead body limped across the Bridge of Bodies and toward Vyx'aria. Eyes locked onto her with that savage intent common to Neha's Risen Dead.

Eren'thiel Xyrdithas Vyx'aria Neha Caliane Ruinë

 

[Zarko]

​

"You get a magic missile! You get a magic missile! You get a magic missile!"

Zarko was very drunk on power. He held a pair of wands in both hands and was conducting an orchestra of mayhem. Everything his magic touched burst apart. He drifted from rock to rock, gliding along air currents and laughing like a maniac. He had always suspected he would ascend to godhood one day.

As the grand finale of his unintentional fireworks display faded out he set down onto the College island before marching up to Zier Xya Zythos.

"What did I tell you?" he gloated at the elf, "Exactly as I planned it. Dragon god defeated, Elbion saved. No need to thank me unless you insist."

Another of the floating buildings behind Zarko caught fire but the gnome did not seem to notice.

"Now be honest. What do you think of the golem? I conjured it myself!"

That was a lie of course but Zier didn't need to know all the details.

 

[Medja]

​

Aramekh came to rest in front of the ensuing chaos and destruction. The golem knelt, allowing his passengers to disembark. Medja released her bandages from Aramek's neck and gently floated to the ground, then slumped to her knees. Drakormir lay dead, his song already a distant memory. The sorceress hadn't even had the opportunity to lash out at the monster. She had been too slow.

Part of her was relieved. Whatever sinister power had taken hold of her was now dispelled, and the world was no longer at risk of being annihilated by the draconic gargant that was Drakormir. Elbion, however, lay--or floated, rather--in ruin. Medja didn't know how to proceed. She raised a hand to the scar on her chest where Gerra had pierced her heart and felt defeated. She had come all this way, summoned her most powerful magics, and now she had no reason to be here at all. She had been a glorified taxi service.

She slumped forward placed her palms flat on the ground, locks of hair falling to drape her face. Part of her hoped that the curtains formed by her hair would hide her shame as the first of her tears fell to the earth. Her chest heaved quietly as she began to sob, utterly exhausted.

 

[Eren'thiel Xyrdithas]

"Isn't this how it was always meant to be, Erën?"

​

All of Bhathairk, and even out into the land around it, was scorched and ruined. Arethil herself had split and shifted and quaked with the dragon's waking, and its sorrows were seen and felt all around. The ground had given way, unearthing molten fury, and from it rose terrible smoke which burned the air. Ashes of an unknowingly unholy kind descended from above, and its evil permeated into all whom it touched. And they, those tortured and ended souls, ravenous and hungry - bound to their queen. Angry for her.



He'd lost ground. They were too many. But his resolve was hardened. His determination, absolute.

He held.

He pushed.

With another celestial strike, he garned more ground - only to have it eaten up before he hardly managed a step. But still, he pushed, and in the fray he and Lazule were made seperate, and he was unable to reach him. He fought hard to reach him.

The lava came, and bought them a reprieve, however momentary it was to become. He lashed out fervently, eager to buy himself more ground, eliminate these immediate foes, and reach Lazule before it was too... but then they too were blown away. The drow's magic, he quickly determined. He looked to his friend, but his concern was brief - the dark elves were quick to tend to him.

His eyes turned upon the Black Dragon, thinking, and fortunate we are... we will need everything we have.

And for a moment, there was a quiet. The Turned were hard at work, clambering and groaning and burning their way across the river of lava. It was a twisted sight to behold. It was a terrible thing to hear.

But he did his best to ignore them, for a breath.

His eyes turned up, and around, and they closed.

He felt her presence, near to him.

And he breathed in, finding comfort in that, even here.​

And then, his eyes fell again forward as the bridge of the dead was nearing to its finality, making the way open once again. And then it was, and Vyx'aria led the charge, clashing with and staying the Turned.

And there again, a streak of light.

His eyes turned to Lazule, observing him manifest another Javelin. Of course, Erën had seen it in his eyes, eyes that before just now he had never looked upon, but knew all too well -

I will not stop.

Of course not, dear friend.

Then, he looked back to the Black Dragon.

That is my mark. My only mark.
​

Then, he started. He ran forward, following up behind Vyx'aria. He sheathed his sword, and turned. He leapt off the side of the charred bridge and found his feet on solid ground - narrowly avoiding a terrible fate, just behind his heels.

A step. The Turned were around him, scattered, but close.

Another step, his stride in full. They started toward him.

His third step, he leapt, carrying him several meters over and above. His hands found purchase on a broken ledge, leftovers of the gatehouse. Urgently he hurled himself up and straddled the safety of his current place before leaping to a nearby rooftop. He came down upon it with a roll, and came up into a full sprint to hurl himself to the next, closest perch. And he continued on, avoiding the Dead by staying above, leaping and pulling and descending his way over all that remained of the city, both intact or otherwise.

