World Walk

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Laurelle shifted uncomfortably at the talk of parents and filial piety. "I'm...afraid I can't sympathize with you there." She said. "I was never close to my parents. Defending them is an alien concept." She listened quietly to her friend's account of the break-in of Zemlia. The thief leaned against her friend and squeezed her shoulder. "To cause...or to even see death is a horrible thing." She neglected to mention Demi's lethal fighting style. "I'm sorry you had to go through that. ...I guess I have something to tell too." She cleared her throat, not wanting to talk about this matter. If I can't tell her I can't anyone. Laurelle resolved.
"...When I was young, still living in Arandland, my parents hated magic. ...Still do, as far as I know. I haven't checked up on them in years. They're not worth the trouble. They outlawed it in their lands. But, they had a lot of land, and without magic the only way to let that decree be known was criers and posters. But only the townsmen knew how to read. Arandish serfs are some of the most pitiful people on earth. They couldn't read the posters, and the criers were too disgusted to go into their farms. It was all above them, anyway. They were never going to be able to practice magic even if it was legal. So one time, this traveling entertainer came through. He was an illusionist, used magic in his shows. I think he went through one of the villages, entertained the serfs. If he did it in a tavern or a residence there wouldn't be a soldier around to see it. Regardless, he learned where the keep was without knowing magic was banned. He went there, eventually. I was there when he put on his show. At first it was mundane, but then he augmented it with an illusion. It was an obvious one; he wasn't trying to hide anything. But...my father." Laurelle looked down at the rocky floor, closing her eyes. "He shouted 'Sorcery!' and one of the guards stepped forward and impaled him on a pike before he could blink. Afterwards, they chopped off his head and put it on a stake outside the castle as a warning. It was after that that I left." Her voice dropped to a murmur. "...Pointless waste of life... Absolutely pointless..."

Lavender took the time to wrench Skye's sword out of the wall before following them, testing its weight in her hands. She wasn't exactly trained to use a sword, at least not conventionally. But practically any bladed object was an effective weapon for a force mage. Following Taras' translocation into Iceflow, she jumped aside as soon as she materialized, knowing full well how close she would appear to her enemies. Rolling across the rocky ground, she sprung to her feet, noting the hasty wards both knights had cast. She winced as the woman cast a spell towards her, the surge echoing through her head. However, Lavender was one step ahead; she was constantly moving, and the blast of wind rolled off the cliff beside her. Knowing that their wards would deflect at least one attack from a thrown blade, she muttered a quick incantation that caused the ground around them to erupt as pure force surged out of the ground. It would have tossed them like ragdolls if not for their defensive spells, but as it was the pair staggered and the oval lights around them flickered and went out.
 
Demi allowed herself a sob, finding solidarity with Laurelle in recollecting choice terrible moments from their respective pasts. She couldn't imagine what it would be like to dislike her parents, and despite all her father's actions that she had taken issue with he never went so far as to do something like impale an innocent visitor. Of course Laurelle focused on the death and not the gore... but why couldn't she do that herself? "I wish that incident had made me hate death instead of blood," she murmured. "I... I'm going to try and stop killing people..." She thought of the dead mercenary-bandit whose corpse still presumably littered the rock around the corner of the Keep's wall. "I always cared so much about my stuff, but... what kind of person even am I to able to..." She left that particular self-condemnation as an implication. At least she was sufficiently horrified by Laurelle's story: she couldn't imagine her own father being so brutal, despite his betrayal of her mother. She also felt that she needed to provide an explanation for some reason, so she continued storytelling. "My pack— it was a gift from my mom. And..." She took a breath, thinking. "One day, my dad wouldn't stop talking about how our family was a lie, how he wasn't supposed to be with my mom, and— and then he told me he threw his focus and my mom's focus into the sea... and then he disappeared. I searched everywhere I knew to search, but couldn't find him, and then my mom got depressed and... died..." By this time she was once again wrapped around Laurelle, letting the tears flood their way out. "I pray to her every night, Laurelle, but... how am I ever gonna face up to her again...?" Speaking her fear only made her more afraid of what her mother's spirit must think of her failure. She was reminded that she needed to replace the little dish of food that lay in the shrine in Vada, about a kilometer away from where Laurelle and Demi sat, but she dreaded it.

Taras murmured an ice spell's incantation in response to the shield-breaker, building a wall between the pair and Lavender whose bulk obviously showcased Iceflow's amplification of ice magic. After that he looked to the sky briefly as he began preparing a rain spell— he was somewhat in luck, noticing the magical snow that was present in so many place here lurking above. It would serve to amplify the rain. Through the snow, the faint silhouettes of the titanic, man-sized beetles that patrolled Iceflow could be seen— perhaps if they used enough magic, they could lure them over to distract their assailant. He held his position next to Skye, between the wall of ice and the magnetic floe of cold-lava, and turned slightly so that they could defend both sides of the wall as he started on another ward.
 
Laurelle was touched by Demi's feelings. They had both had tramautic events in their childhood, and they had both coped remarkably well, all things considered. Even if one had run away from home to become a magic thief and the other had developed a desensitization to killing people. The thought of her father doing the things Demi's had done...it wasn't a scenario that worked. Neither of her parents had been mages, and she would have been happy to see them leave her. Even so, the light mage felt that the sharing of experience brought them closer together. If everything had happened the same way for everyone, there wouldn't be uniqueness in the world, after all. Holding her friend, she said. "Let's not dwell on the past. We can sort out our experiences sometime, but now...now we're here, and we're together. That's what I care about. So let's just enjoy this and worry about everything else when the time comes. Deal?" She knew she should chastise Demi for killing. Then, now, all the time. Bloodless death was still death. But she couldn't find it in her heart to interrupt the moment to do so. So she just sat there, enveloped in the feeling of "now" and not "then."

