To Find the Stone (Rey, Maxine)

[Sephira]

Was this what it was like?

True freedom?

It was glorious.

The firelight glistened off the water like incandescent flares of starlight as the acrid clouds of smoke continued to drift across the beach. Two more bodies now joined the others, their throats laid open and bare, draining their scarlet contents into the amber Faldrass sands.

The thing that stood in Sephira Blackwood’s place did not care about the dead littered around her. It was incapable of doing so.

The Visitant turned as the echoes of a voice drifted out over the water. There was something about that voice, something distant yet familiar.

‘When they butchered your friends , did you tell yourself it wasn’t you? Did it make it any easier to take the money?’

‘I didn’t do that...I wouldn’t.’

That voice made the creature pause, it’s slitted onyx black eyes narrowing as it turned toward the water’s edge with a snarl. There, unfurling over the waves it was like this world faded into another. The Visitant glanced down suddenly realized that there was still a glowing golden band encircling it.

Celarion.

The world just off the coast was dark and held echoes of memory. It was somewhere she had seen before but only through the scarlet glare of a scrying portal.

Slag’s Deep.

The radiant amber band of light seemed to flare as memories came unbidden through the bond between she and Max. No...not memories...these were more akin to nightmares.

Flashes of sudden light, followed by impenetrable darkness and a deep aching hunger that had never left the ex-con when she had been incarcerated. Always hunted...always running. Predator or prey? Which one was she? Did it even matter down here in Level Seven? All that mattered was living, not even to the next trial. You couldn’t tell how time passed down here, not really. There was no sunlight, no warmth. Only the cold damp stone of these ancient caverns and the constant incessant knowledge that you were always one trill away from dying cold, alone and starving in this inescapable pit.

This was where she had sent her.

She had done that hasn’t she? It had been her doing.

Scalvoris...the riot.

The Visitant bristled at the memory, it’s black nailed fingertips reaching up to press against its all too sharply defined brows in pain. The mangled soul of the creature flared against the recollections in protest. The Spark that had finally revealed would not let it’s prize be wrestled away so quickly. Another snarl hissed through now faintly pointed teeth as a figure emerged from the shadows of Slag’s Deep and stalked through the shallows toward the beach. Behind her the shadows of two others stood; two men. The first was an Ithecal, she had no memory of him. However, the second was someone that the old Special Assistant would have remembered. She did remember him infact. The one she had met briefly in Sweetwine Woods. The mage in the snow...and he had been at the riot.

The Celarion bond began to burn as the memory of that trial bubbled to the surface again, it’s power searing into the arm of the creature that was magic made flesh. The same glowing circle flared on Maxine’s own arm as she finally made it across the battlefield and was standing mere feet from the creature that had killed the Beast and Orrick in the span of a single breath.

‘This isn’t you.’

The words washed over the Visitant like a cascade of ice water. The monster shrieked, clawing at its face as if that would do anything to stop what came next. The vision around them flickered like a passing flare of lightning revealing for the briefest moment the interior of the chamber back in Rynmere. Figures moved in the dark, like the specters of wolves across a mountaintop. They were still in Andaris...and they were not alone. However almost instantly the vision reasserted itself.

The riot, the docks collapse it all roiled back through her mind, unwelcome and unbidden. The feeling of the manacles as she clamped them around Maxine’s wrists, the weight of Wyvern in her hand as she leveled it at a friend turned enemy. Watching the Elements take her away to be tried and soon after incarcerated.

They had fought together, Max had even been there at her back when the first rioters had come for Element’s Hall. She had been there in Rynmere; she could have left when Rey’na was captured and Earth Mask was dead, but she hadn’t.

She was still here.

Sephira blinked, her breath hitching in her chest as the inhuman visage of the monster began to drain away like smoke fanned away from a choked hearth. The burning on her arm where Celarion radiated remained, but she clung to that pain like a lifeline.

Pain gave purpose, pain reminded you that you were alive.

She was visibly shaken, her hands coming to her face as she pressed her fingertips to her forehead. Her vision finally began to clear and her eyes settled on the ex-con who reached out to grab her arm. Caramel eyes met pitch black as their gazes met. There had always been much unspoken between the two of them, there always would be. But they both know that they could also rely on one another. That would never change. But right now there was no time to talk.

Words were for idiots with too much time on their hands after all. And to-trial, neither of them had any time to spare.

Again the vision around them flickered, the Celarion bond flaring again. It was holding these two false realities together. It was doing that for a reason. This place had been made to perfectly emulate each of their fears. For Max it had been Slags, and the nightmare of what terrible things she might be capable of if she allowed herself to sink down to her worst impulses. For Sephira her own personal nightmare had been in a way the same. She had become the creature that she had always dreaded...that she had always known was coming for her.

Perhaps that was why they both understood each other so well.

They were both monsters, just waiting to happen.

But if this place was built by their fears, then that meant something important. It was why Qylios’s Mark had reacted the way that it had. Because what was the opposite of fear? The question was left unanswered as the mage knew it already. Perhaps that was why the Immortal had given her a sliver of her power.

Sephira reached out to Celarion in that moment of lucidity and called upon its power in a new way that she never had before.

“Hold on.”

She tightened her grip on Maxine’s own arm before calling upon “Hold the Line”. A piercing lance of golden light flashed against her eyelids and the Mark on her arm blazed with the same sweet burning agony as before as it rallied against the illusion of fear they were trapped within.

That was when everything went dark.

Dialogue|Thoughts

[Max]

It was a struggle to remain present. Her own illusion continued to threaten to smother her, suffocating and drowning her back within its unforgiving waters of fear incarnate. The ex-convict made it a point to keep her focus on the woman she was trying to coax back toward self awareness. A minor relief rested upon her when the Visitant began to wither away, relinquishing control back to the Special Assistant she knew. The images of lost lovers, abandoned allies, and old enemies continued to manifest in the background of her field of vision, but none of them won her attention. The neurological effects of Ambrosia were probably all that gave Maxine an edge against this robust psychological attack. Max smirked. The illusion had no more power over her.

The flicker between images of the Faldrass battlefield and Slags Deep flickered and faded. Max heard the Element's voice and felt the woman grip her arm in return. She offered a firm nod. Whatever plan Sephira had in mind, wherever it took them, the stubborn ex-convict would still be there. Just as she always had. The golden Celarion light flared just as Maxine became aware of odd silhouettes rushing in. Her mind wrote them off as more ghosts that would be vanquished when the illusion broke, and the beam turned so blinding that her eyes were forced tightly shut. Fear left along with her sight. Then the darkness came.

"Blackwood?" she called out, eyelids fluttering open to take in the grim stone room she'd found herself sitting in. The musty smell of the air and the grime covering the ancient walls confirmed she had never left the catacombs. She shook her head and rocked forward in an effort to stand. Instead she found her lean stunted and the rattling of chains piercing her ears. Bewildered, Max glanced at her hands to find cold shackles locked firmly along her wrists. A short length of chains were attached to a loop of metal bolted into the stone floor.

Trapped.

Max found the Element she'd been searching for in a similar fashion several feet away from her. There was no opportunity to inquire about her welfare. In the next moment, an iron door squealed open and several pairs of uniformed boots stormed in the small dungeon cell. The dim lighting made most of the strangers out to be little more than disciplined shadows standing before the captured duo. All except one.

"So this is how you repay me for my mercy, Maxine?" a familiar voice admonished sharply. "I overlooked your transgressions and your poor associations. I offered you forgiveness, gifted you with revenge, and welcomed you into our fold as our Sister. I encouraged you to reach toward your full potential, to be the something more I could see in you...and what have you done?" Rebekah's wrathful expression loomed into view as the Ashcloak peered down at the ex-convict, just out of reach. "You manipulated my kindness with lies and deception. You murdered our Brothers and Sisters in cold blood. You destroyed the artifacts that protected us and blew apart up our safehouse. You sided with one of them." She pointed her disparaging finger toward Sephira. Her voice shook with indignation. "I gave you everything and you betrayed me."

"Oh, fuck you and your righteous bullshit, Rebekah," Max spat with a burning fury of her own and a roll of her eyes. She gave a yank at her chains. "You wanna hash it out? Good. Let her go and take off these shackles."
"I have a better idea," the Ashcloak countered darkly. "I think we'll make an example out of another mage to remind the people we will win this war against the Spark. Another burning to reassure the people and boost morale. Better yet, this one looks far more lost to the ether parasites than the other one you helped me save. What do you think, Maxine? Think she'll fair better than Rey'na when we rip the Sparks out of her?" Rebekah's threatening stare moved to the captured Element. "Blackwood, was it?"