He began to draw close to the Dragon.

Lazule | Vyx'aria | Caliane Ruinë

​

 

[Ashuanar]

​

The journey to Elbion would have taken far longer if not for Aramekh. He was grateful to have been able to follow after with such haste, but loathe to imagine the terrible battle which was to come. And Kara, unfortunately, had little to offer in regards to this dragon. Certainly, he could hardly blame one, he himself had never heard of such a thing as He. But it was disappointing, he had hoped for some insight. From anyone.

His eyes were drawn to a great slam - a wall of stone, and as they passed he beheld the mass of black ooze. It unnerved him to see, and he wondered as to what abomidable thing that it was.

And then he too, felt it.
​

Even he, far from the leagues of those magicians of Elbion, or the mages of the Empire, felt it. And then too, he saw.

Drakormir fell silent, and still.

The world broke, and the city fractured, and rose in pieces.

And all around like never before, with the gifts granted to his eyes from his ancestors, laid over the destruction and havoc he saw the lights of magic, flowing and twisting and twirling and binding. The magnitude of this happening was made devastatingly clear, and he trembled.

As Aramekh came to the ground and allowed them passage, he departed and his feet found the wounded land.

He looked up, in terror and in awe. Drakormir, enormous as he was, began to descend into the world without protest. Without even an utterance - and sorrow filled his heart. It was an awful thing to behold, something so magnificent meeting such a wretched end. And above and beyond, the city, ravaged by the concequences of all that had taken place - little of which Ashuanar could discern. He could only see what now was. And also, he could hear the troubles of the people, some merely displaced and uncertain, and others also terrorized by some unknown fiends.

He took a few weary steps forward, and after beholding all he could of what had become if Elbion, his eyes fell to Medja, knelt there just before him. He moved closer to her, and knelt by her side, and rested a comforting hand upon her back.

For all the confusion, he was uncertain of what now to do, aside from this, simple gesture.

"Everything will be alright."

Medja
Kara Orin​

 

[Sepheron]

​

Sepheron was about to unleash the fire that been built up within him on the dragon beneath him. But as he was about to open his mouth, he heard Neha speak about a bargain and his head immediately turned toward her. The flames extinguished and the golden dragon flapped his wings to lift off of the purple dragon and fly towards where he sensed the egg.

Gusts of wind would blow through Velathina's hair as Sepheron drew closer. A roar would rumble from his throat and a few seconds later, the large black and golden mass that was him would descend from the air and land a distance behind the elf. The drow would now be in between both him and Neha as the two massive dragons stared down at her with the egg.

The golden dragon's molten eyes burned into the Druchii as it slammed one hook of his into the dirt. Do not be a fool. She will discard you, elf.

Sepheron has had experience with Neha before and knew her well enough that just like him, he had no concern for the creatures that inhabited the surface unless they beckoned to her. His eyes remained on the Drow as it mainly focused on the egg but he was prepared to take off into the air if Neha or anything else decided to interrupt.

 

[Zier Xya Zythos]

He stared down at the mess below: 'people' fighting mages while some of the buildings fall into the chasms as the dragon lay-- or stand-- dead. The glint of ethereal, and frankly extravagant, bursts of magic caught his attention, and he squinted to focus on what it was... explosions? Shit is weird. I need to get the fuck down from here. He doesn't even know why this chunk of land is floating and if it'll abruptly plummet.

Maybe he skip his way down using th- FUCK IT'S ZARKO. He might never be free of this little gnomes presence. Not to be rude, he's humorous in way but his arrogance could certainly get him hurt. I mean, look at him! He basically strut over here.

Zier gave Zarko a look of skepticism and a slight nod at the improbable accomplishments he loves boasting about. Again, he's tempted to interrogate Zarko so he can keep digging a hole for himself until he's forced to tell the truth, and maybe even learn something. Unfortunately, this still isn't the place for that.

"Uh-huh. Thank You." His tone wasn't dripping; it was saturated in sarcasm. Hr has to keep him in line a tiny bit further until they're certain that all threats are gone. Still, one thing was bugging him... "Were you flying..?" It wasn't a parlor trick, and he looks like a magician who's entertainment centers around a tavern and The Collage.

 

[Azulian]

Azulian heard, well more like saw what was happening in Bhathairk. Mainly the large plume of dust and smoke coming over the horizon. She heard something of both Eren and Lazule going to visit there or close to there from a little bird. And for some reason, in her usual healer fashion and her god's will. She had a feeling they would be involved somehow.