Instead of attempting to break or burn through the ice, Lavender targetted the foundation in stood on, rending the ground beneath it with force. The rock broke under the pressure of the pure kinetic energy, being quickly ground into rubble that rolled away down into the cold-lava. The wall itself toppled, teetering and falling backward like a felled tree. As she realized it would fall on them, Skye put a hand on Taras' shoulder and looked upward, yelling a word that instantaneously transported them across space. They vanished to reappear at a space about ten feet above the ground, safely beyond the falling wall. The surge was ear-shattering--teleportation spells were not subtle. They were also tiring, but Skye's rest and strong Connection enabled her to be a little liberal for the moment. As they fell, her sword whipped by her, shot through the air like an arrow, as a follow up attack to the spell that felled the ice wall. The knight yelled an incantation that brought up a shield of wind, preventing the blade from sailing off the cliff and halting its forward momentum, causing it to clatter to the ground, sliding off the ice onto steady rock. As she looked back to her opponent she saw Taras's sword fly from his grasp, yanked out of his hand with magic to hover obediently near Lavender. Knowing he was crippled without it, Skye ducked as she spoke a lengthier chant. The podao swung above her head, and she was forced to roll aside to avoid it. She said the last word, and a gale-force wind erupted beneath and around their foe, the kinetic force bubbling around her ward and tossing her upwards like a ragdoll. Her concentration broken, the podao dropped to the ground and began to slide toward the edge as Lavender hit the ground again, her ward flickering in protest and beginning to fail; Iceflow's amplified kinetic energy was benefitting both parties.
 
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"Okay," Demi murmured almost inaudibly. "I just... wanted to explain why I'm such a liability sometimes..." She actually couldn't recall whether or not Laurelle had seen the shrine in Vada, a lonely rectangular boulder that had been fashioned by years of dimensional spells into the shape of a pagoda. While her possessions lay in piles across all her other dwellings in the dimension, the pagoda contained only a few plants imported from the material plane, paper and brushes for writing, and the shrine for her mother accompanied by plenty of slow-perishing food to offer at it. Demi knew that the spirit never ate the food— spirits didn't need to eat, after all— but it was her devotion in setting the stuff out every now and then that counted, in telling her mother that Demi still remembered her and was thankful for all she'd done.
"Sometimes I wish my life was more lighthearted, like a comedy play," she mused after letting her tears run their course for the time being, scooting back to where she'd been sitting to give Laurelle some more space. "You ever been to a theater?" It was a genuine question: she had no idea if the exuberant shows with their legions of characters (often parallels of historical figures) getting into all sorts of unthinkable mischief actually existed outside of Estillia, given how controversial they sometimes were with nobles who shared ancestry with whatever boorish prince or knight it was being lampooned. It was a jarringly casual topic to jump to, but she didn't want her conversation with Laurelle to end just yet.

"Now how the fuck you manage that?" Taras muttered as it seemed as though the cord linking the podao with his arm was as unreliable as he had expected, tearing almost immediately after an astounding force had ripped the sword from his death-grip. At least his arm wasn't dislocated by it. Thankful for Skye's quick thinking, he dove toward the cliff to recover his blade, stumbling off of the positively disintegrating rock back onto terra firma to invoke an ice-spear in his hand that wasn't holding the sword. Taras took a mighty jump upwards, Iceflow's physics letting him travel several meters up into his rain that had finally taken effect, and lobbed it to sail toward Lavender with an unnatural swiftness— well, it was natural in this place. Still whispering incantations, Taras braced himself as he hit the ground hard and a much longer blade of ice followed him on his way down. Catching it, he swung it in a wide arc, the blade's lack of integrity meaning that it would break as soon as it hit something, but it was meant to distract and intimidate more than it was meant to hurt... and it was also so fragile because it was something that he didn't want used against him. Quite prior to the old expression of things "getting heated up", this fight was instead becoming very, very cold.
 
"Theatre isn't really existent in Arandland." Laurelle replied, taking a deep breath to hold back the tears that had been threatening to spill forth the entire conversation. "But when I went to Kosma, I went a few times. Kosman theatre is like none other; almost everyone is a mage up there, so every show is augmented with illusion. They're spectacular. ...We should go, sometime. Have you ever been to Kosma?"

Instead of letting her ward absorb the attacks, Lavender yelled a word that sheared the air in front of her with an instantaneous wall of force. The ice-spear smashed into it, the pure kinetic energy shattering it and sending the shards sailing off the cliff. The second attack was also deflected by the repulsive barrier. Skye began chanting, preparing a spell that would end the battle. Laurelle would never approve of her use of dark magic, but the knight knew when it was necessary. However, she couldn't have known what was coming next. Instead of continuing to use it to defend herself, their opponent instead flicked a hand and sent the wall of force careening down the cliff. It was too wide to avoid, and was moving too fast for either of them to cast a spell to avoid it. When it hit them it didn't slow; it just kept going, neatly sweeping them off the edge of the cliff to fall down toward the cold-lava. The impact had been painful. The wind mage wouldn't be surprised if she had cracked a rib. As they fell, she reached out and grabbed Taras's arm, noting that he had managed to keep a hold of his Focus. Then she willed them to Zephyrhome right before they hit the lava.