The sounds of chains echoed about the room as Maxine violently lunged up from the floor at the Mantis leader. Rebekah's eyes widened with pleasant surprise. She took a step back, smiling thinly at the frenzied reaction she'd won from the cursing traitor. She reached an opened hand out. One of her Mantis minions quickly filled it with her spear. The woman wavered before Sephira for a moment with a hateful glare. There was no humanity the fanatic was willing to recognize. She moved in front of Max again, tilting her head curiously while the ex-convict continued to war against her confines. Suddenly, the spearhead was thrust into the prisoner's abdomen.

Maxine's hands flashed down to grasp the shaft of the attacking spear, but between her restrictions and the speed of the assault, there was no successful warding against it. Caramel eyes peered down at herself. She could see half of the silver spearhead peeking out from her body. The rest of it had penetrated her clothes and her armor. A searing cold burn was the first thing her mind registered. Everything seemed to stop. Rebekah reclaimed her spear and the traitor stumbled the short distance back to the wall. Her blood felt hot as it streamed rapidly from the inflicted wound to saturate her clothes and color the floor. It flowed through the spaces of the hands that flinched down to instinctively plug it.

"For Brett," Rebekah explained, grief betrayed in her tone. She turned her head to the Mantis in her guard. "They're not going anywhere. Close the door and leave one outside to man it. Ready the carriage to transport. We're going to make this execution a spectacle. Leave the traitor to die." Rebekah turned on her heels after giving her orders and made her exit. The Mantis quickly moved to execute her commands. Max slid down the length of the wall until she was sitting again. She grit her teeth through her gasping grimace. Crimson began to slowly pool beneath her one heavy drip at a time. She could feel panic on the horizon. She'd been stabbed before...but not like this.

"I have to get you out," Max rocked her head over to look meaningfully, if not regrettably, toward Sephira. She swallowed hard, working up to what she felt compelled to do. After a couple painful breaths her hands left her wound in favor of the mess of chains wrapped around the bolted loop. Her bloodied fingers worked in vain against the metal lock that connected everything. "Or I'll have to kill you." And perhaps that final betrayal would be the greatest kindness she could offer the only person she'd ever wholly trusted.

Death would be better than what Rebekah would do.

Dialogue|Thoughts

[Sephira]

Her head was pounding. It was like someone had driven a spike through it as a wave of dizziness washed over the woman. Sephira suddenly became aware of the ache in her arms and a new smattering of bruises running up her torso. This was not the first time she had awoken chained to an iron hook in the floor. The last time had been nearly an arc ago, when the cult had invaded the Elements.

She opened her eyes only to find that the black fabric of a blindfold greeted her. Information swam through her pounding head. They had been captured...the illusion that both she and Max had encountered had been a trap. Something the Mantis had known about, some old enchantment woven into these ancient catacombs left to catch grave robbers and thieves. It had been the perfect snare for them. Enough to slow them both down for long enough to take them prisoner. Ever since the mage burning their hunters had been pursuing the Rupturer across Andaris forcing Sephira to move their hideouts every few trials. She had managed to stay just barely ahead of them in her search for Rey’na. But this time they had finally managed to ground her, quite literally. The blindfold was meant to hamper her Spark, and these people knew what they were doing. Rupturing was sight based for the most part.

However this all begged the question, did the Mantis know why they were there? Did they know about their mission for the portal stone? Sephira felt her heart thundering in her chest as she tried to work out the details. However she was not given long to think just as the sound of a door creaking open sounded.

“Max?” she whispered hoarsely.

The ex-convict’s voice didn’t answer, instead it was another woman and the blood in the mage’s veins went cold. The soldier tensed, testing the tension on her restraints as she set her jaw into a tight frown. She knew the danger that they were both in. She had seen what they had done to Rey’na after all. Removing her Spark had changed her...broken her. In ways that even she might never fully understand. Doing the same to Sephira...she would be fortunate if it killed her. Worse case it would leave her as an empty husk. Mages and their Sparks were tightly linked by way of the soul, and Sephira had been bound to her Sparks for a long time.

Then Maxine’s voice cut through air with her telltale smugness and razor sharp edge. The woman felt a wave of relief. She was still alive, and in the same room. They had kept them together.

That had been a mistake on the Mantis’s part.

Max’s threats fell on deaf ears as the Ashcloak didn’t seem to care to humor her. Sephira kept still as Rebekah turned her attention to her. The Special Assistant didn’t flinch, she simply sat there kneeling as she tensed her grip on the chains binding her wrists. She needed to let these mage hunters think they had won, let them hear what they wanted to hear. They wanted a rebellious mage worthy of their attention, then she would give them that. Sephira wanted them to feel self assured, because hopefully it would incline them to let their guard down.

When Rebekah spoke the soldier’s name Sephira felt herself bristle. It was just another piece of information that would lead back to Scalvoris. She had to keep them talking, and keep the topic away from their mission. The sound of Max struggling against her chains clambered for her attention in the background but the Element focused through the adrenaline and panic that was burning in her stomach. It was only the cold impassive visage of the soldier that kept the mage from showing her fear. She was well practiced in wielding it, and it served her well in that moment.

“You think we are all monsters don’t you?” the woman asked with a faint twitch of a frown.

“Maybe some of us are.” She added before rising up on her knees and looking blindly toward the direction of Rebekah’s voice, trying her best to resist the urge to turn toward Max’s direction.

“But you should really look in a mirror sometime.” Sephira snarled with a dangerous edge to her voice. If she ever escaped this chamber she had every intention of killing this woman. She had been behind Rey’na’s Spark removal. Maxine may have been a part of it, but this Ashcloak was a driving force behind the Mantis hunters themselves.

It was only a couple trills later that Sephira’s carefully crafted mask of discipline was simply shattered as the sound of a spear impacting flesh filled the room. Her blindfolded features washed to an ashen hue as she turned blindly toward where she had heard Max before.

“No!” she howled, her voice breaking, losing the forced air of calm she always worked tirelessly to maintain. The mage strained against her chains, pitching herself forward painfully cutting new bruises into her wrists.

This could not be real. Her entire body had gone numb as she heard Max’s body stumble against the opposite wall. The sound of liquid dripping against the stone blood echoed like distant raindrops in her mind. They had both been through so many horrible things together, always passing in and out of each others lives as if fate willed it that way. It was almost like some sort of a terrible joke invented by the Immortals for their amusement; That they would die here, trapped in this fucking city.

The Ashcloaks departed, sealing the room behind them. When that door closed and the bolt was sent home Sephira tensed.

“Don’t you fucking move.” The Special Assistant hissed in a panic as she fought to still the shaking in her trembling hands. She didn’t give a damn about the ex-convict’s desire to save her, she was more focused on keeping Max herself alive for as long as possible. She couldn’t see the damage that had been done yet because of the fabric obscuring her vision, but she had been a soldier for time now. She knew the labored breathing that heralded death.

She had to think quickly. It was a struggle to push back the terror thundering in her chest. Ether swam into her grasp as she called it to her simply out of instinct. It’s cool touch washed over her like a chilly late Vhalar breeze and her mind sharpened.

The mage hunters had always known she was a Rupturer from the very start. It was a bombastic and obvious magic, and easy to counter if you knew about it’s reliance on sight. However her second Spark was one she had never really mentioned to anyone...except for Rowan. It was a quiet little thing, curious, and delicate. Few mages even wasted their time with Attunement, however her teacher Elias had gifted her with that Spark for a very important reason.

With Attunement you could see the world in a way no one else could.

But most importantly, you could never be truly blind. Which gave you a bit of an edge as a Rupturer.

“Don't move. I mean it.” The mage gasped frantically at the other woman as she closed her eyes tightly beneath the blindfold. Using Rupturing blind with Attunement was not as exact as seeing the world with her own eyes. It was a bit like trying to perform surgery through fogged glasses. But it would have to do.

Triggering Omnivision the world lit up around her in a sphere of Notes. They all bounced and echoed off each other like little soundwaves casting a silvery haze of ‘light’ over the area. She could ‘see’ Max now, slumped over her chains as she tried to free herself from them. The edges of the chamber came into view as well in a full 360 degrees around the Attuner. A tight lipped breath escaped Sephira’s lips as she drew her focus on the chains binding her wrists. She focused her most curious Spark there as Notes flickered across the surface of the lock, illuminating it hazily for her.