So the elven healer left their HQ and decided to go and pay a visit to probably her most common patients out of the whole gang. Willis was off somewhere, and Cali was probably close by to Eren either way. Those two were always together.

The large bird she had asked to help her on the way to the disaster was shot out of the sky by the damn archer arrows as they pelting the poor thing's wings. Sending it plummeting onto the ground near Eren and Lazule.

Landing on her feet due to some nature magic the healer glared at them both in silent rage as an undead clambered up behind her and with a snap of her fingers it burst into light and ash. She did not even blink as she ran up beside them and cast her healing magic.

"You two need to keep me with you at this point. Of all things, a BIRD had to tell me where the hell you are! How am I supposed to know where you guys are not off bleeding out in a ditch somewhere!?" Azulian still chastised them even as they ran. Still, there was an air of caring about her still and worry for the two of them.

When her quick spells were done with Eren she would turn to Lazule and start to heal him.

 

[Velathina T'sarran]

Velathina staggered to her feet and rested her left hand protectively on the egg beside her, glaring up through the stone barrier as though it were made of glass to meet Neha mind to mind. The Drow ignored the golden dragon at her back, her right hand slowly rising and falling as her voice and will rose to meet the Black Dragon.

"This calamity was not your doing, you simply rose where a city had formed since the time you slept. I cannot fault you for that. But this sickness, this plague of undeath you have unleashed is a desecration. I can feel the shredded remnants of their souls just as you can, because I *am* you. I see as you do, I feel as you do. Let it end."

Her words were spoken in the tongue of Dragons and rumbled through the great dragons mind in challenge and her eye glowed with light as she finished preparing the glyphs for a spell of last resort.

"Release them from undeath, end this sickness, and fly away from this place; you are great and powerful, but you are not immortal... and your child should not suffer the loss of both parents before it is born. Leave, and I swear that I will meet you in the mountains with your egg. There is nowhere I could go now that you could not follow... Fly, and let Bhathairk remain a silent tomb."

 

[Neha]

What Neha would have responded to Velathina T'sarran would be a subject scholars discussed for centuries to come.

She might have snarled at Sepheron, she might have eaten the elf though she knew their minds were connected in a way similar to how she had bound Zachariah to her. She might have gone for the peace deal and left this city to seek the walls of her home and raise her child in peace. But then, she might not have.

Instead what happened was a javelin of pure light pierced her already damaged eye and slid home, all the way through the brain. Her head snapped sideways with the force of it and then the dragon crumpled. It was a slow thing. People below her screamed and fled as her body hit the ground and shattered it as though it were glass. She sunk into the lava that now churned beneath the city but where she disappeared now something began to appear.

From the hole into whence Neha had disappeared began to raise a sapling as dark as her scales. It grew and twisted until it became a fledgling tree, then it grew and grew and grew. It rose higher than the tallest of buildings and branches shot outwards. The bark itself was black as night but the leaves which began to sprout and grow were like little balls of fire.

From it hung several fruit though if someone made to reach for it and touch it, they would recoil and hide within the leaves. Unless... unless that person was worthy. One such fruit slowly lowered into Velathina T'sarran's hand.

I charge you to protect my child, Sorceress, and the Fruit of my Blood. The Flame freely given.​

With their mistress gone the undead stopped in their sudden attack. Some who were gravely injured and already beyond any form of recognition dropped and passed peacefully so. Those with their limbs still about them began to flee the city in a mass of confusion. Others simply looked pleadingly at those still alive to kill them and end the suffering.

Bhathairk would live to face another dawn.

 

[Kara Orin]

The fractured islands of Elbion each settled in the air. Like the structures in Thagretis, they would remain so for the foreseeable future.

The scales Milo Vox stole would be incredible resistant to physical damage and fire. There would be ways to shape them into a weapon or armor.

While it would be heavy, Zier Xya Zythos would be allowed to take the Shield of Elyleed from the Vault to confront the dragon – and now Zarko. The College would be too busy to notice if Zier “forgets” to return the shield.

The silence of the song Medja and Alexios Marxan heard continued. Yet, power in their blood remained. Blood magic cast with their own life force could produce powerful, almost unpredictable results. And in addition, if they investigated Thagretis at any point they would discover their ability to use the divine magic of the city with ease.

Regardless of what people thought of the dragon’s current state of being, magic invoked in his name would continue to still work. As if things returned to the time before the planetary alignment.

---

Kara watched the Elbion Lake and Cairou River swallow Drakormir. A purple hue poisoned the water. Drakormir would be out of her reach until the miasma that infected the depths below subsided.

“I should have just stayed,” Kara weakly muttered as she stared wide-eyed at the bubbles bursting at the water’s surface.