They appeared inside her tower, laying prone because of their position when they warped. Disoriented by the sudden change in momentum, Skye struggled to her feet, oblivious to her mistake. Lavender had, of course, followed them there. The other woman looked drained, but she still had plenty of fight in her. The knight dived toward her smithy on the other side of the room, going for a spare sword hanging on the wall. However, said sword tore itself off the rack and promptly attempted to decapitate her. She ducked and yelled a wind spell that sent a gale tearing out every direction away from her. Normally, such a spell would only be enough to stagger someone, but with her Plane's affinity for wind magic it sent every object in the room careening around and bowled both Taras and Lavender over. Taras's sword had only slid a couple feet away from his hand, so while he went for it, Skye picked up the blade that had fallen beside her when she had broken Lavender's concentration and rushed the force mage as she got up. Suddenly, every sharp object in the room besides the podao, which Taras had recovered, came flying toward her, carried on wind currents generated by thought. Their opponent had either scouted them or made a lucky guess. It didn't matter. Propelling the weapons away from her with a thought, she kicked Lavender back to the ground as she reached the woman. Skye was about to end her life with a swipe of her sword when she felt a sharp pain in her ankle. Crying out, she dropped to a knee and looked down, seeing a punching dagger in Lavender's hand, stained with blood from her leaking ankle. Her assailant launched it toward her on a wind current, but she managed to dodge out of the way in time, although she twisted her ankle in doing so and sent searing pain up her leg.
 
Demi shook her head in response to Laurelle— she had barely even traveled outside of Estillia before setting off with Laurelle to meet Magus. "A place where everyone's a mage sounds interesting. Maybe a little dangerous, but... I've got you, right?" She thought of the few people in Estillia whom she had told where she was going to go back when she was first setting off— a few academy professors who had hinted their disappointment as soon as she had hinted her motives, and then that surly older man who had called himself a sage, Brice. Somehow, it had been infinitely easier to tell a kook like that guy than it had been to tell either of the knowledgeable teachers, and the kook had been the only one who had encouraged her to seize the opportunity— aside from Laurelle, of course. "I think... After we have our meeting with Magus and all that, I don't think I'll be returning to Estillia..." Demi distinctly recalled the time when the crushing realisation came that she would never be able to go to Zemlia again. Her mother's focus cast into the sea was one thing, but when she died it would have winked out of existence, the connection to the dimension gone. Vainly, Demi had hoped, still hoped, that Zemlia still lay somewhere out there in the dimensional fabric, resting in peace, the earth-bison grazing the yellow fields for eternity as the grass overgrew and broke down the little house that her parents had built. "I'd rather stay with you." She barely needed to murmur as her head had found a comfortable niche next to Laurelle's, leaning against it playfully. Demi couldn't recall ever experiencing so many different emotional extremes in any other day before. The sick, worthless feeling of furious mourning clashing with the lightheaded affection, and everything in between— it had been quite a ride.
Despite all her tiredness, Demi realised: she felt very much alive.

Observing the various turns of the wind as he scrambled after his sword this way and that, Taras willed it to blow in a fork ahead of him, evoking a smattering of tearing hail in the air to head to the left and right of Lavender as he rushed her with sword brandished tightly, moving instead to grab the assassin's shirt collar at the last second. With Skye injured as much as she had been, it was up to Taras to keep the offensive up... though he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep casting magic. Not that it mattered as much here— with the veritable maelstrom of weaponry swirling about, all three of the fighters were force mages in their own right.
 
"I'm glad." Laurelle said, holding Demi close. She knew that it was kind of selfish, to want the lightning mage to come with her instead of going to Estillia. But the thief was honest enough with herself to admit she didn't care. "Kosma definitely isn't more dangerous than Estillia." She said. "Since the conflict with Velaria was settled it's been a realm of peace. ...Until Arandland attacked, anyway." The light mage had almost forgotten about that little detail. "The war is still mostly at the borders because of the Kosman's lack of incentive to go on the offensive and superior magical might, but it's a very real presence. Alixies is still fighting Estillia, but everybody is leaving Velaria alone. We can go there until everything settles down."

Lavender whipped the katar toward Taras as he rushed her, but it sailed inches past his shoulder and before she could return it to her hand the knight had grabbed her collar. However, before he could do more he would feel the dagger dig into his unarmored back on the roundabout trip. The assassin promptly kicked him in the shin and rolled away as his grip loosened, awkwardly jumping through the air with a blast of wind. The dagger wrenched itself out of Taras's back and sailed back to her hand. She turned to strike Skye only to realize the wind mage had been chanting while Lavender had grappled with Taras. The final word of the incantation was sounded, and a gale ripped across the room ahead of her, throwing every weapon and Lavender against the far wall. The assassin crumpled after the impact with the stone wall, her arm twisted at an odd angle. Skye pulled a sword to her hand and limped toward her only to see the woman vanish. She had been conscious enough to pull herself away from Zephyrhome. Deciding in a split second whether to go after her or help Taras, she limped back to him and cast a quick spell that brought a wrap of bandages into existence. "Stay still..." She murmured as she wrapped his wound. It was about as bad as a katar could inflict without hitting a critical area, but a katar was still a dagger, so it wasn't like being gutted with a sword. Her salve wasn't perfect by any means, but it would stop him from bleeding out. Setting a hand on his shoulder, she said. "Come on, let's go find Demi and Laurelle and get her to look at that."

Lavender warped to her own plane as soon as she realized she was outmatched, and then immediately went from there to the material plane. It was a trick she'd learned a long time ago; if they didn't follow your thought very quickly to your plane they'd be left confused and it could buy you time. Reappearing back in the bedroom, she noted that the other two still weren't back yet. Shrugging and declaring the mission a failure, she cloaked herself in force and jumped out the window, knowing even with her trick speed was of the essence. Her shield absorbed the impact as she hit the ground, discharging it all back into the ground. With a long fall that could seriously dent stone, but from only about ten feet it didn't make a difference. Letting the spell fade, she vanished into the alleyways. She was nursing at least a concussion and probably a couple broken ribs from that last spell, but she'd live. It did pose a problem, however. There was no way she was going after Vance in this condition.