Sharply Sephira shunted a bright flare of ether into her Rupturing Spark and it sprung to life with a voracious hunger. Bright crimson fragmented lines washed over the surface of the chains binding her arms as she cast Splintering, just as she had done with the gate earlier. The metal seemed to vanish from around her hands and the mage pitched forward nearly onto her face. At least Splintering was less difficult that trying to open a porthole to break the chain. Silently the woman was glad she had figured out that particular spell back in Rharne.

The blindfold was torn away in the next instance as she crawled forward, onyx black eyes snapping down to where Max was leaking crimson onto the floor. Outside the guard shifted against the door and Sephira’s eyes shot toward the exit in a panic. However the door did not open and in the next split trill the mage fractically crawled over to the ex-convict. Her right hand came forward, bearing a glittering star ruby ring on her index finger. It had been a gift from her teacher, just another old relic of his past he had given to her much like her sword. Sephira didn’t hesitate to wait for Maxine’s permission as she pressed her hand into the wound, the sticky slick blood dampening her fingers as she activated the Sanguine Touch ring.

“Hold still.” she uttered tightly, her voice betraying her worry as the gemstone glinted and the veins beneath Max’s skin were illuminated by a scarlet light. The little artifact was not meant for healing wounds like this but it did it’s best, slowing the flow of blood until it began to clot. The mage practically held the ex-convict down while the ring worked over the next few bits. There was no negotiating with her or the steely gaze she kept pinned on Max. While the healing took place the mage Splintered the ex-convicts own chains as well, freeing her.

“Are you alright?” the Special Assistant asked, her voice sounding especially small and diminutive, lacking its normal hardened edge. She was shaken, that much was for certain. They had both been in bad scrapes before, but not like this.

Never like this.

Biting her lip nervously the dark eyed mage watched as the blood flow slowed and her ring went dark. There would be a scar, and it wouldn’t be hard for Max to set herself to bleeding again if she pushed herself too hard. The healing had been just enough to clot the wound and stabilize her. They’d need to find bandages or something as a binding as soon as possible. More than that they needed to figure out what the hell they would do next. The Mantis would be back at any moment and they still had their mission to complete.

The stone had to be here, somewhere. They couldn’t just go back empty handed, not with the threat looming of Scalvoris vanishing into the Fracture if they didn’t return the stone.

“Max...” Sephira said quietly. “Let me finish this. I can send you back.” she knew the likelihood of the ex-convict taking the easy road out of this but she made the offer all the same.

“This was never your mission. We both know that.” Dark eyes peered at the woman carefully. All it would take was her word and Sephira would send Maxine out of this place. It would not be difficult for the Rupturer. Max would be safe, and she could try and sort out this mess. Hopefully Rey’na had escaped the fighting outside as well.

Sephira had understood the risks when they had accepted Kura’s mission. The soldier also had no intention of letting either Max or Rey’na fall into Mantis hands again.

Which would mean finding the portal stone on her own.

Dialogue|Thoughts

[Max]

She could hear the panicked commands given by the blindfolded mage, but they did not deter Max from the task she set before herself. Trying to force the lock open, tugging on the length of chain; she knew all her attempts were in vain. Frustration grew whenever the metal slipped in her blood-soaked hands. Repeated failure didn't dampen her dedication. She couldn't not move. She had to get them out of this room. She had to because, if she didn't, she'd be forced to keep her promise to execute the alternative. That was a thing Maxine was not prepared to do. History had told her as much.

The instruction to not move rang out again. The ex-convict moved to put her back against the wall again, but the action wasn't done in obedience. She was losing blood. She knew it as much as she felt it. Adrenaline and sheer will warded against the effects of exsanguination. It wouldn't last. She made the mistake of catching sight of the bloody mess that made up her torso. She bumped the back of her head angrily back against the stone wall. Before long she'd be staring the inevitable in the face. Finally, someone found the opportunity and found it fit to send her to her judgement. Unlike incarceration, it would be a sentence she had no hope of escaping. Her caramel eyes turned their attention to the shackles, preparing to work a new, fruitless angle, when she caught movement out of the corner of her gaze.

She's free.

Relief washed over her and she made the mistake of momentarily relaxing where she sat. For once she was thankful for the mage's ether tricks. Her shackled hands dropped into her lap. Every small shift of her frame sent a wildfire burn through her nervous system. She cursed quietly with her stare moved to the guarded door. The luckiest trial of Rebekah's life was getting this shot on her while she was chained like a snared predator. A subtle shuffling nearby returned her attention to Sephira as the woman wrenched the blindfold off and crawled her way. Max sharply shook her head and mouthed a firm "no" but it was never in the Element's nature to listen. Despite the guard just outside the door, she maneuvered to her side anyways.

"They'll be back soon," Max hissed with a grimace as the woman drew near. "You need to go." She spotted the approaching ringed hand too late. "No, don't tou--fuck!" Maxine grit her teeth and forced herself into agonized silence to keep from alerting the guard. A new pain arose shortly after contact: an inexplicable searing that seemed to originate within her very veins. She glanced down to spy the bright scarlet light radiating from her wound. One of her shackled hands circled around the top of the offending wrist. It took every ounce of restraint to keep from wrenching it away or outright striking the mage to liberate herself. The color of the light affecting her injury and the person wielding it was likely all that kept her from outright resisting. A heel kicked against the ground. She wasn't even aware the chains were being removed from her until the ring's healing process had concluded.

The searing sensation stopped but so had the feeling of precious blood leaving her body. She slumped against the wall, breathing labored and shallow as she recovered from the experience. She released her grip on the woman. A tiredness weighed upon her. Self control was always exhausting for her in any form, even without grievous injury. "Careful, Blackwood," she managed between breaths to answer the mage's inquiry. A smug smirk twitched at the corners of her lips. "Keep this up...and someone...might think you care about me." She peered down to find her suspicions were confirmed. The ring had been some sort of healing tool, and for now, it had rendered a death sentence into little more than an open wound. Her eyes caught the crimson slicked across the mage's hand and wrist where Max had grabbed her. She frowned apologetically. "Shit. I got blood on you."

The ex-convict sat there, gathering herself and mentally moving forward to what had to happen next. She didn't know where Rebekah was. What she did know was that there was at least one guard on the other side of the door. He had to go first. Somewhere there was apparently some carriage waiting. They must've planned on using that to transport their prisoner back to Andaris. She imagined it had to be closer to the exit, far from where they were in the middle of the catacombs. Perhaps distance equaled time. Time was something they could use that the marked woman wasn't sure she'd have much of. The sooner they moved, the better their chances of getting out alive. The Old Man had taught her how to stitch. Later, when they were safe, she could find something to close herself up with.

Then the Element made her case.

Vulnerable and hurt one trill, a firebrand hot with anger in the next, Max's hand snapped out to catch the Element by the fabric near her shoulder with a threatening tug. Dark, indignant eyes bore into the pitch black stare of the Special Assistant, lip curled. She had half a mind to hit her. "No," Maxine growled lowly, nearly forgetting the guard just beyond the door before she remembered to control the volume of her furious tone. "You're not going alone." She shoved her gently back and released her grip. Grimacing, she used the wall to help walk herself to her feet. "Don't ask me to do that again."

The ex-convict moved to the side of the closed door with a short length of chains between her hands. She took a deep breath before giving the closed barrier a solid knock. The guard jumped, turning abruptly at the sound. The sword at the Ashcloak's side was drawn without hesitation as he unlocked the door. He gave it a push open, eyes widening when he spotted the loose chain that should've held prisoners. He got one foot in before Max wrapped the chains around his neck and gave them a vicious yank. The Mantis guard collapsed into the room, sword swinging in vain and a hand pawing at his neck as Max dragged him backward onto the floor. His feet flailed and he gagged. The ex-convict merely tightened the noose, and before long, the man went still and purple. She dropped him and the chains, eyes finding the Special Assistant.

"Your fucking portal stone better be worth it."

Dialogue|Thoughts

[Sephira]

The Sanguine Touch did it’s work. It wasn’t pretty and it was far from what a proper healer could have done but at least the bleeding had stopped. The woman grimaced as she pulled her bloodied hand away and wiped the scarlet liquid off on her coat.

“You are such an idiot.” Sephira hissed seethingly between clenched teeth at the ex-convict’s remark about her caring about her and the mention of the blood. They were in possibly the most danger they had ever been in, with Mantis likely converging on their location and Max had the audacity to quip.