The screams of people surrounded Kara, Medja, and Ashuanar. Disfigured monsters roared and devoured the slow on many of the islands. Kara glanced at the Viziers with a glare. She grasped the hilt of her runic sword still sheathed at her side.

But then she looked away. Kara took several steps toward the ledge of the floating island they stood on. Looking to an island below, she spotted several hungry monsters chased after a peasant man.

“When you meet your lord,” Kara said aloud with Medja and Ashuanar in earshot. Her eyes remained focus on the fleeing innocent below.

“Please ask as he takes the first wine if any of this was worth it.”

With a tight grip on her hilt and eyes looking toward her feet, Kara activated her sword. A rune carved itself into the ground around her. It then broke off the ledge she stood on and began a controlled descent to the island the fleeing man was on…

[To be continued in Aftermath: Elbion]

 

[Zarko]

"I prefer to think of it as falling with style."

Zarko could not possibly be more pleased with the skeptical look Zier Xya Zythos wore. Finally a witness who could spread tales of his raw power far and wide! He imagined sold out city opera houses and entire festivals prepared in his name. Maybe the gnome would even earn some respect among the Elbion maesters for once.

"Have no fear my elfen assistant," he smirked, "I can just open a dimensional gateway or...or..."

He swished his wand and nothing happened.

Staring at the arcane focus, he swished it a few more times before giving some frustrated flicks with his finger. Heart suddenly racing, Zarko glanced up at Zier nervously. He struggled to contain his embarrassment and confusion.

"This never happens I swear," the gnome stammered, "The dragon god's death must have damaged the weave itself!"

His power! It was gone!

 

[Lazule]

The Dragon.

Destroyed.

As well it should be.

Lazule watched from his vantage near the Gates of Bhathairk as the enormous monster perished. It was a strange death, ordinary at first with the recoil of Its head after the the Javelin struck and the crumpling of Its body, but Lazule's eyes did not deceive him nor did gargantuan span of ruins that was Bhathairk shield what came after from view. The Black Dragon's body shattered. Shattered. The pieces disappearing from sight beyond where Lazule could see, likely falling into the gigantic rends in the earth.

And yet the vileness was not over. Not entirely. A tree, foul in appearance, sprouted from the vicinity of the Dragon's death. Though it was small by comparison to the Beast Itself and difficult to see past the horizon of wreckage, Lazule did so see its growth. Erën had run in that direction, previously intent on engaging the monster. Lazule did not know if his magic or Erën's own would be effective in either razing or outright obliterating the tree, but they could try. Perhaps Caliane's fire could be leveraged to once again cleanse Bhathairk--what was left of it--of the Dragon's tainted and final vestige.

Azulian had come. Concerned. Reproachful, as was her way.

"Azulian," Lazule said, turning his helm to regard her. "It is good to see you. Our task here is not yet finished."

And with that, Lazule shifted his visored gaze forward again. The Dragon's death had rendered the Risen Dead becoming spontaneously incapable of continuing their wanton violence. Good. Now they could all be slain with ease.

Lazule conjured in his right a Shiv, forged from his Luminomancy, the tool that he used now and before in Lena's body to carve from the bodies of the slain monsters the due recompense for the good and the innocent. With it the Risen Dead in his path would be returned to rest, and once he drew close to the tree he could possibly take from it the offering of recompense for they of Bhathairk, they who were all victim to the Black Dragon this day.

Lazule strode past Vyx'aria at the Bridge of Bodies and began his work. Stabbing each and every Risen Dead he came across through the forehead before moving on methodically to the next, slowly and inevitably working his way toward the tree where the Black Dragon had been felled.

Eren'thiel Xyrdithas Azulian Vyx'aria Caliane Ruinë

 

[Eren'thiel Xyrdithas]

​

Nimble were his feet, carrying him quickly across the city. With brief flashes of light he hurled himself farther from time to time, overba chasm of lava which had been torn through the city, or up a great, sheered incline, which had been abruptly forced up from below sometime during the initial turmoils.

But for all the speed he could afford, it proved to be more or less pointless, at least when it came to the Black Dragon herself.

She was defeated, Lazule's mighty magic striking true.

And Erën came to a halt. Perched on the upper edge of a fractured building he watched the creature's final moments, and looked on in a terrible awe at what he saw. It was an image not unlike another that had once tainted his sight, and it troubled him. Perhaps the things he had been shown were indeed now coming to pass.

Erën's eyes cast down into the street below. People still ran from the plagued ones, despite their seemingly passive state following their master's demise. But they could still prove dangerous, and were to be dealt with swiftly. Who knew if they would go feral, or worse, be taken under the sway of some other dark sorcerer.

He leapt from his place, and descended into the street.