Laurelle was about to say something else when Taras and Skye materialized near them. Taras was stumbling, and the thief quickly noticed the bandage wrapped around his torso over his clothing. Gently extricating herself from Demi, she stood up. "What happened?" She asked quickly. "Er, not how it happened. Is it serious?" The details of the injury were more important for now than how it was acquired.
"He got stabbed in the back." Skye said. Laurelle circled around them and carefully pulled the bandage down to look at the wound. "Take your shirt off." She said clinically.
 
"Velaria, then," Demi said. "Sounds like a plan." Not a second later, Skye and Taras flashed into existence nearby.
"Goddammit," Taras spat as he found himself in Vada, which was a veritable sauna in comparison to Zephyrhome and especially Iceflow. "Why are we here?" He gingerly let himself down onto the warm sand of sediments and allowed his muscles to loosen up and relieve themselves— not that he had been wearing armor in the first place. That would teach him not to wear armor to bed... "We need to chase her, or she'll just haunt us like a—"
"Shut up, Taras," Demi muttered in condolence as she stooped next to him and helped him wriggle off his shirt. She averted her eyes from the stab wound quickly, given that it was fairly deep. "Who was it?" she asked Skye as she felt her spirit being crushed by guilt: while she had been segueing from explaining her phobias to Laurelle to having a cuddly, feel-good chat with Laurelle, Taras and Skye had been attacked in the night by someone, seemingly having gone through a grueling battle from how tired and hurt they appeared. "I had no idea there was any danger... I'm really sorry I wasn't there," she murmured, knowing that nothing that she could say could express her guilt enough.
"Don't you apologise to me," Taras growled. "Armor doesn't matter. A knight should be... impenetrable." He was still making a stupid joke now in referring to the code of the azure knights even as he allowed himself to fully collapse, tired by not only the magic he had used and his stab wound but also by all the magic he had used in the entire past day.
He was contented that he and Skye had fought off the assassin themselves, however.
"Let's get him inside once he's patched up," Demi said before looking to Skye. "... You, too." She excused herself to enter and exit the Keep in a jiffy, bringing a few more bandages as well as poultices for wounds and pain-dulling herbs for tongues. "We'll rest here tonight." She knew that this was a rather executive (as well as maybe downright unwise) decision, but she would be damned if she wasn't going to offer some sort of hospitality to the errant knights who had fought a battle of their own in the night after the one from the day earlier had concluded. In several minutes enough, Vada would be un-divinable from the material plane to all but the most skilled dimension-detectors, and in a few hours the trace of dimensional travel would dissipate entirely. Different though the passing of time in Vada was that it was likely for the group to over- or undersleep, Demi was confident that it would do everyone better to have a warm, secure, and familiar place to sleep in for the night... and if Skye wasn't in the mood to sleep after her tussle, then they could all talk each other to sleep like Demi had with so many roommates in the dormitories of Asimi's magical academy, which was both figuratively and literally worlds away from this place.
 
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Laurelle examined Taras's wound critically. It was obviously from a dagger, so it wasn't that deep, but it was still dangerous. Carefully, she murmured a healing spell. Her hand hummed with white light. She ran a finger over the wound, and the skin scabbed over. It wasn't even close to being good as new--that was difficult with a wound like this. You could smooth the skin over a surface wound, but this was more than a surface wound. Regardless, the spell would keep him from bleeding and let it heal. "Don't pick at it." She instructed sternly as she wrapped it again. Then she turned to Skye's ankle. "It's not too bad." The medic said critically. "Relatively, at least." Once again she patched and wrapped it.
While we did so, the knight talked. "That woman from Cygnus, that summoned the elemental. It was her again. She's really fond of throwing sharp objects with magic." She turned her nose up, attempting to imitate the expression of disdainful noblelady. "Not exactly safe." It was meant to be an attempt at humor, but Laurelle didn't laugh.
"I'll stay up and check on the material plane every little bit so we--"
"No." Laurelle said sharply. "I will. You're resting."
"Laurelle, I'm capa--"
"I don't care." The thief's withering glare soon caused the wind mage to back down.
 
"Will you stop bickering," Taras murmured. "Obviously, I—"
"Taras," Demi cut him off, annoyed. "You can lie awake for the next eight hours for all I care, but you. Are. Resting."
"Yes, Mother," Taras grumbled. "Hey Skye, you up for—"
"We're not drinking tonight, either." Demi looked to Skye. "Now do you prefer a pillow or is just blankets fine?" She had actually never bothered to fashion a traditional bed for all the time that she'd spent in Vada, but that didn't mean there was a lack of comfortable means of nodding off.
 