Once the Special Assistant made her an offer to return Max to safety she wasn’t all that surprised when a fist roughly snatched at her collar forcing her eye to eye with the ex-convict. The ire in the other woman’s gaze brought the barest twitch of a smirk to her hawkish features.

“Fair enough, and noted.” Sephira said with a slight cough, sliding back when the grip on her shoulder was released. She had known the answer to her offer before she had even spoken it.

Her eyes snapped around the room catching sight of a a pile of gear where her belt and saber had dumped beside the door. The Ashcloaks had been smart enough to disarm her, but not clever enough to assume that they may just slip out of their bonds and escape.

Maxine was moving just as the Element climbed to her own feet. Both women moved with a mixture of desperation and efficiency. For once in their lives the pair worked like a well oiled team. The ex-convict covering the door just as Sephira re-armed herself, checking Wyvern’s already blood stained steel length before softly drawing it from the sheathe. There was a grim yet comfortable silence between them. Both knew the brutality that was about to unfold as well as the danger they were about to face. Fighting off the cultists last arc had been about escape and survival, facing each other at the riot had been about a difference in ideals that they had both been willing to come to blows over, but this...this was about protecting each other and paying back every Mantis that got in their way for their every transgression.

The Mantis had pushed the Special Assistant to her very edge during this mission. They had driven the Rupturer across Rynmere like a dog. Forced to move herself and her team for fear of capture. Then they had abducted Rey’na, ripped out her Spark and damaged her very soul. They had burned one to many mages before the soldier’s eyes and of course that bitch Rebekah had dared to lay a hand on Max. That last crime was a particular sore spot whether or not she admitted it.

This was about to get very personal.

Sephira turned toward Max, shaking out her shoulders just as she heard the door open and the chain clatter just as it was snaked about the guard’s exposed neck. The silvery flare of Omnivision swirled around her, she knew Maxine had him the moment the portcullis opened. Just as the light left his eyes the Special Assistant turned, her onyx eyes meeting Maxine’s own.

“If it isn’t, at least I’m going to enjoy this.” The mage hissed with an inhuman sneer as the door tipped open exposing the hall beyond, creaking loudly on its hinges. The dim gloom of the interior of the catacombs was revealed along with the flicker of lanterns that the Mantis had illuminated further into the structure. A pair of Mantis Ashcloaks came around the corner chatting in hushed voices just as they caught sight of the very ajar door and the mutation marred woman beyond now free of her chains.

Sephira was already moving, her face twisted into a mask of fury as she raced toward them at a full sprint. Every sleepless night, ever scar both physical and mental, ever whisper of fear and paranoia she had experienced since coming to Rynmere was written on her face. This was not the disciplined mask of the Special Assistant, this was something else.

Wyvern was out as she slammed into the first pale faced Mantis guard, burying the length of the saber up to the hilt in his stomach. His armor was Splintered with a mere flare of ether allowing the blade to pass through the hardened steel as if it had been nothing but air. The mage spun away from him wrenching his bloodied body away as she withdrew her weapon from his mangled torso. The second guard was sucking in a desperate breath to cry out for aid just as he raised his own sword to defend himself in a sad excuse for a block. There was a brutal efficiency to the unhinged Element, her saber was already raised and arced over her shoulder before thrusting forward, skewering the pallid youth directly through his throat, silencing his voice forever. There was a sickening echo of steel scraping against the lad’s vertebrae as dark liquid gushed to the flagstones below. His body fell, the memory of his young freckled face giving Sephira not an ounce of pause.

The hall was clear, for the moment. It branched off to the right where it nearly doubled in size before heading down stairs further into the catacombs, and to the left it narrowed, before leading upwards where it was clear that more lanterns had been lit and there were sounds of the Mantis moving about in the upper levels as more and more were likely arriving to deal with the presumably ensnared mage and what they had hoped would be Maxine’s cooling corpse.

Sephira turned back toward Max, her eyes snapping toward the right with an intensity that only came when a mage was channeling ether. Beneath her armor the scarlet tattoos she had been marked with in Sweetwine Woods seasons ago blazed into life, dimly radiating light beneath even her leather armor. Ether was shunted into her Attunement Spark, focusing exclusively on that particular Spark as she narrowed it’s focus deeper into the catacombs. Her will coiled like iron around the normally easily distracted and curious Spark. The Attuner was in no mood to be wrangling and cajoling her Spark into doing as she desired, instead she levied every ounce of will and discipline against it. Thankfully in those precious trills her gentler Spark choose to work with her rather than against her, casting it self like a ray of light and perception forward into the depths of the catacombs.

‘Find it’....Sephira whispered desperately within the confines of her mind. They knew the portal stone had to be here. It had been moved, they knew that and sent down to the most secure location that was still near enough to the King’s estate that it could be easily retrieved.

Footsteps echoed above like rain lashing again stone and Sephira felt her heart leap in her chest as she reached out with her Spark to perform the fasted Attunement of her life. She reached out to the Frequency of the catacombs themselves and every bright blazing Note within it, anything that whispered of the Eclipse Portal in Scalvoris.

“They’ve escaped!” A familiar woman’s voice howled from up above, her voice shrilly bouncing downwards toward the freed mage and very much alive ex-convict. Rebekah.

Ahead of her easily half a dozen Ashcloaks armed to the teeth were tearing toward them.

“Max! Move!” Sephira swore hotly before throwing herself forward at a full run to the right; straight into the depths of the rat maze they found themselves in. They had to go further in, and buy themselves the time to find the Portal Stone, and hope to all the Immortals that they would actually locate it.

“Just find it...” The Attuner whispered aloud as the last trills of her act of Attunement ticked away.

Darkness swallowed the Special Assistant as she descended the stairs, her booted feet clapping against the cobweb strewn decent far to loudly for her liking. The corridor widened out into a wide chamber with a low stone ceiling where crates were stacked neatly in several rows that ran further back into the shadows. The light was low, but her Omnivision revealed the room for what it was, a cellar or at least something that had been re-purposed for the sake of storage. Dim impressions of ancient carvings and delicate inscriptions covered the walls that were subtly reflected in her magic enhanced sight.

There in the darkness down the nearest of the rows a flared a cloud of azure tinted Notes that were wrought with echoes of Scalvoris and portal magic. The salty scent of the ocean rolled over her; the stench of mulled ale, the bright salty cold of Ishallar and the Note of Portals that reverberated within the Rupturer’s core, singing with her Attunement Spark. Breathless Sephira ran with her saber in hand toward the source of the Frequency at a mad breakneck pace with the Ashcloaks hot on their tails. There to the right, sitting on a rather large crate sat a small ironclad chest with a silver lock on its face, the Frequency of the Portal Stone emanating clearly from within it.

“It’s here!” the woman shouted hoarsely. Every trill counted and every trill cost them as their enemies closed in and the purpose of this absurd mission was placed just within their grasp.

Dialogue|Thoughts

[Max]

She nearly cringed at the sound of the door creaking open on its loose hinges. It echoed ominously through the catacombs. No chance the remaining Mantis members missed that. She cursed as she rushed to gather up her own things, acutely aware that the Element was more prepared to take on those who came to investigate the sound than she was. The Special Assistant beat her out the door.

Max had hardly crossed the threshold of the portcullis by the time the massacre started. Solemn, disarmed faces hardly had time to evolve into ones of alarm by the time Wyvern had its pound of flesh. The ex-convict's brow raised as she watched the sword pass through the armor as effortlessly as Sephira dismantled their restraints. His compatriot didn't survive many trills longer.

The ex-convict reached the small bloody heap with little rush in her walk. The toes of her boots came to a halt in front of the dark blood spilling from the throat of the younger Ashcloak. Sword in hand, Max peered down at the lifeless, gory corpses made fresh before her eyes. It had been quick, bloody work. It was as brutal as it was efficient. Her head slowly nodded her approval before she looked toward the back of the artist ahead of her.

The Element was moving a million miles an hour. She could see it in the way her head snapped about, surveying the split in their path in an effort to both escape the inlaid perils of this catacombs and succeed in what she'd come to do. Max saw it in the tavern and she saw it now. This mission in Rynmere had pushed Sephira nearly beyond her limits. She was disciplined and in control, but the mask of the soldier she wore was flawed. Emotion had weaseled its way into the cracks. The evidence of it was written on her face and etched into the bodies of the men she'd just dropped. This journey had literally and figuratively taken pieces out of them. The ex-convict glanced toward the fork in their road and then toward the ceiling at the sound of thundering foot-steps.

Won't be long now.

Max found a wall beside the mage to drop back against. The tell-tale appearance of scarlet light indicated Sephira was doing something with her magic. Without the obvious signs of an ether-sucking artifact, she found her attention focusing on the movement of the Mantis instead. Above them she could hear the roll of carriage wheels and pounding boots. Muffled voices were urgent and commanding, no doubt trying to organize the extraction of prisoners and the subsequent departure as quickly as possible. She clutched her sword and glanced about the hallways now and then, guarding the mage's back so she could focus on...whatever it was she was trying to accomplish. Feet on stairs caught the ex-convict's attention.

"Whatever you're doing," Max murmured with her gaze locked toward where she expected their enemies to emerge. "Do it faster." She shifted her back against the cool stone wall and winced. The fingertips of her free hand came up to gingerly test the edges of the clotted spear-wound, and the hand jumped away with a painful hiss as soon as they did. "I'm gonna kill that bitch," she vowed quietly through grit teeth. The foot steps had grown from a faint echo to a thunderous one. Then Rebekah's furious voice seemed to drown out everything. They weren't coming. The Mantis were here.

Sephira's commanding voice rang out and Maxine reluctantly peeled herself from her wall to follow. Her feet stubbornly managed a run behind the Special Assistant into the darkness. Her sense of hearing enhanced, aiding her in understanding the light-absent path ahead. She was slower than she had been. Had it not been for her ability and the shout from the Element, she probably would've fallen completely behind in the mad-dash fleeing. She staggered into the cellar with the sound of quickly-approaching enemies at her heels. A hand on a stone pillar for support, her eyes squinted curiously through the dark. It had to have meant the portal stone they'd gone through all this for.

She found it.

The luxury of relief never came. Instead dread and anger filled her at the sound of arriving soldiers. The dark path toward them slowly filled with the light of carried torches. Max took a couple trills to gather herself. "Get what you came for and come up with a way out," she said grimly as she straightened up with a tight expression. "I'll keep their attention." Max turned and stepped out of the cellar and moved back up the path they'd fled. She planted herself in the center of the tunnel when the rushing torchlight fell upon her. The Ashcloaks came to a stop a few yards away. Most of their eyebrows were furrowed, confused to find their escaped quarry merely waiting for them to arrive. Rebekah shoved her frozen soldiers aside, brushing her blonde braid behind her shoulder as she came to the front of her formation. A soldier raised his torch, better illuminating the idiot prisoner who willingly exposed herself alone.

"You're a resilient little bitch, Max, I'll give you that," the Mantis squad leader commended coldly with the bloody spear in her grasp. "You always were. Even when I found you." The shock wore off the soldiers. They fell into their defensive positions, weapons raised ahead of them. Rebekah frowned. "You don't look well. Feeling tired? You left a lot of blood in your cell."
"Not as much as your Ashcloaks back there," Max countered smoothly, a smirk gracing her pale face. "Did you like my mage friend's work? I think you really pissed her off."
"Such a sharp tongue for someone looking a foot in the grave already."
"Just a foot's pretty good considering I was wearing shackles when you took your shot. Think it'll go better this time?"
"Silence her first," Rebekah gave the order coolly. "Then we find and kill the mage."

The Ashcloaks needed no more coaxing. Like hounds cut from the chain, they rushed forward with weapons raised in a cohesive arrow-head formation down the hall. Clouds suddenly manifested to choke the cramped battleground and block out the torchlight. Just as the soldiers reached the edge of the thick mist, a man-sized tornado roared into the head of the formation. The man shrieked as the winds gathered him and threw him wantonly backward into his own men. The rotating cloud dissipated, only for another to roar forward to take its place. A soldier on the flank was swallowed and hurled, and by the time the third ripped through, the squad's advancing formation was rapidly dissembled all within a matter of trills.

A pair of throwing daggers whipped forward in the wake of the chaos miniature storms created. The first jammed itself deep into the inner leg of one of the advancing men. He howled and slipped down toward the floor, more concerned with the blood quickly exiting his body in dark pulses rather than his quarry. The second dagger found its home in the base of a hardy man's throat. His eyes went wide as he sunk down, another hastily moving to take his place and enter the dewy camouflage. Max emerged from the cloud cover with that soldier skewered on the end of her sword. With a painful grunt, she shoved him off the length of her blade. He collapsed onto the dusty, ancient floor, clutching himself while the marked woman continued forward. The last Ashcloak gave his battlecry and rushed to defend Rebekah. Max slipped beneath his swing and dragged her sword across his lap. His insides slapped down against the ground before he did.

"You could've had it all," Rebekah's shrill, betrayed protest rose despite herself. Suddenly aware how alone she was, she took a hesitant step backward. "When they all called for your head, it was me who denied them. Me! I gave you everything!"
"That's the mistake you and everyone else keep making," Max replied, an unbalanced stagger bringing her to plant a foot down and pause her deadly advance. Her head felt light. Using her Chrien-given abilities had taken more out of her than she had any business giving. "You always knew what I was, Rebekah, you just hoped you could mold me into something else. Save the guilt trip and die with some god damn dignity."

The bloody gladius hanging in her grip at her side felt heavy. Absently, her mind tried to figure out when the catacombs started to get so damned cold. Fresh blood trickled and oozed from the spear wound. Rebekah held her weapon defensively before her. Max steeled her expression and took a step forward just as more foot steps and flippant shouting bombarded the tunnel. Max wavered in place and took an unsure step backward. Rebekah glanced behind her at the incoming torchlight that signaled fresh reinforcements coming to her aid. The Ashcloak turned back and offered up a malicious grin.

"Ready to put that other foot in your grave, Max?"

Dialogue|Thoughts

[Sephira]

Adrenaline was the only thing keeping her standing in that moment. Her ether was dwindling, Sephira knew that. The battle outside the catacombs had taxed her, but so too had her use of magic to escape Mantis capture. She could feel the waves of dizziness pulling at the edge of her frayed mind and her head was pounding. The woman had overstepped many times in the past, she knew the warning signs and she knew how far she could push herself before doing irreparable harm. More than once she had pushed beyond the limits of safety and walked away with her soul and Sparks marred by new scars and corruption. There was a growing certainty in her mind that she would be pushing that limit again to-trial.

Sephira’s free hand came to rest against the small iron bound chest. It was cold to the touch but the metal itself was thankfully mundane in nature. The stone had simply been tucked away and hidden in plain sight, likely done so in a hurry after negotiations had fallen through between Rynmere and Scalvoris. Splintering was coming easier and easier to the Rupturer, it cost far less than opening a proper portal and allowed her to simply pass through walls and objects like they were nothing but a sheet of water. Fractured lines of scarlet light laced themselves over the chest and without pause the soldier reached through the weakened fabric of reality into the chest, her hand immediately slamming into a flat hard stone object that was encapsulated in a black velvet bag. The bag came free of the chest through the Splintered lock face and Sephira paused for a single trill, staring down at the item that they had come so far and been through so much to reclaim for Scalvoris.

So much pain and suffering all for this little thing. All in the desperate hope that it would stabilize the Fracture on Immortal’s Tongue and protect the island from another threat like the invasion of the Black Ships.

Obsidian eyes flickered over the Portal Stone, as she reached into the bag to catch a passing glance at its contents. The stone lay within, cool and serene humming it’s strange alien Frequency that only the Attuner could hear.

They had it, but now they had to get out alive.

That was when the sound of combat slammed into Sephira and her mind was snapped back to the heaping pile of shit both she and Max were now in. The ex-convict was already badly injured, Sephira herself was pulling on the dredges of her ether and they were both backed into a corner between a rock and a hard place.

Rebekah’s brittle voice filled with betrayal and fury echoed down from above sending Sephira’s eyes snapping back toward the way they had come.

‘You could’ve had it all!’

“When they called for your head, it was me who denied them. Me! I gave you everything!”

Something shifted in her expression, something snapped as the Mantis bitch’s voice washed throughout the chamber. The sound of wind and combat had died away but now more footsteps were coming from above and something in Sephira’s core knew that their time was out.

Max’s time was out.

“Ready to put that other foot in your grave Max?”

Every modicum of carefully crafted control, every layer of discipline simply broke in that trill. It was simply gone.

Like before on Faldrass when she had been thrown into the battle with her father Sephira reached out to the one thing she trusted implicitly. She knew it’s hunger, it’s power, and she knew the path it would take her down. Max now knew where that path ended.