Laurelle woke them up about morning in the material plane, having checked on the time periodically. Skye was still limping and Taras was still obviously hurt, but otherwise they were fairly rested. They decided that, while they were still there, they may as well use the components Fen had delivered them and get the Focusing ritual out of the way. It wasn't an incredibly complicated procedure, and built on many of the aspects from The Ritual that was used to become a mage in the first place. After Demi performed it in Vada, they cycled through each other's Planes and cast it. Laurelle was the last one to cast it.
It was an odd feeling, when it was completed. At first, nothing seemed to change. Then the light mage slowly became aware of the buzz of Prismsphere's magic around her. It wasn't a typical sound, or even a magical surge. It was more like a sense of immersion--bathing in magic. Even when they returned to the material plane, she felt it always in the back of her mind. It wasn't a bad thing. It was tuned out easily, and was sort of calming. It was certainly an interesting feeling.
They ate breakfast with Fen and said their goodbyes. He told them that if they ever needed to contact him to just ask around in Borok. Someone would know where he was at the time, even if he wasn't in the city. He curiously asked if they had performed Hawke's ritual. Skye confirmed that they had, and Fen seemed very pleased. The knight remembered that he was the one who had commissioned that research in the first place. She wondered why, but didn't care to ask.
They left Borok before noon, traveling westward. They only had a couple days until the deadline, but they were close. So close. What would the point of discussion be? How many people would be there? What would Magus do when a decision was reached? What was his tower like? All these questions and more were on the group's mind. It was exciting, being so close. It wouldn't be long, now.
 
"I wonder," Taras mused as the group made their way along. "What if we get to Magus and it turns out we were just a few seconds late?"
"Are you trying to tempt fate?" Demi grumbled playfully in response. "No, we're gonna be so early we'll have to spend a week camping outside the doors!" It had been strange not having her pack weighting her back anymore, and although she had replaced it with a smaller travel bag that went around a shoulder, that still wasn't enough. Sometimes she felt like she was always about to fall forward and float off of the ground without it, her hand frequently finding its way to Laurelle's when the terrain got even slightly rough. After performing the new ritual in Vada, she had felt somewhat ascended, as if her senses had been heightened. She'd also performed a ritual of her own in taking care of the altar in Vada: put out the bread, knelt on hands and knees, whispered through tears asking for her mother's forgiveness, cleaned the dust and condensation off of the portrait of her family, cried some more, and finally told her friends that she was ready to go again.
The amulet secured around Demi's neck seemed to hum faintly now if she concentrated on it. The volume had seemingly been turned up a bit, the magic that flowed through everything audible like so many trickling streams. Demi had lost quite a bit during her journey, but she had gained more, and as such she was determined to end the journey as chipper and optimistic as she had begun.

"You know, you're probably right," Taras said. He was almost as upbeat as Demi, hefting his sword along on his shoulder as he often did. He still thought of revenge against Brandt and his followers back in Estillia from time to time, but for now he was thinking of more positive things. He only wished they could travel faster as he wondered what was in store, glad that his fellow knight, his longtime spell-casting colleague, and his rival general in the war of drinking were alongside him.
 
Laurelle smiled. "We'll get there on time." In this, the thief was confident. They had to. They had come so far. The warlord's keep, Cygnus, the Mageian ruins, Borok... The places they had traveled through had all been unique and dangerous in their own ways, even if Laurelle personally hated the caves. Keyer, Hawke, Fen, Hendricks, the mysterious assassin. People they had met. Some had been friendly, some hadn't been. Eccentric characters all. Hawke's erratic and excitable personality, Keyer's arrogance, Fen's military expertise and thoughtfulness. They all stood out to her in some way, even if it was negatively. In some ways, this moment was a time of reflection for the light mage. There were no landmarks between them and the Tower. Just a straight shot, two day's journey. And with her closest friends. Even if she had only known Skye and Taras for this journey, she trusted them with her life. People who fought together bonded quickly.
And then there was Demi, her truest friend. No one else had so captured Laurelle's affection. No one else had she called "love" before. No one else had returned her affection so. She never wanted to be parted.
Laurelle had never felt so alive.

Skye trudged along behind the group, limping shakily and favoring her injured ankle. She watched only the ground in front of her. She had put on her armor and retrieved a sword identical to her usual one from Zephyrhome. She was ready for combat, but she was not ready to see Magus. She wanted to go home. She wanted to curl up on her bed in her manor house in Estillia. She wanted to cast aside her blade, take off her gauntlet. Shed her armor. Forget the Knights existed. Forget Magus existed. Forget her father existed. Forget Brandt existed. Just lay down and cry, and then go back to normal life. Fighting off male suitors, teasing people at the academy, carving statues and forging tools in Zephyrhome. What purpose did she have, outcast from her home? Did this insane wizard hiding out in a tower on the fringe of civilization really matter? How could he change the world? People would still kill each other. Blood would still stain the ground. He couldn't stop death. He couldn't fix things. Nothing could stop humanity's fall. With the current state of wars, the nations were following Mageia down into darkness. Would anyone survive? But there was nothing left for the exiled knight to do but trudge to the tower and await Magus's decree.
Skye had never felt so alone.

Two days of travel. Easy, quick travel. The roads were surprisingly maintained, not overgrown, and nobody accosted them on the way. They passed numerous travelers, all with the same destination. Mages from all corners of the world, marching toward the Tower to meet the father of magic and play a part in the world's fate. They formed quite a crowd, eventually. People of all races--Kosman, Velarian, Alixien, Arandish, Estillian. Warmages, scholars, people from all walks of life. It was an impressive sight. The horde came to a valley, the top of a hill. They looked down. In the picturesque vale was a lake and waterfall. In front of the lake was a great stone setting, a ring of elaborately carved pillars stretching dozens of feet toward heaven. In the center of that great pattern was a man-sized, diamond shaped blue jewel, floating in the air, a glow visible even from this distance. Everyone there could feel the magic radiating from it. There was not a tower in sight, and a murmur of confuson went up from the crowd. But it was silenced by the curiosity. The throng surged down the hill.
 