There was a cost that came with all power, and a constant fear in knowing that cost. That fear is what had made her into the soldier, it had kept her in check for all these arcs. It had made Sephira always hold back. Right now in this moment, she let go of that fear because there was no other choice.

Maxine may have been an idiot ex-convict with the worst impulse control known to man. But she was there, and always had been. Through fire, turmoil, betrayal, and loss. She had been there. The one person the Special Assistant trusted above all others.

The soldier and the criminal.

Life is a strange thing.

Through the still active Celarion bond Sephira sent through only a fleeting warning to take cover accompanied by a thunderous boom that shook the entire underground chamber. Particles of dust rained down on Rebekah as a fiery Blink portal opened just in front of her and a very pissed off Rupturer came hurtling through and slammed into the woman with the Portal Stone held against her chest like armor. The mage and the Mantis woman crashed into each other, the Stone skittering across the floor to land a few feet away from Maxine.

The force of the assault knocked the wind out of Sephira’s lungs and her head swam but neither did she care. Her left hand was now no longer occupied with the portal stone and was lashed tightly around Rebekah’s neck.

“You don’t fucking touch her!” She swore hotly with pitch black eyes bearing down on the woman beneath her. However, Sephira had underestimated her opponent’s strength and in the heat of her mad rush. A knee impacted her chest as Rebeckha quickly rolled her weight on top of the mage and their positions were quickly and suddenly reversed.

“Such a savage creature, you are no better than animals.” The Ashcloak hissed bitterly before slamming her armored first into the mage’s jaw. Stars blossomed across Sephira’s vision and the acrid tang of blood split into her mouth. Pure instinctual panic flared within her. She couldn’t focus and her vision was going dark around the edges. What little Ether she had left writhed in her grasp like a slippery eel. Survival instinct alone was what drove the Element as she felt a gnawing hunger stir in the depths of her soul. That hunger echoed off her Sparks before being answered by the alluring ‘scent’ of raw untempered Ether emanating from Rebekah. The bitch had nearly killed she and Maxine both, so there was little to temper Sephira’s own unhinged wrath as her Sparks reached out, bidding their host to simply let them feed.

Cracked, bloodied lips parted, a soft blue light flaring between them while Sephira threw all her weight forward, while her left fingers pressed on the trigger just beneath her sleeve that snapped out a waiting hidden dagger that she had always worn since joining the Scalvoris military. Finally it was about to prove it's worth. The blade plunged forward, nearly glancing off her target before slipping between the Ashcloak’s ribs. The mage continued forward, knocking the other woman off her and to the side; her dagger coming free with a red sheen as Rebekah shrieked in pain.

“Monster!” she howled just as Sephira’s bloodied hand snaked around the woman’s throat again and she threw her weight desperately on top of her with all the grace of novice brawler.

Max would have likely disapproved of her form.

It was then that the Mantis caught sight of the alien azure glow that tinged the Rupturer’s eyes and lips.

Many of her fellow Ashcloaks had whispered of Flaying in the dark musty corners of their keeps. Few had ever seen the act in person. It was the most diabolical tool in a mage’s arsenal as it mutilated a mortal’s soul, often beyond repair, allowing the mage to satisfy their etheric hunger. Sephira had always felt that hunger gnawing in her chest, but never before had she actually flayed before. However Rebekah and the Mantis had pushed the woman past the point of no return.

A monster indeed.

Sephira inhaled sharply, not even fully cognizant of what she was doing as that same cerulean glow began emanating from Rebekah’s mouth. The world around her faded away, obscuring Maxine and the sound of the approaching Mantis. The cool electrifying embrace of ether washed into her like an icy waterfall, her Sparks relishing in the power, thirsting for more. The Ashcloak’s eyes went wide in panic, realizing instantly what was happening.

“No!” she screamed, her voice sharply cut off; Sephira clamping her hand tighter around the woman’s straining throat.

Black, unfeeling, inhuman eyes bore down on the other woman. She didn’t care about her protests, she didn’t care if she destroyed the woman’s mortal soul. The Element didn’t even care or seem to notice when Rebekah wildly unsheathed a dagger from her belt and desperately lashed out. Sephira felt the hot sting as it bit into her side, leaving a long shallow weeping gash across her ribs. Her right arm batted the weapon away savagely, sending it clattering across the stone floor.

The bitch had nearly killed Max. If she thought she was escaping her fate, she was sorely mistaken.

The Ashcloak’s face had begun to turn a sickly shade of gray as her strength was drawn out of her like poison from a wound. Her breath was coming in weak gasps as her eyes grew unfocused and seemed to lose their color. Sephira, captured in the rapture of flaying suddenly felt the world sharpen around her, becoming aware of Maxine watching and a pair of Mantis Swords emerging into the chamber from the hall.

For a brief moment in her mind’s eye the vision of a burning bloodied beach replayed. For that short stunted moment the image of the Visitant flashed before her eyes, as well as the memory of the prisoner from Slag’s Deep approaching from across the water.

Distantly Sephira heard the Manti’s Swords gasp at the scene, witnessing their commander being pinned to the ground and Flayed by the enemy mage. All those men saw was a monster; a creature of magic and malice that deserved to be put to the torch. When anyone looked at Maxine all they saw was a convict ...and a denizen of Slags who brought destruction and chaos to anyone that ever crossed her path.

They were both monsters, it was true.

But at least they both knew it, and sometimes...they at least tried to be something more.


The Rupturer blinked, regarding Maxine as the calm and collected mask of the Special Assistant slid comfortably back into place. As the ex-con had said before. This wasn’t her. She wasn’t some animal who couldn’t control her Sparks’ hunger. Although the Thirst stirred within the mage now more than ever.

She was Sephira Blackwood, and she was better than this.

Rebekah was still alive...barely. The woman’s eyes were mere slits as she struggled to draw in breath. Her ashen skin was cracked and scarred somehow by the Flaying but her soul remained intact. Albeit the damage was done. Sephira stood, cutting off the flow of ether between them and retrieving her saber from the ground as well as the portal stone while keeping her left hand clamped to the gash in her side.

The other Mantis hesitated in the threshold, their eyes snapping between Rebekah on the ground as well as the other bodies littering the floor before nervously glancing up to the ex-convict and the black eyed Rupturer who came to stand beside her.

“She’s all yours.” Sephira said through gritted teeth, inclining her head toward the downed Mantis commander, wincing for a trill at the burning pain biting into her ribs. Truthfully Sephira didn’t know if Max would choose to end Rebekah. Honestly she didn’t care, but the kill was Max’s if she wanted it. She owed her that much.

More footsteps thundered up above as the Mantis scrambled to find the escaped prisoners.

“They’re down here!.” One of the other Mantis Swords shouted, the youths suddenly looking much braver than they had before now that their allies were inbound.

Sephira smirked weakly before reaching out with her magic, her Sparks now newly invigorated with ether as a portal was torn open behind them. The egress opening on the rooftop of their latest base of operations that they had left only a few hours before. If those Swords thought they and their fellow soldiers could outpace a fleeing Rutpruer, then they would be sorely mistaken.

“We need to go now.” The soldier rasped between haggard breaths. Both of them were wounded, and they needed to beat a hasty retreat before the catacombs were swimming in enemies.

Dialogue|Thoughts

[Max]

Her heart sunk at the sound of the rushing feet and the growing torchlight glow. That bit of fight left that she'd saved for one last fight, one last kill to buy time and clear their path, vaporized as Rebekah's smugness swelled. Her limbs felt heavy. The warm blood dripping from the end of her blade weighed the weapon down in her weakening grasp. A haze had fallen over her, and though she was so very present in the hopelessness of this moment, she also felt a million miles away. The ex-convict knew now what the drop in temperature she felt was. No new gust of wintry chill settled in these catacombs.

Earlier, she'd been ready to throttle the Element for suggesting she retreat from this mission with her. It was a fatal twist of irony. Much longer, Maxine knew, and she wouldn't have a choice but to leave her alone down here. She'd lost a good bit of blood. Time was catching up with her.

The instinct of self preservation was there, but she'd shut the window of opportunity to escape with her own life firmly. Maxine couldn't have out run fate now if her life depended on it, which is very much did right then. She'd chosen. Knowing full well, she'd chosen. As the voices of the reinforcements grew, the flame of defiance against the inevitable burned only quietly. Max had made her choice and now she had to live with it. Or, in this case, it looked like she'd be dying with it. She steeled her pale expression and wavered forward to meet the end she'd sown. Then it came.

Take cover.

"I told you you pissed her off," Maxine hoarsely laughed to Rebekah's confusion before she ducked to the side. An earth-shaking boom exploded not far from where she'd been standing, and through the Blink portal careened a vengeful Rupturer with a peculiar stone in her grasp. The sound of the warring women's bodies smashing into one another was wince-worthy, and the ensuing battle between them was primitive with hate.

The shockwaves from the sudden portal dropped Maxine in her retreat from its arrival. She hit the ground on her back, head bumping against the hard floor. She groaned her irritation, eyes pinching closed, and body content with painful idleness. The distance she felt from self softened the light blow.

Comfortable here.

It was hard to deny that inner whisper. The ice cold cobbles stopped feeling quite so hard on her spine where she laid. The slight breeze in the air wasn't as unkind as she remembered. Her arms and legs felt like they weighed tons, and rousing them to move felt far more taxing than reasonable. She hurt, but right here where she involuntarily rested wasn't so bad. Idleness kept from irritating the deep wound in her torso. Her eyes felt heavy. Immortals, she didn't realize just how exhausted she was. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if she just closed her eyes. Just for a little while.

Get. The fuck. Up!

Her own inner voice, the stubborn, viscerally defiant one she recognized to be more of her own, echoed like a struck gong in her skull. Her shutting eyes fluttered open in a sudden panic. The sound of Sephira and Rebekah battling grew in her ears. It all came back to her: the Portal Stone, Rey'na, and the Mantis. They'd found what they'd come for, but they were far from out of the woods yet. She had to get up off the floor or die where she rested. Her brow furrowed and her expression twisted in agony as she turned over, bracing her palms against the floor to push herself up. She swallowed hard, pausing. Even the tiny stones cutting into her palms didn't read in the definition it should've. She shook off that idea, and blinking eyes found the Portal Stone laid within reach.

All this for you?

Maxine reached out and clutched the stone, quickly secreting it away in a pocket before re-directing her attention to her lone ally. Her dark eyes flickered up to find Sephira violently mounted atop the Ashcloak, fingers wrapped around her throat while a strange blue light Maxine had never seen came to life between them. The braided blonde's rejecting, fearful cry filled the tunnel in a visceral way that made the ex-convict's blood turn cold. Whatever the blue light was, the Ashcloak knew what it brought. Max came to understand the mortal fear mere trills later.

It was there again. Max saw it fully realized in the vision they suffered, and she was seeing a glimpse of it now: the Visitant. A vision had been one thing. It wasn't reality, but a manipulation of their subconscious. This was different. This was very real, and it was something the ex-convict had never seen. Not of the disciplined Element soldier. This was the sight of a fully indulgent mage. The Spark was calling the shots and driving action through impulse and desire. Sephira looked as inhuman as the ex-convict had ever seen her. There was nothing in her black eyes trained on her prey. No empathy, no remorse, no regard for the deep, unforgivable sin she was committing. The soulful life was visibly being torn from Rebekah. The soldier looked so much like what Max felt so driven hunt while she did it. Like a what, not a who. The type of mage that was only good dead.

Maxine was admittedly frozen, and not just from injury. She was paralyzed by what she witnessed, failing mind trying to understand and process what she was witnessing. Rebekah's skin paled more sickly than her own, and she watched her flailing slow and weaken. For just a moment there was that curious impulse to war with the parasitic magic in her presence. It was like a base instinct, a mortal obligation like quelling the stray wolf picking off a lamb from the tumultuous flock. Allies against the wretched Spark began to arrive to oppose the mage, ready to fight the monster reaping their commander. Maxine's dark demur faded when she caught sight of the fresh injury bleeding on the soldier's side. Maxine's expression tightened and a slow sigh escaped her.

Element. Mage. Still Blackwood...

Her attention focused on the oncoming enemies momentarily hesitating at the image before them. Regrettably, she found her feet, lungs starving for air even after that small feat. Stone-heavy feet brought her to stand slightly ahead of the mage, who was thankfully reining herself in from the irreparable act she'd been indulging in. Gladius in her hand, she made for a pathetic protective presence. The gladius hung sinfully at her side rather than in a guard too heavy to muster up.

The Mantis members stared in horror at what remained of their infallible leader. Strangely, Max acknowledged some of that emotion as one they shared. But should one take a single step out of line forward, an impossible strength would swiftly be mustered to swing a blade one final time. Stunned silence among their ranks reigned. More shouting from above suggested that wouldn't last once more organized leadership arrived. Max handed the Element the Portal Stone.

"Leave her," Max murmured coldly of the flayed woman lying on the stone with a fleeting glance. Was it mercy to leave her alive or to kill her now? She pressed her lips together. "She can consider my debt paid." She wavered, unbalanced, in place. Likely reinvigorated by thieving life from Rebekah, Sephira opened up a portal at their backs. Her friend's voice reached her though it took an extra trill to understand the words. She slowly nodded and began to back away from the Ashcloaks in an uneasy stagger. "Go." She caught one final glance of Rebekah before she shakily turned and followed the Rupturer through their exit.

That was it. That was all she had. Once Maxine tumbled through the portal onto that rooftop balcony of the family home the Special Assistant had commandeered, she was wholly spent. Her back hit the stone barrier that encircled the balcony, spine sliding roughly down its short length until she was in a seated position on the floor. The gladius slipped from her fingers and clattered to the ground. Her head rested back against the support. Her eyes were squinted tightly while her face contorted in an agonized grimace. Pain radiated unforgivingly from her abdomen. Despite all that, her breathing was calm and shallow.

"Sephira," the Element's first name was practically whispered. "I think I'm in real trouble this time..." No quips. No facetious lie. She swallowed hard, wincing as she adjusted where she sat against the wall. One of her hands fumbled to slip a throwing dagger from her belt, placing it aside. Then she untied the small leather dagger sheath from her belt before fishing for the flask in her pocket. "I can do it...but I need something to sew myself closed."

She took a drink from the flask. The leather sheath went between her clenched teeth, and after a couple anxiety ridden breaths, she poured the alcohol over her opened wound. The ex-convict's eyes flashed open wide the trill the alcohol graced her ravaged flesh. The leather kept her from biting her own tongue off, and stifled most of the agonized sound she made. When it was over she capped the flask and let the sheath drop from her mouth. Pale, she regarded the Special Assistant in the same way the Element had her not long ago.

"You got what you came for," Maxine pointed out ailingly, another wince as she shifted in place. "They'll be sweeping the streets soon. And if they find us..." Her hand hovered over her wound and irritation at her situation briefly entered her gaze. "I won't be going anywhere. You have the Stone. You did your duty. Mission accomplished." A subtle shiver went through her frame but her tired eyes remained steely. Her body was weak and her voice carried little strength, but her gaze was focused. "I want you to go, Sephira."

Dialogue|Thoughts

[Sephira]

It was likely a mistake to leave the Mantis commander alive. The Element also realized that whatever was left of Rebekah was not going to be the same as the woman they had encountered earlier that night. Flaying fractured the soul, much like how strain with any magic could cause Spark Corruptions and mutations. However, the Mantis woman would live to see another day. Perhaps that would ease Max’s conscience, after all the ex-convict hated owing anyone anything.

The women stumbled through the portal, the Egress sealing behind them almost instantly as soon as they were clear. Behind them the shouts of the incoming Mantis Swords were swiftly cut off as the closure of the portal echoed across the cityscape like a distant rumble of thunder. Around them a heavy damp fog had settled over the rooftops of Andaris, obscuring much of the streets below. The Rupturer clutched at the wound in her side as she snapped around to face Max when she heard the woman speak her name. It felt rather alien to be called something other than Blackwood by the other woman. Always in the past, her interactions with the Marked woman had been curt and almost devoid of the normal niceties others seemed to enjoy in ‘normal’ friendships. To see that brusque veil torn away was enough to shake the soldier visibly.

Numbly the Special Assistant gave a wordless nod, biting her lip as she limped toward the door that led down into the suite of rooms they had been occupying for the last few evenings. The mind of the soldier stoically took inventory of the deep pile of shit they were both in. Yes they had the Portal Stone, but at what cost?

Max might not last the night. Sephira had heard the urgency in the other woman’s voice. They both knew the graveness of their plight, the Mantis would be crawling all over the capital in a matter of hours and they were both wounded and essentially left to survive behind enemy lines until they could retreat to Scalvoris. Not to mention there was still the question of finding Rey’na who had stayed behind to hold off the Mantis at the entrance of the catacombs.