"We're in for another cloudy Skye today, huh?" Taras asked jocularly as Skye trod along.
"I don't think humor is going to help, Taras," Demi pointed out after a drawn-out sigh. "Definitely not your humor, either..."
"Oh, come on, Miss Demi, you weren't this serious a minute ago. You and Miss Laurelle have been skipping your merry way along all day," Taras replied, invoking the image of some folk song about various misses running around collecting flowers. "It's important to keep up the morale of all your comrades."
"Yeah, well, next time we come across a pit of tar Skye's gonna blow you into it, and then you'll have a tar-ass. If you don't already, Tar-ass."
Taras chuckled, holding back a smile. "... Okay; that was seriously bad, so you've convinced me to stop. Just don't rest on your Laurelles."
Demi sighed again, stifling a chuckle of her own.

"Looks like everyone got here at the same time," Taras observed as the group began to merge into the crowds descending upon the landmark. "Those pillars mark our 'tower', then?"
"That gem in the middle must be the entrance," Demi deduced rather obviously. "But maybe getting in isn't as simple as just touching it..." Magus had to have some way of weeding out the crowd to make sure only the best mages could answer his call. This may well be a trial of some sort and not the tourist trap that the throngs of people made it appear as.
 
"Well, let's get down there and see." Laurelle said. "It might be an anchor."
It took only a few moments to descend the hill, but they had to push through the crowd. The other mages were excited for the most part, although a few looked fairly jaded. When they reached the circle of pillars, they were forced to actively shove their way through people to reach the gem. Several mages were hovering around it, circling it warily. When they reached it it was obvious why they hadn't touched it yet. This close, the radiant magic was tremendous. It was overwhelming. It dulled the senses, drowned out all other magical noise. It was a constant pounding in the back of your head. It made Laurelle wince, but Skye pushed past her and laid a gauntleted hand on the gem.

The knight felt her mind open up to a vast power. It felt like the rush of casting a spell as energy from Zephyrhome poured into her, but ten times stronger. But she didn't flinch, didn't withdraw her hand. Instead, she fought back against the feeling that was overwhelming her brain. She mentally pushed it back and concentrated on her own Plane. She gathered energy as if she was about to cast a spell. But instead she poured it all into the gem's energy. She threw Zephyrhome's essence against it. Then the feeling abruptly vanished, crescendoing in an instant and physically jarring her. The wind mage stumbled back and looked at the gem. The sound was even stronger now, even when she wasn't touching it. The blue glow it emitted seemed to grow brighter, and then there was a stunning surge, louder than even her loudest spells. It rocketed across the valley, and the throng seemed to be visibly pushed back, moving like one big wave. Then the gem flickered, seeming to blink in and out of existence. It vanished, but the glow remained, expanding upwards and outwards. It grew brighter and brighter, rippling outward until it had reached the elevation of the pillars. Skye stepped back to avoid it touching her. Its surface became more tangible, fading from incandescent light to look more like a curtain. Then the light gathered up and formed into an image--a picture of a great foyer, a massive hallway of bleak gray stone. The crowd was stunned for a moment. Skye didn't say anything, but Laurelle grinned. "Shall we?"

The foyer of the Tower was grand. It was a long hallway, stretching for at least several hundred yards. It was constructed out of a curious silver-gray stone that, while stark, seemed to reflect the light just a little. The walls were lined with staves, weapons, and banners. The banners were blue and gigantic, stretching all the way to the ceiling some fifty feet above, embroidered with a symbol of an unfurling scroll. The floor was tiled, black and white. The place was extremely well lit, with not a shadow visible, but there was not a visible light source. At the end of the hallway another door, stretching toward the ceiling, stood. By now, the crowd had followed them, and they were rushed along with the wave toward the doors. When they reached them, the great gateway swung open. It led to a grand hall--a massive, elaborate room. The floor and walls were similar, and banners still adorned the walls. Two doors led out the sides toward the back of the room. The floor was still tiled, but now a metallic silver instead of black and white. Against the back wall was a gigantic dais, stretching twenty feet into the air. It was made of the same silver as the floor, but had a blue pattern of an unfurling scroll emblazoned on the front. A great white light radiated from the wall behind the platform on top. And on that platform, stood a man.

Magus's exact features were hard to see from the distance, but he had a full black beard and short black hair, and wore a heavy blue robe trimmed with silver, with the symbol of an unfurling scroll embroidered in the front. He was silhouetted by the light behind him, giving him an impressive visage. He carried a staff of a golden colored wood, topped with a diamond the size of a fist. Three oversized silver claws rose from the top of the staff to frame the gem, which glowed softly. When he spoke, his voice boomed out across the great hall, magically augmented. Accompanying the sound was a magical surge--every word sounded as a spell.
"Welcome to the Tower."
 
Demi was quite noticeably starstruck as she looked up at the man in blue. Was she really standing before the great Magus? Taras had been scanning the surroundings, meanwhile, but there wasn't much more to see once one had seen a room of the tower, all the decorations similar with their blue colors and the scroll motif. Though he thought of addressing the original sage, it occurred to him that he wasn't sure what sort of title to use, so he also looked up and waited for Magus to say more.
 