With trembling hands Sephira snatched up a worn leather bag containing her medical kit that was shoved in the dusty corner of what had once likely been the previous resident’s den. Her breath came in ragged gasps, partially out of pain but mostly from panic. Everything had gone so wrong and worse yet she had Flayed. That fact alone had been burning a proverbial hole in the back of her mind the moment she had come to her senses and chosen to spare Rebekah. For just a few trills she had let her Sparks have their way and in that time the mage had done something unspeakable that she had promised herself she would never allow. The worst part was ...it felt good. It had been so very easy to just let it happen and that fact shook Sephira to her core.

Within a few bits Sephira reemerged onto the rooftop just in time to see the Marked woman pouring the contents of her flask over the bloodied puncture in her side. What good Sephira’s ring had done to stem the flow of blood had nearly been undone in the time spent outrunning and combating the Mantis in their mad dash to reclaim the Stone.

“Here.” The mage said grimly, passing a needle and thread to Maxine with shuddering fingers. In the distance toward the king’s estate a cacophony of voices could be heard as shouts rang out into the night. It was as if someone had kicked an anthill and all the Mantis and Rynmere guards were swarming into the surrounding city. News would travel quickly that the royal tombs had been broken into and that the Rupturer that the Mantis had been hunting for the last few weeks had been the culprit. Surviving in this city was about to become all the more dangerous.

Max’s voice cut through the raucous din of worries reverberating through the soldier’s mind. Sephira’s thin features creasing into a frown before she reached down to practically snatch the flash out of the other woman’s hand before sliding down next to her and taking a drink of the unpleasant smelling contents.

“Immortals, you are stupid.” Sephira muttered, coughing from the burn of the alcohol as she roughly slid her sheathed saber from her belt and set it beside her to get if only marginally more comfortable. Although she left the blade within easy reach as her onyx eyes glanced worriedly toward the door that led into their impromptu base, as if she expected Mantis soldiers to emerge from it at any moment.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say that almost sounded noble Max.” The mage commented dryly, all the while trying to bury the memory of the Flaying in the back of her mind. It did little to quell the ever tightening knot in her stomach.

“I’m not going anywhere.” she uttered gruffly, the words coming with a sense of finality; the choice an easy one for her. As she spoke Sephira removed a roll of linen cloth from the pack, roughly cutting away a length with her teeth before wrapping it around her midsection to make a crude compression bandage that she roughly tied off.

Quietly Sephira glanced up at the sky. Walls of fog surrounded them but if one looked close enough and high enough the stars could be seen peeking through the dark. She wondered for a short trill if her mother was out there on Faldrass looking up at the same sky. The sun would be rising there soon, the scent of the sea washing in on the early morning winds as the fishermen trawled the waters just off the coast.

Home ...family, that’s what she had done this for. Whether or not Max realized it, she was part of that equation. Family was not always linked by blood after all.

Maybe sometimes the soldier let her sense of duty drive her too far, but not this time. Mutely the mage allowed her eyes to drift away from the sky to the bloodied and bruised woman beside her. Around them the shouts of patrolling guards grew just a bit louder and more urgent.

Sephira grimaced, shifting to relieve the ache in her bruised shoulders while her hand came to rest silently on Wyvern’s sheathed hilt beside her simply to give her a bit of comfort.

The mage regarded Max carefully, her mouth set into a thin line as she spoke.

“I’m with you to the end.” the Special assistant uttered with a knowing nod before turning her gaze back to the door. “Whatever the cost.” she whispered almost imperceptibly beneath her breath; for a split-trill memory replaying in her mind of the Flaying. The azure glow of Rebekah’s exposed soul blazing to life within the confines of her memory.

She had done that for Max. Out of desperation perhaps, but she had done it for her. Not out of a sense of duty, or because she owed her. She had done it for the same reason that Max had refused her chance of escape back in the catacombs. The soldier had nearly shattered a woman’s soul all to protect the ex-con. What other sins might they commit in their misguided need to defend each other?

Only time would tell.

Dialogue|Thoughts

[Max]

Max gingerly took the needle and thread in her bloody hands. She nearly jumped at the first distant, rambunctious echo from their enemies. They'd be fanning out now. Squads of furious Mantis members would be systematically moving through the city in a desperate search for the guilty. They wouldn't be able to get through clearing every nook, cranny, and building in a single night. They'd be accomplished if they managed to clear a couple districts before the next sunset. Andaris was, thankfully, a rather large city. She let that knowledge refocus her hazy head on the pressing task of keeping herself alive.

"Noble," she hissed a laugh she immediately regretted. "Good thing you do know better." Shaky fingers and strained eyes eventually managed to thread the eye of the needle after a few trills of failure. Then came the real challenge. She placed the leather sheath back between her teeth and got to the nasty work. The first weave of the needle through her skin was enough to make her second guess the process altogether.

A single stitch was completed before she was pausing, listening to Sephira's decline of her strong suggestion as a momentary distraction. If she had the energy, she wouldn't have hesitated to start a heated argument with her over choosing to stay. She, too, was hurt. The Mantis, dead set now more than ever on punishing the Rupturer, was all in Andaris in full force. Scalvoris depended on the Portal Stone in her possession, and time was of the essence in securing the island's safety. Still, the Special Assistant was committed to sheltering in place with a half dead, addict ex-convict in the eye of the storm rather than escaping.

And she was calling Maxine the idiot.

The marked woman went back to the arduous task of sewing her wound closed just as Kasoria had taught her. It wasn't the first time she'd sown a wound up. Doing it for one of her own wounds, and a serious one at that, was. Had the Special Assistant not elected to waste the power of her ring to stop most of the bleeding, she would've bled out by now. After several bits the crude stitches of the novice were in place. It would make for an ugly scar when it healed. If it healed.

The fog resting on her mind was about as thick as the one that surrounded them on the balcony. It was a dark night, especially with heavy haze blotting out the occasional torch or lantern that lit up the cobble streets or illuminated a window. Stars above shined down in a way that diminished the chaos of the world below. If it weren't for the shouts of soldiers, one might've mistaken the moment for peaceful. For the spent ex-convict, it was close enough.

"I'm with you to the end."

"Whatever the cost."

It was very possible the Element would be free of that promise shortly. Maxine subconsciously considered that reality while she rested in the dark. Sephira had been right earlier. The ex-convict wasn't supposed to even be here in Rynmere. Where she was supposed to be was in the unforgiving pit that was Level Seven in Slags Deep. She was supposed to be an animal in the dark, suffering and killing until another prisoner bested her. She was sentenced to die alone in a cave miles and miles below the surface. The Warden had considered her debt to society paid and released her, but Scalvoris firmly believed she belonged in that prison. Earning a piece of paper that absolved her of her sentence had been worth the risk. Dying here on this rooftop in a foreign land was admittedly better than The Beneath.

Maxine had grown silent. Slumped against the stone, her arms and legs appeared limp where they rested. Her head hung between her shoulders. She likely looked much like she had in the Faldrass vision, bloody and lifelessly slouched. A door in the neighborhood slammed urgently shut as a man stepped out to don his Ashcloak, no doubt rushing to answer the call of the Mantis where the distant orders were being barked near the castle. Still she didn't stir. The only evidence she was still alive was the rise and fall of her chest.

"You're afraid you'll become that thing," Max softly observed of the mage without raising her chin or opening her eyes. The memory of the vision, of approaching the Visitant who resembled her friend, had flared to light in her mind. A brief pause followed as if speaking had turned taxing. "You won't." She said it as if deciding the future was that easy. "But if you do, I'll come get you again."

It was perhaps a bold promise from someone flirting with The Veil. Stubborn and defiant to the bitter end, it was one she meant. Max turned her sword on Sephira during the riot. Sephira drew her saber when Max turned up looking for trouble on Kura's door step. They brawled in that musty tavern and bickered relentlessly. Never had they willingly played for the same team. By all tallies they should've been hated nemeses. Somehow, through trauma and misfortune, they had instead become one another's keeper. If to-trial alone served as any example, immortals rescue whatever force so much as suggested itself a threat to either of them.

For now she fell quiet once more. She could feel what she hoped was sleep lulling her toward unconsciousness. So badly she wanted to give into it. Part of her was genuinely afraid to let herself slip into the blackness coaxing her. Feebly she fought it, intermittently waking herself in a panic before it swallowed her whole. It was a valiant but unsustainable battle. It defeated her before the night was through. Once it claimed her she was out for trials.

Dialogue|Thoughts