Magus began to pace across the dais as he spoke, a murmur going up from the crowd in response to his words.
"As you know, good mages, the world is in peril." His magically altered voice was overwhelming. It rung out across the room, the echoes giving it a very dramatic tone. "Nations are straying. In their arrogance, they believe they control magic. The Estillians can destroy, but they do not know how to create. Alixiens are nothing but charlatans, performing simple tricks for gold. The Arandish do not even know what they are doing. The Kosmans have grasp of technique, but their only measure of magic is warfare. There is no one who understands. Only me." He turned back toward the crowd, making a wide gesture with his staff. "I am the Magister! I am the greatest and the first mage." He spread his arms, as if making a plea. "I can change things. I can unite this world. But you must help me. You are the elect, the only mages who could make it this far!" He tapped his staff against the dais. "I will cast a spell. One that will pool our abilities. Together, our magic will show the world the arcane's true potential! Will you aid me in this, good people?"
A roaring cheer went up from the crowd. Several magical light displays shot into the air, exploding into sparkling colors.
"Then watch as I prepare the most powerful Ritual since the one that granted me this power!" He raised his voice, and it was thunderous. The surge was tremendous. Magus began to chant, performing gestures with his staff. Every word was pronounced precisely, every syllable perfect. His movements were exact. Slowly, a buzz of magical energy began to fill the room. It felt like being in one's own dimension at first--a comfortable feeling that let you know that you were in control, that you had power. But it grew beyond that. It ascended from a hum to a roar, a constant sound like the raging sea. It overwhelmed every other noise, magical or otherwise. You could not think over the sound. The dais the sage stood on began to tremble visibly, shaking. The entire tower seemed to shake with it. The silver began to glow, softly at first, then brighter until it was impossible to gaze on. For several minutes the Magister intoned the lengthy incantation. As he neared its end, most of the group began to feel a pain in the back of their necks that spread into their whole body, like a magical ache. Mumbling and cries of surprise implied that the rest of the crowd felt it as well. The magic in the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Then Magus spoke the final syllable. The dais underneath him dissolved, the silver consumed by the spell. The sage floated to the ground gently, touching down with grace. The light behind him winked out. All of the magic seemed to discharge at once. A deafening scream rose up from the crowd. Laurelle dropped to her knees, searing pain radiating across almost her entire body. She cried out, unaware what this feeling was. It was totally alien to her--pain was a foreign concept. Now she knew what it felt like. Skye felt that same pain in her right hand. She clutched it, biting her tongue to avoid crying out. Her gauntlet felt hot. Demi would feel it across her neck, and Taras at his hip. It felt like something was being torn away from them, something violently attempting to tear their most precious possessions away. It was a grueling mental battle. Then it was over. The pain faded. Laurelle stood up, still dazed. They had won the battle. Whatever force had been assaulting them, it had given up. They were fine. However, they quickly realized the crowd was not. People fell against each other, cries of pain went up from the throng. Soon, the group were among the only upright people. Sobbing could be heard.

Then Magus's voice cut through the screams. "I have bound your Foci to me. Their power is mine. I thank you all for contributing to my magic. I am now the most powerful being to walk this earth." His voice was calm, almost monotone. It had last all of the passion he had spoken with before, but the spell that augmented it was still in effect. Slowly, objects began to rise up from the crowd. Everything from jewels to orbs to staves to necklaces to sword to almost manner of miscellaneous objects. All of them glowed softly blue. They floated toward the Magister, coming to hover obediently near him. A cloud of hundreds of Foci, neatly assembled above Magus. But theirs had remained. Laurelle still had her tattoos. Skye's gauntlet was still on her hand. Taras's sword at his waist. Demi's amulet at her neck.
"With your power added to mine, I will assume control of this world. The Kosmans will bow to my might, and with them I will spread the reign of the Grand High Magister. But you must be taken care of first. Some of you may be compelled to rash action by this event, and others may not survive the journey home. Your lives are still bound to these Foci, so you must live. That is why you must be bound here. This Tower is your home now. You'll find it an accomodating one." Several people rushed toward the doors, but they would not open. Others tried to warp out, but without their Foci they could not. Skye attempted it herself on impulse, but was met with something like a barrier. She found herself still standing in the Tower.

Magus began to chant again. Laurelle panicked. The magic slowly crescendoed. She could attack, but what could she do against Magus with all his power? Nothing. Then she felt an independent surge, magic besides the ritual he was casting. The thief who was confused. She looked at her companions. None of them had cast. Someone else had kept their Focus. Someone else still had magic. Who...?
Her question was answered a moment later when Magus suddenly interrupted his incantation to cry out. A stream of blood could be seen running down his robe. A figure materialized behind him, a katar piercing his robe and skin. The lavender was a stark contrast against his blue robe. The assassin threw the Magister against the ground and stabbed him again. She looked up for a split second, and her eyes very clearly locked on Laurelle's. She noticed they were the only upright people in the crowd. She looked back down at the stunned sage. Then she ferociously pulled her dagger out and stepped away from him. She withdrew an object from her robe; a bronze coin. Lavender threw it on the ground at the sage's feet. Then she turned and sprinted toward them...sheathing her dagger? Laurelle was even more confused and stunned now. Behind the pink-clad woman, the coin glowed and expanded, growing into a massive bronze humanoid easily thirty feet tall. An elemental of the highest class. It began to attack Magus, and he was forced to focus on defending himself, several of his Foci hovering forward and projecting a force field that the elemental slowly attempted to beat down.

When the assassin reached them, she threw up her hands. "Don't kill me, please." She said. "No hard feelings, right?" Skye was too stunned to respond.
"Come on. We have to leave. I know the way out. I'll explain on the way. My little conjuration should keep Magus busy for long enough, although he's obliterate it soon enough.
"What about everyone else?" Laurelle demanded.
"We can't help them. They're in no shape to get out. They'd be useless, anyway. But Magus won't kill them."
"How are you still casting?" The thief asked.
"Same way as you, I'd imagine. Now come on!"
Lavender turned and sprinted toward the left door.
 
If Demi had not been in too much pain to care, she would have been embarrassed of the shrill scream that made her sound like a scared child. But consciously concerning her was Laurelle, who was in real pain, and lots of it. When the pain had faded enough, she wrestled one hand from her amulet to hold onto Laurelle's arm, letting her know that she was still there. Taras, in the meanwhile, kept a death-grip on the pommel of his podao, making an admirable effort to only grunt through gritted teeth but eventually crying out in pain as well.

Taras could barely stammer out a "... You?!" at Lavender's uncharacteristically heroic appearance. But he nodded at her propositions: after all, the only alternative to following her was likely to be killed by Magus: for a moment, Taras and Demi both were terrified that they were doomed to become Magus's thralls, but then they had realised that their foci were still their own... and that meant that Magus had ever only been after the mass of foci that now swirled around him, clinking together like wind-chimes in their density. He was not a man who cared to have friends, it seemed, which meant that the four mages who found themselves still in control of their foci were his enemies. Taras ran after Lavender as fast as he could go, a hand on his holstered sword as he muscled through the crowd, knocking aside various panicking individuals as his jostles were amplified by adrenaline. Demi, her heart also pounding, ran along with the recovering Laurelle.
Taras rammed the door open with all his might.
 
The door neatly repulsed Taras when he rammed into it, seeming to bend and then toss him backwards. Lavender briefly looked at him with disdain, then simply turned the knob and pushed it open. It led into a hallway like the one before, but smaller and plainer, lacking the decoration. There were five doors; two on each wall and one at the end. "Far left." The assassin instructed, running down the corridor. "Let me open the doors." That one led into a circular room with a stairway leading upward quite a ways. Lavender clumped up the stairs, although she was noticeably holding her stomach. Skye wondered how severely she had been injured in their last battle. Lavender talked as they ascended.
"I was working for Magus. He sought me out in Kota, the city I was loitering in at the time. He needed someone who could at once manage an operation, but carry out wetwork if necessary. He paid handsomely, so I took the job. To cut a long story short, I was directed to Hawke. We tried to have him killed before he finished his research, but goddamn that man is stubborn. He fled to his dimension when we attacked him, and the place is a deathtrap. He's got some sort of system where he can manipulate it with words but we couldn't, so needless to say he was tearing my group apart at first. We had to back off, and he didn't give chase. It was after that that we had his research stolen instead. Then you stepped in and interfered. We never got your names, but you were priority targets. I was in Borok to take out Vance--that scholar who was rallying the place--but I was never told why. I stumbled on the information that you were there, which was why I attacked. Damn waste of time, that was. I should mention Hawke's ritual--I copied the papers personally when we had them, and I performed it myself, just in case. There was no reason not to, anyway. That was a good move. I'm not entirely sure, but I think this Vance guy was onto Magus. But obviously he couldn't come out and say it. No one would believe him, and he couldn't possibly tell everyone anyway. So he commissioned that research to defend against Magus's ritual. If I had to guess, he was going to go ahead of everyone since he was already so close and pull some scheme to get the traveling mages to perform it. But Hendricks stalled him. He couldn't leave the town at that point. So everyone got ahead of him. So, fast forward to the Tower. When I realized what Magus was doing and that the ritual protected me--and you too, I assume--I knew I had to put a stop to it. But by the time I could cast an invisibility spell to sneak up on him, he was trying to trap everyone. I've saved us few at least. He'll live his wounds, no doubt, and it won't be long before he takes o--"
They had reached the top of the stairs as she said this, and far below them they heard a sound like an explosion and an ear-splitting surge.
"Right on cue..." The assassin muttered. They were now standing in a circular room with several doors. She picked one, pushing it open. Through another corridor, they reached a large rectangular room. There was a blue gem much like the Anchor that had been the entrance hovering in the center. "This is a way out." She said. "The 'worker exit' if you will; it was the one I had to use. I've no doubt he's sealed it now since he planned to catch me too. It will take some time to open; it'll be much harder than the one leading in. ...I'm not sure we have that time. He'll know where we're going."
"I'll go." Laurelle cut in. "I'll stall him. I'm sure I can keep him busy long enough for all of you to escape."
 
"Vance?" Taras echoed. "You mean Fen?" But there was no time to talk about those things at the moment.
"No you don't," Demi murmured as she caught Laurelle by the arm, having noted that her friend had referred to an all of you but not an all of us. "If we give it our all, we can get out quickly enough and—"
"Get to work on it, both of you," Taras cut in. "You're stronger together, so you'll be abl—" Another rumble. "Skye, gimme a ward!" He didn't wait as he made his way back to the top of the stairs, priming it with ice magic to cover the steps, make the climb harder, and block Magus's way. "All the foci in the world can't keep you from a reckless Estillian," he muttered inaudibly. As the noise made by the cloud of objects and the approaching sorcerer became deafening, he began evoking a wind spell that would have a slightly delayed effect to blow a tempestuous gust down the stairway as soon as Magus's items began to make their way up.

Demi was the first to touch the blue gem, slapping a hand onto it with intent but quickly feeling the numbing pain that shot into her body and mind. Crying out, she had expected to be on the offense, thinking angry thoughts about how worthless the trickery of Magus was. But she was already on the mental defense, her mind set on Laurelle who was still right next to her. She thought of just a moment ago, when Magus had stolen the hundreds of foci for himself and everyone had cried out in real pain, Laurelle included. Did Laurelle now feel pain just as the rest of them did, or was it just the intensity of the magic that had stricken them? Regardless, Demi was sure that her friend was stronger now having known the sensation... and they still had so much more to do together. She let herself be possessed by the desires— to travel across every nation and culture of Megethos with Laurelle (and rob them blind too), to go to theaters with her, to look at every one of her paintings and to show her every poem she'd written back in Vada. In addition to Megethos, she still wanted to explore Prismsphere together, and Vada, and—
She wanted to climb the tower in Vada with Laurelle.
These were the reasons why Demi would never back down from the stubborn gem.
 
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